Grammy-winning guitarist Peter Frampton says, “Sound is very inspirational to me." And it always has been—Frampton started playing guitar before he was 8 years old. He talks about his musical roots in England, playing in bands like The Preachers and The Herd. At age 14 he was playing at a recording session produced by Bill Wyman, who he says is “sort of like my mentor, my older brother.”
Just eleven years later, Frampton was on stage in San Francisco, recording Frampton Comes Alive—one of the biggest-selling live albums of all times. Frampton also talks about the challenges of his extraordinary achievement: “I don’t think anybody can be ready for that kind of success.”
Thom Yorke, Radiohead and Atoms for Peace frontman, admits that, even after over 25 years in the business, performing is “either wicked fun or really awful.” He talks with Alec about his pre-show ritual—"I stand on my head for a bit"—and how he and his bandmates have been able to stick together since they were teenagers.
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I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing. Sound is very inspirational to me. We didn't have any sound system in the house. We had nothing, no high find nothing today to musicians, both English each picked up the guitar at a very young age. Tom York at seven, Peter Frampton at eight. They listened to whatever they could get their hands on. York spent hours in his dad's car listening to tapes. Frampton worked in a music store and for both it paid off. Okay, come on, admitted. If you're my age, you remember exactly where you were when you first heard this. That's the sound of twenty five year old Peter Frampton performing what would become one of the top selling live records of all time. It was nineteen seventy five and Frampton Comes Alive would change his life. He was young, but hardly a newcomer. By then, he'd already made four solo albums for A and M Records. He started The Man Humble Pie with Steve Marriott when he was eighteen. He'd been part of the Herd at age sixteen, and at fourteen he recorded a song for Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones. Peter Frampton was a musical prodigy while still just a kid navigating the alcohol and drug laden music scene of the seven I was pretty much of a late bloomer. I had to really learn to drink. You know, when people I expect you to, I think, so there is Yeah, it doesn't matter. Your age didn't really like it, like you're in the army. Yeah, exactly. You gotta swear and drink, you know, and now do drugs. I passed out so many times from anxiety attacks from pot. I'm trying to get high plays. But anyway, I managed it in the end, right, but not really. When I was with Humble Pie, you know, you're talking to somebody who your music is like so important to me, and you talk about me growing up when I was a kid and you were very young then, I mean Humble Pie a kid, you know. You know when I was growing up, there was like the Beatles, the Stones, Zeppelin, the Who and Humble Pie. You don't want to know what I put in my body listening to Doctor. I mean, you don't want to know, and you put and you perform with them for how many years? Seventy four years? And well, how would you characterize that period for stuff. Did you enjoy it? Unbelievable? They were very popular. Yes in the States as well. Yes, that band brought me to America where that's where we started. I met I mean probably one of the first gigs. I met Bill Graham. You know, you realized now when I look back, it was the beginnings of the creation of rock and roll shows. Truly. Bill Graham was the guy on how to do it live? You know? And why did Humble Pie? And a couple of reasons. I was feeling claustrophobic in the band because we started off very democratic and doing it all different types of music, and now our our stage act was narrowing and we were just doing more more of that heavy rock and roll, which I love. Don't get me wrong. That's my riff, I Don't need no Doctor. That's me jamming the sound check in at Madison Square Garden, and Steve just jumped up on the stage and started singing, I Don't need no Doctor over that riff. You know, he and I were very much that's him singing. Yeah. Yeah, he's the one that says it's been a gas. Yeah. We go home on Monday. We go home on Monday. But what I'm tell oh, he was probably a couple of years old. And but you feel claustrophobic white because we want I wasn't being able to do the music, all of this music that I wanted to do. Humble Pie started off really split between acoustic and electric. And also I was coming into my own and Steve and I fought like brothers. Yes, that's which, which is why humble Pie was so fiery. I think because musically it was phenomenal. You know, sometimes we degree and sometimes we just wouldn't agree. It was very sad for me because I knew it would upset them, but I just felt that I had to it was time to go on. And did you know where you wanted to go? No idea. I knew that I was. I didn't want to form another band. I wanted to become a solo artist. Why because I wanted to make all the decisions, because I'm a complete control freak. Did you feel you wanted Yeah, I wanted to try things that. Yeah, I wanted to try things that maybe other people wouldn't want to try. You know, I wanted to do it, and I have to say that it wouldn't have been I wouldn't have had a solo career had it not been for Humble Pie. I learned so much from working with Steve Marriott. I have to hand him a lot of the credit for the sort of things that he introduced me to listen to as well, music blues and build black combo and stuff like that. That was really influential to me. So that's why it was a bitter sweet thing leaving. I wanted to leave, but I didn't want to leave. And then, of course, as soon as I left the live album that I had a big hand in mixing rock in the film or comes Out, I've left right at that point, and it zooms up the charts. It's Humble Pie's first gold record, and I'm going, holy crap, that's it. It's the first big blooper of my career, you know. And so then it was four studio albums before we did Comes Alive, you know, and a lot of a lot of touring and where are you living then? You still I was still living in England until seventy five, when I finished the fourth solo record in England and then moved over. I actually moved to New York orc and stayed at the Mount Kisco Holiday Inn on New Year's Eve. Sw Yeah, it was beautiful and found Bob Mayo Bob Mayo on keyboards from the live record in the band at the holiday and it's it's a long story, but yeah. So basically the first day of seventy five was I was now living in America. When you do comes Alive, how much of the music on that is new music on an album? How much of it was stuff you mind from the previous four solo albums. It was basically all stuff that came from the four studio albums. And rock On from shine On was a humble Pie track that I had written. It was actually from five albums. So it's like six years worth of work mining that went into that one live record. And for people who don't know that live performance was recorded in multiple locations are in. Most of it was one location, which was winter Land in Sanrancisco, Bill Graham gig where The Last Wolfs was filmed two nights before we'd played the Marine Civic Center and we've done two shows there, so we recorded that. I think a couple of numbers came from there, do WI I think comes from there, maybe one of the acoustic songs. But winter Land was the first big headline show we'd ever done, I'd ever done with my name on the ticket people were coming to see me for because the album right prior to Comes Live Just Trampton was the biggest one so far, biggest sellery had done, sold like three hundred thousand copies, which was mega for me. That was better than all the other things in that four album run prior to the live album in winter Land, things were getting better that they were, but that one was definitely setting me up. It was setting me up for something. How many nights at winter Land? One? One show? Okay? Okay, so stop. So you're in winter Land? Yes, and would you say, and the show goes on what time? Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, nine o'clock? Yeah? Probably probably, So somewhere between you pull up to winter Land and you go out of quarter and nine, the devil came in your room and made a deal with you. Correct, you signed a deal with the devil, showed up, poured himself a drink, sat down, said Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, let's cut, let's cut. It was Peter Cook. Actually it was Peter Cook. And he's and he said, let's make a deal. And the devil makes this deal with you because what happened. First of all, there's probably if I'm not mistaken, if there wasn't sent people out there, then I thought they were set. But it's it definitely sounds like it. It's a big room. They go nuts when we walk out, and it just takes you to a different level. You know. It felt good. It was one of those shows when you come off and you at the band and you just go, I wish we'd recorded that. That was like so good man, And then we went who we did? You know we did record that? We forgot we were do you see? The event was so much more important than the recording. I don't even remember the truck being there. The recording is June of nine, five minutes released when we're still mixing, right up before Christmas, and then it comes out I believe on like January's seventeenth or something like that, ninth January nine or what happens. Well, I knew we were going to tour the whole year, so right after Christmas I went down to the Baham was for ten days and relaxed. Before I left, we had put one show on at Cobo Hall in Detroit, which is a big rum and that's all I knew. And so I go away and I don't call anybody. I'm just on the beach and snorkeling whatever. I come back, We've sold four shows out and I said, what happened, you know? And the album has just started to be on the radio, you know, And that's when everything just went went through the room. After all this time. People think it is overnight, but it's not overnight in the scheme of things. But it's a huge, yes, but it's overnight success, but it is. It's a heady experience. It is just still the highest selling live album of it's in dispute, yeah, but up there. Yeah, because my records only counted as one one album. A certain other artists had it made so that you could count, um, if you released six CD live set, you can count it six times. Well, they didn't do that retroactively. So in my mind it's still the biggest seller. And eventually how many albums did your self. We're up in the seventeen million now, seventeen million records and they're moving across the day. When you come out of that experience of having this huge thing, I want to talk to you. Not about how it affected you career was because obviously that wasn't important. How did it affect you personally? Were you married at the time. I had a girlfriend at the time. I don't think anybody can be ready for that kind of success, and I'm pretty down to earth person. I take things as they come. As I said earlier to you, I was a late bloomer when it came to dulling anything. You know, it was almost unbelievable the amount of success. Get these phone calls in quick succession, your number one in the charts, you know, and I'm going, wait a second, say that one more time, and who are you? Was that the time you thought of you had to start them in yourself? Yeah, it was crazy because people just wanted to her. No, it was very you don't know how to deal with how people treat you differently exactly, and being always being respectful, and and never really thinking of myself as anything special because I've never been a that's just not my came. I felt embarrassed that I was that this entity became it was me over here, you know. Yes, it was very hard to deal with last year. For the first time since nineteen seventy six, Peter Frampton found himself on stage performing the entire Frampton Comes Alive album. My reputation is as a live performer, so's it's been phenomenal for me. But it's hard work touring, but I love it, so that's not hard work for me. The tour was particularly memorable as Frampton was playing a guitar that had been missing for over three decades. First of all, we're talking about the guitar that's on the front cover of Comes Alive, which I got given to me by Mark Mariana in nineteen seventy when I was playing the film or West with Humble Pie, and I was having a terrible time with the guitar that I had at that that night, and Mark said to me, you know, I could see you having problems with that. You want to try my less Paul tomorrow. I said, well, I'm not really big on less pause, but okay, all right, anything is better than this, So he brought it to me. I played it. I don't think my feet touched the ground the entire It's the best guitar I've ever played. Basically, I used that exclusively. It's the only guitar I play all the way through all my solo records and including fram who comes alive. So then we get to touring South America. We just finished playing Caracas, Venezuela and we had a day off, and so we flew commercially to Panama waiting for the gear to arrive on a cargo plane. While it never got off the runway in Caracas, it crashed on take off. My road manager came to me and he said, I got some bad news. And he says, the plane crashed on takeoff. I said, my guitar, he said, and like six people loading people, the pilot, co pilot, loading, inspector, all that. So I mean, yeah, people died. So that took precedent over everything. Then it put it in active, you know. And there's the pilot's wife sitting at the bar who doesn't know yet. It was horrendous. So anyway, sent someone down my guitar tech at the time, a week later to see what was left. Nothing was left, supposedly, and there were guitars were actually in a trunk in cases in cases, and they had a guard to guard the crash site, the debris side. Util the insurance people came down and he decided that the guitars would be much safer at his house. Yes, and then Caracas. Yes, in Caracas two years ago, which is thirty years thirty years later. I opened my email because anybody can email me and I see them all. I opened up this one and there's a picture of photograph of my guitar slightly singed but but it's my lastly right at the up, you know, slightly singed, but but there it is. There's a picture, and I thought this picture where in an email to me from someone who would got ahold of the guitar. As it happens in Kurasau, which is a little island off the coast of Caracas. Someone had sold it to this gentleman and he took it to someone who fixed guitars, and they knew what it was. And it took two years of a very gray area and was he's saying like, I don't want to get proceed. I want to get this guitary, but I want to go to jail. That was the thing. No one wanted to actually come money. It wasn't about he wanted. There was a reward talked about, but every time it would get close to someone coming in, they'd find something reason why they couldn't come in, So that's why it took two years. And then in the end the guy actually checked to see if we had booked in a hotel because he just saw himself in handcuffs at Miami Airport, you know. And what happens while the two gentlemen walk in and he's got it in this probably one of the worst looking gig bags I've ever seen in my life, cheap, old plastic thing. He puts it beside him, you know, and he tells the story in broken English of how this person had it and the whole thing. So then he hands it to me and he goes Philip to Peter Philip so and I know that he knows because it was the lightest les pool I'd ever played. So I just felt it in the case and who this could be it? You know, opened it up. I just looked at it and I just feel it like that, and I go, it's my guitar. How badly was it sed? Where? Just round the very top it lost the binding around the headstock. Get the replaced. No, I didn't, I left it. I've left it with its battle scars. Gibson made it playable, so we refreshed all the caracas kiss and there is this sound the same. Does it feel the same? Just that? Yeah. And when I first played it at rehearsals with the band, everybody had this like cheshire cat grin on their face because it has the sound and it sounds like Frampton comes alive. You know, you don't have to try too hard. And you got that back when I got it back just before we started touring in February and March for the last American leg. I used it a little bit at rehearsals, and then I brought it out for the first night at the Beacon. I think the guitar is more famous than I am now, So you were meant to play that music with that guitar. Yeah, And I remember saying someone that before I went out that night. I just hope emotionally I'm going to be able to play it. And I brought it out for do You Feel? And I messed up the first leg because I couldn't believe I was playing how can you fumble dead? Me? I did? It was like meant to be, you know I And once I got it was saying to me, come on, get it together, you know. And yes, it's I'm back. Now get over it. You know what music do you listen to? Now? Who do you like? Um? Right now? This week band of Skulls. My son turned me onto and daughter turned me onto them. And I went to Coachella I saw Radiohead. I still I'm a Radiohead fanatic. I just loved them. I think they're so not mainstream, but they became mainstream because they're just so unique. Peter Frampton says he didn't listen to Radiohead early on, but now it's one of the few bands he and his kids enjoyed together. Next up, we'll hear from the leader of Radiohead himself, Tom York, also a father. My son is a great drama. But I don't know if you want to do that forever or He's like not bullet really, which is cool too. English musicians, almost twenty years apart in age, each with their own approach to surviving life as a rock star. Peter Frampton seems fueled by a stadium full of adoring fans, but for Tom York, well, performing is more complicated. It takes a long time for that to become natural. I think I'm Alec Baldwin and here's the thing, Take a listen to our archive more in depth conversations with artists, policymakers, and performers like Patti Lapone, Herb Albert, and Erica Jong. The media is more all pervasive and the image of women is even more confusing than it's ever been. I believe that's true. Go to Here's the Thing dot org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing just engine. Radiohead released their stunning debut single, Creep Slow. It was quiet, yet explosive, even haunting, and it's refrained had a powerful hook. Radioheads frontman and principal songwriter Tom Yorke is my guest, and if it was his wish to be special, the world granted it. York's band has become a commercial and critical success, selling over thirty million albums Do It's Serious. Each new album explores a different sound, delighting their followers and scooping up more fans along the way. The spirit of experimentation isn't limited to their music. In two thousand seven, York and his bandmates released in Rainbows on their website. First fans were invited to pay what they wanted for the album. Radiohead may not have been the first. The thumbags knows that the music industrial complex, but they might be the first to do so and sell out a major arena. That said, Tom York hasn't been comfortable in the spotlight. You don't do a lot of press um where you do what I was now on and as needed basis the need from basis, yea kind of York complains about celebrity worship, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Actually, I've got you a health food snack, did you yeah, because someone told me you were like all vegetarian and non Tom York is, after all, a guy who's married and has two kids. It can be easy to forget he's been a rock star for over twenty years. We started when we were sixteen. Radiohead's and some bands that have had a tremendous longevity, obviously the Rolling Stones of the premier example, they've changed partners over there's like they were the New York Yankees. You know, there's somebody else playing a base every four or five years. But you guys, it's the same cast of people all the sudden. What do you attribute that to persistence? My great diplomatic skills not But there must be times when they've I mean, I'll never forget, McCartney said to me, even the Beatles got tired of being the Beatles. Were the times you guys said there and looked at each other and said, I think we're done. I do that frequently, right, frequently, I mean at least the others two not as much. They just wait for me to do it. Um. It goes through these phases. You know, we've grown up together. It's weird. I mean, um. So, we just did a tour last year, right, and it was probably, in theory, the scariest one we've ever done, because it was lots of big gigs, which I normally am spending my time trying to shy away from. Why because you can't achieve technically in a large space where you normally want to exactly that you can't get across to people the right way, I felt. So we did spend a lot of time and effort coming up with like a stage design which used screens in a certain way which made it intimate, even though you know, some nights was like thirty or forty people trying to create some sort of intimacy with that, and when it worked, it was insane, because the upside of plane to that many people is you have this really crazy collective energy that you can tap into like a crowd, you know. I think there's one chair we did in Phoenix that sticks in my mind where there was something about maybe that it was in Phoenix and people don't get the opportunity those sort of people don't get the opportunity to get together that often or something. There was some sort of excitement within the crowd that was so great to play with. When when we hit it musically, it felt like the whole room, the whole of the building was moving. Honestly, we both came off, you know, and bump. I understand that not from my own experience, but from seeing artists perform. You know. I often asked myself, why the hell would would you put yourself through this? Because it's very stressful. It's a lot of pressure, and for me mentally, I just build myself up to it in my head gradually and it sounds really precious, but it messes with my head. What's your preparation before you do a live show, before you because in the studio it's obviously a whole different animal. Correct, Yeah, there's no preparation for the studio you do. You know, it's building a chill in the shop most of the time, which is how she should be I think and performing. Yeah, that's what's given to me. A couple of hours before you go out there and you've got to blow this thing out for all these people and just stone cold silence, basically almost meditative. Well, yeah, I do. I do that and focused. I stand on my head for a bit and basically I'm completely on my own until five minutes before we go on, and then we're all in the room together, pacing up and down like wild animals, and then then we're on. But when we first started doing big shows, it was with my from Michael Stipe, and he does the total opposite. He literally he'll be talking to you and then someone taps in the should and then they're on. And I was like, how the hell do you do that? Man? And I tried to do it like that, I couldn't do it, and so I ended up going did he did? Did you get any indication why Stipe could do that? What he used to do was you'd stand there for the first two tunes, barely move. He was a sort of lightning conductor, and he was just waiting for it to hit, and then when it hit he was off, but he would wait and if it wasn't going to hit, he was still there three or four tunes later, and waiting. He kind of warmed up in front of everybody, engaging it all. Whereas I can't do that because I have to sort of be clear of everything before you know whatever, I need to UM be completely empty. What do you think you'd do best lead a band? You well, you you play guitar, you write music, you produce music, you do and you sing. What do you think your greatest strengths if you had to pick one. So I don't know what I'm doing. I like the fact that I still don't know what I'm doing. I think we're not. Honestly, I can't go I'll go through whole phrases of UM months where I've got clue. I regularly lose complete confidence in what I'm doing. Why do you think that is because I have the same condition? Why partly because I think I don't quite understand how it happens after the fact, When when what happens when the appreciation comes to you know, when you're when you're piecing something together right, things will fall into place, make it. I mean, in some ways, the nicest bit about the creative thing, the nicest bit about recording and writing, is this sort of weird limbo where you in between scratching away scratching away, nothing really happening, nothing really happening, and then something's wants to be built and starts to get built. You just have to let it happen. And then it gets to the end and you and you look at it a few months later and go huh um. Sort of weird amnesia that goes with it. Something will happen, one little sound goes off, and you go, oh, that's really nice for me. When I was at school, I didn't get on with the school system at all. Um I see it, and my son the same, that sort of the mechanics of how a school operates and how you're supposed to blend in or whatever. So I hid in the music stroke art department and had a great time there and discovered that actually that's what I wanted to do. Straight away, the heads of both schools just saw what I was up. This is the teacher that you often credit with your Yeah, where was the teacher's name Terry James, but but it was him and my art teacher as well. Actually it was like someone sort of takes you under their wing and say, well, you know what, you're she quite good And then touring is a very critical thing in this business. Yeah, because it's enough. It's enough at that age, it's enough to just get a little push and then okay, what does someone push you in a different direction? Yeah, well that would be bad. Yeah, how about do you go to the other I think, yeah, my father used to think. I used to get advertising, which is like really brilliant. Yeah, I'd really be good at that. Well, one thing you're good at is avoiding My original question, which was what do you think your best at? And let's try to choose. If you can't, if you don't mind, confine yourself to the list, provide what do you think you're best at? Okay, this is multiple choice. Guitar band kind of you know, paternal figure, songwriting, producing, singing, mm hmm, I guess singing. Okay, I'm glad you chose that one. I was driving. I was trying I think when I popped the words singing the way I did, I was trying to war singing? What was singing to you? How did your singing evolved where you arrived at where you are now where most people say you have one of the most evocative singing voices and all of music today. Um well, basically I went to music. I went to a few singing lessons, but that was basically just so I could literally breathe right you know. Um well, my favorite singers like bu York. When I watched bu York sing um, I've been lucky enough to sort of sing with it and watch you do it. And I was gonna say, you one of the people going to use that phrase when I watched bu York said yeah, most of I say, well, when I listened to bu York, really it's in here, it's right here, they say, you know, with with with yoga and stuff that whatever it is, kind remember that that spot at the top of the forehead that you really Most singers like Neil Young is the same. He sings into this spot in his head and and what he's singing, he's already heard, you know what I mean, He's hearing it come out the same with with Bork. When she's singing, she's singing what she's hearing, so there's no force. It's a force in itself. It took me a while to get that, and it keeps changing to me how I sing now or to me it feels different to a few years ago. It just does. It just does age everything to do it. Well, yeah, there's probably some physical element to it, but but also just where you're at, you know, because singing is nothing but like probably like acting, singing is nothing but being in a moment. That's it, and where you're at. Yeah, when you do like, um, when I used to be like you know, when when you're trying to singing or whatever, gender I remember sort of okay, computer, I still had this thing like, well I need to be a little bit half cut when i'm you know, I need to do something or other beforehand so that I'm in the right space. Man, where it's all bollocks because basically you're just going to learn to be there with it. When you do it, you're not trying to prove anything. You're not trying to get anywhere, you're not trying to achieve any thing. You're not trying to get this emotion across. You're not in this space trying to get this space across. You're not trying to get this mindset across or anything. You're just letting it happen when you do this now, when you live inside your life now, whether you're performing live or you're producing and recording music, do you feel different now that you're older. I mean, the chasm between when you're sixteen when you're forty three is extraordinary, isn't it. It's just mind bending. Yeah, his fatherhood affected your work, Um, yes, but not really that you have the obvious things where you run on the road more if you didn't have children. Yep, absolutely, But that's not necessarily a bad thing at all. You know, being on their road is is it's a it's not a great it's it's you don't want to do it all your life. You get a little bit on, it gets a little unhealthy quite quickly mentally, If not physically has been difficult for you, mentally it can be different. It means it's it's wicked fun, but too much. It's either wicked fun or really awful, like when you're sick. Then it gets really it's a royal barmer man out there. Yeah, try to sing your way through the notes that you can't find because you're so sick or whatever. That's really super stressful. But you know it is a massive buzz. There's no denying it. It's great. Stop. So this is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing in a minute, how Tom York takes a break. We call ourselves the Sunday Painters and we go on bad painting trips. This is Alec Baldwin, And here's the thing. When you reach Tom York's level of success and fame, there's a shift in your day to day experiences. Parts of your life become unrecognizable. I mean, I'm assuming you're in a world where that your phone must have ranged it. Maybe it's stopped because because you kept saying no. But maybe everybody's like, you know, Bonna wants to pick you up tomorrow and fly you to Saint Bart's. Yeah, that never appealed. I don't hang out with people because they are who they are, necessarily unless I'm a big admirer of them, Like I mean, I stalked at Norton for ages until eventually gave in because because I'm a big admire of him. I think it's brilliant. So I hang out with him a bit occasionally. No, tangentially related to that. As you've gotten older and you look around the musical landscape, what you see does it appeal to you? Meaning of the music that's popular music? I mean, what's selling now the most successfully? Have you moved into a different place with that or do you admire a lot of what's being done is your in the mainstream? In the mainstream, there's nothing in the mainstream. The mainstream is just a void, you know. To me, I mean, what's weird about putting a record out? Now? Really? And this is not like sour grapes at all. It's just the fact the volume, literally the sheer volume and stuff that gets put out. It's like this huge fucking waterfall and you're just throwing your pebble in and it car is on down the waterfall and that's that, right, Okay. Next, basically, you know, like in this country, the radio is tied up and people don't really listen to radio in the same way. It's it's music is going through a weird time because on the one hand, as ever, there's always really exciting music being made. It's never not being made. It's a question of whether you're going to get to hear it or not. And I mean I kind of I kind of knew the game was up a few years ago when one of our sort of team of people came in saying, Nokia wants to offer you millions of pounds because they want content for their phones. And this is like in two thousand, I don't know, early two thousands. And you're like, content, what you know? Content? What do you mean? Music? Yes? Okay? Content maybe that yes? Yeah? Just music stuff? Yeah? Stuff, could snoring? Have you got some stuff off? You know? And you're like okay, And I think really that my problem with it is it's like it's now like something to fill up the hardware with, you know, the music itself has become secondary to that, which is a weird thing to me. It's like, and I think that will change because there's only so many different permutations of the same hardware you can make before people go, well, actually I have an iPod now, so thanks. So I think things will change, and I think the radio will change, and sooner the better, because no matter what way you look at it, the most pleasurable experiences you ever have is like when something's played to you don't know, We're like going around to friend's house and they'll stick a tune on your like, what the hell's there? You know, which is what it's about. You know, that's what we're like going into store when I was a kid, like and the new Smith's records come out, and like, and I'm going up to the guy. I think that's like he's really cool, like the indie store in town and just talking to him about music for twenty minutes, you know, and you know, you share everywhere you go. Music is everywhere, It's everywhere, But it's not like, yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's content. Yeah, it's content, is king that will change, And when it does, then I think we'll have a resurgence. The underbelly will come back overbelly and then well, if it's middle aged would be over belly. Well do you have ways to go there? I'm gonna be taking some slimming bills. Yeah. But now we know in the way that you talked about this pebble in the baderfall and content and music marketing. Now, so if that changes, certainly, which it has, does your willingness to release your music into that world change, Like, for example, an obvious example maybe too obvious is you don't want to play creep anymore? Now do you sit there and say, like if the Sultan of Brunei I called you up and said I want you to come to Brunei and we'll give you a million pounds, just play creep. I would play creeping and go home. I would say to something, BRUNEI, why do you have that house near me that you never used I get? Just meet you down the block. I mean, come on, it's an empty house, man, it must be whatever. That's what I'd said, trillion and I'd say, no, obviously, But when you retire a song that way, why do you do that? Well, I didn't know, not necessarily retire it. I mean I don't recognize it as me, which is kind of quite interesting. When I hear singing just that voice, I don't even recognize that. It's kind of odd. Whatever you want. But then I remember hearing I remember hearing Lee read like on some radio station in Dublin years and years, I guess, and they were asking inevitably about Underground, and he said, yeah, well sometimes it comes on. I'm like, well, this is cool. What's this? And then I realized it's about Underground I'm like, wow, yeah, I kind of know what he means. So you get to the point where like, what's that So you're forty three years old? Fort four years old? It's just our professional courtesy that we shave a year off of all of our already all of them. Um, you're in the now and you're in the here what have you? And I'm not saying that glibly, and you're know what I'm saying. But you're not somebody who like Mick Jagger, for example, Like I wonder if Mick Jagger is going to hit a day, like does it happen in a day? Like as Mick Jagger in bed one day and he picks up the phony, He's like, you know, I just can't do it anymore. I can't get out of this bed. I can't do another show again. And it's over. Like do you think of other things? I think all the time of the next thing I'm gonna do. Yeah, the next thing. You don't have to tell us what it is, but you know, uh no, I mean it would end if someone happened to my voice. I don't know. Certain things could make it physically stop, and it will stop at some point. Something will happen. But for me, I'm yeah, I'm always hearing different things. There's always half finished things, which you ask poor old Nigel he knows about that. There's always a mountain of half stuff. I want to get into stuff I've started, stuff I want to you know. But I also think it's good to sort of take breaks because I've gone straight from this radio tour last year, which was a really heavy mother but really good fun, straight into doing sort of atoms for stuff and not really had a break. And to breakers do a break is do you because what I've found with a breakers can be an incredibly exciting thing, with that thing of like you just all the stuff you want to do, but you just force yourself not just force yourself to wait and get back into just time and space and um yeah, not being in music all the time, I think, because it's like anything, you start to go in small circles, so you've got to stop when that happens. I've had to practice that now. I mean, I got married again and I really sat and thought about that way that I want to have a more ordinary and more normal handling of my emotions. I think the best way to put it is where people in my business, say which is would you rather live it in real life or word you rather play it on screen? And I'm thinking I want to walk away from because I'd rather live it in real life now than play it on screen. I think with what I do, it's slightly different because what I would I do it Actually, unless you you literally you're spending, unless you are just literally working too hard, it's a regenerative thing. I find that I'm well, I mean, my family, my friends know that I'm a nicer person. If I'm working and I'm into what I'm doing, then if I stop, there is a period where I'm fairly unbearable. If I do stop, yeah, for too long, but then probably yeah, there's a threshold. But like if you want to shift right with your work, if you want to shift, if you're writing, if you're being creative at all, you kind of have to stop to make that shift because if you just I'm constantly creating, I've got this mountain of brilliant ideas. You're making the basic mistake that you're assuming all ideas are brilliant, where in fact, actually the more you do they're probably the more it kind of your thing in reverse because actually I can't write unless I have a period where restored. Well, no, it's not restored, just just reset. I'm like just normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal. Speaking of normal, do you have siblings? Yeah? But what do you have a brother? What does he do? Russian politics and stuff? He teaches? No, he's what do you mean investigations on people? Your parents studied Russian Oxford and then went into various Are your parents all there? What do your I would love people in your business? Above all? What are your parents and your brother make of you? Going from being Tom York Tom to becoming Tom York. Well, my brother was in a band of his own for a while as well, so he has slightly like he can see what it is from another point of view. What do my parents think? I don't know. They like when I was a kid, they didn't approve. Now that I'm happy, Why do you go into advertising? Yes? Well you know it was like fair enough. I was I piste off with them at the time, but you know it's kind of what that's what you do, isn't it. I mean tell you Abouty's parents. Right when I left a law program and I was destined to go to law school and I went into the acting program. My mother was she literally screamed at me over the path. My mom was very upset when I when I chose to go to art college because she'd been to art college and she said, it's complete waste of time. Don't bother I. When I became successful with my business, mother was like, I'm so proud of them. Oh my god, this is wonderful. Yeah, it's kind of bond because like seeing them backstage at a really big show. That will come to a big show and there's my mom and I going that was fun, Corney beer or whatever. When you do step away from it, what are there? Art? Are you? Are you interested in art? Photography? My mate theater film, my mate Stanley don Wood who I went to art college with, who does all our art work with. I mean I do it with him kind of thing. We we always have these lovely plans about we want to go and live in Berlin for a month and just paint and get in trouble and things like that. We call ourselves the Sunday Painters and we go on bad painting trips. We did one where um, they're bad painting troops because I'm involved. Um, there was one one of my favorite ones was we went on the moors down in Cornwall. Do you know what I mean by the moors and Dartmore basically, which is very very very bleak but really beautiful. We're in the Stone Circle, drove part of the way, walked the rest of the way with these big canvases and paints. But we only we discovered we only have purple and blue and yellow, so we thought, well, okay, we'll use that, and we painted landscapes all afternoon, but they were purple and blue and yellow. Some Paul and I remember coming like late afternoon, coming and asked us, asking us for directions. We're both sitting there, you know, canvases up like this, all huddled up with the hooded hoods on, you know, just doing this, and this ball woman comes up, asks for asks, directions, was somewhere or other and then looks at the paintings. It's wonders off like good lucky career. I hope you're not counting on it. I was like, I didn't think the purple's working. It was like me being in Italy and this beautiful couple they were like late, they were older, and the men walked up to me in the camera and he said, schools A, schools A. He's a photo and he's pointing to me and his wife. He's triangularly and I go oh, and I put my arm around his wife to take a photo. He goes, no, no, you photo of my wife and yeah, you take the the mountain in the background. And I was like, oh, god, yeah, they don't know who I am. I should move here, I should move here. Um. You mentioned someone gave you that push his mentorship in your career. Do people come to you and do you give them a push A little bit? I mean, um, you must have a lot of people in the music world, young people who look up to you. Um. To me, it's one of the best buzzes. Really, is that thing where some comes up who's new and they're really into you know, I'm really into what they're doing. It's really fascinating and it's really totally new to me. But yet the occasions when yeah, and you're like, how could you? How could you feel off me? I don't see any of my stuff, but they see it, and I'm like, wow, that's so cool, especially when it's like like it's in hip hop and like really, you know, people within hip hop who are into radiohead. I'm like, I find that so fascinating because i mean, obviously I'm massively into hip hop, and we've we use hip hop as a reference point in the way we build tracks and stuff. But really, wow, that's bonkers, you know, and that obviously that's one of the really good bits. But it's not really mental ship. It's just people who you admire good at their ship, you know, when it happens, it happens. Yeah, how does success make you feel? How does it make me feel? Really now? Something? Yeah, which which I think is well, has it made me feel? It's always been a little bit far away from me, And the only time it sort of makes sense is when we play in front of people, you know, And the rest of the time, it's like, well, it's it's just it's who I've been for so long I can't tell you because it's just that's what it is. And I think I've probably been doing it more than I haven't in my life in terms of years, in terms of time. So most of the time I don't really notice. Some people come up and I go, well, that's nice, you know, thanks very much, And it's not like I'm not grateful them, just I just don't notice. And then sometimes something will whack you over the head and you go blimey, things like doing the first time we did Saturday in my life, for example, and you go really because sometimes you can't you don't know, you don't know, you've got you on the inside, you can't see it. And and and also we've spent so long running away from it, and I don't feel like a run away from it now because there's nowhere to run run, no where to run. And also it is like, yeah, I'm really grateful for I'm very incredibly lucky. It's a very good point. There's nowhere to run and still do it. Yeah, I mean, I just think I'm well jammy. As we take it's just really jammy, especially in the US, and it's like, well, that's amazing. I guess I have one more question, was what does well Jammy mean? I don't know, really, you don't know. Jammie is like, um you it's so Jammy, like you just I'm dating myself as it's a total fluke, man, it's not really, You're just lucky. I mean, I'm British, right, so I assume I'm just Lucky. There's no skill involved. I'm Jammy. This is from a Muck, Tom York's latest release with his other band, Adams for Peace. You can find out more about York on our website, where you can also hear longer interviews in our archive with people like Brian Williams, Andrew Luck and Saturday Night Live writer Paula Pell. Pleasure Island Welcome. I read a book about it and suddenly I went and did it. That changed my life. Go to Here's the Thing dot org. Here's the Thing is produced by Emily Botin and Cathy Russo with Chris Bannon, Jim Briggs, ed Herbstman, Melanie Hoops, Monica Hopkins, Trey k Sharon mashehe At Loewolkowski. Thanks to Larry Josephson and the ray Do Foundation. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing