Switched on Pop - The architecture of the album with Djo (Joe Keery live at NYU)

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Halfway through the opening track of Joe Keery's The Crux, a line emerges that sounds like casual conversation: "My dog is at my house again, but I live somewhere else." The song refuses to settle into predictable pop architecture, drifting from whispered confession to baroque strings that recall Pachelbel more than indie rock. Recorded live at NYU, Charlie explores how this structural restlessness reflects broader questions about authenticity in contemporary music, examining how Keery's creative process emerged from practical constraints like writing in Stranger Things trailers and stripping back arrangements to work live. The album's hotel metaphor isn't marketing concept but lived displacement: temporary rooms, fractured domesticity, the search for stability. From the snarky dismissiveness of "Basic Being Basic" to a stadium-rock anthem written for his sisters, The Crux demonstrates how eclectic influences can serve cohesive emotional architecture, trusting listeners to follow sophisticated progressions while never losing sight of why these songs matter to people finding their way back to their own hearts. Songs Discussed Djo - "End of Beginning" Djo - "Lonesome is a State of Mind" Djo - "Basic Being Basic" Djo - "Potion" Djo - "Charlie's Garden" Djo - "Back On You" Djo - "Carry the Name" Djo - "Crux" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Hey, it's Charlie. Today's episode comes from a live session that I hosted last week at NYU, where I also teach songwriting and production. I was in a room of music students chatting with Joe Kiri, aka Joe D.J.O. and we revisited his third album, The Crux, on the eve of The Crux Deluxe, which just dropped on Friday. Our aim was to decode this album because it's a chance to hear how one of today's most adventurous artists thinks about making an album album, the kind of work that holds together as a complete statement, even while pulling from many different sounds. Here's my conversation with Joe, live at NYU.

Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding, and this is Joe Kiri. I'm Joe Kiri, hey. How's everyone doing? Good. Cool. I'm so happy that you are joining us here at NYU. Yeah, thanks for having.

Since we last checked in about a year and a half ago, we spoke about your album, Decide, we talked about your huge hit back to Chicago, and since just the most enormous amount of things have happened, it's been a huge year for you back in April. It's crazy. You release The Crux, your third studio album, as Joe, D-J-O. Then in June, Iron came out with your bandmates post-animal. Your first record with them since 2017.

Crazy. The film Pavements recently dropped. The final season of Stranger Things is coming in November. The film Cold Storage is forthcoming. All of that alongside a massive world tour. And just this week, you've dropped three singles every single day of the week. One, like, a half an hour ago. Okay, lots has happened.

But I want to stay with the crux. Sure. It really stands out. And I want to make sure I get this right. You've described it as a hotel for people at a crossroads? Yeah, that was kind of the concept that we, when we were putting together, the visual stuff that we kind of stumbled into. I was working on it with my friend from post-anmills named Jay Kersland, and we did all the visuals together. And we were hoping to do some sort of maximalist homage to albums from the same.

70s. I think Super Tramp was a really big influence on us. They have some amazing album covers. If you don't know, their covers, oh my God, they're so great. What's happening in this hotel? Everything's. Yeah. Everything's. It's exactly what I said. I guess the crossroads of the album for me felt like a real, I was in this kind of fluid part of my life where I kind of was living in a bunch of different places and going from job to job, kind of a result of all the things that you mentioned at the beginning of this. You've lived in a lot of hotels. I've lived in a lot of lot of hotels and temporarily in cities all over the world exactly and so it felt like a good way to maybe kind of capture what the theme you know because the music is about a bunch of different things

but with the theme behind the process for everything was I mean this is definitely like an album album to me you know it's like it's got architecture it's got a lot of different moods that need to be experienced I feel like as a whole thanks and I would like to listen to the entire thing back to back all together yeah but we're not going to take forever yeah it's a little a little while it would be 45 minutes it wouldn't be that long but But I want to stick to the guiding metaphor of the Crocs. And tonight, what I'd like to do is go through a little tour of this hotel, if you will. Cool.

Love this. So we'll check in at Lonesome State of Mine. Okay. We're going to stop in the lobby mirror with Basic being Basic. We're going to drift into the dream suite of potion. We're going to wander down a bit of a diversion, if you will, to the hallway of a new single called Carry the Name. And finally, we'll check out the rooftop view of the Crocs. Great.

Okay. Love it. Have fun. So let's get into some music. Okay. I think this is a great opportunity to really understand how to create a work that is both very cohesive and yet not confined. That draws from a ton of different places but creates a singular voice. I think that's what we're going to hear tonight.

Thanks a lot. Let's start with the opening track. Lonesome is the state of mind. Okay. My dog is at my house again. But I live somewhere. else. I swear I've had this dinner before.

I know I've heard that song. My future is not what I thought. I thought it wrong. It's one on one. I have to say, it's also been like kind of a second since I've listened to this. So it's cool to hear it in this room with all of you guys is here too. So go socks also. I'm sorry.

In New York City, how dare you? Oh, my God. Watch out. If the doors are locked, I think we're safe. How does lonesome serve as a check-in point for our listeners? It's kind of like setting the stage, I guess. It's a bit of like a breakup record and a bit of a... So yeah, kind of setting the stage of where I'm at.

I think this song where it fits with everything else is kind of a midpoint maybe. It has like a little of a bunch of different things, especially later on the song. It kind of has sort of a quieter introverse and then kind of an upbeat chorus, I'd say. and then the outro is kind of blown out a little bit more. Oh, we're going to get there. Okay. This is, I think, profound, though, because, so the last time I spoke with you,

I was really uncertain of who was going to walk in the room. Sure. I mean, I had primarily known you first through film and television, and all of your characters are not as nice as you are. And I was like, I hope he's going to be a nice guy. It turns out we were back, so I think it went well. I passed. But I was also like, or is he going to be Joe, DJO, the mustache,

wig wearing, sunglasses wearing, persona. And then you show up. And the first lines we hear, you're saying, like, it's immediately personal. Yeah. We've sort of let go of the costume. Yeah. That was definitely an effort to do that.

And I think I was trying to do that before, but just trying to do it even more now, just like to use the art form as a way to process what I was going through in my life. And, yeah, that's where I was at, I guess. I was being very literal. about things. There's some very gutting lyrics here. The one that really took me, that hit me the hardest, such a plain spoken sort of domestic lyric, my dog is at my house again, but I live somewhere else. Yeah. I think there's a matter-of-factness about, you can hear Paul McCartney

all over my music. I love the guy. I think his music is genius. And there's something very, I say matter-of-fact where he's kind of like laying it out for it to be interpreted how people may interpret it. And that's something me and Adam talk about all the time, about the lyrics, but also about like the way something is performed, doing something almost plainly in a way. So I feel like that lyric maybe falls into that bucket of being like, what's like the simplest version of this? I mean, there's heartbreak, but then there's being dislocated from your animal.

Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty pretty silly sad. And so we begin from a place of lonesomeness, of a place that needs healing. And I think you sort of hinted out like maybe this song feels like the little bit starts in the middle. Maybe there's little moments of feelings of resolution. I want to jump into the second verse. Sure. But now I take the train. Takes an edge. It grinds it clean. Turns a scar to a seam. This lyric right there. Time it takes an edge and grinds it clean. Turns a scar to a seam.

Proud of that one. That one's good. I like that. Yeah. It's good to own the things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is good to own the things that you're... Yeah, I think that's a good lesson. But yeah, something that, you know, is a searing pain one day, slowly gets a little bit more dull and you get more... It can be used to help you, I guess. You know, if you have a scar from jumping off a roof, you're like, well, I'm not going to do that again, you know?

There's progression in this song. We go from driving a truck. Now you're riding trains. It suggests that there's been a lot of movement and displacement in life. And I think that we get some sort of sense of, like, This album will take us towards resolution. There's like little hints of it, I think particularly in the outro that you were speaking about.

Yeah. I think I'll take it show that kid to the door. It's almost like Edward Scissor Hands or something, that section to me. It's like Philip Glass. Like, do, ba, buddha. Yeah, I was hearing almost like Pocobel's canon. Yeah, very baroque. Definitely.

Absolutely. I think the chord changes are literally that. Yeah. Yeah. Why are we going baroque now? I don't know. I played a lot of George Winston on the piano when I was a young guy. And my mom played that winter album from George Winston a ton.

And honestly, it's deeply within me. Yeah, and then also I feel like it's totally lifting from my roots with Post-Animal, like kind of a big, explosive, bombastic. Another thing I learned from those guys is like you can have a section, be one thing, and then you don't necessarily have to go back, you know, taking somebody on like a bit of a ride. And that's always something with an album that I love, something that is eclectic and touches on different influences and is exciting and kind of

unexpected just keeps me listening, I guess, as simple as that. So trying to make those choices every opportunity that you can. There's a lot of composed sections in this music. In fact, in many ways, the outro is a callback to the intro where we have this sort of counterpoint synth thing happening. And you're like, okay, but we hear it in a very different context. Sure. A lot has happened. I just want to point out also in the sort of bridge outro, you introduce a great songwriting cliche and then immediately subvert it. I was one, two was nice.

29 and misaligned. Counting is fine. There's plenty of great songs. I love a good. Oh, I count. You can count. But, you know, I'm like, I'm waiting for the three and you take us right to 29.

29 misaligned. So this album sort of feels like a life audit. Yeah, exactly that. Taking it as a way to chop things up and kind of rethink it and relive it, memorialize it maybe. Yeah, and like also speak it out loud sometimes helps get through something Sometimes you're like this is the last thing I'd want to say or something I didn't get a chance to say

Let's talk about one of the things that might be uncomfortable to say I want to move on to the next song on the record okay which is basic being basic sure yeah Let's take a lesson okay Get food Barely eat I just get me glue feel to take the I'm a sucker so we go from Lonesomeness to you know your verse here, get food, barely eat. It's both like disaffected and entirely

snarky. Yeah, for sure. It's not playing a nice guy. No, and like, I feel like I think of myself as kind of like a nice person. And so it was fun in the song to be like, throw that out the window and be like, this is how I feel. Who are we speaking to? You know, someone in my life, I won't say who, but it just is like,

it came out very naturally. I wrote this song in Atlanta when I was living down there and working down there. wrote the, you know, it's not very complicated really at all, and wrote all the parts, and was just walking around the neighborhood, and the lyrics were just like, oh, da, da, da, da, da da da da da da da, da.

And then it was pretty much done. And it just, like, felt very, very, when something flows through you so fast, and you'd edit it and then you don't put it out, I was just kind of like, what's the point of anything if you can't do that, even though it is uncomfortable and sort of like, it is a side of me that it does exist.

And it felt like an important part to share on this record that kind of I was trying to bear myself a little bit more. I felt like, okay, this is also a side of yourself. Maybe not one that you're proud of, but one that's true to the whole thing, I think. You get hurt by people, and then you want to lash out and hurt them back, I guess. Well, it's a very satisfying kind of song to have in the world, where it's like, that song is saying something I feel,

but I don't like saying out loud to other people. So it takes a certain bravery to say, I'm going to say these tough things that... Yeah, I think also this song is very easily... It sounds kind of like I'm trying to make some, like, cultural statement, which I'm really not. I'm not trying to say anything about like everyone as a whole. And I've had a lot of people ask me like, so like, what are you trying to say about society? That's something. I'm like, listen, I'm just like it's actually so simple and cut and dry. It's actually just like about my life.

And it can be interpreted however you think, I guess. I heard all kinds of other ways of thinking about it. Maybe we should just completely move on. But I think it's worth pointing out that this is a song that I think reflects, there's many ways of of hearing it. So I think it's so valuable. I'd like to share some of the ways that I was hearing it. Absolutely. I love to hear it.

When we move into our second chorus, the chorus changes. Takes on a slightly different character. We're basic. Shuffle numbers, pointing fingers, ditching chats, and different apps. That's basic.

Yeah. Now, maybe this is the one person, but I see this all over the place which is being like, get off your phone. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I mean, I do it also.

But it's also just about someone But it's like so specific. Yeah. In your second verse, you sing. I don't want your money. I don't care for fame. I don't want to live a life where that's my big exchange. I want simple pleasures. Friends who have my back. Everyone has secrets but not everyone can't. I don't want your money. I don't care for fame. I don't want to live a life where that's my big exchange. I want simple pleasures, friends who have my back. Everyone has secrets, but not everyone. can fool a man like that. This, I can start to see as getting very personal. Yeah, definitely.

And then again, that's also that ties in really well to the end of the record too. So it's like... Completely unintentionally is some foreshadowing. It's like writing the record. There was no order. It was just like a big think tank. So that song, Carrey the name that just came out,

has the same first lyric as one of the other song. I think it is lonesome maybe. Oh, interesting. Completely unintentional. didn't notice until today. It's like, because maybe they were written around the same time. I don't know. It's just like just letting it kind of go.

And then as the album starts to like shape itself, you do start to notice these things that sort of like this, me talking about my friends and later on the album, that's a big kind of point that is made. It's just kind of nice. When we first met, I don't know if you remember this. I very boldly. I'm just like, I don't like vanity projects.

I didn't want to talk to you originally. Yeah, no, it's good. And I was like, but I listened to the record, the record was really good. And, but a lot of your records are dealing with, and your music project, think, very much is dealing with, what does it mean to be a public person? Yeah.

Right? And there's all the kinds of expectations that come with that. And I'm hearing, and I think we're going to see through the arc of the rest of the record, the like, who are you supposed to be as a musician, whose job it is to perform vulnerability while also having to protect having some kind of private life without disclosing everything.

Yeah, the thing that I learned from end to beginning is like that was a super, it didn't feel like a song that would really relate to many people when I was working on it. It was a super specific song about my relationship to going back to, honestly, very similar to this. I went to the theater school in Chicago. Walking the streets in Chicago, you're like,

oh man, remember when me and Jack did this or I went to a party there and Zoe, you know, blah, whatever. It's about that. And through the process of writing that song and it kind of connecting to people so deeply, I set out on this record with the same sort of thesis, I guess, of just like at every point, just trying to make it as personal to myself as possible.

I want to pause for just a second so we can get back to, in a beginning, into people's ears for a second. Sure. So for some of us, we're remembering where we were in, When did this blow up? 2023?

Yeah, I think so. Right? But it came on, what, 20, 22 and took a year or two to have its moment. Right. So some of us are remembering, oh, I remember where I was

when this was all over my phone. Right, right, right, of course. More explicitly are probably remembering, I remember when I went back to my high school after having not been there. Everybody's got that, yeah. We're not so different. Everybody's the same.

Not everybody's exactly the same, but we all like. Are you saying that we're all so basic? I am so basic. I think, I don't know. That's the other way I was wondering if the song was going Was like any sort of Well you have this trick that you do in a lot of your songs

Or your productions where Maybe the trick is the wrong word But this choice where a lot of your verses Are these sort of like telephone like vocals A little distorted Definitely on this Right So when we hear the verse

Actually both in Lonesome and in Basic Absolutely Get food Barely every bite just kept me glued to my seat But then when we get to the chorus there's like this opening. I mean, that also is a function of knowing that we're going to play these live. And feeling as though I didn't want to rely on, I've done like massive stacks of vocals and it sounds amazing.

And then you go to play live, you're like, oh God, like this is. Oh my gosh, right. So I was challenging myself to find my own voice and just really lean on a solo vocal as much as possible. Because a lot of the music that I love, it's just one person singing. generally. I mean, obviously there's massive exceptions and stuff, but trying to like be exactly, it's another layer of just tearing back the layers and trying to just be like, okay, it might be a little risky here, but this is the vocal you're getting. It works on, so, okay, so this, I love this, there was a very practical reason. There's a taste reason. Yeah. Especially in the song

of foreign loads. One of things I hear is there's sort of like a revelation that's also occurring. Makes me think of the Bruce Springsteen adage that Jack Antedoff constantly repeats, which is that you want to sing blues in your verse and gospel in your chorus. Oh, wow, I don't know that. So blues, all the details of your life. And then when you get to the chorus, you can just say, hallelujah.

Like, whatever the messages doesn't have to be as detailed. That's just, yeah. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. But you're right also about the ethos of basic, too. It is also kind of like a challenge, like why don't you be as absolutely lame and basic

as you can possibly be? Because guess what? If you're even trying to be cool or in that is so uncool, I guess. That is also kind of how I was feeling about that song. Do you have that fear about releasing music? Is it too basic? Yeah, I think everybody does.

Everybody has that fear about anything, about like you walk out of your house and you're like, do I look cool? I like will change my clothes like 50 times sometimes. I'm like, what am I doing? What am I doing? Yeah, kind of like a challenge to be as cringe as possible, sort of. How does it feel to play?

I guess in your other career, you play characters. Is it easy for you to sort of lean into these, do you feel like that aids you in being able to lean into different emotional states of, yeah, I want to be the nice guy, but I'll also be the person who's going to say some cutting nasty stuff? Yeah, I guess like it's important to like realize

that you're not just one thing and you can be, it's really easy for me to sort of tell, like this is who I am, this is the person that I am, where we're still kind of like figuring it out. you know, I'm in my, you know, now mid-30s, and I still feel like, oh, okay, this is a part of me that I have to kind of, like, sort out, or this is a part of me that I have to accept. And you don't really, you're never kind of really arriving, at least not yet, so. We've been presented with some different kinds of characters so far. We've been going through this hotel, and the album goes in so

many different directions. And when we go to the fourth song, Potion, we enter a really different domain. for all of miles to find someone that leaves on the light for me. I love that song. Oh, man, what do you want to know? It's a real palette cleanser. Totally. It's a real positive song, right? So it really shifted emotions.

We've shifted soundscapes. We've gone from heavy guitars. The drums have lightened up. We've gone to acoustic guitars. This is definitely like a guitar player dream kind of song. Yeah. You know, immediately I'm like, oh, how's he doing those things? Yeah, sure, sure.

I'm like, oh, he's playing DadGat tuning. Yeah. Oh, okay. And as soon as you start unlocking someone's tuning, you're like, oh, so he listens to Jimmy Page and he listens to, you know, that's like the Jimmy Page tuning that was done on Black Mountain Side and on Kashmir. And it's a common, like, Irish folk tune tuning. At the same time, I'm hearing, like, Lindsay Buckingham, 12-string guitar.

Oh, and we're getting Melatron. So it's putting us in a lot of different places. Why did you want to take us here? man I got obsessed with Travis picking I was like found out about that like you said the different tunings and I was in Canada and so bored no friends and I just was playing a lot of guitar I think this and fly were written at the same time I was just moving up and down the neck and figuring stuff out and just taking capos on off and yeah I just felt like uh there's something really kind of like Sesame Street and it's kind of like Harry Nilsen also about this song and like

For me, it's like a very visual song. I feel like I can see... There's this artist named Ed Emberley that I loved as a little kid, and I feel like I see little Ed Emberley drawings when I'm listening to this song. And what I really love about music, I'm not like a...

I can sit down, and if I try hard enough, I can generally get to something, but what I love is just how things are all slotted together. I feel like this song is all that. You know, all these little bits that are, you know, the timing and the weird... You switch time signatures. Yeah, and then the vocal, da-da-da-b-b-ba-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-and all these, like, different little parts that work in conjunction with each other.

And I love that. That gives me, like, the – it's like organizational pleasure or something like that. The same way that, like, someone – it feels really good to, like, have your apartment clean. This, I feel like is a similar feeling. It feels like, ooh, everything's in its place. It feels really good. Yeah. All of that is serving – you're creating this dreamlike space, right?

You're saying when I wake up at 3 in the morning. Another songwriting cliche, right? I woke up in the morning. Yeah. But you take us not deeper into that cliche. You can take us to witching hour, too strong, like a witch, I need my potion. What the hell does that mean? What does it mean?

Where are we going? I don't know. That just came to me. A lot of the time is just like it just will come to you and you're just like, wow, that's kind of weird, huh? I guess I'm going to follow this and where will it lead. I know that the chorus of this song was different. The vocals, I forget the different, I don't remember what the words were, but was kind of

searching for what that might be. What it reminds me of, if you're drawing on these sort of 1970s references, like Led Zeppelin would write about like Tolkien. Yeah. Right? And so like fantasy world is available to us in songwriting. Sure. And so this witching hour, you carry on that metaphor.

I need my potion. But then there's just like this really, again, back to the first song, this sort of plain, domestic, very simple but very loving lyric. I'll try for all my life just to find someone who leaves on the light for me. It's nice. It's like nice to hear, yeah. And I feel like I was looking for that at the time. That was just me in my life, I guess.

Like, I had lost this partnership in my life, and I was kind of like reaching out for something too. So you're maybe a little down on yourself in the next verse. Mr. Magic and the Trappdor Ladies, Big Walk, no talk, glitz and glamour doesn't age like wine does. I'm counting on love. Yeah, wine gets better. Glitz and glamour does not.

I had big walk, no talk, in my little journal for so long. Because I feel like a lot of people will have, just a journal, you just jot down, this turn of phrase, this turn of phrase, you know, just funny things that people say. And that was one that I was like, I wonder if this could work. And it just kind of worked for the section. Yeah. I mean, contrast with this feeling of like, the desire in this song is just this plain, I want someone to leave the light on for me.

Yeah. Going out big glitz and glam, all the big talk, big block. Yeah. That's not it. Yeah. And it's not an intellectual process at all songwriting for me. It's like I'm really instinctual about the whole thing. And I'm just like following whatever is inside of me.

And sometimes it works. And I will definitely go through multiple series of editing, you know, songs. But I'm generally like casting around in the abyss for something. And waiting, kind of like, we're working. and we're like putting all the parts together. And then if it like hooks in, it's like, and then write it really quick, as fast as you can write it.

I'd say any song that I really, really love kind of was done that way. And sometimes it takes a long time. You're like waiting forever. You're like, man, I love this song. I know the melody. I know what it could be about. I like have the whole thing,

kind of the idea, but the words, it just is not happening. So sometimes that just like takes a long time. I know, like, Crux, which was song 45. It was song 45 forever. I was like, what the fuck is song 45? Come on, song 45. Like, got to get the lyrics to song 45.

And, you know, one day it just was like, it's always also when you're doing something, you're like doing the dishes. Yeah. Oh, my God, yeah. And then try to keep. Well, this is the thing that I find very frustrating about you. Yeah.

You're very effective at using all the free time in life to be creative. That's when your brain gets a chugging. and you're like running or walking a lot or talking to yourself a lot. This is a bit from our previous conversation. When we last met up, you talked about much of your previous record was written in trailers while on set.

Now, while you're on set, there's a lot of time where people are killing time. Absolutely. So much time. Wasted time. All kinds of things that people could be doing. Yeah. And especially, I mean, you're on one of the biggest budget shows

on the planet, which means that they can pull actors for longer periods of time and have to sit around. There's not a big budget. They're like fly out one day. That's it. So you have all this free time and you could be sitting there being basic scrolling on your phone and we all do a bit of that. I do some of that.

But you're also like, I'm sitting here making an album in my trailer. Yeah. It doesn't feel like that though when you're doing it. You're kind of just like fighting the urge to not do something like that or you're, I procrastinate so hard just as much as anyone else. But like leaving a guitar out. so that you can procrastinate with a guitar. That's a great idea.

And incredibly effect. I'm sorry. This is like obviously just directly speaking to all my students. No, but that is a, and also like spending my money, I was like very tight. I just was like, I can't, I'm not going to spend this money.

And the second that I was like, you know what, I found this piece of equipment or something that I really like and I spend so much of my time working on this. Like, do it. Get this thing that you are really inspired. Because you're going to get stuff from this thing.

Oh, sure. The right guitar. I mean, obviously, that guitar is going to inspire me forever. That's a very important. I can tell you forever, but we can talk about it later. I didn't even see her back there. Oh, yeah, yeah. Also, this piano, holy smokes.

Very cool. I'm in a piano. I'm not a very good piano player, but I just, we were talking back there. I just got a piano, and you're very excited to have it kind of. I play piano, obviously, on this, but, like, all as a means to an end, but I'm very excited to kind of like start writing songs on the piano a little bit more. Like, some were done that way on this album, but to have it around to be like, lazy Saturday

sit down and just I don't know. I want to I want students to know that like yeah you know in a second we're going to turn the story about me because I have to talk about this guitar this guitar is really hard and you also wrote a song about me so

we're going to get there in a second yes of course I did but I want to impart that your second record made in like unusual conditions that might have been hopefully nicer looking in a dorm room but maybe no better with Like a laptop and an interface and a MIDI controller. Yeah.

Focus right, Scarlet, two by, whatever. Yeah, right. Oh my God. Yeah, right. I also, like, will lose it all the time. I've opened a bag. I was like, three of them. Like, oh, God, close that bag.

Okay, so you're, I talk in my songwriting course that it's really important that you need to throw yourself into the path of creativity. Yeah. This is a Jeff Tweetyism. Yeah. He's one of the few really good writers about the creative process. Yeah, completely his book is great.

In your trailer, having the thing ready, open to go so you can procrastinate writing. It's like, oh, I'm accidentally productive. And like for this record, for sure, it was like having an acoustic guitar around because I had not forever. And I went to old style guitars in L.A. And I bought a recording king that was like kind of random. And I brought it to Calgary. And it got destroyed, actually, because of the temperature changes. So I cracked the bridge.

When I brought it back, it was like, I still have it. It's sort of like, save me. It's like this like destroyed guitar. But having that around, like half these songs wouldn't have happened. I could have been just like, I don't know, you could just go out, you could do this, you could do that, and made an effort every day to just sit down and just finish something. Because another thing that I'm sure all you feel, it's like you feel the need to like do something really profound all the time. I'm always like stuck and I feel like really trapped by that feeling of like it's not the perfect lyric or it's not this.

And thinking of it as like a, here's the experiment. I have this whole month. I'm going to get like one idea every day. And even if it's like 15 seconds and it's just, and that's it, it counts. And that really released some stuff for me too. Because then you also just get into the habit, playing more. And that helped me too.

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Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. Maybe the moment has passed, but I'm going to steal the microphone for a second. Because I know you really like guitars. We were talking about backstage. So I have to tell you about this guitar, but again, it's only because it's instructive to people and because I want to tell everybody about my guitar.

Yes, please. So it's like a Gibson L4 from the early 1950s. And I found it in my local guitar shop where I grew up in Maine. And there were, actually my friend Jenny found it for me because she knows that I have a guitar problem. So she's like, you're coming home to Maine. So she's an enabler.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's an enabler. She's not helping. No. Well, it depends who you are. And she says, on the wall of this guitar shop, these four beautiful archtop guitars. And I know you have just come from California.

You don't have a guitar with you. You need a guitar. I'm like, you know me well. Anyway, long story short, the guy who owned this guitar, he owned four art shop guitars. He was in his, I think, early 80s. Oh, wow. And he said, I'm going to consign all my guitars because I want to learn to play violin. Amazing.

He had spent his whole life playing guitar. He was ready to move on to the next thing. Amazing. So that's the only reason I want to invoke this guitar is like making music is just such an amazing lifelong endeavor. Absolutely. Right. So that's why that guitar is special.

And that's like, like, you just have to be interested, too, and bored, kind of. I feel like that. My dad is, he's, like, taking an acting class right now, which is amazing. And, like, he did this whole, went to this show. I mean, my dad is that kind of guy through and through, and that's always really inspiring. He's just, like, doing so much stuff. I'm like, what do you mean? You work, like, a full-time job.

You're doing, like, a cabaret show with, like, a bunch of people in Lawrence. What the hell? That's so cool. It's great. I love that. Yeah. Creativity is not confined to just, just. those who are getting paid to do it.

Definitely not. Yeah, I feel like if you kind of just keep banging away at, it's suddenly you're like, oh, there's a thing. I got a little thing notched out for myself. Well, let's keep it about me for a minute because actually what I really want to talk about, he has a song called Charlie's Garden. Yeah.

And it's another great example of incorporating references. Certainly. This one, there's some really on the nose that are a lot of fun. Let's check it out. Yeah, I feel like listening to that right now, I hear the whirlia in the pre-chorus is like super tramp. That's their sound. It's full Mr. Blue Sky.

McCartney, for sure. There's like that dong, dong, this bell that we found, electric lady. Yeah, I feel like, and also, I kind of feel like why aren't people don't make songs like that? Not to gas myself up, but it's like, why aren't people making kind of like fun sort of songs? Like fun, fun, I don't know. Okay, let's talk about the purpose of the song and I want to talk about the influence because, you know, in a certain way,

this is like just a fun, jaunty song. Absolutely. It serves almost like a Shakespearean comic relief in a, we've been dealing with lonesomeness, we've been dealing with some heavy emotions. Why do we need this jaunty song in the mix? Well, if the song wasn't about Charlie, it wouldn't...

It's not about me, it's a much better Charlie. Tell me about the story of the song, I guess. So the story of the song is, I was at my friend Charlie's house and we lived in Atlanta and if this is my street, this is his street over here in the yards combined. So I would like cross into his backyard and he had a ping pong table. You go back there shirtless drink your coffee. You're just playing ping pong or you're going like there's a hot toes amazing. It was like wow, how did I end up here? And he had a piano at his house. We didn't

have one at my house. And they were taking their dog, Penny, out to go like on a hike one day. And just a lazy sort of Sunday, you know, play. I wrote this and then it's over actually. actually on the same day. And yeah, this was just one that is like an homage to my friend. And it felt like what other reason is there to put a song on an album? And I definitely was like, you can really hear the influences. I don't know if I should put this on this record.

But I really like listening to this song. And it means something deeply to me. So I'm sort of like, well, let's just go with it. And to be honest, I haven't regretted it at all. I mean, my influences are my influences. And it's like a little tip of the cap. And it does serve like a. as you're saying, a little palette cleanser, too, you know.

So your friend is Charlie Heaton. He's one of your co-stars and Stranger Things. He's featured here, that little spoken word moment. Feet Charlie, yeah. It's very sweet. Sometimes it's fun to be honest about our influences. We would definitely live in a moment where there are plenty of artists who I'll talk to who will be like,

I'm not going to say who I'm influenced by because then they're going to come at me. And that is a real thing. You can definitely shy away from it, and I totally understand it, but everybody's got influences. and you listen to anybody's music, and you're like, you listen to that, don't you? And it's just like, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, and you listen to that. I hear Paul McCartney playing Penny Lane. Absolutely. Penny the dog is quoted here. Oh, we got to hear the trumpet. That's a high note. I did not play that note. We did this one, and it's over in L.A., actually, because Jack has a studio in L.A.

that he was kind of... Jack is your... Jack Antonoff, actually. We've been stealing his space for the better part of two years. Very nice. You recorded Electric Lady in the space that he's been recording out of. Exactly. So we'll go into that room sometimes, but he's kind of like always in the building.

And, you know, he's become a bit of a friend. And so we were out there just because we had these two extra songs. I was like, okay, let's work on these two songs. And a friend of a friend had played the trumpet. We said, hey, could you do this trumpet? And he did it from home and sent it in. We literally just put it on the track and we're like, huh, did it. Like, perfect.

But it obviously, it looks so many Beatles' recordings where we got those little solos. Yeah, of course. And I love that. I love, like, a featured instrument that comes out of nowhere and just kind of lifts the whole song and transforms this section

because we're kind of like in this thing. We know what we're doing. And then we get to this section and it's sort of like kind of freaky. It's like a little circusy. I think we even called it like circus or something in that part. There's, obviously,

then we have the title, Charlie's Garden, reminds me of octopus's garden. Of course. It feels very sort of day and the lifey as well. But I think one of the things that makes it really different in owning your influences is you've actually come from a very different perspective. One of the things you did not shy away from your love of Paul McCartney. One of the things I love about Paul, of all the things, is that he is not afraid to write fictional songs, totally create characters that never existed.

He's good at that. And they become part of our lives. But you've actually done the opposite. You've taken a very heavy influence. but then made something very, again, domestic, personal, about your friend. A song about friendship. Yeah.

There's not enough songs about friendship. Yeah. I always like to note them. Yeah. It's very easy to write like a love song, but it's very hard to write a song about not romantic love. I think also like back on you, I feel like that way.

A song about like my family and crux as well. I mean, I guess we'll get to that one. This is exactly where I wanted to go. Let's keep going through this hotel of supposedly fictional rooms and characters sure that seem to be a heavily based on your life yeah uh your song back on you yeah is a song that is a song about love yeah but it is not a romantic song it is about just true unconditional love let's take a listen yeah this song is another good example of like i had this

is the first song we started i had that first there's no choir i just had that you know simple it's like gdh very simple and you know kind of knew that like it was be really cool to do like a thin Lizzie style like sort of like rock track that is about that which is like those things don't usually go hand in hand usually it's about like going out and like looking for chicks you know what i mean so i had this like first verse pretty much and it was like i knew the song was going to be important to me and it's i mean it like totally fucked me i i was like stuck on the song for like a year and a half like i could not write the rest of the song You open, I've known my sisters for a lifetime,

I count my lucky stars that I have them, in a thin, lizzie background. Yeah. And it was just a, I guess, like, kind of down to the wire. I needed the pressure. I don't know exactly what it is that I needed. But we ended up, like,

I kind of figured out what the choruses would be. So then my sisters did a bunch of background stuff for the record, and they came in and did all these gang vocals that you can hear throughout the record, and they punched all these things. But it was like, I kind of like wasn't, I was trying to like not play them that part to like not cue them in.

One of my sisters heard it though, but she kept it quiet. But yeah, it was like a song that I knew was kind of like a tent pole for the album for me. I was like, I don't know, it's like, again, super direct about the way that I feel with these people who, you don't say that stuff. Like when was the last time you said something so like serious and direct to someone in your family? Like, thank God I have you. Like I've laid down my life for you. Like, what other point is there for music, I guess, to, like, say these things that you'd, like,

to declare this thing. You made a stadium rock anthem for your sisters. For my sisters, yeah. And for my friends, too. I mean, and that was actually sort of how the song was unlocked for me. It was like, I think I was focused on that, but then really also thinking about, like, who else is in my life? And it's my friends, my good, my good pals and my buddies who, in times, you know,

when times are tough, the people that you can, like, truly turn to. you back in was it in college that you started post-animal I didn't start it I joined I was just a waiter and they needed a drummer and I just was at the right place at the right time like hey you like Tame and Paula I like Tame and Pala let's go and I joined the band you were dressing the new Tame and Pala music video yeah of course so that's a that was crazy dream realized full yeah but you had you had to leave the band your life got too busy yeah things happened

yeah but here's the band Post-animal playing with you Right? Yeah. They're on all over this thing. Singing, doing different things, Jake. Yeah, everybody. So you're singing a song about how much I love you and you can lean on me. I know. It's great. It's like selfishly for me, that was the whole, like, the best part of the experience. And like looking back, even listen to it now, I have like enough time away from it where it's like, oh, wow, I can't believe you did this. It's great. How they feel about it? Great. I think. I don't know. It's like, yeah, they love it.

It's kind of you're like with a little help for my friends, but with a thin Lizzie vibe or something. Yeah, exactly. It's very sweet. Yeah. We got to continue this tour. There's two more stops. We got to take. Yeah, take me there.

Let's take a little detour, actually. Okay. Because we're nearly at the end. Yeah. But before we get to the end, we have to go to the beginning. Yeah. I'm sorry. Lay it on me.

I'm a dad. I make a podcast. Pons are my life. I should start a coffee shop. You should meet my dad. He should meet my dad. I'll look up to him. Yeah.

I have something to grow into. I want to go a detour into there's been a bunch of new releases this week. Yes, yeah. I want to listen to the first one that came out, I believe, Monday. Yeah. Let's listen to Carrie the name.

You know, also, bringing it back to the Beatles, it's like, you know, Paul McCartney is so inspired by, like, the standards of his day. Oh, yeah, it's all. And in a way, the Beatles are just, like, the standards of our day, I guess. And so how can you not sort of be inspired by it?

I hear it on, like, listening to this right now in these speakers, like, yeah, you definitely, you definitely hear the... I hear like the Moog synthesizer from here comes the sun or something in that little interloop. Yeah, that's a little... You take the time...

We live in an era where a lot of folks write mostly loop-based music, which is fine. Which is what I've done mostly. Like, I decide for sure loop-based. But you've really take the time to write... I want to go to what the song is about, but you also write these really lovely composed

little instrumental sections to bridge us from place to place. That's Mr. Jake Herschelan doing that with me, that little thing. Yeah, that was kind of like, reminds me almost of MGMT, like something that they might do. Just like an odd way to kind of, like I said,

perk your, oh, what was that? And then you never do it again. Yeah. So I can't tell, are we still in the hotel? Is this a continuation of the crux? Why are we continuing here? There's a lot of rooms in this building, man. There's a lot of rooms.

Tell me about this emotional journey. It's got this very funny chorus where it's got this very sort of joyful, like feel, except you're singing, because it's pictures of you that I'm scared of. I'm trying to blame. I just carry the name. Yeah, you know, looking at pictures of your ex and being like, this is their new life, and I have to just carry this around with me. And like, that hurts so bad, but I have to live with this. How do you feel about the contrast between the sadness of the lyric and the joy of

the music? What's that doing for you? That's something that maybe comes naturally to me that I like to do, that the strokes taught me well. I feel like they're just all about saying like really sad stuff to kind of like upbeat sort of poppy happy music and yeah i like that contrast yeah because you kind of puts you in this place where you're like you don't know how to feel or like you've been singing this song to yourself and then you're like wait a second what are the lyrics like you know you finally realize what it is that you've been singing you're like oh god maybe it's like also trying to help us process what's going on there like the verse has this sort of descending minory kind of feel yeah and then when we get to the chorus like oh yeah it's okay maybe i'm gonna get over it all

I'm still looking at these pictures. I shouldn't do that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's almost poking fun at ourselves. Yeah. Okay, there's many rooms. Let's go to the final room.

Crux is the last room on the album. Yeah. And it's not the crux. It's just crux. Yeah, this is just crux, yeah. Just crux. Okay. Let's take a listen to Crux.

Oh, there's another one of those beautiful. Mr. Adam, yeah, Mr. Adam. It takes us on so many journeys throughout this entire album, but even the song just from the first notes through the chorus. It's like a full orchestra has joined us. For sure. I remember finding that patch too. I wrote the song again in Atlanta.

It was hanging out back in the garden. It was chilling out there and was like, oh, I think I have an idea. I'm going to go try to do this idea. Yeah, that string patch is on the melaton. I got all these expansion cards. I went and I bought this melaton from this guy, and it smelled like weed.

It just reeked, but I got a great deal. And I got all these expansion cards, and the cards have all these different sounds. It's like Black Sabbaths, FX and yes. And so all these kind of like, like crazy stuff. And there's this really nice string. So I was like, oh, this would be really cool to just kind of make this section all about this instrument.

But it's a very simple song. You know, it's like I think it's like the same chords as like hungry heart. You know, it's like basically everybody's written this song. But for whatever reason, to me that day, I was like, this is inspiring and new. Why is it the finale? Why is it the crux?

I mean, this is like, it's in a very important position on this album, and it's saying something. Yeah, I guess just, it's kind of about getting back to your heart. That's the course. Get back to your heart. Only if you give it back again, get back to your heart, will you give it back? You kind of have to, like, repair yourself in order to sort of, you know, you have to work on yourself in order to do the best version of yourself to do good things for the world, maybe. Yeah, it kind of is like this big, long journey to take me to that realization. and also returning to your roots, your family, returning to your friends, you know, you may be hung up,

you may be hurt by this gash in your life, but also scar to a seam, use it, you know, use it as a way to move forward and maybe become a more true version of yourself than you were before. Maybe you were kind of like, yeah, maybe it's an opportunity rather than a setback. As we've moved through this hotel, there has been a lot of progress. that's happened. I mean, because if we go back to where, you know, we begin in loathomeness, we go to sort of like snye accusing folks of being basic, maybe looking at ourselves also of being like, who am I? What am I? What am I contributing to these like beautiful, I love my sisters, my friends matter to me. I want to just sort of speak from the heart.

That's a major transformation we've experienced. Yeah. And I think like just being okay with the stuff that you're making to feeling like, you know, I'm hearing my own influences on it or feeling like something's too simple or feeling like, is this line right, but just kind of being like, it is what it is, I made this. Here you go. So where are you gonna go from here, musically, personally, after the crux?

We're going down. Thank you to Joe Kiri. Thank you to NYU. Thank you, especially to Phil and Allison and all of the students who have helped make it possible. Thank you for bringing us all together, Joe. It has been an absolute pleasure. As a student myself, it's so cool to do something like this,

and I'm honored to be a part of it, so thank you for. having. Round of applause to check. Switched on Pop is produced by Rana Cruz, edited by Lisa Soap, engineered by Bill Lance, illustrations by Aras Gottlieb,

theme music by Jossi Adams, and Zach Tenori of Arc. Iris, remember of the Vox Media Podcast, Network and a production of Fulcher, which is part of New York Mag. You can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod. Hey, we dropped an episode on a Monday. I don't know if you recognize that.

We have yet another episode coming out on Wednesday. We will be getting into the world of Demon Hunters is the most requested thing that has ever happened on our podcast. the music theory of Demon Hunters on Wednesday. Come check it out. Until then, thanks for listening.