The Watch - 'Black Mirror' Showrunners on Their Favorite Episodes, Plus a Rolling Blackouts C.F. Live Performance | The Watch (Ep. 264)

Episode Date: June 7, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan sits down with ‘Black Mirror’ showrunners Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones to talk about tricky nature of making an anthology series (02:00) and their favorite episodes of the show so far (15:31). Later, the Australian band Rolling Blackouts C.F. (28:25) performs live in The Ringer's studio before Andy Greenwald sits down with them to discuss their new album, 'Hope Downs' (34:40). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. Thanks for tuning into today's episode of The Watch. Really special episode, I was joined by Charlie Brooker and Annabelle Jones, who are the showrunners of Black Mirror. Black Mirror, obviously, four seasons of terrifying, thought-provoking television. It is essentially been called the New Twilight Zone. If you've listened to The Watch, you know all about Black Mirror. It was a real honor to get to talk to Charlie, who I think is one of those sharpest minds in television, frankly. and Annabel was great talking a little bit about the production and what goes into making these episodes. We talked about where Black Mirror is and where it's been

and where it could go. It was just a really fascinating conversation. And after that talk with Charlie and Annabelle, Andy had a conversation with Rolling Blackouts. They have a new album called The Hammer, which is out June 6th, and you should definitely check it out. They did a great job playing live for us,

and they had a cool conversation. So Annabelle Jones and Charlie Brooker from Black Mirror and the band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. With Andy, you'll be able to hear all that coming up. And we'll be back on Monday, probably to talk Westworld and succession and a whole bunch of other stuff. So thanks for listening.

I need supports to have to clear the room. Get up and walk now. I'm so glad to be joined by Charlie Brooker and Annabelle Jones. They are the showrunners of Black Mirror. Charlie created the show years ago. I guess back in, what year did you create the show? 1872. I think it was around, it was 2011.

2011. It was probably actually before that that we came up with it. It was probably more like 2010, but it was on air. The first episodes went out, late 2011. Yeah. I have to cop to being an early adopter in the States to this show, and watching it only quasi-legally, I think, is about what I'm willing to admit. I think what you mean is illegally.

Yes, there may have been some Russian... streams bouncing off of a couple of, no, but this is the thing is that especially in 2011 back then British TV was still, you know, you'd have to go kind of find it out. But it kind of reminded me of when I would get a punk rock seven inch

single in a record store that I didn't know the band and it had a certain enigmatic quality and as the show is sort of developed over the years and now it's on Netflix and now it's become almost its own way of describing a certain state of being It's like a very black mirror moment.

How does your relationship change to the idea of it? Was it ever a punk rock artifact for you? Or was it? Well, I like the idea of it. Well, you are. But then I think that it came about because we did a show, which you can also see on Netflix called Dead Set, which was like a zombie.

Which I also watched quasi-legally. Well, you're a serial offender by the sounds of things. Holy mackerel. So we've done that and and and then we went to Channel 4 in the UK and said that we'd like to do an anthology show. And at the time, I remember there were not many shows that felt like they were about sort of ideas or big outrageous ideas. And I was always a fan of things like The Twilight Zone and also like when I was a kid, the BBC. quite often did these really bizarre one-off sort of TV plays that were always controversial and strange and metaphorical.

And it felt like everything on TV was about sort of, you know, people wearing ruffs who it's impossible to care about. Am I allowed to swear? Certainly, yeah. I'm not going to just start blindly swearing. I was going to say people I couldn't give a shit about. Right. Because it's quite punk rock.

Pump-y. Yeah, do you like it? Yeah, so, and all the dark detective dramas about an alcoholic detective. Yeah. You know, weeping into a coffee. And the show's named after his last name and he lives in a village somewhere. Yeah, and he struggles with issues. And it's all about the banality of evil.

And, yeah, so I think we definitely thought, well, certainly with the nature of our first episode, I think we thought, well, this is a bit of a one-shot deal. Yeah. Like, it's, you might as well, if you're going to do, if you're being, if you've got that leeway, you might as well take it, I think. So in that respect, yes, it's exactly like a punk singly. But it's interesting where the season one feels, I mean, obviously there's a variety in any season because it's an anthology

and you have to embrace that and you need to deliver that so that people feel they're getting something different and that we feel we're not becoming predictable. But that first season was probably our most varied, I would say, because we were sort of finding what the show could be and finding the DNA of it. But that first episode is a big outlier, I would say. Yeah, I mean, they're all outliers in a way,

but very definitely I remember that I do like it when sometimes people would come to the first episode and then they'd be like, well, A, if they went with it. Yeah. Because it's quite divisive. although it's the humour of it, I think, and the context of it probably made more sense in the UK. Sure.

Because there was a public appetite for humiliation at the time. And there were shows, really mainstream shows, like on ITV, Saturday Night Entertainment, where it was all about celebrities doing really humiliating things. Literally, there was a guy who had been, he was a former head of the Metropolitan Police, then he'd run for Mayor of London, he'd not won, by the end of that same year,

he was a contestant in this show called I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. And remember watching, he was having to, in order to win food, he was having to drink a pint of liquidized kangaroo penis as quickly as he could in a race against a former children's TV host. Okay. And this was normality. This was very mainstream entertainment. And I thought this is more shocking than like cannibal Holocaust or something.

And so that was the sort of backdrop for that episode. The national anthem. The national anthem. And I always love it when people watch that and they go, right? And they didn't realize the show was an anthology. And they put on episode two. And they're completely wrong-footed because it's 15 million merits and it's Daniel Kaluer and it's a very, very different world. And then they'd sort of get whiplash and go, oh, I see, right, every episode is different.

Which is obviously the oldest format of television there is. But I'd love to think what they thought was going to happen. Like they were thinking, they thought they were going to see episode. When's the pig coming? Yeah, the pig comes back. When do we get the pig's backstory? Exactly. I wouldn't phrase it like that.

Well, even though it's an anthology series, you know, a couple of months ago, my boss here who also does a podcast and he was talking to Brian Coppulman who writes this show called Billions here. I don't know if that's made it over to England at all. It has. Weirdly, I was just looking at a tweet from Brian Coppulman about somebody

pitching a movie at his mum's funeral or something. Really? Someone tried to pitch him a movie. Anyway, sorry. Well, he said to Bill, my boss, he said that billions is, and I'm sort of paraphrasing, but the billions is essentially like the repository for everything that he finds interesting. That he's sort of taken this story that is ostensibly about an attorney general going after a hedge fund banker,

but fills it with everything he thinks about food and music and old movies that he likes to reference and all these other plot lines that kind of, he's like, I don't, it almost is like he doesn't need to do anything else but billions because billions can support everything he's interested in. And I was wondering for you, too, do you feel that way about Black Mirror? Because obviously you have this wide open canvas to work on, but when you want to populate it with anything, do you feel like it can support that?

Almost everything. I think certainly as it's gone along, we've kind of stuck a flag in more territories. Yeah. So we can do romances. We can do, you know, in the last, See, in season four, in the last season we did Hang the DJ, which is virtually a rom-com. Yeah.

You know, we can do USS Callister, which is a space opera, or we can do something like Crocodar, which is a very dark sort of crime noir story. So I think almost anything. But they all have that black mirror DNA running through them. I don't think we could do an outright over comedy that didn't have a black mirror DNA. I don't know about that. we've had this very discussion before yes we have

yes because I well I think I can say that I was once keen on the idea for a while for about 15 minutes I was keen on the idea of almost doing a Zucker Brothers style episode just a slapstick comedy episode well we've done which is something we've done in the UK

before we did a parody we did a parody of dark British detective series called a touch of cloth we called it and it was which is an obscene British joke that will not travel. Okay. It's almost our speciality.

Yeah. And I sort of, I wanted to do an episode of Black Mirror that was like a parody of Black Mirror because I think sometimes, I love all the sort of jokes people make about it. But I think sometimes the only thing I'm slightly wounded by there is I think, what do you think we don't have a sense of humour, you fuckers? Like, how do you think these ideas come about? We don't sit there frowning and going,

oh, their app stories is evil, isn't it? This is you? Oh my. Goodness me. Have you, oh, Instagram, what are people doing with their lives? We don't sit around doing that. We sit around being stupid. Yeah, although looking at some of the episodes, I don't, yeah.

No, no, no, no, no. Good, good, good. Yeah. There is comedy, but it's quite buried, I would say. Sometimes in some of the episodes, it's quite buried under a lot of bleakness. Sure. I'm not calling metal-haired accommodating. No.

No, although, you know. I'm sure there's a laugh in metalhead somewhere. I actually, I actually, I think I might disagree with that. Why? Why? Why? It's recently re-watching the metal head. It's sort of funny when she throws the paint over the...

What? Well, I mean, it's not funny. It's not funny. It's not slapstick paint throwing, is it? There is a joke right at the start where they're talking about pig's noses being the same height as their assholes. That's sort of like... Sure. Gallo's humor, yeah.

And then they all die. So it gets funnier. Yeah, exactly. I wanted to ask a little bit about the actual behind the scenes work that goes into producing something that doesn't, at least on the surface, seem to have any rules. Like, what is something, when you see the script for Hated in the Nation, is it already, hey, this is going to be 90 minutes? I think we're going to try and do something that's essentially like a buddy cop investigation film. Is it something that you expand or contract a lot based on initial draft? These things go through lots of drafts.

How complicated is it to mount what is essentially a feature film inside of a season of television that does not take place in those sets? I'm kind of curious about any observations you could share with us about the actual making of the show. We make it up as we go along. Okay. Which allows us to be spontaneous, is the way I'm going to pitch that. No, we sort of know that by the time you've got a script, we have already, depending on what the idea. The idea is had many weeks or months developing it. And so we were aware of what it is as it's evolving so we can sort of prepare for that.

We knew the hated in the nation was going to be a long piece because there's so much exposition in there. And, you know, it's a procedural almost in some respects. So you know what beast it is. But, you know, the beauty of Netflix is you do not have to restrict yourself. Sure. You know, you can let the story dictate the time. And we do, you know, we do treat every single episode. like it is a film and they're all autonomous

so there's no overlap between any of the films so they are unlike a normal TV show where there is a structure, series structure. So in that sense the key is I suppose to make sure we have enough time to try and realize them all as creatively as they deserve to be and none of them film at the same time. So we manage it.

It is a lot of work I would say. You know which is why many, you know, until recently, not much. many people have made anthologies because it's incredibly demanding, creatively. This is a stupid thing to do. Yeah. Do you distinguish between, for you, for you two, when you watch it, or if you rewatch or think about it, do you distinguish between the seasons in terms of any stylistic shifts, any things

that you can see? Obviously, we knew how to do this differently on season three rather than season one? I think we got a bit more, like certainly in season four, for instance, there's a lot more the effects than there were in previous seasons because we got you guys got these. Yeah we got more confident and we realised that was where Callister came from

in a way was sprang from a conversation about oh should we do an episode in space I guess we could yeah and we wouldn't have done Metalhead if we hadn't done Hate in the Nation that's true so there's a huge risk with something like Metalhead where obviously the dog

is not present till the post stage and the whole film depends on the authenticity and credibility of that dog. So it's a massive risk. But yes, but you get confident and you get different,

you know, tools to make your films with. I think that the tone, I mean, the tone of the, we've expanded, certainly the, they've got,

we've got more, lighter stories have come in. Like hang the DJs, apparently is one of the most bubbly stories we've ever done, I would say. I was really nervous when writing it. I mean,

it's still quite, you know, all got, there's a lot of darkness in it, but I remember being nervous when writing it thinking, this is, this is, you know, a rom-com, what am I doing? Are people going to, there's a sort of adolescent part of me that sort of, that goes, oh yeah, I've done an episode here and it's all, it's called Concrete and Piss. And there's like a bloke in it, right? And what happens is, someone shoves a SIM card in his fucking eye, and then he unravels

and he falls down the pissy concrete steps and he does it. eyes and that's the end. Can we go back to the rom-com? Yeah, exactly. That's not the sequel to San Juan Nipara that you're pitching, right? Concrete's in place. It's not going to have. Disappoints in fans.

So, so sometimes, so it's been interesting to me that actually I think they've got more, probably there's broader emotion going on in them as the season. Having said that, I mean, early on there was, but I mean, be right back was probably actually the first time I thought this is, like, what am I doing here? Back in season two. Fifteen million merits is a love story.

Yeah, that's true. That's very hard. I'm a liar. You're more romantic than you want to be. A lot of people... Wanted to be? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. A lot of people have, I think, a deep attachment to maybe the concepts or the sort of ideas in the show.

And you said it was almost an idea forward, you know, show in its inception. Are there particular characters that you find yourself attached to? Obviously the San Junipero characters have become sort of iconic in a lot of ways, but anyone we wouldn't necessarily guess that you... Charlie's got a huge affinity with Daily, haven't you? Oh yeah, yeah, that's why. The tyrant who, yeah. That's who I mainly relate to, yeah.

Well, I mean, actually, well, like Nanette's... The whole of the crew of the Callister, I would say we really like. Karen and Blue from Hadey and the Nation that was a sort of duo where we thought this feels a bit like a episode like you I would do another story

with you mean specific characters that we relate to characters just that you hold dear like characters that you want I mean there's one I can't tell you anything about it but you remember there's that one

I sort of like really love one of the characters in it and I kept expanding the part that we're doing at the moment that I was like just invented a new character and then just kept giving them more and more things to do until they, yeah. I think it's interesting how you can have quite a small role and they become quite a big feature unwittingly within a film.

So we did one in season three called Shut Up and Dance, which was the complete contrast to San Junipero in that it was small London, gritty grey, suburban London, and it's following a young man who's being blackmailed. And, you know, it's quite harrowing, it's quite depressing. And then in the middle you have this woman that they pick the two drivers in the car pick up. And she's just an average mom doing a PTA run. And it's this incredibly funny comedic little interlude that just takes the pressure out of the film.

And we all just love that scene for that very reason. So there are little moments. Well, things like that. Yeah. Oh, that's delightful. It turns into a sitcom almost for a few moments. It's like a sitcom scenario where it's like they've got this secret. They're trying to desperately hide from the person in the back of the car.

Yeah. There's all sorts of, like, weirdly, you see, you mentioned Shut Up and Dance. And also, I'm slightly fascinated by the woman who works in the garage that he goes into, like, just before, because she's got a slightly old manner about her. Every so often, sometimes there's been, like, in 15 million merits, there was, there was a character who, the character, the young girl who can't sing in it. Oh, yeah. And that scene was written, that was added,

because she was so good. That scene wasn't in it originally, where she turns up at the end and goes, I can sing! And she's like, because she was just scripted to be just in the sort of holding pen area. And she was so good.

And it was such a strong flavour that I think I went off and just wrote an extra scene and we managed to cram it into the running order, wrote the scene where she actually gets to go on the stage. Oh, that's family. Because it was like, oh, she's great. Sometimes it's nice to be able to, because, thinking about it,

because we're doing it on a TV schedule, and because we're not trying to, we're not having to set up the logic for something that has to sustain over five seasons, it only has to work till the end of a story. We can sometimes make huge sweeping changes to a story relatively late in the day. And that's sometimes really,

White Bear is a very good example of that where the script went in the bin and a whole new story came in, yeah. Oh, well, you mentioned this idea of not being beholden to past or past, previous episodes, but obviously there's a lot of scholarship online about the idea that Black Mirror is all taking place in the same world, so to speak. And people have gone as far as to start putting together a, at least a loose timeline of

the episodes in terms of how they would sort of technically need to be in what order based on the technology. I was also curious about the cause and effect that would happen in each episode. Like how what happens in one episode would change the world and whether that, stuff that you guys think about, or it's something that you still do hang on to the idea that, yes, there's some shared threads, but essentially these are separate stories. I think we have malleable rules on that. That's what I was hoping to hear.

Yeah, because sometimes it's useful. So in Black Museum we have, there's a bit where Rollo Haynes, who works for T-C-R, which is the same company that we see in San Junipero, and he's going into a hospital that's called St. Juniper's Hospital. and so there's a clear sort of through line there that we don't bother to explain. But on the other hand, if there's, we sometimes, we sometimes have used the logic of one thing. I'm thinking of particular, often it's to do with a gadget or something like that.

So if there's a, I remember when we did the entire history of you, which is the episode where everyone can rewind and replay memories, and they use a sort of little thumb controller thing. to contract to access the UI in their eyes. And then when we came to do White Christmas, which also had a sort of in-retina sort of system, we went round the houses, trying to invent different modes of technology.

Yeah. And then thought, why don't we just use the one we? That was when we started using stuff that you had kind of had. Yeah. It's laziness. Oh, that's great. It was like, oh, well, we've cleared the company name for that. And we've designed a thing.

Oh, and I found the pebble in my drawl, she's that. The pebble. We called it The Pebble. So I just wanted to ask you about Be Right Back, because it's actually a staff favorite over here. And I was wondering if you guys had any memories you wanted to share about the making of that episode, the writing of that episode. Obviously, Haley Atwell is so amazing in it.

But it's the one that I thought has both the heart and the head of the show up front. And I guess that's why it's always been so meaningful to me. Yes. No, it's an incredibly poignant, upsetting film. We filmed it in a wonderfully isolated farmhouse outside of London, and it was all very remote, and no one was around for miles, and I think that emphasized the mood of the piece, and certainly, I mean, Haley, who was, I think, in every scene, yeah, virtually every scene,

it was very demanding for her as a role and very exhausting. And so I think it was very much a crew, team, spirit with her. And it was, yeah, it was heartbreaking. It was just such a tragic story, but very relatable and a story. I mean, what I think what I love most about Black Mirror is that whilst, yes, we have this slight accolade of being, you know, very contemporary, you know, they're very often very simple, intimate personal stories.

And that is a modern story about grief and love and how you mourn someone in the digital age where you can, you know, be followed by their images wherever you go. You know, and so it's sort of, it felt, I don't know, just a very, you know, Charlie wrote a beautiful script. Well, thank you very much. That's the nicest thing you've ever said. You've only ever say nice things to me. I'm going to undercut it shortly.

You only have the same nice things to me if there's a point. Yeah. Yeah. I remember the writing of it was relatively quick. It was like, and that's annoyingly, sometimes like San Juniper was another one. Also, same director, Owen Harris, directed both of Beirut Back and San Juna Pera. Very quick. And I remember I'd just become a dad when I wrote that.

So I was probably in a slightly mushy frame of mind. And I was writing it at night in between. So my wife would go to bed and I'd take our son and he'd be sleeping in a little sort of crib in my office room. and I had a couple of hours in which I could write before he'd wake up and I'd have to feed him. So it was a really good... I always say that to people. It was a really good...

It was really good for productivity, oddly. Interesting. Because it meant that I knew... I know a lot of new dads who do not get that much done. I would recommend to them that they do the night shift. Okay. And they force themselves... Because you're going to get an hour in, probably,

because they wake up every, like, two hours. So you're going to get a good hour in. And weirdly, I found myself looking forward to the next. I was annoyed when he woke up. It was like, oh, I need to get back to doing it. So you're saying to anyone who has a deadline, have a new baby. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Because that's traditionally, that's obviously, you know, you associate having a baby with acres of free time. Yeah. No, but I do remember, I remember being somewhat nervous when doing that because it was more, because it was quite paired back and it was a, it was a quieter story in many ways to any of the ones we'd done in the first season. So it was, you know, it was, I felt like I was becoming more of a grown-up writer. Interesting.

I remember thinking that, because it wasn't like the slightly, oh, look at me, oh, there's a prime minister in a pig and something outrageous is happening. It was, it relied on, you know, a grieving woman at the, at the center of it, which is not, you know, and so I, It's a difficult one because that was probably the first time I really had to sort of think my way into a character who's wrestling with something kind of like that that I don't have direct experience on, but I was sort of projecting how I felt it would feel. And I remember there were very clear. There was very, very clear. We always have like what we jokingly call my Taliban rules, or we have Taliban rules about things where it's like there's a firm logic here and it must not. We go all Taliban about it, and there was a Taliban rule, which was the robot version of Ash, the AI version of Ash, does not feel emotions. He is not going to learn to love her.

He is not going to, it's not a story about a bot that shows up and develops authentic love. He can emulate it, but he will always say he's emulating it, and he doesn't. He's just all broadcast. There's no inner life going on. because I felt that makes it so much more painful. Sure. And so I was really gratified to see how the episode came out. I knew it was good when I saw some of the rushes where they're in the kitchen

and she's sort of putting their hands together and I was like tearing up. You're like, oh, that's good, isn't it? They're incredible in that episode. Well, thank you, Annabelle and Charlie for coming by. It's really been a pleasure. I've been such a huge fan for such a long time. So it's great to talk to you. And we've managed to not spoil that for you.

Yes, absolutely. That's a first. This podcast will never go out. Thank you so much. Thank you. We'll get to Andy's interview with Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever after a word from our sponsor.

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Okay, long-time listeners to this pod know that Chris and I love talking music. We love listening to music. Sometimes we even make playlists for you guys. One thing that I've always wanted to do that we were never quite able to do for logistical reasons was actually bring you music on the podcast. And I'm so excited to say that that changes. That changes today. My favorite new band of the moment, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, a Rolling Blackout CF from Melbourne, Australia,

were kind enough to come into the studio and perform three songs for us. This was a total delight and a total pleasure for me, not just because I love this band, not just because they were totally incredibly nice guys. I mean, of course, they're Australian. Not just because their performance was Sterling. The sound was great. And even people in this office who rarely crack a smile when they're not on the microphone like Chris Ryan,

seem to enjoy it. Also, though, because my career on the internet basically started doing this thing. People might not know this, they might not remember it, but I used to run Spin.com years ago, like when I was 22 or 23, and we would have bands come in and play for our cameras. Chris was a part of it often

because we were hanging out and working together even back then and bands that later became big. Bands like Spoon or Death Cab for Cutie would come into the office and perform for us and we would put it on the internet. But the problem was no one could watch video on the internet then really. So it was just all lost. And then the worst part of the story is all those incredible performances were on tape and they were in the backpack of our video coordinator

who moved to Hawaii and I think he took the tapes with him. Anyway, we're writing old wrongs here because you guys can watch video on the internet, and you can have audio. And so we have Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever performing some songs from their brilliant EP, the French press from last year, and from their brand new album that comes out next week on subpop records, Hope Downs. I love this band. They are cut from the same cloth as many of my favorite bands from the 80s and 90s, including their Australian forebears, the go-betweens, but they are completely of the moment. Three songwriters complimenting each other instead of dueling with each other.

Their self-described sound is tough pop, which I love. I wish more bands did tough pop. And really excited to bring this for you. So we're going to have video content on The Ringer. You can see some performances, but we wanted to bring you in as watchheads and music fans an audio part of the experience. So some conversation with the three songwriters of the band

to follow at a great time talking to them. But more importantly, performing what might be my favorite song on the new album, talking straight. Here are Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. Okay, I am beyond thrilled to be joined here by three members of the band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. My favorite new band in the world, we have Joe, Fran, and Tom here, all the way from Melbourne in the studio. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks. I warned you guys ahead of time, much of this conversation is going to be

about cold remedies, potentially sponsored posts. So feel free to drop a lot of product names as we go. I have you guys here a few days after your set at Coachella. You played Sunday, and I believe that means technically Beyonce opened for you. So congratulations on that. Thank you. Thanks. Feels good.

That must be nice, right? It was nice, yeah. Yeah, she was nice to us. Did you feel like she warmed the crowd up appropriately for your performance? Just enough. Just enough for us. She drank all that rider, though. Did she?

Well, she had all those backup dances. Oh, God. So they just ride a spider, as we call them, people who mow through your rider. Yeah. Hang out backstage. Just hang out backstage. Mill about. Yeah.

Noly beers mysteriously disappear. How did you deal with that sort of, that presence? That's very... I had a word to Jay-Z, like a pretty tough word. Stern word to Jay-Z. And that settled it? Yeah. What was it like to fly into this gigantic festival in the middle of,

essentially what is like resort country and then be there? Did you have time for downtime? Did you have time to see other bands to potentially recruit their backup dancers? We did. We got there on the Friday, and so we got to see... We saw Jemar Choir on the Friday night, which is really good. Really fun.

Feet Snoop Dog, yeah. He was there too. He came out with Jemar Choir. Did he know he was performing with Jemiriqui? Probably not. I don't know. Did he do the movements? Did he do the...

He was dancing around a lot. He was moving around a lot. He was wearing this really long... What do you call it? Jacket. That's embarrassing. That's embarrassing. Which way were you facing?

Which way were you facing? It wasn't a check. It was like a big... What do you call on this? Mumu. Moom. Yeah, is it moon. I see.

Oh, really? And a big light-up head piece. Great. Yeah, so good. So did that intimidate you guys? No, no. Do I don't have any light-up head pieces or any props, really? Yes.

You need to invest. So I think I, maybe I didn't even say at the beginning, Hope Downs is your first album. I'm already in love with it. It's out June 15th on Sub-pop. I want to talk to you a little bit about that album. But first, I want to commend you. you guys for the way that you've put out music thus far, which is through two mini-LPs.

I don't know if you call them EPs or mini-L-Ps, but one in 2016 and then French Press last year. I love the way that you were able to introduce yourself with these more digestible bites and deliver in three years in a row have these great collection of new songs. This looks like brilliant marketing from my perspective. Was there that much thought on your end, or is it just the way it worked out? Not for the first one. The first one was just like a collection of songs. Sort of like a demo.

Right. So, yeah, we just put that out. And then after we'd put it out ourselves, then we got a record deal to put that out. And then it just seemed like the right thing to do next time is to put an EP out after that. We didn't have an whole album together, but we had a bunch of songs.

So we put out French press EP. It just seemed like the right thing to do. And then, yeah. Yeah, I think it's streaming and all of that now, it's like the idea of, we love the idea of like the album, the LP. So we're really excited to do that, but it's like you can kind of put out music and whatever audio you want now. Yes. We talk about this a lot when we talk about on this podcast we talk about TV that sometimes you see a whole season and it's a little daunting. But if it's

just a half hour show or it's just an episode or something, it's more digestible. Yeah. And it's a great way to sort of wet the palette for the larger commitment because you already have people on board. That said, French Press was incredible. And I think I said before it was probably my favorite album, even though it wasn't a full album of last year. Ten songs already a year later, did you feel pressure to do that, or were the songs just flowing? Fowing pretty freely, I guess. A few of them are old songs from even before French Press. So there's, yeah, we sort of reworked a few of those. But then, yeah, we just wrote a bunch of songs, I guess. They all just fell out. Makes it sound easy. Well, yeah, we put a lot of work into it. You know, we spent a lot of time.

Yeah, we basically, after we finished recording French press, we went straight into writing for the album. We didn't stop writing. And yeah, so we probably wrote them over the course, most of the songs over the course of about a year, and went into record them. Well, let's talk a little bit more about that because obviously there are three of you, three songwriters, three guitarists. I imagine the politics of that could get messy or complicated. How does this actually work? Because on stage and certainly on record, it sounds like you are a very cohesive band. There's sort of like a, I guess you, a rule that we kind of, like, employ as a, just for the good of the song.

So there's no, there's no ego about what's, you know, this bit's the best, you know. And it's because it's like kind of pop music, I guess, you just sort of, you can recognize the best hook or the best, the best, the best melody or something. We're like, yep, let's go with that. Yeah, anyone can come in with ideas. we just basically, generally one of us will have a skeleton or something, and we'll just bring it in and then just go like, you know, do what you want with it. But speaking of the sort of collaborative process, you guys performed a moment ago and you performed my favorite song of last year, the French press. That song is so, it's both an incredible song and kind of thrilling because it's a dialogue. It's a story song. Did that begin, Tom, as a...

That was the intention, or did Fran just start singing and you just couldn't turn his mic off? No, it did... Yeah, I guess it just started as a kind of loop, a jam, the kind of riff and a drum machine, and then... I'm just trying to remember how the actual lyrics came about. Yeah, I think we did come up

the concept like straight up we were sort of Fran and I were like sitting in the bedroom like throwing ideas back and forth and then I think the concept came about pretty much straight away it's like a story of you know two brothers you know one sitting at home like in his like safe desk job and you know like having a pretty boring time and like the other one off overseas having adventure kind of down and out, like struggling and both like really, you know, disconnected, trying to, trying to breach each other. And then, yeah, I think naturally it just took on the, we both took on the idea of these two characters and made it a little, a little back and forth. Well, I love the idea because pop songs are generally couples. There are a lot of couple songs

in the world of pop music, but usually romantic couples, the idea of a familial connection. And then literally the connection breaking with a cell phone with such a great addition to the song. and it makes it, it's just incredibly evocative. The actual original idea as well was it was a Skype call. So we're not sure if it's the only rock song about Skype. I mean, what could be more rock and roll than Skype? I mean, you guys are killing it on that front. Maybe anti-call throat lozenges.

There it is. It would help if you were trying to call someone and you couldn't. I guess I realized this is a song about brothers, and your brother is in the band. So did he take offense to that? is he's in the room. I mean... No. He's... Well, we've got another brother as well.

Yeah, he's living in Spain, so it could be... Oh, there's a little... I've subscribed him before. Yeah, there's a little... Pulled from... Rip from the headlines. Yeah, totally. The kind of thing here. This wasn't a... Yeah, it wasn't an actual Skype call, but...

But it could have been. I think that's what we're headed. Spired by true events. One other thing that I was picking up on in the new album is that there are particularly... You play Talking Straight, which is the new single. and one of my favorite songs on the record. There's also time in common.

There are a couple songs that deal lyrically with this idea of time and space and distance. I was curious if these topics came from a place of deep Stephen Hawking-esque musing about the universe or they're just a byproduct of a band that is constantly crossing the international dateline. Oh, yeah. Well, talking straight is actually about the deep musings of the universe.

just the concept that we might be entirely alone and were the only intelligent life form in the whole universe. It's kind of a terrifying thought. But then kind of bringing that back to just, someone sitting next to you and maybe we're alone as well or something. You guys aren't even alone as Rolling Blackouts.

There's another band. I mean, I feel like that. True, yeah. But I love the idea that you could take these deeper, larger musings and you still pull it off in like 2 minutes, 50, seconds and it kind of rips. That's a really good use of a pop band, I think. Oh, thanks. Yeah, thanks. So I imagine the record is coming out the summer. That kind of

means signing up for a lot of travel. You're going to be spending a lot of time in America. Have you been given any advice for how to approach this gigantic country and continent? Are there things you're particularly looking forward to? I think trying to eat as much salad as possible when you can. Because we're famous for our salads or because it's otherwise unhealthy? Well, it's famous for unhealthy food. Yes. So you've just got to try and get it when you can. Yeah, you're welcome. Whole Foods is taking off though, isn't it? Apparently whole foods is just... You mean you can find, yeah, you can find a Whole Foods in many, many places that we'll have

Indy Rock concerts. Yeah, those two things go together. Yeah. That saved us in a few situations. Just go to the salad bar at Whole Foods. So if you see five dapper Australian gentlemen at the hot bar in Whole Foods, chances are to you guys. Yeah, that'll be us. Yeah, I think this is good. We're talking about bridges, we're talking about throat lozenges, and you're looking forward to salads. Yeah, love a good salad. This is going to be, it's going to be a wild time for you guys. Any salads at Coachella? No. No. They had pretty good catering. You see the way I slipped that in? I brought it back. You thought you were done with the Coachella grilling? No, I didn't eat a salad. Yeah, I stuck with a fish rather than the fried chicken,

which was a good move. You ate fish in the desert? Yeah. The 105. You agree desert? You ate some tilapia? Yeah, I mean... It's no desert. That's rock and roll. There's curated lawns. Yeah, that's your bit. It's very lush for a desert.

It's one thing that was really freaking us out. That's why we're going to be alone in the universe sooner than we end. Because we're doing that to the desert. It did feel like it was the end of the world. There it is. I think that's a perfect place to end it. Thank you for being on the ringer's number one climate change podcast.

Seriously, though, guys, I'm so excited to have you here. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever on tour. The album is out June 15th. Hope Downs, it's on Sub Pop. You guys are my favorite band at the moment. I'm so happy I can talk to you. Thank you. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.