Switched on Pop - Scary Pockets funkify pop classics (with Lizzy McAlpine)

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Scary Pockets is the musical collective that has been transforming pop classics into funk anthems for over half a decade. Each week they release a new cover on YouTube featuring razor-sharp instrumentalists and a rotating cast of virtuosic lead singers. Amazingly, each of their 200-plus covers is arranged on the fly, in a span of about 90 minutes—capturing the talent and spontaneity of a group of musicians at the top of their game. We here at Switched on Pop were struck by the band's ability to infuse familiar songs with syncopation and backbeat, and rack up millions of views in the process, so we reached out to Scary Pockets's leaders—guitarist Ryan Lerman and keyboardist Jack Conte—to arrange for Nate and Reanna to be flies on the wall during their creative process. After documenting the behind-the-scenes dialogue that led to a slow-burning interpretation of the Bee Gees's 1977 classic "Staying Alive," we called up Ryan, Jack, and the song's lead vocalist, Lizzy McAlpine, to hear their insights on making a song that everyone knows sound fresh and unfamiliar  Songs Discussed Bee Gees - Staying Alive (Scary Pockets Cover) Paul McCartney and Wings - Arrow Through Me (Scary Pockets Cover) Beatles - Maxwell's Silver Hammer Coldplay - Fix You (Scary Pockets Cover) Parcels - Tieduprightnow Bill Withers - Just the Two of Us (Scary Pockets Cover) Justin Bieber - Peaches (Lizzy McAlpine Cover) More on Scary Pockets Watch the video of Scary Pockets and Lizzy McAlpine covering "Staying Alive" See them LIVE with David Ryan Harris & John Scofield, November 16 at Echoplex in Los Angeles! Tickets Subscribe to their YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/scarypockets Merch Store: https://www.scarypocketsfunk.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scarypockets Listen on Spotify: Scary Pockets Instagram: @scarypockets  Musician Credits: Vocals: Lizzy McAlpine BGVs: Sophia James, Arielle Kasnetz Guitar: Ryan Lerman, Will Graefe Wurlitzer & Synth: Jack Conte Bass: Travis Carlton Drums: RJ Kelly Audio: Engineered & mixed by Caleb Parker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Switched-on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan and I'm a simple man. I see funky music. I click. And that's what happened back in 2018 when I spotted a YouTube video thumbnail with the title, Say a Little Prayer, Aretha Franklin Funk cover featuring Kenton Chen.

I was immediately taken by the way this cover infused the original with syncopation and backbeat and racked up millions of views in the process. And I've been a fan of the band behind the cover, Scary Pockets, Ever Since. Each week they post delicious funk covers to YouTube featuring a rotating band of studio musicians and highlighting new lead singers on most tracks. And what's most amazing, they create each cover in just 90 minutes. So fast forward four years and almost 200 covers later, and I reached out to Scary Pocket's leaders, guitarist Ryan Lerman and keyboardist Jack Conti, to see if our producer, Rihanna and I could tag along and watch them make one of their funk arrangements.

Oh, yeah. In June 2022, we brought our microphones to a studio in Hollywood to document. the scary pockets process with the Bee Gees classic Staying Alive as the song of the moment. The first thing we learned was that they create their covers on the fly in real time, going from nothing to a final recording in about 90 minutes. And as usual, they had assembled a coterie of top shelf musicians who were up to this challenging task. There was singer-songwriter Lizzie McAlpine on lead vocals. Sophia James and Ariel Kassnitz on background vocals

Travis Carlton on bass, Will Graf on guitar, RJ Kelly on drums, and Scary Pocket's leaders, Ryan on guitar and Jack on keys. Later on, I called those last two up to get them to explain what Rianna and I had just witnessed. And I started by asking about the way that the session started. I need you to like band the play stuff.

The very first thing that happened in this session was that Ryan did a count-off. And this struck me because I thought there would be like some conversation, kind of touching base, figuring out a plan. But instead, Ryan, you just counted to four. RJ started to groove. Do you start a lot of scary pockets sessions like that? Most sessions start with Jack and I sort of seeing what the moment. gives us. We're trying to capture lightning in a bottle. And so I feel like most of these sessions, we're just trying to wait for the spark and then cultivate it. So the most natural way for that

to happen is someone will just start playing something. And so we try to leave room for that to happen by not coming right out of the gate with an idea or telling people what to do. So a drummer will start playing something or a bass player will start playing something. And if Jack and I will get excited and point out and scream, yes, and we'll try to follow that and see where that leads us. I think that's a usual starting place. Would you, would you agree, Jack? Yeah, I mean, one of the things we try to do, too, I think is there's always a balance of, like, being prescriptive, but then, like, drawing, like, creativity out of the group, because the people in the room are literally, like, some of the best musicians in the world.

And so, you know, you want to build an environment where people can get their ideas out and get them out quickly. And most of the time I've found starting with anything is kind of the trick. Like just making sound is step one. And so it's like, all right, let's make some noise together. And honestly, most of the time in that first bit of noise that we make together, there's some element of that that we find inspiring. And then we chase that rabbit until we have an arrangement. You know, something. Just the first half that.

Yeah. So we're up. That's the, can you do that again? Exactly. So when you walk into the studio, you have nothing prepared except, I guess, the song itself. And sometimes not even that. Really? Yeah, sometimes, some of we change songs because we get there and the singer's like,

ah, I really just am not feeling this one. Or, you know, it's in the wrong key and we have to change key and then we change it. And then we realize, ugh, this isn't working. Let's switch songs. So, yeah, sometimes we don't even have, we don't even know what song we're going to do. In the case of this track, staying alive, do you remember how you selected this particular BG's track? Yeah, so our song selection process has been evolving as of late. But traditionally, it's a conversation between the singer and I where I'll tell them,

we try to do songs that everybody knows that aren't already funky. Now, in this case, the first part of that sentence outweighed the second part of that sentence. Because staying alive is a tremendously funky song to begin with, yeah. I mean, the whole point of doing a cover is you're taking something that everybody knows and changing it. And if they don't already know the song, you lose your context. Then it's just, it might as well be an original. So that's always the place I like to start from. We've toyed with that over the years.

And sometimes if I just love a song like Arrow Through Me, Paul McCartney and Wings, and we have someone like Madison Cunningham, I just want to hear her sing that song that I love. But more often than not, if we can find something like Staying Alive or I Will Survive or Yesterday, you know, songs people know just from the title. And especially we try and make our versions as different as possible from the originals in order to just be as creative as possible. If the original song has a guy singer, we'll try to get a girl to sing it,

will often change the meter or make it half time or double time. So with this song, yeah, Lizzie singing, staying alive just popped into my head after some back and forth. And so I proposed it to her and she was down. You're taking this intimately familiar song and you're transforming it. And the first thing that happens seems to be

you establish a groove. And in this case, you're replacing the disco groove of the original with this kind of loping, laid-back funk groove. And as we were watching you work, I think the next thing that happened is that you all turned to the harmonies of the song and began re-harmonizing those. We have a couple guiding principles that we tend to lean on, which is fun, funky, and simple. And that sound, that sort of guided what's resulted in the harmony that we tend to use, which is not a lot of extensions, not a lot of seventh chords. We tend to be as simple and as triadic as possible. We can start with A minor?

No, I like the D. I like the C. Then we go. Okay. Sing with us. One, two, three. And I got to point out, part of the reason we set these guidelines for ourselves is because it goes again. our nature.

Like both Ryan and I are harmony guys. Like we love harmony. We love thick textures and extensions. Complicated chords. Complicated chords. Complicated changes. And we kind of got together when we were starting pockets. We were like, what if it was not about that?

What if it was just about the feel of the groove? That is it. Let's prioritize what the groove feels like and not worry about the harmony. For staying alive, you transformed the harmonies of the original to something to me that sounds a little more vague, even kind of introspective. Ryan, in that moment, you say, we're very much in these chords today. We're very much in these chords today. This is like the new pockets five. What did that mean?

Again, one, two. I feel like, for whatever reason, I feel like we were sort of in like a Parsons mood that day. Parcel is the contemporary Australian funk band. And we were using those, like the chords you just played, I think are four, five, three. And we seemed to be in that sort of zone. So yeah, I think a few of the other songs we arranged that day

ended up having similar colors using similar chords. I think that's why I said that. I think one of the things about pockets is like a lot of the melodies that we end up, you know, using in the sessions and that the melodies of the songs that we end up choosing are going to be pretty simple melodies a lot of the time. They're like big pop songs that everybody knows they're easy to sing. And one of the like great joys of a of a simple melody is you can put a lot of different chords under it. And it really changes what the melody sounds like. You know, I'm a terrible singer, but I'm just going to, I'm just going to open up my, my keyboard here for a second. If your melody is, you know, you can play da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And that can just play the one. Or you can play da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And that totally

changes the vibe. Or you can play da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And those are like completely different chords, completely different feelings, all with the same melody. And so Pockets will often experiment with like a couple different sets of chords underneath the melody. And it changes the way it feels. 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, 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. After you establish this new harmonic palette for the song, you start to move into the arrangement itself. What instrument plays, what, where.

And after a few falls starts, you ended up with a riff that seemed to satisfy everyone. The woo of satisfaction. I was going to ask about that woo. Does anyone know from whence that woo emanated? That was definitely me. I was going to say that was me. Oh, really? Woo!

Check the tape. I'll see who's closer. What does that signify? What's happening when you can't... Boundless joy. That's the sound of confirmation that we're on the right track. That's it. Everybody just do that over and over.

again because it makes me go woo. Nate, just to back up a little bit. Yeah. I remember one interesting thing that happened, but, you know, before we even get to feel or harmony, is tempo and key. And one interesting thing that happened with this song was unintentionally, I think I had a riff in my head that ended up getting ditched, but we started the song way slower.

And I noticed Lizzie seemed uncomfortable with that. Is this feeling too slow for you? Yeah. So after giving that idea shot, I think we kicked the tempo up significantly so that it was a bit closer to the original tempo. So yeah, I think in terms of order of operations, I would put finding tempo and key sort of first and then groove and then harmony and then the actual nuts and bolts of who's playing what. Hearing that makes me think about how one of the principal dynamics in this arrangement is how your singer, Lizzie, feels about what's happening around them, right? There were certain moments in the arrangement process

where I sense that the band got really excited about some musical choice and then Lizzie would step in and say, this isn't working for me. I have a question. When are, what beat are you coming in on? Two. Like on the live? Yeah.

Okay. Are you hearing it later? Yeah, I'm just hearing it one on. Yeah, because I kind of would like the chord to like... Yeah. Let's do three. On three. Okay.

I don't know where to come in. This is stepping on my vocal. And all that enthusiasm kind of had to get back in the bottle and you had to go back to square one. That is one thing. I think I'm still like learning and getting better at over time is like sometimes I get really excited and I fly through because I'm really pumped about a direction. And I forget to check in. with the rest of the people in the room. That does happen sometimes.

But I think it's especially important to check in with the singer because the singer is the one in front of the camera and is like being extremely vulnerable by just sharing their personal vocal cords with us. And the best performances happen when the singer is fucking stoked and excited and passionate about what they're doing.

If the singer isn't like, doesn't love it, it comes through in the performance. We always try to be extremely, sensitive to making sure that they're comfortable because it's tough. Like I'm constantly aware of like I couldn't do this gig as a singer. They have a very hard job. And especially since, I mean, we work with the best singers in the world, but the best singers in the world are still used to doing three to 10 takes and then getting to comp,

getting to listen and hear back, okay, how's this working? So to force someone into doing one flawless take when. When the listener's ear, the viewing public's ear, is used to hearing auto-tuned, comped vocals. That's the bar. Ryan, could you explain what you mean when you use the term comp? So normally, when a singer records a vocal, they'll do a bunch of full takes of a song, and then they'll listen back, and they'll get to a word that they don't like, and they'll want to hear other options of what they sang in that spot and other takes.

And so comping is the process of compiling the best parts of many different takes. which is not what you do in a scary pocket session. A scary pocket session, we leave everything in warts and all. Oftentimes, Jack and I have made a mistake, which will stay in. And what we've found is that those quote-unquote mistakes often end up becoming our favorite parts of the song because they're signature to that moment. You know what I mean? They're part of what made that moment unique.

There's this wonderful moment in Maxwell Silver's Hammer, the Paul McCorm. Hartney song from, I think it's from Abby Road, where you can hear him chuckling as he's singing the lyrics. Yes. Writing 50 times, I must not be so. It's such a genuine, fun, lovely chuckle that just warms your heart and makes you feel so good as you're listening to the song. And it was because John Lennon stood up and mooned him from the control room and pressed his

butt against the glass. Paul was recording vocals and laughed as he was doing this. But the thing is like, instead of taking that out, George Martin and Jeff Emrick left that moment in there. I'm sure Paul wanted to leave it in there too. That's a production choice to leave those moments in there because they elicit a genuine emotional response for the person listening. There was a moment in one of our recordings with Monica Martin where we were covering this cold play song and she kind of forgot the lyrics or flub them and then just kind of laughed this nervously. And it's this wonderful moment where it's like you're seeing, you're seeing, a real person making music with their friends in a room. And all of the comments in the video

were about that moment. And people were like, thank you for leaving that moment in there and not taking it out. We have 90 minutes to record a song. We do four songs in a day. This is like truly a record of a moment. And we're okay with that. I think, or at least Ryan and I are okay with that. We're shooting for let's make this a record of a moment in time as opposed to let's show. shift and perfect and sculpt and make this the most perfect thing that anybody's ever heard. Groove, tempo, key, harmony, arrangement. After about an hour and 15 minutes, we got to what I think is maybe the final step in this process, actually rehearsing everything that you've just come up with on the fly in preparation of

putting it down on wax. And at this moment, I was kind of surprised, Jack, to hear you, call for something that I hadn't heard since my days in like a middle school jazz band. You know what I think we should do? I think we should do sectionals. Tell us what sectionals are and why you asked for those at that moment. Yeah, we rarely do those. Usually doesn't happen. However, when you have three vocalists and the band has been playing the whole time, the vocalists haven't had a chance to like

lock in with each other around the new parts and the new harmonies. I think we should go into another room, have the band shed the tune. And let's just tighten up all the vocal hymns. I'll do the band and you go with the girls. Okay, great. Should we go do sectionals? Okay. There's an ice out moving there.

I think we're going to hear. I think we're going to hear. Yeah. Let's just go to another room and just like, just run the vocal for some time and make all the syllables are nice. Sounds good. Or the same thing happens with horns. If you're working with three horns,

the horns sometimes need to get together and decide, wait, when are we breathing? Is it off on four or are we hitting four and then off on the end of four? And those little things can really tighten up a section, like a horn section or a vocal section. They can tighten up a section and make it feel punchy. Yeah. I can't try to understand the New York Times effect on it. That was great.

Cool. I think we got it. Yeah, I think when Rihanna and I heard the singers doing these harmonies so clearly and sort of in this crystalline way for the first time, I think we kind of got goosebumps. I think I actually expressed my amazement multiple times in the middle of that section. I was like, I can't believe it. It sounded like one voice. It was really bizarre. They are incredible.

After you've split up into band and vocalists practiced your parts, practiced as a whole, then you cut the actual performance. So I imagine the final part of this process must be selecting which of those takes is the one. that you're going to put out into the world. What does that process look like? It's normally the one with the most woo's after it. You have a woo meter? It's normally the one where when the take finishes,

one of us goes, that's the one. That was it. That was it. Fuck yeah. It's normally Jack. And then I normally go, no, no, no, Jack, that wasn't the one. And we normally do one more. Ooh, that was really close.

I messed up the words. I got an A minus on that. I think let's just burn one more, right? Yeah. Yeah, let's do one more straight in. I have good stuff. On selecting the take, this was complicated at first. I think we finally settled into that process a bit, but there is something that in this

moment is really important, in the moment of take selection, that's really important, which is to put the hole above the self, because there's a tendency for any one contributor to feel like, that wasn't my best take. I flubbed that chorus and I hit the wrong note and so we can't use that take. But actually, that was the take where despite any individual tradeoffs, the whole thing felt the best and resonated the best and had the most energy and had the most excitement. And so it was hard for me at first to let go of that and to be like, I fucked up the keyboard part in that verse.

I know I can do better than that. Let's do another. But actually, that was the magic take. And so there's this very important moment where you have to be like, no, my. own feeling about my own performance is not what matters right now. What matters is how that whole thing feels as a unit, as a band. And that's hard to do as a musician. But I think we've gotten to a place where we're now all recognizing and able to say like, yes, as a unit, this is the best take. This is the best feeling regardless of any individual one element. Jack, Ryan, thanks so much for

breaking down the secret sauce behind the scary pockets magic. Thank you, Nate. Thank you for having us. So fun to do this with y'all. Okay, that was a very funkifying conversation, but we knew there was one more person we had to talk to in order to really understand the scary pockets process of transforming a pop hit into a viral funk cover. The person who is putting themselves out there raw with no vocal comping or auto tune for the whole world to watch, we wanted to know how they do it. So, Rihanna caught up with the singer behind the powerful vocals we've been listening to over and over again throughout this episode to hear their side of this unique creative endeavor. Hi, my name is Lizzie McAlpine. I'm a singer-songwriter, musician, person. Perfect. Perfect. Sweet. So I guess what is it like joining Scary Pockets as a guest vocalist?

It's always so much fun. I think that Ryan and Jack are so talented. And it's such a, warm environment and it's such a creative space that it's always really fun to get to be a part of it. Why did you agree to team up with them? I assume they contacted you or did you reach out to them? Yeah, well, I met Ryan through a mutual friend a while ago, like last summer, I think, and our mutual friend was like, you have to do this. You have to do a scary pockets thing with him. And I was like, I'm so down. I'd heard of them before. And I was like, yeah, let's do it. And then we did a video for just the two of us. And that was the first thing that we did together.

And it was just so much fun. And I just like, I just had a blast. And now I just keep coming back over and over again. Was it daunting having the song changed on the fly as you recorded it? Did you find it difficult? Is it something you're comfortable doing? I feel pretty comfortable changing things up musically, like on the fly. It's kind of fun.

I mean, I always go into a scary pocket session knowing that the song is not going to not anything like the original. So I kind of was a little bit prepared for that. But it was really fun to kind of go through the arrangement and pick out specific things to change and different chords and hits and all that stuff. And yeah, it was really fun. Is there anything specific that has stuck with you from those recordings, like something you take back when you're working in the studio or when you're writing? Working with Ryan in general is just like, he just pushes me to think outside of the box. The choices that he makes on guitar, like chord-wise and harmony-wise and stuff, are just so unique and interesting, and I would never have thought to go there. And I definitely have been

thinking about that a lot recently while, like, writing a lot of my songs, I'm like, what would Ryan play here? Like, what would he, you know, I think about that a lot. As a vocalist on a cover song, how do you attack something like staying alive? Like, how do you add things that make it different from the original, the way that the instrumentalist improvise? Like, how do you attack vocally improvising on a song that already exists. Yeah, I do it pretty often because I used to cover a lot of stuff on Instagram and I would kind of, you know, change it up. I never want to cover a song and have it sound like the original. I think what is the point of you covering it? If it sounds like the original, you know, you could just listen to the original.

And I say, oh, there's nothing like your turn. Lift me up. And I'll be ready with it till the end of time. I got my beaches out in Georgia. Oh, yeah, shit. I get my weed from California. That's that shit. I took my shake up to the north. So anytime I cover any song I want to make it sound a little bit different. And I think with staying alive specifically, the arrangement was already so different that I didn't really have to change that much in the way that I approached the vocals. You know, I wanted to keep something consistent because I wanted people to have something to latch on to.

I mean for staying alive, I sang, you know, the original melody up until like the second verse. And then I, the second verse I kind of like to play around with like maybe a different like melody. Maybe the notes go somewhere else and see what happens. But usually I'll just stick to the original melody, especially in Scary Pockets recording, because the arrangement is already so different. As somebody that used to do cover songs on Instagram and doing cover sessions with Scary Pockets, what do you consider a successful cover? I think just making it your own, like your own. I mean, like I said, I don't ever want to cover a song and have it sound like the original. I want it to sound like I am covering it.

So I wanted to sound like me in whatever way that is. I usually don't know what that means until I like have sat down with the song and kind of coming up with the way that I would play it or the way that I would arrange it or sing it or whatever. I think that is successful to me. I think if it sounds like who I am, then it was a success. So is the funk aspect of scary pocket sessions challenging? Because it's a sort of genre that I assume from your work is sort of different than what you do, you know? I love to experiment with genres. I love to do all of that stuff.

So it's definitely not challenging. It's just more like exciting because I don't get to do that stuff very often. Anytime I have the opportunity to do something that's different from what I am currently doing, I will always take it. because I just think that by doing things that are outside of your comfort zone or that you're not used to doing it, it helps you grow as a musician. And I always want to be doing that. So anytime there's a chance to do something different, I will take it. The Scary Pockets Formula is fun, funky, and simple. It's something any musician can learn and everyone should really go hear it.

So go check out Lizzie McAlpine on the newest Scary Pocket's cover of Staying Alive on YouTube. Switchdown Pop is produced by Rihanna Cruz, engineered by Brandon McFarland, edited by Jolie Myers. Community Management is by Abby Barr, and our illustrations are by Iris Gottlieb. We're production of Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our executive producers are Nashat Kurwa and Hana Rosen. I also want to give a shout out to Rachel McGowan for her help making this all happen. You can find more episodes of our show. Anywhere you get podcasts, I'm talking about the Apple Podcasts. app. I'm talking about Spotify. I'm talking about our website, switchedonpop.com. You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram at Switched on Pop, and I want to know what scary pockets covers you're listening to. Tell us there. Finally, we've got a brand new episode coming up

next week. And until then, thanks for listening.