Song Exploder - Empress Of - When I'm With Him

Episode Date: November 19, 2018

Lorely Rodriguez is a singer, songwriter, and producer who goes by the name Empress Of. She’s released two albums, and she’s sung on tracks with Khalid, Blood Orange, and Dirty Projectors. Her first album, Me, was made on her own. But her second album, Us, features a bunch of collaborators. In this episode, Lorely breaks down the Empress Of song “When I’m With Him.” She co-produced it with Jim-E Stack and Dan Nigro, and I spoke to Jim-E Stack for this episode, too. Lorely explained how collaborating with producers opened up her process. Plus, the song’s lyrics are in English and Spanish, and Lorely describes how she relies on both languages to write. songexploder.net/empress-of

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. Loreley Rodriguez is a singer, songwriter, and producer who goes by the name Empress of. She's released two albums, and she's sung on tracks with Khalid, Blood Orange, and Dirty Projectors. Her first album, Me, was made on her own, but her second album, Us, features a bunch of collaborators. In this episode, Loreley breaks down the Empress of song When I'm With Him. She co-produced it with Jimmy Stack and Dan Nigro, and I spoke to Jimmy Stack about the making of this song, too.

Loreley explained how collaborating opened up her process. Plus, the song's lyrics are in English and Spanish, and Loreley describes how she relies on both languages to write. My name is Loreley. I'm also known as Empress of. When I made my first record, I was in New York, and it was produced by me, written by me, very isolated process.

And then I moved to L.A. and I started to collaborate more when I moved here. At least that was my objective because the beauty of collaboration is you do things that you don't normally do when you're by yourself. And that's something that I wanted to achieve on this record, testing myself and pushing my boundaries with melodies and production. My name's Jimmy Stack. He's an amazing producer and songwriter in Los Angeles. The first time I heard Empress of, I was like, whoa, this is just really distinct and different. And her voice is just so captivating. That's a song for my first album.

All I knew was that she sang, obviously, and was a producer. And my sounds typically are very icy and bare. But when I went into the studio with Jimmy, he played me this. loop that he had started working on with this warm synth pad. I was like, I have to write on top of this. Because I don't usually write over textures like that. And the whole point of working with other people is to step out of your comfort zone. And so I was like, yes, let's write over this track because I don't have any tracks to sound like this.

And I love that sound with the drum loop. My friend Dan Nygro is a producer and writer, and he and I will get together and just kind of make instrumental tracks every now and then. And we started what became the instrumental at his studio in Highland Park. So I just started with that drum break, and then I built it out, putting kicks under the kicks and the break. And another snare sound, just to make it thump a little.

little harder. And then another loop people stomping and clapping in a big room. I liked how the drums sounded organic, but you could tell that they were samples. And then my friend Dan is super strong in laying down emotional chords. He was just kind of jamming on piano. And I put in a little guitar sample I had. From there, you know, It just sat on my hard drive pretty much for another year or whatever, but I always really loved it. So fast forward, when Lorley and I worked on this song... I was just like, we need to write to this immediately.

I didn't have any lyrics yet, but I love to write melodies just with like a handheld microphone in the room. So she just, you know, went at it a few times, trying out a bunch of different melodies. I wonder why. I wonder Christian everything. I have a shot You want to tell me nothing's safe

That's me sitting on the couch In the control room is Jimmy I like the performance aspect of writing like that Because you engage with someone And that to me it feels like co-writing When they're like, that's the line Oh my God, that melody was so good But coming up with something

That is worthy enough to be a song In front of someone Is a very nervous process I want to know I'm emotional to know I was mumbling in English and I wasn't thinking of stuff I liked so I started mumbling in Spanish

because it's like using a different set of tools just because just because the nature of the rhythm of the language, the pacing where you take breaths, how long words are, It provides like a different perspective on phrasing and melodies. And so when I was singing in Spanish, I was doing these more like rhythmic staccato phrases. We had gotten to the point where we were like, these melodies are good.

Just like try to figure out the lyrics to this. I'm singing like subliminal things. And so I sit on the couch and I listen to myself and I just. try to write down what I think I'm saying. The first lyric that really felt like it navigated the song is where it says, Tell me where I'm going. Leave me don't the free. Tell me where I've gone.

When I said that, I was like, okay, so it's a song about not being present, about not being fully invested in a relationship. It's falling out of love. It's something that I went through in a relationship that really stuck with me, the feeling of growing out of a relationship. And your partner not noticing or not knowing. It's an internally lonely song because you're with someone else, but you're not present.

We really had this song at that point, so it's time to iron out the arrangement of production. That was the hard thing. arranging the track because when you write over a loop, it almost feels like a trance. It's the same thing over and over and over again. But the arrangement needs to match the songwriting. So I spent a long time adding in rhythmic elements that don't take you away from the song, but help drive the rhythm. And I was like, I want tombs. I love those tombs. They're not real tombs. They're samples. We wanted to add momentum to this bridge, but we didn't want to be obnoxious, and it was pretty hilarious, balancing the perfect amount of tomfills, being like, okay, what is obnoxious and what is drama?

For the second verse, more of the Spanish lyrics come in, and so we made that a focal point, and I did those harmonies. I'm saying, you wanted more that I could ever be, I'm backing off and you can't even see. And then the imagery of the bridge is for me very vivid, laying in bed next to someone, and they're asleep, and you're wide awake, and you want to tell them these things that you're feeling, but they're asleep and you don't want to wake them up.

It's too late to tell you, Yes, it's late at night. Yes, it's late in our relationship. Yes, you're literally asleep. Also, you're asleep to the reality of how I'm feeling. I'm unpacking a lot without saying too much. The lyrical content of the music is my life. It has to be my story because that's the only way it's convincing to me.

And that's the only way I can go on stage and perform for people and convince them. And it was cool because I wrote something that was incredibly personal to me, but I was able to write it with someone else in the room. I learned how to still be myself and tap into my story with other artists, which is such a great lesson. But it can be hard to make yourself vulnerable for the song. To hear something you wrote that is so on the nether. knows of a time and a place and experience that you've had, it's a weird feeling.

But listening to this song is not a painful experience. I don't know. I love this song and I listen to it a lot. And maybe that's even more rewarding. And now here's When I'm With Him by Empress of in its entirety. where this fit, I feel possessed, I can't help but repress, all of the signs telling me that I'm not fine. Visit songexploader.net to learn more about Empress of and her collaborators on this song,

Jimmy Stack and Dan Nigro. You'll also find a link to buy or stream this song. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out of full ink, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, where she case her way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have

heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabond, Fenlily, and the producer, Phil Weinrobe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs were out now.

You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. This episode was produced and edited by me, along with Christian Coons. Carlos Lerma made the artwork, which you can see on the Song Exploder website. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of fiercely independent podcasts. You can learn about all of our shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can find Song Exploder on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Song Exploder.

You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at SongExploder.net slash merch. My name is Rishi Kesh, Hereway. Thanks for listening.