December 24, 2024 • 52 mins
2024 has been a career-defining year for St. Vincent. In April she released her self-produced seventh album, All Born Screaming. Then in November she released the Spanish language version of the same album, called Todos Nacen Gritando, as a tribute to fans she met in Spain and Latin America. The album doesn’t serve to replace the English language version, but instead supplements it brilliantly and provides a renewed listening experience. Of all the St. Vincent projects dating back to her debut album in 2007, this is the one that feels the most steeped in a singular vision
On today's episode St. Vincent talks to Justin Richmond at Amazon Music’s Studio 126 about the difficult production process behind her latest release. She also sheds light on her experience touring the album, which continues well into the new year with some dates featuring Olivia Rodrigo and Nick Cave. And she talks about how she developed what she describes as her high-level taste despite growing up in the middle of the country pre-internet.
Check out the full video version of this episode HERE.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite St. Vincent songs HERE.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. These days, Saint Vincent is on a whole new level,
which is hard to believe, considering if, for being honest,
she's always been pretty damn in credible. But let's take
an account that not only are the reviews of her
current tour the World Tour rave reviews, but she's torn
behind the first album of hers that she ever produced,
(00:37):
all on her own. That's called All Born Screaming and
in a case of overachieving. She also just recently released
a Spanish language version of the album Totos nasen Gritando,
which in many ways doesn't serve to replace the English
language version, but supplements it brilliantly, providing a renewed listening experience.
(00:58):
Of all the Saint Vincent projects dating back to her
debut album in two thousand and seven, this is the
one that feels the most steeped in a singular vision,
like an offering from an a tour. But as Saint
Vincent tells you in today's episode, the production process behind
this album was far from easy and likely isn't one
she'd replicate again, or at least not on the next
project that she's already busy writing. We talk a bit
(01:20):
about what it was like to tour this album, a
tour which continues well into the new year, with some
dates featuring Olivia Rodrigo others Nick Cave and we talk
about how she developed her high level taste my words,
not hers, despite growing up in the middle of the
country pre internet. This is Broken Record liner notes for
(01:40):
the digital age. I'm justin Ritchman. Here's my conversation with
Saint Vincent from Amazon Music Studio one twenty six and
to see the full video version of this episode, visit
YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast or click on
the link in the episode notes. I just saw the
(02:01):
Bob Dylan movie. Oh how is it? You know? I
had two thoughts while I was watching it, and we
wanted it was just great to hear the music. Yeah,
I thought the performances own biased performance, that that was
particularly incredible. But I thought the framing was a little
I don't know if in twenty twenty four, I'm so
excited by like the folk music acoustic versus electric.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, but it was good.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
I was. I was happy to see it, and.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I think that that mythology about like people were so
mad that it was you know that that Dylan went electric.
I think that that mythology is similar to like the
Stravinsky right of string mythology.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I don't know, can you tell me that?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, so there was the the Stravinsky right of string mythology,
right of spring mythologies. His piece at in that he
debuted the writer of spring. The debut in Paris was
so so the music was so new that people revolted
in the case of the case, which was like, actually, no,
(03:04):
that was kind of it was kind of a typical
reaction because that was just popular music back.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Then, so people typically revolted. They didn't. Yeah, I mean
they were exciting.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
People were extra, but they weren't like it wasn't necessarily
how the mythology is, they're like ecstatic, yes, but I
heard that the reason that people were so mad wasn't
that he went electric, was that the sound was so
bad and it was like feeding back and it was
sounded really bad.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
They hint at that a bit in the movie. Likes
Pete Secrets, like the sound is there? Who it's Ed
Norton's Pete Secret. He does a pretty good shot too,
but he's like this, the sound is muddled, you know
what I'm saying. But the kind of the rest of
the film makes it kind of feel like this drawn
out tension between acoustic and electric, which is fine. I mean,
I guess that's the mythology, but it did feel like
(03:50):
I feel a little quaint and yeah, but but yeah,
I don't know, but but no. But my point was,
there was so much cigarette smoking that movie.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I really wanted to smoke, man, like I.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Would love to. I don't want to die, you know,
I'm scared of death, but I really want to smoke cigarettes.
And I don't know what to do about that.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I feel you there. I've recently rewatched this. I never smoked,
but I've recently rewatched the Sopranos, and you know, they're
just like drinking brown liquor at like noon. Yeah, and
you're really like, yeah, it seems like a good you know,
you really have Why not.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
If you watch that's like your whole idea for the
whole day. You're like, oh my god, I want to
be an out.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
That's what I wonder did. I mean, you have to
figure not the Sopranos, but the TCM and like the
Madmens of the world, like they were post war. Those
people had been through hell and so they're just like
fuck it. But you get like when you see, you know,
anybody in the fifties, just like drinking and smoking midday,
(04:51):
you're like, yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, you went through hell yeah. But then somehow they're
all apparently going to live longer than us.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
No, they aren't.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Wasn't that. This isn't just saying like the life expectancy
is dropping or something.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Oh, I've you mistake me for a person who's looked
for the news since November sixth, Okay, I haven't.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Okay, Well I'm gonna avoid the news as well. I
think that's my You know what, it's nice up here,
it is. It's the best protest that man only wants attention.
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, I gave him. I gave him almost a decade
of my life. He doesn't get a single another moment.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
That's great, that's great. Well, I want to talk about
both the English language version of All Born Screaming in Spanish,
but I get I think maybe we should start with
the English language versions, as it came out first. So
this is the this is the first album you produced
completely yourself. You also, I read called the production of
the album in Abbats across to Bear, and I don't know,
(05:54):
just want do you care to explain that anymore?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I mean, the production of the album was a lot
of It was a lot of me sitting in a
room right by myself because part of part of the
the beginning, the genesis of making of the record was
like I'm going to figure out new ways to create,
(06:22):
and I'm going to figure out new ways to create
using machines that I don't know how to use, so
like modular synthse and a lot of like random old
drum machines and just crusty stuff, right, And I'm going
to figure out how to be a better engineer and
producer at the same time, learning my studio, routing, patch base,
(06:47):
thinking about music I don't know, like a like a
Rubic's cube a little bit more. So I started with
that and I started with complexity. And so the process
a lot of times was doing these extended like instrumental
(07:07):
post industrial and instrum mental jams for hours and hours,
which was the totally easy.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Fun part kind of like Can style, Kroud Rocky Can.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Style, except like with drum machines, so Kroud Rocky uh industrial,
like you know, like making blowing up circuits and some
distortion and stuff like that, and then coming back through
(07:38):
those long ass jams and being like, Okay, this four
seconds or this four bar loop is like something I
want to build an entire world around. So that was
the process for like Sweetest Fruit, that was the process
for Broken Man, that was the process for Violent Times.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That's interest sweetest Fruit and Violent Times. Sweetest Fruit kind
of has a different groove than anything else. I feel
like I've heard from your songs.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It's a little bit reggaeton, little reggaetz, little like Nigerian pop.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah it is. Did you like, did you program the
the drums that way or did they did it just
turn into that eventually?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Uh. The genesis of that song was the loop that
was like do do do do Do Do Do Do
Do Do Do Do Do Do do doo. That sounds
like a you know, a cracked out ferris wheel. So
it's like but but ooh, there's something in that that's
evocative to me, I'm gonna build a whole song around it.
So long story short is that I really did things
(08:36):
ass backwards. Usually people write songs and then they deconstruct them.
I like started with a bunch of lego pieces and
then cold songs from them, and that is cool, but
it also is I think more time consuming. There's a
reason people don't like write songs that way. There's a
(08:59):
reason why people said it a piano and feel their
feelings over four chords.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
What do you think? What do you think that reason is?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Because it's way easy You're to like, have a song
and then take it apart, then to be like, there's
a soul somehow within these pieces, and I need to
find the soul and the story with all these disparate
pieces at the same time.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So that was like a maddening That was a maddening
proposition for you.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It was silly, Yeah, it was. It was the way
I did it, and I'm very glad about it, and
I didn't stop till it was complete. But like I said,
there's a reason why people go, no no, no, no
no no no no no no no no no, my
feelings are this and I feel that, and then they
can take.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It apart, right, all right? Is that And that's typically
how you've done it to this point too, Yeah, yeah,
more or less, more or less? Yeah, why did you
give yourself to charge this time to do it differently
than and to constrain yourself. I mean to say, this
is how it's all going to.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Because I feel like if you do things the same
way every time, you're going to get the same results.
And I wanted to get a different kind of result.
And what I like about machinery like modulars or various
kinds of synthesis is that, like, I don't know exactly
what's going to happen, and so I'm not relying on
(10:32):
muscle memory, I'm not relying on like things that I
already know. I'm relying on like instinct in the moment,
and that felt like something powerful enough to follow that
would eventually lead me to a song that would eventually
kind of lead me to a full vision. But it
was just a more like labor intensive way to do it.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
And you don't know what to expect because it's not
an instrument that you've played your whole life and feel
comfortable with absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
And to be fair, like with analog modulars and certain synths,
there's no even if you set the parameters exactly the
same way, like, it's still going to be a little
bit different because it's unique circuitry. So you're you're dealing
with real electricity, So everything had to start with with
like a liveness.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Got it? Yeah, I mean I guess, to speak candidly,
I like all of your albums, but this is my favorite.
And that was the kind of I was trying to
think about why. Just the feel of it. It felt
like there was a real spirit in it and a
liveness that wasn't necessarily present in everything that you've done.
(11:41):
Not that that I mean some some sometimes I don't.
I don't like that in these things. I'm not us
should call for that, But this one was just it
felt very much alive to me, you know, like there,
it was like it felt like you were. It felt
more like a documentary than like a big, big budget production.
And I guess is how I felt about it. I
don't know if that rings to to you.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Well, it's d I. Why, it's like high level.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
D I Y always you know, all your all your stuff. Well,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It's it's DIY with a certain level of like expertise
be it. First of all, thank you, I'm so glad,
But also I mean I think I made choices as
a producer to keep that alive, you know, whether it's
(12:29):
not recording guitars, direct putting a guitar through an amp,
putting it in a room, and recording the sound of
air moving through a speaker, there's something intrinsically more alive.
You are pushing air, right, whether it's there's no soft
sense on this. This is all. If something is played,
(12:53):
if an effect is played, it's a manual, it's a
manual tape delay, and it's performed. That you're getting a
performance of of a drum machine through a piece of
tape or a pedal, but it's performed, its tactile. So
there's that. And then I think also just the the
subject matter and a lot of the songs, it's like,
(13:16):
don't be cute, don't be clever. Life is short. We're
all gonna fucking die. Like, let's let's talk about it.
Let's let's walk through the fire together. Because where all
we got?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah? Yeah, Lyrically, was there any thing you were pulling
from in particular, either reference material external to you or
internal to you?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I didn't really pull from anything external lyrically, and I
usually do you know, usually, well, it'll be chock full
of like references to my favorite writers or poets or whatever.
This go round, it was pretty it was it was
like a process of stripping back, you know, any anytime
(14:04):
I had an instinct to like, I don't know, be cute,
or like be clever, or or just like no, cut
it out, strip it to the bone. What's underneath that,
what's underneath that? What's underneath that? And same with the
performances as well. I mean I sing, oh, I sang
a lot of these songs a lot of times, and
(14:26):
I would liken it. I would kind of liken it
to like, I don't know. You hear about directors who
do a gazillion takes like David Fincher, Right, he does
like hundreds of takes until the actors are just like, oh, yeah,
take on and thirty exactly exactly right. Isn't a social network,
(14:47):
it's like whatever that seems to take one hundred and thirty.
And you're like, but I think if I was producing
someone else, that's not anything I would make them do.
But when it's myself, I go, no, you you were lying?
Just there sing it again.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
That's interesting because I was going to ask, how do
you keep yourself accountable in that way? When you do
yourself but in a way you know, it's much easier
and yeah, it's east because you can ask more of
yourself if you're self critical enough or if you're if
you're honest enough and.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Too I mean, you know, it's a fine balance.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
There's there's the self criticism that is not helpful to
you and it's not helpful to the work. And then
there's the sort of you know, we're somewhere in the
Dunning Krueger like, you know, we're people who are actually
the dumbest think they're the smartest. You know, I'm paraphrasing
that and vice versa. So there's you're somewhere in that
(15:46):
spectrum always right, too much self criticism stops the art
and stops the work, and but not enough and it's
not good enough. Yeah, so that's but that's a that's
a messy thing to deal with, like self self production.
That's the hardest part about self production is that is
that wading through that which is like real real, and
(16:13):
that which is like, oh no, you're just kind of
you're you're you're being you know, needlessly self punishing or
that's that's that's the.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Rub that was hard to figure out. Yeah, yeah, how
did you how did and did that lead to prolonged
periods of like punishing, I'm.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Being too I'm probably being too dramatic.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
It's I don't think so. I mean, it's a lot
to do it. I don't know, or maybe but you
would know better.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
It's just a you know after you know, because this
is my seventh solo record, eighth record, you know, counting
the one I did with David Byrne. It's like, you
know when it's done, and that's the that's the biggest thing.
That's the biggest lesson, is like knowing when something is
(17:09):
done and knowing even if you you know, roll down
the road on a song of like diminishing returns, being
able to go back to an earlier version and gom,
this was better. Okay, let's go, let's let's do this
and then it's done.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, yeah, so get just given how unique the process was,
and and okay, maybe torture's to to too much calling
it an albatross. Maybe, okay, maybe it's maybe it's hyperbole.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
But I mean I like, of course, at the end
of the day, like I'm a musician, I get to
do what I love. Yeah, it's the luckiest thing in
the world.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It's true, it's true. But if it's if it was
even on the on the spectrum of whatever hyperbole, if
it was even airing towards that way when you got
done with it, does the album sit with you even
it's new. Does it sit with you a little differently
than other albums in your catalog so far, just given
the process you went through.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Well, I'm still really living this record because I'm out
on tour doing it, doing the damn thing every night.
So there is an aspect of like, these songs are
these songs are just like I'm gonna use I'm gonna
mix metaphors and also do a bad one great, but
(18:27):
like you gotta making a record is like making a
pair of shoes that you're gonna have to walk in
for the next definitely for the next year and a
half of your life and if it's good, like the
whole rest of your career, so you remember, Like so
putting wearing them on tour is like you're wearing them
(18:50):
in You're like, okay, they're kind of they kind of
give here, they kind of like, but they can carry me.
I've never used this metaphor. I'm just workshopping it here.
So really, uh, this is we're getting into dicey territory.
But but it's like I'm still living in them, so
that and that part is good. It's exciting. They are
(19:12):
holding up and they're growing even more than every other
record I've ever done. I know every inch of this thing,
like I know every I know every track. I know
every and when I say track, I mean like pro
tools tracked.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I know every.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I know the Maltese, I know the ideas. I know
the palimpsyst of ideas that didn't make it, you know
what I mean. I try not to, but yeah, I know, Yeah,
I know it. I know it so so intimately. But
I think it's good that I do know it and
(19:50):
I know it so intimately. But I also am so
psyched to play it every night. So that's a good sign,
you know.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Sounds like it. Would you do it again? Pretty serious something? Yes?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I absolutely would, but I would do it differently.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
How would you do it differently?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I'd write a bunch of songs and then I would take.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Them apart too much to go through again doing it.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I would write a bunch of songs, which is what
I'm currently doing.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Like while you're on the road or now that you've
you've kind of you paused a bit for the holidays.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I guess yeah. I mean when I'm whenever I'm in
my studio, whenever i'm home, I'm writing.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So we'll be right back with more from Saint Vincent
after the break. Here's more from Saint Vincent. And you.
You wrote this in your studio here in LA but
recorded it in at Electric Lady.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I did a lot of the vocals at Electric Lady,
but I recorded the majority of this record at my
studio Compound Fracture. I mean I did. I recorded Dave
Grohl on drums there.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Did you mike that yourself? No?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
No, I have an incredible engineer. Shout out to Kean
Reardon who mixed this record, engineered the all the heavy lifting.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Of this record, you know, to put on yourself to like.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I can put a you know, I can make my
way through a through through a vocal mic. But no
past that. No, he he engineered the drums on the record.
I bought a Neve console, like dang, yeah, it was
like it was, it was pro. I you know, Josh
Freeze played there, uh, Mark Giuliana played there, Sela Mazawa
(21:36):
I recorded someplace else.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
But like, yeah, it was legit, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Legit.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Josh Freese is his drumming on the first track, but
thought was really awesome, soul, beautiful. Yeah, that was amazing.
I don't know that I've heard him. I don't know
his whole catalog, but I don't know if I've heard
him play that way. It was like this anything that
was it was.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It's fun as a producer to invite people to play.
Well one, I mean, it's nice to have like a
stacked rolodex of like the craziest rippers, but beyond that,
it's really it's nice to have people come in and
sometimes you're like, I want you to play like your
(22:19):
name's on the track, Like I want you to play
like it's your you know. And then sometimes you're like,
I I want to ask this incredible player to do
something that they don't normally do, or do something they're
not known for. And in that case, on Hell is Near,
Josh just played the most almost like Buddhist like monastic
(22:42):
beat and it's so beautiful. It's to be honest, it's
one of my favorite drum performances on the whole record.
And it's restraint.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah, yeah, it blew me. I was when I looked
at whoah Freeze, whoa. I just just never would have
occurred to me that that would be his take on.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Something I know but that but he but you know,
we arrived there. We arrived there together. It's not like,
you know, Josh is a very sensitive drummer, and he's
an interesting drummer to watch because he listened down to
the song, doesn't touch a note, doesn't do anything, you know,
writes his special notes about how many bars and what
(23:25):
you know is whatever his you know, secret wing edings is,
and then he goes in and he plays it perfectly.
He plays he knows the song. So it's not like
his first take was he was he was in the
zone of this sort of like of the of the
(23:47):
meditative aspect of it. But we yeah, we got there together.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
So when when did the idea to redo the album
in Spanish? When did that occur to you?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
You're asking a very important question, which is why why
would you do that?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I didn't want to ask it that one.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
No, I totally get it. The short answer is that
I've played in Mexico a bunch, I've played in South America,
I've played in Spain a bunch, and I had this
moment on stage at bar at Primavera, Barcelona, twenty twenty three.
(24:35):
I'm like looking out at the sea of people, thousands
of people, and they're singing, They're singing my songs back
to me in perfect English. I'm like, Okay, this is
your maybe your second, maybe your third, maybe your fourth third,
Like seriously, and you have you have insane with being
(24:56):
in Mexico. So I was in I mean there was
one time in Portuguese, but I was in uh. I
was in Brazil playing this little club show for like
a thousand people, and everybody knew every single word wow,
And I honestly got choked up. I got choked up,
(25:17):
like they people have come to me in my language,
why can't I meet them halfway and try to come
to them and there. So that was the thought behind
the Spanish record, like a little just a little token
to like Spanish speaking fans, like hey, thank you, I
thank you for coming to me all these years. I
(25:40):
speak Spanish, okay, okay in Texas, yeah it's in there,
but like but I but I have been really wanting
to become actually fluent in Spanish because it's just useful
and beautiful and all the things. So this was sort
of a way to get me jump started into getting
(26:02):
back into getting pretty good at Spanish. And so I
asked my best friend who's from Monterey, Mexico and grew
up in dalt We grew up in Dallas together, so
he's fully bilingual. It's like, Alan, can you help me
translate these songs? So that process was really beautiful and
(26:22):
fun too, trying to figure out, Okay, this is not
an expression in Spanish, so this doesn't make any goddamn sick.
What are you trying to say? And it got me
kind of thinking about the meaning of songs in a
totally different way. Yeah, so that's why I did it.
(26:43):
I don't know, But I also it was a heavy lift.
It was a heavy lift, and not just obviously the translation,
which is immensely thought provoking and time consuming, but also
then trying to make sure that I was pronouncing things well,
(27:03):
which again my goalpost just like ninety nine left balloons,
you know what I mean, Like, if I can I'm
not gonna sound like a native speaker, because I'm not,
But if I can get as good as like ninety
nine left.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Balloons, then like, okay, that's pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
That's pretty good. And then also I read it all
the vocal production on the record because I'm the only singer.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, that's crazy. I was like, you said, you already
put yourself to one hundred and you know, I don't
know that, but a lot of takes on stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, this is full, full glutton, just just glut punishment.
Just give me some more.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Did you see that movie seven? Yeah, it's not as
strict as it looks.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Did I see what maybe my movie seven? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
That scarred me as a child.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Yeah, a lot of those that one did.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, speaking a David Fincher.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Speaking of Fincher, Yeah, that one really scarred me. And
then Zodiac terrified me too a bit later.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
That yeah, I mean, and that's that was a real guy,
the real guy. Didn't they just find it?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
I mean, this is not conclusive. They said that there
was Like I watched the thing.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Because I wait, wait, is the Zodi at the Golden
State Killer.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
That's different. They got the Golden State Killer. It's from
like twenty three meters or something. Yeah, yeah, which is
So did.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
You sell your stuff to twenty three?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I say so, I do, mean so I did to
ancestry Street. I'm debating that where I want them to
put it to know that I could have got everything else,
but I did the Ancestry. Yeah, so I figure. You know,
it's funny. When I was a kid, my mom is
so fucked up. That's what My mom was a crazy paranoid.
(28:44):
So like when I was a kid, she took me
down to the police station to get fingerprinted in case
I went like missing. But the flip side of that
was I was always very cognizant that I get anything
wrong growing.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Up, like they already got okay.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
God, So I'm kind of like Novelly. I put myself
on the record with Ancestry. I'm like, if I if
I do any serial killing, which I won't, but if
I were to, I'm out. I'm on the record now.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
They can just get me so easy, Like you would
you would know if you were like you would, you
would there would be like a long line of like
cat and trails, like you know what I mean, Like
you'd know that from early I.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Like to think. So I'd like to think I don't
think you just although I.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Guess if you had like a crazy traumatic brain injury,
well there's stories is like.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Look at the guy. They just cooke, you know, the
CEO guy, and I'm not hot, that's what he's like.
He's a good looking dude. I was looking at it.
I was like, I kind of wanted his workout. I
know he's jacked jack And everyone's like, wait, who knew?
He didn't know? And maybe but then I think, well,
if they didn't know, maybe he didn't know. So that's
always my fears. I guess, always like maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Wait you maybe you don't know if you're a serial.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Killer, well you know what people will say like, oh
he was a great, like we never would have expected this, right,
And then so so then I take it one step
further and I think, maybe I don't think that I
could do that, but maybe I could. Maybe something happens
to you at some point in life that I think.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
It's a combo platter, Okay, right, because.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I think you're right, I hope yeah. I think yeah, yeah,
because based.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
On my armchair expertise of serial killers, like that's a
combination of like in in genetics, sociopathy mixed with like
usually like horrifying, horrifying childhood.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Right, I didn't have that, So that's good. That's genetics
might be working against me, sad man. Uh so this,
I mean, it's really cool that you did the Spanish
language album to your fans. No, no, it's cool And
(30:47):
for me personally, I some of my favorite songs are,
of course in English, but I spend the vast majority
of my time listening to things that either don't have
lyrics or are in languages foreign or in foreign languages
majority of my time.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Same, why do you think you do that?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
I guess the easy answer is that words are distress
acting and it overlays a meaning that I maybe want
to create my own. And it's probably that, but there's
also just yeah, it's just like it can really be
the voice is an instrument, but it really becomes another
instrument if it can just kind of blend into the other.
You know, you're not attaching meaning to the words implicitly
(31:30):
explicitly yeah, or like.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I've been on a big cocktail twins kick and like
those aren't most of the time. Those are specifically unintelligible.
So it's a rack. You're like, oh, I'm putting it's
still so evocative, but I'm putting what I think she's saying.
(31:56):
I'm singing what I think she's saying yeah, which is
really what I want to hear.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
So absolutely I.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Want to hear yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
But I feel because it makes a background music, because
that's that's I feel like it's makes it a pejorative thing.
It's not that, it's just it's like just allows you
to be more free in how you are interpreting what
you're hearing. And sometimes it just the way. And I
wanted to ask you this is like, you know the
way certain words are shaped and vowel. You know, it's
just like you approach you have to. It sounds like
(32:23):
you know, you have to approach the vocal take differently.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Oh for sure, Yes, yes, for sure, And you have
to make sure that things by the time you sing them,
You're like you've made sure that they sing well. Yeah,
because you know certain words don't sing well.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Were there particular words on this album that you didn't
There's like.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Tim, tim Maria no Tim, the word for reckless mmm.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Tim.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I'll give you a better example. I kept mispronouncing the
word for marigold, which is can you hear my stomach no?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Going crazy?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Really? Did you eat food today?
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I didn't, which is why someone itself right now.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
But what point, How long can you go because I
forgot to do it as.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Long as I need. Really, I can't eat before I talk.
I don't know before I do anything work really because
your brain doesn't work, because then my brain doesn't work.
And then I just feel like if I eat, I'm
like a baby. I just want to go to sleep. Yeah, instantly.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
But are you like carbo loading a breakfast or are
you like just coffee, just like any any food.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
No water aside from this, yeah, yeah, just any food. Yeah,
it could be a help. It could a salad and
I want to go to sleep.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
It's not I was with a friend to a friend
who was just like, you know, you go to a
restaurant and you're like, well, I should probably order a salad.
First of all, you're at a restaurant, you know what
I mean, Like you should make You should order something
that you have no idea how to make that you
could not make at home. Otherwise you should just eat
(34:02):
at home. Yeah right, I mean I can't. Also, this
is but just but like on our deathbed, my friend
was like, on my deathbed, no one's going to be
like he ate so many salads.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
You know, it's true. But if you're on your death
bed at like sixty three, like some more it's one
more solid enough salad. I'm sure, what the.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Do you want to live?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Oh? Man? So okay, that's interesting because there's that guy
that's like trying to like live forever, the.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Tech dude who's like taking his son's blood.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Yes, and that seems ridiculous on multiple levels. One, he
looks like he's fucking a bazillion years old and already.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
It also like, okay, you can fucking afford to live forever.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
And then there's live forever. And then there's also like
it feels it feels very it feels really self centered
on the level too, like do like so I'm at
war with myself on this. On one hand, yeah, I
don't want to die, and so I want to live forever.
On another hand, forever seems like a really long and
then on the other hand, it's like I'm not that,
(35:12):
I'm not I'm not so important. So then I'm like, hmm,
Like you know, a hundred fee is like a good benchmark.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
One hundred is a long life. That's a long, healthy life.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
If I can make it back to the nineties.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Ah, the are we about the same age.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
I was born in eighty nine, so yeah, me too. Cool. Great,
both both in the eighties. Great. So we make it
back to you know, make it back to you know,
if I can see like the one hundredth anniversary of
like friends, Like, oh my god, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
You know what I would like to live. I would
like to live. I would like to everybody to remember,
for like one day, what it was like to live
without the internet.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Oh man, Yeah it was that.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
It was kind of lit.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
I was here for it.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
It was awesome. Yeah, okay, that was something I had
for you. What. Okay, eighties and nineties. You're in the
South Oklahoma, Texas, that was your I grew up here, Yeah,
relatively connected to culture, you would thin because I'm here
in Los Angeles area. But your your MGV, your taste,
(36:16):
your taste, oh seems heightened like like and I was going,
you know, I don't know, we're out the time, but
especially around like visual arts, which is something I'm like
a complete know nothing about. I'm just you. It's almost
as if you grew up in Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
To me, thank you, well I did in my formative years.
My like, I'm I'm a young adult, like trying to
figure out what life is that was spent in Manhattan.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Oh okay, right, so once you got out of call
it right? Yeah? But but was it there before? Uh?
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Well no, I okay, I think I think a couple
of things. I had an early intervention from my aunt
and uncle, who are jazz musicians. So they were like,
they saw that I loved music. They took me out
on the road. And they also when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
something like that, they gave me a box of records.
They were like, here's Oliver Nelson, Here's here's John Coltrane,
(37:14):
Here's Sarah Vaughn. Here's Ela Fitzgerald, Here's Bill Evans, here's
you know, they here's Jonny Mitchell. You know, they were
like the you need to understand the like the depth
and the breadth of music. So I got an early
schooling in jazz and deep too.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Oliver Nelson's not like a surface level.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
You know, it was blusing the abstract truth. So you know,
you're talking modal jazz, but but you need here's mingus.
You need to know, you need to know what's up.
Here's Monk. Yeah, and so like that's heavy, that shit's heavy,
and there's no like, it's not a casual. It's not
(38:00):
yea casually. You're like no, and you're reading you know, CDs,
you're reading all the liner notes. You know who played
on Oh, Freddy Hubber played on this, you know whatever,
that stuff. And then also I think I had a
there was like an indie movie theater in town. So
me and my best friend Alan we saw every We
(38:21):
saw every movie that came to town at the indie
movie theater. And so there was this like sense this
like very rich culture. That was what I think we
saw Gregoraki film. Maybe no, maybe that was later. I've
seen so many movies with Alan, it's hard to keep count,
but like that was there was this idea one. I mean,
(38:44):
as much as I love Texas and I'm very proud
to be from Texas and my family's there, I knew
that I had to like get out of there. I
also had a like a theater teacher who was it
will shock you to learn that I was president of
the theater club.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
And I had a very important like theater teacher who
was like read the New York Times every read the
Sunday Times. Look at the section not the rest of
that ship. Read, read the arts section, learn about plays,
go see, yeah, exactly like go see I go see
plays like I was like obsessed with Okay, there's this
(39:23):
is Ibsen and this is whatever Tennessee Williams, here's new
plays like I So I had I had that that
hunger and that interest, and then once I got out
of Texas, I was able to like immerse myself in
you know, the culture, and you were ready.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
You had a solid Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah.
If you're reading the then it makes sense pre Internet
how you were building that base. If you're reading the
Sunday Times.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
You know the arts that kind of like think about
like a sixteen kind of a pudgy sixteen year old
with glasses being like, sorry, I can't I'm reading the time.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Your parents must have been pretty psyched.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Hilton says that the no he's Hilton writes to The
New Yorker.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
After one last break, we're back with the rest of
my conversation with Saint Vincent. Here's the rest of my
conversation with Saint Vincent. I think I remember seen or
seen and maybe in your masterclass or reading.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Some did you take notes in my master class.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I didn't say that, okay, but Beatle Beatle Juice film
was maybe initially in terms of visually like important.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
To you, like your sentence I say that I think,
I mean I believe that making things up well, No,
I mean Beatlejuice like, I mean.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Not far off.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
I'm not far off. But yeah, I mean that's like
that's a kids first introduction to like brutalism, Like that's set.
Those sets are incredible, Those sets are incredible. I met
a set designer. He is married to Catherine O'Hara, and
(41:16):
they met on that film.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
No way, that's incredible. Did you ask him a bunch
of questions?
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yes? I did, but it was loud and I forgot.
It was loud and I was drunk and I forgot
what he said.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
I won't ask you to repeat that. We won't. We
won't rehash the conversation.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
But it was cool.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
And so but that gets you to this kind of
at least in your feelings. It gets you to a
place where that's what you identify with, that that that
kind of brutalism may be superior. Like when you when
you when you, I'm just trying to because you know,
like you're the art that goes along with your music, right,
it feels very pointed. There's like it's like there's a
(41:58):
person like it feels very much like there is a
strong idea behind that and maybe it's no.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
No, no, it's very intentional. It's very intentional, like with
All Born Screaming. I I worked with my friend Alex
de Corte, who is like really heavy duty, like major
American modern artist, and we've been friends because he directed
a video for one of my songs called New York,
(42:27):
which was like amaze, Like it was amazing what he did,
and he's brilliant. He's still brilliant.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
And so.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
This was right around the same time of prima Vera
Barcelona twenty twenty summer of twenty twenty three. We were
both traveling in Spain and he came to visit and
we were just catching up and I played him the
new album and he was like, I would love to
help you with like the visuals on this. I would
(42:59):
love to creative direct this if you want me to.
I was like, you kidding, Like yeah, So we started.
We went to the Prato, we went to we saw
the Bosh's Garden of Earthly Delights, we saw all the
Goya the pintures Negress, so like the Goya black paintings,
which were these deeply I mean, which is black mass
(43:24):
Saturn devouring his Sun's like heavy, heavy shit, heavy fucking shit. Yeah,
and we kind of like we walked into this room,
we got to like the air changes and we're looking.
We're staring, staring in the maddening eyes of Saturn devouring
(43:45):
his son. And Alex and I look at each other,
we're like, yeah, this, this is the energy, Like, this
is the energy, black and white, all the colors in
a fire. So yeah, so he then it was then
it was it's so many conversations. It's it's scouring through
(44:05):
art books going oh what what about this font? Oh Goldstein,
Oh well this was inspired by uh you know, it's
like it's it's the point of the references isn't to
rip something off. It's not to be like here's just
a Pinterest board. Yeah, it's it's when you're referencing someone's work.
(44:28):
Sophie Rickett, you know, for the inner sleeve of the
Allboard Screaming album is like me pissing on a sidewalk,
and that's like full on homage to this artist. Sophie Rickett,
who did a book called Pissing Women. It's women like
pissing on the street, you know, and it's but they're
(44:48):
all like they're in like Chanelle suits, like pulling, you know,
pissing on the street and like and Alex and I
did it, but we did it a little bit more
tuned town like who framed Roger Rabbit is also never
far from my interesting mind. You know, it kind of
gives more like Calvin pissing on the back of like
a Ford Ranger because like, anatomically it's wrong. Anatomically is wrong,
(45:13):
Like there's no way that that the female body can
do like this, but it uh but yeah, you know,
so all that stuff is like it's so it's so
thoughtful and not just to be like high on your
own supply, because it's so important. It's so important to
continue to tell the story with the visual side of
(45:35):
things and not just the now that the music's done, great,
that's that's just now you have a template.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
To to go. Really, do you ever get to the
point where you've worked the music, so you've worked so
hard on the music that you just kind of like,
you know, becomes not but it becomes no an no,
mm hmm no.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Now then it's like, oh, think the music's done. Thank god,
I get to think about something else. I've built the infrastructure.
The music will tell us what to do. We just
but we need to like find we need to find
it visually.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah, I want it one one day, Maybe you can
do a second master classes visual art. It would be
I would, I would, I would, I would take it,
I would take.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
I dabble.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I'm sure no you do. I mean because really, I mean,
I know a lot of people their art work is intentional.
But when you kind of pair the intention with with
with the a high level of taste, you know, it's
like it makes for something really cool, you know, I think,
is what what happens here? You know?
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Well, again, it's not about it makes the Internet makes
it very easy for us to reference things, right, Like
we can just like I pull this and I pull this,
and I pull this and I pull this, and that's
really cool. That's a very that's a cool that's a
good thing about about being as as postmodern as we are.
But and this is where I go. AI is not
(47:10):
here yet in music Visually it's pretty farl But but
to put all of those things together, to put a
whole thing together and then make it something that feels
actually like an artist's and I do feel that there's.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Well do you think it will never get there? No?
Speaker 2 (47:32):
No, I don't. I don't think it'll never get there.
And this is like cut to me, you know, in
one year, like with an aib No, I just like
I'm now I'm picturing like some version of seven, but
I'm like being cruelly dominated by AI. Whatever we could,
(47:53):
we could make that image happen really quickly.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yeah, one last thing I do want to talk. I
want to ask. I also read the the bit about
Mike McCreadie from Pearl Jam his strat cast yeah, which
was fascinating. I didn't like, you'd never played a stratocaster.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Well, I had played a PV Raptor, which was a
PV raptor. It's a pv raptor. It was a TV
strat shape. Okay, but you know, uh, for for beginners. Okay.
So Mike McCready, who's a friend and a lovely human being,
(48:34):
gave me one of his signature strats and it like,
I've never played a strap before, not because I don't
like strats strats are cool. Yeah, I've never played a
strap because every time I pick up a strat I
played Jimmy Hendrix poorly. Like a strat gives it has
(48:55):
so much history. Yeah, that like, I don't know how
to approach a strat, but Mike gave me one and
it was great, and I was like, now I see,
like I get why people love strats, and so I
did end up playing playing it on on Auburn Screaming.
(49:16):
I think I played it on the end of Broken Man.
That's a strat, and I'm almost like, the strat's so
like pluck, you know, it's got that attack, plucky kind
of attack that I was almost like picking from underneath
the string to get even more Like Scott, that's stratt
(49:38):
has a spank. I'll just say it. I'll use the
word A strat has a spank too.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
It has spank to it. So I was like, I
don't know, it doesn't I don't hear spank on that album.
But it's that that was a head. That's a heavy riff.
It's a heavy riff. Strat got you there.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
I'm grateful, but I'm so here for it. It's a
loaded gun, you know. But but no, I I it
was useful and a beautiful thing to I'm discover for
myself finally.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Okay, that's great. I'm so happy. What that thing though?
Is true about like sometimes like a guitar, not like
some some guitars, the shape, just knowing that they're a
particular kind of guitar, all about it. Whatever make you
want to make You sometimes want to play a particular way,
(50:34):
and I don't know what that is, Like pick.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Up an SG what's the first thing you play.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Back and black exactly? But it's like you don't have to,
but you put it.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
You must, but you must.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
It's disappointing in a way.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
It's that That is why I was like, when I
make a signature series guitar, it's going to have a
completely different shape. Like I take an existing shape and
modit in an interesting way, but I like make a
new shape. Then maybe it will people create a new
language on it, and it won't have the baggage. Yeah
of the not baggage, you know, no, but it won't
(51:14):
have this the same history that we kind of all
go go feel we must you know, pay homage.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
To just so intentional with your words. Okay, sits Yeah,
I live.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
I live on the internet. You have to be a
fucking intentional cunts.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Thank you for talking to me. Thank you. This is
really fun, really fun talking to you.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah you too.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Thanks to Saint Vincent for stopping by Amazon Music Studio
one twenty six to talk about her latest album, All
Born Screaming and its Spanish language companion Totos Naci found.
You can hear some of our favorite Saint Vincent songs,
including cuts from her new albums, on a playlist in
our episode description, and be sure to follow us on
Instagram at the Broken Record Pile. You can follow us
(52:02):
on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced by
Lea Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan Millin.
Our engineer is Ben Tolliney. Broken Record is a production
of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others
from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is
a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad pre
(52:24):
listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin
Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show,
please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
podcast app. Our theme music's by Anny Beats I'm justin Richmond,
Pushkin. These days, Saint Vincent is on a whole new level,
which is hard to believe, considering if, for being honest,
she's always been pretty damn in credible. But let's take
an account that not only are the reviews of her
current tour the World Tour rave reviews, but she's torn
behind the first album of hers that she ever produced,
(00:37):
all on her own. That's called All Born Screaming and
in a case of overachieving. She also just recently released
a Spanish language version of the album Totos nasen Gritando,
which in many ways doesn't serve to replace the English
language version, but supplements it brilliantly, providing a renewed listening experience.
(00:58):
Of all the Saint Vincent projects dating back to her
debut album in two thousand and seven, this is the
one that feels the most steeped in a singular vision,
like an offering from an a tour. But as Saint
Vincent tells you in today's episode, the production process behind
this album was far from easy and likely isn't one
she'd replicate again, or at least not on the next
project that she's already busy writing. We talk a bit
(01:20):
about what it was like to tour this album, a
tour which continues well into the new year, with some
dates featuring Olivia Rodrigo others Nick Cave and we talk
about how she developed her high level taste my words,
not hers, despite growing up in the middle of the
country pre internet. This is Broken Record liner notes for
(01:40):
the digital age. I'm justin Ritchman. Here's my conversation with
Saint Vincent from Amazon Music Studio one twenty six and
to see the full video version of this episode, visit
YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast or click on
the link in the episode notes. I just saw the
(02:01):
Bob Dylan movie. Oh how is it? You know? I
had two thoughts while I was watching it, and we
wanted it was just great to hear the music. Yeah,
I thought the performances own biased performance, that that was
particularly incredible. But I thought the framing was a little
I don't know if in twenty twenty four, I'm so
excited by like the folk music acoustic versus electric.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, but it was good.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
I was. I was happy to see it, and.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I think that that mythology about like people were so
mad that it was you know that that Dylan went electric.
I think that that mythology is similar to like the
Stravinsky right of string mythology.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I don't know, can you tell me that?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, so there was the the Stravinsky right of string mythology,
right of spring mythologies. His piece at in that he
debuted the writer of spring. The debut in Paris was
so so the music was so new that people revolted
in the case of the case, which was like, actually, no,
(03:04):
that was kind of it was kind of a typical
reaction because that was just popular music back.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Then, so people typically revolted. They didn't. Yeah, I mean
they were exciting.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
People were extra, but they weren't like it wasn't necessarily
how the mythology is, they're like ecstatic, yes, but I
heard that the reason that people were so mad wasn't
that he went electric, was that the sound was so
bad and it was like feeding back and it was
sounded really bad.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
They hint at that a bit in the movie. Likes
Pete Secrets, like the sound is there? Who it's Ed
Norton's Pete Secret. He does a pretty good shot too,
but he's like this, the sound is muddled, you know
what I'm saying. But the kind of the rest of
the film makes it kind of feel like this drawn
out tension between acoustic and electric, which is fine. I mean,
I guess that's the mythology, but it did feel like
(03:50):
I feel a little quaint and yeah, but but yeah,
I don't know, but but no. But my point was,
there was so much cigarette smoking that movie.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I really wanted to smoke, man, like I.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Would love to. I don't want to die, you know,
I'm scared of death, but I really want to smoke cigarettes.
And I don't know what to do about that.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I feel you there. I've recently rewatched this. I never smoked,
but I've recently rewatched the Sopranos, and you know, they're
just like drinking brown liquor at like noon. Yeah, and
you're really like, yeah, it seems like a good you know,
you really have Why not.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
If you watch that's like your whole idea for the
whole day. You're like, oh my god, I want to
be an out.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
That's what I wonder did. I mean, you have to
figure not the Sopranos, but the TCM and like the
Madmens of the world, like they were post war. Those
people had been through hell and so they're just like
fuck it. But you get like when you see, you know,
anybody in the fifties, just like drinking and smoking midday,
(04:51):
you're like, yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, you went through hell yeah. But then somehow they're
all apparently going to live longer than us.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
No, they aren't.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Wasn't that. This isn't just saying like the life expectancy
is dropping or something.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Oh, I've you mistake me for a person who's looked
for the news since November sixth, Okay, I haven't.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Okay, Well I'm gonna avoid the news as well. I
think that's my You know what, it's nice up here,
it is. It's the best protest that man only wants attention.
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, I gave him. I gave him almost a decade
of my life. He doesn't get a single another moment.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
That's great, that's great. Well, I want to talk about
both the English language version of All Born Screaming in Spanish,
but I get I think maybe we should start with
the English language versions, as it came out first. So
this is the this is the first album you produced
completely yourself. You also, I read called the production of
the album in Abbats across to Bear, and I don't know,
(05:54):
just want do you care to explain that anymore?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I mean, the production of the album was a lot
of It was a lot of me sitting in a
room right by myself because part of part of the
the beginning, the genesis of making of the record was
like I'm going to figure out new ways to create,
(06:22):
and I'm going to figure out new ways to create
using machines that I don't know how to use, so
like modular synthse and a lot of like random old
drum machines and just crusty stuff, right, And I'm going
to figure out how to be a better engineer and
producer at the same time, learning my studio, routing, patch base,
(06:47):
thinking about music I don't know, like a like a
Rubic's cube a little bit more. So I started with
that and I started with complexity. And so the process
a lot of times was doing these extended like instrumental
(07:07):
post industrial and instrum mental jams for hours and hours,
which was the totally easy.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Fun part kind of like Can style, Kroud Rocky Can.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Style, except like with drum machines, so Kroud Rocky uh industrial,
like you know, like making blowing up circuits and some
distortion and stuff like that, and then coming back through
(07:38):
those long ass jams and being like, Okay, this four
seconds or this four bar loop is like something I
want to build an entire world around. So that was
the process for like Sweetest Fruit, that was the process
for Broken Man, that was the process for Violent Times.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That's interest sweetest Fruit and Violent Times. Sweetest Fruit kind
of has a different groove than anything else. I feel
like I've heard from your songs.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It's a little bit reggaeton, little reggaetz, little like Nigerian pop.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah it is. Did you like, did you program the
the drums that way or did they did it just
turn into that eventually?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Uh. The genesis of that song was the loop that
was like do do do do Do Do Do Do
Do Do Do Do Do Do do doo. That sounds
like a you know, a cracked out ferris wheel. So
it's like but but ooh, there's something in that that's
evocative to me, I'm gonna build a whole song around it.
So long story short is that I really did things
(08:36):
ass backwards. Usually people write songs and then they deconstruct them.
I like started with a bunch of lego pieces and
then cold songs from them, and that is cool, but
it also is I think more time consuming. There's a
reason people don't like write songs that way. There's a
(08:59):
reason why people said it a piano and feel their
feelings over four chords.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
What do you think? What do you think that reason is?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Because it's way easy You're to like, have a song
and then take it apart, then to be like, there's
a soul somehow within these pieces, and I need to
find the soul and the story with all these disparate
pieces at the same time.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So that was like a maddening That was a maddening
proposition for you.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It was silly, Yeah, it was. It was the way
I did it, and I'm very glad about it, and
I didn't stop till it was complete. But like I said,
there's a reason why people go, no no, no, no
no no no no no no no no no, my
feelings are this and I feel that, and then they
can take.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It apart, right, all right? Is that And that's typically
how you've done it to this point too, Yeah, yeah,
more or less, more or less? Yeah, why did you
give yourself to charge this time to do it differently
than and to constrain yourself. I mean to say, this
is how it's all going to.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Because I feel like if you do things the same
way every time, you're going to get the same results.
And I wanted to get a different kind of result.
And what I like about machinery like modulars or various
kinds of synthesis is that, like, I don't know exactly
what's going to happen, and so I'm not relying on
(10:32):
muscle memory, I'm not relying on like things that I
already know. I'm relying on like instinct in the moment,
and that felt like something powerful enough to follow that
would eventually lead me to a song that would eventually
kind of lead me to a full vision. But it
was just a more like labor intensive way to do it.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
And you don't know what to expect because it's not
an instrument that you've played your whole life and feel
comfortable with absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
And to be fair, like with analog modulars and certain synths,
there's no even if you set the parameters exactly the
same way, like, it's still going to be a little
bit different because it's unique circuitry. So you're you're dealing
with real electricity, So everything had to start with with
like a liveness.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Got it? Yeah, I mean I guess, to speak candidly,
I like all of your albums, but this is my favorite.
And that was the kind of I was trying to
think about why. Just the feel of it. It felt
like there was a real spirit in it and a
liveness that wasn't necessarily present in everything that you've done.
(11:41):
Not that that I mean some some sometimes I don't.
I don't like that in these things. I'm not us
should call for that, But this one was just it
felt very much alive to me, you know, like there,
it was like it felt like you were. It felt
more like a documentary than like a big, big budget production.
And I guess is how I felt about it. I
don't know if that rings to to you.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Well, it's d I. Why, it's like high level.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
D I Y always you know, all your all your stuff. Well,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It's it's DIY with a certain level of like expertise
be it. First of all, thank you, I'm so glad,
But also I mean I think I made choices as
a producer to keep that alive, you know, whether it's
(12:29):
not recording guitars, direct putting a guitar through an amp,
putting it in a room, and recording the sound of
air moving through a speaker, there's something intrinsically more alive.
You are pushing air, right, whether it's there's no soft
sense on this. This is all. If something is played,
(12:53):
if an effect is played, it's a manual, it's a
manual tape delay, and it's performed. That you're getting a
performance of of a drum machine through a piece of
tape or a pedal, but it's performed, its tactile. So
there's that. And then I think also just the the
subject matter and a lot of the songs, it's like,
(13:16):
don't be cute, don't be clever. Life is short. We're
all gonna fucking die. Like, let's let's talk about it.
Let's let's walk through the fire together. Because where all
we got?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah? Yeah, Lyrically, was there any thing you were pulling
from in particular, either reference material external to you or
internal to you?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I didn't really pull from anything external lyrically, and I
usually do you know, usually, well, it'll be chock full
of like references to my favorite writers or poets or whatever.
This go round, it was pretty it was it was
like a process of stripping back, you know, any anytime
(14:04):
I had an instinct to like, I don't know, be cute,
or like be clever, or or just like no, cut
it out, strip it to the bone. What's underneath that,
what's underneath that? What's underneath that? And same with the
performances as well. I mean I sing, oh, I sang
a lot of these songs a lot of times, and
(14:26):
I would liken it. I would kind of liken it
to like, I don't know. You hear about directors who
do a gazillion takes like David Fincher, Right, he does
like hundreds of takes until the actors are just like, oh, yeah,
take on and thirty exactly exactly right. Isn't a social network,
(14:47):
it's like whatever that seems to take one hundred and thirty.
And you're like, but I think if I was producing
someone else, that's not anything I would make them do.
But when it's myself, I go, no, you you were lying?
Just there sing it again.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
That's interesting because I was going to ask, how do
you keep yourself accountable in that way? When you do
yourself but in a way you know, it's much easier
and yeah, it's east because you can ask more of
yourself if you're self critical enough or if you're if
you're honest enough and.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Too I mean, you know, it's a fine balance.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
There's there's the self criticism that is not helpful to
you and it's not helpful to the work. And then
there's the sort of you know, we're somewhere in the
Dunning Krueger like, you know, we're people who are actually
the dumbest think they're the smartest. You know, I'm paraphrasing
that and vice versa. So there's you're somewhere in that
(15:46):
spectrum always right, too much self criticism stops the art
and stops the work, and but not enough and it's
not good enough. Yeah, so that's but that's a that's
a messy thing to deal with, like self self production.
That's the hardest part about self production is that is
that wading through that which is like real real, and
(16:13):
that which is like, oh no, you're just kind of
you're you're you're being you know, needlessly self punishing or
that's that's that's the.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Rub that was hard to figure out. Yeah, yeah, how
did you how did and did that lead to prolonged
periods of like punishing, I'm.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Being too I'm probably being too dramatic.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
It's I don't think so. I mean, it's a lot
to do it. I don't know, or maybe but you
would know better.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
It's just a you know after you know, because this
is my seventh solo record, eighth record, you know, counting
the one I did with David Byrne. It's like, you
know when it's done, and that's the that's the biggest thing.
That's the biggest lesson, is like knowing when something is
(17:09):
done and knowing even if you you know, roll down
the road on a song of like diminishing returns, being
able to go back to an earlier version and gom,
this was better. Okay, let's go, let's let's do this
and then it's done.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, yeah, so get just given how unique the process was,
and and okay, maybe torture's to to too much calling
it an albatross. Maybe, okay, maybe it's maybe it's hyperbole.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
But I mean I like, of course, at the end
of the day, like I'm a musician, I get to
do what I love. Yeah, it's the luckiest thing in
the world.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It's true, it's true. But if it's if it was
even on the on the spectrum of whatever hyperbole, if
it was even airing towards that way when you got
done with it, does the album sit with you even
it's new. Does it sit with you a little differently
than other albums in your catalog so far, just given
the process you went through.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Well, I'm still really living this record because I'm out
on tour doing it, doing the damn thing every night.
So there is an aspect of like, these songs are
these songs are just like I'm gonna use I'm gonna
mix metaphors and also do a bad one great, but
(18:27):
like you gotta making a record is like making a
pair of shoes that you're gonna have to walk in
for the next definitely for the next year and a
half of your life and if it's good, like the
whole rest of your career, so you remember, Like so
putting wearing them on tour is like you're wearing them
(18:50):
in You're like, okay, they're kind of they kind of
give here, they kind of like, but they can carry me.
I've never used this metaphor. I'm just workshopping it here.
So really, uh, this is we're getting into dicey territory.
But but it's like I'm still living in them, so
that and that part is good. It's exciting. They are
(19:12):
holding up and they're growing even more than every other
record I've ever done. I know every inch of this thing,
like I know every I know every track. I know
every and when I say track, I mean like pro
tools tracked.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I know every.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I know the Maltese, I know the ideas. I know
the palimpsyst of ideas that didn't make it, you know
what I mean. I try not to, but yeah, I know, Yeah,
I know it. I know it so so intimately. But
I think it's good that I do know it and
(19:50):
I know it so intimately. But I also am so
psyched to play it every night. So that's a good sign,
you know.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Sounds like it. Would you do it again? Pretty serious something? Yes?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I absolutely would, but I would do it differently.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
How would you do it differently?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I'd write a bunch of songs and then I would take.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Them apart too much to go through again doing it.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I would write a bunch of songs, which is what
I'm currently doing.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Like while you're on the road or now that you've
you've kind of you paused a bit for the holidays.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I guess yeah. I mean when I'm whenever I'm in
my studio, whenever i'm home, I'm writing.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So we'll be right back with more from Saint Vincent
after the break. Here's more from Saint Vincent. And you.
You wrote this in your studio here in LA but
recorded it in at Electric Lady.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I did a lot of the vocals at Electric Lady,
but I recorded the majority of this record at my
studio Compound Fracture. I mean I did. I recorded Dave
Grohl on drums there.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Did you mike that yourself? No?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
No, I have an incredible engineer. Shout out to Kean
Reardon who mixed this record, engineered the all the heavy lifting.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Of this record, you know, to put on yourself to like.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I can put a you know, I can make my
way through a through through a vocal mic. But no
past that. No, he he engineered the drums on the record.
I bought a Neve console, like dang, yeah, it was
like it was, it was pro. I you know, Josh
Freeze played there, uh, Mark Giuliana played there, Sela Mazawa
(21:36):
I recorded someplace else.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
But like, yeah, it was legit, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Legit.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Josh Freese is his drumming on the first track, but
thought was really awesome, soul, beautiful. Yeah, that was amazing.
I don't know that I've heard him. I don't know
his whole catalog, but I don't know if I've heard
him play that way. It was like this anything that
was it was.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It's fun as a producer to invite people to play.
Well one, I mean, it's nice to have like a
stacked rolodex of like the craziest rippers, but beyond that,
it's really it's nice to have people come in and
sometimes you're like, I want you to play like your
(22:19):
name's on the track, Like I want you to play
like it's your you know. And then sometimes you're like,
I I want to ask this incredible player to do
something that they don't normally do, or do something they're
not known for. And in that case, on Hell is Near,
Josh just played the most almost like Buddhist like monastic
(22:42):
beat and it's so beautiful. It's to be honest, it's
one of my favorite drum performances on the whole record.
And it's restraint.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah, yeah, it blew me. I was when I looked
at whoah Freeze, whoa. I just just never would have
occurred to me that that would be his take on.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Something I know but that but he but you know,
we arrived there. We arrived there together. It's not like,
you know, Josh is a very sensitive drummer, and he's
an interesting drummer to watch because he listened down to
the song, doesn't touch a note, doesn't do anything, you know,
writes his special notes about how many bars and what
(23:25):
you know is whatever his you know, secret wing edings is,
and then he goes in and he plays it perfectly.
He plays he knows the song. So it's not like
his first take was he was he was in the
zone of this sort of like of the of the
(23:47):
meditative aspect of it. But we yeah, we got there together.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
So when when did the idea to redo the album
in Spanish? When did that occur to you?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
You're asking a very important question, which is why why
would you do that?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I didn't want to ask it that one.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
No, I totally get it. The short answer is that
I've played in Mexico a bunch, I've played in South America,
I've played in Spain a bunch, and I had this
moment on stage at bar at Primavera, Barcelona, twenty twenty three.
(24:35):
I'm like looking out at the sea of people, thousands
of people, and they're singing, They're singing my songs back
to me in perfect English. I'm like, Okay, this is
your maybe your second, maybe your third, maybe your fourth third,
Like seriously, and you have you have insane with being
(24:56):
in Mexico. So I was in I mean there was
one time in Portuguese, but I was in uh. I
was in Brazil playing this little club show for like
a thousand people, and everybody knew every single word wow,
And I honestly got choked up. I got choked up,
(25:17):
like they people have come to me in my language,
why can't I meet them halfway and try to come
to them and there. So that was the thought behind
the Spanish record, like a little just a little token
to like Spanish speaking fans, like hey, thank you, I
thank you for coming to me all these years. I
(25:40):
speak Spanish, okay, okay in Texas, yeah it's in there,
but like but I but I have been really wanting
to become actually fluent in Spanish because it's just useful
and beautiful and all the things. So this was sort
of a way to get me jump started into getting
(26:02):
back into getting pretty good at Spanish. And so I
asked my best friend who's from Monterey, Mexico and grew
up in dalt We grew up in Dallas together, so
he's fully bilingual. It's like, Alan, can you help me
translate these songs? So that process was really beautiful and
(26:22):
fun too, trying to figure out, Okay, this is not
an expression in Spanish, so this doesn't make any goddamn sick.
What are you trying to say? And it got me
kind of thinking about the meaning of songs in a
totally different way. Yeah, so that's why I did it.
(26:43):
I don't know, But I also it was a heavy lift.
It was a heavy lift, and not just obviously the translation,
which is immensely thought provoking and time consuming, but also
then trying to make sure that I was pronouncing things well,
(27:03):
which again my goalpost just like ninety nine left balloons,
you know what I mean, Like, if I can I'm
not gonna sound like a native speaker, because I'm not,
But if I can get as good as like ninety
nine left.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Balloons, then like, okay, that's pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
That's pretty good. And then also I read it all
the vocal production on the record because I'm the only singer.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, that's crazy. I was like, you said, you already
put yourself to one hundred and you know, I don't
know that, but a lot of takes on stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, this is full, full glutton, just just glut punishment.
Just give me some more.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Did you see that movie seven? Yeah, it's not as
strict as it looks.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Did I see what maybe my movie seven? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
That scarred me as a child.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Yeah, a lot of those that one did.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, speaking a David Fincher.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Speaking of Fincher, Yeah, that one really scarred me. And
then Zodiac terrified me too a bit later.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
That yeah, I mean, and that's that was a real guy,
the real guy. Didn't they just find it?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
I mean, this is not conclusive. They said that there
was Like I watched the thing.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Because I wait, wait, is the Zodi at the Golden
State Killer.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
That's different. They got the Golden State Killer. It's from
like twenty three meters or something. Yeah, yeah, which is
So did.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
You sell your stuff to twenty three?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I say so, I do, mean so I did to
ancestry Street. I'm debating that where I want them to
put it to know that I could have got everything else,
but I did the Ancestry. Yeah, so I figure. You know,
it's funny. When I was a kid, my mom is
so fucked up. That's what My mom was a crazy paranoid.
(28:44):
So like when I was a kid, she took me
down to the police station to get fingerprinted in case
I went like missing. But the flip side of that
was I was always very cognizant that I get anything
wrong growing.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Up, like they already got okay.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
God, So I'm kind of like Novelly. I put myself
on the record with Ancestry. I'm like, if I if
I do any serial killing, which I won't, but if
I were to, I'm out. I'm on the record now.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
They can just get me so easy, Like you would
you would know if you were like you would, you
would there would be like a long line of like
cat and trails, like you know what I mean, Like
you'd know that from early I.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Like to think. So I'd like to think I don't
think you just although I.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Guess if you had like a crazy traumatic brain injury,
well there's stories is like.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Look at the guy. They just cooke, you know, the
CEO guy, and I'm not hot, that's what he's like.
He's a good looking dude. I was looking at it.
I was like, I kind of wanted his workout. I
know he's jacked jack And everyone's like, wait, who knew?
He didn't know? And maybe but then I think, well,
if they didn't know, maybe he didn't know. So that's
always my fears. I guess, always like maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Wait you maybe you don't know if you're a serial.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Killer, well you know what people will say like, oh
he was a great, like we never would have expected this, right,
And then so so then I take it one step
further and I think, maybe I don't think that I
could do that, but maybe I could. Maybe something happens
to you at some point in life that I think.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
It's a combo platter, Okay, right, because.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I think you're right, I hope yeah. I think yeah, yeah,
because based.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
On my armchair expertise of serial killers, like that's a
combination of like in in genetics, sociopathy mixed with like
usually like horrifying, horrifying childhood.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Right, I didn't have that, So that's good. That's genetics
might be working against me, sad man. Uh so this,
I mean, it's really cool that you did the Spanish
language album to your fans. No, no, it's cool And
(30:47):
for me personally, I some of my favorite songs are,
of course in English, but I spend the vast majority
of my time listening to things that either don't have
lyrics or are in languages foreign or in foreign languages
majority of my time.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Same, why do you think you do that?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
I guess the easy answer is that words are distress
acting and it overlays a meaning that I maybe want
to create my own. And it's probably that, but there's
also just yeah, it's just like it can really be
the voice is an instrument, but it really becomes another
instrument if it can just kind of blend into the other.
You know, you're not attaching meaning to the words implicitly
(31:30):
explicitly yeah, or like.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I've been on a big cocktail twins kick and like
those aren't most of the time. Those are specifically unintelligible.
So it's a rack. You're like, oh, I'm putting it's
still so evocative, but I'm putting what I think she's saying.
(31:56):
I'm singing what I think she's saying yeah, which is
really what I want to hear.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
So absolutely I.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Want to hear yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
But I feel because it makes a background music, because
that's that's I feel like it's makes it a pejorative thing.
It's not that, it's just it's like just allows you
to be more free in how you are interpreting what
you're hearing. And sometimes it just the way. And I
wanted to ask you this is like, you know the
way certain words are shaped and vowel. You know, it's
just like you approach you have to. It sounds like
(32:23):
you know, you have to approach the vocal take differently.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Oh for sure, Yes, yes, for sure, And you have
to make sure that things by the time you sing them,
You're like you've made sure that they sing well. Yeah,
because you know certain words don't sing well.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Were there particular words on this album that you didn't
There's like.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Tim, tim Maria no Tim, the word for reckless mmm.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Tim.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I'll give you a better example. I kept mispronouncing the
word for marigold, which is can you hear my stomach no?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Going crazy?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Really? Did you eat food today?
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I didn't, which is why someone itself right now.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
But what point, How long can you go because I
forgot to do it as.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Long as I need. Really, I can't eat before I talk.
I don't know before I do anything work really because
your brain doesn't work, because then my brain doesn't work.
And then I just feel like if I eat, I'm
like a baby. I just want to go to sleep. Yeah, instantly.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
But are you like carbo loading a breakfast or are
you like just coffee, just like any any food.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
No water aside from this, yeah, yeah, just any food. Yeah,
it could be a help. It could a salad and
I want to go to sleep.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
It's not I was with a friend to a friend
who was just like, you know, you go to a
restaurant and you're like, well, I should probably order a salad.
First of all, you're at a restaurant, you know what
I mean, Like you should make You should order something
that you have no idea how to make that you
could not make at home. Otherwise you should just eat
(34:02):
at home. Yeah right, I mean I can't. Also, this
is but just but like on our deathbed, my friend
was like, on my deathbed, no one's going to be
like he ate so many salads.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
You know, it's true. But if you're on your death
bed at like sixty three, like some more it's one
more solid enough salad. I'm sure, what the.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Do you want to live?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Oh? Man? So okay, that's interesting because there's that guy
that's like trying to like live forever, the.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Tech dude who's like taking his son's blood.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Yes, and that seems ridiculous on multiple levels. One, he
looks like he's fucking a bazillion years old and already.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
It also like, okay, you can fucking afford to live forever.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
And then there's live forever. And then there's also like
it feels it feels very it feels really self centered
on the level too, like do like so I'm at
war with myself on this. On one hand, yeah, I
don't want to die, and so I want to live forever.
On another hand, forever seems like a really long and
then on the other hand, it's like I'm not that,
(35:12):
I'm not I'm not so important. So then I'm like, hmm,
Like you know, a hundred fee is like a good benchmark.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
One hundred is a long life. That's a long, healthy life.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
If I can make it back to the nineties.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Ah, the are we about the same age.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
I was born in eighty nine, so yeah, me too. Cool. Great,
both both in the eighties. Great. So we make it
back to you know, make it back to you know,
if I can see like the one hundredth anniversary of
like friends, Like, oh my god, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
You know what I would like to live. I would
like to live. I would like to everybody to remember,
for like one day, what it was like to live
without the internet.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Oh man, Yeah it was that.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
It was kind of lit.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
I was here for it.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
It was awesome. Yeah, okay, that was something I had
for you. What. Okay, eighties and nineties. You're in the
South Oklahoma, Texas, that was your I grew up here, Yeah,
relatively connected to culture, you would thin because I'm here
in Los Angeles area. But your your MGV, your taste,
(36:16):
your taste, oh seems heightened like like and I was going,
you know, I don't know, we're out the time, but
especially around like visual arts, which is something I'm like
a complete know nothing about. I'm just you. It's almost
as if you grew up in Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
To me, thank you, well I did in my formative years.
My like, I'm I'm a young adult, like trying to
figure out what life is that was spent in Manhattan.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Oh okay, right, so once you got out of call
it right? Yeah? But but was it there before? Uh?
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Well no, I okay, I think I think a couple
of things. I had an early intervention from my aunt
and uncle, who are jazz musicians. So they were like,
they saw that I loved music. They took me out
on the road. And they also when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
something like that, they gave me a box of records.
They were like, here's Oliver Nelson, Here's here's John Coltrane,
(37:14):
Here's Sarah Vaughn. Here's Ela Fitzgerald, Here's Bill Evans, here's
you know, they here's Jonny Mitchell. You know, they were
like the you need to understand the like the depth
and the breadth of music. So I got an early
schooling in jazz and deep too.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Oliver Nelson's not like a surface level.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
You know, it was blusing the abstract truth. So you know,
you're talking modal jazz, but but you need here's mingus.
You need to know, you need to know what's up.
Here's Monk. Yeah, and so like that's heavy, that shit's heavy,
and there's no like, it's not a casual. It's not
(38:00):
yea casually. You're like no, and you're reading you know, CDs,
you're reading all the liner notes. You know who played
on Oh, Freddy Hubber played on this, you know whatever,
that stuff. And then also I think I had a
there was like an indie movie theater in town. So
me and my best friend Alan we saw every We
(38:21):
saw every movie that came to town at the indie
movie theater. And so there was this like sense this
like very rich culture. That was what I think we
saw Gregoraki film. Maybe no, maybe that was later. I've
seen so many movies with Alan, it's hard to keep count,
but like that was there was this idea one. I mean,
(38:44):
as much as I love Texas and I'm very proud
to be from Texas and my family's there, I knew
that I had to like get out of there. I
also had a like a theater teacher who was it
will shock you to learn that I was president of
the theater club.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
And I had a very important like theater teacher who
was like read the New York Times every read the
Sunday Times. Look at the section not the rest of
that ship. Read, read the arts section, learn about plays,
go see, yeah, exactly like go see I go see
plays like I was like obsessed with Okay, there's this
(39:23):
is Ibsen and this is whatever Tennessee Williams, here's new
plays like I So I had I had that that
hunger and that interest, and then once I got out
of Texas, I was able to like immerse myself in
you know, the culture, and you were ready.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
You had a solid Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah.
If you're reading the then it makes sense pre Internet
how you were building that base. If you're reading the
Sunday Times.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
You know the arts that kind of like think about
like a sixteen kind of a pudgy sixteen year old
with glasses being like, sorry, I can't I'm reading the time.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Your parents must have been pretty psyched.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Hilton says that the no he's Hilton writes to The
New Yorker.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
After one last break, we're back with the rest of
my conversation with Saint Vincent. Here's the rest of my
conversation with Saint Vincent. I think I remember seen or
seen and maybe in your masterclass or reading.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Some did you take notes in my master class.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I didn't say that, okay, but Beatle Beatle Juice film
was maybe initially in terms of visually like important.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
To you, like your sentence I say that I think,
I mean I believe that making things up well, No,
I mean Beatlejuice like, I mean.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Not far off.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
I'm not far off. But yeah, I mean that's like
that's a kids first introduction to like brutalism, Like that's set.
Those sets are incredible, Those sets are incredible. I met
a set designer. He is married to Catherine O'Hara, and
(41:16):
they met on that film.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
No way, that's incredible. Did you ask him a bunch
of questions?
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yes? I did, but it was loud and I forgot.
It was loud and I was drunk and I forgot
what he said.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
I won't ask you to repeat that. We won't. We
won't rehash the conversation.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
But it was cool.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
And so but that gets you to this kind of
at least in your feelings. It gets you to a
place where that's what you identify with, that that that
kind of brutalism may be superior. Like when you when
you when you, I'm just trying to because you know,
like you're the art that goes along with your music, right,
it feels very pointed. There's like it's like there's a
(41:58):
person like it feels very much like there is a
strong idea behind that and maybe it's no.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
No, no, it's very intentional. It's very intentional, like with
All Born Screaming. I I worked with my friend Alex
de Corte, who is like really heavy duty, like major
American modern artist, and we've been friends because he directed
a video for one of my songs called New York,
(42:27):
which was like amaze, Like it was amazing what he did,
and he's brilliant. He's still brilliant.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
And so.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
This was right around the same time of prima Vera
Barcelona twenty twenty summer of twenty twenty three. We were
both traveling in Spain and he came to visit and
we were just catching up and I played him the
new album and he was like, I would love to
help you with like the visuals on this. I would
(42:59):
love to creative direct this if you want me to.
I was like, you kidding, Like yeah, So we started.
We went to the Prato, we went to we saw
the Bosh's Garden of Earthly Delights, we saw all the
Goya the pintures Negress, so like the Goya black paintings,
which were these deeply I mean, which is black mass
(43:24):
Saturn devouring his Sun's like heavy, heavy shit, heavy fucking shit. Yeah,
and we kind of like we walked into this room,
we got to like the air changes and we're looking.
We're staring, staring in the maddening eyes of Saturn devouring
(43:45):
his son. And Alex and I look at each other,
we're like, yeah, this, this is the energy, Like, this
is the energy, black and white, all the colors in
a fire. So yeah, so he then it was then
it was it's so many conversations. It's it's scouring through
(44:05):
art books going oh what what about this font? Oh Goldstein,
Oh well this was inspired by uh you know, it's
like it's it's the point of the references isn't to
rip something off. It's not to be like here's just
a Pinterest board. Yeah, it's it's when you're referencing someone's work.
(44:28):
Sophie Rickett, you know, for the inner sleeve of the
Allboard Screaming album is like me pissing on a sidewalk,
and that's like full on homage to this artist. Sophie Rickett,
who did a book called Pissing Women. It's women like
pissing on the street, you know, and it's but they're
(44:48):
all like they're in like Chanelle suits, like pulling, you know,
pissing on the street and like and Alex and I
did it, but we did it a little bit more
tuned town like who framed Roger Rabbit is also never
far from my interesting mind. You know, it kind of
gives more like Calvin pissing on the back of like
a Ford Ranger because like, anatomically it's wrong. Anatomically is wrong,
(45:13):
Like there's no way that that the female body can
do like this, but it uh but yeah, you know,
so all that stuff is like it's so it's so
thoughtful and not just to be like high on your
own supply, because it's so important. It's so important to
continue to tell the story with the visual side of
(45:35):
things and not just the now that the music's done, great,
that's that's just now you have a template.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
To to go. Really, do you ever get to the
point where you've worked the music, so you've worked so
hard on the music that you just kind of like,
you know, becomes not but it becomes no an no,
mm hmm no.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Now then it's like, oh, think the music's done. Thank god,
I get to think about something else. I've built the infrastructure.
The music will tell us what to do. We just
but we need to like find we need to find
it visually.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah, I want it one one day, Maybe you can
do a second master classes visual art. It would be
I would, I would, I would, I would take it,
I would take.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
I dabble.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I'm sure no you do. I mean because really, I mean,
I know a lot of people their art work is intentional.
But when you kind of pair the intention with with
with the a high level of taste, you know, it's
like it makes for something really cool, you know, I think,
is what what happens here? You know?
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Well, again, it's not about it makes the Internet makes
it very easy for us to reference things, right, Like
we can just like I pull this and I pull this,
and I pull this and I pull this, and that's
really cool. That's a very that's a cool that's a
good thing about about being as as postmodern as we are.
But and this is where I go. AI is not
(47:10):
here yet in music Visually it's pretty farl But but
to put all of those things together, to put a
whole thing together and then make it something that feels
actually like an artist's and I do feel that there's.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Well do you think it will never get there? No?
Speaker 2 (47:32):
No, I don't. I don't think it'll never get there.
And this is like cut to me, you know, in
one year, like with an aib No, I just like
I'm now I'm picturing like some version of seven, but
I'm like being cruelly dominated by AI. Whatever we could,
(47:53):
we could make that image happen really quickly.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yeah, one last thing I do want to talk. I
want to ask. I also read the the bit about
Mike McCreadie from Pearl Jam his strat cast yeah, which
was fascinating. I didn't like, you'd never played a stratocaster.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Well, I had played a PV Raptor, which was a
PV raptor. It's a pv raptor. It was a TV
strat shape. Okay, but you know, uh, for for beginners. Okay.
So Mike McCready, who's a friend and a lovely human being,
(48:34):
gave me one of his signature strats and it like,
I've never played a strap before, not because I don't
like strats strats are cool. Yeah, I've never played a
strap because every time I pick up a strat I
played Jimmy Hendrix poorly. Like a strat gives it has
(48:55):
so much history. Yeah, that like, I don't know how
to approach a strat, but Mike gave me one and
it was great, and I was like, now I see,
like I get why people love strats, and so I
did end up playing playing it on on Auburn Screaming.
(49:16):
I think I played it on the end of Broken Man.
That's a strat, and I'm almost like, the strat's so
like pluck, you know, it's got that attack, plucky kind
of attack that I was almost like picking from underneath
the string to get even more Like Scott, that's stratt
(49:38):
has a spank. I'll just say it. I'll use the
word A strat has a spank too.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
It has spank to it. So I was like, I
don't know, it doesn't I don't hear spank on that album.
But it's that that was a head. That's a heavy riff.
It's a heavy riff. Strat got you there.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
I'm grateful, but I'm so here for it. It's a
loaded gun, you know. But but no, I I it
was useful and a beautiful thing to I'm discover for
myself finally.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Okay, that's great. I'm so happy. What that thing though?
Is true about like sometimes like a guitar, not like
some some guitars, the shape, just knowing that they're a
particular kind of guitar, all about it. Whatever make you
want to make You sometimes want to play a particular way,
(50:34):
and I don't know what that is, Like pick.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Up an SG what's the first thing you play.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Back and black exactly? But it's like you don't have to,
but you put it.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
You must, but you must.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
It's disappointing in a way.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
It's that That is why I was like, when I
make a signature series guitar, it's going to have a
completely different shape. Like I take an existing shape and
modit in an interesting way, but I like make a
new shape. Then maybe it will people create a new
language on it, and it won't have the baggage. Yeah
of the not baggage, you know, no, but it won't
(51:14):
have this the same history that we kind of all
go go feel we must you know, pay homage.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
To just so intentional with your words. Okay, sits Yeah,
I live.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
I live on the internet. You have to be a
fucking intentional cunts.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Thank you for talking to me. Thank you. This is
really fun, really fun talking to you.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah you too.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Thanks to Saint Vincent for stopping by Amazon Music Studio
one twenty six to talk about her latest album, All
Born Screaming and its Spanish language companion Totos Naci found.
You can hear some of our favorite Saint Vincent songs,
including cuts from her new albums, on a playlist in
our episode description, and be sure to follow us on
Instagram at the Broken Record Pile. You can follow us
(52:02):
on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced by
Lea Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan Millin.
Our engineer is Ben Tolliney. Broken Record is a production
of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others
from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is
a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad pre
(52:24):
listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin
Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show,
please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
podcast app. Our theme music's by Anny Beats I'm justin Richmond,
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