Switched on Pop - Top 40 Activism with Justin Tranter

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

Can political protest exist within the confines of commercial popular music? Songwriter Justin Tranter is equal parts songwriter and activist. You've likely heard his contributions to songs by Britney Spears, Julia Michaels, Selena Gomez, Janelle Monae and Ariana Grande, but unless you were paying close attention, you may have missed the essential subtext in his work. As an LGBTQ activist and board member of GLAAD, Justin brings his activism into Top 40 pop music lyrically and otherwise. On this episode, he breaks down his newest hit "Swan Song" which was co-written with Dua Lipa. This song is a triple threat serving as the end credits for the film Alita: Battle Angel, a Billboard hit, and a protest against the silencing of marginalized people. Justin shows us how representation in songwriting is inseparable from politics. And he's creating an open mic for new voices and stories that have been historically ignored by the pop industry. Songs Discussed: Dua Lipa - "Swan Song"Charlie Puth - "Attention"Selena Gomez - "Good For You"Imagine Dragons - "Believer"Taylor Swift - "Love Story"Halsey - "Bad At Love"Haydn - "Farewell" Symphony No. 45Shea Diamond - "Seen It All" Listen to D. Orxata's Queering Pop Music playlist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. To get that sort of activism in the song, it was, you know, like, what's the point of my lips if they don't make noise? So, like, an idea of, like, why have a voice if we aren't using it to speak out against injustice? Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Today we're going to speak with Justin Tranter, one of the most prolific contemporary songwriters. Justin's written many of the songs we've broken down on the show.

Justin B. B. Rasari. Janelle Monase Make Me Feel. Selina Gomez's bad liar and Julia Michael's issues with who he collaborates frequently. Justin is more than just a songwriter, though. He's also a prominent LGBT and gun safety activist. He serves on the board of Glad, and he uses his songwriting platform to advocate his politics and to boost marginalized voices. He's prolific, thoughtful, and instructive on how someone can embed their activism into their work. So, Nate and I think you're going to really enjoy this one. Here's our conversation with Justin. Justin, thank you for joining us. Really appreciate. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So in your Twitter bio, you are songwriter activist. And today, I want to talk about

both of those sides of your wonderful music. And I think what we're going to see is that they are inseparable. Yes. But let's jump in and talk about your music first, because that's what we always want to do on the show. Sure. You are coming today with a song that you've co-written with Dua Lipa. called Swan Song. It's the end credit of Alita Battle Angel, and it serves as both a pop song and a film score. Correct. Or hopefully.

We'll see. So let's just dive right in and take a listen to that. That's fun. Well, thank you. So I just want to start and ask, what is a Swan Song? Swansong is, I think, the end of someone's career. So, they're final moments. Swan Dive, Swan Song, it's like your final moment. for me watching Alita, this is definitely a song 100% written for the movie. So I saw the movie

first. I was a huge fan of the anime. And to me, it's just this woman, cyborg, whatever we want to call this brilliant character of Alita, kind of comes into her powers and realizes through her history and through being true to herself that she has the power to change the world. And so this is not her swan song. This is not. her swan dive. It's a new life. So both you and Dulepa have gone on social media and talked a little bit more about some of the meaning behind the song. And she had said that this is not a swan song is about the fight for justice and that it's not just the beginning of the fight for justice. This is an ongoing

battle. Exactly. And so I was wondering in the songwriting process if there were bits of, sort of intentional thoughts about how are we going to embed topics of justice within this song. It was very intentional. So when I saw the movie, I was just so excited that I was like, wait, I get to like write a song and like this character is an activist. Like, we don't think of it that way, but like superheroes are all activists. They're like fighting evil. They're fighting wrong. And in Alita, it's very much like the rich live in the sky city and the whole rest of the world because the world's been destroyed. So the only people left are all dirt poor and live below the sky city. Right. To get that sort of activism in the song, it was, you know, like what's like what's the point of my lips if they don't make noise? So like an idea of like, Like, we all have a voice.

What's the point? Why have a voice if we aren't using it to speak out against injustice? Alita has this insane power. She knows this martial art form that only, like, has died. No one knows it. But she knows it. And she's this crazy cyborg that has, her body has this technology that other bodies don't. That other cyborg bodies don't.

So she has this extreme privilege. And as I always say, what's the point of privilege if you don't pay it forward? So to me, like, Elita is the ultimate. privileged activists using her privilege for good. And then also we say in the pre-chorus is very much inspired by ActUp, which was from the 80s, and it still exists today, but started in the 80s, HIV and AIDS activist group that ended up saving millions and millions of lives with their fight. And their motto was silence equals death.

And so that idea of, you know, staying quiet's the same as dying. So we tried to find subtle ways to really infuse. activist history into the song. That's a beautiful moment. I want to take a second and just play the pre-chorus so people can hear that. Sure. So I obviously seen many posters with silence equals dying and people protesting. Yeah, silence equals death.

Silence equals death, thank you. Yeah. What a fun and special moment to have that reference in there. Again, who knows what's going to happen at radio, but right now it's like top 20, I think. So like to have a song that's for a movie and a movie song getting on a radio, it was very difficult to do because you have to serve the movie. You're not, that has to be your priority. But the fact, and then the fact that we're referencing Act Up in a pop song is pretty fucking awesome.

And then for Dua to be so cool and really let people know what the song is about and where it's coming from, I think is even, to me that makes me so proud that, you know, the best new artist, just won the fucking Grammy for Best New Artist is talking about Act Up. Yeah. My job is done. Like, I can quit. that makes me feel really good. And so often people might want to be precious about their lyrics or not even be even precious, but may want to say, hey, why don't you just hear what you want to hear in it? But I think it's even that much more powerful that you all are saying here.

No, here's what's actually going on. Yeah. Thank you. It makes, to me, it's one of my proudest moments. So I heard some other moments for me that had that sort of call for social justice within the music. And I wanted to play some of those clips and see if those are, you know, were those songwriting choices?

How did those come about? So the first thing that we heard was actually in the very beginning of the song in the intro, which we didn't play yet. So I want to play that clip really quickly. Cool. Here we're getting this rousing battle cry. There's this percussion that is almost like warlike and you can feel like people are like going out to march or something. You can hear people sort of chanting something in the background. When you're writing for a movie and you're writing the end title, like you have to have

that transition in mind. Right. Which is such as, again, as I said, that's my first time. I've written songs for movies before but never like the song. You know what I mean? It's like you're writing for a scene or you know, I had, I did Lego Batman. I did. instant family, but like it was end title, it's a much different thing, right? You have to try to embody the movie and you think about those transitions

and yeah, that first note, I mean you get the dun, duh, da, done. Yeah, which is from the score. That just grabs you. It's a hook in and of itself and then the rallying cry and so it's a perfect transition sort of screen goes blank. Yeah. Boom. And the music continues the narrative. Yeah, I worked very hard for this

opportunity and for this whole process from the music supervisor are Dave Jordan, who was unbelievable to work with, to then Dave Jordan introducing me to Junkie XL, which was a dream come true. Who's soundtracked the film. He did the score, and we sampled a piece of his score. That's what I was wondering about that, because those strings are so beautiful. Yeah.

They sound like real strings, but they're chopped off. At the end, it's all from his score. So we sampled a couple moments from his score, Matt Man and Robin did, so that it really, really, when you watch the movie and then it plays, it's like a whole other level of magic and then you know definitely had to play the balance of trying to create something that can live in the pop world but really serves the movie it was a whole other process that I've never been through before yeah right so it has to make sense in the context of the movie and then be able to be removed from that into the wider world of pop 100% that is tough so I imagine

obviously referencing the score is helpful but also its orchestral qualities give it both a score like sound as well as a pop sound. Yeah. Because I feel like those samples from the orchestra almost have like a trap aesthetic. Like you hear those same kind of orchestral hits. Yeah. Never thought that, but you're right.

Yeah. You can hear this on the radio and it works or you can watch it in the film and it works. Yeah. We wanted to definitely make it feel like from the get-go that it continues the thought and that feeling of Alita just winning motorball and like staring up at the sky being like, you know, I'm coming for all of it. of you. Interesting.

Which is a quote from Battlestar in case anyone was... Really? It's President Rosalind says it. She just says, what is it? I'll use every bomb, every weapon, down to my eye teeth. I'm coming for all of you. You're really showcasing your sci-fi credentials here. It's there.

It's very scary. I mean, like, that's what's so interesting about this song, right? It's always working on two levels. It's working on that dramatic movie level. and then just working on that, just like, I can listen to this as a pop song not knowing the context of this at all and enjoy it.

I think it would be incomplete to talk about its role as pop song without diving into the chorus. Let's do it. Nice. So even here in the chorus, I'm hearing this continual call for a fight for justice.

And one of the ways that, I think maybe even Nate, you first noted, was the declamation changes, the declamation being a fancy word for the pacing of the words. Yes. I was like

I have a degree in song range and I don't even know what declamation is. Our motto is like never use a simple word when a more complex one would work on this show. I mean it seems me working for you. I want to apologize for my pretense. But we go from

this pre-chorus where things are getting faster, won't stay quiet, silence the same as dying and then all of a time this is not a this is not. Yeah. Swarm. Salon. Yeah. It's such a dramatic shift. It's dramatic as fuck.

Yeah, I mean, I love drama. One, and two, on purpose, we definitely have the track feel a little more minimal. Of course, you have the big string hits, but then besides that, the track is pretty minimal there on purpose so that it can at least try to exist in pop realm. It is very dramatic and odd for a pop song.

Because, again, the main purpose is to serve the movie. But one of the ideas and one of the conversations I did have with all the filmmakers was like, we got to pull back on the chorus a little bit if we want it to exist in the current pop landscape. Sadly, we're not, and my heart will go on era right now. I wish we fucking were. Maybe I'll try, but...

It's a powerful moment. It actually reminds me a little bit of like what happens in Charlie Puth's attention where the song is sort of like building, building, building, and then you pull. And you pull back. Yeah. but should have come

at home with me tonight But here it works so well because it feels like again as sort of a call to arms And this is something that I want to chant along to It has that that like stadium

anthem quality That it's just the voice more or less Yeah 100%. Well thank you That's what we're going for And then also too We're always thinking about highlighting the different sections

of the songs by making sure There are rhythmic changes and making sure that melodies start in different parts of the phrase. That's things that we talk about quite frequently. So whether it's a song for a movie or whether you're trying to create a call for action or whatever it is, no matter what it is,

we are having the conversations about the rhythmic changes, the melodic changes, the changes in the phrasing, the changes in the pacing to make sure that each section complements each other and then that the chorus can really shine. One moment I think is really effective in that respect is that phrase,

swan song because you might expect it to come in on the downbeat of the measure where it would go this is not a this is not a swan song or something like that but instead it doesn't it you you wait for a moment yeah first downbeat is just empty this is not a this is not a space and then swan right it's it's very hooky at the same time but it's also like slightly surprising yeah i do also just i love you know screaming on the two of a chorus yeah it's worked for me before it'll work again Nice. That's great. We should have like a wall of songwriting, you know, maxims.

Yeah. That'll go on there screaming on the two of the chorus. I actually haven't even thought about it until now. Yeah, like, um, Pain, you made me. It's amazing. Oh, yeah. Imagine dragons.

Totally. You're a believer as well. Co-wrote. Yeah, of course. Dan Reynolds is one of the best writers in pop music. So I can't really. That's super interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that was his melody because he's fucking amazing. I can't take credit for it. but another song I was a part of that, you know, Scream on the Two. Scream on the Two. Justin Scream on the Two chanter. Maybe there's like some Illuminati just like going through all of Justin's songs.

Is this your secret signature that we've been missing all along? I think those are the only two big ones that do it, but I'm sure there's more. Maybe for folks who aren't as familiar with songwriting, you're talking about the importance of creating these contrasting sections and sort of mixing up the rhythm, mixing up the melody. When that's not done well, what is the effect? The effect is, or I'll say like when like you're like, fuck this like verse and this pre feels so good.

Yeah. And then the chorus is a letdown. Normally if you then you go and look at at the, I hate to say the math of it because that takes away people hear math and they think it's no longer an art form. But like you look at like the nuts and bolts of it, it's probably because the phrasing is starting on the same place as your pre-chorus does. So that way it doesn't feel your chorus isn't getting a lift.

It doesn't feel any different because you're starting in the same spot. Or you're using too many of the same notes. Right. Like a piano is an easy way to look at it. Like you're playing the same three notes on the piano over and over. Right. Now, it might be in a different rhythm or it might be in a different whatever. But if you're using those same three notes in the chorus,

you're using in the pre or two notes or five notes, if you're in the same area, it's just not going to feel like a lift. But then there always are exceptions to those rules. You know, like, good for you, Selena Gomez. Me and Julia were working on that. And as I've said many times, and I'm happy to say again,

you know, Julia is definitely another one of those writers I work with where she's leading the way. This is Julia Michaels. Julia Michaels. Sorry. I'm there to elevate and support, you know, what she's doing. With Good For You, the majority of the song does melodically exist in the same range.

So as I was to what I was saying before, if your chorus isn't feeling good, that's probably why the notes are in the same range. But there are exceptions to that where it will work. But if you look at the rhythms of Good for You, it's the rhythms that are making it good for you, good for you. When you have that hooky rhythm, you can get away with the fact that the notes are kind of in the same range. And it really lets you put a super focus. on Selena's amazing vocal tone and on our really fucking weird lyrics in that song. So that's, again, another, on purpose of like, if you want the listeners to get through a really, really weird lyric, you know, it can kind of help you to have the melodic range be in the same

spot. Each song kind of has its own logic. Its own side of rules. And kind of the math of it all is only used when we run into a problem. when like the natural flow of what came out, it's like, fuck, that verse is so good, but everything else isn't working. Why isn't it working?

Let's look at it. Math time. Math time with the stress and stranger. Which, I mean, when it comes to actual math, the last person you should ever talk to. So you actually just made me realize one of my favorite lyrics in Good For You is connected to that rhythmic vocal quality in the chorus.

There's the lyric, I want to syncopate my skin to your brain. breathing. I've never heard syncopate use that way. Yeah. And I thought, and then the rhythms are syncopated. Yeah. Yeah. For you. Yeah. Yeah. Sincopate muskin to hear you. Because I just want to look for you. Sincopate muskint. Oh, right. Then that's the actual word is syncopated too. Text painting. Yeah. Yeah. Which is if anyone's interested in the best text painter ever. Yeah. Patty Larkin is the greatest at it in the whole world.

Patty Larkin. Whoa. She's the best. I would consider her like top five greatest songwriters. I want to evoke this idea of Swan Song. This is not the final battle. And use this as an opportunity to transition to talk more about how you embed your activism throughout other parts of both your life and your music. And I wanted to start by asking, is the idea of queering pop music an important part of your mission?

Well, important part of my mission is to just be honest. and to encourage everyone that I work with to be honest. I think if I had to pick my greatest skill as a collaborator, it is creating confidence in the room. And it is creating the artists that I work with and the writers that I work with to be brave enough to tell some very, very real truths. And so for me, any time, you know,

these songs are almost never about me. Right. I'm there to serve somebody else, which I never thought would be my favorite thing to do, but I fucking love it. But also, I didn't start writing for other people until I was about 33, 34. So that also, you're at an age where you're like,

yeah, this cannot be about me. And that's okay. So even though the songs are about them, if I want to be a good collaborator and I want to contribute lyrics that feel real, I need to be thinking of my own life. Right. And my life is queer.

You know, not to keep talking about good for you randomly, but like, Good for You is a great example where Julia 100% led the way on that song. I'm there to elevate, focus, support, obviously co-write, but it was her idea that I was lucky enough to help. And for me, 100% when she brought up the idea, I was thinking about an ex-boyfriend of mine who like really, really, you know, if you Google me and you like Google Justin Tranner 2008,

you're, you know, I looked really fabulous and crazy and insane. And I boyfriend at the time, like the more femme I looked, the more he loved that. And so for me, this idea of this song about, you know, getting all dressed up and blah, blah, blah, the way that I was able to relate to it to Julia's amazing idea and to contribute honest in an honest way was from a very, very queer perspective and a point of view and a very queer experience. So queering pop music, it's not like it's a specific mission, but the mission is to be honest.

And so if I'm working with a queer artist, it's to give them the confidence and the strength and to give their management and label the confidence and the strength that not only is diversity and honest diversity, because, obviously queer people, our diversity can be invisible if someone is straight passing or cis passing if it's a trans situation. That diversity and honesty not only is the right thing to do for culture and for society, but actually, you know, I think it's finally in the movie business what's proving to make money. Like diversity fucking sells because people relate to honesty. Despite that, is there, because I think when some people think of pop music, they think of not honesty. They think

of, you know, something very manufactured, something sort of corporate, perhaps, and something, perhaps even avoiding any sort of realness, real political engagement or something. For sure. Either, like, in your own experience, or maybe just more conceptually, like, do you think about how to deliver that honesty in a way that is still pop or that it's still, like, sellable or something? It's, I mean, kind of. the only way I ever think about that is like in terms of the chorus.

And it's not just about like political messages or queer messages or whatever it is. It's about any story you're trying to tell. You know, I think Taylor Swift is an amazing example of, you know, one of the best pop writers of our time. Even when she was writing country music, it was popular, so it's pop. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which, of course, a lot of songwriters do. I just use Taylor's example because she's amazing. And obviously, we all know a couple Taylor Swift songs.

Just a few. Just a whole catalog. Just a few hundred, yeah. Fearless is one of the best albums of all time Okay, moving on. So. I'm with you. Her verses would be so fucking specific.

Yeah. And like I do not know what it's like to be a cis woman with a gazillion dollars. But she's so specific to her storytelling that I would always relate to every fucking second. I'm really gonna miss you picking fights and me falling forth screaming that I'm right. And you would hide away and find you.

piece of mind with some indie record that's much cooler than mine. But then you get to the chorus and it's a chorus that, of course, the lyrics are amazing, but they are general enough that we can all get on board. If someone is telling a very specific story, whether it's queer or political or just about a relationship, a straight normal cis relationship, I always think, let's find a way that the chorus can really just sum up the whole story and be really easy to digest. And so I think about sometimes like verses are for the super fans and choruses are for everybody. You know what I mean? That's great. So that's the only way I think about it. It's not in a way of like, how do we like

soften this message for the, to like slip it through. It's like how do we make sure people can understand it in one listen? Yeah. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay.

Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No. No. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being

unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space. It's talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the

question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. the view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually, every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. You took part last year or maybe that the writing was the year before in one of the most just spectacular songs of the year, which was Make Me Feel by Genomei. Yes. Thank you very much. Maybe don't make me spell it out for you.

All of the feelings that I got for you. Can be explained, but I can try for you. Even just from a sonic textual point of view, it sounded so different. But obviously it had an extremely powerful and sort of potently queer message within it. Yeah. Within the song, there's this fantastic moment where she sings about being a sexual bender. And that moment, she bends her voice through the entire scale. I think she walks down the scale in ways which are not actually in a 12th.

tone scale. Yeah. There's some microtones. That's a Julian Michael special. I can't take credit for that. But the, and what's funny is, which is why music is so fucking awesome. Yeah. Is that to us, it's, she's on a sexual bender.

Like, not a sexual, not like she's bending sexuality. Like, she's, she's like, when you go on a bender for the weekend and you drink too much. And to us, it was that version of a bender. Wow. But the majority of listeners hear it as sexual, which to me is, is fucking amazing. I mean, yeah, that's like such a good example of what you're talking about, too, where you can have these songs that can be mega hits and that people can sing along to

the chorus and not necessarily think about, you know, it's meaning. But then in other ways, people can take that material and reinterpret it and inscribe their own meaning. Yeah. Make collectives around that. Yeah. You also worked on Bad at Love With Halsey

Which also has a story of lovers of multiple genders Yeah Got a girl in California eyes And I thought that she could really bit a one this time But I never got the chance to make a mind Because she fell in love A little thin white lines London girl with her attitude

We never told no one But we look so cute Both got way better things to do But I always think about it when I'm bogged me through I'm in too deep another great example of sharing your activism within your music. Well, and again, it's just the goal to be honest. Yeah, right.

And hopefully one day being honest about Halsey being, and I can say bisexual for Halsey, because she definitely identifies as bisexual, shouldn't be viewed as activism. It should just be viewed as, I'm telling you my fucking story. Right. But it makes me very proud that, you know, that song, I think it went to number two on pop radio. Like, that's a pretty amazing moment for queer kids to hear. You know, I say all the time when, you know, pronouns are so important because the first time I ever heard someone use the same-sex pronoun in a song was Ani DeFranco. Mm.

Yeah. Tell you the truth. I prefer the worst to you. Too bad you had to have a better hair. But I think you two are forever. I hate to say you're perfect together. Fuck you. And imagine if Ani DeFranco was on the radio because it changed my life.

It saved my life. it created a community for me and my friends to all obsess over Ani together. My favorite memories as a teenager all revolve around Ani Doreko. And I think that it's sometimes very hard for straight people to understand why it is so powerful. Because to them it's just, oh, well, it's just a song. And who cares if he said he or she? But every song has been for you. Right.

And I, of course, love the amazing straight artists in the world. straight songwriters and I can listen to their songs and relate to them and connect to them. And I think it's time that straight people listen to our songs with our pronouns and they connect to them as well. And so for Halsey to prove that that is possible. Yeah. And what's even crazy is most people didn't even notice. That is crazy. That is what's so funny is like everyone's so terrified. And yet like Halsey did it. It was a huge fucking hit. At the time it was her biggest hit that she had. Obviously now the current song blew us out of the water. But But Amy Allen's fears and Halsey's one of the best writers in the world.

But yeah, it's like nobody cares. We're sort of talking broadly about more top 40 and sort of music on the Billboard within pop because obviously there's people making music from a quick perspective that are not represented in the top 40. But I'm curious, are you hearing anybody bringing in non-binary pronouns into pop music? I mean, it's coming. Yeah. Yeah.

I've been fortunate enough to work on almost all of the B. Miller album. that's coming and everyone be very prepared. Oh, yeah. Okay. It's one of my favorite things I've ever been a part of. Yeah. It's fucking nuts. And we say some shit on there.

I think we do use they, them and theirs at some point in the song. But we say other crazy shit to where we even call ourselves out. Like I want to, never mind, I can't give it away yet. But what am I doing? I almost did that. And there's another really big artist that I've been working with a lot, have and working with currently. Yeah.

We 100% use a, they, them, and theirs in it. But I can't give way who that is. Cool. Okay. Even more exciting when it just happens. Yeah. But we're basically saying like 2019 is a powerful year that we're going to hear some music. We're going to hear some shit.

Yeah. Yeah. That's exciting. Do we want to do a little classical masters or should we keep? What is? Classical Masters? I want to know what that is. That sounds great.

I guess we have to do it then. Yeah, we have to do it. Okay. So let's set the scene. It's the late 1700s. You're Franz Joseph Hayden, the great classical composer, and you're in the employee of the prince of Esther Hasey. So you're like a member of his royal court, and you're basically there to like supply symphonies on demand. And it's been a long time that you've been at the prince's like kind of rural court away from the city.

and your musicians are starting to get like really anxious. They miss their wives, frankly. They're like, we've been here. Like, we've been here way too long. We've got to go home and see our families. So Haydn is, I mean, clearly he and the prince have a close relationship because he basically writes

this kind of like a protest symphony. Really? Which is very unique in the classical repertoire. So if we just listened to the very end of the symphony, this is what the prince would have heard. and seen. He would have heard one by one the instruments of the orchestra take

a solo. So right here we can hear the French horn taking a solo. And now the symphony continues, but what the prince would have seen is the French hornist would have finished that solo, blown out the candle that was illuminating his music stand,

stand up and walk away. And walk out. And one by one, the other musicians do this. They take a solo, they blow out their candle, and then they walk off. And that's why the symphony number 45 is called the Farewell Symphony. And it's why the next day the Prince sent the entire orchestra home to hang out with their families. It's a little labor protest. Yeah, exactly, a little organized labor protest. So I guess all to say that, you know, from Haydn's Farewell Symphony to Swan Song, you know, musicians have been finding ways to put subtle, mess. of protests and of liberation into their music.

I'm so glad we did that. That was amazing. And what do we have next, Charles? I recently met with this really wonderful songwriter named D. Orchata, who is non-binary and Latinx from a duo called FBGM out of Boston. And they make music, which they describe as both genderless and genreless, which is really fascinating. And one thing that D told me about that I never really realized this is how, ever, every single night when they perform, they need to make the conscious choice of whether or not it's safe to come out to the audience. And I was curious from your perspective, what kind of additional steps need to be taken in the music industry to make it safe for queer performers and performers of all identities?

There's a couple layers there because like in the touring space, the music business, meaning basically everyone that works out here in L.A., there's nothing that it can really do. That's more of a venue space. that's more of a cultural space, you know, a whole lot has to change. You know, in my old band, somebody precious weapons,

you know, I was living my life, you know, I do identify as gender non-conforming and I was very visually living that truth and in, for many, many, many years.

I mean, I still do live that truth, but like I looked crazy. Um, full makeup, you know, and that crazy amazing. Yeah,

full makeup, five o'clock shadows, six inch heels, like all day, every day. And so, You know, touring and traveling, it's tough. You know, if we were in a city where it was,

we could actually sell the room and there was a lot of people, I always felt safe. Yeah. But we have stories of, I mean, crazy shit of during shows of people threatening, threatening me during shows. Even in like some bar in Vegas, it happened once, you know? And it happened a lot in the South that I lived in New York every day was facing verbal violence.

And a couple days a month, there was, you know, of actual physical violence or a threat of physical violence. And so that's a hard question because it's just, there's, it's so much has to just do with culture and society that makes it unsafe as a touring performing musician. But then when it comes to the actual business, I think it's, it's just about labels not being afraid to sign people that are living very different,

what they view as different lives. and it's tough though because there is the endless question in music is like who are they who's going to relate to them and that's just the dumbest question ever because good stories are everybody is yeah good stories are relatable and so it's a tough thing because it's a very very passive homophobia transphobia femphobia however we want to queer phobia however you want whatever phobia we want to use it's very passive because you'll have um executives who are extremely open-minded, who have many queer people in their lives.

But when it comes to signing that, then they go, oh, fuck, I don't really know. Is it going to work? Is it going to blow? Is it going to... And the advice I always give is that, you know, it's not just when it comes to diverse people. It comes to any musician right now.

Like, because people can make so much noise for themselves on the internet, it's very rare that someone's going to sign someone who just, like, doesn't exist. Right. artistically, creatively. Right. And so for queer people, people of color, any sort of marginalized people, like, it's the only

advice that I can give to them is make as much noise as you can on your own. And then labels will be desperate to sign you because it's a business, it's money. And so labels are already looking at white, straight male artists that way of like, but what are they doing? What are they done on their own? That's already happening there. So, of course, it's going to happen way more for. marginalized people, which is unfair, and there are, that is, it's fucked and it shouldn't be that way,

but that's the only way we're going to win this battle. One thing I really admire about your work is you do a lot to boost up-and-coming performers. I try my hardest. It's fucking hard, though. Yeah. Yeah. And one of, well, one thing you're doing is you're launching a new label. Correct. Called Facet.

Yes. Will you say a little bit about what some of your intentions are with that label and? I've already signed a couple people before this like official company was formed. So I have Shia Diamond who we partnered with Asylum. She's a trans woman of color who has amazing story. Thank you. I mean, I can't take credit for her, but thank you for appreciating her. Her voice is insane.

Her songwriting's insane. And then West Period. We partnered with Interscope on that. But now with this official company, my publisher, Katie Vinton and I, decided to like live our dream, live our truth and start a company together. And, you know, a lot of songwriters and producers after success will start imprints or start labels. And if I was going to do it, I wanted to really fucking do it. And so I need someone who knows how to run a business. And she's a star.

You know, Katie's one of the best there is. And, you know, she's the only reason I have this whole career. You know, when the band started to fizzle out, nobody fucking cared about me. She's the one that made all this happen for me. And so we can't announce who we're signing yet to that new venture. But it's really exciting. And our goal is to just, it's all based on fucking talent. And the people that we are signing are not typical signings at all.

You know, whether, whether they're, you know, they're not 19 or whether they're marginalized or divert. Like we're... Yes, and are you saying that I have a chance? You be, every time I say that, everyone's like, oh, so I get to be a pop star now. I'm like, no. But yeah, we, you know, it's just to lead with music first, songs first. We're song people, you know?

And I, of course, want people. with crazy fucking visuals who push all these boundaries, but like, it's got to start with the songs for us because she came from publishing. I'm a pop songwriter. So I wish I could tell you more,

more juicy details, but it's coming, the information's coming. This is great. The suspense is even better. A lot of what I'm taking away from our conversation together is that you describe yourself on Twitter

as a songwriter and an activist. And for me, those things just collapsed together in just good storytelling. That what I'm hearing consistently is that your job is to get stories out of other people, to create spaces for people to be able to tell their story, whatever that story might be without censorship. And I think that's a beautiful message to be sharing.

Well, thank you. Before we go, one of the things that we do for a lot of our episodes is put together a playlist of things related to the episode. So we actually worked with that artist, Dior Chado, who I was mentioning from FBGM, who helped cede a playlist of artists who are helping queer pop music and wanted to see if there were any particular artist within that realm that you wanted to shout out to add to that playlist. Well, Shea Diamond, of course. Definitely, yeah.

I'm trying to, of course, my mind goes blank in this moment when all I do on Twitter is just talk about queer artists. Vincent is amazing queer man of color who is, I think, one of the greatest singers alive. Any song you want to shout out? Remember me, the vocal on that is fucking insane. I think he's one of those people that. He's like, you know, two seconds from cracking his own code and we'll just take over. It's like Whitney Houston level singing.

We're like technically it's crazy and then the emotion is there. Because a lot of times like the music theory question, if the singing is too technical, it doesn't have the emotion and he's one of those amazing voices that can do that. Yeah, that's another great, great queer person and a queer person of color, which we need much, much more of in the music business. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. Thank you for having me. This was so fun.

So much fun. Yeah. I learned a lot. What did you learn? Let's review this. Scream on the two of the chorus. Patty Larkin, best text painter in the business. I told him the dog wouldn't run is maybe the best example of it.

And music theory is great, but don't let it get in the way. There you go. Tell good stories. Tell good stories. Okay, Trilly. I love this. You get to be the honorary professor. Yeah, I'm loving it.

The main thing for me is realizing how a song needs to subvert. Ego subversion is essential to great songwriting, and yet there's this at the same time you need to tell your story. And so there's this need to figure out how do you serve the idea that song, which might come from yourself, but not force too much of yourself into the song at the same time, which might be, hey, I don't want like. Well, protest in the verse. Yeah. sing along in the chorus. Yeah, totally. Right.

And like, but like so much of my early songwriting was, can I get like 17 chords in this thing? And how's it going to work? And I thought it was really exciting. And nobody cares. I was the word. I was like, I'll never just play like a major. Like if you, you can find a couple songs on YouTube of like my early solo albums. Yeah.

Um, which was just me in college. And it's like, it's like, why? Why? Like, not everything has to be as fucking. suss. Blah, blah, blah. I was, like, obsessed with Suss, too, forever. That's all I would play.

I'm working with some folks right now on an album. It's just the most talented keyboardist I know. So talented. One of the hard things when you get really good at your trade is you can lose the layperson's reference to the thing that you're doing. So you can be like, I'm just going to do a progressive house reggae trap song. And unless like all those things are happening in popular consciousness and they happen to work together.

it's really easy for someone who just has studied everything to voraciously throw in references. It's true. But then it has no actual there for average listeners. 100%. And I think it's just like, you know, if you're making music for musicians, that's a problem. Yeah. Right. That's when the shit gets in the way.

If only someone with a degree in music can understand what you're doing, that's not. I mean, good for you, hallelujah, but like I don't want to hear it. Thank you, Jess. Of course. Thank you for having it. We are super excited to announce. that Switched on Pop is now a production of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Woo!

Woo! So now we've got some new people that we get to shout out, which is really exciting. So Switchdown Pop is now executive produced by Nashat Kerwaw and Allison Rocky, production by Gillian Weinberger, engineering by Brandon McFarland. Our community manager is Sarah Terry, and I want to say thank you to Curtis Chan, and thanks to D. Orchata. You can check out their music at FBGM The Band.com, and you can find their playlist on queering.

pop music in our show notes. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram still at Switched on Pop, and you can send us your thoughts and recommendations there. We are also very excited to announce that we'll be taking the show weekly, which means that we will see you again in a week. There we go. Until then, thanks for listening.