WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1243 - James Murphy

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

LCD Soundsystem is one of the hippest, most beloved bands of the early 21st century, but its frontman says he's spent a lifetime being uncool and no fun. James Murphy talks with Marc about the personal and global tragedies that precipitated the founding of the band, the character traits he had to come to terms with in order to lead the band, and what he's still trying to figure out about the band today. They also talk about his aborted collaboration with David Bowie and what that taught James about himself. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die we control nothing beyond that

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Japan alive FX's Shogun a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney Plus 18 plus subscription required T's and C's apply.

Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck, Knicks? What the fuckadelics? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast. It keeps going. The podcast continues. It keeps going. How's everything with you guys? How was the weekend? Everything all right?

I'm relatively healthy. I get up. I do the yogas. I do the meditating. I talk to the cats. But there's some heavy heartedness going on. I had a dream about Lynn. It was a bizarre one.

It was nice to see her though. Hadn't seen her in a while. But it was this giant space. It was like a white. it was almost like a dome, like a white dome, like the size of many football fields. It was an expansive space that was, it felt outdoors, but it was indoor. It was grass. It was like a huge field.

And I walk into this space. It was almost like the Truman Show. And I'm supposed to perform there, but I don't know. I can't tell where anyone's going to sit or where to even stand. It just seems too big. There's no center to it. There's no point of focus. And I'm like, do I just stand here? Where are the people going to be? And it's just expansive, but clearly inside and almost like a field. And someone says, your guitar is over there. And it was way over there, like a half a mile away. We leaned up like on a chair and I walked all the way over there.

I'm like, am I supposed to play? I mean, that seems like, how am I going to work this room? It's huge. Like, it seems like miles wide. How do I work that space? I walk over. I just like walk all the way across to where the guitar is. And there is a little seating area.

And Lynn is there. And I hug her and she tells me that Marlon Wayans will be available for the podcast. The closer we get to the Respect movie. And I'm like, why are you telling me that? And I'm like, do you still love me? She goes, yes. Do you love me? I'm like, yes.

And then there was just a moment where we hung out for a second and I woke up. I think Marlon Wayans kind of fucked up that dream for me. Like, how did he wedge his way? Why did that bit of information? Because I am going to talk to him before Respect opens, but why did that have to worm its way into hanging out with Lynn?

Do you know what I mean? Dreams are tricky, right? Who knows? James Murphy is on the show today from LCD Sound System. It was a long time. I'll tell you, I got feelings about it. Somehow or another, to be honest with you, to be candid, to be upfront,

I missed LCD Sound System. I missed the entire event of it. I missed a lot of bands in the early aughts, mid aughts, whatever. I don't know what I was doing. I wasn't involved with music. I was doing comedy. I was wandering around doing comedy. And then I was out here trying to get traction doing comedy.

I didn't give that much of a fuck about music. You know, I listened to it. I tried to stay up to speed, but I was not in it like I am now. And for some reason, I remember a while back, I did some sort of short doc voiceover for DFA Records. But my experience with LCD Sound System is like, well, these guys are kind of white people, dance music. I can hear all what they are. I can hear what they're drawing from. I hear the talking heads. I hear some Bowie. I hear some Fall. I hear, I guess, I don't really know the Smiths, but the Cures in there. Like, I understand the sources, but I didn't really give it a deep listen. But I could never get a handle on James. You know, and I sort of dismissed it, and I was sort of cranky about it,

and I projected a lot of stuff onto him that I knew nothing about. And he's been sort of hovering, not hovering, but he's been on the periphery of the show for a while. And I finally just locked into the music and really kind of leaned into it and listened to it. And it's great. It's very easy to listen to it.

There's a lot of great music there, a lot of great production, great songs, but I still don't know who James is really. So I, I was looking forward to, with some apprehension, you know, talking to him and, uh, we did it. We did the conversation. And of course we have things in common and I get it. He's, I wish I had the discipline. Some people have, I wish not even discipline. I wish I was obsessed in a more focused way that had more follow through.

I wish I was compulsive and obsessed in a nerdy way that would force me to fully immerse myself in nuance of any one thing. As opposed to sort of like go all in, you know, get satisfied and then get out. Where's the commitment? So James Murphy is here and he doesn't have to put he's not plugging anything. It was just time for us to talk. That's all that, you know, and I got up to speed as much as I could on LCD. I enjoy LCD sound system. I enjoyed the records and I like he's a good friend.

He's a good friend of my buddy Sam Whipside. He's a friend of Sharpwings. We have friends in common. And it was a nice talk. So this is me talking to James Murray. almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats.

Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die.

We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Perfect. Those headphones, it doesn't sound like they're a good thing. No, I just like, I wish there was a way I could turn up or down how much transparency.

Holy shit. I mean, I can't like, turn up or down how much transparency. Holy shit. I mean, I can't, like, I'm just doing GarageBand. And I, you know, and that's too much for me. I don't even know what the full extent of what GarageBand does. I just know how to do the voice thing. But you just record yourself and that's it. I record myself or if someone's sitting in here, I record them. I ride the levels on my dumb little six channel mixer that I don't understand.

I record them and I ride the levels on my dumb little six channel mixer that I don't understand. But I believe that I've convinced myself, James, that that my lack of intelligence or know how around this stuff gives me integrity. Well, I mean, you and I are similar age. Yeah. Oh, I'm 57. Well, I mean, at one point I was on a second. I was your age, yeah. At one point, no, at one point, we were very different ages. Yes. Because I'm 51. Yeah.

And now we're basically the same age. Right. Yeah, I get it. Because nobody gives a shit about the discrepancy of dudes in their 50s. Yes. Nobody wants to hear that nobody's nobody's like oh no we're totally i'm 51 and 57 like that's not a discrepancy that's not a distinction anyone cares about well you sort of level off somehow yeah i don't it seems like you were a lot more excited and

interested about things than i was but do you have children i do i have two kids oh well see that's well that makes you very different than me i'm'm still just a fucking idiot with a record player. It doesn't stop me from being an idiot with a record player, but I am an idiot with a record player who have people... That fuck with your record player. Well, remarkably, I've gotten both of them to not do that too much. Oh, yeah? remarkably i've gotten both of them to not do that too much oh yeah and my youngest son really my older one who's my son really likes records and he's always liked records and it was it took

a little time for him to not fuck with the records yeah how old is he he's six oh okay my daughter uh she's only pulled a couple of records off of a shelf whereas for him it was a while i've been like stop doing that stop doing that stop doing that, stop doing that, stop doing that. So he's really interested and he remained interested. Yes. He's a music person and she remains to be seen. She can't speak yet. Oh, well, I, you know,

I think that I have cats and they're actually worse with records. There's more to worry about with cats and records. Oh yeah, I had a cat scratching up the whole, destroying the entire spine. Yeah, they destroy everything. So I guess we have a common friend in Sam Lipsight. We do. We do have a very good common friend in Sam Lipsight.

Yeah, I love Sam, and I talk to him frequently. We're currently developing a television show together, actually. I'm so sorry. Yeah. We're not in active development we're just trying to sell it man i mean i tried to develop the show with sam and it got me nowhere so is that true yeah we did we worked on a show for a while what was that about um we worked with a friend jay green jason green yeah um and it was uh it was initially called the Worst. Yeah. But then there was a show that came out and got picked up called You're the Worst, I think.

Yeah. And we were like, the best? It went nowhere. When was that? Oh, years ago. I want to say it was like two years ago, but that probably means about six years ago. So somewhere in the interim after you retired.

Yeah, I think it started before we started playing again. For sure. Was TV writing something? Because I know you have some of it in your past somehow, or at least were thought of to do it. Was that one of the

beginnings of your creative uh ideas for yourself no not at all um this was a this was a weird little lark i was like hey let's make a show yeah um and it was basically my friend jay's really funny i think he needs like a vehicle like that was my like that was my sort of feeling it's like i really want like a vehicle for my friend jay let's help jay out i want to but and i want well i just think i want to see it so it's helping me it's helping him um it's helping the world and of course i was like let's let's write a show together you know together with him and i was like and then we decided we why don't we call sam because we like sam and uh and it seemed like why not why don't these three guys just hang out

once in a while and try to show a genius it's gonna be great ourselves we made ourselves laugh yeah um and did you actually get into the selling of it well this was the mistake i made i think uh-huh i my first instinct was like look let's just make a pilot. Like, I'll just get some money together. We had shot the LCD film, and that was shot by Reed Marano primarily, who was like a super cinematographer and now is like a big director, and she's like a good friend. And I was like, maybe she'll help us shoot the pilot.

Like, we know enough good people. That was the big concert movie, the final concert thing? Yes. In the dock, yeah. And I was like, we know enough good people that we can, concert movie the final concert thing yes in the doc yeah and i was like we know enough good people that we can you know make get something together that's what i wanted to do and then suddenly we got into like well maybe you know i do have a manager and a manager works with people and i have an agent at wayne morris like maybe we can get somebody to

help develop it and that just was a big mistake because we started talking to somebody and then they were like yeah i can to somebody and then they were like yeah i can totally help and then they were like oh i don't know maybe we need to we do a table read it just became as opposed to me just being like why don't i make this dumb thing it's gonna cost me x amount of money right we're not gonna go crazy like we're gonna do it in an apartment the scenes in an apartment we'll use our friend's apartment the scenes outside we'll just steal like who cares yeah um i you know i can borrow a camera rent a camera let's just do it and then we'll have a pilot and if nobody picks it up at least

we have this show we can show our friends we're happy or we can go down the like self-doubt road where you're getting people's opinions before anybody's seen anything and you know you do a table read and you're like is this does this make any sense and then jay's like why don't we do it without me in it and i'm like what's the point of that yeah um so we kind of just uh lost lost momentum and i and i that's happening but that's the second time that's happened to me in my life or third time it's happening in my life and that should be three strikes and that i should never with with tv writing specifically no No, with projects. Like, I've only ever been happy when I'm just like, I'm going to do this dumb thing that's a bad idea. And then I do it.

In the 80s, I used to record on 4-track. I had a cassette 4-track. It's much different than where you're sitting now. It's much different than where I'm... It is and it isn't. Yeah. I was an autodidact so i kind of like figured this stuff out and just made recordings all the time and i really liked them so it was

one of those things where you could just sit by yourself and lay the drums down lay the guitar down you could actually probably get eight tracks out of it if you were clever well what i would do i could get six tracks because i could do four tracks of like drums bass guitar yeah something else and then i'd mix them down to two and then i'd get two more tracks so i'd have the instrumental mix and then i'd do vocals or whatever on the other yeah yeah and when i was 17 in 1987 i decided i'm going to put a record out sure i'm going to go to a real studio and record yeah and so i saved up all my money and i worked and i went to the studio time and i went and it was a disaster because i this guy i remember this guy who's i'm sure the nicest guy

in the world who's doing his best uh uh and he kept he was talking about the pyramid of sound i'd be like okay i want the bass through this guitar amp it's all trebly and it's got reverb on it he's like you know what let me tell you about the pyramid sound down here is the bass and the kick drum yeah and then on top of that you might have your piano and i was just like this sucks like i don't want to make a fucking fleetwood mac record like everything i listen to is all scrappy and weird sounding yeah um and instead i just got bullied in this like i got pushed around record and and no but it just was neither it sounded like it winds up sounding like a jingle like because it's neither what i would make which

is so he couldn't honor your vision because you didn't work together and he was just an engineer trying to do his job for a kid that's got an idea yeah i'm like a 17 year old kid who's only just recorded himself and doesn't know how mics work and you wanted him to just magically understand why you wanted the bass to sound like uh you know a rebel a car rumbling or something i wouldn't know that that was a thing like i had never experienced trying to communicate with people about music i just yeah it was for me it was like i would i would just keep doing this until i was happy but it seems like this was actually the actually the mountain you chose to die on. Well, they're all mountains I choose to die on.

That dynamic right there, it seems for you getting the sounds you want out of the equipment with the people you want to do, that was the life. Yeah, yeah. That's basically the whole thing. I don't really, I don't do much else. So that didn't work out, but ultimately that journey kind of paid off. Yeah, when we made the, when early days of DFA Records, we had the Raptors. Who's your partner in that? Jonathan? Is that his name? Jonathan? John Galkin, yeah. Although he started his own label now.

Oh, well, Galkin, like, I feel like we were talking about talking many years ago. Like, Galkin was sending me records probably in 2012, 11 or 12, I think. Like, he was saying, like, I remember, like, Prince Horn Dance Hall. Is that? Dance School. Yeah. Prince Horn Dance School. I love that, those records. Yes. Me too. But he was sending me a lot of records. And I, you know, oddly, and I'll just give you some background on me and you.

Like, I somehow missed the event of LCD. You know what I mean? I don't know what I was doing. I don't know where I was. Living a life? No, but there was a whole chunk of life where, you know, I've always considered myself somebody who likes music, but I was just disconnected from music that was happening. I think I was obsessed with comedy. I don't know those years where they got lost or what I was prioritizing. So in a lot of ways, I would look at you and I'd see you on a boat doing something. Were you ever on a boat doing something i don't were you ever on a boat doing something yes yes yes when you narrated the the the movie the short film that's right i was on a that's right okay i was on a i was on the boat because right that they asked me to do the short film god i'm spacing

all of it i'm like i don't what does this guy do is he on a boat he's got a beard what is he what is the this guy and i gotta be like and i would listen to your stuff here and there. But like, it wasn't until two days ago where I'm like, I get it. I get the whole thing now. So it's all fresh to me, James. That's what I'm saying. Nice. And I enjoyed it. And we like all the same things.

And I don't know why I prejudged everything. But I'm like, what's he doing on a boat? So like, I. Well, I mean, to be fair, you can't be judged. You can't be hard on yourself for that. Because I, one, I played the fool in that on purpose. like i well i mean to be fair you can't be judged you can't be hard on yourself for that because i one i played the fool in that on purpose like i totally played the fool which i was enjoying like i was just being i wasn't if you were looking at that footage being like what's this guy about i

was giving you very little to go on yeah um i was playing the dummy i guess if i would have known the history of you you know i would have got the history of you, I would have got it. But I was just sort of being an earnest. Yeah, well, that's fine. And also... I was the idiot. I've come to the conclusion that at varying ebbs and arcs of my late era career,

big chunks and swaths of the time, I would not have liked me from for what reasons not that not i would not if i paid attention but i think i could have been like you know because because i'm like there's too many people saying shit about this guy i don't buy it like or whatever like we i've i haven't i'm in no danger of being underappreciated, I feel like. I feel like I've gotten more than my due of appreciation and respect. And there have been times when the noise around projects I'm working on have been louder than I would expect.

And I could see myself on the outside just being like, I don't want to hear about this guy. Let me ask you, though, because going back to the same age thing, I spend a lot of time wondering whether or not I'm done. And then on, on, on the other side of that, I spend a lot of time thinking like, well, would, would that be a terrible thing? Uh, you know, why do I care? You know, I'm, I'm okay financially. What, what is it? What is it that I, I, uh, what are we working for here? You know what I mean? Am I just going to repeat myself? It seems like I'm talking about the same things over again, you know what i mean am i just going to repeat myself it seems like i'm

talking about the same things over again you know and now i'm playing guitar with like i started rehearsing with a with a trio and i'm like is this necessary does the world need another 57 year old white dude thinking like i'm gonna play guitar now like i i don't know i don't know what the fuck i'm doing do you feel like you have realized yourself that you exist, that, that you are, you know, when people hear something like that's Murphy or, you know, like they, do you think that you are exactly who you're supposed to be? I don't think that's possible. Like, I mean, I don't think you get, I don't think, I mean, I know what I'm annoyed with annoyed with myself and with my work.

Like what? There's not enough of it. Not enough work? Yeah, I'm not prolific enough. That makes my job easier. It's like, there's only four records? Right. But that's humiliating.

Like, the Beatles knocked that out in like two and a half years. You can't compare yourself to the Beatles. You tried. No, I'm not. But I'm just saying that in general, and I think part of that is the world and everything is precious and it all has to be perfect and everything has to then be...

When I make a record, when a band made a record a long time ago, they just made a record and they would maybe stop playing a couple of shows, go in the studio for a day and a half. And then it's an album of the songs they've already been playing. And no one's heard them unless they went and saw them. Whereas now it's like, oh, a record. OK, well, I'm going to make a record.

I'm going to make it alone in a studio. And I'm going to make it for six months because everything's got to be fucking rumors. And then when you're done with it, then they turn it in. They're like, oh, that's great. OK, well, do you have art? I was like, oh, I've got to be fucking you know rumors and and then when you're done with it then they turn in like oh that's great okay well we got to do you have art i was like oh i gotta make the art okay so there's the art to make and then okay well there's that's great the record's done we need some content i'm like well isn't that the fucking content and then you're like no we need a video and some content so we're gonna do some and then and then you every record's a world tour i mean world tours were called world then every record's a world tour.

I mean, world tours were called world tours. They were like a world tour, like Elton John world tour. Because only people like Led Zeppelin or Elton John did them. And they did them once. There'd be like the 1976 Yellow Brick Road tour. And you'd have jackets. And they were like, he went everywhere. He was in Japan. I DJ dj in japan just because

somebody thinks that maybe it's an idea yeah like the the kind of non-making a record commitments are just a lot bigger and so that naturally slows down like the kind of like making of music process like the ancillary shit right so you as a personality but that what the the type of record making you're talking about is of a certain level. I mean, theoretically, you know, you could do a record without all of that and maybe do more records.

But then the question is like, would anyone give a shit? You know? Well, I don't know. I mean, the way I make records also happens to be a slow burn because I'm simultaneously like living in the modern world where like you know i can do whatever i want because i there's limitless amounts of tracks in the digital

world and all this other stuff but i also live in the kind of i'm old enough that i kind of am stuck in this kind of luddite world where i have to use a console and i do use real equipment and it's all very clumsy and cumbersome but you same time. But you like that, don't you? I mean, is that a choice? I love it. I love it. But I mean, like, there's things that I think ran smoother when you couldn't do that because you'd have to get a bunch of really good musicians. You'd have to figure out the parts. Then you'd go play it a few times and you'd be like, the third one's the one.

I was talking about that to the guy at the stereo store. It's funny because like today, you know, before I like this morning, my big dilemma was like, hey, should I go pick up my Marantz 2275 that's being rebuilt before I talk to James or should I wait? And then I'm going to have to go like my life is revolving around old equipment and stuff. But I like yesterday I listened to the Bo Brummel's Bradley Barn record, you know. But I talked to the stereo guy because I just got these ridiculously expensive speakers. And I was talking to him about how old records sound great on these ridiculously expensive speakers. And he's like, yeah, that's because, you know, they didn't have to fuck with technology. They didn't have to.

They just laid it down. And that was that. And it sounds perfect. They have fewer phase concerns, yes. Right. And, but like what you're saying about prolific and also the distraction of being asked to DJ in Japan. I mean, you know, I mean, I get what you're saying,

but did you, do you feel, it seems to me that less is more because you would have had a bigger opportunity to hack yourself. it doesn't seem you would you would probably would have driven yourself crazy if you were expected to churn out the same record over and over again yeah i mean if i worked better with other people it might be easier because i'd be i'd share sort of i i would you know, you can bounce off people and get out of your head,

but I'm just not good at that. But you're essentially, I guess, on some level, you're, it seems that from what I can feel of the music, you know, there's a lot of the stuff that I like involved in your brain, you know, like Can, Talking Heads,

Eno, Bowie, you know, like can, uh, talking heads, you know, Bowie, uh, you know, I, some people I don't know, but I, I, they, I kind of feel them at the edge of things. And I, and I, and I, and I can feel those references, but it seems like you're just infusing this into a, a type of, uh, of, uh, of dance music almost. Right. In a way. Yeah.

Sometimes straight up dance music. Right. So, and it, but it seems like a good part of your job is that of a band leader yeah yeah well live i'm yeah i mean live like lcd for i think is kind of two things it's a it's a records that i make mostly make with and without my friends and sometimes those friends are the members of the live, of the band LCD sound system. Sometimes they're just other friends.

And like, right. We've always been a group of, I'm very, I've been incredibly lucky late in life. Um, I don't mean late in life, like I'm 70,

but I mean, like I didn't have a lot of friends in my teenage years or my twenties. Why? I, I'm, I'm a, I'm a particular flavor, man. like i'm not that easy to get along with in some ways well what type of like what was what was your specific asshole-ness i wasn't

assholey i just wasn't that easy to be around i wasn't cool i wasn't laid back i'm not laid back i'm pretty uptight and you weren't cool i'm not i was not cool like i was i would bring the cool level of a room down like i was always the fart in the fucking in the room at the party you know what i mean like well is this for going back to high school what you grew up in new jersey yeah no i'm just yes okay i found the cassettes of all my music that i've made i lost them for a long time and i found finally found these series of boxes of cassettes from the starting 1981 to 1991 it's like 10 years of just me making music on four track and stuff in high school yeah and before like junior high school high school yeah and what you were what did you play instruments i played everything yeah

i played drums and guitar and bass and keyboards and you were good at those things i was i was a good guitar player i was a much better guitar player then than i am now yeah but drums a lot a lot of times drum machine yeah um so i was good at that yeah press the buttons sounds would come out um so you're you're sitting at home in new jersey do you have uh like would you have a brothers and sisters i do but they're they're a lot older. I'm a Catholic surprise. I'm the fourth and last of an Irish family. Oh, wow. So you're older parents? My father was born in 1931, my grandfather in 1898. So yeah. So you got older brothers and sisters? Nothing crazy, pretty small. I mean,

there were four of us so my older sister and brother are 10 and 11 years older than me but that means there was a lot of stuff at the house left over like music records yeah totally yeah i grew up i grew up listening to records and yeah my brothers brothers and sisters records right like spent a lot of time doing that a lot of posters in their room kind of deal in my room no in their room your of deal? In my room? No, in their room? Your brother's? No, more in my room. I was the poster kid. Okay. My brother had a couple of posters.

He was more into like prog rock and stuff. Oh, so that plays in, huh? Like Yes and Utopia and Pink Floyd. Can you get into Utopia? I struggle with Utopia. Me too. And Yes, it was weird because i like when i listened to you know losing my edge or any of the stuff that you're talking like i'm so fucking late to this

party like i just started reading you know you know getting into vinyl you know within the last decade right and i grew up with yes you know i'm i'm seven years older than you and yes was like outside of roundabout and one other song i was like what an annoying bunch of dudes you know and but like i put on one of their records i put on fragile on the good system like i bought it i didn't own it's ridiculous right it is ridiculous but you know what's ridiculous about it is like they're just a band you can hear the guys playing on that yes yes at the time it sounded alien because they were so like... Exactly. And you hear it now and it sounds like rough. It sounds like the blues. Right. Exactly. And then you're sort of like, oh my God, these guys were locked in. Yeah. The bass player. I mean, I have an absolute undying love for Yes. Like Chris

Squire, the bass player, his bass sound is almost identical to the bass sound in the stranglers it's just this screaming distorted bass sound and he controlled it ridiculously it's a they're a tough band yeah i had no idea i thought they were a bunch of pussies and i was like no this is real yeah and they're and they're they're i went on a huge yes well i sort of like i hit the revelation that you can find anything on youtube one time yeah and i was like wait a second i just find out everything about yes that's weird now as an adult yeah i went on this huge youtube youtube binge of like every interview with everybody and all the live footage i just learned all these very strange things about them that i found really interesting like there's a lot of class stuff in that band where like chris squire and like bill bruford are

like upper class kids and like john anderson's like more of a working class guy right and like like john anderson is like the kind of the singer he's like a little bit of the one who's like you know elves and fairies and and like but he's also the one that's like keeping the shit together like he's like yeah yeah yeah no we're doing we're yes this is what we're doing like and and like i feel like he was like ride or die in a way like that that some of the other guys were less so but do you do crimson i like them i like there are things about king crimson that i like the most but I have funny feelings about, um, I don't like this, the funny stick base. I don't like that.

That drives me nuts. Just the, the idea of it, you know, the sound of it, the idea, like the base was fine. It does sound weird.

Stiff. I guess is a great instrument. Let's just, let's, let's wait till we beat it. But there was something annoying about that. What's his name? Levin,

the guy with his head shaved. He's got the dumb dumb bass you know yes images counts for a lot you know yeah and it's corny as shit yeah and but i have a i have feelings about frip who's like a real a partial hero to me i i you know i got turned on to him when i was like i have a weird sort of i have sort of a blues based brain but like when i was in high school i i worked at a bagel place next to this record store and one of the guys there was one of the you know sort of an art rock guy and he turned me on to you know league of gentlemen and frippin eno when i was in high school and uh and like i couldn't quite wrap my brain around it but then you know i grew like when scary monsters came out i was like holy shit what is this you know and i guess heroes too but one

time like he was kind of a dick to me on an airplane and that ruined it for a few years but i'm okay with him now it doesn't surprise me no i i just feel like he's, I feel like the ways in which I feel like musical insecurities and confidences play out in each musician, it determines whether I'm going to like them or not. And I think the way they play out in Fripp, I do not like. The way that, I think he's one of the most gifted, like he's really skilled, obviously he's practiced a lot. He's a very good guitar player, but I think he's one of the most gifted natural guitar players. I feel like he's a very gifted natural musician. I feel like his sense of where things go is beautiful.

But I think something in him seems to not trust that. So when he writes music, when he's composing, when he's like, hey, here's the King Crimson song. It's like, here's this great part. And now it's fucking annoying for eight bars. Right. And I'm like, he just has to ruin it whereas when you're like hey when you know and and bowie are like come on over and play some guitar he's incredible like right he just right just let it go yeah the stuff that comes out of him naturally is amazing he's like as if there was somebody who

was a great actor who could just do it but then they're gonna go do some weird method thing and ruin it. Yeah. It's like that scene in Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid where, you know, they got to shoot the wood chip to prove that they can shoot. And he just stands still and he's shooting at it and he misses it. And Strother Martin's like, that's terrible.

And he's like, well, can I move? Then he like, he jumps into it, his little stance and boom, boom, boom. And of course, you know, the natural thing. And when he was trying to do it his little stance and boom boom boom and of course you know it the

natural thing and when he was trying to do it it was terrible but when he was just allowed to be himself he could do it yes i just think there's sometimes that's but i think we don't necessarily value what we're good at because it feels automatic well yeah because you know and it can't be enough obviously if you're of a certain type but have you watched those uh those videos of him and his wife i think you really see him no they're doing all these youtube videos where they're covering songs she comes out in like a costume and they're doing like nirvana and sabbath and she's singing and he's just standing there with a Les Paul playing these fucking songs.

No, I haven't seen any of that. Oh, you got to go watch that because it's happening in the moment. He's got no self-consciousness at all and you can really see how he's sort of, it's like Jimmy Page, there's a clunkiness to it that you would never expect. I would just like, like i mean there'd be

very few guitar players i'd rather have i'd rather be like just come play once have you done that with him no i've never i don't do that with anybody well okay so let's get back to that well before we get back to that it's like again like when i was in new york and i was just sitting around i had one can cassette because rollins had said he liked can and i you know i couldn't fucking lock in and now i can't get enough of that. And when I listen to some of the LCD stuff, just the length and the process of how it builds, it's a lot like Cannes. You must have listened to a lot of that guys.

A lot of Cannes. That's one of my all-time favorite bands, yeah. Yeah, and I think as a model sort of similar to, you know, they don't always all of a sudden make a record when you're like, you're not like, what the fuck is this? But there is an evolution and a difference in how they approach a lot of different stuff. And it seems like as a model, that's probably closer to what you do than most things, huh? to what you do than most things huh well yeah except for a couple of key things which are you know can are people who were like conservatory hyper-trained conservatory musicians like yeah ermin schmidt the keyboard player won the like this like young conductor award or something it was like in went to went to new york with this having won this european young conductor award or something it was like in went to went to new york with this having won this european young conductor award all these guys like taught at like conservatories and you know

were like hyper educated classical and jazz musicians jackie liebsey was like the premier european free jazz drummer so they were all like these super high level people and then you know they heard the velvet underground and shit we're just like let's just go be repetitive and but then but played together eight hours a day like there's no band that replicates And then, you know, they heard the Velvet Underground and shit. And we're just like, let's just go be repetitive. Right. But then played together eight hours a day. Like there's no band that replicates the weirdness of Cannes. I mean, I would almost argue, weirdly, I would say like the Ramones or in a weird way just Cannes on set of The Wrong Speed. Like there's something similar about like the purity of their idea

that I think is really something. But like, I don't think there's anything like, I the purity of their idea that I think is really something, but like, I don't think there's anything like, I'm not like Canon at all. I love them. And I want to say like, they've influenced me not just through them, but through the bands that they influenced,

like public image limited in the fall. Like I got my can first through the bands that they influenced. And then I found the source, but it seems like they were not afraid to you know mix up form you know within records you know and and and to the point well you know it was clear that they weren't gunning for hits so they were able to do what they wanted to do but they had hits this is the weird thing as a as a as a non-german yeah like we think of can as like this like oh have you heard about can it's like suicide or something like you know it's like underground underground like oh right you know

the modern lovers before everyone knew what they were yeah can had hits in germany they had like big hits they were on tv and shit like they had like they charted they were like in there was a moment where they're playing the song i want more on like a sitcom like where they're the band at the beach party playing a song it's it's it's this it's this there's nothing quite like it it's the strangest thing so how did you like you're from high school because i know you were in a like you had a band before LCD. I had a bunch of bands. But how did you arrive at, how did you decide this sucks

and I'm going to do this other thing with each band? You were kind of gunning for pretty straightforward alt rock for a while, right? Yeah, I wanted friends. Early on, I wanted to make music. I just wanted to make music i just wanted to get out of my town make music maybe i'll meet other people um making music that would be like me because i had bands as a kid that's what i'm saying the beginning like

i found these cassettes i found this cassette from like 82 yeah 12 playing with my two friends paul and dale and we were like playing this song we wrote and you can hear them all laughing and having fun and you can hear them being like oh that was cool and you can hear me pretending to be calm pretending to be like yeah that was fun you guys let's do it again but let's all come in together like like i i'm like i'm not fun like they were like oh this is great we're in a band too or maybe i'm gonna be on the track team and maybe we'll go to a party and i'm like yeah i'm gonna be, this is great. We're in a band, too. Maybe I'm going to be on the track team, and maybe we'll go to a party. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be in this band. We're going to be in this band. We're going to be a really good band.

Let's work on the band. We have a band meeting? And I was just ruining it for everybody. So when I got to New York, I moved to New York when I was 19, in 89. I was like, oh, amazing. I'm in New York. I'm going to meet all these people. And the same shit

uh like i just was no fun and i wasn't getting i wasn't easy i just i'm not easy i'm not easy i'm not like at ease in a social situation but but knowing that is there is there some corrective in your brain do you do you uh do you act as if now do you want to change that it seems like i know you keep saying that but you just accept it. I've changed. I mean, I'm still naturally, I'm still the person I was. But a lot of things have changed in my life. That a lot of experiences, I've had different experiences that have changed me. Even though the raw materials are the same, I've had some experiences that changed me.

You can identify them? Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, one was just like i went to i went to therapy a lot and i gave up um i didn't even give up i gave up control i was a very controlled person i still am but i was like i'm gonna i've tried to figure out everything on my own and um what was it why where did that come from was there chaos in the house growing up i mean no i had a very i had a very like in in a certain way at an incredibly stable

family like yeah i remember thinking one time that if i threw this i remember looking in my living room being like if i threw this chair through the window of my living room out into the front lawn, my father would simply make me pay for the repairs to the chair and the glass. Like I would just, he would just get it fixed tomorrow. Right. And then there'd be a bill and I would pay it off with some interest if it took me a while and then there'd be like that's that's the thing that was the the punishment was i would just take responsibility for it i would never they would never hit me he would never like throw me out of the house or it was a very like it wasn't a very hot-blooded environment well they've been

through four kids by the time you came yeah i mean the kids he forgot my name most of the time but but in the midst of that um when i was 10 my mother was given five weeks to live with lung cancer but she survived but like she was the treatment wound up paralyzing her she was in a hospital for like a year and a half like a rehab hospital like in the middle of this time, everything turned upside down. Yeah. And I never, because you only know your life, I never felt traumatized. I never felt like this would have any effect on me. Yeah. I was always like, no, I'm fine. Like my mom's still like totally bossing me around.

And like, she's just in a wheelchair now. You know, like I took it as nothing happened. Yeah. And even in therapy, I never really like thought that much happened and it's only like as i've gotten much older and i'm a parent i'm like oh man like i can trace so much shit back to like everything being one way and then everything being being turned around right upside down and yeah uh you know and i think it it it a couple of things like that in my childhood had some much bigger impacts. I also was fearless as a kid.

Any dare you gave me, I would do anything dangerous. Anything dangerous at all. But you weren't the kid that ate the weird things, were you? I might. I'm not so much the gross out kid, but I was the kid who was like, there'd be like, if you challenged me, like you called me a wimp or you call me like, I'm scared, whatever. I'll fight. I would fight anybody.

Oh yeah. I would jump. I would jump my bike over anything. I would take on any kind of physical challenge. Yeah. And I got an, uh, one day I was talking to my wife. I'm like, I'm like, oh, I'm, you know, our son's kind of cautious. And I was like, I'm really cautious.

He probably got that from me. I'm super cautious. And she's like, what are you talking about? You told me these stories about this, this, this. And then you broke your arm and then you knocked, you split your face open and all this other stuff. And I was like, oh, yeah. I was like, well, I guess I used to not be scared. And she's like, clearly those things made you cautious.

Like, Billy, you got gravely injured repeatedly as a child. Like, I broke my arm in like 16 places in a bike thing. Got my cast off and that day hit my face on a diving board, split it open, my mouth open, had stitches in my face. Like, I jumped off, then got that fixed, then jumped off a chimney and broke like destroyed all the tendons of my ankle in a bush all before i'm like 12 and um and then after that push the edge man i became very cautious and didn't but i also was so unselfaware that i never until this year did i ever see realize that like oh there was a moment when i was fearless and there's now i'm cautious in the middle with a whole bunch of traumas that like in my lizard brain learned to

be like don't jump off that stay away you know that the whole like when well if you think about my thing is like i look back and i'm just amazed at the trauma of how much I fucking embarrassed myself. You know, that's the thing that just kills me. Lately, I've been doing that, just sort of like, how the hell did I deal with all that shit? Trying to be what I wanted to be, taking all those chances, and making a complete fucking fool out of myself. It hurts my heart to think about what i put myself through and i i i don't well how do you how do you reckon with the trauma that you went through oh no i mean i never went to i never went to therapy for trauma i literally do not feel in myself traumatized in any way like i

don't feel like anything bad's really happened to me like Like I'm a pretty optimistic person in a weird way. And like, so what did you, what was the self-awareness you were lacking? I went to therapy because I was shitty at my life because obviously some stuff was controlling me. That was out of my periphery. Like it was out of my view and I wasn't aware.

And I never believed that because I felt totally in control. And I felt like, no, no, no. I see what's going on. I understand myself. I see other, I always had a much, and it's true. believed that because i felt totally in control and i felt like no no i see what's going on i understand myself i see other i always had a much and it's true i did have a much more

detailed and nuanced view of situations than my peers like other kids would just be behaving in these weird ways and i'm like no you're being mean to this kid now because you're an athlete and he seems nerdy but last year you guys were best friends and you're now denying that because it looks makes you look cool in front of your friends and can we not just all talk about that and of course you want to talk about fart in the room and not having any friends behave like that through your you know teenage years right um you know because i always just be like let's just talk about what's really going on socially and then people don't really that's not what anybody wants they don't want the honesty no when when did you like how did you arrive like with all these fits and

starts around you know band and music i mean it seems like there's a big difference between playing guitar in a alt rock band and and you know building what you built with uh lcd i mean what was the shift what it seems like maybe djing was what blew your brain open well there's i think there's two one is like you know i played music i learned how to do everything myself as a kid right you know so i had like a certain base of knowledge when i and then i moved to new york but i had failed i'd made this record when i was 17 it was a disaster um the one with the guy the pyramid Pyramid guy? Yeah, Pyramid of Sound, Tom Zip.

Pyramid of Sound. So I failed miserably with that. And it hurt, but it didn't hurt too much. And who were your bands at this time? Who were you listening to? Oh, Cure, Smiths, Sisters of Mercy, all the 480 stuff, The Fall, Nick Cave and the Bad Se seeds um chameleons

so you had a tone there was a tone happening yeah like so i all grumpy grumpy i had i had the sound of of of lonely suburbia yeah but i so i don't know i that was what i was making and it was it was a flop and so i moved to new york and everything changed and it became like indie rock happened and i decided i didn't want to be the guitar player singer of a band anymore and i became a drummer i felt like that was more workmanly i was going to be like there was some dignity it was like the dignity of labor like i thought being a drummer was like being a plumber like i was just going to be like, I'm going to go out and just work. You write songs. I'm just going to drum.

Just don't worry about me, man. I got this. And so I was a drummer for 10 years. But of course, turned into a recording engineer, built studios, tried to control the band from the drums, made everybody miserable. 10 years? Well, from 92 to 97, I was a drummer in some bands for like five years. What bands?

I was in a band called Pony and a band called Speed King. Those were drumming? That was a drum? You weren't singing or anything? You were just drumming? I sang a little bit, but mostly I was the drummer. And so when did that break your spirit? Well, I was in a band.

when did that break your spirit well i was in a band i got in a band because i met i met a i made a friend at college who was uh very smart and she was a good writer and we were in writing school together and uh she wanted to learn bass and i was teaching her bass and i became the drummer and then we became boyfriend girlfriend and then i did the brilliant thing of like hey let's be in a band together so where's fucking idea you could possibly have sure and so especially if you're a control freak oh we had this and she was aggressive and i was passive aggressive and you know and so you know i was the kind of guy who would just like quietly try to change everything without you seeing and she was the kind of person who like always picked a fight at a restaurant so it's like it was a disaster like you couldn't go to a restaurant without like some problem that needed to get talked about with this waiter.

And you were the guy sitting there after she stormed off yelling? I'm just like, you know, I'm like a guy who freezes and hopes no one can see him when something happens. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I was like six foot one, 210 pounds of terror, of terrified. She was like five foot nothing, a hundred nothing of pure anger. And it was just like, yeah, it didn't work.

It sounded exciting. So I was stuck in this band because we lived together and we were in a band and we hated each other, but we were in a relationship. And you were studying writing? Yeah, that's what,

I went to college for fiction, fiction writing. Where at? I was at NYU. Oh, wow. I mean, that's what I was going to be. I was done with music. I was going to be a writer. So, mean, that's what I was going to be. I was done with music. I was going to be a writer.

So, okay, so what happens after the... That's when I meet Lipsight. That's when I meet Sam. It's like those early, like 1990, 1991. Were it readings and whatnot? Through rock and roll, through Dung Beetle, his band Dung Beetle. Oh, yeah, the Dung Beetle time. To me, Dung Beetle is still one of my favorite bands of all time

really oh yeah what they have as much influence on me as anything yeah hold on one sec maybe this guy will pass i never know someone driving by no i just never know when these fucking gardeners are going to come and yeah and then all of a sudden i'm in the middle of a conversation oh you're in los angeles yes it's the uh the leaf blower animal the leaf blower event i thought that was like some there was a big drum drum drop i thought no every day dude it's like you'd be surprised how i i mean i'm very sensitive like there isn't there's very few minutes in it any day where you don't hear a fucking leaf blower here yeah it's the land of leaf blowers it's but it's like i know that's the joke and like everyone knows that but if you focus on it you could lose your mind like you get to a point where i do where i'm like can't we just make

it only legal on one day you know and that's a really that's the most new yorker moved to la concept like still mad but about stuff that like you're starting to lose what's ridiculous and what's not like by being there long enough you'll just be like eventually like i formed a group we're gonna stop stop the leaf blowers well it's just like garbage day in new york i mean it's like what the fuck well it's always garbage day exactly same thing man that's what i'm saying where are you right now i'm in brooklyn this is my studio in brooklyn and you've been there forever no i mean i'm a man i was a manhattan guy for a long time but i've been in brook i've been in brooklyn now for a long time so dung beetle you love that band. What was great about Dung Beetle?

I met Sam at a late night party where we were doing drugs and hanging out and talking about books and having this really incredibly intelligent conversation. I was like, Sam was a very sensitive person. He was very smart. It was the real deal, talking to him. Talking to the real deal. And I was like i

found this friend i feel you know i feel really connected to this guy this is awesome and he's like my band's playing tomorrow night come so i went and saw them it's a spiral yeah down the basement of the spiral on houston street i walked in and he's they're doing their dung beetle thing where they're like confrontational and like he's acting like a crazy person the whole band and i'm sitting there with my arms folded like smiling i'm like oh man this is awesome go sam man these fucking dummies they don't know what's hit him right yeah and i'm smiling and he looked at me and i kind of smiled at him like hey man it's me you know and he just like got this enraged face like like like like you smiled at a chimp or something yeah Yeah. And just started pushing people out of the way,

grabbed me by the face while singing, and pushed me out the door till I landed on my back outside the club on the floor of the basement. And it was love at first sight, man. I was like, I was like, I was so, I was like, thank you for not accepting my bid for connection. Like like thank you for not accepting my bid for connection like thank you for making

sure that i know fucking that i'm on the other side of this wall i'm not inside the fourth wall here yeah this is like there was a commitment and i used to call them the in indie rock days in the 90s everyone was like super like faux faux humble and like, sorry, man, I got a tune, sorry. It was all this apologizing nonsense, anti-rock star, faux fake humility. And everyone was very comfortable in that. They all felt really comfortable. They all felt like they were all underdogs, except they were all the coolest people in that room. So you're underdog to what?

Like some fantasy oppressor of hair metal bands or something. Yeah. And who, by the way, were all much more underdog than these indie rock kids. Yeah, right. Class-wise upbringing and all other things. But I just consider them to be like the drunk uncle in the living room of that indie rock scene like they were just a bummer like everyone's

like having a good time drinking and then one uncle's like oh you were to college you're a college boy now and you're like okay just you're gonna it's ruining it for everybody like and i i loved that it was because it was always ruined for me i was always uncomfortable yeah and i always felt uncomfortable around groups of people who felt comfortable. And going to see Dungbeal made me feel that sense of like, no, nobody's comfortable here. I'm equal. I've got my feet on the ground.

And I loved it. I loved everything about that band. It was a total commitment. I went and saw Sam. They did a show at knitting factory i used to run sound for them and it was a sparsely attended show where both of sam's parents showed up who had been separated and i don't know if he engineered them both being there at the same time but they're in the middle of this dirge where like it's like this like like if if you could

exponentialize the late late mid-late stooges it was like the stooges to the stooges power of just like bad ideas bad vibes there's dirge sam's lying on his back on the floor of the not the stage but the floor between his parents with his microphone in his mouth reaching out with his hands to his dad his mom's got his coat folded over her arms his dad's his hands his pockets they're on opposite sides of the stage he's lying down between them reaching out with his arms like rolling around the floor the mic is hands going why like while the band was like and i'm like and and to whom like there's 14 people there at the old knitting factory and i was just like this is the greatest performance art like this is like it was like between like yeah it was between the stooges and andy kaufman in a way that was just

so beautiful and magical. And I felt like I was witnessing greatness. And I still to this day, not everything great gets its time. Sure. Like, this is something that was greater than other things that were happening at the time. And it just didn't get its time. It didn't get its day in the sun, you know? That's so wild, man.

You know, because I met Sam much later. I met Sam when he had already published that first novel, We Became Friends. But he's become one of my closest friends over time. But wow, I have no sense of that Sam. So it's really nice to hear. but that sam what's cool is like that the sam that's like the writer and the thoughtful friend and like the rock like great sense of humor and like yeah quiet like you could you could be at a party with sam and if someone's a type a blabbermouth they'll never clock how smart and interesting sam is because he can just he can just exist under that margin that being in that little margin is what i find really fun the two of us would just sit there and murmur at each other. Yeah. But his fearlessness as a performer was unparalleled. It was just the greatest thing.

It was such an inspiration. That's so funny. That's so great. Yeah. Because he gets a little nervous now when he has to, you know. I think he got nervous then. Yeah. You know, it's not a lack of nerves.

I guess fearlessness is a bad thing. It's like, you know, strength to overcome the fear just throwing yourself into it like you know you you put yourself in the position it's like you know fight or flight yeah yeah yeah okay so sorry you asked me a million years ago i'm a tangential person no it was just sort of the the transition you're kind of discussing what was going on and what led you to what became LCD. Well, after all that, and I kind of went to therapy a lot to try and change my life, and I broke up with my girlfriend, and I kind of stopped being in that band. And I built a new studio because I had been storing gear for this guy,

and I had to give it back. So I lost my studio. I got kicked out. And then he said he had a place where he was like, I want to design a studio. And I was like, well, I can help you design it.

We'll make a studio. So I had a nice studio. Um, and you had learned that you just taught yourself how to do all this stuff. I learned from, I learned, I taught myself and I learned a lot from Bob West and Steve Albini who were like really generous with like design stuff.

Albini's great. Yeah, super. I mean, he gave me a ton of information when I first built the studio in 92 without knowing me, just like sent faxed me drawings of wall structures and stuff. But I met a guy, Tim Goldsworthy,

who was in this project Uncle and Moax Records in the UK, and he was coming with this guy, David Holmes, to make a record in my studio. Not through my connections. I did not have cool friends. So this was like you were going to be a writer, but you were also this engineer guy?

Yeah. Okay. At this point, I had stopped being a writer. I write on my own, but throughout the band, I went to college for writing, and my fourth year I dropped out because I was in this stupid band with my girlfriend. And then that became my life again. She wound up having a knitting store.

She was big in the knit community, and I don't know what happened to her. I really don't. Did the anger go away, or did she take it out on the knitting? or did she take it out on the knitting i mean i don't i mean she was cool as shit and like her anger was like part of her her passion and part of her also part of her like strength like i i think you know if you're a tiny person like you better be ready to swing and so like i i had this luxury of being like just a big person if i was if i raised my voice i wouldn't took it more seriously yeah but uh i don't know i last time I saw her, she was still mad. But it's been many, many years.

It's been many, many years since we've spoken. All right, so you gave up writing. You dropped out of college. You're engineering. I'm engineering. I'm on tour as a touring sound man. I'm in this shitty band's drumming. And then at the end of that, in the late 90s, I get my life together.

I build a new studio. And in comes this guy, Tim Goldsworthy, with David Holmes. And he's cool. And he's the coolest person I've ever met. He's like, in magazines, he's cool. His label's cool. He has cool trainers. You know what I mean?

I'm baffled by it. But we start working together on this record. And then we stick together. And that's the crux of DFA was Tim and I making, producing together and making music together. Right. Um, but it wasn't the label yet.

Uh, uh, but that was it, that turnaround that gave me confidence because I was like, here I am working with this guy who's like pretty cool. And we, we can talk about music and I'm not beneath him. It's,

this is weird. i always felt like beneath everybody and sort of outside and it gave me the confidence and then my parents died in 2001 and that kind of turned everything that in a weird way that unleashed me at the same time within five months of each other oh wow it was uh it was it was 2000 it was like my mom died my dad died in 9-11 and after that i was like you know what fucking My dad died in 9-11. And after that, I was like, you know what? Fucking I'm going to die. And I'm going to die scared and having not done anything. So that's the beginning of LCD, really.

And the idea of LCD was just, you know, what was the personal manifesto of it? Just to do shit that you wanted to listen to? I mean, like. Yeah. I mean, just to do shit that I wanted to listen to. We were having parties mean just to do shit that i wanted to listen to we were having parties i had done also i had done ecstasy and for a tightly controlled person who the kind of drugs i did were like really inward um you know i never got blackout i would like i tried to control control control control control right ecstasy was this really external thing yeah the

first instance of that changed me forever like it really changed my life it feels like you know when i listen to it like the type of when you are making dance music it feels like ecstasy dance music well i did ecstasy and i suddenly realized i learned a lot about myself i was like oh i like having fun. I like people. I like dancing. What, what stops me from doing all of those things is all image maintenance.

It's all like, Oh, I don't want to look stupid. I don't want to look lame. I don't want someone to, you know, and once I was freed of that, I was like,

Oh, I'm somebody else. Now I'm going to come down off this. It's also, it wasn't the drug. The drug just got rid of some uh stops and what it exposed was something that i felt was very genuine rather than the drug made me a certain way no right you know it uh it it sort of peeled away uh defenses and opened your heart a bit

yeah and and it opened it up in a way that was like oh this is totally me and when i came off the drug i i did it a lot because i loved it, but I didn't need it. Right. Like once I did it once, I was like, oh, I don't need this drug. This is totally just, it gave me the, it's like sort of like when you have an experience, when you're afraid, you're so afraid of the dark, you're so afraid of the dark, you're so afraid of the dark. Then you go in the dark and nothing happens.

You're like, oh, the dark's not that bad. Like I was so afraid of embarrassing myself that I went and did this drug and it wasn't embarrassing. And I was like, huh, maybe I don't need to be afraid of embarrassing myself that i went and did this drug and it wasn't embarrassing and i was like huh maybe i don't need to be afraid of myself that's what i was telling you earlier the embarrassing trauma is like so fucking weighty man i still think about shit i did as a teenager and i'm like oh i get like waves of but you don't you don't consider that trauma yeah it's trauma but like you know yeah okay it's not a brain injury but still you know if it happens if it happens enough you know but uh but no but that's interesting because it seems like

you know once you you kind of land in the groove of the band that you know you've got this you know kind of um almost sarcastic disposition around exactly those fears, you know, that you were able to characterize, you know, the ridiculousness of these fears that were holding you hostage through the, some of these songs. Well, I mean also like I, yeah. And I, cause I love like, when I became friends with Nancy from the band, like one of the things we became friends about was like,

we love human weakness like i don't like i have i have a sense of honor with myself but other than that i don't expect myself to be like great like the shittiness of human beings is like something i don't judge particularly yeah well it's so constant why you exhaust yourself well no but there's types of shittiness there's like i know there's like gnarly gnarly hurtful shittiness then there's like we one of the things we first connected on was like if you sleep with someone simply because it's just too awkward and weird to leave like if you just wind up like having like like you sleep with somebody literally because you're just like i don't want to go home. This is just weird.

It's just going to be awkward if I get up and go. And like that's a weak thing to do. But I kind of I really empathize with that type of weakness. Like that to me is the type of weakness that I'm just like, yeah, you're fucking human. It's like like the way it's the reason people laugh at comedians who are parents who are just like my kids. They're terrible. You're like, yeah, that's a terrible thing. But I totally can empathize with that human weakness that you have yeah and uh like so i've got no i've got no beef with with uh with humans being a bummer and so

like i can i can make music about that stuff and be pretty harsh about it but it's me and i'm not like i don't feel like it's like i love people who are terrible and who are broken i don't like i'm not like some apollonian ideal of like what human beings should be and you know i don't have who is yeah yeah no well that's all the best part of it i also don't want to know those fucking people like do we want who what what do you have in common with somebody who's like perfect like that i don't know anybody and you and it's usually a lie yeah so it's like yeah anytime you see it you're like uh there's something bad in there you never you eat fucking people yeah like if you're perfect you definitely eat people it's gotta come out somehow yeah yeah you're you're feeding somehow in not a good way yeah but yeah because well that

well that's i think that's the funny part of some of the songs is that there's a sensitivity of it you know that you're not you're not just mocking it like a bully you obviously are living it somehow yeah that's a yeah it's okay so but after this whole arc i mean in getting like how do you respond to people who are sort of like well because i talked to sharpling yesterday and i told him i was going to interview him and we were talking and he loves you he loves the band he's a good dude he's a great guy um yeah these are these are my two good friends or sharpling and sam really and jerry stall they're all you know we we're sensitive a lot but you know we were talking about like how because i said like my one of my my first reactions was like it all seems relatively familiar a lot of what you're drawing from

you know yeah and and sam like sam said well he's aware of the pastiche so then yeah like i had to look up pastiche and then i used it as if I knew the word with Tom. And then he said, yeah, he's definitely aware of pastiche. And I'm like, okay. So how do you answer for that? Do you care? I never did. I never, never did.

I remember just getting these arguments with people. I remember reading The Anxiety of Influence by Harold Bloom, like when I was in college. And having these arguments with all these indie rock bands who were just saying like, oh, I don't listen to, you know, I'm like, well, you sound like Slint. Yeah. And they'd be like, no, no, I just listen. I'm like, okay, so you listen to Billie Holiday and Music Concrete and Xenakis, and then you just sound like Slint and that's an

accident you just landed miraculously at two guitars bass drums mumbled vocals and seven four time that just that just happened lightning struck twice and like and i was like why are you pretending you're doing this for yourself out of like Athenian grown fully grown from your own head with no influence from somebody else for your lone self like if you don't admit that you're making music

partially to communicate with other people you're doomed to like a grotesque lie of aping and like so long ago i accepted that like what i'm doing when i'm making music i make music for myself all the time yeah every day yeah i write songs every day i play me i play instruments every day i don't record them they're for me they're for me they're for my child they're for my wife they're for my friend they're for whatever's happening in

that room they're for my own sanity i'll happening in that room they're for my own sanity i'll sit down and just play guitar for my own sanity yeah that is purely music for me right i'll sing i'll sing to machines machines hum i sing to them always that is music for me it helps me with my mental state it's just part of my like it's like fucking breathing yeah i i sing to the to the leaf blower sometimes yeah you have to you have no choice yeah um but like when i'm making music i'm making it for other people it's a communication device and this language has words in it and sentence structure and phrasing in it and when you sit down and write a pop song you're already working in this trope like and and you can use whatever weird synthesizers that no one's ever used before um but somebody built those things right and you can like you know so for me i'm working in a tradition no differently than a jazz musician or no differently like a rapper or like a tribal drummer

or a Bulgarian non-vibrato singer. I'm part of a tradition. That tradition is the canon of what I love in music. Yeah. And I don't shy away. Sometimes it's almost like if you're directing a film, sometimes as a director, you'll take a shot from a hitchcock movie in a way and recreate it with your characters as a way of juxtaposing

of bringing that memory memorialized language back into what you're doing and so sometimes i'll find that a song i'm working on reminds me of a song that I listened to. I'm halfway through the song and I'm like, oh shit, this sounds like whatever. And rather than run away from it, sometimes I'll be like, well, I'm going to dive into that and see where that takes me. And there are songs that I've done that with that have been great successes. And there's songs I've done that with that have been failures. And that's just part of the game. And I don't feel that falsely trying to peel away my influences so that no one can see them is an honest gesture. That is a fully manipulative gesture, I feel.

Like, I'd rather always try to find something new. And sometimes I became not as obsessed with something new. And there are times when I am obsessed with something new. And there are times when I am obsessed with something new. What's interesting, though, is the familiarity is usually... Sometimes it's a melody, but not quite. But a lot of times it's just a sound of a guitar. A production technique. Right.

I'm obsessed with it. I'll become obsessed with a drum sound of a certain record, and I'll be like, I need to figure out how they did that. And that process of figuring out how they did that will lead me down towards making a song. Well, that's the interesting thing, is that the signature thing that you guys have, that despite whatever influences is there,

seems to be a rhythmic thing. Yeah. And that's part of me. I was just playing some of the music i found from the 80s for reina uh uh reina russum who is in lcd and does her own music um under a bunch of different names is amazing amazing amazing amazing artist and made my favorite song in the last couple years called freaks only and she was saying, I can hear like, that's all those rhythms are here. Like it's all here in 1984. Like all that, all the way that you do your thing is here. And I'm

like, it's just like, that's the stuff I can't shake. That's like speaking English or something. Yeah. That's it. But that's like, it's sort of, it's sort of interesting. Cause I, like, I listened to all the records, you know, some, you know, uh, for me, I've, I've listened to all the records. I've listened to them before, but sort of in a row. And I felt whatever my prejudgment was before kind of melt away because of the movement of each song and each piece and sort of the way there's a fluidity to all of it. And it all has to do with the rhythm, which is,

you know, uniquely yours. And I was, you know, it's, it's all very fun to listen to. I also don't care if it's uniquely mine, even like,

I mean, I read once there was, there was a guy who was like, I hate this band because it just reminds me of the talking heads too much. It just sounds like he's just doing it. And I, and I remember feeling like, I was like,

okay, like, like if what you're shopping for is either originality or the simulacrum thereof like i'm not the store to go to yeah but what does that even look like it you know it looks like you know that that early apex twin was pretty genuinely original well like what you trout mask replica all? You want to live in that? No, I love Trout Mask. I mean, but also like that still was from a lot of traditions. They were just traditions people didn't know.

And we live in a world now where it's a lot harder to hide that stuff. Right. I mean, I saw a great, I did this weird talk many, many moons ago. And also speaking on that day, but not talking with me because, come on, it was Brian Eno. And he was saying how he was like he said something remarkably he's like it was it's hard to explain but it was very easy to be new at that time he was talking about like the early like ambient stuff he was like he had gone and seen like cluster and all the german bands and the krautrock bands and clearly he'd also like he'd

also like he was like no one had thought to just go like i'm gonna put these things together and everyone's minds exploded and it was like at that time there was still a lot of ground uh like unclaimed and and like the time we live in now there's far less unclaimed ground which i think is normal you know but yeah i get it i get it you know there and there's also a lot more accessibility to everything that's always happened. And I get that Captain Beefheart, the entire engine was lifted out of Howling Wolf. I mean, I understand all that. But he's also a very singular guy. Yeah, yeah.

But in the Talking Heads thing, that guy is very derivative. There's a soul record where it's a whole rip. None of that really matters to me, but I think like when people talk about the heads or they talk about, or the comparison is really, cause I've been listening to heads outside, you know, before I knew I was going to interview you, I've been kind of stuck in the live heads specifically.

That's not making sense thing. And like, well, yeah, because like, I don't like, you know, that is, if there's any

heads that you're really you know sort of influenced by that i can hear in the music on a regular basis it's the momentum of that band live that really is footage of them in rome around the remaining light tour that i don't know if you've seen with yeah with uh adrian blue playing guitar and it's pretty world on keyboards. It's as good a band as ever taken a stage that era. Yeah. And David Byrne's underrated rhythm guitar player. Great rhythm guitar player.

Great rhythm guitar player. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's what he's really good at. He's really pretty good lead player too, but like his rhythm is like, it's where it's at. It's always been where it's at. Yeah, it's so cool at yeah it's so cool have you ever worked with worked with him no i've met him a bunch of times uh like i would say i would say we're friendly yeah um uh and it's and i and i feel very comfortable separating the guy that i've been like oh hey let's have hi yeah with this

other guy because otherwise i wouldn't be able to have the meal but you do collaborate sometimes like it seems like a struggle for you even just from talking to you but it seems like you try to i mean what was that bowie thing like that must have been crazy that was brutal um i mean i made a what happened was i made a mix for bowie i made a remix um of a song from the uh the first secret album the next day yeah it went really great and everybody really was really happy and apparently he was quite happy and um i he also came and recorded on the arcade fire record that i was uh helping make um and he and we met then and you know became friendly and exchanged emails and um i remember just being on a trip once and i was uh and writing him an email

and being like hey i i'm away right now but uh one of these days let's it'd be great to get together and i would love to make some music with you like um you know this is a big thing for me i don't it's like i'm like the guy that asking for someone on a date for the first time like working up their courage and he writes back like you know funny you should say that please come see me when you're back and we'll we'll talk and i'm like you know i'm doing backflips i'm losing my mind i'm like i'm gonna make a record with david bowie and my idea is like i'm gonna make a record with me and him that's it yeah like i'm gonna be like we don't need anybody else like yeah i can make a record alone you can make a record alone like we're done it's just you and me just come to my studio let's make a record let's

just make a couple songs if nobody hears it doesn't matter yeah but he's already underway of making demos and working on stuff um and he played me music and i was like i do you feel like you can add something i'm like i definitely feel like you can add something? I'm like, I definitely feel like I can add something. So the time comes. I've signed all the NDAs. Which album is it? Blackstar. Oh, it's the last one. Yeah.

So I go to work on Blackstar, and I come in, and I meet the band, all the players in the band. Love them. It's an insane band, dude. Yeah, and they're so nice. All of them are so odd to be there and sweet and talented and we're joking and it's like a really great rapport and you know they're really like honest to me i'm like is this okay is what we're doing right like they're pretty you know

david would be pretty like great take you know and they're like am i i just made this up like is this okay like and when i walk in i see david sitting in the chair he's like hello you know and the rest of the band are in their room like playing i'm like okay there's david he's the songwriter it's david david he's the artist i'm like there's the band they're all playing their instruments there's the drummer it's on the drums covered bass player playing bass check keyboard players playing keyboards it's a saxophone player playing saxophone it's like all those positions are totally filled i look over the console there's tony visconti tony visconti is sitting at the console that position is covered great and he's got an engineer and a computer op those positions are covered okay

uh it's like walking into a cockpit and all the chairs are full and you're like um i guess i'll go sit in the yeah back like so i just didn't know what i was supposed to do and i was like struggling to find my way in to this already moving machine and uh um and tony who i got along with great like it wasn't like there was like hey what do you want to do it was like he's like i'm just working you know and these are like heroes years yeah right yeah totally yeah totally i'm like oh well excuse me while i insert myself in the bowie visconti yeah you know it's like hey guys you know i don't know maybe have you considered what this fucking idiot thinks yeah yeah the triangle of sound anybody yeah yeah maybe you've heard my songs no doesn't you have and it doesn't matter cool all right i'll just go back out into the Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. The triangle of sound. Anybody? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you've heard my songs. No,

doesn't you have, and it doesn't matter. Cool. All right. I'll just go back out into the coffee room. But so, uh, it's,

it started dawning on me that maybe what my job was, I was like, what is my Eno? Maybe I'm expected to be the disturber of the process because the remix i did was so disturbing it was like it was a completely like take this thing and turn it upside down and reverse it and put it out this way but that's not what i do with people like i i've only met you know like like tangentially i don't know him at all but he definitely seems to have a kind of confidence that they were not handing out

when i was born in 1970 yeah like he's just like you know walk into a room and be like i've got a great idea here it is let's all do my idea i'm like i'm gonna wait till everybody leaves i'm gonna try it to make sure it's okay and then i'll work on it alone and then if it's okay i'll maybe let them hear it and if somebody says like i don't want to do that i'll be like okay fine and then i'll be really angry and resentful and then i'll go make my own record in spite like that's i'm not like so i did some small things and i you know played some percussion and like ran their synthesizers through some stuff and i had like i was having a good time but i eventually said said to him, I was like, look, man, I think I need to take these things

and bring them to my studio and work on them myself. That's the only, that's the instrument I play. Yeah. And it just wasn't a good fit and it broke my heart. Like I had to leave. Like I kind of talked myself out of a job. Because you're too hard on yourself. No, just because I don't have that gene, man.

Like, you know, it'd be the equivalent if somebody was really good at sampling. Right. And they were like sampling all these great drum beats and you brought them in, you're like, amazing drums. Here's the drum set. Can you play? And I'm like, that's not what I do at all.

Like, I can't play drums. I can make beats that you hear and you think there's drums there, but I can't do the thing you think happens to make it happen. Like I can turn things inside out and turn them upside down, but I can't do them in at war with people. Right. You know, in a room. Right.

I just can't do it that way. So it's a control thing. No, it's, it's more, uh, I don't like bumming people out. I really am sensitive to bumming people out. And I'm also incapable of compromise on some level that I can't control. Like, I just shut down. I need to do it my way. Right.

And I simultaneously need to do it my way, and I can't say what I need. So, ergo, alone. Did I need. So ergo alone. Did you know he was sick? Yes. Oh, really? But we didn't talk a lot about it. But yeah, that was part of what I wasn't allowed to talk about. Oh.

So sad. It's his... I mean, it is so sad. We all go. He... I mean, I don't know a lot of artists he went too young but i don't know a lot of artists who get to make a kind of perfect swan song record and die and like be with their family you know i mean oh yeah yeah it's just so it's it's interesting like

because i was trying to think about that like this generation because you're a little younger than me but like you said it doesn't matter once you're in your 50s. I don't know that I've paid a lot of attention to the last decade or so of Bowie records, but when they die, you're like, oh, it was just nice knowing they were here. It's not like I've been paying that much of attention, but usually what happens is when these heroes die,

you're like, oh my God, I can't believe he he died but what you're really saying is like i'm dying i'm dying yeah well i mean that whole generation it's like we're all it's like when that started i was like oh they're just rationally dropping like flies yeah you know people who lived hard are hitting an age yeah and you know things things happen yeah man yeah it's just like they were always there for us so and then the weird thing is like they really still are i mean you know you i can go i listen to shit all the time i mean what do you listen to when you listen to stuff well that's the thing my poor son is like is he alive he's learned to ask that oh i like this is he alive no he's not uh yeah but that we all did that i mean you got i mean like like because i grew up in that sort

of crashing wave of the 60s like everyone was dead like i remember looking at janice joplin's pearl and my mother like telling me that she died of a heroin overdose and i just couldn't put it together but then you'd flip it over and see that band and you're like, oh, there's the heroine. These guys are the heroines. Yeah, I don't know. What do I listen to now? You mix it up? A lot of weird music. Yeah.

I mean, I listen to a lot of things with my son. He really likes the guitar player John McGeoch who played in Susan the Banshees

and Public Image Limited and Magazine. Right now he's been on a magazine kick. He's six, so I've done my job. He plays drums, so we play music together. That's great. He plays keyboards and drums. I mean, yeah, I've been listening to a Jan Hammer group song and a magazine song with him because he heard them and was like I want them on my

playlist he has a playlist a Spotify playlist are you guys rehearsing? when do you go out? no no no we're not rehearsing we're just never an active band

so what's going to happen now? Are you going to play some dates? Is that the deal? We'll figure something out when the time is right. Right now, I mean, right now we're on a full hiatus. Like we go, we just, because of the nature of the band, when we're not touring, we're just like back to normal life, like completely.

And if I'm making a record, that's my problem. But right now, like Pat pat the drummer's band museum of love has a record out like this today uh-huh or this week so he's going to be playing with his band where he's the singer um you know reina's got her whole label like everyone does other stuff, you know, Al's in London, Tyler's in Berlin, uh, you know, everyone has their own things going on. So for us to put it together and get together is like, um,

we just kind of decide to do it. Is that going to be, but is that, are you planning on that or no? Not yet. I mean, always in theory, you know,

planning on something, but like, I don't want to go out without new music and I'm just getting, I mean, always in theory, you know, planning on something. But like, I don't want to go out without new music. And I'm just getting, I just, this studio was being built when the pandemic hit. And so I was almost done with it. And then suddenly it all had to stop for a year. And I had to like, kind of like on FaceTime, finish wiring up my console with the people who were halfway through it. Did you get work done during pandemic? None. all i did was finish this place um fish i fished a lot really i yeah i

had a baby at the very beginning of pandemic so like my life has been i also we have a restaurant my wife and i are partners in a restaurant that's that's uh in my neighborhood. And when the pandemic hit, we were just kind of all hands on deck trying to save jobs and figure that out. Were you able to? Yep. We didn't go under, and we survived and took care of people the best we could.

You kind of were part of, you were at the ground floor of establishing Brooklyn as cool Brooklyn, weren't you? No. When I moved to Brooklyn, I felt I was a little late to the party. I moved to Brooklyn in 2005. Oh, wow. 2005?

So people were already, like Pat, the drummer in LCD, was living in Brooklyn when I met him in 96. But didn't you guys do almost a residency there? Weren't you like a- Oh, yeah. Brooklyn Steel. We played Brooklyn Steel. We played like 24 gigs or something crazy. Yeah. but didn't you guys do almost a residency there weren't you like oh like yo yeah brooklyn steel yeah i played brooklyn steel we played like 24 gigs or something crazy yeah um when we when uh we came back on on tour but that's just i'm i've tried to figure i'm trying to figure out how to be a band right uh i don't like playing big shows very much um i like them once in a while but like

i more prefer small shows and not small shows but like brooklyn steel's a big venue like they're big that's a big venue for when i would go see a show as a kid yeah but shows have just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger there's more and more people but you've played huge shows yeah i like it as a festival because i because i can when we play it as a festival yeah i can look at the audience and be like they're not here to see us let's go get them oh like i feel like under at the audience and be like, they're not here to see us. Let's go get them. Like, I feel like underdoggy. Like, I can feel like they're all here to see

whatever else is on this bill. So you feel pressure? Not that. I just don't understand. It doesn't compute. That they're there to see you? Yeah, it just feels, not that, this feels like, sounds like false modesty.

I don't mean it like that. Let me explain. If I go, I don't, i never went as part of a big audience to see a band i don't understand that the biggest shows i ever saw like that i ever went to go see were like 2 000 people like that was sort of like capping out at my like i'd go see a band that was like 2 000 people like this is a great show yeah but i went and saw like the jackson's victory tour and the rolling stones uh steel wheels tour the only two big shows i've ever gone to see and they weren't for me somebody had a ticket i went and i was like i felt like it was a football game yeah and it didn't it didn't compute to me right so when i

go play a festival, I understand that there are people that want to go see these bigger things. And this is my chance to make a fool of myself. It's like being on TV. If you're a guest on a talk show, you don't walk out on the talk show and be like,

all these people came to the studio audience to see me. Right. And millions of people are going to tune in to see me. No, they're there to see Conan O'Brien or whatever the hell it is. Yeah. And you're just there to do your dumb thing and there's no pressure on you like you're and if you do whatever weird thing that's you and some and one kid is like i like this guy you're like oh i've communicated i understand that communication yeah but if you go

do the thing and everybody you're the thing that i don't know what it's like to be the audience of that so i find that confusing not negative not bad i just don't understand yeah i i i find now that i'm performing for my audience even if it's 1500 800 people there's still part of me that's sort of like what are you doing here yes where is if you wait but if it's a if it's sort of like, what are you doing here? Yes. Wait, but if it's a night with like six comedians, some of which are like really big, you're like, oh, I'm going to go bum them out for 40 minutes. Exactly. And a couple of people are going to be like,

that's my guy. And I'm here for those six people. Exactly. And that just computes easier. Yeah, it's yeah it's not there's it's not the pressure and you don't have to wonder how you manifested this room full of weirdos what is it about you that but it's but to me it's not even the pressure it's just who am i talking to i know how to talk to people who don't want me there. That makes all the sense in the world.

Like, when we played Coachella between them Crooked Vultures, which is like John Paul Jones from fucking Led Zeppelin, and Jay-Z. And we played between them at the main stage of Coachella back in 2000-fucking-whatever. And I remember being like, this is perfect. Like, people don't give a fuck about us. Like, why? People are just stuck on the field because they don't want to lose their spot for Jay-Z.

Yeah. And like, now we can just go after him. Like, we can be the same. We can be Dung Beetle now. Yeah. And like, I met these kids. I met these guys who later on, like, they were working with me. And I couldn't understand why they were, like, you know, talking.

I was like, what? How did you find me? They're like, like well we went to go see jay-z and we wanted to get on the stage inside the stage and we were on the side of stage we went on when you were there because we thought we could hold our spots when jay-z came out yeah and we didn't had no interest in you and by the end of the show we really loved it we thought you were a jam band when you start when you came out because it was like they were like how can this many like like how can this there's like a band with like eight white people, and they're playing to this many people and I've never heard of them, has to be a jam band. Like, that's, there's no other thing it can be.

Yeah, yeah. And then when we weren't, they were like, what the fuck is this? And I was shit-faced and like climbing up and down the monitors, and they were just like, they were puzzled as to what this thing was and that to me i totally understand how to do that yeah and i also know how to understand how to play for like the size venue that i used to go see shows in because i'm like oh you came to see me the same way i went and got went and saw echo on the bunny man i get it yeah i get this i'm gonna try and give you the best show i can in under those circumstances right but 20 000 people come to see me i don't understand that yeah it does i i'm not pressurized i just don't know what to say

right yeah like some of you have been misled somehow yes yes clearly there's a misunderstanding and i don't mean like that i don't deserve to have people like me, but like there's a lot of you who are misunderstanding exactly what I'm about. Sure. It's just I'm not for this many people. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, I'm definitely that guy too. Yeah.

It was great talking to you, man. Likewise. Likewise. And I'll tell Sam and Tom that I had a great time. Yeah, say hi to those guys. That's great. That's a good duo you've got. Yeah, I will, man.

They're good guys. And it was great meeting you, man. Enjoy the leaf blowing. That was James Murphy. Go listen to LCD Sound System if you don't know his stuff. Go to WTFpod.com slash tour to see my dates and ticket

availability in Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix. I think it's sold out. The one item there. St. Louis. I think Bloomington will be added soon. Yeah.

We're doing it. We're taking it out there. We're hammering it out. All right? Okay. Let's ease into some guitar. Tele straight into a vibroverb with the built-in reverb and vibrato. Thank you. ¶¶ Boomer lives. Monkey, Lafonda, cat angels everywhere. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think

you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction.

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