Song Exploder - RAC - Let Go (feat. Kele & MNDR)

Episode Date: October 1, 2014

Andre Allen Anjos is better known as RAC, a musician who first found success by remixing other people's songs. His remixes for artists like Lana Del Rey have gotten millions of plays online. In 2013, RAC released Strangers, his first album of original material, and in this episode, he breaks down the song Let Go from that record. It features guest vocals from Kele, best known as the frontman of the band Bloc Party, and singer MNDR, who also talks about her experience working on the track.

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 Rishikesh Hurway. Andre Allen Anjos is better known as RAC, a musician who first found success by remixing other people's songs. His remixes for artists like Lana Del Rey have gotten millions of plays online. In 2013, RAC released Strangers, his first album of original material, and in this episode, he breaks down the song Let Go from that record. It features guest vocals from Kelly, best known as the first song, front man of the band Block Party and singer MnDR, who talks later on about her experience working on the track. Here's Let Go by RIC on Song Exploder. My name's Andre. I make music as RAC. I think I started

writing this song in like early 2010. It was actually the first track that I got a singer on, which Kelly from Block Party was actually the first guy to agree to do anything on this album. Because I had done a couple of remixes for Block Party before and this was actually pre-RAC. I was still living in Portugal at the time. I think it was 2005. I was just some I wasn't even in college yet. I was just like basically begging for remixes, you know, and I just hit him. I was like, please, please let me let me remix this. I love it. They were super supportive and this is yeah, before RAC and that's what kicked it off. So it's it was kind of it's kind of fun that the first official remix I ever did ended up also the first guest vocalist to sign off on singing on this record, you know, many years later.

Before I reached out, I already had a basic idea of what I wanted to do. Like, I think it was just a baseline, really. I think it was like a bass line in the drums. I used it as a starting point, really. The only direction I really gave anybody on the album was that I wanted to write a pop album. A pop album was substance, and, you know, he came back with those verses. You play, you play, you play. up to them but they're not around don't be so rough with me when you are a gem

his original chorus ended up being the pre-chorus you are golden you are pure you are golden I used it but I felt like it made more sense as a pre-chorus and that's that's kind of the reason why I brought an MNDR. I felt like it just needed something extra. And I've always liked it when there's sort of like a male and female vocal in a song. So I just straight up cold emailed Amanda and asked her if she would write a chorus for this. And MNDR. I felt like he was pleased.

Just try, just try to stay sober. It's eating you. And you're just so empathetic. And you want to help them because you love them. But it's sort of like really nihilistic. You know, it's like bad for everyone because it's like codependent. It really struck me as like a really great way to like approach a relationship song in a really honest way. Your eyes, your eyes are glowing red and your tongue has caught on fire.

That inspired me to take the imagery of the fire and the problem. But if I didn't go of it, it'd be smoking ash, but just let go of it. So it's kind of a codependent song. You know, when you get a chorus like that, it's like, okay, we're good now. She just sent it to me. That's how pro she is. She just sent me it, like, finished. I mean, you know, there's a reason why she's out, like, writing with Kylie Minogue and stuff

like that now. It's like, I feel like she kind of turned the song into a single. When Kelly's vocal comes in underneath, that one's pretty harshly tuned and, like, affected. I actually use this application called Melodyne. It's sort of like autotune, but it's all done manually, so it's not really automatic in that sense. But you can really mess with a vocal and kind of turn it into this mechanical thing. Really play with the, it's called the formant.

There's all this stuff that you can do, and I use that pretty extensively in this song. There's this trick with Melodyne. It's basically when you remove all the variations, it creates this kind of robotic sound and that's what I did a lot with Kelly's vocal, not in the verses but during these sections. Which I actually got from the video game portal. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret,

but I think we can put our differences behind us. For science, you monster. I think there might even be some like tutorials on YouTube on how to do that and I think that's how I figured it out. Guitar is by far my main instrument. That's what I've been playing my whole life. And it's my go-to writing tool. It's kind of what I use for almost everything.

I didn't actually play that live. I recorded each note individually. I think probably just because I'm lazy. I didn't want to have to learn it. It was faster just to do it individually than practice it, you know, 30 times. I am a big fan of Lost and I absolutely love the string arrangements in that show, like this atonal kind of slow slide-up of this cello. I mean, I did it with violins, but it was something that I really wanted to kind of play with. It's my friend Luke Christian.

At the time I was living in a duplex and he moved in next door. It was just complete luck circumstance that he happened to know how to play a violin. and I needed a violin part, so he was there and we did it. It was one of my favorite parts of the song. Since I was 13 years old, I've been writing songs, but yeah, this was like the first RAC track that got finished. I'd argue that remixing and original music, as far as my writing process goes, it's pretty much the same. You know, remixes are in some way derivative and you're sort of working off of something else that's pre-existing. but I'm writing original music underneath it.

With the original material, it's just kind of a different starting point. In hindsight, I think it kind of put me on the map a little bit. People took me a little more seriously. With remixes, a lot of people just kind of, you know, don't even care or don't even notice the amount of work that I put into it, you know? So, like, it was... I don't see them as different things. Like, I find creative satisfaction in both of them.

And now here's Let Go by RAC, its entirety. Visit songexplotor.net for links to buy this song and to learn more about RAC, Kelly, Block Party, and MNDR. 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 length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kaysh 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 Robe. 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 Manzukas, 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.com. or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live.

Thanks. You can find all the past and future episodes of SongExploder at SongExploder.net or on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you download podcasts. Find the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Song Exploder. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary story-driven shows. Learn more at Radiotopia. My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.