The Watch - Why Jimmy Fallon Is Losing the Late-Night War | The Watch (Ep. 226)

Episode Date: February 12, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Alison Herman discuss Jimmy Fallon and his current place among late-night hosts (4:30). They also discuss HBO’s new show, ‘Here and Now’ (16:00). Later, Andy Greenwald sits down with Alex Kapranos and Bob Hardy of Franz Ferdinand (23:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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They look good on their own if you're just like gun show. Time to show my tattoos to the world. However you want to roll with MacWeldon, they'll roll with you. Go to macweldon.com and get 20% off your purchase by using promo code, watch. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan.

I'm Netter at the Ringer.com. tell. I am not screaming E-A-G-L-E-S. I've chilled out. Maybe that's because Andy's not here. I'm sorry. Andy will be back on Thursday. We do have some Andy on the pod today. But today I'm actually really happy. I was joined by Allison Herman. Allison is obviously the ringer's TV critic. She has a great piece on the ringer today. I highly recommend you check it out about Jimmy Fallon, his dipping numbers, and the state of late night. And, you know, Andy and I don't often talk about late-night television, but we do talk a lot about television as a water cooler that we all gather around

and exchange ideas and we look for these monocultural events. And maybe nothing represents the monoculture more than late-night. We used to go to late-night and, you know, you would get some amusing anecdotes, some funny jokes about celebrity stuff, whatever was happening in the headlines. Maybe there was like a funny local news story. Jay Leno would make you laugh about it. Dave Letterman would be sarcastic.

Things have changed, though. Fallon came through. and for the last few years of the Obama administration seemed kind of like the perfect late-night host for the way that the internet was changing culture. It was viral. He had fun stunts and game show bits, and it just made a lot of sense. But then obviously things have changed over the last couple of years. And they've changed in late night.

And I think that people are obviously going to late night to see the conversation that they're having in their lives reflected on late-night television. And that's where Stephen Colbert has come in. That's where Jimmy Kimmelk has come in. Obviously, John Oliver has done a lot of that for years on HBO. And Jimmy Fallon is left trying to adjust what was a very successful formula for a new world. So I talked to Allison about her piece. It's an excellent piece about Fallon.

She watched all of Fallon and all of Colbert for a week and wrote about the different things that two television hosts are doing. She also talked to me a little bit about the new HBO show here and now from Alan Ball starring Holly Hunter and Tim Robbins. then later in the show, Andy talked to a couple members of Franz Ferdinand, awesome band. They are back with a new album called Always Ascending. He talked to Alex and a couple of the guys from the band. Just about the long road it's been since Take Me Out,

and now they're back, and the record's great. So check out that interview with Andy. By the way, if you are trying to bone up on Oscar stuff, I have a podcast recommendation for you. Please listen to Sean Fennessey's The Big Picture. It's on Channel 33, so just subscribe there. check out Sean's interviews with director. He's talked pretty much to everybody who's relevant in the director race,

in a lot of the races for the Oscars. So you'll learn a lot about a lot of the movies. Greta Gerwig talked to him. Paul Thomas Anderson, Sean spoke with on Bill's Pod. He's really spoken to a lot of the most interesting filmmakers working today, and it's one of my favorite podcasts. So please check out the Big Picture with Sean Fennessee. I'm joined by Allison Herman.

Later, Andy, with Franz Ferdin. We'll be back on Thursday to talk about Berlin, Babylon and altered carbon. Okay, so we're joined by Allison Herman from the Ringer. Allison obviously is our TV critic, and I was going to have her on to talk about here and now and some of the other shows

that Andy and I maybe aren't talking about. But Allison has this awesome piece up today about Jimmy Fallon. I do. Thank you for having me also. It's great to have you back. And we usually don't talk a lot about late night on this pod, but it is a really cool piece because you really

identify, I think, something that we do talk a lot about, which is like the monoculture. And this idea that like Jimmy Fallon was for a few years there, America's buddy, they would come check out either at night or the next day on YouTube. And that was sort of one of the keys to success is his ability to like shoot this stuff out virally

and so that you didn't have to have like this 11.30 p.m. appointment with Jimmy Fallon. You could watch it the next day on all sorts of blogs. And that he found this way to be amusing or funny to almost, everyone. Now, even if you and I didn't find it funny, like my mom liked it. You know what I mean? Like moms, dads, other people were just like, good stuff. Celebrities. They're just like us, you know? Exactly. And even when last year in the election, Colbert started at the late show in late 2015, and for the first few months he kind of struggled. And even during 2016, when people started to really take notice of his renewed political angle when he did the live convention shows, what I was

sort of prepared for was like, okay, maybe Colbert isn't going to be. number one in the ratings ever. I sort of assume that the political angle wasn't going to be a populist angle, but at least he's settled into a specific enough thing so we can all rally around him and he can be the critical favorite to Fallon's mass favorite. And I think one of the fascinating things that's happened in the last year is that Fallon has taken a real ratings hit, which I was sort of shocked by. I kind of assumed that our general TV audience still has an appetite for the apolitical, very genial, very broad-based appeal. He's very careful not to alienate everybody.

Or anybody. Or anybody to a fault, which is exactly why he got in trouble. And yet Colbert has emerged not just as the favorite of coastal elites like us, but he currently leads in the ratings, not even by a razor's edge. He regularly beats Fallon by at least half a million viewers, which is really stunning to me. And that's different also because I think that there was an element of, I agree with you, thought maybe, you know, this is the kind of thing that matters to people who spend a lot of time

online. But for the people who are just like, I'm going to watch something for 20 minutes before I go to bed, it was going to be like Leno, where it was just going to be like it appealed to the most amount of people and cause them the least amount of distress. But we're obviously living at a time when the monoculture has become this conversation about our political social life. You know, and that to have Fallon kind of exist outside of that, it's not offering people a respite. it's actually sounding out of touch, right? Absolutely. Although one thing I did discover, so for this piece, I watched a full week of all the episodes

of both Fallon and Colbert, which full disclosure as a millennial watching full episodes of late night shows is not something I do very often. It is obviously part of my job when there's a breakout monologue or a sketch or whatever. I check in with those if there's a breakout interview. But I don't really like sit down at 1130 and watch a full hour because I can. you know, like you're just excited to see what the opening monologue. Drink my metamuse. Yeah, right, exactly.

But yeah, so I actually did that. And I think everyone by now is very familiar with the Fallon is uncomfortable with politics. Colbert knows how to do topical monologues that go on for minutes at a time. And he's actively enthusiastic with and engaged in it. It clearly comes very naturally to him. The thing that I was sort of surprised by is that I sort of found as a viewer that Fallon's insubstantial nature or lack of a sort of personality behind general positivity and amicability really goes beyond just, I don't like talking about politics.

It's also like these games are not actual that he specializes and he's really built his name on are not real conversations. I found that I enjoyed Colbert even just as a political interviewer talking to someone like Beanie Feldstein and being like, hey, I really loved your movie, not just I loved your movie, but I loved your movie for this specific reason. It resonated with me because I'm Catholic because I love the coming of age story because I thought your performance was great. And Fallon notoriously just gives these very generic pronouncements of,

I love this person. They're the best without really, you know, backing that up or allowing the guests to bring a real figment of their personality. And that's something you sort of get at in your piece is you talk about how Fallon in its first iteration and sort of what it really started. Because I remember when Fallon first started, almost the dominating conversation was like, man, the music's really good. It's got the roots and like the program, like the music programming.

is good and it's almost like appointment viewing it became like you know if somebody was on found they might bring a special guest out or they might just do something different and then increasingly it became he was learning from everything from like college humor videos to what was like successful about parts of the office and realizing that you could capture a certain gamified virality to like segments and that it was a new way to use famous people rather than just plug your movie tell me an amusing anecdote, and then we'll banter, banter, banter, and then we'll be out of here. And to be fair, that is a genuinely innovative addition to a very state and archaic format. There's really no reason why these hour-long shows really need to exist as they still do,

and they still pull out the physical cards. And it really is old-fashioned. And I think Fallon does deserve a lot of credit for building a new audience, bringing this to a group that doesn't typically pay attention to late-night as a genre. I just think it's interesting that over time, you know, Fallon became the young person. He was the first of this sort of new wave of late night hosts. He arrived in 2014. And then you got Seth Myers.

Then you got Colbert. Then you got Cornyn. He was like the leader of that vanguard. And when he shows up, it's, oh, this young, fresh face. He's revolutionizing this format. He's new. You know, maybe there were some malcontents who didn't really like what he was doing. But it was a different time.

I don't think people were as like consumed with what's the responsibility of a late-night talk show host or whatever, right? Exactly. And he came across as new and fresh. And then now, you know, Colbert is literally older than him. He plays a much, he's on CBS for God's sake. And to be fair, I think Fallon still maintains a lead among younger viewers, which is an important distinction to make, both for advertisers and just in general

and in fairness to him. But, you know, Colbert is this old school, slightly gray-haired, classic showman. And yet he somehow seems. almost not more youthful, but more in touch with the Zykeyes and what we want from late-night hosts right now. Certainly more engaged. The interesting thing about Fallon, too, is I hadn't really thought about this until I can't remember what YouTube deep dive I was on, but I was, you just start messing around

and you'll come across like these endless junket videos and random websites you've never heard of getting, you know, three minutes with Harrison Ford and Brian Gosling for Blade Runner 2049. mind. Every single one of these people, every single one of these videos now is almost to a T has some bit. It's like, we have to play Never Have I Ever, or we have to play like, would you rather? We have to play like, you know, Wired has people like reading their Google results. And it's like everything has been kind of, they saw from Fallon, like, man, if you only get five minutes with this person, do you want to just ask them the same questions everybody's going to ask them?

Or do you do 73 questions like Vogue? Or do you do these things? Vanity Fair stuffing coins up your nose like Michael Shannon. Yeah. So it's like, I think that what happened was Fallon was innovative, a lot of people copied it, and then combine that with the fact that Colbert and Kimmel, to some extent, seem more prepared for this moment.

What I was going to ask you was, and this is not like a really well-proven theory, but do you think Oliver had something to do with it? Because that explosion of like everybody just taking John Oliver's monologue and then half the blogs on the internet Monday morning be like, watch John Oliver eviscerate healthcare, that that kind of was a shot back at Fallon and then Colbert's kind of perfected what Oliver was doing? I think it's The Daily Show had something to do with it.

I mean, that's the thing that unites Oliver, Colbert, Samantha B, all these people who've really come into their own in the Trump era are all people who really built their reps, like doing this during the Bush years. And, you know, the best sort of segment that I watched this week, and bizarrely when you hold up Fallon's Strengths that's doing better than basically anything that he's done in the past few days on YouTube was Colbert had Oliver on and he apparently did the same thing last year when he was proponing his last season. But like they just have a 15 minute conversation. And it's, there's no bits, although later Oliver did another scene to, you know, in fairness, Colbert does do like

celebrity sketches on occasion. But it's just so pleasurable to watch John Oliver be funny about Trump possibly perjuring himself or just talking about like the absurdity of the Winter Olympics is this international spectacle and there's no hook, there's no special thing. It's just these two people who are natural peers, obviously Oliver's on HBO so he can get a little more granular. He doesn't have to have guests on. He doesn't need to do the promotional duties. But they definitely seem more stylistically at each other's level than Colbert is to Fallon. Yeah. Which was really fascinating. So let me ask you this. Does the world need to change for Fallon to? regain his popularity or just Pat Fallon have to change? So maybe the most painful thing that I had to

watch during all of this was Fallon's most overt attempt to really change with the times, which was he did a live show after the Super Bowl, which is in many ways, like exactly what Fallon should be doing. It's after this like famously, you know, kind of a political spectacle that's all about consumerism. He's got Timberlake who he's already got charisma with. Yeah. Exactly. This is us. Like, he's really in his element. And then he decided to do this. And then he decided to do this. You know, this bit at this theater in Minneapolis where he was in character as Bob Dylan, the camera went black and white, and he did this updated cover of Times They Are a Change in with topical lyrics about Me Too and fake news. And it was so glib and uninformed and shallow and literally

painful to watch. I was just like, look, like, do what you're good at. I can respect that. I may not, you know, may not be my personal preference, but I would much rather watch you, like, play a silly game of taboo with Rachel Brosnahan than have you try to be something that you're organically not. So I do think there's not really a better path forward except for Fallon to just keep doing what he's doing and wait for the inclination of change or, you know, I don't think things are anywhere near this bad, but NBC could obviously change personnel at some point and maybe bump Seth Myers up or something. I personally would trade Jimmy Fallon being the most popular talk show host for the next 50 years if we could have a better world.

Like if we wanted to just go back, can we go back? Yeah. If we never had to worry about politics and we didn't need someone to address those anxiety, that would probably speak to a better world. Let's just quickly talk about here and now, because that's something that we had written down on like our slip of, you know, our schedule of shows that we wanted to talk about. And I completely forgot that it was debuting this weekend this past Sunday.

Last night, it's the new show from Allen Ball on HBO. It is the prestige drama. on HBO. We're supposed to make this a national event where we used to. How is it? And it just kind of trailed off, right? Yes. Yeah. I think HBO did not really put their full muscle behind this promotionally. I think that the reasoning behind that becomes very clear when you watch the first few episodes. As you guys have talked about on the show, like HBO is a very limited amount of real estate that usually results in them being very finicky and very particular about what they actually allow on their airwaves. And I think it's

worth noting that the hour-long slot in February is what launched Big Little Lies last year and is bookmarked for next year for Merrill Streep to destroy us all. Yes, right. Like, this is a big spot. We expect big things. I also think it's worth noting that this show, the lead actress on this show is Holly Hunter, who is a national treasure, who was, in my opinion, just snubbed for best supporting actress and the Oscars.

You know, there's a lot of things going for the show. The person created this show produced two of the most iconic HBO shows of the last 15 years. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and I mean, I think Six Feet Under is genuinely great. I think True Blood is superlative trash. I still revisit it and it brought me a lot of joy. It ran for seven seasons. There's a lot of reasons that a show like this should be good.

I will actually say I enjoyed this a lot. Most of the time when I recommend that our sites readers and your listeners check out a show, it's because it's objectively good. That is not the case here. But it is bad in a way that is so fascinating to watch. And it's just how did this happen? What is the show going for? To backtrack, like the actual basic premise of the show is it's about a wealthy, mostly white family in Portland.

The matriarch is Holly Hunter. The dad paid by Tim Robbins is a philosophy professor who's going through some late in life angst. Three of their four children are adopted from conflict-ridden countries, one's from Colombia, once from Liberia, once from Vietnam. And then they have a biological daughter who is played by Kevin Bacon and Kira Sedgevich's daughter. Oh. Sosie Bacon. And, you know, a significant part of the show is basically like an insular, affluent family drama in the vein of transparent. Sure.

Or even like, this is us. There's a little bit of schmaltz. There's a little bit of real bite. I think the best parts of the show are what are sort of the subtle, weird dynamics that emerge among these family members, like the older siblings, Duke, who's adopted from Vietnam. and Ashley, who's from Liberia, have this sort of bond that's like, we are the visibly non-white members of the family. We feel like we're mascots for our parents' tolerance. Like, we got treated differently, whereas the actually white or just white passing younger

kids didn't. Like, that strain of conflict is really rich. And I think what Holly Hunter does is this kind of self-absorbed white woman who thinks she's the best and kindest person in the world is great. But the weird twist is that Ramon, who's the one from Columbia, starts getting these bizarre visions involving the number 11-11. There's a hint of something supernatural. They involve other characters on the show.

Something is happening, but the show cultivates almost no sense of suspense about where this is going, what this thing is. And then it just begs this really obvious question of like, why are rich people problems about like, which of our millionaire friends can donate to my vanity nonprofit? What is that doing alongside? this bigger, almost sensate-esque, like something bigger is going on. It's connecting us all.

Yes, exactly. Okay. And it's such an inorganic fusion that I will probably keep watching if only to find out, like, where's this going? And how long can they afford to, I mean, Andy and I talk about this all the time where, for better or for worse,

TV shows tend to show you their cards pretty early. I mean, even something as twisty as dark, you're aware that every, You learn that every two or three episodes, the game is going to change completely in that show. You know what I mean? Or Dark does a very good job of establishing what the questions are supposed to be asking is. It's like, where did this person go?

Why did this person commit suicide? How did this strange thing happen? What's going on here? The fascinating thing about here and now is like there are the sort of suspenseful questions of who's the person appearing in Ramon's dreams? Why is he seeing this number everywhere? What's the question of that? But then it just kind of forgets about them for like long stretches at a time.

and then you focus on... Does it feel like it was the hook of that, like the suspenseful hook is grafted on to just a pilot about like affluent Portland people with the doctor kids? But like it's clearly, you know, I think the sort of spiel that he must have used is it's like the six feet under family drama plus the True Blood Supernatural book. And it's almost, you know, it has to be there for a reason

because I think, you know, it very easily could be cut down to a like razor sharp half hour show that's like a satire of white liberalism in a city like Portland. And part of what the show is going for is clearly some statement about what it means to live in this diverse but chaotic world.

Like there are a lot of speeches to that event. It's a very self-consciously diverse cast. Like when Ramon starts going to therapy, his therapist is Muslim and the therapist's child is genderqueer. Like there's a lot of like we want this to be inclusive. We're clearly interested in the question of what it means to think of yourself as a generally upstanding,

politically left-leaning citizen. But then there's just this wild card that's like, it has to be here for a reason because there's a very good version of the show that exists without this, but I just have no idea what that is. So I'm, I will be watching. I will alert you if something crazy. Page me if we ever find out what's up with Ramon's visions. All right, Alison Herman's piece on Jimmy Fallon is up on the ringer.com now. You should definitely check it out. It sounds like only Allison will be watching here and now, but we'll give it a shot.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks so much for having me. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Showtime's hit series, Homeland. The show with its finger on the pulse returns for a new season starring Claire Danes and Mandy Patankan. The crisis in Washington heats up

after the attempted assassination of President Keen. And now as the ultimate outsider Carrie Matheson must save a government going off the rails while Saul fights to stop a resistant movement from exploding into violence. Abuses of power, civil unrest, agents and double agents, isolated from the White House and the CIA, Carrie finds herself with few resources and many disbelievers as she tries to prove that not all conspiracies are theories. Homeland has returned. It's on Sundays at 9. Download the Showtime app now to start your free trial. Thanks to Allison Herman. You can check out her article.

on The Ringer.com on Jimmy Fallon and all of her television stuff. It's great. Now Andy's got an interview with the members of France Ferdinand. Their new album Always Ascending is out now. We'll be back on Thursday. Take care. And now in the studio, I'm extremely pleased to be joined by Alex and Bob from France Ferdinand. New album, Always Ascending, is out February 9th, 2018. Some unexpected numbers thrown in there. I apologize for that. We're recording this a little early. It's December now. Yes. So hopefully the world will still exist in February. Fingers crossed. It's kind of a nice bet by you guys that it will. It's a nice one, sorry?

Bet that the world will still exist. Do you have doubts? Increasingly. What could possibly lead to that happening? No idea. Although you have been in America for a few days now, and maybe you're starting to come around to my way. It's supposed to some crazy character that could lead us to doom and destruction.

But we're not focusing on that. We'll talk about the new album, which is really great. I really love listening to it. Thanks. And I do want to talk about the new album, but I also did want to do a little memory lane strolling if you guys don't mind, because the last time we sat together was 13 years ago. Our relationship has just become a bar mitzvah in the Jewish tradition.

When I had the great pleasure of writing about you guys for, I'm going to show you just to take you back, this cover story for Span. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy, isn't it? And one of my favorite things about the story was obviously, like it was right on the heels of a big crashing of America would take me out, and the crowds were getting bigger, and the smiles on the faces of the record executives were getting, broader. And you were both, the whole band was still nice enough to get into my

decrepit Volkswagen in Philadelphia and drive to the Mutur Museum. Yeah, that's right. Which you apparently thought I was saying the Motor Museum. Yeah, I thought it was going to be a car museum. Do you remember what actually is in that museum? Yeah, yeah. The biggest colon in medical history. Exactly right. I will never forget that. It makes a great impression.

But you were very good sports about that. Yeah. I was quite squeamish, so I don't think I saw much of the museum. Yeah. I think I hung around in the entrance way. Well, in the entrance way, I believe you can still, if you open some drawers, you can see like, I wasn't opening any fingers. Fingernails or, no, none of that. I guess, and this is sort of a general way to begin, but it was such an exciting time, and it was a while ago.

What are your memories of that time now, now that we're on the promotional cycle in America for this new album? What was it like doing it the first time in hindsight if it's possible to do that kind of time travel gymnastics? Yeah, I guess it's intensely overwhelming when you're in the middle of that because everything's new. You haven't been back home for a long, long time. And what's weird is actually talking about yourself

for long periods of time? It's the first time in my life I'd ever had to do that. And that's actually quite disorientating. Yeah, and not a good thing for your mental health, I don't think. I don't think anybody should talk about themselves that much. And that's what I found weirdest at that time in doing promo trips. Yeah. There wasn't any sense of it was ever going to end as well.

Right. It was just kind of like, is this what happens there? Is this what we do? Is this my life? Yeah, well, it's funny you mention that because the piece that ran in spin ended with a quote from Alex and I wanted to share the quote with you because it actually allows for some interesting follow-up. you said, all of this is like having a torpedo launched. You've planned the trajectory.

You're standing on it. You know where it's going to go. You can't steer it for a while, but you know where it's going to end up. And the thing is, it's magic fun riding it. First of all, great quote. Thank you for making my job easier. But second, you said you knew where it was going to end up. So were you right?

Where did it end up? Huge explosion, yes. With casualties and limbs flying everywhere. It did feel like that at the time. It really, really did. Like it had gone off and there was absolutely nothing we could do to steer where it was going. And I guess when you're in a situation like that, you either kind of try and fight it or just enjoy the ride, which is pretty much what we were doing at that time.

Yeah. It also struck me that there was some, in retrospect, some of the machinery that the band was caught up in and the single was certainly caught up in was sort of the last vestiges of the old record industry machinery. I think back of 2004, and I don't think we knew it at the time. We knew things were changing, but I feel like the last two indie rock singles to like go, to go big in this country came that year. It was taking me out and float on by modest mounts. And there was still, in this article I wrote, there was still references to MTV plays, you know,

and tower records in stores and just these things that used to be the, that used to be what we did. That was the life, yeah, yes. That was how it worked. And so I feel like you had an interesting trajectory because you got the last sort of chem trails of that. and then had to make do in a changed world and continue to make do it and succeed in a changed world. It does feel very, very different. It feels different every time we release an album. So it's like every two or three years, you know, you go, you know, record company, okay, okay, things are a bit different now.

Yeah. Oh, what's new this time? Right. So it's like you've left and then they're like, here's the situation on the ground. Yeah, yeah. Do the faces change as well and the expressions? No, no. The direness of the...

I don't know, like, like, don't know. Bhamuno is a remarkably robust, you know, touch wood. Yeah, I think because they're a bit smaller, there may be a little bit more adaptable than some of the major labels are. Yeah, I remember when it did start changing, because we were doing stuff with epic at that time in the States. Yes, they were the ones high-fiving at the Tower Records in store, the Virgin Megastore, which are words that don't even go together anymore.

Yes, I know. It's funny, isn't it? Yeah, I did find that. That culture very different from the culture of Domino. Lots of sports references that I didn't understand. Well, you're in the right place for that. Yes, exactly. Like, we're going to knock this single out of the park.

Oh, right, Harvey, that's great. What does that mean? Also, it's impossible because only home runs leave the park. You were clearly with the wrong executives. But they meant you're single. I meant like in a baseball. Yeah, only a home run leaves the park. Yeah.

If you hit the ball out of the park. I thought a home room was like a rounder. Well, yeah. Is that a cricket reference? No, it's rounders reference. Oh, my God. This interview's over. This is falling apart.

Communication breakdown. Well, no, like, if you hit it out of the park, then you can run around the bases. Oh, okay. Right, right. You don't automatically get a home run for hanging out of the park. You do, but you still have to do the pageantry. You do. What if it stays in the park, but you still manage to run around all the bases?

A home run, but less, but more rare. Okay. And this has been another edition of Andy Explains Baseball to British citizens. We're done, right? That's what we do on the show. You mentioned, though, the limbs and explosions that could have happened on the rocket ship, but I feel like that clearly didn't happen. You have an excellent new record many years on. I wondered, in retrospect, what you think prepared you for surviving that.

And I wondered, to some degree, you know, the band didn't begin with a sort of cold corporate calculation. I wrote a lot in the piece about your early days playing that was a show in a prison that a lot of people remembered. and sort of an arts coming from more of an artistic scene. But also, Alex, you had background seeing this happen to friends in Glasgow. And not this specifically, but seeing friends form bands take off and then have their own experiences. And also like being a little older as well. I subscribe to that theory that if you have some success, it puts your development into suspended animation.

So if you have success at the age of 16, you remain 16 for the rest of your life. With all that entails. Yes, exactly. And for me, it was 32. Although, according to my article, it was 29. Oh, right. Okay. Okay.

Thanks, sir. Although, in my own defense, I refer to you as not naive, I think. There were a couple terms, not a novice, I said. Right, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Imagine thinking 32 is over the hill. Well, it's interesting at the time. that whole thing happened because

right at the beginning when our album came out, our manager and the guy that was doing our press in London said, look, the enemy went to write about you, but if you're over 30 they're not going to cover you. Do you mind if we lie about your age on the press release?

I was like, oh, damn, I don't, whatever. Yeah, yeah, just do it. There were so many things happening. And then, it ended up in this total nightmare of having to lie about this stupid thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was so embarrassing. And all my friends in Glasgow knew about it It's just like, oh, yeah, I know.

And every time I see them, I'd say, yes, I know it's stupid. But yeah. It seems crazy in retrospect at the time. It's like, it's whoever you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just felt personally betrayed because I was talking to me as a fellow, you know, 75 to 77er. And then as it turns out, everything we said was based on.

You're one of those early 70s guys. It's like we have no reference points anymore. Totally different generation. Oh, my God. So you mentioned that every time that says it's a little bit different, the record industry beneath your feet, so to speak. Do you feel either of you that the changes on the ground affected you? We could talk and we won't about how it may have affected the band commercially or in the

mechanism around the band. But do you feel that the changes in the industry affected you creatively in any way? Or have you been able to keep on doing what you wanted to be doing? You know, one thing that's been interesting is that this, with sort of streaming sites and things is this so-called death of the introduction.

I don't know. Have you been following this? I've never heard it said that way. I like that a lot. Right, right. The songs have to get straight to the biggest took of the song. Which your new single does not.

It does not. There's one minute. Standing a stride history saying, slow it down. So yes, the industry may change around us and we seem to willfully ignore those trends. But yeah,

so you're aware of things. And I guess you've got two ways of responding to it. It's either chasing them or just continuing to do your own thing, really. Can you think of anything else? I don't think that's creatively as any kind of impact, really. As a consumer, it's great. You know, the access to music nowadays as a music consumer is brilliant and exciting. Yeah, it's funny.

I think my two favorite formats are thriving at the moment, which is records or vinyl, and MP3s are streaming. I love that instant choice and instant access. If I'm curious about something like being able to hear it straightaway, if I'm in a conversation with somebody about a piece of music, like being able to listen to it straight away, that blows my mind still. I love that.

And I like to listen to records when I'm at home. It sort of requires kind of a two-track thinking I found with music because I desperately miss the things sometimes. I got rid of my CD collection, digitized it, which was a... I think it's a mistake. My wife disagrees. But I realize I miss the, just seeing it on the shelf and pulling it down and thinking about it physically.

But now you sort of have to, you can experiment and sample things. But then buying the record now feels more permanent. It's making a statement. It's like a commitment. Yes, a deeper commitment. So now you can both date and get married. No, it's true though. With my records, that's the music that I really love and feel a real attachment to.

I still have my CDs and never listen to them. I've got these. You're making me feel better. these shelves and shelves of CDs. And the music that I would choose to listen to from a CD, I always just stream it or have it digitized. But records I listen to all the time.

And I love getting my records down and putting them on. I think the thing that struck me most listening to your new record was how simple all of this can seem when you've got a great tune. I read in the the press materials, Alex, there's a quote from you saying

that the song always is sending, the lead single, was futuristic and naturalistic, which I think that's good. It's very good adjectives. But also I thought, well, this sounds very much of the moment, but none of that matters that it does because it's just a great tune inside of all the things he did with it. And it was actually, I found it kind of moving and inspiring, that it can be reduced to something

simple still, even though conversations about music these days are often the ones that we almost just had about format or whatever. It's really, that reminds me of a conversation that we were having right at the beginning when we started writing this. this record when it was just the three of us after Nick had left and it was just Bob, Paul and I

and we were talking about songs and like the importance of a song and how it doesn't matter what you do with the sound, you've got to have good songs at the heart of it and what we set out to do before we did thought about anything about how we were going to sound, what we were trying to do with the sound and the sonic identity

of the band, we sat down to write what became like a songbook you know like a collection of songs and then when you had the collection of songs then sort of say, right, how are we going to perform these now? And that's the point where you decide what your new sound is, and that's where you try and reach for the future or create your own future. But there's no point trying to do that if there's no song to apply it to.

And if the song is good, you can't break it. You can't, you know, it's the core. I want to ask specifically about what Philippe, who produced the record did to it. But you mentioned a Nick. So I realized there were two other things, two other straight. details in that profile, which is my, that's the spine of my interview, as much as the song as the spine of the record. One is that I refer to Nick as being prone to wander off.

He's not in the interview. I said that, I don't know what that came from, whether he walked away in an interview, but that seems weirdly prescient, doesn't it? Because he has apparently wandered out of the band entirely. Yeah, he would do that. That's very observant, actually. It's what he was like on tour. He would always wonder off and very easily distracted, you know, if there was,

a fly passing by or a puppet show or something a shiny object the circus was somewhere on the edge of town yeah yeah yeah he was and now he's he's wandered off

forever yeah that does change the dynamic it can be positive it can be negative how has it been for you ultimately I think it's been a positive for us

I mean it's been positive for Nick as well I think so too I mean endings are sad but we have him here right now and he disagrees I'm going out of life. Sorry, go on. Endings are always sad, you know, and it's like a bit of sweetness to it, you know,

when you've toured the world with someone for that many years and whatever. But it's an opportunity as well, you know, and that's what we kind of like saw it as. Everything gets, everything starts again and you have to kind of work out what your role is in the band. Everything changes, the dollar dynamics change, you know, which is exciting. It was an exciting thing to happen, really. The other stray detail that really stood out to me was that I believe, I didn't, credit this quote, but I believe Stuart Braithwaite from Maguire gave it to me that your drummer, Paul, was the quote, the best hung man in Scotland. And I realized I just wrote that, I don't know

if we fact-checked it. You know, I don't know, maybe it's an indictment of magazines at the time. There is a Polaroid that was circling around the Glasgow music scene at one point in the late 90s, which was pretty conclusive proof. Oh, okay, so there was. So maybe that in back. Do you think that was facts to spin in New York? He also starred in a sex ed film at some point as well in the 90s. Yeah, he was also a life model at the art school in Glasgow. You know, it's almost like he was searching opportunities to prove this point. Right, usually people who seek that many opportunities to prove it have something to hide, but not. No, no, he was, yeah, he finds it hard to hide.

Good, there it is, but we're really settling old scores here, aren't we? What does that still comes into Stewart's mind whenever he's talking to Paul? And let me say, I didn't ask. It's obviously scarred in some way, isn't it? I didn't ask, he volunteered, to be fair. But then you also, Alex, in the same interview, in the same piece, said that you remember, Stuart, again, for the people listening at Magway, from Magway, this is not a natural scene to set. You remember him at the 13th note wearing a velvet jacket singing Del Shannon's Runaway. That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, when he was in Deadcat Motorbike. Everybody kept the receipts on everybody else. That's true. There's nowhere to hide. It's funny. It's funny, like, Stuart actually had a rule to play in this new lineup as well because it was Stuart that introduced us. to Julian Corey, who's now joined the band. Because there was a film that came out last year

called Lost in France. And it was kind of about Chemical Underground and the scene in 90s, seen in Glasgow. And I was over with Stuart for a showing of the film, along with Emma Pollock and Paul Savage from the Delgado's. And I said to them, hey, we're looking for someone to join the band. Who in Glasgow was exciting? And all of them said, Julian Corey.

This as a super Glasgow fanboy from the 90s Who bought everything on Chemical Underground Pre-Spotify I mean you just had to buy it Likewise me too from Yorkshire I mean Ursa Yitzero is one of my favorite bands I know you used to play with them a little bit Yeah that's right that's right I used to drive them around

I used to be a van driver I mean not on Spotify I can't find them I think a few tracks are They've done an album recently It's like a compilation album of all of their appeal sessions Which is really cool There's so many good bands

So, I mean, that is the mystery that's a little bit lasted. You went backstage and drank all their rider. I didn't drink all their rider, but... You were 15 or something. It was... I went to school like 200 miles away from Glasgow in Yorkshire, and they were passing by playing Sheffield. And my school friend's uncle was their sound engineer

who got us on the guest list. It's perfect. And then we went backstage and had some of their rider. I didn't want to drink their rider, typically. You were just thirsty. You had to. It was there. You had to do it. I mean, I would quite...

I didn't, you know... It's an Ellison Wonderland situation. The bottle is on the table. And look where you ended up all these years later. So going back to the new record briefly, Philippe Cedar from Cassius and other lofty production credits produced the record. An exciting and I think inspired pairing.

How was that creatively? It was amazing. Philip's really cool. I first spoke to him. Lawrence Bell at Domino introduced us about five or six years ago. And it was when he was working on the Beastie Boys record. We had a couple of chats on the phone and said, oh yeah, this is really cool,

we should work together. It's not going to work out at the moment. And then, yeah, we were talking about producers when we were getting this record together and it was obviously we wanted to make something that was like a dance floor record or had certainly quite a large dance element to it. And we're looking to the future in the sound,

didn't want it to have anything. It sounded like anything we'd done before. And Philippe seemed like the obvious choice. We sat and listened to all of his production and was like, man, it sounds amazing. So sent him a text and he was up for it. And have you met Philippe before? Never, no.

Right, he's quite a character. He's extremely French, quite gregarious, a big character, a lot of enthusiasm and energy as well. He's like, I think everybody has one of those kind of friends in a social circle who, when they are part of the night out, crazier stuff happens than normal. You know, that one guy that like somebody ends up breaking an ankle or... And as we get older, we still need to keep that guy in the phone because you still sometimes

need that release valve. Yeah, that is Philippe. He is that character in every part of his life and in the studio as well. But it's great having something like that in the studio. Those people that push you to do something beyond what you would normally do and kind of go a bit crazy and... So basically you hire the guy who says, now we do shots. That's the guy.

and you bring him into your... Literally did. Every day at 6 p.m. He has a... What's it? Whiskey sour. Like, he mix up whiskey sour. Like, he's a mixer in every sense.

Like, he mixes records. Mixes as DJ and mixes. The best whiskey sour I've ever had my life. 6 p.m. It's a whiskey sour and one single cigarette. That's class, but also a little bit of discretion. I respect that. I just feel like with bands, which, and I can say this from the outside,

so you feel free to tell me if I'm being ridiculous. But you understand why you make the first record. there's a need to make the second record and then the third record just to go along with the timeline and the story that people on my side of the ball always like to craft. Any record after that, I feel like

you need a reason to do it. And one of the reasons that I think this album sounds so exciting and it's backed up by the way you're talking about is that there was a real decision-making. I mean, you had some good songs, but you knew you wanted a dance sound. You wanted a certain type of record. And so the abilities of the players

were put in that direction, right? As opposed to there's a blank slate in the release sked. or in my personal calendar, it's time to make a record. Definitely. I mean, there was no release schedules. We didn't even know if there was going to be a band or whatever. It was just, we had to decide to do it.

There were a lot of puppet shows that year. It was very distracting. And circuses. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, very distracting. I think when we came to make this record, we decided that we had to like sort of break up our patterns of creativity and look to push ourselves in ways of ways

in ways that we hadn't before and try and make us write using methodologies that we hadn't before. So the ways that we approach lyric writing, music writing, just because when you've been doing anything for a long period of time, you find yourself repeating yourself. When you repeat yourself, then you do the same thing. And so Nick's leaving was actually a great gift in that sense because it immediately shook everything up. the roles weren't the same anymore and it meant that you could try and force yourself to do things like you hadn't before and a lot of lyric writing was different

you know we were sort of creating fictional characters to write from even sort of like playing using lyrics like as a game yeah yeah which we had done before just to an extent but I guess we embraced it more this time another thing was you bought a piano in late 2015 which

so you were kind of an amman with that, so a lot of writing took place on a piano rather than a guitar, which changes things. I wanted to ask about a specific song on the album, Huck and Jim, where there's a refrain. And if I've misheard it, we can just edit this out of the podcast entirely. But I believe the protagonist of the song, maybe it's you, Alex, is saying, talking about coming to America and telling everyone about the National Health Service. Yes. Here's your chance. Right.

Here we are. We have microphones. Yeah, yeah. I believe. Well, that song started. The chorus of the song, the music came first, and it just sounded so much like, well, to our ears, like American slacker rock or something like that.

It sounded like silver dues or pavement or wheezer or something like that. It doesn't really, because it's us playing it, so we're never going to really be totally like that. But it was the most in that direction I'd ever been. And so I was kind of taking the piss out of myself a little bit, or the band and kind of singing, we're going to America. Yeah. And having a bit of a laugh as I did it. Then, but then, you know, when you're having a laugh, sometimes it can, like, switch and suddenly, like, you're having a joke and it becomes a little more serious because I was thinking, like, if I was going to go to America at that particular time in 2016, pretty much exactly a year ago.

That was a very happy time in America. I was a very happy time. I was here. It was just laughs. Oh, God, yes, so joyous. And what would I talk about if I got to America? At that time, the dominant news story was the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act. And that put the National Health Service in my mind as well, which is also being dismantled kind of in a more sinister way. It's being done by the back door. It's being sold off to companies like Virgin Health Care.

So it's been primized. They went from megastores to healthcare. Unbelievable. He couldn't sell records anymore. He had to sell pills. It's kind of brilliant. You saw which way the winds were blowing. Yes.

So, yeah, and the NHS, it saved my life three or four times. I'm a somatic. I was a weasy kid. I ended up in the back of an ambulance going to hospital. And I love it. I love those doctors, those people that gave up their lives to do it. But I also love the fact that it's for everyone. I feel it's a measure of civilization, the fact that you care for you're sick.

Yeah. You look after your sick. And so I want to see, like, yes, the NHS has been wonderful. It's saved my life. Look after you're sick. It's a wonderful thing. There are even some religions that I believe suggest that. I'm not a religious man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And finally, a couple years into this band, with this great record about to come out, what keeps you excited about it? Because I know, even as far back as that story, a few years ago, Alex, you had just done those food columns. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know that you guys are men of the world who have other interests and things that you like to do and other things that inspire you. What keeps you interested in rock and roll?

I suppose to go into doing something else. It's always been my thing. It's always just been what I do since I was about 14. And I'm not suggesting you stop. I was just curious what... I think you should stop. What are you going to do? I think I'm just quite interested in doing what I do well as well as I can.

And every year, every album, whatever, I enjoy. playing the bass more and I understand more about music and I enjoy, you know, the dynamic, that literally performing music in a group of people. That's something that I want to do. This time around as well it's kind of different having Julian and Dino in the band because it feels it's almost like, I don't want to say it is, but it's almost like you're doing it for the first time because you kind of like as a new entity. Yeah, it is for them. And that it's kind of like, well, this is, you know, if they're excited by this thing and you kind of like, well, yeah, shit, this is really exciting, you know.

It is good. I think since that time as well, I've learned to become a bit more focused. When we spoke at that time, it's like, what? You want me to write a column about food? Sure, I'm going to do that. Right. And so. You spend a certain number of years waiting for people to ask you to do things.

Exactly. Exactly. And while it was great to do all that stuff, it's quite exhausting and quite distracting from your main thing that you want to do. So now I think I really have learned to sort of focus and, like, sort of keep my main thing. And I like sort of to go away and do other things, but maybe more related to music as well. I like production. I'm going to do some recording when I get back after this trip to Scotland. But I don't think I'll be writing any more food columns.

Well, hopefully you'll be making more albums. The newest one, which I think is excellent, always ascending, is out February 9th, 2018. I hope we get a chance to talk again before 13 more years have elapsed, at which point. Because then I think Alex will be 34. And frankly, let me check the press release. Frankly, what will there be to talk about at that point? Thanks, you guys. Thanks very much.

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