Song Exploder - Grimes - Kill V. Maim

Episode Date: July 14, 2016

Grimes is the project of Claire Boucher. In 2015, she released Art Angels, her 4th  album. In this episode, she breaks down her song Kill V. Maim, her feelings about singing, and how the experience of writing songs for other artists opened up the way she writes for herself.

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 K. Hirwe. Grimes is the project of Claire Boucher. In 2015, she released Art Angels, her fourth album. In this episode, she breaks down Kill V. Mame, and how the experience of writing songs for other artists opened up the way that she writes for herself. This is Claire Boucher from Grimes.

I was, like, jamming with a friend, and this person was really good at making really aggressive music, and he kept doing these cute little plucky things. And I was like, no, no, let's make a hard song. He was like, no, no, you make cute music. I was like, I was so horrified. Like, I was like, I can make hard music. So I went home after that and sort of wanting to prove that I could make a, I don't know, something that's going to be really aggressive

that, like, I would want to play during an action sequence in a movie or something. So that was kind of the impetus of how it started. So the first thing I made for the song was I just got out this old crappy guitar I had. and I didn't know any chords. I hadn't really played guitar very much. It's like a single note guitar lead thing. And then I just pitched it down an octave so it sounded more like a bass.

But then later on, I ended up getting a really sweet guitar amp, and so I re-recorded a lot of guitars. And then also I played some chords that I had subsequently figured out with, like, better guitar, like, making a real amp. You can tell that it's, like, chopped and pitched. I mean, everything about the guitars in this song are the byproduct of me just knowing nothing about guitars.

Like, if it sounded interesting, I just wasn't worried about keeping it, I guess. It's just a complete mess of unprofessionalism. I'm a real kick drum person. Like, I live for kick drums. That's what the whole thing for me is about. Every song I do, like there's at least 15% of the time that I work on the song is dedicated to the kick drums. But this song was really hard for me

because what I came to realize making this song is that it's usually like either a kick drum song or a guitar song, if it's a banger. Like, you usually get one or the other, like a big rock song that's, the kicks are actually usually pretty chill. So this was just me

just really trying to get as much bang from the kicks as I could. There's, like, toms and explosions that are also layered into the kicks. There was, like, 40 layers of drums. I wanted to make a song that I would want to dance to.

I also stood up for most of the time that I was making it. Like, I put my computer on a monitor stand so that I could, you know, dance while I made this song. I had been watching Godfather and Godfather too, and I just had this thought in my mind of this, like, insane movie that would just be like the godfathered with vampires, like a mixture of Godfather and Twilight.

I just wanted to make the song that would play during the trailer of this fictional movie in my mind. I hate singing. It's just not something I identify with it all. I'm pretty much always pretending to be someone else when I'm singing. Six months before starting this song and stuff, I did some sessions, like, writing for other people, which, I don't know, it was actually really great

because I started for the first time writing in other people's voices. It was a huge door for me when I first started trying to write music for other people. It was like this amazing, because suddenly you don't have to feel self-conscious. Lyrically, it's also so much easier. You're like, oh, well, this doesn't have to be something my parents are going to hear and think, wow, I can't believe you did that, you know, which is actually a huge, probably one of my biggest hindrances as an artist is like my parents or grids. grandparents being upset by my lyrics being, you know, not PG or too weird or something.

So writing for other people was definitely how I sort of started down the path. Music for me, it's like fan fiction. I got friends in high places. I get out for free because I'm only a man. When I was like really doing the vocals and lyrics for this, I was deep in the record. I was not talking to people and I was very isolated and I was doing just a lot of voices like in the house. This makes me sound insane.

I actually feel like maybe I shouldn't say stuff like this. But when you're making a record and you're never talking to anybody, you just start, oh, I'm going to try to write in the voice of a something, you know, like with a Harley Quinn kind of vibe, like just sort of this jokery, like scary demon chorus. The B, E, H, which sounds terrible. You shouldn't solo it. It sounds so bad a soload.

I'm definitely going to solo it. Okay, well, let the people know that I think it sounds, it's really embarrassing to listen to soloed. But I respect a few solo it. I mean, that was the thing that I was really just totally stuck on until the very, very, very end was just finishing the B-E-H-A. Just because it was so hard to get it right. Like, I just had to do that 50 different times and, like, go through and try to find the ones that were off-key and then just, like, get those out and, like, just auto-tune some and not other ones. And when you're working with 50-plus vocals, it's like one vocal in the whole.

It's like if a light ball burns out on the Christmas tree. lights and you have to figure out which one it is. It's like that. It's just really mind-numbing and annoying. Oh, I add crowds into everything. I think it's a huge key to making dance music. Even if it's so quiet, like in Kilby-Mame, it's so quiet you can't even hear it. But it's like you take crowd cheering, you side-chain into the kick. Pan hard right and left. It just adds so much energy. It's my number one go-to trick with it just makes everything sound better. Also, like when it's live, people, People think it's live and they cheer more.

Like, it's a very manipulative tactic, but it's great. The song, it's probably my favorite song I've ever made. Like, it was definitely fun the whole time. Like, there were times when I was really worried that it was, like, going off the deep end where I was like, I should probably just give up on this song. But I always enjoyed the song, which is more than I can say for most of my songs. I do feel like it's important to consider how music is made. I think really great music.

Like, over time, you start hearing little imperfections in it. For me, the process is by far the best part. And now here's Kill v. Mame by Grimes in its entirety. Grimes, go to SongExploder.net. I've put the music video for the song up on the site and a link to buy the track on iTunes. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length.

And this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh, 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, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. 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 are 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. Next time on Song Exploder, Band of Horses. You can find all the past and future episodes of Song Exploder at songexplor.net or on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you download podcasts. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary story-driven shows. Learn more at Radiotopia.fm. My name is Rishi-Kesh hereway. Thanks for listening.