U Talkin’ U2 To Me? - R U Talkin' R.E.M. RE: ME? - Time Crisis Crossover w/ Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend & Jake Longstreth
Episode Date: May 8, 2019In a special cross-over episode, Ezra Koenig and Jake Longstreth of Time Crisis join Adam Scott Aukerman to talk about Vampire Weekend’s latest record “Father of the Bride” and of course all thi...ngs R.E.M. Plus, another episode of “I Love Films.”
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From Chronic to Collapse, Town and Into Now respectively that is, this is R.U. Talkin' R.E.M. Re-Me
The comprehensive and encyclopedic compendium
Of all things R.E.M.
This is good rock and roll
Music
Hello, welcome to the show
Welcome back to our old listeners and welcome front to our new listeners.
Hey, Adam.
Adam, what's going on with your breathing?
Did you think that was Darth Vader?
I thought it was Darth Vader
and then I turned
and I saw someone even uglier
than an Anakin Skywalker
who went into the,
what did he go into?
Fire pits or something?
I only saw that movie one time.
A pit of fire, yeah.
It was a pit of fire?
Yeah.
Did he jump in it
or did someone push him in?
He jumped in.
He jumped in.
He was on a pogo stick and he jumped into the pit of fire at the end of that.
What a terrible, those prequels.
I know.
I mean, they were terrible while you're watching them and just hearing you describe them.
I mean, Darth Vader on a pogo stick, it doesn't make any sense.
It's like, doink, doink, doink, doink, bye-bye.
He said bye-bye as he went into it.
Bye-bye.
Awful, Just awful.
And that was the best of the three. Right.
Oh, of course. Yeah. It was really good.
Wait a minute. Is this an episode of I Love Films?
I think it is.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to
I Love Films. This is Scott. And this is Scott.
And look,
we love films. I don't know how else to say this. I gotta tell you, Scott. We love films. This is Scott. And this is Scott. And look, we love films.
I don't know how else to say this.
I got to tell you, Scott.
We love films.
I love films.
I mean, it's simple.
It's a simple equation.
I plus love equals films.
Films.
Films.
Films.
You know, I'm not talking about blockbusters.
Sure.
We're not talking about the Star Wars movies.
No, I'm not.
Except in this case, we're talking about Star Wars.
We were talking about the Star Wars movies.
But pretty much we're only talking about like Reds.
Reds is a film.
Reds, Warren Beatty.
Yeah, can you say it?
Can you pronounce it?
Because that's who it is.
Yeah.
Truffaut.
Of course, Truffaut. All is. Yeah. Truffaut. Of course, Truffaut.
All the great filmmakers.
Truffan.
Truffan is a terrific filmmaker.
Trolls.
Trolls are wonderful filmmakers.
I mean the movie Trolls.
And it's a great film.
I love films.
I love films so much.
I gotta be honest. If I could fuck a film love films so much. I gotta be honest.
If I could fuck a film.
Take it easy.
I would fuck a film.
Take, Scott.
I know the canisters that films come in have like holes in the middle, but it's not good for you.
It's not good for the films.
And it's just not good for the world.
But I would do it.
I'm saying I can't.
I would fuck a film if I could.
I love films so much.
Okay.
What film would...
I mean, look, there's got to be a film out there that you would fuck.
I mean, look, I don't approve of this conversation.
I don't cond of this conversation. I don't condone this conversation.
But if I had to, if I had to, it would probably be Revenge of the Nerds 3.
That's a good looking film.
Just as a film. I don't know if you've seen it in its canisters lying around. It's a cinema looking film it's just as a film
I don't know if you've seen it
in its canisters
lying around
it's a cinema
right yeah
of course I have
it's gorgeous
anytime I go see
a film at a repertory theater
like Revenge of the Nerds
part 3
yes
I'll go
several hours
before show time
yep
and I'll say
projectionist
yeah
allow me into your booth
oh projectionor.
And then I just look at those cans.
You just got to take a look.
And you know what else you have to do?
You have to take a whiff.
That's a film.
Ah, film.
Sell you Lloyd.
Well, look, I think the moral of this story is we love films.
Yeah, I hope that's what the moral is that I now agree to. That's the takeaway story is we love films. Yeah, I hope that's what the moral is. I think that's the takeaway.
That's the takeaway is that we love films.
Love films.
All right, we'll see you next time.
Thanks.
Bye.
That was a weird one.
It went in a weird direction.
I don't think the one host knew how to pronounce that director's name,
that he's only read.
Oh, Drafat?
Drafat.
I will say just now on the table here, the famous Earwolf table,
Chelsea put her name, she wrote.
Chelsea Peretti.
Chelsea Peretti wrote her name here.
And I wrote a little message to her.
Oh, you did?
Okay.
Well, she may be back soon.
Chelsea, speaking of films, married to one of the great filmmakers of the modern era.
He makes films, as far as I'm concerned.
As far as I'm concerned, he's never made a movie.
Not even, no.
Not even once.
Not even close.
Not even close.
No, he turns it in and people are like,
this is not a movie.
Didn't we hire you to direct a movie?
The film studio, the man behind the desk is like,
let's see your film, see?
And he comes in and turns it in.
He's like, you got your movie there?
Just walks out.
Doesn't even say a word.
So first he says,
I kind of fucked it up at the very beginning.
Well, speaking of fucking it up at the very beginning,
this is the very beginning of a very special episode for us.
By the way, we've got to introduce ourselves.
I'm, of course, Scott Aukerman of the Comedy Bang Bang podcast
and television show, creator of Between Two Ferns,
two-time Emmy winner.
And across from me is... It's just me.
It's just Adam Scott.
No Emmys.
I do want to hype what we have going on this show.
Is that okay?
Yeah.
Just so people know they can, like their expectations of what's what we're
talking about this is of course are you talking rem remy the comprehensive and encyclopedia
compendium of all things rem we've gone over every single rem album we've gone over every
single rem b-side we've gone over every single R.E.M. fan club track
that they released to their fan club.
Well, and then
we ended the show.
That was it. That was it. That was all we were
going to do. And then a couple
weeks back, we got
the groovy man himself,
Mike Myers from R.E.M.
was on the show. Mike Miller
himself, as far as i'm concerned he
played uh the bass guitar he played bass guitar bass guitar the one that's really super low
um did we ever ask him don't don't don't
do we ever ask him if he enjoyed playing those low notes?
You know what?
I don't think.
I had written that on my hand, but I forgot to actually say it out loud.
Because, I mean, it's a choice to play bass guitar.
Yeah.
Because guitars are like, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee.
But then a bass is like so low. It's like.
Bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo.
I'm loving it.
Here I am, loving life, playing the bass guitar.
So if we ever run into him again, that's got to be our number one question.
First thing I'm going to say to him, do you like playing all those low notes?
So we had him on, so we came back.
But a lot of people are like, well, why would you be back again?
Right.
Is it at the end?
Close up shop.
Yeah.
Well, au contraire, mon frere, because we got requested to do today's episode.
We're taking requests now.
Yeah.
And this came to us via a fan.
We'll talk a little bit more about that later uh when our guest comes our
guests rather come on the show yeah it's exciting i'm i'm really excited i know you are this is so
exciting do you want to say uh who is uh on the show uh i mean this is look mean, it's, you know, big fan, big, big fan.
Like one of the best bands working today by a long country mile.
Certainly one of my favorites.
Sure.
What?
The band's not one of my favorites?
And, you know, I will say right now that the new record is incredible and
maybe their best well you've had a chance to listen to it all i've only heard half of it
um but it uh it's really good i uh really enjoy it can we say the band can we say i mean yeah we One, two, three. Vampire Weekend.
Duh.
Vampire Weekend's own Ezra Koenig got a hold of us out of the blue and said,
bros, let's do a crossover episode with my, I guess he does a radio show.
It's not a podcast, but it's a radio show on Apple Beats.
So he and Jake Longstreth, Longstreth, actually, I believe is, he said, pronounced both syllables equally.
Longstreth.
Yeah.
Jake Longstreth.
Yeah.
His co-host on Time Crisis, which is his show.
Great show. They're both going to be on our show talking about REM,
and then we're going to get in the car.
Zip on over.
Zip on over to Time Crisis and be on their show
and talk about whatever we talk about on that show.
Yeah.
Isn't that exciting?
I think we might talk about The Grateful Dead a little bit.
That's the plan anyway. That's the plan anyway.
That's the plan, yes.
And you're, by the way, you're not going to leave during their show, right?
Absolutely not.
Okay, good.
I'm going to hold you to that.
I'm committing to that right now.
Okay, good.
But that's super exciting.
We're going to talk about the new Vampire Weekend record.
We're going to talk about everything concerning Vampire Weekend,
and then we're going to talk about R.E.M.
I'm interested what Ezra thinks of R.E.M.,
if they had any influence on him as a songwriter.
Oh, I doubt it.
Probably.
But let's ask him anyway.
Sure.
That's the beauty of this show.
We'll be sitting here.
We'll have microphones.
He'll be sitting there.
He'll have a microphone as far as I know.
Oh, shit. Okay. I only brought two hmm okay well we can just write down what he says let's write
down what he says and then get an ezra koenig impersonator we'll do that and record it later
yeah and then splice it in that's what we're gonna do sorry we didn't bring microphones and i don't
feel like doing a bruce springsteen and and uh you know little steven with you sharing a mic oh no back to back yeah no thank you interview like that no
thank you thank you i haven't taken a shower in four weeks so you really don't want to do that
you haven't taken a shower in four weeks four weeks what is going on with you i'm just baths
i just feel like yeah just really intense long five hour baths? I just feel like- Yeah, just really intense, long five-hour baths.
With tons of soap and hot water.
You smell great.
That's what I was going to say.
Oh, I smell wonderful.
I'm just saying you wouldn't want to stand back-to-back with me at a microphone.
Okay, yeah.
Because I haven't shaved in like two years.
That's right.
Yeah, I know.
You have a super long Rip Van Winkle beard these days.
Is this for a role or-
The role of a lifetime,
which is me being me?
You think being yourself is the role of a life?
I guess the role of your lifetime.
That's what someone told me.
Like if someone were to say to me,
hey, would you like to play Adam Scott in a movie?
I wouldn't consider that to be a role of a lifetime.
I would kind of be like, yeah, all right.
What am I going to do in this movie is it all just about me making krampus yeah what if that's the whole movie um so that's coming
up a little later we have jake and ezra on the show and um gonna be a fun one because what did you say about the new Vampire Weekend single?
You rhapsodized over it on Instagram.
Yeah, it was pretty pretentious.
I said that Harmony Hall,
which is the first single they released,
they've now released, I think, three or six songs or something.
Yeah, yeah, three singles with two songs in piece besides yeah um and i said it was like paranoid android
for a new generation or something for 2019 right and the reason i said that is because it's a long
it's because it's a stupid thing to say no stupid things come out of your brain and out of your mouth.
You've been waiting a while for this song.
It comes out and it has,
the way the song starts is very different than where it ends.
It goes through different cycles and it was a pretentious thing to say.
cycles and it was a pretentious thing to say.
But it felt to me like
Paranoid Android did when I first
heard that a few times.
The first few times
in 97 did that come out?
So, anyway, I
regretted it, especially...
I regret bringing it up.
Why?
I think
what you're trying to say
is that it has a lot of
different types of musical parts
strung together
and it's a long song
yeah but it's not like
it's not super like
Paranoid Android's
like six minutes
yeah
seven minutes long
or something
but this has
it's almost
it's almost like
a couple different songs
kind of smushed together
in a really good way
do you like it
what do you think of it
I heard it again this morning.
Yeah.
And it's great.
It's great.
It's dinky dinky.
It's got that, you know,
I'm free to do what I like in the old time.
You can see that in the video too,
definitely that period of music.
Yes.
Influencing the visuals as well.
You know what?
I'm going to play a little bit of it here
so people know what the hell we're talking about
and who the hell we're talking about.
I mean, maybe there are people out there,
they only, you know, this is an REM podcast.
We probably have a lot of listeners
who have only listened to REM.
And they don't even know what a vampire weekend is.
They're like, what are you even talking about?
So I'm going to play a little bit of
Harmony Hall here, if I can find it on the old pod, which I can. Let's hear a little bit of Harmony Hall.
Graceland. I believe that New Year's Eve will be the perfect time for their great surrender but they don't remember
anger wants a voice
voices won't sing
singers harmonize
till they can't hear anything
thought that I was free
from all that questioning
But every time a problem ends
Another one begins
And the stone walls
Are finding their own bad witness
Funky, funky
It's pretty great.
I would say almost like,
I mean, this is maybe a stretch,
but almost like a paranoid Android for 2019.
Oh, God.
But you called me on it immediately.
And wrote a, the minute I saw you wrote that.
Shut up or whatever.
I think I said shut up.
I was like, yeah, no, you're right.
And to your credit, you were like, yeah, you're right.
I shouldn't say that.
That was a fun bit of interaction on the most social of medias.
Oh, there's nothing like it nothing like social media to make you smile in the morning but only in the morning because at night
put it away you got it you gotta put it gotta put it away at night um so adam are you excited? We also, uh, we have a show, uh, coming up at, uh, Clusterfest.
You excited about that?
Uh, yeah, that's going to be fun.
We don't know, uh, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna be doing something real interesting.
We're gonna do a live show.
Yeah.
It's a Clusterfest, which is up in San Francisco.
So go get tickets to that.
San Fran.
A little SF.
Yeah.
Uh, the city as everyone called it.
I remember when I lived
in Sacramento,
everyone was like,
oh,
I think I'm thinking
maybe this weekend
I'll go out to the city.
Yeah.
And I was like,
what city?
Yeah.
I didn't know
what they were talking about.
Yeah.
And everyone calls
San Francisco the city,
just the city.
Like,
it's the only city.
Yeah.
I remember that
from Santa Cruz as well.
They would say the city?
The city, yeah.
What is the radius?
When do people stop calling it the city?
The closer they get to LA, I guess?
In Los Angeles, you definitely don't say,
I'm going to the city
and it means you're going to San Francisco.
In fact, no one talks about San Francisco at all.
I'm surprised that we're even talking about it right now.
I thought there was a law against talking about San Francisco
to be honest with you. Well, that's the thing.
Look, I love going up there
and doing shows. I've been doing it for
more than a decade.
But anytime we're up there
and you mention Los Angeles, people
boo and hiss you. Oh my God.
It's adorable because
they hate Los Angeles
and we never think of them.
Yeah.
It is a weird, because I did do a play up there.
Which play did you do, my dear boy?
It was, I forget.
Is this an episode of Treading the Boards?
Yep. Hey everyone, welcome to Treadin' Aboard.
Treadin' Aboard?
Treadin' Aboard.
Welcome to Treadin' The Boards.
This is Scott.
And this is Scott.
And we're talking about...
The theater.
The boards that Scott is referring to.
The baseboards of the stage. Yes, the boards we trot upon. Theater. The boards that Scott is referring to.
The baseboards of the stage.
Yes, the boards we trod upon as thespians of the theater.
And what was your question?
What was?
Kind sir.
What tome did you perform in?
I don't remember. Why did we start this episode? I don't remember.
Why did we start this episode?
I don't know.
No, it was, God, if I could just remember the name of it. God damn it, I asked you if this was an episode of Tread in the Boards and you said yes.
I said it was.
This is the only question I had prepared for Tread in the Boards.
Oh, Romeo and Juliet.
You forgot Romeo and Juliet? Romeo and Juliet. You forgot Romeo and Juliet?
Romeo and Juliet.
That's a, I gotta say, we've been doing Tread on the Boards a long time.
Yeah.
That's one of the most famous plays.
Yeah, but for me, I think of whatever play I'm doing at the moment as the most famous play.
Do you know what I mean?
Also, you probably aren't even aware you're in a play because you're so deep in the character that's right i'm just living wow yeah and that's what tread in the
boards is all about living this the podcast is the podcast yeah about you doing romeo and juliet
yep the entire podcast is about that one play that i did right yeah okay we'll see you next time bye who did you play in Romeo and Juliet
take a wild
fucking guess
the priest who gives her the poison
no
Tybalt Priest gives her the poison? No.
Tybalt.
No.
Juliet?
Was it like a gender swap thing?
No.
I'm out of guesses.
I have no idea.
Who did you play?
Take one more guess.
One more.
I'll give you one more guess.
Do you want a hint?
Are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in that? No.
God damn it.
No, they're not in that play.
They're in Hamlet.
Fuck.
Capulet.
It's not Capulet.
Capulet.
The name is, other than Juliet, it's the most famous character in the play.
Chet?
Chet. Is that someone? Ch play. Chet? Chet.
Is that someone? Chet.
His buddy?
Chet, no.
He does not have a buddy named Chet.
Juliet's cousin?
Who's Juliet's cousin?
I don't even know who that is.
I don't know.
It's, okay.
The nurse, the nurse.
Goddammit.
The name is- Nurses can be the, okay. The nurse. The nurse. God damn it. The name is-
Nurses can be men, Adam.
The name is in the-
The-
Play.
Next to the dialogue of the character.
Title.
Title is your name?
No.
God.
No.
Who'd you play?
I give up.
I give up.
I have no idea who you played.
I played Romeo.
You played Romeo?
Yeah, I did.
All right.
Hey, it's a little too late for an April Fool's prank, Adam.
Well, this was some time ago, Scott.
Okay.
You know what? It's Okay. It's, you know what?
It's embarrassing.
It's embarrassing sometimes.
The lack of imagination.
I guess
it was just like
untraditional,
nontraditional casting
kind of like,
hey, we're going to put
ugly people.
We're going to put
dumb, ugly people
as the leads
in the display.
But anyway, when I was up there doing doing that i did notice a lot of people were just like oh you live in los angeles i'm so sorry there was a
lot of that sort of attitude people hate it uh los angeles but i don't get because san francisco
is an awesome city but it's also it's's not like Los Angeles is a cesspool.
There's no, it's not even a competition.
Why would there be a better city?
Right.
Like who's judging cities?
Right.
They're just two.
Other than the city judges.
That's true.
Yeah.
An elected position.
Right.
But who's out there saying like, oh, a city needs to be better than another city.
They're just places. Yeah. They're places that you drive in your car, fly in a city needs to be better than another city. They're just places.
Yeah, they're places that you drive in your car, fly in a plane, however you want to get there.
Take a scooter.
Take a scooter, walk.
Skip if you want.
Throw a scooter out on the sidewalk.
Throw a coin to the newspaper stand guy.
Grab a paper on the way to the-
Sure, why wouldn't you?
On the way to work.
Great cities all have a great newspaper man.
Great, great cities.
We should start a show about great cities at some point.
Great cities.
Just the world's best cities.
That'll be our follow-up podcast to this.
This week, Tampa.
We should.
We travel to each place and record.
We go there and just walk around.
What are we doing in Tampa?
Why did we come?
Why did we agree to do this?
This is exhausting.
All we're doing is walk.
We could be walking around at home.
We're traveling so much.
It's hard to get to Tampa.
Next week, Albuquerque.
Oh, Adam.
All right, look, Adam.
Yeah, Ezra, I think, is approaching.
This is exciting.
I can't wait.
This is very exciting.
We're going to talk to him about the new Vampire Weekend record.
We're going to talk to him about REM.
And also Jake Longstruth.
We're going to talk to him about something, I presume.
Oh, yeah.
He has a band too.
Can't wait.
Yeah.
It's not called Can't Wait.
No.
Adam's saying he can't wait.
I can't wait to talk to him about his band.
All right.
When we come back, we are going to be talking to Ezra and Jake.
We will be right back after this.
Welcome back.
Are you talking Ari Emery me?
Are you talking Ari Emery me?
I can never tell.
You know, we've asked this question.
For us, it's the eternal question. For hundreds of episodes at this point.
How long have we been doing this show?
We've been doing this show for 22 years.
22 years. That's longer than bonanza
that's long that's as long as the simpsons have been on it's longer than podcasts have been in
existence exactly i mean we are real real forefathers of this medium grandfathers yes
the simpsons do you like them oh yeah the simpsons. They're funny. They're all guys, right?
Those guys are funny.
They are funny.
The Simpsons are funny.
It's a comedy show.
You ever do one of those Simpsons episodes?
No, but I've watched a bunch of them.
Yeah, that's almost like being on it as far as I'm concerned.
I thought it was.
That's as good.
What would you play if you were one of the Simpsons?
I would demand, first of all, I would demand that I be one of the Simpsons yeah i'd be part of the family yeah not non-negotiable yes i would want
to play lisa special guest this week as lisa simpson scott ackerman and without trying to
mimic the voice oh no no well i would try this is me smith wait who's lisa i don't know i don't
care they're out of there
for this episode
I don't give a shit
who it is
they're gone
it's me
it's you
here's my Lisa Simpson
hey Bart
what's up
look at that skateboard
see I think that's fine
I think it works
and I
actually
oh my god
you just had a cow
alright you know what
everyone's always trying
to prevent him
from having cows
I would be a character that encourages him to have cows.
Love it.
List it.
Are you going to love it or are you going to list it?
You ever see that show?
Yeah.
I'd love to be on that show with you.
Love it or list it.
We should buy a piece of property and then you and I get it renovated and then we decide if we're going to love it and stay
there or if we're going to list it and sell it and move on and never see each other again i think it
would be really fun you know you know what show i want to be on is insane pools have you seen insane
pools what do they do how insane are these pools first of all about this group of guys that make
pool you know dig pools and make pools custom pools in people's backyards. It's about a group of guys?
Yeah, it's a bunch of dudes making pools.
I'm sold.
Without the pools, I'm already in.
It's, how insane are these pools?
Like, what do they do?
Do they have slides?
Slides.
Waterfalls.
And there's always a little bit of drama with the family who wants it, and then the-
They want something special with their pool, and they feel like they're not going to get it because it's too expensive uncompromising in their vision for
the pool but yeah pool maestro the guy who really knows what it takes to make an insane pool he's
got to keep the customer happy he's got to keep his crew happy right it's it's pretty great let
me ask you a question is deadpool involved in this show yeah deadpool's a big part of it wow yeah wow the
merc with a mouth yeah himself is that what they call deadpool and that's his you know how every
superhero has like a nickname like the man of steel web head sure uh shell head yeah horn head
a lot of head nicknames horn head that's daredevil of Of course. Then you got Jade Jaws, the Incredible Hulk himself.
Jade Jaws.
Jade Jaws.
Jade Jaws.
Jade Jaws.
So if you're fighting the Hulk and you're like, hey, Jade Jaws, he knows what you're saying, basically.
He's used to it.
Right.
But the Merc with a Mouth is Deadpool's nickname.
Hmm.
Because he's a mercenary.
That's what I don't understand about it.
He's a mercenary.
Yeah.
But when you shorten it, when you read it, yeah, it makes sense because it's the first four letters of mercenary.
Yeah.
But shouldn't it be the merce with the mouth?
I don't know.
How do you know it's not?
I believe, well, I don't know.
I thought in the movie this was, they covered this territory.
I didn't see either of those movies.
Why not?
I just haven't seen them.
You should play Deadpool.
Okay.
You'd be a good Deadpool.
If Ryan, who is it? Ryan Reynoldsyan reynolds if he gets the flu if he ever gets the flu and i
pray look we're not doing this podcast to to just you know engender some sort of like weird karma
where suddenly he gets the flu and it's our fault we hope we hope he does not get the flu no no no
but if he does and i pray that he does not i I would not wish that on my worst enemy, Adam.
We don't want Ryan Reynolds to get the flu.
Ryan, if you're listening and you even think you're getting some flu, please take emergency.
Take that hand sanitizer and just squirt it all over your face.
Squirt it all over your cock, your balls, every part of your body.
And then send us the pics.
What were we talking about before we started talking about him squirting stuff all over his...
Me taking, stepping in for him.
Oh, yeah, stepping in.
You'd be a great Deadpool.
Like, I could just step in and do some stunts.
Yeah, maybe crack wise.
You can't tell who's in the suit, right?
Exactly.
Well, I mean, they would have to use your voice and your body.
I'd love to see you in that Deadpool outfit.
Oh, yeah.
It would be fun.
It would be really fun.
That'd be really fun.
We should do that.
We should film that one day.
Okay.
And just send it to them.
Just the two of us?
Two of us, you know, you and I alternating.
No one would tell us apart, right?
I mean, put a mask on both of our faces.
We're pretty much the same.
Yeah, we're the same height.
Same height, same weight.
Yeah.
I like that you said build.
I appreciate that.
Sure.
That's a nice way.
We're both built in some way.
Yes.
Look, we have some very special guests.
Yeah, very special.
Coming on the show here.
And we shouldn't waste any more time.
Do you want to waste any more time?
No, I think we've wasted the exact amount.
That's a good amount.
Yeah.
They,
this is exciting
because these guys
are REM fans
from way back.
They are the hosts.
Are you guys
equal hosts
or are you hosts
and are you co-hosts?
Or are you both co-hosts?
We've never been asked it before.
Yeah.
Well, I'm asking now motherfucker
well technically i i was the take it easy all right all right i just get steamed about this
kind of stuff the the truth is i i'm the one who was originally engaged by yes by apple you had
the original contract so i would consider you to be the host contractually the truth is jake is a
subcontractor right Right. But you're like
in this great show that I saw, Insane
Pools, there's this guy who does
all of these insane pools, right?
And he has all these subcontractors that
he's like helping. Anyway, but yeah
Jake, you are, but are you the co-host?
Have you risen to that status? Could you
be fired at any time? No, I would say so.
I mean, the show's technically called Time
Crisis with Ezra Kanig. With Ezra Kanig, right.
By the way, we'll introduce you in a second.
No one knows who you are.
Yeah, we're getting a little out of our zone.
But at this point, we're co-hosts.
You are co-hosts.
I do self-describe as the co-host.
But could you fire Ezra?
No.
Because I think, Ezra, you could fire him.
Well, easily.
Again.
Easily.
Scott, why are we...
I mean, this is bringing up unpleasant scenarios? They're friends.
Yeah, but let's just say that Ezra
is not pulling his weight
with the show one day. Could you, Jake,
at a certain point, just take him
into the other room and be like, Ezra,
I've got to talk to you for a second. You're out.
I'm in. No
discussion. It's a time crisis.
As a subcontractor,
Jake would have to go behind my back
and establish a direct line of communication with Apple.
Have you done that already?
He's not saying.
He's not saying no.
Pretty tight-lipped about it.
Resounding silence.
All right.
Well, they're the host and co-host of the podcast Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
It's not a podcast, though.
Sorry, it's a radio show that is only available in one place.
What we like to do with this show is we like it to be available anywhere.
But you guys obviously have some sort of backstreet deal or something
where you're getting paid way more than us,
and it's only available on Apple, right?
Apple Beats? No, Beats 1.
Beats 1 Apple Radio.
And it broadcasts live on Sundays.
Well, this is interesting, actually, because it's funny you should ask.
Don't tee it up like that, because if you don't deliver.
This is very fascinating.
But the funny thing is that Apple invented the podcast store, right?
The podcast store on iTunes, yes.
I guess you wouldn't call it a store, right?
Well, podcasts were available anywhere. right? The podcast store on iTunes. I guess it's not, you wouldn't call it a store, right? Cause well,
podcasts were available anywhere.
People primarily got them from,
uh,
iTunes originally,
but they were of it.
You could get them anywhere.
It just depended on where you hosted it.
Cause the podcast comes from iPod,
which is Apple.
Yes.
Right,
right,
right.
Exactly.
Which I forget all I,
I,
in 10 or 15 years when you,
there still will be podcasts,
I'm sure.
And you'll be explaining to a kid why it's called a podcast.
Well, it's short for iPod Broadcast.
They'll just be like, what the fuck are you talking about?
We should start calling these iPod Broadcasts again.
I remember the first time hearing about a podcast,
I was reading about it in a magazine, and they were explaining a podcast.
Were you reading an interview with me?
Yeah.
They were explaining a podcast as being something you can listen to
while you're baking,
and they'll tell you what the recipe is as you're doing it,
and you listen to it on your iPod.
And I was like—
Like, what if that was the primary use for podcasts now?
I didn't even wrap my brain around that there were other uses.
I just saw it as a baking thing.
So for years, you were like,
I'm not interested in baking.
No, I still bake whenever I listen to a podcast
because I think they're telling me ingredients.
Is that why you're constantly giving me baked goods?
Yes.
You bake those?
I just throw them in the trash.
I should try one of those.
No, that's great.
No, keep sending them.
I should introduce these guys.
Yeah, but should we also explain what we're doing?
It's a huge deal.
We're doing a crossover.'s like it's like when hill street blues and uh the cosby show would do
a crossover yeah you know how when bill cosby would go on hill street blues and they would try
to arrest him that's right and uh for various things that he was doing back then misdemeanors
yeah remember the cosby mysteries. He should have arrested himself.
Was he a private detective?
Something like that, yeah. Oh my god.
The Cosby Mysteries. The Cosby Mysteries.
Well, mystery solved. Case closed.
Yeah, let's introduce these
guys. They are the host and co-host
of Time Crisis. With Ezra
Koenig, it is Ezra Koenig and Jake Longstruth.
Hello, guys. Welcome
to the show. Hey, show. Thanks for having us.
Thank you for doing this show.
And we are going to also be on your show.
Yes, it's a true...
I thought maybe we could describe it as the Subway Series.
Yes.
Oh, boy.
Wouldn't that be great?
Has that ever happened, the Subway Series?
It has.
It has.
Oh, in New York?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, literally a World Series where the Mets and the Yankees have played versus each other.
There has been a World Series.
2000.
2000? That occurred? Really?
Wow. What a treat for the fans.
Also in the Bay Area, we had the A's and the Giants in 89.
What did they call that?
I think Battle of the Bay.
I think you're right.
It's kind of a lamer name than Subway Series.
No disrespect, but it's not a Subway Series.
No, it's not.
But you guys, the crack of the bat, that's like pretty cool, right?
That sound?
Yeah.
Play ball?
The crack of the bat?
I just felt really insecure because I know so little about baseball that I was waiting for Jake to be like, well, of course.
You literally mean the sound.
Yeah.
It's a lovely sound.
Crack.
Play ball.
They have that sound in John Fogerty's Centerfield.
Yeah.
There's nothing like it.
Put me in, coach.
And then they break.
Oh.
That's supposed to be a bat?
They break four bats.
No, not that.
But later, right after the bridge, you hear this.
Right?
Right after he says.
Play ball.
No, he says something about getting put in the game finally.
And then they end the song.
Or right before kind of the outro,
it's someone hitting the ball.
So, okay, that song, you guys know John Fogerty, Centerfield, right?
I listened to it last week.
You did? Really?
That's a real, like, Jake classic.
I probably know that song because of you.
Right.
So from my memory of it, I'm a casual listener at best.
I believe the year it came out, I probably heard it on Top 40 Radio a hundred times.
What year?
If I had to guess, 85?
Great guess.
It was.
It was what?
85.
85.
Okay.
So 85, I listened to it a hundred times.
And then since that, sporadically, possibly 99 times a year.
Sure.
So less. So definitely less. possibly 99 times a year sure so less
so definitely less
there are a few other
cool songs on that album too
sure
isn't there
yeah
I didn't go deep
is there a song called
Stranger
on that record
I don't
we can look it up
because
not to get ahead of ourselves
there's a Stranger
on our record
and I feel like
somebody was like
there's a Fogarty
what was the other single on that record?
Old Man Down the Road.
Right, okay.
Which he got sued for ripping himself off.
Right.
Because it was like Born on the Bayou, or it was...
Born on the Bayou!
That was, remember when I suggested Credence for our podcast?
Oh God, fucking kill me.
I know.
Never.
Oh, that could be cool.
I know.
Never.
What, you hate Credence?
No.
I'll do a Credence pod with you. I'm saying no to the idea of the podcast yeah you guys sitting around talking about
but you like credence you guys do the most unpopular podcast of all time featuring the
co-hosts of our respective shows maybe you you and me do a solo poker podcast okay sure
um but uh so in that song I barely listened to it since then.
Only 99 times a year.
But he's entreating upon the coach, put me in, coach.
I'm ready to play today.
Which, does that work, I wonder, in baseball?
Like running up to the coach and being like, hey, please, please, please, please.
Wait, does that song take place with children?
Is it Little League or it's Big Leagues?
It may be a Little League song.
I don't know.
You may be onto something here.
It seems like Big League Stakes.
Really?
What he's singing about.
Big League Stakes, but maybe in a Little League environment.
Or maybe like Cape Cod Summer Baseball.
It could be like, you know how the Bad News Bears, they went to Japan for the sequel?
Oh, Big Stakes.
The huge stakes.
It's like the World Series and now literally the World Series for them. So it could be something like that. But he's asking, put me in, put me in, big stakes. Huge stakes. It's like the World Series and now like literally
the World Series for them.
So it could be something like that.
But he's asking,
put me in, put me in, put me in.
Yeah.
I don't know how.
Please, please, please, please.
That seems to be the extent
of the lyrics.
Just please, please, please, please, please.
Yeah.
And put me in, Coach.
I'm ready to play today.
So you're saying that
there's something about
a brown-eyed handsome man.
Right.
Why is he so obsessed
with brown eyes?
The first verse of that song
is complete nonsense.
What is it?
You've listened to it
just last week.
I listened to it last week
driving.
What do we got?
Did it make you want to go
play baseball?
Like pull over
on the side of the road
at the first baseball field?
You know how when you're driving
about every mile
you see a baseball field?
Yeah.
Just like pull right over
at the first one that you see
and just like
play some home run derby.
Who's using those?
Well, it's kind of a mishmash of just baseball references
but the first verse
is truly
makes no sense
well I beat the drum
and hold the phone
what?
the sun came out today
I'm already confused
hold the phone
wait wait wait
what's he beating?
well I beat the drum
and hold the phone
so beat the drum
hold the phone
wait I think that might make sense
so he's just like
hold up you know like the expression hold the phone. Wait, I think that might make sense. So he's just like, hold up.
You know, like the expression, hold the phone.
Like, chill out for a sec.
Like, wait. Is he beating
the drum about his own abilities?
Like I said, the sun came out today.
We're born again. There's
new grass on the field. I like that.
Is he talking about a woman?
There's grass on the field?
Actually, dude, around in the third and heading for home.
Oh, that's what this is about?
So this is all a song where he's asking a pimp if he can have sex with a prostitute?
Or he's just talking about how he wants to make love with a woman.
So Coach, when he's saying Coach, he's talking to the woman.
Put me in, Coach. Or maybe he's talking to himself and just trying to build confidence.
Oh, that's it. Maybe he's addressing his nether regions. Oh, that could be. So around in third
and headed for home. It's a brown eyed, handsome man. Anyone can understand the way I feel.
Now the rest of the song is just sort of a mishmash of references. The rest of it should be explaining what he feels because everyone doesn't understand the way I feel. Now, the rest of the song is just sort of a mishmash of references.
The rest of it should be explaining what he feels because everyone doesn't understand the way he feels.
I listened to the song twice in my car on a long drive.
Was it on an iPod or your phone?
Phone.
Did it come up? Through the Apple Music service.
I see.
Yeah, that you are so entrenched in.
Did it come up randomly and you were like, I gotta hear that again.
It came up in discussion because we were listening to Credence
and then I posed the question of what did Fogarty do in the 70s?
Now, we're all aware of Centerfield, which is from 85.
Sure, certainly we are.
But he kind of disappeared.
Yeah, he didn't do anything for a long time.
When did he do it?
He did the whole brown-eyed girl, right?
No, that's Van Morrison.
Who's that?
That's Van Morrison.
Okay.
So what did Credence do?
They did the...
It ain't me.
It ain't me.
I ain't no son of the sun.
Oh, Proud Mary.
Proud Mary.
Oh, Proud Mary.
Okay.
Dude, dude, dude,
looking out my back door.
Down on the corner.
He's really obsessed
with back doors
and rounding the corners.
Got him.
Have you ever seen The Rain?
Oh, that's the one.
What's the one
that everyone sings? Run to the Jungle. What's the one that everyone sings?
Run to the Jungle.
What's the one that everyone sings a karaoke that annoys the shit out of you?
Bad Moon Rising?
Yeah, that's it.
I see a bad...
Is that a big karaoke song?
Yeah, for whatever reason.
Like, classic rock, for whatever reason,
when I was doing karaoke, was huge.
Bad Moon Rising.
Yeah, I feel like Credence...
We've talked on our show a bunch about how I feel like the Doors got forgotten about.
They got X'd out of the history books.
Unless you were a college kid who took drugs for the first time and listened to the Doors, and then that's all you would talk about for like a year.
I hope that's still happening.
Yeah, I think that still happens.
I just feel like the Doors and Credence both kind of—
I feel like the doors and credence both kind of they're not talked about as much
like they're not
although I did see a million dollar listing episode
where the house
was owned by Robbie Krieger
maybe or one of the doors
and there was a big mural
on the wall
that they had painted
that represented the doors
and they recorded a lot there.
And the real estate agent had to keep pointing it out,
going, one of the Doors owned this,
and this is a mural about the Doors,
and everyone was very unimpressed.
So I think, yeah, no one really respects the Doors anymore.
And Credence, too.
Well, I guess, so their run of albums,
that was really impressive, like five years or something.
From what year to what year?
68 to 72, I want to say.
Maybe 67 to 72.
Because they were on that like two albums a year.
Oh, yeah.
I wonder if my parents were listening to them when they conceived me.
I was born in 69.
In a 69.
Were you actually born on the bayou?
No, I was conceived in 69.
On the bayou.
On the bayou.
I feel like with bands like that,
they have to have someone in charge of their estate or whatever
that's like repackaging.
Constant repackaging.
Yeah, and like putting them in movies.
In the 90s, the Doors were,
well, especially with that Oliver Stone movie,
they were constantly being repackaged,
and you would, you know,
that book, No One Here Gets Out Alive.
And I feel like in that era, that black and white shirtless Jim Morrison poster,
the American poet one, that was up there with John Belushi posters
and Bob Marley in college dorms.
It was Guy's Marilyn Monroe poster.
Yeah, it was.
But now no one really talks about them all that.
It is weird.
It may be because the music's bad.
Do you think that could be it?
Well, here's the thing.
Some of it.
I love we're just going deep on Fogarty and the Doors.
We'll get to R.E.M.
I know that's what happens here.
But the one thing, part of the reason we're talking about them
is because I went to the Jay-Z Beyonce show.
Oh, I was there too.
I wonder who had a better seat.
I had pretty good seats.
Yeah.
But do you remember that at some point they did this?
Well, first they put Jim Morrison on the screen.
Oh, I don't remember.
They did one song where the visuals on that gigantic screen they had
were famous mug shots of different people.
Oh, I do remember that.
Yeah, Frank Sinatra.
Exactly, exactly.
So Jim Morrison was one of them.
Right.
And I was already like, interesting.
What was he arrested for again?
Oh, Indecent Exposure.
Oh, right, right, right, right.
At a show in Florida.
Yeah.
And then they go into a song that I hadn't thought about in a while.
But do you remember there was this Jay-Z song called The Takeover?
Yeah.
That has a door sample.
Bomp, bomp, bomp.
From five to one?
Exactly.
So then I went back,
so then I'm like watching them
like perform it
and just like,
that song just like
hit really hard
and then I went back
and I listened to five to one
and we just started
talking about it again
and I was just like,
that song's incredible.
Right.
They have some jams.
It's like hip hop.
It's very forward thinking.
It sounds like Yeezus
or something.
Right.
Because they just had
that weird instrumentation
so they'd occasionally do these just very forward thinking arrangements. Yeah sounds like Yeezus or something. Right. Because they just had that weird instrumentation, so they'd occasionally do these just very forward-thinking arrangements.
Yeah, no, I mean, without the, what did they not have?
They didn't have a bassist.
Well, keyboard was like the lead instrument.
They didn't have a, there's bass on songs.
They did not have a bassist in the band.
But he was playing the electric bass, mainly with one hand, right?
Exactly, yeah, yeah, so you get some weird stuff happening there.
And then meanwhile, he's going, do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do- hand, right? Yeah, yeah, so you get some weird stuff happening there. And then meanwhile he's going doo-doo-doo-doo
doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.
Yeah.
He's incredible.
L.A. Woman's
pretty great album
top to bottom.
I like the Billy Idol version.
Is there?
So great.
L.A. Woman!
Because he does it like this
L.A. Woman!
I remember when Billy Idol
was like just
hit after hit.
He was great for a while.
But when he came back and had a bunch of hits?
Well, he came back with Cyberpunk in the mid-'90s, unfortunately.
He got dragged into that whole Cyberpunk thing.
Early-'90s Rock the Cradle of Love.
Rock the Cradle of Love.
So huge.
Come on!
He was great.
I've seen him recently with Steve Stevens.
Really?
Yeah.
Steve Stevens is an amazing guitarist.
Yeah.
You know how he has that laser gun, right?
And the one that goes,
boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, right?
No, I don't know.
Okay, so, well,
he's playing the guitar, the solo,
in which song is it?
You're not interested in this, right, Jake?
You don't like Billy Idol.
I'm not a Billy Idol.
Okay, so he's playing the solo
in one of those songs,
and it's the one that goes,
do-ka-do-ka-do-ka-dee-dee-doo.
And he presses the laser gun against the guitar
and makes it, like, feel.
Really?
Yeah.
Is it R.I.M. reference in Ebo?
Oh.
Ebo the latter.
It could be.
I'm still not entirely sure what an Ebo is, but...
Isn't it the...
But it's something weird.
It's like, I always thought of it, it sounded like a laser to me.
I've never used one, but it's like you hold it over the strings, right?
Yeah.
With your right hand.
With your right hand, and it's like...
If you're right-handed.
What do you do with your left hand?
No, like your left hand is on the fretboard.
Oh, thank God.
Instead of picking, you use the Ebo.
I think it sustains the vibration of the string.
But is it like a laser?
Is it sort of like playing a saw in a way?
I think it sounds like it a little bit.
I always pictured it almost being
something emanating.
I almost pictured it as you're holding your phone
and something's emanating
from the phone that makes the strings vibrate.
You don't need to even touch it.
Exactly.
Anytime you see someone playing a saw, they're bending it
and someone's just barely hitting it or something.
Yeah, and then it has that weird sustain.
Yeah, right, right.
But it's not like a, what's that instrument that you don't touch?
The theremin, yes.
The Edge used the Ebo a lot, right?
I don't know.
We didn't get a chance to ask him that.
Those really high.
Oh, maybe.
I feel like that's guitar. think he just he's using the
ebo to get that tone that like really sustained like wow yeah because you use an ebo to play a
guitar that's all it's precisely right yeah i think they use it on the song ebo the letter too
right right that's why they called i think they called it Ebo the Letter,
like,
because they used
an Ebo on the song
and then it was based
on a letter he wrote
as well.
And it was like
a temporary name
and then it just stuck.
What else is that off of?
That is off of
New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
Let's talk about R.E.M.
Don't know that one.
Let's reset a little
and talk about R.E.M.
We got a guy
who has no idea
they ever put out
an album called
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
so this will be
I've heard the title
oh you have
never listened to the album
when you said
you never heard of that one
you were lying
I said I've never heard that one
oh okay
okay
alright
can we go back to the tape
I guess we could
let's rewind guys
I've never heard that one
it's right there
yeah see he said it wow heard great things great things let's talk about R.E.M. I've never heard that one. It's right there. Yeah, see?
He said it.
Heard great things.
Great things.
Let's talk about REM.
Let's reset here.
Talk about REM.
You guys are, this is your show, Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
You guys talk about music a lot.
Tell me a little bit, before we get into REM, just about the, why you started the show,
what the differences are between you. You started the the show you came on to it in the middle but what what primarily
you talk about music a lot a lot on it what type of music do you talk about well it kind of ended
up that yeah you know after a lot of episodes we kind of settled into a groove um the the music
that comes up a lot well we always listen to the top five songs
on iTunes that day.
So at the end of the show,
there's always a moment
when we're kind of just going through
the hits of the day.
And they don't change that much, right?
No, for months we might hear that song.
No, we have a show, Who Charted, here,
which my wife co-hosted for a long time,
and that was the problem with doing the music charts.
Never ended.
Same song as their, the Ed Sheeran
song
oh yeah we went hard on that one
just is there forever and you end up
not having anything to talk about
the only thing I would say about that one Shape of You is that
oh I know what you're talking about Bedsheets
Bedsheets is that
that song ended up being
a rewarding close read
cause he has like there's just all these interesting lines there about how like he took her out for Chinese food.
We talked for hours and hours about the sweet and the sour.
Uh oh.
You can go deep on that.
That's a little problematic in a way.
That's true.
Well, our take, he was that, yeah, he talked for hours and hours about the sweet and the sour.
It's not a bad lyric if you cut out the
we went out to Chinese food.
You know what I mean?
Like if you're like,
we talked for hours and hours
about the sweet and the sour.
That's like,
oh, that's kind of cool.
But when you add the
we did it at Chinese food,
then you start being like,
come on, Ed.
Let's do a second draft.
And then also he implies
in the next line
that they took food to go
and clearly they were at a buffet.
Really? They're at a buffet and they took food? Yeah, and clearly they were at a buffet. Really?
They're at a buffet and they took food?
Yeah, he implies, yeah.
He's insane.
Yeah.
Did they just allow him to do it because he's Ed Sheeran?
I don't know why Ed Sheeran gets a pass.
This is terrible.
He is canceled, as far as I'm concerned.
Now, is this because it stayed on the charts for so long,
you guys were kind of forced to go deeper and deeper?
We must have talked about that song 10 times. I'm sure it's similar
to the chart show. At least
that one, we would sometimes get into different
verses and be like, okay.
And kind of look at them. Because, you know,
Ed Sheeran, he is an interesting songwriter.
There are things. But some of these other ones
like... Well, dude, Shallow.
Oh, Shallow. Shallow's
dope. Shallow's a weird song, isn't it?
It's structurally weird? It's structurally weird
It's structurally weird
which is cool
I love that bridge
and then
Suddenly it just ends
right?
Like they
Isn't it structured
where it's like
verse
verse
chorus
Goes to that big part
Bradley's verse
Gaga's verse
Yeah then there's that
Oh
Oh
Right
Yeah and then it kind of ends
And then it just kind of like
goodbye everybody
it's weird when they say goodbye everybody
at the end isn't it
there isn't really a chorus though is it
in the shallow
shallow
and then I have said
I love that song but I do have this
problem with it that
it goes
they basically say we're in the deep end
we're far from the shallows now
and then the chorus just goes in the
shallow. It's like you're not
there. Sing about where you are.
But I understand they wouldn't
just sing in the deep end. I don't know
it's kind of catchy. Do you think that
would have won an Oscar if they were like look
in the deep end
in the deep end do you think that would have won an oscar if they were like look in the deep end the deep deep end do you find that that uh do you find before we get to your
musical differences and similarities do you find that being a musician yourself we haven't talked
about this you are a uh a member maybe even a founding member of the band vampire weekend
oh right yeah do you find being a musician it is touchy and dodgy for you to talk about other
musicians work definitely i think i i think some some of our listeners i'm like a little bit
infamous because jake tells it like it is jake you're a straight shooter i've always said that
about you from the minute you walked in here i don't have a professional stake right uh in the
music if you if you talk shit about ed sheeran noeran, you're not going to run into Ed Sheeran at the, I don't know what your award shows are called, the Globies or whatever?
Yeah, the Globies.
Ed cleaned up last year, actually.
Got some Globies.
And you're not going to run into him and he'll go, hey, mate, why the fuck would you say that about bedsheets?
Has there been an awkward moment running into someone?
No, because I...
No one listens.
Yeah, because nobody listens, because it's very hard to find.
No, but I've always...
And I've talked about this on the show before.
It's one of those things that starts as trying to be nice,
and then it actually becomes a worldview.
But when Vampire Weekend first came out,
and I mean, you guys too as creative as creative people make tv shows all comedy it's very kind of you you always nice to meet a fan we all know we all know that like you put you put
your work out into the world you're gonna get a random person saying hey that episode sucked that
song sucks every episode you ever put out or song or whatever is going to be someone's favorite
and someone's least favorite.
Yes.
And actually, it means you're doing something good if that's true.
If it strikes a chord.
If everything's, everybody's like, it's okay.
So that's exactly how I think about songs.
It has to be somebody's favorite.
And the flip side is it will be somebody's least favorite.
But so we know you're going to get the random fan slash
hater or whatever just being like, that one sucked.
And then of course we can't avoid the fact that
they're critics who
it's their job to say what they think and sometimes
they're a little bit meaner than they
need to be and their whole profession
is also crazy too.
So you have to have some sympathy for sometimes.
Talking and writing about music is
very difficult and insane. I don't see how anyone does it.
Yeah, and especially now, like the pressure with the Facebook, Google, ad world.
The whole thing's crazy.
So I also do feel like there's been times I've been like upset by critics,
but then you do have to.
Have you ever hurt anyone's feelings though on the show?
So I get to the point that we understand there's haters and fans and critics.
And I've always kind of felt like it sucks,
but you have to admit those people are just playing their part in the,
right.
This thing,
this thing.
Whereas the old,
the one thing that always felt unnecessary is when somebody who does the same
thing you do is just a dick for no reason.
Yes.
So that I was just always kind of like,
so when we first came out and we would have some,
especially like a more
established artist
or somebody a little bit older
and they would just like
say some shit
and it,
and clearly
it's so rooted
in some type of
mishmash of,
I under,
taste,
but also professional
competition and jealousy.
Meaning if an established artist
were to say,
were to slam Vampire Weekend
in an interview or something.
Like punching down
to someone just coming up.
Or even, and so it really hurt my feelings when we were young.
There'd just be somebody who'd just be like,
just out of nowhere, just do multiple interviews,
just being kind of like, being like, oh, they fucking suck.
And I'd be like, why?
Are we all just in the same thing?
Exactly.
Just trying to get a nut?
Who did that?
Are we all just squirrels trying to get a nut? We're all just squirrels trying to get a nut. That a nut? Who did that? Are we all just squirrels trying to get a nut?
Who did that?
That's a good song.
Who did that?
Who slammed you repeatedly?
Slam them now.
Circa 2008.
No, I actually don't.
But maybe even someone who doesn't even feel that way now.
No, and there have been people that I met later who were a little bit sheepish, kind of like oh hey like who know i said something about you believe me it happens a lot in comedy
yeah uh less so probably in acting but i don't know you know what you know it's funny i always
thought that maybe this is just from watching tv shows i always had this weird impression
that in comedy there was more of that shared sense of like, what we do is so hard that we got to kind of-
Yes, there is a brother and sisterhood of comedy
where I know that I can count on people in comedy
to be there for me in a way.
Like I can call up Patton Oswalt and go,
hey man, do you want to do something?
And because I've known him for 25 years,
he'll be like, yep, definitely.
I'll be, you know, when we would do stuff
where like people, we would have charity auctions
to like, you know, film a video with Patton Oswalt or whatever.
He always would do it.
And it's because of that.
We've been in this.
We all know the shared sensibility.
We've all been in the trenches together, which I would imagine there is in music too.
But at the same time, there is sniping.
A little bit.
I think when you're young, you're always sniping and you're always like worried about your place in the world.
And then when you get older, you're like, I'm just glad people are talking about me.
Kind of.
Yeah.
And also just like, especially now, now that I'm like 35, I can look back and like, I just can't even imagine.
I'm sure you can't imagine.
Like, imagine you saw like a 20-year-old bomb at some show that you were at that you're about to go on.
The idea that you would relish
in that, it's just bananas.
Anyway, you know what I mean.
Also, I think that you have
and I'm not sure that I can speak for
Jake here, but you have achieved
sort of an established career
at this point. You've been in the game for so long and you're
at a level where it's like you're a little
more comfortable than your first album
where you're like, is this
striking a chord?
You're wondering if you're
going to even be able to keep trying.
Are you going to be able to make a second album?
Do people care enough?
It is crazy to think that
it's already been 12,
13 years. 11 years.
11 years since the first record came out and you are
an established artist on your
fourth album.
No, that's crazy. Hitting a fourth album really feels like mid-career style.
Because anyone can do three. You know what I mean?
Any jackass on the street can make three amazing, critically revered albums.
But to do a fourth?
So do you worry about that, about hurting someone's feelings, or do you kind
of feel like?
So, I always kind of felt like that I was so blindsided by that, it just seemed so extra
that I just kind of realized, like, I can't do it.
And I can't ever do it publicly.
So, having a show where we talk about music, and I just try to see the positive in everything and also I've also tried to be aware of the fact that
because
you know we live in this crazy world
where we're so
it's natural to have our worst competitive
jealous things come out all the time
just to know that that's inside of
me just like it's inside of everybody
I also just realized I could never
really make a statement about somebody else's
music publicly and be totally confident that i was speaking from a pure taste level right because
do you do you talk and this is the sense that i get from you you're talking about more from a
comedy level or of uh like a place of love with stuff you really like that's that's what we do a
lot of times is like we like to talk about stuff we like yeah but you But you also like if there's something like Ed Sheeran's song,
you're coming at it from a level of like, look, I'm not a music critic.
I'm a guy just kind of making fun of this kind of stuff.
Yeah, we try to find the humor in it.
You're not coming at it from a like this is a bad song
because I write good songs and I know what good songs are.
And I try to give it up too because like he does –
he is a good songwriter and he connects with people.
And also, you know, there's also that feeling,
I find this especially with music,
that when you meet an old, cool person
and their reference for garbage is something from their era.
So you meet some cool dude who was a super hipster in the 70s
and they'll be talking about music and they might be like...
The Grand Funk Railroad. Yeah, and they'll be talking about music and they might be like, the Grand Funk Railroad.
Yeah, and they'll talk about it and be like,
I mean, you know, Jesus Christ,
that shit sounded like Neil Diamond.
And I'm thinking, because I'm so much younger,
where I'm just like, he wrote Red Red Wine, sir.
What the hell are you talking about?
But of course, or like we talk about on the show,
how it used to be fashionable to hate on ABBA and the Bee Gees.
Right. And it's like
but then you hear
you know
like
they have amazing songs
and Fleetwood Mac
was like
oh yeah
Fleetwood Mac wasn't cool
that everyone was like
ugh
another Fleetwood Mac album
and now
yeah
so I think you can go back
and you know
Credence Clearwater Revival
you're never gonna convince me
of that one
they were like
they had number one albums and stuff.
I can just picture talking to my son in 20 years or something and just being like, oh, man.
Yeah, that's just that.
Just me just talking.
Yeah, I would love to picture that.
That's a great image.
I can just picture, imagine if I was the hater dude and I was like, oh, man.
Let's listen to some critically acclaimed music from 2010.
And then I was like, and he plays like an Ed Sheeran song.
And I'm like, whoa.
I can totally picture him being just like, dad, you're such a loser.
And I can't even bring myself to give the counterexample.
The fact that you think that that band from 2010 is cooler than ed sheeran bedsheets song you're such
a door right i can picture it like and it could it really could i find myself getting less snotty
as the years go by even though i've slammed the doors and credence here it's pretty safe to slam
the door at this point but you know what i mean i find myself in terms of like if people like i i
think i've talked about this on this show but i I had a girlfriend when I was 24 who, and I was so snotty about alternative music.
And she was talking about how she went to go see a Phil Collins show, concert, and I was like, fuck him, right?
And I'm a guy who owned Phil Collins records.
Like, and I sold them.
I did that whole thing of selling them because he wasn't cool and he was too,
too famous.
But I was like,
fuck him.
And she's like,
why?
You know,
she's immediately
on the defensive now.
I'm like,
fuck him,
man.
He's just like,
he's just so dorky.
And she's like,
I really enjoyed the show.
I'm like,
you can never pay me
to go there.
She's like,
he's a really good entertainer.
I'm like,
fuck him.
Yeah.
Like,
why do you? And then I felt bad about it for so long. She's like, he's a really good entertainer. I'm like, fuck him. Yeah. Like, why do you?
And then I felt bad about it for so long
because it's like, she had fun.
You know?
Well, yeah, Phil Collins is awesome.
And he's great.
But you have to go through that stage
where you swear off everything except,
like, when I was 19
and I got rid of all my Led Zeppelin
and my classic rock album.
Anything that's popular.
And I had to eventually buy them all back.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
Wait, actually, this reminds me.
I wonder if you guys have seen this or gotten into it before.
It was, in the past few years, I read like a, I'm never sure what the word is.
When you want to talk about something that was written at the time of the thing, just a contemporary profile.
Okay.
A contemporary profile of like out of time era REM.
Okay.
And I think it was like a spin cover story or something.
You know, like I love when you find.
Right.
Old spin articles are like, I don't think they've digitized any of them.
They've just taken pictures of the magazine or something.
Often it's like that.
I have them all in a box.
So you have all, every spin?
Well, I have in one box. How tall is this box? It's a box that's this that. I have them all in a box. You have every spin? Well, I have... In one box?
How tall is this box?
It's a box that's this big.
What?
It might have been...
It might have been out of...
Maybe you remember when were they on the cover spin.
Was it out of time?
He knows.
Yeah, they were on the cover spin.
So one thing that was interesting to me,
and this is also these hilarious ways that things shift,
is that a significant part of the article
seemed to be about the fact that REM was no longer cool with the
intelligentsia of Athens.
Right.
So there was like a part of,
so I'm reading this and you know,
I was seven then.
So by the time I really got into that album was probably like 2002 or
something.
And I'm just kind of like,
wait,
this was like this,
this was like this beloved band who already for eight years was kind of like
America's indie sweethearts.
And then, so it's not like they got, it's not like they got big,
like on the second album.
It's like, you couldn't ask for it.
They've been rising steadily the whole time.
Why now?
And then you have like Kurt loving them.
It's like everything about them.
That should have been the time where finally.
Finally you've seen cool.
Yeah.
And that like the super hipsters and the mainstream would agree.
Like that's one thing.
But even then there was this like part of the article where R.E.M.
kind of had a chip on their shoulder.
They interviewed like, I think they interviewed just like some random
Athens people who were just like, oh, R.E.M.
And I was like, whoa, really?
Yeah.
There's a tipping point with anything where I think people just,
if something gets too popular, like you look at the Marvel movies now, there's a certain contingent of comic book nerds who have always been the geeks and the outsiders.
Now, Marvel movies are the biggest, most popular things in the world.
They should be fucking stoked, right?
But instead, there's a whole contingent who are like, these just aren't.
These are too popular.
I don't like them anymore.
I think that's just a natural reaction
of wanting to always be an outsider in a certain way.
I mean, in a way, is it nice to have
maybe a lot of success with your first record
so you never had to go through that period
where you had the purists that are gonna get mad
when you get super-
Yeah, should you, is that better for the career
to be super popular
right away uh and then like stay on that level or rise or be super popular right away and then do a
drop-off what's the best what would you choose well the drop-off gives you a lot of free time
later in life i i think i think ultimately everything worked out for the best
I do think that because our first
album and even now
that I've been doing press for this record
I just find our records always get described
in very different ways
I did like a
full day of European press
a couple weeks ago and literally back to back
people from Germany and Italy and stuff
somebody would say like
you know what I like about this album?
It's just fun. It's light. It's apolitical.
Thank you. Everybody's trying
so hard now and I was kind of like
you know I'm like an eager
to please type person so I was kind of like
hey thanks. And then another guy
was like this album is so heavy.
Was this influenced by the fact that you campaigned
for Bernie Sanders? Like Donald Trump looms large on this record.
And I was kind of like, uh.
But anyway, so people often.
So I think our first album especially, some people thought it was like,
some people interpret it in an intellectual way.
But a lot of people really thought it was slight, lightweight garbage.
I think for the haters.
But garbage, like the band the band garbage which is great
yeah the great band garbage so people loved it yeah i like garbage no i well i think the
and i can understand like us being kind of like young and fresh faced and wearing like
preppy clothes like if you if you don't want if you don't want to give us a little bit of benefit
of the doubt that we have a sense of humor and maybe we're not that different from you
if you don't want to do that,
I could understand looking at and be like,
was this like a novelty record or something?
It's just a trifle.
So I think there,
and some people only like heavy things as well.
Like I,
yes.
When I changed the name of my podcast from comedy death rate of comedy,
bang,
bang,
I lost 10% of the listeners because people were like,
I like comedy death rate because it's dangerous.
And comedy bang, bang is, is a silly name. What are you doing? And I hear it so differently.
And I intentionally wanted to change it to something sillier because I wanted to have
more fun, you know, rather than, you know, be like a hard kind of death kind of thing.
You know what I mean? So like that was an intentional thing. Uh, but that, that there
were people who were like, I'm never listening ever again because of
that some people just only like things that are like hard and fucked up yeah and i think they
and it doesn't mean that there aren't hard fucked up moments in in something that's presented as
like sure but but that's the thing it but if the overall aesthetic is not hard and fucked up there
are people like you know who will say ph Phil Collins, fuck you, or whatever,
because it's not heavy.
Right.
Well, and that's why it's funny
when people hear an ABBA song.
One of my favorite ABBA songs is
The Winner Takes It All.
Wonderful.
And then you read about the history of that song.
That was at the moment when,
similar to Fleetwood Mac,
all the marriages were breaking up.
And it was all about who gets the house.
Yeah, well, it might have literally been about that.
But there's also, it has a very similar tone to me to I Will Always Love You,
another song that with the Whitney Houston version in the 90s,
some people might have been like, oh, pop music.
I hated it back in the 90s.
I was like, plus everyone karaoke. I pretended not to like it, but I loved it deeply.
And both of those songs, they have this really interesting perspective where it's not a typical, like, fuck you, you broke up with me song.
It's literally about this is going to happen.
The eventuality of a relationship.
Yeah, and understanding just like the inherent suffering and being a person.
Because I Will Always Love You is like, i know you i hope you're happy this is this is how it's
got to be i'm not even fighting against it and the winner takes it all is uh is almost like they're
trying to be nice to the other person who maybe broke up with them i don't want to talk if it
makes you feel bad and then it's basically like i feel bad that you're seeing me so tense no
self-confidence it's like such actually a complex right weird feeling where it's basically like I feel bad that you're seeing me so tense no self confidence
it's like such actually a complex
weird feeling where it's kind of like
this is like brutal but I feel bad for you
I don't want you to feel bad
so anyway I just feel like sometimes you hear a song like that
and you just kind of realize
that that's
as deep as anything
and it sounds super happy
and big.
Well, it's the same thing with, say, Born in the USA,
which because of the aesthetics of that record in 1980,
when did it come out?
Three, four?
Four.
I was really not into Bruce Springsteen.
I had a girlfriend who loved Bruce Springsteen,
went to all his concerts, and I was like,
fuck Bruce Springsteen.
I had a lot of music conversations with my girlfriends where i was like fuck you and but it was simply because of
the like sort of fist pumpy aesthetics of that i didn't really know any i was uh 14 at the time i
didn't really know the history of bruce springsteen i didn't know any of his records right that was
the first one i'd ever heard and i was just like fuck this yeah um and she had heard you know she
was a big fan from earlier.
So,
I think sometimes the aesthetics of a song,
like if it's too poppy,
can get in the way
of a message
because if you really
look at those lyrics
of Born in the USA,
they're very heavy
and very dark.
Lost a brother at K-Song.
Super heavy.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Oh, I thought you were
just talking.
Thought we'd change subjects.
Luckily,
I didn't get drafted,
but I was just going to say,
you were talking about
from Death Ray to Bang Bang, just changing the name and how just even like literally
the packaging, not even the aesthetic. Yeah, nothing changed about the show at all. Not yet.
And even with Bruce or something, you know, there's this interesting relationship music
journalists always talk about between the previous album, Nebraska, and that because he wrote some of
the Born in the USA songs around the same time as, because he wrote some of the Born in the USA songs
around the same time as Nebraska.
So the early version of Born in the USA is like stark acoustic.
And then you look at those two records, which at the end of the day,
the lyrical content, it's all classic Bruce.
It's about like life in America and like the pain of, you know,
being ground, grinded down by the system and stuff.
The working man.
But then Nebraska.
The crack of the bat.
Has that like, and The crack of the bat.
Has that like, and the crack of the bat.
And Nebraska has that like kind of blurry black and white photo.
It's like so artsy and tasteful.
And then, I mean, born in the USA is sick.
It's Annie Leibovitz.
It's a picture of his butt.
But it is.
It's a picture of a butt with a bright flag behind it. With a bright flag.
And you can kind of see his butthole.
Like the outline of it through his jeans
yeah yeah
he's got a big butthole
there's a baseball cap
in one of the pockets
right
that's covering the butthole
covering the butthole
but you can kind of
see how big it is
he's a gaper
and it's
and it's a red
baseball cap too
it's not even like
a cool black cap
it's like a power tie
color
but I really think
about that too
how even like album covers,
like our album that got the,
probably the most taken the most seriously.
And maybe because-
Was it the last one with the black and white cover?
It's a black and white cover.
And I think about that a lot.
Cause on this album,
I really wanted to break from the photo tradition.
And it's just like this drawing of the earth.
And some fans,
as soon as they saw it,
before they even heard the record,
were just like,
hate it.
This sucks.
Right.
Well,
can I ask,
and we're,
and we're going to talk to you,
Jake,
I swear to God.
Oh,
it's all good.
But can I ask about the aesthetic?
Because I was wondering about it too,
because a lot of people were like,
well,
now that Rostam's gone,
the aesthetic is suddenly different.
Right.
Is,
was it a conscious,
it reminds me when I look at that,
I looked at the cover today and I was like,
this sort of reminds me of records from 84 and and 5 you know like a big audio dynamite cover
sort of yeah you know like i i it's interesting when you look sometimes uh it's interesting to me
to to see the style of album covers throughout years like if it like i have this theory that
if you look at boomtown rats album covers you, you can see every style of every other band
from punk to the late 80s.
They did every single one,
like the weird, scratchy first record that's punk,
you know, through like the gauzy Annie Leibovitz type,
you know, 80s photo where they all have mullets
and trench coats and, you know, it's very posed.
But yeah, it reminds me of something from the 80s. So when see it i'm like oh yeah that's that's funny that reminds me of uh i can't remember i don't know exactly what it's reminding
me yeah to me i thought of it a little bit definitely some late 80s like uk rave type
imagery okay so yeah but also happy mondays type stuff i love that stuff and to me also there's a slight like just kind of like
90s eco vibe yeah which was interesting to me to think about how kind of sad it is that that i
remember growing up in the 90s and everything was save the rainforest and earth day yeah if you
remind me of a pil record as well that's what i meant not big audio oh yeah they also have
something with the circular yeah yeah yeah with the big white space on it as well? That's what I meant, not big audio. Oh, okay. P-I-L. They also have something with the circular desk.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
With the big white space on it as well.
Yeah, and also there's something I loved about like,
because of course I talk to people who are like,
maybe you should get a photo of the earth,
maybe we should vibe it out,
and I was like, I want raw digital white.
Yeah, right.
And I picked the first album cover.
It was a Polaroid that somebody took at our concert
we played at the Chandelier.
And so it's a Polaroid.
It doesn't get any vibier than that.
Right.
But I, and I understand with the fans, and it's the same thing
with the music a little bit, too. You're always walking
this fine line where you're like,
I know that in the short term
you'll give me a little more props
if I give you something that
sounds familiar. Right. But you also
sonically want to experiment. And you also
know that long term, whatever
the initial
reaction might be and i swear even on our first three albums every time we come out with a new
song there'd be somebody being like either there'd be people saying it sounds exactly the same or
it sounds too different right you kind of can't win you only win in the long term where you
actually keep pushing forward so when i look at the first three records and how we went from
a vibey polaroid to another vibey Polaroid to like a New York
Times black and white, like very tasteful photo.
Right.
And I just pictured that trajectory continuing.
I was like, literally like, what's next?
Like war photography?
Right.
We're just going to get deeper and darker.
And there's something about it where I also look back and I'm like, those are very tasteful
records in a mid 2000s way.
And just to me, they are very tasteful records in a mid-2000s way. And just to me,
they're not tasteful anymore. And to me, doing something a little weird and graphic just felt
fresher to me. And when I look at all the imagery from this record, I'm like, this feels like 2019.
But it's always a funny line because I think, especially when there's changes in the band,
people are always looking to understand why things are different.
Right. But sometimes it's just they're always looking to understand why things are different. Right.
Sometimes I want to be like, sometimes it's just,
they're different because we want to do something different.
And also want to sometimes want to say,
well,
it's different because it's six years later.
Right.
It's like,
and also I like the idea of leaving those as,
as,
as kind of a trilogy.
They're all made when I was in my twenties.
They're like this kind of from youth to a kind of heavy quarter life crisis.
And I was like,
yeah,
but kind of time,
time goes on. Do you really think that you're going to live to be 100 years old?
Oh, yeah, that's a good point.
That's a good point about quarter-life crisis.
You are an optimist.
Yeah, some people are like,
your quarter-life crisis would have been more when you were 14.
I also feel like the new record cover and the record itself,
having only listened to it a couple of times,
there's like a only listened to it a couple of times,
there's like a summary.
Only a couple of times.
A summary feel to it.
And that album cover, it looks like something that would look great if we were listening to records laying around all summer.
Do you know what I mean?
And the vinyl.
Laying around?
Doing what?
You're listening to it, so the album is out.
Wait, you and him?
Yeah, the two of us.
Playing around all summer?
What are you fantasizing about when you listen to this record?
It looks like a summer record.
Yeah, I could see that.
It's also actually
a double album.
The interesting thing...
Oh yeah, because it's like
60 Minutes or something like that?
Is it based on that TV show 60 Minutes? Yeah, I got it just enough to say 60. Is it based on that TV show, 60 Minutes?
Yeah, that was the initial inspiration.
Interesting.
Couldn't quite get to 60.
Did you get Andy Rooney involved for the last song?
Mike Wallace sings backup.
Interesting.
Just kidding.
That's another thing.
When you guys actually look at the vinyl, when you open it up,
there is a very vibey, tasteful photo that this great photographer, Monica Mogey, took of Daniel Haim, who's all over the vinyl, when you open it up, there is a very vibey, tasteful photo that this great photographer Monica Moggi took of Danielle Heim,
who's all over the record, when we were all in Japan.
Does she sing, by the way, the sort of duet song?
She sings all the duets.
Are there three duets on the album?
Yeah, yeah.
That underpins the whole thing is these three duets with Danielle,
and she also sings backup on almost every song.
But there is this very vibey, kind of mysterious photo,
but there's just this part of me.
Also, maybe it's just a kind of Instagram hangover,
where I'm just like...
Everyone's putting filters on their photos now.
Everyone's trying to be...
And you just wanted to do something that was contrary.
It's the contrarian.
I guess it's also, to me, it's just...
I mean, maybe it almost sounds boring when I put it this way.
I mean, to me, the earth and the white background, it's a very simple image.
But also on an 18 song, it's like Bruce, the river is actually one of his most boring albums.
It was an outtake photo from a few years ago.
The river.
Yeah.
I love the river.
No, I love it too.
That's my favorite.
But to me, the river was a big inspiration for this album being, you know, a mid-career Jersey boy making a double album.
Where I was like, that's an album that the whole world of the album, it's about the songs.
It's like so full and long and, you know, kind of silly songs next to super serious.
And I was like, that's what I love.
And again, the idea, so I like the idea that the symbol of the album is just something
incredibly plain and simple and basic
right and there was yeah and again yeah with the inner i remember when these things started
popping up in the mid-2000s even before instagram because they ripped off another app called
hipstamatic right yeah i love it oh yeah i still have it on my phone and so that was when that
first came out that was amazing because i think the early 2000s era of digital photography
everybody's getting a little grossed out by it.
They're like, what happened to the grain and all that stuff?
And then, you know, that had a good first impact.
Well, the early 2000s digital photography,
I had a certain camera that would put a green,
it would be black and white except the background,
and it would be green.
That's what I really think about in 2005.
And then earlier than that, it had the streaks of light.
Those cameras were always doing, like,
any light that was in the frame.
They would streak it through.
That's what I think about it.
There was also the Lomo.
Did you guys ever get a Lomo camera?
It was pre-digital.
That was a film camera.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
Oh, yeah, that would almost give you kind of like a 50s, 60s look.
It would, but then you would have to get it developed and wait,
so it was completely.
The thing about album covers to me is like you look at Bruce Springsteen.
Some of them are very thought out.
And then some of them, you look at Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town.
And it's like, hey, I can only imagine the conversation between him and the photographer where it's like, okay, Bruce, what is your album called?
It's called Darkness at the Edge of Town.
It's about, you know, the darkness that's within a man's soul.
Okay, yeah.
This is my mom's kitchen.
Just stand right over there.
I'm going to take one picture.
Zip up your leather jacket, but only an inch and a half at the bottom.
You know, like what are they thinking?
And then others seem so belabored over it.
No, that's a great point, too, because, like, you picture how iconic Born to Run is.
Beautiful.
Like, they went to the photo studio,
white background,
so iconic.
A lot of poses, I would imagine.
They probably took so many pictures.
The quality of it is beautiful.
It almost looks like Ansel Adams
or Richard Avedon took it or something.
It's beautiful,
and the font is that thin Born to Run font.
It's super tasteful.
Then you think about the next two.
It's like Doctors on the Edge of Town,
Snapshot in the Kitchen, and then The River. The River you think about the next two. It's like darkness on the edge of town, snapshot in the kitchen,
and then the river
is just like headshot.
Is he just face on the river?
Yeah, it's like,
should I take any of this photo
from the neck down at all?
I almost feel like
the river's an outtake.
Ah, who's that?
Jesus.
Oh my God, Jake, you're back.
I almost feel like
the river is an outtake
from the darkness session.
Yes, I think that's true.
I feel like from the memoir,
vaguely.
Right, so the cover of the river,
they didn't even take that year.
It's just like an old...
It's like, let's just slap an old photo over here.
It almost looks like it's blown up a little too much.
Yeah.
Although I do,
the font is really good of the river.
I do like that font.
Because they used it, you know,
on the ties that bind and everything like that.
I think it's a cool font when you see like a,
instead of just one word that's five letters long, river,
like if you see a lot of words done with it,
like on the reissues and stuff, it's a cool font.
But also, I even wonder at the time when people saw that,
were they like, is this like a monster movie?
Right, right.
I'm just saying by the standards of...
Do you think he's a monster?
Do you think he's maybe a monster?
This is a monster.
But it's weird because like you were saying,
that album is so expansive and epic,
and they capture none of that on the cover.
Yeah, in the feeling of it.
But it may be like a reaction to the previous thing,
like sort of what you're doing with the new record.
I feel like if the music is complex
and going in all these different directions,
maybe simplify the album cover.
When I picture it, if I could have had the chance
to put like an epic photo
of New York City on the cover of this album
I would have felt like it's too much
it's like the album is a big city
do you want people to think about New York City when they listen to your songs
or can you think about
you know anywhere else
can you think about like a Dairy Queen
in the middle of the country maybe
would that be cool
upstate New York it's gotta be New York State Can you think about a Dairy Queen in the middle of the country, maybe? Would that be cool?
Upstate New York.
It's got to be New York State. It's got to be New York State.
DQ in upstate New York.
No, I'm open to wherever.
On this record, maybe because sometimes you talk to journalists
and they come here from other places and they see I'm here living in L.A. now
and they'll be like, this feels like a real L.A. album.
That's the one thing I always got a little edgy about.
Where I'm like, not really.
Right.
I mean, you know.
Is that because the music is maybe slightly more major key and produced a little more
brightly and they go, oh yeah, it's more like the sun.
See, it's hard to write about music.
It's hard.
I think, well, look, understandably, and you know, these are people who are like going
have deep music knowledge.
Sure.
But they're also, they need stuff to write about.
Yeah, no, of course, they need stuff to write about.
But also, I guess I get nervous because when you say an L.A. album,
you're also suddenly positioning it in this history of the Eagles.
Or Canyon.
Exactly.
And I'm kind of like, I love that stuff,
but I'm like, that wasn't exactly the intention.
Somebody described it as being a more American album than the previous,
and I thought that was interesting.
All right.
Well, who cares about those jerks?
What do you describe it as?
By the way, the album, we haven't even said the title.
It's something from the 90s, right?
It's Sex and the City?
What is it?
Sex and the City.
Sex and the City, the new vampire we get in.
Father of the Bride.
Father of the Bride,
that's right.
When I,
yeah,
when I describe the album,
it's,
and I've been very careful up until this point.
Now I can let loose.
But now the album's out,
you can just let loose.
Because I get so uptight
when I'm talking to people
before the album,
I don't want to over contextualize
it for the fans.
Yeah,
but now everyone's,
like it's been out for five days.
At this point,
people have made up their minds.
They've made up their minds.
They're listening to something else at this point.
What I wanted this album to be
was, The River
was a huge inspiration. A big double album
about the
personal, interpersonal
relationships and
just a snapshot of life in those moments.
And also about getting older a little bit. This is the first album
I made in my 30s, so I definitely had a slight
existential thing where I was kind of like, how do I keep telling this story in a way
that doesn't feel embarrassing how can you actually find you know because especially when we first
came out to the songs with names like Oxford Common Mancer Roof it's like you it was exciting
and but you can't do that forever so can I have to really say can I write like songs about like
you know adulthood and life into my 30s.
It's not because a lot of people I'm a fan of who didn't had a hard time with that transition.
So I really had to look, who are the songwriters I look up to
who actually did that?
So there's an element of that.
In terms of the music, I've been hesitant to say it too much
because I want people to read into it however they want.
But a lot of my thoughts on this record were,
how can we dig into classic rock and still make something forward thinking?
I just think bringing up classic rock would have overly contextualized
the album.
Where people suddenly get a feeling about it of like it's like,
like the Eagles or whatever.
Instead, like you have stuff like Manchester bongos
on a couple of the songs.
Right. So you almost like, If that's the reference somebody picks up
on instead of the Allman Brothers, great.
Great.
But definitely on this album, there's a lot of
I wanted it to be more expansive,
dip into classic rock without falling
in, and just be shaggier.
So there's a song, How Long, on the record
that's in some ways a very
classic Vampire Weekend, austere minimalist song. It starts with just bass. Bum, bum How Long, on the record. It's in some ways a very classic Vampire Weekend austere minimalist song.
It starts at a space, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.
And then I just kept listening to it.
And I was like, back in the day, I would have left it totally empty.
And then I just wanted somebody to noodle a little bit.
Suddenly, I saw, I was younger, again, probably reacting to something.
I wanted everything to be austere.
And the idea of filling in the blanks with noodles.
Actually, Jake has a good noodle on the record on the song this night.
Oh, yeah, I saw you in the credits.
Jake comes in for a second.
Hell yeah.
On one of the last songs or something?
I don't know the sequence of the album.
Oh, okay.
Track four, This Life.
Oh, track four.
But I just kind of realized, yeah, suddenly those things that used to feel like
annoying to me
like rules to you almost like
I know that a lot of bands
when they start
they're like
they have rules
oh yeah
where it's like
we do not do this
we do not do this
we do not do this
I said no t-shirts on stage
oh wow
that was
yeah in the early days
because I was like
Vampire Weekend
we're not a t-shirt band
we're not a t-shirt band
we need to be like a tiny
Did you address footwear or
pants? A hard shoe?
Did you make everyone have a hard shoe on stage?
You guys definitely came out with a look
that's really interesting. It was a conscious
And also
that stuff inspired me a little bit.
If someone got too hot and they had a t-shirt
on under their button up
would you allow them to strip off the button up and reveal the t-shirt underneath?
I think it happened, but at the time I also used to hate above all.
I don't know why.
It's like you're in your early 20s and you just have something that.
I always hated the t-shirt under the collared shirt look.
Oh, yeah.
I was kind of like.
It's not a good look.
I was like the collared.
Let's see that collarbone.
The collared shirt, that V is meant to show your collarbone, your chest.
That little, that sexy part under your uvula.
Yeah, I just always felt like the T-shirt under, it's neither here nor there.
It's like, what are you going for?
Thank you so much.
But now.
Actually, I still feel that way.
But now when you guys are about to tour, what can people wear now?
People can wear whatever now.
Really?
Also, now we have seven people. This is Also, now we have seven people on stage.
You guys have two drummers now.
Yeah, we got two drummers.
When you have seven people on stage
and they dress too similarly,
it looks like a cult.
It looks uncomfortable.
So I think with seven people,
you want it to be a bit of a motley crew,
not the band.
Did you put out an email, though,
of any stripe of like,
here's what's acceptable,
here's what's not acceptable?
I'll say, well, the funny thing is, it's almost embarrassing.
I feel like it's cliche now, but I'm like, I'm a big mood boarder.
Every album I have a folder on my desktop that has so many images.
So you cut out pictures from like TV Guide and stuff and Homes and Gardens.
The new version is literally just like going on
tumblr and i've seen a lot of musicians do this and then the funny thing is you start to develop
a world like all the the imagery like we're talking about the album cover and we had all
these kind of glyphs created by this uh uh graphic designer named brendan ratzlaff and so we have all
these like very specific and we we put Sony music on everything,
which was also a bit divisive, but I love that.
I noticed that on all the singles and the record.
That's like the Strokes putting RCA on.
Yeah, they went for the old RCA.
I like the Sony music just like, yeah, maybe more like 80s.
Is it the newer ones, or is it an older?
Well, actually, their logo involves this kind of red paint brush stroke.
They let me get rid of it just because I didn't want it.
That was nice of them.
At first, I wanted just to say Sony, and I'm talking about the thing around Sony.
So it almost looks like you're looking at a receiver or an amplifier or something.
Because there's just something about Sony that also represents some kind of nostalgia that I think is part of this album.
But I remember at the time, they were like, you're not signed to Sony.
Sony makes home electronics and PlayStations.
You're signed to Sony Music.
And I was like, it is the same company, though.
You can put Sony Music.
Although one time, shout out to Rob Stringer,
the head of Sony Music.
I was at this Grammy event, and I saw him there.
And he was sitting at a table with the Japanese chairman
of Sony.
And he introduced him to me.
And he was like, Ezra loves Sony. And the guy was like, really? And he was like, show him the album cover. And I showed him the album to me and he was like Ezra loves Sony
and the guy was like
really?
and he was like
show him the album cover
and I showed him the album cover
and he was like
really
and apparently he brought it up later
and he was like
that's like really respectful
that's cool
that he like
wow
that's great
that's incredible
well look
I could talk to you about
the new album forever
and in fact
we might
no you hold on
I have a question
no
we have to go to a break
I don't even want to ask the question okay but go ahead so it's fine no. I have a question. No, we have to go to a break. I don't even want to ask the question.
Okay, but go ahead.
So it's fine.
No, no.
You don't want to?
Okay, we do have to go to a break.
Let's go to a break.
When we come back, I swear we'll talk not only about REM, but we'll talk to Jake.
Let's get some Jake action.
Yeah, exactly.
We're going to be right back with more Are You Talking REM Review.
Hey, now, take your pills and hey, now, take your pills. And hey, now, make your breakfast.
Welcome back.
Are you talking to R.E.M. Remy?
Ezra Koenig is here.
Jake Longstreth.
And they are from Time Crisis which we are going
to be on as well
I don't know if they're
coming out on the same day
or on different day
what day do you guys
come out on usually
Sunday right
yeah our show is on
Sundays every
Sundays at noon
Pacific time
every two weeks
so we'll have to figure out
who comes first
maybe we can time it
so they come out
at the exact
like on the exact
same nanosecond they're about to release.
Yeah, we'd have to go to the world clock, I feel like.
Yeah.
We'd have to get someone in Switzerland.
No, no, you guys should come out first because this is, let's consider this part.
Because, well, chronological as well.
This is part of it.
Sure, sure, sure.
Okay, so I know you come out every other week, though, too.
We'll figure all this out.
Yeah.
But you know what I was reading about,
speaking about the world clock and stuff like this,
but you know how the concept of the pound
is all based on, like, some rock or something
that every country keeps one?
Yes, every country keeps, like,
a rock that weighs exactly a pound,
and that's how everyone knows what a pound is.
It's fucking crazy.
Why, in case gravity changes?
They need to keep track?
You mean back in the day?
No, no, now.
Because a pound is like a concept.
You know what I mean?
So everyone needs to like
figure out exactly what it is.
So every country has like
one of these rocks somewhere.
A pound is different in Denver
or something.
I don't,
I really don't know.
It was blowing my mind
and I feel like I'm talking about it
from a position of ignorance.
No wonder people think
the Freemasons control the world.
That's true.
Do you think that?
They're literally sending bricks out.
Right.
Maybe a brick
and saying what a pound is.
All right,
we have to talk about REM
and you know,
we-
Wait,
I want to ask-
Yeah,
you ask your fucking question
that you wanted to ask.
No.
Jesus Christ.
Because the new-
The new record-
Who's the co-host
and who's the host?
I think I'm the host,
but yeah,
go ahead and ask your-
No, we're both co-hosts.
No.
Is that what you're thinking?
Wait.
You think that...
Wait a second.
I'm a co-host?
Wait a second.
Can we talk for a second?
Just have a private conversation.
You guys just turn your headphones off.
Turn your backs and cover your ears.
Scott, I don't mean to make this weird or anything,
but I was just wondering about the co-host.
I've always just assumed that we were both co-hosts.
Can I tell you something?
Yeah.
I've always assumed that too.
I'm just trying to be a big shot in front of these guys.
Okay, okay.
I get it.
I'm trying to seem cool.
Look at you.
No, you seem cool.
You're like a movie star and you're a TV actor.
Thank you for saying that.
I used to be a TV actor.
I'm no longer a TV actor.
Sure, I have an occasional guest spot.
How about this? I agree that I'm no longer a TV actor. Sure, I have, you know, an occasional guest spot. How about this?
I agree that I'm the co-host
and you're the host,
but we just know.
We know.
Yeah, sure, we know.
We have an understanding,
but let me seem cool to these guys.
These guys, like,
these are New York musicians,
and I'm not sure where Jake's from.
Maybe I'll get to ask him
a question at some point
if you ever get your fucking questions
out of the way.
I'll bet you anything Jake has at least
been to New York.
That's a good question
to ask.
See, this is why
you're a great co-host
and I'm a good co-host too.
Thank you.
All right.
Okay, guys.
You can come back now.
Okay, thank you
for walking up to the mic.
Scott is a host
and I'm the co-host.
Just we've said
that's what we said.
Okay, got it.
Pretty cool, right?
Got it.
Me being a host, right? You're the host. Yeah. Just tell him it'shost. Okay, got it. Pretty cool, right? Got it. Me being a host, right?
You're the host.
Yeah.
Just tell them it's great.
Jake, tell me it's great.
No, you were talking about how-
Excuse me.
They were going to tell me it's great.
Oh, sorry.
Oh, that's really great.
Outstanding.
You're the host.
Thank you.
All right, ask your question
and then I have a question for Jake.
You were talking about the classic rock influences.
Do you want to talk about what,
in the past six years,
kind of what you were getting into?
Because I was hearing, especially in the duets,
I was hearing, do you remember that period
where the Dead had the female singer
that was kind of up front with them?
Yeah.
And they had a couple.
Donna.
Like Terrapin and another album
where she was kind of all over it.
And there was this.
Sunrise.
Is that the song?
One of her songs?
Yeah.
And this, by the way, you've asked me a yes or no question.
So please just answer yes or no.
Do you want to talk about that?
Yes.
I'm happy to.
Okay.
Thank you.
All right.
Let's move on.
No.
What other, like what other stuff were you kind of getting into?
Well, it's funny actually.
Also to bring it back to Jake.
I've always said there's something like the Grateful Dead is very,
in a fashion sense,
has been very on trend the past couple of years.
So I've been almost trying to downplay it a little bit because the shirts
have blown up so much.
Yeah.
Which,
you know,
if you ask me,
it has to do with also just the,
the cult around tie dye.
So as tie dye becomes a bigger thing,
you need.
Is tie dye becoming bigger?
I haven't seen it.
Oh,
it's massive.
Is it really?
Ralph Lauren just did a line of tie-dye.
Really?
Everybody's doing tie-dye.
And I think the Grateful Dead, it's an install of...
I must have missed that catalog.
So a lot of people really, even people who don't even remotely care about the dead got
into that.
And then, of course, you have John Mayer touring with Dead & Co.
It's a whole thing.
What do you think about, and just a sidebar, about people wearing concert shirts as a fashion
choice, not because they like the band.
It's cool with me.
It's, like, funny.
Okay.
It's fine.
So if people ironically start wearing Vampire Weekend shirts,
you're cool with it.
Like, ha, ha, ha, look at me.
I'm wearing a Vampire Weekend shirt.
If it's in, like, 10 years, I'll be kind of like,
eh, it's getting the name out there, I guess.
Well, it's great branding.
Yeah, it's great branding.
So the truth is, you know, with the dead, I also have this, it's great branding. Yeah, it's great branding. So the truth
is, you know, with the dead, I also have this kind of feeling where I'm like, you can't sound
like the Grateful Dead. It's like, you could sound like their influences, country, funk, whatever.
But the only way to sound like the Grateful Dead, it's almost so specific. But one thing that I've
said in some interviews is actually a bigger influence to me, and I'm not being facetious here.
I don't know if I've quite said this to you, Jake.
Bigger influence to me rather than the Grateful Dead, the band, is Jake's Grateful Dead cover band, which used to be called Dick Picks and Richard Pictures.
Really?
That's far out.
Because when did Dick Picks start?
2014.
So I remember seeing some very early shows.
And I would say 2014. You were at the first show.
I was at the first show. So 2014
was, of course, the Grateful Dead always has the
most dedicated fans on earth. But that was a little
bit before, I would say, the fashion moment
happened, where it truly became fashionable
to be into the dead and
pay $400 for a Grateful Dead
shirt. So I just remember seeing them.
And 2014 was a funny time.
It was like those years after our third album,
I had a real sense of kind of like accomplishment,
but also kind of like completion.
Where I was like, we did that.
And also there was so much chatter
about how like the indie wave that we were a part of was over.
Right.
You know, and not in some like mean spirited way
where people are like, you guys are over.
I just, in a more general sense, people are like, yep.
Coachella booking kind of changed.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, great example.
It's like the bookings of festivals are changing,
and suddenly some of these beloved bands,
they are dropping albums, and people are like,
well, that proves that there's no gas left in the tank.
And that's around the time where I was also just ready
to take a break and dip out anyway.
But I had this feeling, and so many people that I knew were so much more
interested in uh working in pop music which I totally get and I you were and you produced a
little bit of lemonade yeah so yeah even I had my my taste of it um which is you know it's amazing
to be a part of like I think a great artist is a great artist across genres. What are the checks like from Lemonade?
Well, I'll just put it this way.
I think at the end of the day, there's 17 writers on it.
Sure.
At least I'm one of three producers.
But I mean, it must have sold 17 times more anything that you've sold in Vampire Weekend.
Am I wrong?
The album?
Well, that album's not on Spotify.
That's not a slam.
That's not a slam. Oh, because it's on Tidal. I think it's fair to say that. Oh, yeah,'s not on Spotify. That's not a slam. That's not a slam.
Oh, because it's on Tidal.
I think it's fair to say that.
Oh, yeah, it's on Tidal, yeah.
I think it's fair to say that Beyonce is a big artist and vampire.
I'm going to check.
17 times, though?
I don't know.
17 times.
I don't know.
No one sells records anymore anyway, so I don't even know what I'm saying.
But I would just imagine that getting on.
It's like, you know, when I was working with Bob Odenkirk,
saying but i i would just imagine that getting on it's like you know when i was working with bob odenkirk like every once in a while he would get a check from uh like an adam sandler record
because he wrote some of the lyrics of lunch lady you know and those are multi-platinum yeah and i
would like he'd go god damn it here's another check from fucking lunch no he would not he would
not be that mean about but that's just my bob he'd. He'd go, God damn it. He'd open it up, and I'd be like, Jesus fucking Christ.
Oh, I'm sure.
Well, I think for a lot of musicians, ultimately,
because the revenue from songs can come in waves.
Like, something could be in a big commercial,
and suddenly that's the equivalent of getting streamed a billion times
because streams are so paltry.
So the truth is, I feel like—
I will say three people have texted me recently
that they've gotten a $800 check from Comedy Bang Bang.
That's not bad.
That's actually pretty good.
No, because it's not been on the show for,
like, I think HBO showed it or something.
Or it's playing somewhere in the world.
Yeah, I don't know what it is,
but like three people have been like,
this is the biggest check that I've ever received
from this show, residual-wise.
Right, because with TV stuff, you hear about people getting like, I got a check for three cents.
Yeah, exactly.
My dad was in King Kong, the 70s one.
He would literally get like 25 cent checks and be like, ah, this is so funny.
But I'm just going to say with like music revenue, there is a sense that you generally have.
And especially if you don't, I don't like parse through everything where it really is about, especially as a songwriter, it's about your catalog.
You did a little bit on that song, a little bit on that.
Especially in the streaming era, it's more about what is the...
You just try to build a catalog.
You can't pin your hopes to one.
Plus, when you have a Beats 1 contract for this show that you guys do,
who cares about the money?
At this point, are you even looking at checks?
No, that's my primary.
Even though that's the atmosphere now father the bride is definitely
an album with uh kind of rise and a fall to it yeah well let's get back to what you're talking
about about 214 oh no i was talking about the yeah so 2014 i did picks there's everybody was so
uh anti-guitar music and you know and I think and everything is
this clean
you know
pop with loud drums
yeah
and I like all that stuff
I truly don't
draw a distinction
between great songwriting
in any genre
and of course
it seems like
with Coachella
and festivals
that as soon as
they got good sound systems
and they started
putting on DJs
everyone was like
well live drums
sound shitty
compared to
just playing a record.
It really can be hard.
It's a real art form to make live performed music sound as good as that stuff.
But there was just so much kind of like anti-guitar music stuff.
And I was kind of like, you know, again, like I said,
I felt like we had this great three-album run,
and I was a little bit checked out, like just ready to go live life.
So I was like, who cares?
And it just happened to be a good time to take a break.
Yeah, exactly.
I just turned 30.
There's so many reasons why.
And then you wander into,
I don't know where you were playing,
Staples Center or?
Pairspace.
What's it called?
It was called Pairspace.
No longer exists.
Silver Lake.
Historic Filipino town.
Oh, historic Filipino town.
Thank you.
And that's where Dick Fichter was playing
and you know like
again I've
one
almost all of my
close friends
the one thing
they have in common
is that they're very
passionate about music
it's not always
the same music
and that's why
you know when we do
the show it's like fun
because Jake's fairly
I think it's fair to say
fairly checked out
on a lot of new
pop music
whereas I'm a little more
like I might know
you know
I know the people who are like in that world so I have like a have to say fairly checked out on a lot of new pop music. Oh, absolutely. Whereas I'm a little more like I might know, you know,
I know the people who are like in that world.
So I have to be a little more checked in.
But I just had this feeling when I first saw you guys,
and, you know, I've always liked the Grateful Dead.
You know, like any good East Coast person, it's like, you know. And we'll talk about the Grateful Dead on your show.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Yes, I think so.
So whatever.
You like the dead growing up.
It's like growing up in New Jersey, it's like the cool kids with wore north
faces like the dead so you like the dead I wasn't definitely I definitely wasn't until like deep like
what are your top five uh you know scarfire you know it wasn't like that but I like the grateful
dead so then but then I see them and just seeing you guys playing I just realized that maybe it was
also indie had become so kind of bloated and overly ambitious and then I saw you guys playing, I just realized that maybe it was also indie had become so kind of bloated
and overly ambitious,
and then I saw you guys playing
True Love of the Game, like a cover band.
And I hadn't seen people play guitars with joy
in maybe five or six years.
And I really had this moment,
and maybe I didn't say it to you.
Well, then I also saw you guys play at the,
what was that thing out in Agora Hills
that weird art fair
jeez
remember it was like
at a weird
Wild West Park
town
was it the
Agora Hills
art fair
or was it
the Cowboy Town
Agora Hills
Hills Fest
that's not ringing a bell
no you guys played
outdoors
maybe you were
playing with somebody else
I don't know
I just remember
a bunch of early Dig pictures.
Is either a dream you had or is it totally different band?
I might have dreamed it.
Yeah.
I can't remember all the shows from 2014.
You've played so many shows that you don't remember an Agora Hills Cowboy Town?
We might be on to 2015 by now.
Oh, is that the holdup?
You thought it was in 2014.
I just remember saying to somebody, maybe I didn't say it it to you maybe i'm too stingy with the compliments but i just said to somebody i was like
this is the best uh this is the most exciting rock band that i've seen in years and it's jake's
grateful dead cover band and i know like i know it might sound like i'm splitting hairs by saying
like well i don't want to give it up for the dead no of course i'll give it up for the dead but it
but it truly it's more and to me the grave did just so much course I'll give it up for the dead. But it, but it truly, it's more,
and to me, the great one that just so much about Jerry's playing that, that the idea of being like,
yeah, we're very inspired by them. It's like, yeah, you're like, it's like being inspired by one of the greatest of all time. You can't, you can't do it. But there was something about you
guys and just like the, the musicianship, the, the love of the game, just the fact that you were
doing it, it was like a happier vibe, your experience than any
big indie show I'd been to
in a long time, so I think it just
that planted a seed, I wasn't even working on the record then
but I think it planted a seed a little bit where I kind of
gave me some clarity that I was like, listen
music can be fun
it's amazing that I could even remotely
have the opportunity
that my name will be on a Beyonce record
of course, that'll be one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.
But then when I look back to Vampire Weekend, look away from these other things that I've
done, look back to Vampire Weekend, and I realize, is there some joy to be found in
the limitations that we set out with, which were guitars?
That suddenly stopped feeling like, what would you say an albatross around my neck
and actually started to seem like a cool challenge where i was kind of like because i i really there
was like a lot of confusion i think people i really saw some like down in the dumps people
who were just like you know started out as a guitar band sucks three years older if i was
three years younger i would have i would have been a dj there's a lot of that conversation
about d and i also had another friend who's like just a very smart music guy who was talking about if I was three years younger, I would have been a DJ. There's a lot of that conversation.
And I also had another friend who's just a very smart music guy who was talking about the rise of DJ culture, which he loved.
He's not a negative guy, but he was like, never,
and I was never down about it.
We would talk about that kind of down-in-the-dumps guitar guy
or girl atmosphere, the indie person atmosphere.
And he said something, he's like, just know, just keep in mind, like, there's
always been DJ culture.
This is hair metal right now.
Right.
And it has its moment.
Just the idea that any one thing dominates.
So anyway, I would say in this very general sense, it kind of made me, just in some very
vague sense, because I know when some of our music came out, certain people were like,
oh, it sounds like the Grateful Dead.
It sounds like jam bands.
And I'll admit that that, in a conceptual way,
brings me way more joy now.
Like, I swear, listening to Grateful Dead and Phish,
there is something about it that somehow ties the past
of being an East Coast kid in with the future
of being a guy who still plays guitar.
There is something I love about it.
It doesn't sound, I wouldn't say it sounds like,
like if you're talking about Harmony Hall, the, like, guitar about it. It doesn't sound, I wouldn't say it sounds like, like if you're talking about
Harmony Hall,
the like guitar solo,
because it doesn't sound
like the Grateful Dead.
I thought that sounded very Baroque.
I wrote that on piano.
Da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
It's very Baroque,
but whatever.
Some people,
I'm not going to,
obviously I have so much respect,
I'm not going to sneeze
at these comparisons,
but the,
I guess I think.
But does it sound like the dick pics?
That's what I think
he's trying to say.
Yeah, I was, it was more of say. It was more of a vibe inspiration,
the idea of letting things be...
I don't know.
Crunchy almost seems like too overdetermined of a word,
so I always come back to shaggy.
Letting things be a little bit shaggy,
because to me shagginess is also about joy,
the joy of not having to and I'm still like a brutal editor when it
comes to production and and uh lyrics and stuff but just the idea of leaving a little bit of room
for for life and surprise and and humorous and you know when I was talking about like the the
trajectory of the album covers like if you go from the polaroid of a chandelier at a party to like a smoggy, intense day in New
York, and I'm kind of like, eventually, do we just get to like, like, like war crime photography?
Just pictures of mass graves.
All pot.
I also had this feeling too, where even just thinking about like the, where the music could
head and what would actually feel fresh but also bring me
some happiness. I also had this feeling too
of kind of like wanting
to
shake things up and not
for the music to get more and more
intense and austere
and minimalist and kind of leaving
some room for life
and musicianship. Well that's great
for the live show too. Yeah, that's great for the live show, too.
Yeah, also the live show.
Yeah, we could have
headed towards,
on a very basic level,
you only have so much
money to spend.
You can either pay
more musicians
or you could do
a true pop show.
And I was like,
and my feeling was like,
I actually respect
pop music so much
that the idea of hauling
out a shitty
Vampire Weekend
pop show,
I admire the
Ariana Grande's
of the world.
Or even Haim, you know, when they did Coachella last year, I think.
You know, they did kind of more of a pop show.
They did something that could fit within the parameters
of what people go to Coachella now for,
as opposed to 10 years ago, you know what I mean?
And they pulled it off greatly.
They know how to ride that line perfectly.
But for you guys, you wanted to come out there and just go,
like, look, musicianship, fun.
Yeah, and I think that's something else that took away
from Dick Picks, because
just watching you and John. Very influential.
Very influential.
And I should point out, the name is Richard Pictures now,
slightly less controversial. Okay, good.
We got a little heat. I think I also had this,
and I've said this a couple of times, but
it bears repeating that when we started
out, when I was kind of like an intense, pretentious college student and me and Ross and first linked up and we're kind of coming up with our ideas.
The type of dude who would like shred on a guitar in his dorm room or like spend a lot of time at Guitar Center was so uncool.
Yes.
We needed to push against that.
We needed to be like, who cares that you're good at guitar?
That's not what music's about.
Music is about simplicity and not someone going,
Billy, are you leaving me?
It's actually about leaving that stuff behind.
And then as I get older, I don't know if it's nostalgia.
It's also just taste changing that there's something about,
it inspired me to get better at guitar.
I've never been that good at guitar, which was a benefit in the beginning
because I'd write these very simple parts like A-Punk.
Didn't Steve Lacey learn?
Did I read that he learned how to play guitar?
Oh, yeah, he told me that was the first song he played a guitar.
And then you watch him play guitar, and he has these sophisticated jazz chords.
And it's like, that's hilarious that that was the first song he learned.
But yeah, there's just something about musicianship that rather than be kind of like down on the
guitar center, dude, I increasingly started to see that as like a noble pursuit.
Like, what else are you going to do?
Life is so boring anyway.
Just get good at guitar.
Even if you never, even if you never like, even if there isn't room, even if the best
thing you could hope for as a virtuosic guitarist now is to maybe be somebody's like you know tour with rihanna if she had for a long time rihanna had this like
this shredder dude who like in another era would have been well my friend toured with gwen stefani
who was uh her guitarist for a while he's this uh warren fitzgerald from the vandals uh he's like a
punk guitarist and like an incredibly virtuosic you know guitarist but then he's playing with
gwen stefani and basically like just playing like beep beep beep you know, guitarist. But then he's playing with Gwen Stefani and basically, like, just playing, like, beep, beep, beep, beep,
you know, but they're friends, and that's why he went on it.
And so, but it's really interesting.
Well, you got to know how to do both.
And I think at the end of the day, it's like music.
In any kind of art form, there's the dialogue
between simplicity and complexity
is partially, like, how you tell the story,
dipping into one or the other.
But yeah, there's just something about like little,
suddenly noodley stuff brought me joy.
It made me think just like being like 10 years old,
springtime, 1994, just being in like Vermont or something.
Or summer, hanging out with Adam,
lying around in a field somewhere,
listening to the final record cover.
The year that Father of the Bride came out, me and Adam spent a lot of time together that summer.
2019, wow.
Is there a direct line to the movie title?
I know there's some songs that have to do with marriage.
What's the subtitle of Father of the Bride 2 again?
Or is it just Father of the Bride 2?
It's Father of the Bride Part 2.
Just Part 2, okay.
I think there's something classic.
It's like the Godfather Part 2.
Yeah, it's very classy when you do Part 2.
I can't even remember anymore. I think I's something classy. It's like the Godfather part two. Part two, yeah, yeah. It's very classy when you do part two. Yeah. I can't even remember anymore.
I think I might have seen it on TV or something.
So, of course, like, you know,
like anybody remotely who's around in the 90s,
when I think of Father the Bride,
the first thing I think of is the Steve Martin movie.
Yeah.
So I'm sure that probably must have reminded me of the phrase.
And then I always like when a phrase at first feels,
it's like the album cover too.
There's something I love when the first time you hear something
or see something, you're like, this is stupid.
And then you just spend more time with it,
and you're like, could there be something beyond?
And also the sad part is some people will never get past
that initial stupid feeling and their loss, I guess, and our loss.
But I like that suddenly Father the Bride started to actually,
a deeper meaning seeped into me.
And I was like, Father of the Bride, it's about, it doesn't even,
beyond a wedding, it seemed like biblical to me.
It's about a huge moment of transition.
It's about the past and the future in one moment.
And suddenly I was like, this is deep.
And then I'd think again about Steve Martin
I was like I love the comedy
and maybe the movie is deep too
I actually haven't watched it in a while
well it's also it could be the father of the bride of Frankenstein
so Dr. Frankenstein himself
well look we've talked to you a lot about the album
it's great it's really fun
Adam's only listened to it a couple of times
well you only listened to it half of once.
I listened to half of it, but it was great.
And now I got to ask, Jake, you ever been to New York?
I lived there briefly.
Yes.
Whoa.
Yes.
Been there.
Yeah.
I was right.
Okay, look, let's take one more break.
When we come back, we got to talk about REM.
Is that okay?
Can we talk about REM? Yes. All right, let's take one more break. When we come back, we got to talk about REM. Is that okay? Can we talk about REM?
All right, let's take one more break.
We'll be right back with more Are You Talking REM?
Remy, after this.
We're back.
Are You Talking REM?
Remy.
And speaking of REM, we got to talk about him, the titular REM of this show.
I guess, you know, I have – I was trying to think of what to ask you guys about REM because I know, you know, REM isn't maybe necessarily the first thing that you think of when you think of Vampire Weekend.
And, you know, Jake, you have a very sort of uh tasteful classic rock uh vibe but so i guess the first the first tasteful i'm glad i give up that vibe it's you that's true though so i guess the first question
that i sort of like the first thing that pops in my mind that sort of made sense of what to really
like you know to just really form the conversation and the prism through which we'll talk about it
is when did you first hear of REM?
I heard the song Stand.
Stand.
1989.
In the place where you live.
Okay, and what did you think of it?
I wasn't so keen on it.
How old were you?
May I ask you that?
You're 12 years old
wait did it come out in 89
it came out in 88
88
but it became popular
so it would have been
11 or 12
okay
and I was you know
more on the like
Motley Crue tip
yeah
at that point
really
Dr. Feelgood album
not tasteful
that was huge
not tasteful
right at that moment
distasteful some might say
for a Skid Row record
that kind of stuff
and then there was this dude
down the street
that was into R.E.M.
He was a few years older than me,
but he also designed
his own versions
of Nintendo games
on his 1988 computer.
And he was really into R.E.M.
So I remember just thinking
R.E.M. was...
Sounds like the coolest guy
in the world.
I remember thinking R.E.M.
was really square and lame.
Only did I realize later that that song was like a funny pastiche of like 60s bubblegum.
Right.
It's a weird first song to hear for R.E.M. because it's so atypical.
I think it was a lot of people's intro, maybe.
It was the last song I ever heard of them.
Yeah, you took a break.
You were so done.
You bounced. I turned them off and I never listened to them ever again.
It's been 30 years.
I plug my ears.
Anytime we talk about any of the songs on the show, I plug my ears and I don't listen.
What about you, Ezra?
When did you first hear of R.E.M.?
It's a little hard for me to remember because by the time I was like 11, because I'm a little
younger, they're just already so big.
They're just part of the atmosphere.
Right.
What year were you born in?
I was born in 84.
Okay.
I get that.
I'm roughly as old as R.E.M.
Or their first album's 83?
No, their first album,
80.
They just had their 39th anniversary,
didn't they?
The 35th of Reckoning.
Yeah.
35th of Reckoning,
and so it would have been
two or three years before that.
So they were around for a while
yeah
I mean so you know
so by 91
and out of time
you're 7 or 8
I'm 7
you know you're checked out
at 7
yeah
no you're thinking about
but by
let's say by the time
I'm 11 or 12
where maybe you're actually
starting to be like
I like this
I don't like that
I listen to the radio
I feel like you know
losing my religion
was kind of all over
yeah it was done
but that was 91,
and then you have, like, Everybody Hurts in 93.
There are these massive songs.
So even by 96, 97, those are all over the place.
I can say that for sure the first time that I roughly felt like,
oh, this is a new-ish R.E.M. song,
and I like it was What's the Frequency, Kenneth.
Okay, that is 95 or 6, right?
94.
So let's say I even heard it a year later,
but I was like, oh, this is the,
when I maybe had enough wherewithal to understand,
this is a single from the important American rock band,
R.E.M., it's called What's the Frequency, Kenneth.
You're 11 years old.
And I remember at the time,
I always had this thing where like,
I just knew deep down as much as I was interested in nirvana and i thought they
were cool i just always knew that deep in my heart like the the grungier side of grunge wasn't
wasn't quite for me right and there was something about what's the frequency kenneth where i did
feel like i understood that the it had gr trappings, but within a pop music parameter.
Yeah, because it still has that early jangle hidden in it.
And there was something about it where I did have a feeling.
I was like, ah, yes, a grunge song for me.
What's the frequency?
With the super poppy chorus and stuff?
Yeah, I don't know.
That one really...
Well, it starts with the tremolo, by the way.
Pronounced tremolo.
We got the official word from Mike Mills.
Oh, tremolo.
Tremolo, yes.
So we got the official word on-
Instead of tremolo.
Yeah, on the pronunciation of that.
That was a big discussion with us for several episodes.
But it starts with that tremolo of-
And that's grunge right there, baby.
And so you're like, finally, gr grunge for me and so then did you
continue an appreciation of them did you go back and listen to their earlier stuff yeah then then
i went backwards and and you know truthfully that that that era and earlier is kind of what i'm
the most familiar with and then another kind of key moment that I remember is like,
well, you know, it's like funny how you talk about
the dude making the Nintendo games who's in Tarium.
At that age, and maybe always, but especially at that age,
it's so interesting.
It makes such a big impression, not just on what you like,
but what other people that you know like.
Yeah.
I had a friend who was my cool friend
who loved
he had REM posters up in his room
and he had Smith's posters up in his room
and Aztec Camera those were the three
and so it was like those
those three became like
my big big obsessions
even to this day like I have every song
any of those people have put out
there's always such interesting like the Smith Smiths and R.E.M.,
they always seem like kindred.
Yes, no, they do.
Like Peter Buck has very, for those first few records,
they were compared a lot because of his guitar sound.
It was very similar to Johnny Mars in a way.
Yeah, and an interesting relationship between the guitarist and the singer
and how the lyrics and the guitar sound are both so unique.
But I remember there was a girl named Jessica that I grew up with.
And that was the same way that made such a big impact on me.
Is this Jessica Lange?
It was Jessica Lange.
Wow.
We went to high school together.
Incredible.
From American Horror Story.
But it made such a big impression.
She's a late bloomer.
Maybe this is true nationwide. American Horror Story. But it makes such a big impression. She's a late bloomer. How like,
that very specific,
maybe this is true nationwide,
I always think of it as an East Coast thing,
but that idea that there was a type of jockey,
preppy guy
who liked the Grateful Dead
in the 90s
was so interesting to me.
I was just kind of like,
wow,
that's like that cool guy
with long hair
who plays soccer
and he wears North Face
and he likes the Grateful Dead.
Okay.
That's like the scenes where you're like, but he's not that, I don't really hear him talking about, you know, soccer and he wears North face and he likes the grateful dead. Okay. That was,
that's like the things where you're like,
but he's not that he,
I don't really hear him talking about,
you know,
uh, the Beatles that much.
They're both bands from the sixties,
but the grateful,
but he's yeah.
Only,
but yeah,
it's that whole,
like I had a friend like that,
the long hair played soccer fish,
right?
Like turned up fish really loud in the car because he was,
he was probably going and going and seeing dead shows all the time.
Yes, probably.
And he also really likes a tribe called Quest.
And you're like, oh, what are the common things of this?
Why would that person's taste be that?
Interesting.
So there's like Jessica, who was like a cool, I guess kind of like very all-American girl,
Jersey girl.
Married to Sam Shepard for a long time. Married to Sam Shepard for a long time.
Married to Sam Shepard for a long time.
And I remember that she, and so she and her friends,
I remember that they, and they were kind of like the cool girls in our grade.
And I remember that they had like a mixtape that sometimes
at like various events they would play.
And it was always interesting to me that two songs that they would play a lot
were Rosalita by Bruce Springsteen.
And that's some real Jersey shit
because in New Jersey,
that's a hit song.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That's number one.
In New Jersey,
that song's as big as Born in the U.S.
Probably bigger.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That's crazy.
Because Rosalita,
and for people who don't know,
that's like on his second album.
Before he was actually famous.
And it's like a 10-minute song.
And it's this long song.
And people go fucking nuts for it when he writes it.
So I love that that's like a true regional hit.
Right.
And, you know, for a Bruce head, it's a hit,
but obviously New Jersey is something special.
So I was like...
No, but yeah, nationally it didn't do anything.
I was like, oh, we're in eighth grade,
and I was like, and you guys love Rosalita.
It was just like a moment where I was kind of like
putting something together.
And then they also always, they love Night Swimming and I didn't know that song.
And I was like, oh, that's cool. Cause it's like, these, um, weren't people who, they weren't like
the archetype that we probably all were a little better identify with of like the nerdy dude.
Who's like super into music. These are just like people who like songs. They're just like cool
people with good taste. They're not like, like oh these two songs don't belong together because the guitar sound is is too different or the
instrumentation they're just like i like songs that make me feel good and they put both of those
on there and yeah and again like yeah so that was always interesting to me where i was kind of like
oh yeah it's and of course you know it's real taste when they're not like big singles right
like neither one of those songs or maybe when i told him it was a single but it wasn't like
everybody heard
where like everyone
in the world knew
what it was
yeah and I remember
they also liked
Hanson
because that was
big when we were
in that age
but there's something
cool about that
combo where it
actually made me
realize like oh
Hanson's actually
kind of cool too
because it's very
produced by the
Dust Brothers
yeah
that song's
incredible
and the boys
of my age
were there's
it was so easy
to be yeah like fuck them yeah because they're young and they're yeah and it seemed like oh age were there's it was so easy to to be yeah like yeah because
they're young and they're yeah and it seemed like oh that's what the girls like so we you know just
like real right toxic middle school misogyny but the so there's something about them like
liking night swimming where i was kind of like oh yeah like that was just always like so that song
made a big impression to me and i realized oh yeah cause REM is this cool band
with kind of impressionistic lyrics
and stuff and that this is
this kind of like
beautiful vibey song that is about
something very I mean compared to like What's the Frequency
Kenneth Night Swimming it's the title is what it's about
Night Swimming deserves a try
like stripping off all your clothes and
jumping in just taking a look at the other
person's bod.
So there's just something about that song and the fact that this group of people who clearly I admired,
probably had a crush on too, were into that song.
I don't know.
It made me think about R.E.M. a little differently.
And I think in some ways, there's only a handful of bands from that era that provide a model for mainstream success and truly sometimes abstract, out-to-lunch impressionistic lyrics.
You know, there's Radiohead, R.E.M.
Yeah, trying to think of Nirvana.
But I'm saying there's only a handful of bands that you kind of realize,
like, oh, you know, this is the type of artist.
These are people who are not compromising and they're doing their own thing and being impressionistic
and yet it's somehow achieving mainstream success yeah it's like a cool middle part of the of the
venn diagram and i just think those are like those early realizations you have when you're dipping
into music you're like well i like this weird stuff and how come nobody else likes this and
and you know i respect this super mainstream stuff and then you're like oh yeah that there's
something cool about that place where they live.
Jake was saying before we started that he'd been to New York.
Yeah, and that's when we first heard of him talking about New York.
So we just figured, why not save this for the show?
No, you were saying how weird it is that R.E.M.'s music
was like the popular music in the big hit music at the time because it sounds stranger now than it did.
It's cerebral.
Yeah.
There was a weird time in 90 through 93 where suddenly the most popular music
in the world was this outsider Nirvana, REM type music.
And my theory is that music was so bad
in 88
through 90
or so
you mean like
Dr. Feelgood
no
they're okay
but I mean
I guess like
every alternative band
like take
Elvis Costello
Echo and the Bunnymen
you know
all these people
would you say
any of their best records
are the ones
from the late 80s
no because the certain instrumentation
that was being used
and the keyboard sounds
that were in vogue
and all over every single song
were so prevalent.
I just think that people were bored those years
and they were just like,
everything was artificial.
Everything was like, you know,
new shoes, I can't wait.
Ba-bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
You know, everything was dance music
or it was like shitty records.
Or hair metal.
So people were ready for just like something
that was a little authentic or something.
So suddenly these people come out,
it just strikes an authentic chord.
That's how I ended up going back to REM
after my initial displeasure with Stand
was that all my favorite 90s bands,
Nirvana, Pavement, Guvana pavement guided by voices they all loved right
rem and i didn't know about the early 80s records at all have you guys covered the the pavement song
the unforeseen power you did talk about that yeah i'm sure you have was that your everyone needs
sort of an entree into the world of an artist in a way. Like I was thinking about this today because I was a person who like Dylan
was something that I was not interested in.
My friends would go like,
you should get into Dylan.
I'm like, no, thank you.
And then someone on a mixtape sent to me,
sent me the original New York version
of You're a Big Girl Now from Blood on the Tracks.
And I found it to be like so beautiful
that I was like,
oh, maybe I should get into Dylan.
And then I like went backwards.
And that happened to me with Graham Nash the other day
when I saw during Escape from Dannemora,
they used a Graham Nash song at the very end.
And it was one of the best songs I'd ever heard.
And I'm like, maybe I should get into Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
So I went back and did a big deep dive.
Was it like that with you with R.E.M.
where suddenly
If memory serves it was the Pavement song
which was on the No Alternative compilation
and I was like
but this was after
Automatic for the People
which yeah see like the singles
off that like Drive and Everybody Hurts I was like
I don't get this when I was 15.
When I was 15 I didn't dig it. But yeah so it was a pavement song that was like oh so people respect
them and it made you do and yeah flashback to 1983 so you went back to the super early i bought
murmur yeah yeah loved it and you loved it and oh yeah murmur is great right and so had you been
out of hair metal at this point and you were now into pavement and things like that?
I was at the perfect age when Nirvana hit.
September of 91, I would have been 14.
Right.
That seems like the perfect age.
Yeah, for sure.
And I was just like, oh, this is awesome.
Right.
So from there, it was pretty quick.
So you were into grunge for a while
because grunge really only was like a two, three year thing pretty much.
Yeah.
Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
Yeah.
Not into SDP.
Okay.
Although,
now I'm in.
Now I'm,
I love them now.
In fact,
Dick Picks might do
a version of Plush.
Whoa.
We've been playing
in the style
of the Grateful Dead.
Yes,
we've been playing around
with this idea
of doing weird,
like Peter Gabriel songs.
Interesting.
Whatever songs.
Where's Dick Picks playing?
I've got to see you guys.
We're playing May 9th
at the Old Town Pub in Pasadena.
That's in the past at this point.
We're not coming out
into jamming versions of those.
That's the idea.
May 9th.
Oh, yeah.
We might come out May 8th.
Tomorrow.
So tomorrow.
Okay.
Big gig tomorrow night, guys. In Pasadena, you said?
Yeah, the Old Town Pub.
The Old Town Pub?
It's in Downtown Pass.
I think I know where that place is.
It's in an alley.
It's a weird little bar.
I've seen some great shows.
We've got to come to this.
They're also opening for us at the Hollywood Bowl.
That is true.
Really?
In October.
Amazing.
That's too scary of a month.
I don't like to go outside.
And we're doing a show with you in June.
Have you ever been outside
in October
oh and they're playing
Father's Day with us
in Chicago
that's gonna be
we have this really
big Chicago show
cause you did
Father's Day in Ojai
is that
that was kind of
like our kick off
cause to kind of
get the live band
back a little bit
yeah
and then it just
coincidence
and now
Father of the Bride
it makes a lot of sense
alright where do I
wanna see you
at the tiny club
in the middle of Pasadena
which takes about a half hour to get to come out to the old town pub dude that show is
gonna be sick that's gonna be a good vibe okay i'd have thought recently for this is a weird
because jake told me this idea a while ago that they were gonna do cover songs kind of in the
style of the dead and the dead did so many covers are you doing dead songs at the hollywood bowl
oh yeah we're doing we are opening the Hollywood Bowl. They've opened for us
many times
and we did one show
at the Novo downtown.
Right.
That was fun.
And I love that you guys
kicked it off
with a 10 minute bird song.
Oh yeah.
Which song?
It's a bird song.
Oh, it's not a bird song.
Oh no.
10 minutes of bird tweeting.
The Jerry Garcia song.
No.
Yeah, birds tweeting. When you told me. No. Yeah, Bird's tweeting.
When you told me about this idea of songs you could cover,
this one's really out of the box.
Okay.
But I was just like, I'm often noodling on guitar when watching TV.
And Prince 1999 video came out.
And I thought you could do almost like that in that late 70s, early 80s,
like dead disco funk version.
Oh, yeah.
1990.
Almost in the style of like,
Feel Like a Stranger.
I could see Jerry having like loved Prince.
Yeah.
I wonder if he did.
Not dead, but maybe Jerry Garcia band.
Yeah.
Doing covers of Prince.
He used to do Earth, Wind & Fire, Shining Star.
I wonder if, yeah,
did Prince like The Grateful Dead? the grateful dead because well i don't know
that's the thing he was so mysterious like suddenly you know on emancipation he puts out a
cover of uh joan osborne's one of us you know what i mean like he he liked shit like you know
and then that was he that's when he was like at peak jesus ness wasn't it sort of yeah jehovah's
witness a little bit.
But then, you know, he would do things like,
you know, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame jam,
you know, go up and tear it up
with the most incredible guitar solo
of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
Maybe even just on some guitarist shit, he might have.
He might have liked The Grateful Dead.
Wait, does R.E.M. like The Grateful Dead?
I don't know.
We didn't ask Mike Mills.
I don't know, yeah.
I can't tell.
Do I like The Grateful Dead?
We'll talk about it on your show.
But so now where do they stand in the pantheon of artists for you guys?
REM, we're talking.
Yes.
High?
Yeah.
No, I don't know.
I really like R.E.M. And also, I've often looked at the...
Ultimately, it's hard to use as a model,
but there's so few bands you can even look to
when you're a band now
because the era for rock music was so different.
But I've often looked at R.E.M.'s discography
as a source of inspiration
because obviously I like the music, but I'm also
always interested in what came when.
And so there is something
cool about that time period when
you know, the
out of time, automatic for the people time
period where it's kind of like,
of course, you know, now I'm in my 30s
they're probably younger, but when you're in your
30s and you've been around for
I'm only 28
so it's
I'm the oldest guy here
I know
I'm seven
but
there's something
you're a little boy Adam
and it's probably
the same reason
you need a spanking
young man as well
it's probably the same reason
that I've always been
so obsessed with
the kind of like
the river through
tunnel of love era too
is that
there
you get so excited
when you see people have mid-career creative peaks.
It's almost as simple as that.
It's because the trend is often
that you have some early ideas
and that gives you some gas in the tank
and you run out.
Some people run out of the first album
and other people can get to three
with these early ideas.
And you need new ideas.
Anybody who has more than, like we talked about,
any bum can make three great albums.
Three classic albums.
But after three, you realize that any artist,
get past into four, five, six, whatever,
you need a new set of ideas.
And hopefully they're not drastically different,
but just something new to
get you excited about music or excited about songwriting and there is something about those
albums in particular that i found i've often like come back to over the past uh four or five years
and there's also there's one time too when um a music journalist did it's probably lame to say this,
but a music journalist described us
as being the REM to Arcade Fire's U2.
And I'm just like, I'm obsessed with,
I think, and of course,
I don't know what they meant by it.
And I know to even remotely be compared to REM,
it's like way too high praise,
but I just like, I'm obsessed with like models.
So there's like something that somebody said that it just like got in my head where I just like I'm obsessed with like models so
there's like something that somebody said that it just like got in my head
where I get that I was just kind of like what I was like well what does that mean
what is it about REM that was different than you two and in if and again I hate
comparing like ever using these like amazing bands I'm almost just like okay
how do you suck out the just like the most boring part what does it mean
what's different about them what is and there was something about that that really just got me thinking like,
yeah, well, what is it about REM that maybe this person saw some kinship in?
That was just interesting to me.
They were contemporaries.
They were equally famous for a bit,
but it almost feels like you two pursued fame a little more
and wanted to be bigger than where R.E.M. wanted to be.
Their anthems were broader.
They're for everyone.
There's no one that doesn't get what they're saying.
But I think they pursued that.
You know what I mean?
I think that once they hit a certain level of record
that they could no longer go backwards
and not do those anthems, you know,
because that's what is,
you know,
brought them such huge fame.
So I don't know what that,
how that relates to the metaphor of you guys to arcade fire.
Is he trying to say that like you guys have your,
your contemporaries,
but,
and by the way,
it could be a,
she,
I don't know.
I don't mean to actually don't remember the one,
one thing I may not have even read it myself.
Somebody,
the doctor's a woman.
I think it's like a little weirder well that's i think that's also and i
think maybe it's arcade fire has so many great songs and they true like emotional anthemic and
anthemic anthems that was a deep thought they have songy songs they have songy songs they
have anthemic anthems we got more songy songs but i think um i think you know what it is that i kind of took away from it that it
was almost like comforting is that there is just to realize that uh some bands their sound and
their approach to songwriting is just kind of built for the big time.
And other bands like us, like the first three albums, like, wow, we got kind of bigger than
I thought we would have.
But then that's the funny thing.
And I'm, you know, again, this is certainly anybody can relate to this in a career.
You, whatever, when you get a little bigger than you thought you'd be, you have these
moments where you're incredibly grateful and thankful, where you're like, it's so bizarre that we got here.
Do you have imposter syndrome as well, a little bit?
Well, no, it's almost the opposite of imposter syndrome.
That probably doesn't say a good thing about me.
Where you're like, of course they fucking like this shit.
No, that's the danger.
People talk so much about imposter syndrome,
but then there's this other thing that happens
where once you get to a certain level,
that becomes your reality.
And then you, you know, it's human, I think, then you just adjust your expectations accordingly.
And you forget about the fact that it's insane that what you do was not made for the built for
the big time. We don't write big anthemic songs that you could ever imagine, like tens of thousands
of people feeling emotional too.
Or even millions, which some people write songs that millions of people like.
No, it's crazy.
Or like a stadium of people chanting along.
Right, yeah.
Yeah.
Cape Cod.
Like everyone singing at the same time.
Like what you hear when U2 plays one or whatever and everyone is, you know, on the same page.
And of course I'd like to write a song like that if I could,
but I guess there's something.
Can you just write that? Rewrite that?
Yeah.
Make two.
Yeah.
I like the way you think.
Two.
We're two.
It's still getting better.
But I guess there was something about that I'd never,
just to even see somebody like compare us to R.E.M.,
just even in this very oblique
way I just thought like oh yeah maybe the thing about
REM is that their
moment of being the biggest band in the world
wasn't
whereas like U2 it's
like you and I know
this maybe isn't fair to you too but looking back
it's like of course they were destined to be the biggest band in the world
whereas
REM was something and again the good news is that it's like of course they were destined to be the biggest band in the world whereas R.E.M. was something and again
the good news is that
it's 2019
the idea of any band
being the biggest
anything in the world
is fully off the table
so us or Arcade Fire
I would say too
that U2
and Arcade Fire
are sort of humorless
and a nicer way
of saying that
is that R.E.M.
and Vampire Weekend
can combine levity and humor with...
Although Bonobos, funny guy, drew us a picture of a dick when he met us.
Wow.
There's definitely some humor in that.
Oh, that's getting framed, by the way.
Oh, thank you.
I found it.
Oh, good.
I thought I had lost it for like a year.
Oh, no.
And I didn't know what to say to you.
Is that every time I asked you about it, your eyes shifted back and forth?
I was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
You start sweating so much.
I thought I had lost it.
You found it though.
Okay, great.
Love it.
No, but look, I think from Arcade Fire's first album,
and I remember seeing them at Coachella,
there is, and that's something that they're amazing at,
projecting these big feelings.
And I felt it.
I felt it.
I've been in the crowd and felt it
and know the emotion of their songs
and the way they convey information.
And actually, I would disagree.
I'd say that they've had,
I like when they get,
when they show their humorous side.
Arcade Fire, they did a great
Between Two Ferns episodes with us
and they were lovely
and they were very funny people.
Yeah, but they came out of the gate.
Their discography? Yeah, out of the gate their discography
yeah out of the gate
Vampire Weekend
came out
being a little bit
like people were like
is this a joke
it seems like a joke
and Arcade Fire
was like no
very clearly
this is
we want everyone
to sing
all of our songs
together all the time
but then they had
to dip into irony
yeah maybe everybody
has to try
the same way
that U2 did
with their pop album
they had to do you know what that might two did with their pop album they had to do
you know what
that might be the best way
to put it
is that I relate more
sincere to irony
whereas you guys are like
irony to sincere
yes exactly
and that's why I can
or levity
yeah or levity
from like
levity to more seriousness
and I truly feel like
as a songwriter
and I don't look down
on our early music at all
it's just as important to me
as later music.
I like it.
But thank you.
I appreciate that.
It's on all the streaming services,
by the way.
Oh, cool.
You can still buy it.
Is it on Apple Beats?
It's on Apple Beats.
Don't have a subscription.
I also feel like...
Apple Beats.
Yeah, I truly...
Is it at Apple Beats?
There's something I like.
I've always really...
Yes, it is.
You know, that's why...
Okay, now I figured it out.
Thanks, guys. You helped me. Okay. What I like is. You know what? That's why. Okay. Now I figured it out. Thanks, guys.
You helped me.
Okay.
What I like about, say, a Bruce or an R.E.M. that I relate to a lot is that their early
music was oblique.
Even Bruce, go-kart Mozart.
He had like-
Oh, yeah.
His first two records.
Expensive words and all the wild stuff.
Yeah.
And there is something that I relate to more as a songwriter and just a human being about
that I didn't really sort out how I feel about things like love and pain and suffering
until I was about this age.
And there's something I relate to about the idea of early REM to...
To mid-period.
To everybody hurts.
To everybody hurts, right.
Or something.
It's like getting more into the emotion and the realness of it.
I mean, it's when-
And the directness.
When he started making his lyrics actually, you know, decipherable in a way.
Yes.
So that's a journey that I relate to.
And truly, it's not a value judgment.
I think people's lives actually, just with the sequence of events in your life might be,
were you the person who had to deal with like pain and suffering in a very
straightforward way at a young age?
And then you had to look for humor later.
Like a Kurt Cobain.
Right.
Yeah.
So,
so,
you know,
it's,
it's no value judgment,
but yeah,
I think that's why those discographies have always been ones that I just find
myself when I'm like in the studio,
just like,
I like the Wikipedia tab open and it's sometimes as simple as literally just
looking at the names of the albums in a row
and just being like, hmm, hmm.
Yeah, because We Belong Together is like the most direct song you guys have ever made, maybe.
Yes, and I've been nervous with some of the direct lines on the record that,
and again, this is just the thing, you're never going to please everybody,
that people are going to be like, oh, this is stupid.
And I'll be like, well, yeah, it's straightforward.
It's what you're never going to please everybody that people are going to be like oh this is stupid i'll be like well yeah it's straightforward it's it's what you're into now and hopefully you'll have a long career where it's like you know i was i was looking at uh dylan albums the other day because
i was making like a five disc best of of his entire career like not not leaving a song not
leaving an album out like it had to include at least one song from each jesus but you know you
look at all that and just like,
hopefully you'll have a super long career where it's like, you know what?
I mean, you know, Blood on the Tracks, the aforementioned Blood on the Tracks,
was just like dealing with his pain right then, you know what I mean?
And then he turns around and like finds Jesus,
and that'll probably happen for you.
I would love to give you some literature about Jesus before you leave.
I told our bookie agent recently,
because he used to be really in the Indiana Midwest Christian rock scene.
And I was like, I think I should have a Christian phase.
He was kind of like, I don't know, man.
I don't know.
You could be the most popular Christian band of all time.
I love those.
I mean, I can't believe that people turn their back on him.
Who, Jesus?
Yeah.
Are you talking about the Jews right now?
Okay, hold on.
No, I was was gonna say the
roman conscious conscious pilot all right all right and judas yeah and he's number one with
a bullet on people who turn their back on jesus we were talking at the beginning about contemporary
writing about music and i read something recently this thing that the contemporary reaction
to dylan's christian phase was people being like,
some of his fans being outraged and shocked.
And I'm just kind of like, you're like, you're really surprised that,
I understand maybe with the Jewish thing seemed like a bit that was surprising,
but I'm like, but based on his lyrics,
a guy who's so clearly interested in history and religion
and the grandiose turns of phrase that you find in the Bible,
you're surprised that 15 years deep into his career, in history and religion and the grandiose turns of phrase that you find in the Bible.
You're surprised that 15 years deep into his career,
he really found deep meaning in that religious literary thing that means getting into the Bible.
I was like, it's not shocking.
Come on.
Yeah.
And got to serve somebody.
That's like one of, that's one of his best.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, that album. But he best yeah I mean you know and it's funky that album
but he was so acerbic
and ironic
when he came out
of the gates
it's pretty crazy
that's the part
I don't like
that he actually
took that
turn towards Jesus
yeah I mean
if you look at him
in the
what's the D.A. Pennebecker
movie
don't look back
he's such like a
but that's the part
that like
that's why it's next level
I was thinking about this
while I was
making the best of it is like my least That's why it's next level. I was thinking about this while I was making The Best Of
is like my least favorite genre of Bob Dylan song
is the live performance where he's like telling jokes in a song
and he's like, yeah, I went down the other day and I did this thing.
And then he sings it and everyone goes, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.
Everyone laughs like he's –
Was it from the Don't Look Back era?
I know what you mean.
You know what I mean?
The song's like Bob Dylan's dream and talking John Birch paranoid blues. laughs like he's from the Don't Look Back era? I know what you mean. You know what I mean? The songs like
Bob Dylan's Dream
and Talking John Birch
Paranoid Blues.
Yeah, where he's like
telling a story
and it's all designed
for these people
in the 60s
to be like,
oh, Bob,
you're what a wit.
Even though they've heard
this song before,
they're laughing at it
in concert.
Coffee shop crowd.
Ugh, I hate those
types of songs.
Anyway.
No, a lot of his best songs.
I mean, it's in the book.
I know what you mean. He was acerbic and did that kind of stuff. It. No, a lot of his best songs. I mean, it's in the book. I know what you mean.
He was acerbic and did that kind of stuff.
It was almost like doing comedy in a way.
Did you put a song from the Christmas album on your compilation?
That is the one.
I do have a, when I make compilations, I have a no Christmas song.
The only exception is in my two-disc George Michael best of.
You've got to put Last Christmas in.
Oh, yeah.
Sure.
Great song.
Because that is not so Christmas-y.
Are these playlists available on a streaming service?
They're only available on my computer,
and my wife doesn't care about them.
Oh, you know what we could do?
We could do a, because we do our playlists,
mostly Jake's Guide to New Age,
Jake's Tasteful Palate of the 70s playlist.
Because you're coming on Time Crisis,
we could do scott's
yeah five disc best bob dylan i would love to provide you the time great presents scott presents
bob dylan playlist i tell you on apple music i listened to it all the way through this weekend
it's it's a winner how long does it take to listen to the whole thing like one out one song from
every album it's a it's five discs so it would be six hours six hours on discs no but i
when i make equivalent when i make compilations i want to make sure that they can go on discs
that's important when you're making a compilation is to is to see how it would be packaged in a
record store even though it never will right so anyway but do you ever even burn them onto discs
well i used to but now you don't have to, but that's still enjoyable to me to do.
Like when I put together,
one of my other recent projects was doing solo Beatles.
You know that part in Boyhood,
the Richard Wanklater black race?
So that had been my theory for years before that.
And when I saw that, I was like,
fuck, it's been put out already.
Oh, I'd already done it when Boyhood came out.
You'd done it too?
Yeah.
Oh, totally.
So I've taken all of the post-Beatle solo records
and organized them into alternating people singing on them
and turned them into period-specific four-disc compilations.
Do you only give George two songs per?
No, I put every song from every record.
Oh, I love that.
It's period-specific.
Wait, every song from every? I don't do a best of. I put every song from every record. Oh, I love that. It's period specific. Wait, every song from every...
I don't do a best of. I do every song from every record.
So all the songs have to be from like 70 to
73. Yes, so it's 69
through 73, 74
through, you know, it's like very... So you even put the
shitty songs from the solo record? Yeah, and it
recontextualizes them in such a way where you're not
zoning out anymore because you're hearing 10 George
Harrison songs. Instead, you're
hearing like the Beatles. Wait, did you
make a post-John 80s one?
That, okay, so I went all the
way up through, because, you know, his
posthumous record in 82 or whatever,
I went all the way up through there, and then
I did a two-disc
post-John one of just Best Of.
I did
what the next
Beatles album would have been,
using songs only from each of their first or second solo records.
The trouble with it is those first two,
the McCartney and Lennon first records are so dodgy
because they were both tired of making music,
sort of like how you were after the first three Vampire Records.
You think they're dodgy?
No, those records are great.
Like McCartney and Plastic Ono Band?
Yeah, McCartney in particular.
It's pretty loose.
It's barely a record.
But it has Maybe I'm Amazed.
It has some incredible...
But it has Maybe I'm Amazed,
which is a great pop song
and I think went to number one.
But then everything else
is just kind of goofing around.
So it's a little...
There's some other great songs.
It's a little hard to listen to
in sequence, I think.
So it doesn't step.
Meanwhile, you have George Harrison putting out all things.
He's the one who's been waiting, holding back, and writing those songs.
I'm just saying that that's the interesting part about making these compilations,
is comparing all things must pass songs, which are incredible,
and then segueing into something off McCartney,
which is like a little more goof around the loops.
But if you take just the best songs from each of their first couple solo albums.
But those weren't the parameters.
No, in Boyhood, it's not using all the songs.
No, but you're going a step further,
and you're imagining also just what was happening in the studio.
It's almost like Roger Waters kind of growing to become the leader of Pink Floyd.
You're like, well, by the early 70s,
John and Paul were a little bit burnt out and checked out,
and George really took over.
George stepped up to the plate.
George started having five, six songs per album,
and he really became the de facto leader of the Beatles.
He stepped up to the plate in that crack of the bat.
Should we give these guys time for their show?
We're running out of time.
Yeah, we originally were going to play.
Okay, let's get in.
We were going to play songs from
from your new record
but we've talked about it
so much
and it's out now
it's so good
it's great
so we're going to
wrap up this show
and then we're going to
record your show
so everyone should
listen to your show
after this
you guys have been great
I've really enjoyed
it's just fun to talk
to fellow music nerds
about stuff
that's what this show
is all about
thanks for doing this
you guys
thank you
thank you
oh wait we got to
we got to shout out the guy.
Yes, shout out the person who suggested all of this.
Perhaps this would have happened one way or another.
Who's to say?
Who's to say?
But the person who first suggested this
was a guy who listens both to your show and ours
named Grayson Hall.
Grayson Hall.
And Grayson Hall emailed Time Crisis and Jake
to really make sure that we knew.
And he said, guys,
he listed all the connections that we have,
such as the fact that
Step Brothers is a very important moment in
Vampire Weekend history, and of course,
very iconic performance from you. And now to me.
Well,
Rashida's been on my show.
Yeah, there you go.
I don't have the email open right now.
This is Grayson Hall, some of the things he listed.
But he just saw a kinship, and he said we should do a crossover episode.
So, Grayson, we're doing you one better.
We're doing a crossover Subway series.
That's right.
So, thank you, Grayson, for –
This is the Battle of the Bay.
We would have been too shy to hit you guys up and say, hey, can we do something?
So, Grayson, he created this –
Thank you, Grayson.
– entree for us. So, thank you. Thank you, Grayson. created this thank you Grayson for us
so thank you Grayson
sounds like you have
your name was made up
by Aaron Sorkin
well he also has
the last names of
two DC superheroes
Dick Grayson the Robin
and Carter Hall
the Hawkman
it's definitely
maybe it is made up
it might be a pseudonym
alright guys
this is gonna be it
for us
we are gonna take you
out on
the song that got
you into R.E.M.
Ezra.
This is Night Swimming.
Oh.
And we'll see you next time.
And until then, we hope that you have found what you are looking for.
Bye.
Night Swimming.