Song Exploder - Valley Lodge - Go

Episode Date: October 15, 2014

Dave Hill is a comedian and host of his own podcast which, like Song Exploder, is on the Maximum Fun network. He's also the frontman of the band Valley Lodge. In this episode, Dave will deconstruct the Valley Lodge song Go, which you might recognize as the opening credits of the HBO show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. This is a special episode produced for MaxFunWeek, seven days of celebrating the community of listeners and shows that make up the Maximum Fun podcast network.

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 Hirway. Dave Hill is a comedian and frontman of the band Valley Lodge. In this episode, Dave will deconstruct the Valley Lodge song Go, which you might recognize as the opening credits of the HBO show last week tonight with John Oliver. I'm Dave Hill, and I have a rock band called Valley Lodge. We're a power pop band, which is like, you know, it's a misnomer because power pop is neither powerful. nor popular. It's all like guys who, you know, when they're in their 20s, done like sort of more like touring and had albums and videos and things like that. So this was sort of the band that I sort of likened it to like,

oh, this is like our softball team. We're not going to stop rocking, but like we're playing to like 15 friends at wherever. But the one thing I was like, I hope it would be cool if we could tour Japan. That was my one thought in my head. But I made zero effort to make that happen. But one day I got an saying like, hey, we have this Japanese label. You know, we love your record. You know, we want to put it out over here and see if you guys want a tour over here. Odoregasokou, oh, my dishnet baby,

a koko osuwaite, oh, come pretty lady. The Lonely Planet Guide to Japan has all these phrase, Japanese phrases, stuff for every situation. When we did the tour, you know, we'd drive from city to the city in this van, and I would sit in the back and try to learn phrases and if the tour manager, the Japanese guys that were taking us around, if they

whip their heads around and looked at me, I knew I pronounced it right because I would be saying like some inappropriate thing or whatever. And I would memorize all these phrases and say them on stage at night. My pronunciation is totally wrong, I'm sure, but... Adori Gasuoku, Amai Deshne. You are a fantastic dancer. Coco O Sohwate, touch me here. Otorica Sokoku, uma and Justin, baby, do you got a little love in your heart,

heart, heart, heart, girl? What happened was Gibson guitarist gave us guitars for the tour. And so we go back to drop them off at the end of the tour. And I remember just being like, come on, let's drop the guitars off and get out of here. And we go in the office and there's this woman who's like the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life. And then all of a sudden I was like, we're hanging out of Gibson, Tokyo all day. So the song is kind of like my fantasy,

staying in Japan and falling in love with this girl that probably would be really creeped out to hear this story. There's a little lyric phrase I can tell you, a tiny insight. Ginza is a neighborhood in Tokyo, and that's where, this is all so sad and pathetic. I'm a grown man. That's where the Gibson office is in Tokyo.

So I threw that in as a reference. But really, the lyrics are all from the perspective of like a lithuario with a head injury or 15-year-old. It's basically my mental capacity. So I think that melody, like that da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da is a good example of me using way too many tracks to do one thing. I really like to record like seven guitar parts,

but they're really just one guitar part. Like, I like mushy stuff. a lot of guitars and reverbs and things together for a tiny little part that no one just can even hear unless they have headphones on. Rob wanted to add some to mention to the drums, with, you know, building up. So he's playing, instead of the hi-hat, he's playing,

you know, where you hit the stand. I don't know what drumming, I don't know what he's doing back there, but, you know, and it's cool, and it works out. You know, I just get really nervous when drummers do stuff like that, because you were worried that the rock party might end. But he managed to keep it going. You know, I always think of the band as, I mean, different from all this stuff I do,

certainly different from comedy, where I feel like it's really me. I think of Valley Lodge as, like, a fantasy band, like a fictitious band that would be in my record collection. So it's really just me as a fan of music going, like, what would be cool, like, if there was some band that sounded like this. The clapping is really owes to this fantasy world

that I have where everyone loves this song and wants to be a part of it and clap along. People just being pumped when this song comes on, they would just start clapping along. And then there's the like, that's my tribute to a friend's theme song. It's at the Rembrandts. I think that's really great.

So I wanted to do something like that. Oh, wow. I don't think I've heard that before. And this is awful, but I don't even know the name of the guy who played it because it was at Paul Green Studio House. This house is so cool. It's like basically kids' college age are just like living in this house, like sleeping. Like we would be recording and there'd be like a kid over there, like a sleep on the couch.

Am I really going to crank up this half stack? The kid's head is over there. They were awesome kids and like normally you would think like, kids hanging out while you're trying to record is a horrible idea, but they were so, you know, into it and attentive and talented. But one of these guys was an organ player, and so he played that part, and I don't know how to track him down. You know, by the time we finished the song, it was like two years later from the point where he had recorded that. So it's credited on the record as, like, you know, thanks to studio house folks, but I don't know the guy's name. feel awful. My friend Alessie Lauren Mark just has this haunting weird British voice. I just sent her

stuff and she recorded it in her bedroom in London. I was just like do whatever you want on this. I didn't tell her what to do and so she just picks out these weird things that she's going to do. I don't know how she managed to do ooze and sound British even then, but she does. That's my favorite part of the song, that riff, really. But initially, the song kind of all starts together. I'm glad we did start it that way, because now when you see the opening credits of John Oliver's show, I'm like, oh man, if we didn't start it with that riff, maybe they wouldn't have chosen it.

There was a show on HBO called Reverb. I ended up writing the theme song for that show and doing all the bumpers for that. That's how I met Liz Stanton, who was, I believe, the showrunner. My name is Liz Stanton, and I'm a showrunner. My name is Liz Stanton, and I'm the co-EP for last week tonight, so John Oliver. You know, at the start of the show, we were going to create some opening titles. You know, the idea was to have, like, a lot of different moving images. And, you know, a lot of times you'll hire a composer to make an opening title package, you know, music.

And I wanted something a little cooler, I thought. And then she just emailed me and was like, hey, you know, we want to use one of your songs maybe. So I reluctantly agreed. No. No, I love it. I'm thrilled. And now here's Go by Valley Lodge in its entirety. I put up a video of the opening credits to last week tonight with John Oliver on the Song Exploder website, songexploader.net, where you can also find links to this song and Dave Hill's podcast. 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, Vagabond, 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 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.co. 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.fm. My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.