Pushkin. James Blake has managed to distill his music down to pure emotion. His voice is transcendent, define genre and gender and the best of the R and B tradition. Contrasted with the unsettled, off kilter nature of his college style production, his sound is deeply stirring. In a word, James Blake's music is sublime. After releasing his self titled debut album in two and eleven, the British born James Blake went on to win Grammys and England's top music honor, the Mercury Prize. He's also produced and collaborated with a ton of musicians, including Jay Z, Beyonce, Billie Eilish and Travis Scott. James flew from England to work with Rick Rubin at Shangrela and Malibu in twenty sixteen. They worked together on a third album, The Color and Anything, and as you'll hear in this conversation with Rick Today, James Blake had a life changing experience while working and living at Shango Law with Jamila Jamil, but the time was his new girlfriend. James also recalls an embarrassing experience that left him making music in secret for years and tells Rick that recording his new EP of covers solidified his love of perfect pop songs. This is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond. Just a quick note here. You can listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you can find a link to in the show notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right. Enjoy the episode. Here's Rick, Rubin and James live from Shangola talk about from from the first album, like from making things. How did it start and what was your process because I imagine it's evolved over time. Yeah, first album, let's start with the well, the first album, I think everything started from. In fact, very often I would just sing into the mic and then I would remix the vocal essentially so like my brother. Yeah, So that one was just I sang it into the mic as a free floating vocal, no music behind it, and and then I built the entire production around that one vocal and if I remember correctly, it doesn't change all one. I was gonna say, it's all one vocal phrase that just gets stacked and just harmonized the different ways. Pretty sure. It's one vocal phrase. We listen to that. Let's let's incredible, it's incredible, it's ridiculous. I would just thinking as I was listening to that, since your first album came out, I've not been introduced to any artists since that. I've liked more than you since that time. That's Sae, It's it's the truth. Nobody close like it's my favorite music. Thank you music. That's an unbelievable accolade and compliment. Thank you. It's unlike anything. It's so original and so musical, and so seemingly awkward yet so musical. It doesn't make sense, doesn't make sense for it to be as groovy as it is for the pieces to come together. That that really seemed like they don't fit together. Yeah, they really didn't seem really don't seem like fether. It felt like, I mean, I haven't heard that in six or seven years, and it felt really strange. Yeah, but in the best way, like like you're surprised by the changes, Yeah, because no one other than you would have made those changes. I wouldn't even have made those changes, now, you know. And that's that's the thing. Is that my you know, the things that surprise me now are different. Yeah, so obviously the sound of my music change. But but I and I know I could never go back and do the same thing. Yes, but once you've kind of bottled something, there's no need to to do it again. But but I when I listened to it, I'm like, it makes me think of what I was and who I was then. I almost look, it's almost like I took that vocal and I flew it to like fifty different countries and put a different backdrop on it. Yes, and it's drilling and it's really fun. It's thrilling. Like I'm listening back to it, I'm like, oh that's you know, Yeah, it's really I got it. I got something right. I really felt, because it's actually unusual to listen back to something you did before and go and and feel like it's still kind of weirdly perfect, even though it's kind of crazy. Yes, and if you said you you wouldn't make the same choices today. But hearing it, it's super cool. I'm glad at it. Yeah, it's glad that it's in the world. Yeah, I'm really glad I did. It's actually really kind of sweet to listen to this stuff because there wouldn't be another time I would do this, and it's and it's kind of re engaging, almost like revisiting, like a cellular structure that I had before. Yes, so tell me about how how did you make that? What do you remember about it? And what do you remember about yourself? Then I would have been in my university housing and what school did you go to? It was Goldsmith's College. And I was incredibly I would say reclusive. I would say I was very angry, I think, and very lonely, and I didn't have I wasn't in a relationship. I'd never been in one. I was super sort of there was no reason for me really to go out anywhere, so I just stayed in my in my house. I remember being dreamily, highly emotional at that time. I was listening to Blue by Joni Mitchell every night before I went to sleep, and I listened to Bonivair for Emma Forever Ago every night, and I would just sleep to that music, and then i'd wake up and I'd feel creative and i'd just make things. I'd make music well into the night. And what I was normally doing is singing a vocal, and I had this cad mic and it was cheap and had a little Firefox sound card and a MacBook and a Midi control and that was it. And I just sang a couple of vocals and then what I would do is get the massive plug in and I would just I'd initialize the patch so it was just as all wave and I would make it a sign wave and I would just play it like an organ. And what keyboard were you driving it? I was using a just a little Midi keyboard like a am Audio thing or like a n Ovation I think. And it was literally something that any student would have. I mean, you know, if they were yet, if they if they wanted him, if they wanted to do that, then there was that the barrier of entry was very low. Yes, So what you would do, yes in terms of like in terms of within the context of you know, because I was lucky to even be able to afford that at the time. My parents brought me a MacBook for college and I just that was what I went with, and so I was lucky to have that. But and I would find different ways to harmonize the vocal. So what ended up becoming sort of my trademark or even my biggest tool was what I ended up kind of developing out of necessity, which was to take a melody and to almost in a sort of bark or you know, kind of in a classical type sense, it's just take a melody and reharmonize until I find the thing that feels good. By that point, i'd I've been playing piano since I was six years old, so that this came naturally to me to try. And but it was more about placing an emotion within the vocal with a chord, so each each each emotional moment had its own chord, you know. So you didn't you didn't learn that though you you I mean you learned that yourself. Yeah. I figured it out over I figured it out over time. Yeah, I sort of. It was my way of creating something new out of something that was that felt mundane, because ultimately, you know, like a vocal unaccompanied if it's not a great melody, and I wasn't an inspired melody writer, So I just kind of tried to make you know, because I know, I know people who have the gift of just being melodically supreme, and when people can do that as fantastic. But I wasn't able to do that, So what I did was try and find it in other ways by harmonizing it differently so that it seemed like an incredible melody to me. Yes, um, I think the most I'm going to request that we get, could we ask for a little keyboard to be sent down just so that you could demonstrate Yeah. Yeah, One thing I realized pretty early on was a melody that you know, the more I listened to it, the less special it became to me. But if I reharmonized it, then it was exciting again. So so to re harmonize a melody and also to work within you know that a lot of the chord clusters would happen because I was working with usually quite a small MIDI controller, so I wasn't working with the whole range. So actually, you know, how to get the most out of I don't know, you know, two octaves was important too. There's multiple parts in that in that I'd never learned to share, but none of them are all like that that like you know, hands stretched, it's all um, you know, like just within this range. And then I'd placed that part and then you'd have another part there's a base and another part that's at the top, which would all be the same keyboard. Just change you just change your time. I'm just plus yeah, just active down and so but you know, it was a bit but I think it was a three active. But if I was feeling particularly uninspired, and it was just you know, there's so many ways of arriving and leaving and so specific order for a song, or would you record doing a lot of that and then chop it up. I'd record a lot of that, and then I'd sample myself basically, And that's what happened with as soon as you hear it, you're like that, and I remember you being like that. So that's where, that's where we want. It's amazing. It's just amazing to see you do that. And and I'm glad that you've come to recognize that what you do as a that work, it's not what other people do, so that you can continue to do it. You know, I feel like the more you try to do what anyone else does, the less interesting I've done. I've been there, man, I've been there. I've I've you know, for the years after the color and anything I was trying to chase the the genius of other people, you know, people I've worked with, people who've influenced me, people who have seemed to be you know, just based on my own down opinion on myself, were just so much high, you know, at a higher level of something that I couldn't do or whatever. I think I just had to get over that and get through it. And I think, you know, by the time i'd done assume form, i'd kind of assume form. The reason I decided to make that record wasn't because I needed to make a record. It was because I needed to get away from the idea that I had to write music in a way other than under my own. And I finally got sick of waiting for other people, sick of I was working on other projects and other things, and people were wasting my time. And I realized they had a moment of realization. I'm me, I can do whatever the fuck I want. Why am I waiting? Why am I idolizing other people? Why I can already do the thing, you know, do the thing that I love, like, why torture myself like that? And because you know, working with other artists is amazing, but some you know, I think at a formative time in my career, put too much weight on what some other people thought and too much kind of involvement in them. And I don't know why I expected from them. Maybe I expected too much or whatever, but I think it was a reflection on where I was at the time, but it ended up throwing me really severely off course musically, and I feel like I'm finding assumed form and where I'm at now has been me finding my feet and kind of going, fuck everyone else. I'm sure about this, and I'm sure of myself and I I'm comfortable in my skin musically, and the amount of voices that are going on in the back of my head when I'm making music now, I could have not been able to count them before. I mean, it was, it was intense, and it ruined my process for a while, but now is it feels relatively quiet in there. And I think it's a big part of why I made this before EP, because I wasn't thinking about, oh am I going to be judged if I sing over dance music or you know, if I combine those two worlds, and I'm not going to be you know, in my thinking part of it as well. There could be some people who think this is a bastardization of dance music, or it's a bastardization of songwriting, or it's it's you know, are the songs truck is perfect? But I don't know. The point is songs like I keep calling on this EP are kind of like the modern in a way. That's my modern dance music. Never lend share. It's a it's a weird structure, but it hits my it hits a part of me, and it it seems somehow solid, even though it seems like it's just about being held together. Honestly, Breck has been such an fucking journey to that feeling, and it's nice to be able to say that to you. Yes, I appreciate it. Let's listen to that song. We'll be back with more of James Blake's conversation with Rick Rubin after a quick break. We're back with Rick Rubin and James Blake. Was the household you grew up in musical Yeah, I mean my dad is a musician and he was always playing music, and you know, my mum and him, it was, you know, singing in the car and doing three part harmonies in the car. Are on the way to like going on holiday and stuff like that. So because we would drive to holiday, I mean we'd go on holiday too, you know, Wales or the beach, and I want to say the beach. It's really just a kind of a gallery of rocks in England, but that's what we call the beach. So we're on the way down, we'd go camping in Pembrokeshire or something. I actually saw a bunch of like UFOs. There's the thing called the Pembrokeshire Triangle, which is a bit like the Bermuda Triangle except a lot less cool. And we went there quite a bit and we'd go camping and I sort of learned how to sing really in a way through doing that, I learned how to harmonize, especially how to slot in between two other notes, or how to you know, how to follow a top line or how you know. Those things really came from my parents. What would be the songs that he would sing in the car? God, I can't, I can't remember. Isn't she loved? I can't really, I can't remember it. Maybe Stevie Wonder songs or singing on the dock of the bay, or some Crosby stills, and Nash songs. I remember that our house was one that we used to sing a lot. And would those be the songs that would be playing in your house like that your parents? Yea, and so they'd sing it in the car on the way down or maybe it would be but happy Birthday that every year to this day, my parents will call me and sing a Happy birthday in harmony beautiful like It's just what they do. And the only drawback is that they can't have a third because otherwise I'd be singing happy birthdays myself. But that is a very cute thing that they do. And you said you started playing piano when you were six? Did you did you take formal lessons? I did lessons from Yeah. Around that age. My dad asked me if I wanted to play a guitar or piano or anything, and I said, I'll playing guitar and he was like, well I can get I can teach you that, So pick something else. And I started piano lessons and I never really look back. And also I don't think me and my dad were compatible as a student teacher relationship. I think we were better as just you know, father son. So and did you learn classical music. Yeah, I did all the grade you know, I did grade eight or whatever, and I could have carried on and done my diploma and etc. But I didn't. I just sort of ended with that and said said goodbye to the academic side of music because I just wasn't that interested. But it did give me a great backbone. But you know, and I wasn't very good sight reader. So if you don't develop sit reading very well, then it's hard to want to approach a new piece of classical music with sheet music because the journey to getting to just playing some fucking notes is so hard if you're not good at that that I gave up and I just wanted to improvise. And the whole time I'd just been learning to improvise myself. So it would go, James, do your practice, I go downstair play for you know, I try and learn this piece for I don't know, fifteen minutes and I give up, and then I just improvise for forty five minutes. And so they could see that I was just way more inclined and way more excited about improvising. And that's kind of what I've based my career on, really, is improvising I've always just improvised and then edited. Would you always improvise solo? Or might you put on a piece of music and play along and improvise? There was this funny, embarrassing moment I was always I was playing with these kids up the street. We were playing tennis regularly, and I became friends with one of them, and we lived four doors down from them, and so I could see their garden because we live in these like semi detached whatever houses and terraced houses in England. So from my bedroom I could see over the fences and he was in his garden. I remember I was playing. I would play records every night, so I'd come home from school and I just set up, I put a CD on and I just played piano and sing to the records with a mic. This was by the time I was like fourteen fifteen, and I think I was playing like I was playing records that kids my age thought were really sad, that as in, were really on completely. Uncle. What's the songs? Amazing song, Whitney Houston song, children a Future two some. We let them do that song. Unbelievable song. But anyway, so I'm just I'm belting this song at the top of my voice, playing like an electronic like eighties roads type sound like MIDI roads, and then I hear a bunch of kids laughing and they're going I can't remember what they were saying, but they were basically heckling me from four like houses away. And it was honestly one of the most embarrassing moments of my whole like one of the more embarrassing moments, because I remember that was my whole friend one of my whole friendship groups were there, and I was like crippled after that because I was just like this other people see this as a as a really effeminate and you know, like effeminate and a sad, lonely thing to do. They look at me as in some way kind of a weird, weirdough for like just wanting to do this, and also potentially there were homophobic undertones to like their abuse the heckling. I was just like, this is this is crazy, this is the thing I love doing. How can I be firstly a man and also like them? That doesn't make sense, you know, I can't be I can't be myself and like them, so I must be must be different and I and this I need to I need to keep away from other people. I need to make sure that no one sees me or hears me doing this. So it was kind of funny in a way, like when I look back on it, it's kind of a funny story. But at the same time, at the time it didn't feel funny. It felt like really shameful because at the time, like I said, there was so much toxic masculinity. You know, it was all about like being sporty and being you know, and I was just this kind of kid. He wanted to sing to Whitney Houston songs in my bedroom and like Mariah Carey, I was like obsessed with music box, you know, all these singers. It was super expressive. And there's me you know, with the I mean, you know, super like Ross Geller, like with my little keyboard and my mic and like trying to and so I just, you know, I think it started off that weird moment. Weirdly probably stopped me from wanting to show my musical ability to anyone, and so I didn't really play. I remember being you know, I'd go into practice rooms and I'm just not I'd not let anyone come and hear me. I would just go in and I'd make sure no one was around, and I'd go in on my own after school, and I'd make sure no one could hear me in, and I would just express I'll just play your parents. No, not a lot. I mean I did a bit, but not a lot. I would play with them in the other room, and they would be only ones that were sort of allowed to hear me, even from the other room. But I was very ashamed, I think looking back, I mean, I've not really ever talked about this, but I'm very ashamed of playing because I felt that it undermined my sort of ability to interface with other kids. Really weird to think that it should be something I would have felt ashamed of when I would imagine you'd have thought that it would have been something that people thought was cool, right, singing and playing. I don't know I would think that, but that's just not how people. People reacted. Yeah, I mean, anything that makes you different is any excuse too, To be honest, they probably thought I was just annoying, which I was, and the you know, the the way of actually articulating that was sad for playing the songs. But actually, yeah, I think it was a why and so maybe that even followed me into not feeling fully confident to put my music, put my voice in my music. I don't know. I mean there's lots of embarrassing moments like that that would have led to that. So it wasn't just that. But you know, if you ever, if you ever turbulent childhood, you can really spend at least up until other a's to to unpack what happened and why you feel shame around certain things and why you know, And it was definitely this whole, you know, these four albums have been me unpacking everything in real time and showing my workings. Really, do you remember the first time you sang in front of people on purpose? Yeah? I was terrified, but I remember that this girl really liked it and said and told her friend that she fancied me. How old were you at the time, I was about fourteen. Yeah, that was the first time I thought this is this is okay? Now, yeah this is cool. When did you know that you were going to do this for your life, like this was going to be the focus of your life. I think I always thought it would be pretty much. I didn't ever think I would get a different job. I mean, even when you were ashamed of it and doing it in your boy yourself. Yeah, you felt like this is what I'm going because I thought, well, they're not ashamed. All these artists are making all this music, so someone's not ashamed of it. Yes, I'm ashamed of it. Yes, And as soon as I'm out of this fucking shitthole, yes that I'm I was born in, and that all these people are judging me in, yes, I'm fucking out of here, and I'm going to show everyone that this isn't shameful and that this is worthwhile and that I was actually pretty good at it, and so fuck you all. You know, I'm going to go into this room here where no one is and work on that silently until I get the opportunity to get out of it. Amazing, beautiful story. Thanks. I definitely spent too long, though, because you know, after after you want to prove yourself, it's like that feeling doesn't doesn't go away naturally, So long after you need to prove yourself, you're still trying to prove yourself. Yeah, And I think that is that's what you're chipping at. That that's the thing I've been chipping away at is that that need to prove that I can do something. I mean, I've proven that, you know, I don't need to anymore, while you don't need to do that anymore. If it's driving you're making great music. Yeah, it's a it's worth the price, yeah in a way, in a way. Yeah, I've debated that with myself over the years of you know, where it was was the music worth the pain? And there have been times when I said no, and I would have taken it all back fully, Yeah, yeah, because I think you know, until you develop who you are outside of music, and you develop your sort of raised on there for outside of it, then it can feel that when it's taken away, it removes your purpose as a human beings. So therefore you might as well not be here. And that's that's where I got to during the Color and Anything almost you know, before I came here, that's where I was because I thought, well, if I can't do this, then what can I do? What's the point in me being here? There's no point, which is obviously i'm very unhealthy thought, but it's but it was because I hadn't worked on any of my relationships or my friendships or or myself. I'd only worked on music at that point, so it's like, well, if this thing isn't working and I've got block on this, then I'm fucked. And I was fucked. And so from the point of being fucked, it was a long road to unfucking myself. As Russell Brown would put it, how do you describe the difference from the from the first album to the second album? From the first of the second, well, the second had more pressure on it by quite a long stretch. And I don't you know, I don't shy away from pressure, but the songs time you had to deal with it, though. Really that was the first so I kind of didn't really understand it in a way. I wasn't really I didn't really feel afraid because I was like, well, this has never happened to me before, so this is all brand new anyway, so I might as well just react to what's happening. I'm not. I wasn't consumed yet with what people thought of me, because I was already I was doing well and I thought, well, I'll just continue doing that right and people would like it again. So I did. And but you know that the song for that record, I Retrograde didn't really come to me until probably the second from last thing I wrote in a like three year period. It actually was touch and go really, because if that song hadn't been on the record, I don't think people did bore it. You know, it was it was by far and away the standout song in terms of people's I think people bought it because they liked the first album, but then Ritrograd was the one that they talked about, right, and had had that I'll been on there, I think it would have been harder to convince people that I'd evolved and though I was getting better at my craft, you know, because I think the rest of it is fairly I mean, it's more put together than the first one, but it's like, I think some of that album is caught in a middle ground between complete collage and song. So you know, it needed that song with a real backbone, even though it's not a conventional structure. It needed that song with a real backbone to pop out and grab people. So but yeah, I think, you know that's by that time, I'd been in my first relationship as well, which changed things, and I had more to write about. I wasn't just writing about being a lonely virgin anymore, and you know there was some level of account accountability from that as well, you know, like just starting to realize that I actually affect other people and they affect me. Yeah, I would say even even the songs rooted in collage are I think it's such a big part of what you do that a good collage from you is every bit as compelling as someone else's good song. Oh, that's nice to hear. Yeah, I think it's it's it's it's really, I think that's your your mastery is of that. Well, I definitely I would I'd say I got into the habit of thinking of it as weaker and so it's nice to hear say that. I think it might be your superpower. Well, I think it's the superpower I didn't want. Yeah, I think it's you know, it's it's it's I think that if it is that, I think that's the kid for a lot of people. I think we're assigned. Yeah, it's like, give me invisibility. I don't want the ability to make a collage. But I'd say two years ago, if I could have chosen, I would have taken strong pop songwriting as as a power over what I have. Yes, and I'm so glad you didn't get that choice. Yeah, I mean too. And actually now i'd say I'm happy with what I have, you know, I'd say that I'm I'm excited to see what that yields in the future, because I think it's nice to think that you can do something after all these years, to look look at what you do and go, oh no, it's it's naturally evolved over all this time. And if I hadn't have been me, then it would have never got off the ground. Maybe none of it would have got off the ground. And it's like finding money down the back of the sofa. It's like, you know, oh, I still got that. You know, I've found this ability that I've got to do this thing that is actually kind of unusual. We'll be right back with more from James Blake. We're back with James Blake talking to Rick Rubin about moving to LA full time and also about putting his live show together with friends and bandmates Rab mccandrews and Ben Asset. Are you living out here full time now? I am? Yeah. You know, it's funny since I since I came to sharing with LA, I didn't leave really. I flew over here like I was in such a bad way, and I remember, you know, telling you about a lot of that stuff. And when I was in England, I think I just had this idea that I was just going to stay there, and you know, it's very English of me, but just to kind of you know, stay and suffer. Yeah, and I Jemina sort of put me on a plane basically, and because she was already going and I was like, yeah, I'll come with you. And but she'd been in La and I was staying in England and just getting stuck essentially, and then so and then she brought me over and the first thing I did was come here pretty much, and she came to stay with me, and we basically fell in love here. So that moment, those like four months were like, you know, for us, kind of like a summer holiday thing, and you know, it was it was up and down. But ultimately we may not have had that time again because you know, after I left Shangola, she ended up getting really busy and I got really busy, and so that it was really formative being here and I and I didn't pack much stuff. I just came here and then I was like, I'm never I realized I'm not going back. It was a very It was a moment of real clarity as I am, I don't know if I'm ever going to live there again. Yeah, it's interesting. I want to just fly my stuff over, like I don't even want to go back to interesting. It's interesting when it hits you. Yeah, the reality of oh I'm not going back. Yeah. I can remember you talked about ups and downs, and I can remember there was one time when there was something going on relationship wise that was heavy, and we watched that video about non balant communication. I remember it really reached you. It was huge. That moment was huge, and I wanted to thank you actually in person because because I haven't really you know that things have gone in so many different directions for the both of us, but we haven't really seen each other since those sessions. But I wanted to thank you because that moment was instrumental in our relationship, but also just in general for me. It was the Marshall Rosenberg non violet communication thing and learning after a lifetime of basically just accusatory language, you know, of just saying well, if I feel this way, then it must be you know, you did this and you did that, and that's why I feel like this and actually to be able to do away with that kind of language and speak from a place of feeling and non accusatory language. I recommend that now to everyone I come across who was in a relationship or just even who wants to change the way they work with the world. It's it's massive. It like change the way I produce as well, like the way I am makes you more approachable. You can roll with the punch, is much easier, things tend not to go sour. Relationships that you know with people who are more like that are much more likely to work because you can come to a middle ground. And so I mean, yeah, not only did it fix that particular problem at the time in my ship, but also just had so many knock on effects. So thank you. I've done a lot of growing up, and I think actually, like the kind of in anything. The record we worked on together was so much a coming of age record. Really, I don't know if coming of age means a certain age, but for me that was, you know, I was twenty six or twenty five, and you know, coming into the what they call the Satin Was it The Satin Returns or whatever? And yeah it was. I mean that is that is a complex album. It's a it's a dense kind of forest in my mind when I when I look back at that music, I do a little bit feel sorry for you for having had to sit while I you know, I mean, if you ever watched The Crystal Maze. No, we had this game show in the UK where basically there's a team of people, like four of them or multiple of them are outside the maze, basically being able to communicate with the person that is in the maze. And so there's one person going through the maze, but they don't see everyone else sees it from the bird's eye view and they only see it from inside the maze. So they're like no, no no, no, go left, go left. I feel like that's what that record was. I feel like you were You were the people outside the maze, and I was in the maze trying to get the fuck out of it, making all the wrong turns. But I think, you know, I did get out of it in the end. But it's like, as a producer, how do you see that kind of situation? Is it a challenge? Is it a personal challenge. Is it a musical challenge or is it it's just it's just part and parcel of the job. It's part of the job. Is it's as much about having an instinct about the music as as an instinct of how to deal with the emotions going on in the room and people and where people are in their lives. Yeah, and it's so different, and you'd think it has something to do with each, but it really doesn't, right, And I've seen at both ends of the spectrum. I've seen very young artists who are attached to some ideas that are not helpful to them and are unwilling to let go of them because they because of in their limited view, they think that that thing that they're not willing to let go of is the reason they've gotten as far as they've gotten. That's one version. And then I've seen, you know, I've worked with you know, seventy year old greatest artists in the world, and they still seem lost. It's unbelieving, you know, it's unbelievable at both ends. But then there and then you you meet people who are just completely comfortable with themselves, comfortable with the process. There's no rules, you know, it really is different every everyone, and you must get it is. I mean you get to work with a lot of people and you see it's it's completely different every time. It is. And I noticed that when when as a producer, I think with my producer hats on, coming to work at shang Laren and working with you was huge for learning how to adapt to those situations because I'd put someone in that situation myself, you know, like I can look back on moments of coming into the studio and just not wanting to work. You know, we were here for months, so there were days when I just couldn't work. I was just catatonic, almost like I could barely even speak. Most people can hide that if they're only going to the studio for like a day or two, a few sessions in a week. But when you're going through something and you're just going in every day and you're staying at the studio, then you can't really hide it as well. It's like being in Big Brother or something like a reality TV shows, like you can hold it up for hold up the facade for a while, but at some point everybody's seeing you every day, like all the engineers, the assistant, the you know, you like at some point you break. I think what it showed me was how to accommodate somebody's their actual real life and the fact that their real life is what they're drawing from, and to not take that for granted. It's actually really heavy some of the ship people go through to actually what they put into this music, and so you can't always think about music basically, and then it can't always only be about the music, because ultimately, if you don't have any ability to listen to them about the other stuff, then why are you really as a producer. There's also the I imagine it's different for you as I think of you primarily as an artist who as a producer, right, But maybe that's just because that's the way I came in contact with you as an artist first. Now I think you're probably right. Yeah, I don't imagine that adds another layer of complexity to it, because you always would know what you would do as an artist, but what you would do as an artist might not always be what's best for them as an artist. So being the producer for them is different than being an artist collaborating with them as another Yeah, to be able to have some distance and to maintain that clarity and objectivity is much easier when you're not thinking about your you know this outpouring all the time. And and actually a little bit like you know when people say that once they're in a safe relationship, all of the all their stuff rises to the top. When you're starting like an album campaign or sorry, an album recording, and you don't know where it's going to go, and you're just you know, you're trying to find or at least I'm trying to find the real feelings and the and the you know what it is. I want to say, you're likely to stumble on some land mines emotionally because they're there, and it part of the process of trying to heal yourself for musicians in some way, at least temporary, really is to step on them. So you know, I think I stepped on a few while I was here. That's why it's so therapeutic. The process of making music is so healing, both for the person making the music and for the listener. Yeah, you know, there's some there's something inherent in it. Even when someone's singing about something terribly painful and there's no resolution in the song that has a healing feeling for someone who's also feeling that because you resonate on a human level, I'm not alone, you know, this is a real Yeah, we're in this together, even though we don't know each other. Yeah, that's right. I actually think that for me, the allure of producing probably grew greater after I worked with you, just because I saw that there was a way of stepping back, you know. I think being so in it all the time, just in the emotional trenches, it's just it's hard and and it takes its hell in a way, it's healing, but then also takes a toll, and the people around you are constantly subjected to it. You're not the same basically, and it is ultimately a fairly self absorbed thing. So I think my fear as someone who you know, got into music. I mean, I was touring by the time I was twenty one, you know, and like I was starting to DJ, starting to play live, and everything became about me. And I'm the solo artist. I'm the front man, I'm the you know, the person who does the interviews. I'm what people are trying to get answers out of. I think at a certain point when I realized that that was having a negative effect on people around me. I almost became allergic to the idea of going to that place where everything's about me again. And so the idea of going to a studio and having everybody, like, you know, having people getting the food, getting the you know, going to like even just turning knobs for me, but on the desk, you know, or people asking me, you know, what are your thoughts on how this is good? You know, this album being about my emotions in some way felt selfish, self indulgent. Self indulgent, yeah, and selfish because ultimately, you know, people around me lives would change if I went and just stayed and I stayed in the sorry a studio for a month or maybe let some of my responsibilities go a little bit, because I was so absorbed in the music. And so I think I'm becoming a bit afraid of that. And I think producing was a way to transition out of that thing and ultimately be able to just go home, clock out. And I noticed that when I was here. One of the things that always struck me as Initially it struck me as odd, but then I realized was fucking great is that you would always clock out at like seven o'clock, so we'd work from twelve to seven, and then you'd be out and you'd be having dinner with your wife. I always thought, but what if something amazing happens after seven o'clock, you know? And but that's me being so absorbed in it that I think that that's more amazing than having dinner. It's not, you know. And now I realize that it's not more amazing. Firstly, it's not more amazing than having dinner. Secondly, it's important to have your boundaries, and it's just so much hard to have your boundaries when it's your music. Let me let me say two things about that, or things to think about about that. The first one is it's different for an artist who does a deep dive into a window of time making an album. Let's say it's several months of total dedication to nothing else. So you've done that four times over the course of your life. I do that every day, all the time, for the last thirty something years, you know, hundreds of times. So for me, it's different because if there's no breaks on a day basis, and there's no breaks in my life ever at all, and I do feel like and I learned this the hard way is that I probably spent twenty five years of my life in dark rooms with no windows, often past the point of productivity. Yes, out of some other other thought of thinking I was going to miss something, which I don't believe I did considering the fact that if work is still going on and something good happens, I get to hear it the next day when I come in. Either way. Yeah, the other part of it is that that's in terms of the personal balance side, then in terms of the having perspective, being able to step away or even better, getting to work on something else and then coming back really changes your relationship to it. Yeah, you're hearing it closer to the way other people are going to hear it. Other people don't get to hear it a million times in a row before they even decide if it's done or if they like it. Yeah, it's another thing I've learned to stop. I don't take any mixes out of the studio with me. I never listen to a work in progress unless unless there's a specific reason to, you know, if there's a decision to be made, I'll listen, but I don't want to listen to something over and over and over again and get used to it, because then I'll think that's how it goes, when in reality, if I don't listen to it and come back fresh and hear it, I may realize, oh, this part that sounded the right length yesterday is too long. I wouldn't have known that if I kept drilling it into my head in the way that I liked on that one day. So there's a real benefit in stepping away and coming back and seeing it fresh. There's a balance to be struck, for sure, if you can maintain some sense of normalcy at the same time as in your private sort of way being this absolutely not really for this thing that you're this little kind of sculpture you're building in your in your back room. That's kind of what it feels like. But I but I do feel that wherever I am, it always feels like I have this secret, you know. I feel like, you know, I could just be at a party, or like I could be at the beach or whatever, but in the back of my mind, I'm building this this thing at home. And in some ways that's a cool feeling, and in other ways that's an incredibly kind of isolating feeling because no one could see it. Yeah, but it's like when I first came here, I was like, oh this is this is like life rehab, like people come here to get better whatever it is. You know, everything's white and green like the grass, and you know there's like more, there's like exotic wildlife just coming and perching outside just as you're writing lyrics of the other things you've got to produce and collaborate on. What's been the most fun for you outside of you as an artist? M Well, Andre three thousand spins to mind, and some of my work with Stara has been really fun. The most fun I mean it was I mean working on four or four is incredibly gratifying, even though I didn't actually do that much. I mean in terms of, you know, musical input there really wasn't a huge amount. But it was being in the room and being a part of a record being created and being an opinion that was driving where that record went, one of many, and helping Jay formulate whatever. Even to just play a small part in that was just so fucking fun. And just his process showed me that there was a different process. You know, I could have loads of people being a committee and and and and take every opinion. What's that quote? Megan Markles said it in an interview recently. Let let compliments and criticisms flow down the same drain. You know, amazing ability to do that presence of mind over himself. And I imagine your voice was probably different than many of the voices in the room, which is interesting. Yeah, although probably the biggest, like the person I learned the most from aside from Jay was No Idea. He probably is the most truth telling, one of the most truth telling people I've ever met, just in terms of you know, he doesn't care what the reaction is to what he's saying. He will just deliver the absolute, whole truth. And that I think is part of the essence of fourth or four I think is No Ideas. Next to Jay, the biggest influence on that record is No Idea. It's so helpful when someone will really reflect reality back. Yeah, at the cost of potentially of upsetting the person. Absolutely, it's a difficult road to walk, Yeah, but it's really what's necessary. And the reason so many successful artists work over time tend to diminish is because the voices around them just start so true. Nodding, Yes, we know examples of that happen right now that it's tough to it's tough to watch when you know you love someone's music, but that is the way it is. Takes an immense strength of character to allow dissident voices into your session, and mine happens to be in my relationship, which is very useful. You know, someone will just be like, no, I can't, that's not not hitting, or you know, keeps you grounded, well, yeah, and or just the encouragement of your authentic self, you know, tell me about the coverage you're working on. Well, I've done this DANCEFPP and the next thing is that I'm going to be releasing kind of studio versions of some of the covers I released over the year. When I say released, I mean I just played them on a whim on ig live streams and then they became and then I looked back and go, oh, no, that actually, you know, I made sort of slightly made that on my own, so I'm going to put that on this EP. Nice. It started as just an opportunity to play music live because I didn't have enough songs that I wanted to play at the piano because you know, a lot of my music stems from production exercises in a lot of ways, so taking some of those back to the back to the keyboard doesn't always work as a piano song. So I was like, well, you know, then I put out a request to fans saying like, you know, what do you want me to hear? So we what do you want me to cover? And got overwhelmed with responses, read through literally all of them and it was thousands and genre wise, what were the things that were sent to you? Like, what was the spectrum? I mean every literally everything, No, there wasn't. There wasn't you know, in terms of recorded songs, there was, There was every genre. But the ones I ended up picking out were just Nirvana, Stevie one. I mean they were like the heavy hitters really of songwriting, because really I was listening for the DNA of the songs and could I actually perform them. I think I'm attracted to the just the same. You know. When I say same, I mean I'm attracted to pop music. Yeah, that's what my natural disposition is to listen to the best pop music. And I think the best pop music ever written, the Beatles, Nirvana, Billie Eilish, some of those songs, you know, Stevie Wonder, Frank Ocean, Radiohead Bill with us. I mean that's like eighteen minute. So talk about how the live show came together. It's some of the best live performances I've ever seen I've been thanks to you. Yeah, thanks for coming to our shows. Yeah, tell me how did it come? Coming from a DJ background, I would not guess that the show that you do would be the show that you do, right, because it's not got any backing tracks or any sinking or anything like that. A lot of reasons, A lot of reasons. Yeah, it's very specific what you're what what I've seen is a very specific thing. I don't know anyone else who does what you and your group do. Yeah, we started noticing those, you know, those little SPD pads after we It's like a little Roland pad that you can hit that you can put samples on it. Basically like a like an MPC but for drummers. And I remember we started using that and then like a couple of years later, I started seeing all these other bands with this little drum thing, which is a small thing, but that's what that's how we got away from the computer, is how we got away from ableton, from from sinking from midi clicks, from having to be dependent on the pulse of a computer, basically because as soon as that happened, we tried it. But as soon as it happened, Ben just feel the same, and like none of our music stunded the same, even though it was different to the records. Like probably what would have been most faithful, most faithful to records was playing to a midi click with Ben with the headphones, and but it didn't feel you know, I'd done a lot of jamming in bands before. I played in a lot of different bands before I started making music, just like in pubs or at school or cover bands, like just stuff, you know, like circuit stuff, just learning to blend in with other musicians, you know, like how to not always be sloing, how to sometimes hold it down keyboard wise, It's like learning lead or rhythm guitar. And I knew I wanted to play like a band, and actually me, Ben and Rob had been in a band at school, so I knew what it felt like to play with Ben and Rob where we weren't tied to anything. So suddenly it just felt like being in strait jackets, so we just got away. I was militant about anything with if there were other apps on this thing, it wasn't allowed on stage. Like if you could email on it, you're not having it on stage. So it became about okay, so how do we So we've got the drum pad, We've got these synths. They're the ones I used on the record. Rob has this magical ability to fill in any gap on a record, so like if we needed a guitar, that he had it. But if we needed a chair, if we needed like a sample that had to come in at a certain point, he could. He's just very good at multitasking, so he could do it all. If we needed a baseline. He was playing the Moog Taurus like the Taurus three is amazing. I used that as the base for Retrograde. So I just brought it from home and we used it on tour. So I'll say it was expensive. You know, I've probably bought six profits six of every keyboard to have three different rigs over course of time and replacements. So every piece of gear we've got on stage, I've got three or four or five copies of So took a while to make money, but you know, once you get going, you know, you're a self sufficient live act that can't go wrong unless one of these bits of gear blows up. And even then I can just transition something else. It can't just stop because of a laptop broke. That's the other thing is that we would proof like we were completely watertight when it came to we can react to anything that goes wrong, but a computer can't. Yes, and there's nothing worse. And I've been on stage when a laptop fails, and there's nothing worse than just three nerds standing over a laptop screen wondering why the music it's not coming out like it. It's just the worst image. So I just, you know, just just went for that. So but yeah, like in terms of how we developed the show, it was like divvying out part. Really it was like, okay, so who can play what? And we've got three of us, and if we can't play everything, and then we just won't play everything, and maybe the sound guy can do a couple of delays, but that's about it. So we kind of treated it like a dub and in a way like you know, you've got sort of our sound guy had to be scientist or King Tubby and we were the band. Yeah, having seen you live and so loving the albums. Once I saw you live, it sounded like the albums were the demos for the live show. That's what it sounds like, because I remember you saying, why don't you just record the next album? Because it takes on this whole other thing that's incredible when it's played live, just like the added human element, well, it's all the elements are human rather than just one yes, but human element of the interaction of rhythm. Yeah, do you know what I mean. It's like a conversation rather than yes, completely yes, because yeah, and it has a different life to it that it's thrilling. Now, I don't know if that's only because I know the computer version that hearing it released from the straight jacket, it's so thrilling. Yeah, I'm not sure, but I know that because I've I've never heard I don't think I've ever heard any of the music live before hearing the record, So I don't know, but I will say knowing the record seeing it live, it's only better. It's funny because a lot of things, you know, there are some songs that i'd feel don't get better and there are, and we just choose the ones that do. Yeah, And you know a lot of bands just have to play the songs that don't translate that well live or because they're the big songs, you know, or that we've been lucky and also we've just sometimes we just play the ones that don't translate that well, and which you know, we've not always made the right choices with songs. But I think I feel quite lucky in a way. I would like to record an album where it's just me, Ben and Roll playing the songs I've written. Obviously, that would be a much longer process because you've got to write the song, write the album, then learn it, then play it, and then produce that. Yes, And at the time when we were doing Current Anything, I remember you suggesting it, I was just like, I don't actually have time. I don't think I've got the headspace to be able to do that. I don't have the time, potentially the money because you know it's not cheap. And then also I don't have the I don't have any life force left. Like I just was like drained, I was dying. I felt like I was dying. Someday, I hope we get to do that, Yeah, And the way to do it is to essentially finish the album. Yeah, you would do exactly the same thing. What you do, know is you finish an album and then you decide how you're going to play it live, and then you play it live. Right. The only difference will be when the record comes out exactly but the process will be exactly the same. Everything will be exactly the same. And to have that presence of mind to be like that's going to be the way it goes, then yes, But I think the time when you're becoming attached to all these demos, all these all these songs, yes, and the way they're produced and the way they sound and the where they hit, and it's like I was just becoming so attached to the production of these things I couldn't allow. But then the other thing is that I quite enjoyed the fresh lease of life it gets when it becomes a live adaptation. Absolutely. I quite enjoyed having this thing at home that sounds like that, and then being able to take this very organic thing on the road and its feeling different and it being a surprise to people rather than it just sounding note for note the same thing as they've just heard at home. Do you ever learn anything about the songs when you play them live? Does your relationship to the music change? And I sing them differently? And actually I sing the melodies slightly differently live. But it's funny how we adapt like sometimes and even be an improvisation one night that you get used to and then you just start doing it that way and then you just think that's how it goes. Yeah, it's like a lie that I started to believe. And that's great. That's kind of fine as well, because ultimately, you know, sometimes when you hear a musician sing a song, like a Tommy York or whatever, and you're like, I know this record inside out, so when he sings it, it's it's going to have to chime in with the exact thing that I've got in my mind. And when they sing it differently, could be just because they've almost Chinese whispered themselves over the course of two tours and now it sounds like this. And it's nice to see the iterations of these songs over the years and how how musicians reidentify with the songs, and you know, it's like Joni Mitchell, she actually came to see us at the Troubadour, which I probably told you about before, but it was an unbelievable moment. I remember her telling me that when she originally wrote Case Review, she didn't know how to tell the story, even though she had told the story in the lyrics and the on the record. But she told me that she as she got older, she became a better storyteller in her delivery, and she now knew the correct emotion behind the things she'd written, almost like it would It was disembodied of that in the first inclination, but as she got older, it was imbued with real depth and you know, just emotion. And I think that's happened in some ways to some of the songs I've written, where I've realized their meaning way after I wrote them, maybe because when you're writing them, it's coming more from the subconscious, so it's almost like a dream that you can reflect on later, Like the time you wake up from a dream, it just seems like surreal, but if you look back years later, it's like, oh, that meant I know exactly what that meant exactly. Yeah, there's that. And also I think maybe that it's an intellectualization in the moment, unless you were just freestyling lyrics straight from the subconscious, it would be difficult to not premeditate these lyrics. I mean it is they are by definition premeditated. So you know, there's a sense that you've intellectualized what you feel, and therefore there is a natural dis embodiment from the feeling to the lyric in your explanation of it. It may not always be perfect, and that is our job, in a way, is to articulate. But then later on, once you know the lyrics, once you they're in you and you'll never forget them their muscle memory, then the feeling can come through them much easier. So the first time I ever sing songs, I'm not reagod at singing them. They don't come out feeling integral or authentic. It's when I've sung them for a couple of years or even ten years, that's when you're like, oh, he's now a conduit. Those those lyrics are a conjuit the for what's going on, beautiful, Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely my pleasure I've made. I honestly seeing you again and actually in the place where we recorded, covering anything I have been having almost I mean, honestly, it's so pivotal for me to come back here again, and you know where my relationship started, where my album was made, where I went through all those changes, and in front of you and with in some ways, with your guidance and with what's happened. Since it's so big for me to come back here, and it feels so good, and I think it's almost felt like therapy. It's just unlocked a couple a little like oh yeah, and then and then that and then you know, and then I've been talking about but this because I've been almost piecing together memories and and going, oh, this is really important, beautiful. You know, I'm so happy to be on the journey with you. Thanks having me on. Yeah, thanks to James Blake for sharing so much of his journey and creative process with Rick. You can hear all of our favorite James Blake songs and I playlist at Broken record podcast dot com, along with the original songs that he covered on his new ep and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcasts, where we can find extended cuts of our new and old episodes Broken Record is produced with help from Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler and his executive produced by me a Little Bell. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries and if you like Broken Record, please remember to share, rate, and review our show on your podcast. Aff Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond Pace