Switched on Pop - Bruno Major restyles the Great American Songbook

Episode Date: August 11, 2020

Bruno Major blends old song structures from The Great American Songbook with contemporary production on his new album “To Let A Good Thing Die.” The result is a nostalgic, yet contemporary collection of love songs for the Netflix and chill generation. We speak with Bruno Major about how he draws inspiration from the past to craft something new. He breaks down his songs "Nothing," "To Let A Good Thing Die," and "The Most Beautiful Thing," which he wrote with Finneas. And we unpack how Bruno Major found success only after being dropped from his record label. SONGS DISCUSSED Bruno Major - Nothing Autumn Leaves - Nat King Cole Fly Me to The Moon - Frank Sinatra Stella By Starlight - Tony Bennett There Will Never Be Another You - Nat King Cole Like Someone in Love - Chet Baker Deep in a Dream - Frank Sinatra All The things you are - Ella Fitzgerald Paul Simon - Still Crazy After All These Years Wes Montgomery - In Your Own Sweet Way Bruno Major - Wouldn't Mean A Thing Bruno Major - Bad Religion (Live) Bruno Major - I'll Sleep When I'm Older J Cole - KOD J Dilla - La La La Bruno Major - The Most Beautiful Thing Bruno Major - To Let A Good Thing Die Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Euporia of Calvin Klein, the new collection Elyxir. Three new elixires perfume intense. Solar, Magnetic, Vol. Pulsa in the banner. Make the quiz and discover your fragrance euphoria. Welcome to Switchfront on Pop.

I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. I was recently stumbling around Spotify, and I found this artist Bruno Major in his album, Let a Good Thing Die. I felt like it's something to a wormhole to a parallel universe in which the jazz standards of the Great American Song book had merged with modern lo-fi hip-hop, with lyrics that perfectly captured contemporary romance.

It's really pretty stuff. You can hear what I mean in a song like Nothing. When I started to research Bruno Major, I found an artist who had to start a research Bruno Major, I found an artist who had to certain degree totally failed at the major label system and yet remarkably leapfrogged out of it into a really successful career in streaming. And I knew I had to speak with him to understand how he did it. And so I called Bruno Major up a few weeks back. And this was a really interesting discussion where we talk about how to both simultaneously embrace music from the past but also forge new musical territory. I want to start our conversation where Bruno and I are talking about that song we just heard. Nothing. And there's this curious moment that drew me right into it,

this sort of Netflix and chill romance idea that is buoyed by this really fun sort of sound effect and nostalgic reference. Here's Bruno on what's going on here. The first thing that caught my attention were these sounds of Nintendo. We'll play Nintendo, though I always lose,

because you are... And I'm like a romance song, Nintendo. What is that reference? So that's a funny one. So the chord sequence follows this, let me grab my guitar. It's a really standard chord sequence, but it just has a descending bass line, which after coming up with, I realized it was the same as this Mario theme tune, which goes, And then I was with Rayleigh Nicole, the girl, like the singer-songwriter, who is amazing, by the way,

but I wrote it with and we were just pontificating on what it is to write a love song and why so many of them are so grandiose and you get these these huge statements like I would rather go blind than to see you walk away or I would walk 500 miles and all of this stuff and that's great and they're beautiful songs but my experience of love is 99% out of 100 watching Netflix being in my pajamas, drinking red wine on the sofa with some popcorn and the reality of what it is to be in a relationship. So I thought it would be cool to write a song about that. We'll watch the notebook for the 17th time.

I'll say it's stupid and you'll catch me crying. Maybe that was inspired by the Nintendo. So, you know, I talk about playing Mario Kart. Originally the lyrics were directly talking about Mario Kart. but I decided to make them a little less specific. The first clue that you're sort of head over heels in this song is when you mess up your lyrics in the very first verse. Do you know what I'm talking about?

We'll take off our phones and we'll turn off our shoes. Yeah, yeah. That was a funny one too. I had so many people when the song came out. Bing, they say stuff like, Bruno, we love your song. It's so amazing. but dude, you messed up the lyrics in the first verse.

I don't know if you noticed. And I'm like, oh, yeah, you know what? In the 10,000 times that I recorded and mixed and listened to this record before it came out, I must have missed it. But yeah, it was one of those things I felt like just swapping the words around. It just felt right. And maybe it's to do with how much wine they've drunk in the first line. The song is, in many ways, very. unconventional but totally traditional at the same time. Can you tell me about how the song

structure itself actually looks to the past even though the lyric is so contemporary? Well I suppose because my journey into music came through jazz. So I didn't write a song until I was 22 years old but between the age of 18 and 22 I was studying jazz guitar and I was Studying Autumn Leaves. But I miss you most of all, my darling, when autumn leaves start to fall. Fly me to the moon. Fly me to the moon.

Let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars. Stella by Starlight. The great symphonic theme, that's stellar by starlight and not a dream. The great American songbook, and those in my opinion are the greatest songs that have ever been written. And it was before the idea of a chorus really came about. So, you know, now we have verse, verse, verse, first, first, chorus.

I mean, now we'd only have that. Now we just have like some dolphin noises and a drop. But back then you had like, you know, there will be many other nights like this And I'll be standing here with someone new There will be other songs to sing Another fall Another spring But there will never be another you

So there will never be another you is the tag and the whole song there is leading towards through attention and release the payoff of a line of a tagline and that's normally the title of the song in that case there will never be another you but that's exactly how nothing works I don't honestly say I don't but there's nothing by doing love with you do you have any particular favorite tags like someone in love that's really beautiful Deep in a dream of you. That one's really great. Fade away in the blue And I'm deep in a dream of you. I mean there are so many. There are some that I prefer the lyrics of, you know,

like deep in a dream, I think it's one of the most beautiful poems in the American songbook, but the music is like not quite on the path. And then you got stuff like all the things you are. like all the things you are with this like such beautiful harmony and then the melody is like duh da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da oh that moment divine when all the things you are but very occasionally you get one and it's like like someone in love and it's all there it's all happening the music's amazing the lyrics amazing and

i guess that's why i put that one on my first album because i'm gonna go with like someone in love You were saying that this style of writing happened before there was a chorus. What is the sort of affective experience of a tag? What does it give us as a listener that a chorus doesn't give us? I never really thought about that. It's an interesting question. I guess what I love about it is it's a longer destination, and you can build so much tension and release through,

complex chords to arrive on the inevitability of the song's meaning. And I think that's something really beautiful. And it's not really about hooks. You know, in pop music, modern pop music, you know, you've written a book on the subject. You basically just have like one, four, five, six. And the vast majority of all pop songs are based on those four chords. And occasionally you have a little cheeky passing chord here and there, but it's all diatonic. and there is no real tension to speak of and in the tension that is there is not particularly subtle. I suppose that's why I was drawn to those jazz standards is because, you know, you have like someone in love, for example. Lately I've got a lot at start, hearing guitars like someone...

So in that bit... Hearing guitars like someone. If I did a different extension on that five chord, hearing guitars like someone. You know, that's a different feeling. That's a different emotion just through a different extension of a specific type of dominant. You know, that's fascinating to me.

And what is amazing about songwriting is the relationship that you have between, words and music. And how you can do that, hearing guitars, hearing guitars, and get a different feeling. And then that makes the word guitar,

lyric feel different. So I suppose it's just, there are more options when you're dealing with jazz standards and jazz harmony than there are with like one, four, five, and six. Okay, so we've got a modern romance

happening in a traditional song form with contemporary production. there you go. To all intensive purposes, it's a ABA structured jazz standard in the style of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter from the 30s and 40s. But then instead of going recording it with a big band or a jazz piano and a double bass, I put 808 beeps and bloops on it and side-chained everything and presented it in a way that makes sense today. Because honestly, I feel like I have nothing more to add.

to the jazz quartet. It's been done extremely well for a very long time. You spoke with Atwood Magazine and talked about production as like framing a painting. I imagine this song came about in a very traditional sort of way, sitting down on the acoustic guitar, figuring out the lyric, and then you have to figure out, well, what do I dress it in? Yeah. Why did you choose the sounds that you chose? I guess the way I view it is always, the song is the center point.

I consider myself to be a songwriter above all else. And I start with the basics of the song. So in this case, it's the chords of the melody, the lyrics. The guitar part is the key of the whole thing. So, you know, you have the melody of the guitar part. All the voice leading within that, so I could have done, you know, but I did it in a certain way that it smoothly links all the harmony together and it has melodies within it.

And then on top of that, the words and the voice sit. So I like to have the feeling that the vocal and piano or the vocal and guitar, whichever one it is, is a complete arrangement on its own. And it doesn't need anything else. So once I have that and I'll record all of that first always, then I think about whether it needs anything. Sometimes it doesn't really need that much at all. But in this case, we added a drumbeat next, myself and my co-producer Pharaoh,

which is just bringing the waltz of the song out. It's like, And then just bits and bobs, we lose track of time. Have I told you lately, I'm grateful you're mine. And then just bits and bobs just fall in place, building a painting like Bob Ross, you know? So you're basically trying to shoehorn a bunch of your favorite jazz work into contemporary pop. Not at all because I don't think that my music is contemporary pop.

One of the most thrilling experiences I've had as a musician was the last show I played before the lockdown was in Jakarta. I played at Java Jazz. I played in front of 8,000 people spread over two nights, 4,000 each night. And the majority of my fans in Indonesia are 16 to 24 year old girls. And I stood in front of this this. audience and I played like someone in love, which was a song written in the 30s or 40s in America, and they screamed every word of it, like it was a song that I'd written yesterday. And I was like, I feel like I've actually done something worthwhile here.

I brought an ancient, basically, culture from the other side of the world. and I've introduced it to a new generation of people in a new place, and they probably would have never heard of that song, potentially, if it wasn't for that record. And they definitely wouldn't have cared about it if I did it with a big band or if I did it with a jazz quartet. The fact that I presented that song in a modern way, translated it and made it contextually understandable for them,

which is really cool. And the thing that's fairly remarkable about the entire album, I believe, is that there's not a bridge in sight. Yeah, I don't believe in bridges. Please tell me about your philosophy on bridges. Man, there's this amazing video of Paul Simon on the Dick Cavett show in the 70s. And he's sitting there and he plays,

he's like, um, I'm not my old lover on the streets, she seems so glad to see me, I just smiled. We talked about some old times, and we drank ourselves some beers. still crazy

these years oh still crazy and then he's like and now I'm stuck and he plays the great one of the greatest songs of all time the song that every time I sit at piano I try and write that song and he doesn't know where he goes

after that and it was half written but when you listen to the final record you can feel the original inspiration the original moment that that obviously all just tumbled out of him in one go you know that he saw the light at the end of that whole. That's one piece of tension and release, that entire, like, phrase that I just sang.

And then when you listen to the record, it's just got this other bit that's kind of just like shoehorned in. It goes to a completely different key, a different lyrical concepts, a different place, like, atmospherically. I don't know. I just, I never, I never like going to another place. I like staying in the original feeling of the song. One of my biggest early influences was Nick Drake, particularly his album, pink moon. The whole album, I think, is like 28 minutes long or something crazy,

and most of the songs are under two minutes. I think you can get most things that you want to say across in less than three minutes. There's no need to write bridges for the sake of it. As much as you're very thoughtful about song structure, you're also

you don't treat it religiously because you don't like the bridge, you just throw it out, it doesn't fit what you're trying to accomplish. And that's completely okay. you're an artist, you're allowed to do that. Yeah, also, mate, when you write ballads, which is basically all I ever do,

no one's got time for a bridge in a ballad. Yeah, it's like where you're going to go. It's either like, it either gets worse or it gets way happier. Neither of those emotions feel honest to whatever you're dealing with. I want to come back to some of those contemporary sounds. But first I want to talk about the very winding path that you took to get to where you are. you first thought you wanted to be a jazz musician. Can you tell me about what inspired you to pursue jazz and what then changed?

Well, I was always torn between being a writer and being a musician. I loved English literature and I wanted to be a journalist nearly as much as I did as a musician. But I suppose I perceived myself as being better at music and also it just was a bit more fun and sexy, isn't it? guitar than writing books. So maybe that's part of it. Hey, hey, hey, watch out. I play guitar too. Exactly. I got to university and I worked extremely hard. I was playing my guitar six hours a day for definitely for the first two years I was there. And I got very competent at jazz. I learned all of the information that was presented to me. I studied it. I did well in my exams. And I became one of the, you know, probably one of the better students in.

in my year. But I never found a artistic voice on the guitar in the way that when Pat Mathini or Wes Montgomery or Kurt Rosenwinkel pick up a guitar, they were my heroes. And you know immediately within one note who is playing that because their voice and their identity as an artist lies within that particular instrument. No matter how hard I studied, I never found that voice. And, you know, it left me a little bit confused because I'm not. I knew I needed to do music, but it was only when I moved to London and started writing songs,

but I realized very quickly that that was my purpose. That was my, if I have a gift, it is my songwriting. You know, I never had to study that at all. I just wrote some songs and they came out very naturally, as did my singing, which is really frustrating, actually, when you spent as long as I have trying to be the best guitar playing in the world and all anyone ever talks about is your voice, which, you know, I abused. regularly. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it.

What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready?

Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly Democratic cities for ice raids and deportations.

Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want order at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time.

The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. You, as a songwriter, had the incredible fortune to pick up a major label record deal. Can you speak about how that came about? Well, I'm not sure I agree with your statement. It was an incredible fortune. It came about, I just started writing songs, and I put them on SoundCloud,

and I very quickly garnered the attention of various record labels. I just started getting emails. I was like, hey, my name's John. I work at EMI Records. Can you come for a coffee? And then you get another one a few days later. Hey, I'm Martin. I work at Atlantic.

Can you come for a coffee? You know, I thought if you signed a record deal, that's how you made it as an artist. And I think at the time, it was, particularly in England, in order to be an artist with a career, you had to have a radio single. You had to be on Radio 1, basically.

Zane Lowe had to play your record. Or you had to be on Radio 2 playlist. And if you didn't have that, I think it made it very difficult. And the way that you got that was by having a record label because they paid for all the promotion and all of that kind of stuff. But that was pre-DSP's. That was pre-Spotify, pre-Apple Music, pre-the whole world as we know it, even though it was only five, six years ago. The world has completely changed since then. So I ended up signing this deal and it went horribly wrong.

What happened? Well, what happened is they flew me over to Los Angeles on a big shiny airplane. put me up in a five-star hotel and handed me a humongous check the most money I'd ever seen in my life and said, pick your producer and pick your band. So, you know, I had Pino Paladino, Jason Rebello, Jeremy Stacey, Ethan Johns, I had these like humongous names that I'd idolized

making my record for me. And then when I delivered it, the label said, in no uncertain terms, this is shit. We will not be releasing it. I was dropped six months later and I came back to London with no self-confidence, no money. My girlfriend at the time I was dating this beautiful girl, who I was really infatuated by, but I think she was infatuated by my prospective career.

And once that disappeared, she stopped hanging around. So it was a really tough time for me. I basically spent what little money I had left from my record deal on a laptop, and I resolved that I would learn logic. I would learn to produce music myself. So I spent two years making really, really terrible electronic music and learning YouTube, you know, how to produce on YouTube, basically. Would you be as bold as willing to share a short clip of any of that?

Absolutely, no way. Sorry. I'm not sure I've got any of it, to be honest with you. So you start recording into logic. You're making music that is clearly very much not your path. How do you pull yourself up out of this and start making music, which is Bruno again? Well, I started basically making a living as a songwriter and as a producer, which had been my original goal, by the way. I never meant to be an artist. I wanted to be a songwriter and I just accidentally ended up going on this ridiculous ride. So I was doing that for a bit.

But, you know, in the time I started writing songs at 22, I signed a record deal at 23, you know, and I was now like, I was now 25 at this point. And I had 400-ish songs that I'd written in that period. And I was really proud of them, man. They were good songs. And I thought, this is dumb that they're just sitting on my laptop. People should hear them,

even if it's just my mum, somebody should hear them. So I decided that I would record one. And I met Pharaoh, the guy who produces all my music with me. We got on really well and we started making my music together. And the first song I put out was Wouldn't Mean a Thing, which came out in 2016. And it was very much the blueprint for everything that followed. It was a jazz standard with, you know, side chain and 808 kicks and electronic drums. You bring out the best in me.

Help me see the world differently. Be a better man I'd up. We put it out and then in the first week it had like 60,000 streams or something. That's not bad. Well, yeah. And it was exactly four times or three times the amount of streams I'd ever had with the live EP that I'd released on a major label during my tenure there. with zero promotion, zero release strategy, zero budget.

How did that happen? Somebody at Spotify heard it and thought it was good, so they put it on a playlist for me. And the reason they did that was because it was good. I really believed that. And the music that I'm, you know, the live EP that I made against my will, I might add, whilst I was at Virgin, you know, it's just some guy singing with an acoustic guitar and a big shiny studio being really nervous and insecure. If it brings me to my needs, bad religion.

No wonder people didn't want to listen to it. I mean, I look back at it now and it's not terrible, but, you know, it was never going to set the world on fire. So you put out this song completely independently. It picks up on Spotify. Yeah. Take me to where we are today. At this point, I was completely broke, so my manager lent me some of his personal money. to pay for the mixing and release of the first album.

Well, I mixed half of it myself, but it costs money to master and all that kind of stuff. You know that. And he said, you know, you can pay me back from the proceeds of this record, which at the time was like, there's nowhere that's going to happen. I put out the first track wouldn't mean a thing, and I didn't really have anything ready. I didn't have an album ready to go. So I put the song up and suddenly people really liked it, and I had people talking about it and asking me when the next song,

track was coming out and I was like I don't have another track. So I just made another one and put it out the next month and people are like, this is cool. You should do more of this. So I did that the third month and the fourth month. And then I got into this thing. I was like, I'm going to do this every month for a whole year. I'm going to release a record and release a new song. I'm going to put it out. And at the end of the year, I'm going to put 12 songs into an album and release it as my debut album. And I did it. You speak about that work ethic in your new album. You have a song, I'll sleep when I'm older. Yeah, I suppose it is about my work ethic.

I've always had a strong work ethic. My parents instilled that in me from a very early age. They said, you know, if you want to do music, that's great. But you've got to work hard and you've got to go to uni and you've got to treat it like a job. So I just always have. And all of the stuff that I, you know, the went through, the journey through the record label and being a session musician and a jazz musician and all of that stuff, but I feel like it made me really appreciate what I do have.

You know, every time I do a gig, I'm grateful that I'm not having to play somebody else's songs, because I did that for so long. I was teaching kids how to play pop punk songs, and I was playing Stevie Wonder covers at weddings and stuff. And, you know, not that that was a terrible existence, but I'm very grateful to be able to stand in front of crowds and sing my own songs for sure. Okay, so you get picked up on Spotify playlist. The music that you're releasing is not made for pop radio. It's just not in the right song format. And yet it does fit within certain playlists. What do you think, what is it about the sound that you're using that you think draws people in?

I mean, this is, I find this subject fascinating because it's affected the type of music that people listen to, the way that they're listening to it. in order to get on Radio 1 seven years ago, you had to make the music that Radio 1 wanted you to make. You had to fit in with their aesthetic. It had to slap you're on the face. It had to be loud. It had to have a fall to the floor kick drum. It had to be a part of a preconceived sonic aesthetic.

And my music was never going to fit in there. It never is going to do that. But now, cut forward to 2020, we're listening to our music on Spotify and people are waking up in the morning and they're making their eggs and they don't want to be slapped around the face. They want to have a nice warm hug.

So they go on Spotify and they put on the easy feels playlist or the relaxing and chilling playlist and you get to curate your own sound, which means people like me who make music that is a warm hug can find an audience, which is quite

a wonderful thing. For the last couple years, I've been wondering if the sort of lo-fi aesthetic, especially the lo-fi hip-hop aesthetic, would ever transition out of primarily instrumental background music into actual song forms. And I feel like I'm capturing some of that in the music that you make. I guess it's just a product of my influences and also Faro's influences. I'm a big hip-hop fan. I love Tribal Quest, Low End Theory, Midnight Marauders.

I love NWA. I love, you know, modern hip-hop artist, Kendrick Lamar, Jay Cole. Jay Cole's album, KOD, was a really influential album for me in terms of the beat making. I grew up only sure of the love. My mind got my first shoe of the blood. I'm hanging out and they shoot up the club. My homie got from a suit. And Farrow, who I co-produce everything with, who is really like leads the charge on the beats.

He's like the biggest Jay De LaFan on the planet. So all of that stuff works. way into my music. Yeah. So, you know, I, I don't think that's any different to any other type of art. You know, you just osmissized stuff and it naturally comes out when you create. How do you feel about being a performer drawing on jazz and hip hop and black music and bringing it into your own sounds? What are your responsibilities in that process? I think there's a responsibility to remember the music you're making is of black origin. I consider jazz to be America's greatest artistic contribution,

greatest contribution to the world of art. And jazz is a black American art form. Without black music and without black culture, the music that I make, the entire music scene that I am part of simply would not exist. So, you know, I have to be very grateful for it. But I also firmly believe that cultural evolution, if done in the right way, and done respectfully is only ever a good thing. So I don't know, it's a really tricky, it's a really tricky one, isn't it? But I really strongly believe that it's important that we are able to, to, as artists, to delve into and borrow from all of the inspiration and stimulus that is available to us, because that's the only way that we're going to create and move forward and do it in an exciting way.

I want to move into one more song of yours. I feel like we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the most beautiful thing. Will it be a pavement Torrice? Oh, I finally lay my eyes One of one I've already You find your way. One of the things I capture in your music

is that you really seem to have really strong musical concepts. They're kind of reinforced often by the love of using tags. Like there's a thing that we're trying to get to. But this one's a out-and-out chorus. I don't know who you'll say. Yes, it's got verse, verse chorus, verse chorus, but to a certain degree, I feel like I want to challenge that, because I feel like the hook still ends, there's almost a tag at the end of it, no? The most you have never seen.

Yeah, I'll take that one, yeah. Yeah. So tell me about what's the concept here and, uh, What's going on? Well, so I wrote this with Phineas, who is a absolutely mega songwriter. I believe one of the best in the world. He's found huge success in the last couple of years working with his sister, Billy Eilish. And Phineas has a deep understanding of music and songwriting, but his background is very much of like the folk pop lineage,

wherein he writes, you know, verses and he writes choruses. He takes from the old style of songwriting. He loves romantic lyrics and stuff like that. And he loves complex, clever lyrics. But in terms of structure, I think, you know, we're kind of slightly apart in that respect. But I think, you know, you can tell that I've written that one with him when you listen to it because it is very much a sort of classic pop song structure. In terms of the song subject itself, I have just a, you know, the notepad in my iPhone that I just fill with ideas.

and often I write song titles down before I write the song and I had the idea to write a song called The Most Beautiful Thing That I Have Never Seen, which was originally kind of going to be about the idea of people falling in love with people on social media that they've never met and becoming obsessed with these sort of pages, these avatars of humans, a presentation of an idea of a human. But it ended up turning into this slightly cynical commentary

on the idea of true love Maybe it's just circumstance or general compatibility. To keep his arrow, your twin flame, your soulmate, these ideas that I don't necessarily subscribe to. I believe, as I say in the second verse, love is a combination of circumstance and compatibility. Most people marry the person that they grew up sitting next to at maths or in the same little town and over a period of shared experiences and time and work, you become in love. And then 35 years later, you're my parents who are still happily married. But there's no way in hell that they're soulmates.

At first, it feels sort of like a very cynical theory of love, but it is also incredibly beautiful. It's a slow kind of love. Oh, it's more beautiful, I think. It belittles true love, doesn't it, to think that you were somehow white, upon by Cupid's Magic Potion, I think it's much more beautiful to think that you could meet somebody and grow closer to them over a period of time. Let's close up with a quick chat on your song, Let a Good Thing Die. You named your record after the last song on the album.

If the most beautiful thing isn't cynical, let a good thing die. Sounds like it could be. You can't ask a tree to blossom. If it isn't spring Don't leave the house of midnight And expect the birds to sing If you're looking for a reason You needn't even try

Sometimes it's time to let a good thing die And it's definitely not cynical I suppose there's a theme of Throughout the album at least with that song and with Sleek when I'm older as well, the idea of the ephemorality of life, the knowledge that something is fleeting and that beauty can lie in its ephemerality,

the blossoming of a flower, for example, the way puppy smells, or knowing that you love someone and eventually they are going to die. You know, this is something that I think about a lot, and it's something that I really struggle with, the knowledge that everyone I love is going to die eventually. I think that's the single most difficult part of being alive is knowing that it's going to end.

So I guess to let a good thing die is an attempt to come to terms with that and accept that. There's obviously a metaphor with it being the last song on the album and hopefully people think that the album was a good thing and that the album is ending, which is why on music, you know, on music. Ecology level, you might enjoy this. The last chord, that E flat chord, it's like sometimes it's time to let a good thing die. Plonk. And I didn't let the, I didn't let the chord linger because I felt like it would make more sense as a metaphor. Good thing die. It just drops dead.

It just drops dead. You said that you treat songwriting music like a job. What are you doing now and what's next, given the context of where music is at? I'm going to be honest with you. I'm a little bit at a loss at the moment. I've, you know, to let a good thing die has meanings in, in terms of my artistic trajectory. I feel like this album and my first album were all part of the same movement that was started before I signed my major record label deal. And it's all sort of the same, the songs are the same batch of four.

400, 500, whatever it is, songs. And it's now finished. And all of this album, these two albums were inspired by my experiences and my learnings of jazz and my songwriting exploration. And now I honestly don't think that I have anything left to offer based on that stimulus. I need something fresh. I need to learn. I need to grow.

So I don't think I'm going to write a third album until I've, I've gone away and grown and absorbed more information so that I can come up with something fresh because I don't particularly want to make an album for the sake of it. Those are really interesting tension in your career and that you have found the opportunity to make your own music because of these DSPs because of Spotify. Yet those platforms also really want just like endless releases. Yeah. you're going to take a really different approach.

I mean, it's basically just another social media platform, isn't it? It's like Instagram. It doesn't matter how many followers you have. If you don't post something that appears in people's feed in real time, you're not getting any likes and you're not getting any response. So people are just constantly posting stuff because they need the likes and they need to be in people's feed. The same with Spotify.

If I don't put music out, I'm not going to get playlisted and I'm not going to get listened to as much. but at the same time, the quality has to be there. You can't just put out stuff for the sake of it. So I'm certainly in the quality over quantity camp. How do you deal with this tension of being a public figure, a musician with an audience with wanting to put out only what's right when it's good? Those thoughts are not worth entertaining, in my opinion. All that you can ever do is work.

very hard and make music that you're really proud of. I've always defined my own success by my own happiness with my produce. So before my album came out, it was already successful because I had achieved my goal of making a piece of art that I was proud of. And it takes the pressure off. You know, if no one listens to it, well, at least you achieve your goal of making something you're proud of. You know, as soon as you start making music to be successful, to get on the

radio to get on the playlist, to get more Instagram followers. If it works, great. If it doesn't work, you have nothing. And, you know, I'm one step away from doing TikTok dance routines, which I just, I can't even, I don't even know what to think about that shit. Do you know what I mean? I appreciate the depth of intentionality that you've taken. I think you're a really unique case of someone who has fought hard to make it as an independent artist making music that you want to make. And I'm really grateful that people will enjoy listening to it. Thank you, man. Switch on Pop is produced by Nate Sloan, Bridget Armstrong, Megan Lubin, and meet Charlie Harding.

Our executive producers are Nashakurwa and Liz Nelson. We're mixed, edited and engineered by Brandon McFarlane, social media by Abby Barr, and illustrations by R. Scottley. We're a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network. You can find all of our shows at Switchedonpop.com, chat with us on Twitter and Instagram at Switched on Pop, and we will be back again next week with a really fun episode about the sounds of the 1980s and why they are so recognizable still. It's going to feature some really fun special guests. So again, we'll see you next Tuesday, and until then, thanks for listening.

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