Switched on Pop - Keith Urban on The Speed of Now Part 1

Episode Date: October 2, 2020

Keith Urban is a legend of country. He’s been releasing hit records for two decades now. Each album he describes as a portrait of his life in that moment. On his latest work, The Speed Of Now Part 1, has Urban disregarding country convention (as he’s known to do), and collaborating with a diverse roster of musicians who contribute an eclectic array of sounds funk guitar, breakbeat drums and even EDM style programming. The result is less straight ahead country and more the unique sound of Keith Urban. In this conversation, we discuss his music, how he stays creative, and why he believes music can still be a uniting force. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.

Recently, I've been going on a deep dive into country music. And so when the opportunity came up to chat with Keith Urban, I knew I had to jump on it. Urban is a legend of country. He's been releasing hit records for two decades now, and he shows no sign of stopping. His new album, The Speed of Now, has Urban pushing stylistic boundaries. as he's known to do, and collaborating with a diverse roster of musicians who contribute a really eclectic array of sounds, funk guitar, breakbeat drums, and even EDM programming to make a style that is less straight-ahead country and more just the sound of Keith Urban. I spoke with Urban a few weeks ago about his new record, the creative process, and how he stays inspired. Here's my conversation

with Keith Urban. How did country music first come into your life? And what did it take for you to become fluent in that tradition? Well, my mom and dad's record collection, particularly my dad's. My dad loved American country music. He was a drummer in the 50s. He was an amateur drama in the 50s. And when rock and roll came along, he was just bitten by the rock and roll bug. He grew up in New Zealand.

And then as rock and roll, because the origins of rock and roll was more rockabilly. There was roots of stuff in their country and R&B and everything was kind of in there. So through the 60s and off into the 70s, he just moved, instead of going with rock, he sort of moved over to Ward's country, particularly guys like Whalen Jennings. Don Williams. But I believe in love. I believe in baby. But then he also loved Merle Haggard.

But Mama tried. Mama tried. Charlie Pride. Is anybody going to San Antonio or Phoenix, Arizona? Johnny Cash. I keep the ends out for the tie that binds. Because you're mine. I walk the line.

So he just kind of went over into that vein. And when I look back, I realize what was great about the kind of country that my dad loved was it was very contemporary. It wasn't traditional country in the sense. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't Ernest Tub. Or Hank Williams. It was progressive, modern country. All those artists were sort of having a disas much pop crossover.

And for folks who don't know your story, you pursue music from the earliest age. But I'm curious what it took for you as a songwriter, as a guitarist, as a musician, to really become fluent in that sound. Not just knowing the music, but being able to perform it and feel like, all right, I am now, I am now this act. Right. I feel like I can do this thing. Well, put in my 10,000 hours. Go Malcolm Gladwell. But it's true, you know, it's just starting at the age of six, learning guitar at six.

My mom and dad bought me a little ukulele when I was four, and my dad noticed that I could strum it in time with the songs on the radio. So he went, he's got rhythm, thank God. What would be a good, he asked some people, what would be a good age for him to learn the chords because he's got this bit down. He just needed to get this bit. And they said, six is great. And so at six, they found me a guitar teacher, and I learned some basic chords and then just started playing. Because what I started playing was what I was hearing around the house, which is, you know, a mix of country music blended in with the radio, in the top 40 radio, which is kind of just being spoon-fed pop songs, basically as far as hooks, radio hooks, was being all ingrained into me at a very young age. My mom and dad joined this amateur country music club, which they're kind of all around Australia in different cities.

you can join a club. It's like joining a football club or a tennis club or something. You join a country music club. And they would rent out the local hall in town and put on a function like once every two weeks, I think it was. And all the people who were members would all come. Some people played. Some people just loved the music.

And they would throw a house band together. And if you wanted, you could get up and do a song and use the house band. And it was kind of like open mic night, really. And then once a year, they'd all, go to some town in Australia and compete with this two-day festival and all the clubs would compete against each other. So I grew up in this subculture where it wasn't just the music, it was lifestyle, lots of drinking, lots of camping, there's lots of all that stuff, you know, and consequently hearing so much music, not just from my own home, but from all these people,

all these families and people who were playing and singing and all of that. Now you really are quite a musical omnivore and it's something that people can hear even in your earliest records. There's not a Keith Urban song lacking a hook. There's always a great hook. There's always something to grab onto. And I was noting I was going back to your self-titled record Keith Urban. And the first track opens up with really a sort of like almost contemporary urban style beat. And so even in a record which is full of a lot of more traditional.

sort of country timbers got a lot more steel, a lot more twang. Even at the beginning, there is a lot of influence that's happening clearly beyond just the country charts. And of course, your songs, they are frequently charting

not just in country. They're just on the top 100. And over the last four albums, especially, you've really been pushing your sounds. You've incorporated sounds from electronic dance music, hip-hop style,

drum production, R&B ballad styles. What made you feel like you wanted to push beyond those traditional sounds and timbers of country music in these last few records? I think it was more making sure I didn't stop myself more than pushing myself. What do you mean? I don't think of it in terms of pushing envelopes. I think of it in terms of making sure nothing gets in the way of the natural flow towards things. So I don't, I'm not pushing towards it. I'm just not stopping. I'm just not stopping myself from going to it. It's a very different motivational sort of energy and force so that it's allowed, everything's allowed to flow uninhibited and without the parameters of sort of genre,

borders, expectations, all this nonsense, you know. And so gradually that ability to flow unimpeded has been opening up and happening more naturally across the last handful of records. Yeah. I've seen a lot of interviews where you talk about the creative process. You seem to have a sort of cosmic appreciation for creativity. I mean, that would be the best way to put it, right? Has this always been the case?

I mean, realizing that you needed to just not let anything get in the way. How did you get to that realization? Was there something that changed in your life? has it always been that way? Gosh, a really good question. It's been quite an unusual journey for me coming from Australia to America into Nashville and trying to figure out how to get accepted and become part of Nashville and not lose myself. That's been the biggest balancing act of all.

And I think that you talked about that first record, the first solar record I did, being a little more traditional in its sonics and its instrument choices and so on. Prior to that record, I did an album with a band I had called The Ranch, and that was recorded in 1995, 96, around there. It came out in 1997. We're a three-piece group. And that's a much roar or rougher, non-radio-ready kind of record. So consequently, we didn't really get any.

traction. And I was really frustrated because I went, I write songs and in my head I could make records that are far more suitable for getting on radio. I know how to do that, but I'm a bit limited with this band. So I stepped out of the band and then set about trying to find out how to make a record that felt true to me and could get onto radio. And that became that first solar record. For me, what it has the sound of is a guy that hasn't toured in a couple years. And I tour all the time. I'm always touring. But that first solo record, I'd left my band in 1998, and I really didn't do any touring in that year. I didn't do any touring in 99. And that record sounds like a guy, for me, it sounds like a guy that's not doing any touring. So my live identity is

not very present at all on that album. But consequently, it yielded some songs that read played and we got some traction, which meant I could go out and tour. And the next record, Golden Road, that sounds like a guy who's been out playing gigs, because it's already starting to get a bit more stubble, is how I used to phrase it. The first record has no stubble. I have the picture on the front to prove it. Every time I see the picture of that first album, I hear the record company president, Pat Krugly, in my head. I turned in that record, and he goes, is this the cover you want? And I went, oh, yeah.

He goes, damn son, it looks like the picture that came with the frame. He's spot on too. It sure as hell does. But the next record was a little looser and it just got a little bit, a little bit looser. Everything started to loosen up. And I think it just continued, really, across all the records. Let's get into your latest release. we've got the speed of now volume one and it continues to incorporate a lot of novel musical ground.

We're going to talk about that music, but I want to just start first with what kind of message were you wanting to convey with this project? Just an honest capturing of who I am in 2020. as a musician, as a human being, as a husband, as a father, just all of it, as a, as a bandmate, as a, it's just me, just who I am, just to be, to be true, a true photograph. For me, all my records are accurate snapshots of who I was at that time. I'm really sorry about the first frame then because that first framed photo was. Yeah, but, but it's true. That's who I was. I was kind of in a very, safe, small little space in my life right then. I really was. I wasn't, I was a bit,

I was a bit caged in a little bit and the record is very true to it. And the next record was true to that guy and every record. And then particularly the one that preceded rehab called Love Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing. That, that album is very much a record I was trying very hard to expand outwards, but I wasn't, I wasn't able to do it. I didn't have my faculties about me. I wasn't in a good headspace. I was struggling with addiction. And I was biting off way more than I could chew.

And that I couldn't get that record where I felt it inside me. It was very frustrating. Is part of having had a record that feels like you feel constrained? Is that connected to what we were speaking about earlier, that recognition of the need to let go of that? that inner critic that's going to hold back whatever is natural and going on now? Yeah. Yeah, and probably, you know, to some degree, the changing availabilities of platforms and portals to get music out.

Right. You know, we've come from a time when it was Contrario was it. And if you look at someone like Garth Brooks, it's a good example of someone who made a particular kind of record. and then he went out and toured it was nothing like his record it was insane it was wild like a freaking deaf leopard kiss

thing going on and running around pirate techniques and wild mania and then these records like this again every record and wild and I think that's what you kind of had to do and what's changed is that there is more opportunity now to bring that live wild thing

which is natural to who you are into the studio and find where the two become one really. This is interesting to go back to your picture metaphor of where you're at. Of course, with the title, the speed of now, it's where we are right now. And even when we look at the

imagery of it, it is bright, it is bold, it is enthusiastic. And we can hear that as well. I think right from the get-go. When we lead into the first track, out of the cage, we are brought into a bombastic, energetic musical work.

Tell me about Out of the Cage. What are you saying here? Out the Cage is a collaboration with me and an artist named Breel. I'm sure you know about. He's known for in particular. My Truck was the first song I think he put out last year. Yeah. Yeah, it's good fun.

Yeah, it was fun. I heard a few things that he did last year. And it wasn't until earlier this year. and I read an interview online with him. And I was really fascinated, way more fascinated with him when I read this interview. And I went, he seemed incredibly woke, sharp as attack,

and had a way of approaching music that had no boundaries, no limitations, no anything, nothing. It felt very, very free and liberated. And that's the kind of people I love to work with in the studio, just complete creative liberation. So I got his number. from someone and just cold called him one day.

We talked for like 45 minutes nonstop about music and he grew up playing all kinds of stuff. He grew up in the church and his mom and dad were gospel singers. And we just hit it off. And this was on a Wednesday. And I said, man, if you're ever in town, man, you should come to my house. I got a little studio at the house.

We just see what happens. I mean, no preconceived idea is nothing. And he goes, I'll be the Friday morning. I said, oh, great. Can you carve out? some time to come by. He goes, no, I'll be at your house Friday morning. I'm like, okay, where do you live? He goes, I'm in Atlanta. Okay. Okay, we're doing it. He goes, what time you want to start? I go, is 10 o'clock too early? He goes, no, it's fine. I'll be there at 10. My phone rings at

915 on that Friday morning. He goes, hey man, it's Breeland. I'm out front of your house. I got here way quicker than I thought. There was no traffic on the freeway. I'm like, you drove from Atlanta. It's 915. I love this guy. And we just clicked. We just clicked. And we wrote a song that ended up on his project. And then we wrote another one that ended up being soul food. And then we did Out the Cage. And you also have another collaborator on here as well. This song includes a lot of cool breakbeat drum loops, but even some funk guitar. Well, and that breakbeat opening was what really predicated the entire song. I love those, that 90s English breakbeat thing, kind of prodigy, fat boy slim, particularly Prodigy like Firestarter. And I'm like, I always wanted to write something that has that kind of like, just want to go punch someone, energy kind of. I just want to.

It makes a lot of sense. I mean, the whole world has always needed a prodigy, country crossover. I love it. That's how I feel and hear things, you know. Because it's the spirit of it. It's like the way I feel when I hear that. I'm like, why can't I feel that in our music? What's stopping that?

We all feel. It's a human feeling to go fight or break something or just, you know, break the speed limit. Bussing out of the cage. Whatever. Just break out of the cage, you know. So I go, there's got to be a way to assimilate this breakbeat into my world. And so I started with it, grabbed the banjo. They go, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

Riff came. And Breeland goes, we should try and sing over that riff. I'm like, yeah, it's pretty quick. And he goes, oh, we can do this, you know. And so the song, just. This took off running, basically, you know. As we started recording it at my house, I went, God, this is like classic Nile.

As I was putting some guitar down, I'm like, this is totally Nile Rogers world right here. Yeah, the acoustic guitar is even sort of funky in the way that you're approaching it. It's not a country-style guitar. No, it's more Pete Townsend, for me, at least anyway. It's more like pinball wizard. You know, because I grew up playing in the clubs

and pubs of Australia and they're really rough, that kind of concrete elbow attitude way of playing is very familiar to me. It's a lot of how I was raised. So guys like Pete Townsend and the sort of middle finger way he plays attitudinally really resonates with me. So you take that prodigy vibe, you put Pete Townsend 12-string, aggressive acoustic on it, and then start bringing everything in.

Nile Roger's funk guitar and it all starts to dance and become, you know, hopefully this thing. Tell me about bringing a Nile. Do we need the funk guitar? Is that the glue that brings these disparate sounds altogether? Why Nile? Because when I started playing electric guitar on the track, I went, this is like, this is just, it's Nile's world. He's really good at this thing right here.

And I'd worked with him on a few albums ago, so we'd remain really good friends. And I just called him up. He was in Connecticut at his house. And I said, man, I got this song I'm working on. We'd love you to play guitar on it. He'd say, yeah, send it up. So I sent it to him. He called up like minutes after getting it.

He goes, bro, bro, man, this song is sick, man. He put some guitar on it and sent the files to us. And it was just like, there it is. You know, crazy. That's so fun. What I really don't like about that, story is that it takes me days and days and days to try to get that particular percussive style of Nile Rogers on a guitar.

It's like, it's such deep practice. And of course, he just pulls it off in a few seconds. I know, but the crazy thing about Nile, when I first met him in 2015 and went to a studio to meet with him and to the jam and everything, I wanted to see what his right hand was doing because I went, this is the Nile magic right here. What is his right hand doing? You know, how does he do that stuff? What I didn't realize is it's his left hand

that's doing these mutings and the cordal inversions. That's the magic. I mean, his right hand is magic, but it's the two together that's why he's not Rogers and nobody else is. Yeah, one of those rare qualities where you can hear two notes and you know exactly who you're hearing. Totally. And he's always had the same guitar.

He has one stratocaster that he's only ever had his entire career. He shows up at the studio with it over his shoulder. One guitar. Love it. And when he plugs it in, it's that. Perfect. Yeah. with a better conversion of the world.

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on the record. Live With is an example of another song that really crosses traditions, and it offers a strong message. Could you speak to what Live With means for you? Live With really spoke to me. One of the writers is John Knight, and his great writer, him and Bobby Pinson and Zach

Kale wrote the song, and they sent it to me in March. It's crazy. And everything about the song I loved, lyrically, you know, I want a life I can live, not just a life I can live with. but there was one little simple line in there the longer I longer I live the more that I more that I wish but some friends I can sit with take a fifth with just that section about it struck me as just missing friends

and as March became April became May that that resonated with me I missed my friends more than anything I missed my friends and so that line really struck me and that to me was the spirit of the whole song right there It does offer a glimmer of hope in a challenging time. The way that you sing the chorus, it has this rhythmic cadence to it and a style of rhyme that is of such a particular country sound. Is there a name for what's going on there?

Do you think of that as a certain kind of chorus? Like I know that chorus. It feels comfortable. Right. Like drinking with your friends. Yeah. I don't know. if there's a name for that. I, I gravitate towards rhythmic cadence in lyricism. I, you know,

I always, I always have, I've loved those kinds of things. I mean, out the cage is a great example. You know, feel like I just get to get them all. I mean, it's just, that, that stuff's right up my alley. The stuff that Stephen Tyler likes, for example. And it's because we, you know, I play a bit of drums. It's drumming. It's rhythmic. It's the kind of, right, I love that kind of stuff. I love quirky, Which you have here. I feel like the way in which, you know, it's often, it can be unfulfilling to rhyme a word with a word. But what if we move that word rhythmically throughout the phrase you don't quite know where it's going to land? Right.

Life I can learn with, swerve with, twist and turn with, take a 90 mile an hour curve with. Yeah. We're trying to find where is it going to land. And that feels like that's the drummer kind of pulling you along. Where is the beat going to be? And finally you sort of get it right at the end. And it's really good when you can tell when a songwriter is also a singer, a proper singer. Because things like,

Ticken none and malenau curb with. Ticka none and mana curve, it is so beautifully written with consonants and vowels all falling in just the right, percussive places. You know, there's no weird essence or things in the wrong spot. So it has a nice, you know, M&M is genius at it. That percussiveness is.

is paramount. And then matching, how do you get the melody, the rhythm, the percussiveness to match with something which is narratively compelling? All those things, like, maybe that's the cosmic nature of it. Well, and I mean, really, the first place it always comes from is those, the rhythmic thing. I read a thing one time where Keith Richards was being asked, you know, how do you and Mick go about writing songs? He goes, oh, I do be this, too, but then Mick goes out on the mic and starts making vowel

movements. That's what it is. You know, it's, I just can tell and sit and the, that's what am I saying there? And you, boom, you know, that's how it all happens. Man. It's before language. And I think a lot of people who sing as top liners, people who are finding melodies, that's often the process.

I know that, you know, another famous example would be like Paul McCartney's yesterday, which started out as Scramble Day. Yeah. Scramble legs. Oh, my baby, how I love your legs. Not as much as I love Scramble Egg. Sometimes you just have to find the frame in which to paint that picture. Yeah, but you're quite right.

The sound, the vowel sounds are there. Because someone might go, well, Scramble Egg is nothing like yesterday. But as a singer, you go, Scramble leg means scramble leg is actually what you're saying. And yesterday, it's not that far apart phonetically. It's just... Sub some consonants, sub some vowels, but they're in the same exact order. And then sort of pronunciation liberties that you take as a singer to make things rhyme. Country music, boy, we can rhyme some shit that you just shouldn't be rhyming.

It's amazing. John Wayne, Superman, California. I'm a Chris Christopherson Sunday morning. I'm a mom and daddy singing... It makes me think a little bit about it. think a little bit about what you were saying at the beginning of this conversation about the sort of openness to creativity. Part of that is feeling comfortable with twisting language and sounds in such a way that it actually fits what you need to say, even if it's not the way that we might say it spoken. And then of course the trick is, but it sounds like how you would have said it anyway. Those are always the best lines, right? Where you're like, oh, that just feels like something I've already said. I mean, I think even in your example here, take a 90 mile an hour curve with, it's like, yeah, someone just said that. But I, I, I I don't think I've ever said that before. No.

But you feel it. Yeah. And that's really, that's the most important thing is do you feel it? Because half the time, we sing the wrong words to songs that we're singing along with on the radio. So how important is that lyric if we've been singing the wrong words and we love it? That's the crazy part.

It's one of the things that I struggled with when I moved to Nashville at the beginning was I was very much about the sound and the consonants and the feel and the feel of things. But every time I wrote with people, It was very much the yellow legal pad, windowless room, two acoustics, amazing lyric that's just sheer poetry. And I'm like, it's great poetry, but it's a rubbish. This song doesn't, it's not sticking in my head. I don't feel it. It reads beautifully, but it sings like crap.

I mean, just with some of the people I was working with, and I was trying to find that middle ground where it said something, and you felt it, and it was fun to sing, too. Let's talk about a song that I actually, I think, does weave through exactly that balance, your track say something. Very cool sounds. We've got contemporary trap-style drums.

We got to try to leave a better world on the day that we die. The bass almost has an 808 like beat where it's syncopating. Oh yeah, yeah. So here I go. I'm waking up to the power of words.

We of course have country instrumentation as well. Here we have a pretty potent message, one that seems to be both personal but also more universal. Can you speak to what it means to you and what you're hoping to convey? So Lindy Robbins, who's really one of the main lyricists on the song, had started the direction of the song, Say Something. And I loved that. I loved lyrically what it was saying.

But I've always had, I've always been very, I'm not a sort of get up on a soapbox and preach kind of guy. I've never been that. It wasn't raised that way. I'd rather it be, whatever my beliefs are, I'd rather be in my music. And particularly in my life, the way I live my life. So you don't have to be speaking out about this and that and that. But there was something wonderful in that song, you know, and yes, I know words ain't enough. But when the silence becomes so dangerous, we've got to say something.

And that line really hit me. To make it personal for me too, I thought, well, my dad didn't raise me that way. My dad was like, ah, don't speak out. Don't rock the boat. And that was good on one level, but he also was like that in our home. We didn't say anything as a family, not really. We didn't talk about intimate stuff and we didn't say things. and we should have.

So I thought there's another dimension to this title that I'd like to capture in the second verse. So I literally wrote the second verse about my own personal experience of being raised in this family because my family now with Nick and our girls is totally opposite to that. We speak about everything.

We talk. We communicate, you know. So I think saying something is also important in the home and saying sorry to somebody before they drift out of your life or I love you to someone before they pass away. Those things need to be said as well. I think that's beautiful. In a relationship when we don't speak out, things can sour, resentment can brew.

It also feels particularly apt at this moment when there are so many reckonings going on in a really troubled world. Sort of going beyond the broad message of the song. Are there more detailed things that you feel that you are wanting to speak out more about now, even though you have typically felt reserved to get on a soapbox? I'll always vocalize things that I feel passionate about. So long as I feel like I know what it is that I'm getting involved in, I'm very nervous about too many people that jump on the latest colored wristband this week

and slap it on and don't really know what that means. And unfortunately, we live in a time right now where context is too lacking. and there's not a chance to explain my relationship with this opinion or contextualize it in some way. It's just reduced to a clickbait and then you're spending your whole time on the defense. That's a very troubling unfolding right now, I find, because it actually makes people be quiet and go, I'll be taken out of context if I say that. So I'll say nothing. That's a very dangerous place as well.

Yeah. Do you feel that with the constraints of the sort of more traditional, side of country, can that also be a limitation to where you feel comfortable speaking out in terms of country music having any sort of assumed political allegiances and sort of concerns about connecting with audiences? Yeah, well, I mean, I love bringing people together. I love finding the common thread between everybody because there's any amount of differences between all of us. And they're legit, they're real, they exist totally. But in order to sort of live together, we've got to try and figure out the things that we do have in common, which is also a lot. And my job as an entertainer

and as a musician and a performer on stage is to bring everybody together, you know, not separate the room, want to bring everyone together. So I look for the common threads in things. That's, that's what I'm interested in. Musically, and in every other way is trying to be a bridge builder. Let's close out with just one more song. I'd like to chat about change your mind. So this is a ballad about whether or not someone deserves a second chance. But I want this sometimes is it too late to try. If I change, I would you change your mind? Change your mind.

What about this song spoke to you? Everything. The truth of it. The truth of it. God. It was just one of those beautifully written lyrics. that was just so from the heart. If we could live in reverse, I'd go to the part where it hurt.

I'd go and fix the little issues before they got too big. I'd go and fix the little issues before they got too big. Good golly, man. I mean, oh, every lyric in that song just went straight to the core of me. Even though I didn't write it, it spoke to me like someone had written my own feelings of various relationships I've been in over the years and how I just was just hopeless at it. Thinking of sort of changing your mind, a lot has been changing. A lot of perspectives have been changing. What's changed for you in this time? That's a good question. I guess the way I feel it, I don't know that I've changed a lot of things. because of a lot of the things in my past that I'd gone through a real deep gratitude and appreciation for many, many things.

I already had that in play. It was the way I would go about my days. The importance of family and friends, I felt that before the pandemic. In some ways, it was the title of the album, which came to me in October last year, was an observation of the fact that I felt like all that was just a mess. It just felt like every row, you know, it's sort of, it's almost a sort of a twisted sense of humor comment about the absurdity of our society and where I saw it,

that the now, which is meant to be free of time, even that thing looks like it's going fast. That's how out of whack I felt like we had started to tilt, probably because of this, you know, this smartphone that I'm trying to, trying to keep up with, but I'm a human being. I'm not a computer. I'm a human being. And the drifting apart from everything that makes us human feels like it's a, that's a whole other podcast unto itself, you know, the sort of heading towards the singularity conversation, you know, which I wish was had more often by lots and lots of people because it's something

that should, I'd like to see that on the news. Where are we at with our sort of maintaining our humanism in the midst of sort of becoming androidnal, you know, because it's, it's, it's, We're barreling down that freeway. It's such a fast clip. That's a long-winded answer to your question. But in some ways, I'm there. I'm trying to live my life without needing a pandemic to change it for me. That's what I'm trying to do.

We're living now, but it does feel like it's getting faster. I'm curious about the speed of now, volume two. What's volume two of our life going to look like? No idea. But I realize that the time. is relative to any point in time as well. The speed of now is different to what it was in October last year. The speeder now is always relative to each one of us, the perception of time, you know.

But it also, it connects to playing live. Because for me playing live, that's the thing I miss the most. I miss playing live. I miss people in front of the stage, a mosh pit, the energy of a crowd packed in. There's no substitute for that, you know. performing to a camera as like dating a mannequin. That's what it feels like. It's like this is nothing there.

You know, it's, I'm imagining everything. It's this cold camera lens looking at me. So I have to imagine everything. Oh, man. Well, I guess it's a good thing in your family. You can get some acting lessons on how to make it feel as real as possible. I wish I had a more uplifting advice, you know. No, I, well, what have I learned in this pandemic that I married really well?

I think everybody is discovering, you know, did they make good choices if they were in a relationship? You certainly got to find that out really quick, and I found out I got to choose really, really well. Thank God. Well, I'm glad you're doing well. Congratulations on this new record. Lots of hooks all throughout. Thank you, Charlie. Well, thank you, Keith.

It's been really a pleasure speaking with you. It was so nice to see you. This has been such a pleasure. Likewise, Charlie. Yeah, it was so good, man. Switched on Pop is made by Nate Sloan and me, Charlie Harding. We're produced by Bridget Armstrong, engineered by Brandon McFarland, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, social media by Abby Barr, and executive produced by Nishat, Kroa, and Liz Kelly Nelson. We're a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

This week we're saying a warm-hearted goodbye to our producer, Megan Lubin. Her work on episodes like The Sound of Lofi to the recent miniseries on Beethoven could not have happened without her. She's off to make lots more great audio, and we're wishing her the best of luck. We'll miss you, Megan. Tune in next Tuesday for my last of three conversations that dive into the world of country music.

I'll be speaking with beloved songwriter, Brandy Clark, who has the ability to write rhyming couplets that stick with you for life. I help you'll join me for that conversation, and until then, thanks for listening.