Singer-songwriter Weyes Blood is one of the most inventive musicians working today. One year ago, she released her prescient album And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow.
On the heels of her whirlwind tour (4:00), she joins us this week to talk about her post-pandemic anthem “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody” (10:04), her religious upbringing (13:22), the formative punk shows she attended as a teenager (20:17), and the influence of artists like Nico and Sonic Youth (25:18).
On the back-half, Natalie reflects on her nomadic young adulthood (31:00), how she forged her path in the music industry (33:42), the apocalyptic feelings embedded in her album Titanic Rising (42:29), the inspiration of director Stanley Kubrick (49:32), and why she still holds onto hope through these turbulent times (57:50).
For thoughts, reflections, and guest suggestions, drop me a line at sf@talkeasypod.com.
Pushkin.
This is Talk Easy. I'm standing Forgoso. Welcome to the show today. I'm joined by singer songwriter wise Blood. About a year ago, she released her fifth record, entitled and in the Darkness Heart to Glow. It came out through the label Subpop. It's a second installment in her Foreboding trilogy, which began back in twenty nineteen with her hit album Titanic Rising. If that record waded through feelings of impending doom, Hearts of Glow seems to be set in the aftermath of catastrophe, when there's friction in the world. She said in this conversation, that's when the songs come out. And so with that guiding statement in mind, I thought it would be a good time to sit with wise Blood and discuss her prescient music, which she's been performing around the globe over the past year. We also discussed growing up in a household of Christianity and rock and roll, the influence of Nico and Sonic Youth, and how she charted her course in what seems to be a precarious, ever changing music industry. In a kind of prologue for this new record, she wrote that these songs, some of which you are about to hear, attempt to find meaning in a time of instability and irrevocable change, looking for embers, She wrote where fire used to Be, And those lines have stayed with me this past week and it felt like that's exactly what we need today and in the weeks ahead. So I hope you enjoyed this special conversation. I hope you enjoy the music, whether you've heard it before or it's the first time. Natalie, who goes of course by wise Blood, is one of my favorite living musicians, trying to make music about this moment, which is confusing and difficult and painful, and yet her work continues to meet the moment in ways few other musicians do. That's all coming up next with our guests wise Blood.
Hey, Natalie, Hi Sam.
Welcome to the podcast. How do you feel being here?
I feel very lucky. I love your podcast and you've had so many incredible guests, and to be one of them feels like a privilege. And I also have the privilege of knowing you as a friend.
Is that a privilege? Oh?
Yeah, yeah, You're a great joy to have around, really light up a room.
It's weird because we don't often have people on that I know in a social capacity. But I've been wanting to do this for a while and I'm just going to break the rule. So let's jump in your record and in the darkness. Hard to Glow came out about a year ago, and you just finished this American leg of the tour ending at the Greek, which I have to tell you was so surreal to watch the other night that felt like a religious experience. You were even dressed and all white, you talked about your mom. Everything felt like it was coming together in that moment. Are there still parts of performing it that you enjoy at this point because you've done it so much?
Well, yeah, I mean I feel like that might have been like our eighty seventh show or something for me. I don't know. It kind of evolves and it gets more exciting the more we can kind of fine tune it and like get into the alchemical process of the show, like the lights and like the cues and playing that many shows, Yeah, there might be a couple of nights where it feels like you're going through the motions, but things do tend to evolve, and my experience of the shows has evolved, and playing in such an incredible venue like that felt very unique and different, and like for me, I was kind of hearing some of the songs for the first time. But I've had to trick myself into that kind of state of radical acceptance where I'm just like, all right, here's another one, and like I'm gonna have to make it new.
You know, before you go on stage, are you told like, Okay, what city are we in again? Let me just make sure I get the city right.
I've definitely been in Indianapolis and been like, How's what's the most haunted building in Minneapolis? You know, like, I've made some really big.
Mistakes and how did you recover by.
Telling everybody that I was raw dogging ADHD and that I didn't have meds and this is just me and it's not personal.
That's good.
Yeah, it's not personal.
I mean when you're doing eighty seven shows, Yeah, it's hard to make it personal. And yet the other night really did feel I don't know, present in a way. It really felt different. I couldn't quite pinpoint. I wonder if you felt some of that I did.
I think it's such a big moment for me to have a big homecoming show because I'm from Los Angeles and I've played the Greek before opening up for Father John Misty, and I've seen a lot of great shows there, so it was like all those men, and it did feel a bit like pagan time travel, like I was kind of skating through the past and knowing that my mom was there, and I mean, I might as well tell the story because it's such a cute story. But in nineteen seventy one, my mom's older sister had this guy that wanted to take her on a date, but she was babysitting my eleven year old mother and he was like, well, let's just go to Griffith Park and we can hike up in the trees and watch some of the show at the Greek. And he took her up simpler times. Yeah, he bought her an ice cream and he took her up into this tree and they watched Carol King from one of the trees behind the Greek, just like so insane and so, I don't know, playing the Greek in front of my mother, who was in the audience just felt like a big full circle in a beautiful.
Way, especially since you're compared to Carol King like once every thirty minutes.
I says two nice, too nice.
There was something special also about listening to songs made in the pandemic, in many ways, about the alienation of the pandemic in a crowd of strangers. I know this is the second album in this trilogy that you're making. With the song, it's not just me, it's everybody. You've called it the thesis of the record before we take a listen to it. How would you articulate that thesis now?
I think that song is kind of like a Buddhist anthem in some ways, and that it's it's talking about the interconnectivity of all beings, like even down to like transspecies level, you know. But I think ultimately what it means to me now is just that for a long time, especially while I was making Titanic Rising, I kind of felt like I was sounding the alarm on you know, how wonky everything was, and I thought I was kind of you know, like the canary and the coal mine. And then over the course of the pandemic, it was like the peel had just been peeled off, and all of a sudden, everybody was feeling it. You know, nobody could deny climate change anymore. Nobody could deny how isolating technology had become. It was just common knowledge. And I think before, you know, people were kind of kidding themselves, thinking everything was pretty average or status quo. And I think that that really uncovered a lot of truth in terms of everybody feeling this way. And now it's just mainstream to feel that way.
It's not anymore.
It's not alternative anymore, I'll tell you that much. It's like mainstream to be like, oh, modernity is so hectic, you know. And it just blows my mind to watch the blossoming of like everybody kind of waking up to this truth of how dystopian you know the mono? How does topian the monod No, I can't say, do you want me how Dystopian the monoon?
No?
I can't say leave that all in does leave Natalie taking three attempts at it? Do you want to go for the third try?
No, I'll just say, how dystopian the world has become? Yeah, No, I think it's something that everybody feels. It's become common knowledge, and it is important, I think for us all to understand that we're going through it together.
Well, here's a song about being in the thick of it going through it together. This is it's not just me, it's everybody by wise Blood.
Sitting at this poverty wondering.
If anyone ass me.
Lysses, who.
Oh, it's been so long since I've.
Really no.
Fragile in the.
Morning can hold on much of it with this.
All in.
The opening line of that song is sitting at this party, wondering if anyone knows me? And I was thinking like, oh, that's kind of how we met the first time. Yeah, you said once that you like to write songs at parties because quote, I feel so physically uncomfortable at them, and that discomfort is such a big part of my thing, gently tapping into the world, getting what I need, and then getting out of it.
Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's just like any kind of gathering of humanity and all the causal things that happened with a bunch of people in a room together, and also just like the culture, you know, kind of presenting itself in whatever state it is. I don't know, it's a great place to observe and really up with ideas and have an exchange. And yeah, I do think that more recently, for the first time, I did kind of experience that physical discomfort at parties, which was something that was kind of, yeah, like a new experience of being like, wow, I actually just feel so radically unable to like put on a mask and like play this game, Like I just have to be real, and I just know that that's not like what everybody's ready for, and maybe it is also like the place we live and the kind of parties we've been to. It was almost like the lid blew off of my own personal performance as a human who just kind of going around and being like, oh, this is socially acceptable and this is how I'll present and then having that just be blown to smithereens and kind of feeling like there was more to be said and more to be uncovered.
When did that shift happen?
I think I think for a long time I was so distracted with music and just trying to kind of establish myself as a songwriter that I think once I did, and once I finally started touring and kind of having consistent work and being recognized for my music, I had a huge identity crisis because so much of my identity was kind of wrapped up in being anonymous and that nobody knew who I was. I had a lot of kind of secret strength and power from the privacy of that, and also from you know, when you're not successful and no work is really coming your way, you just kind of have all the time in the world to write and just kind of hide and nobody's really asking much of you because they don't want anything from you. So in some ways, that first line of that song wondering if anybody knows me, it's like, yeah, no, people know me. It's more like how well do people know me? Like it becomes a question of like does this person really know me or do they think they know me or something? So I think, yeah, once I became known publicly, that's actually when I started to get really anxious around people, because it was like I felt everything was different and my identity of being kind of a nobody was stripped of me, and I had a lot of safety and comfort in that.
Should we go back to that time when you were anonymous. Yeah. So You're born in Santa Monica nineteen eighty eight. Your family bounces around California for that first decade of your life. Both your parents were musicians. Your mom also had a flower shop, I think in Santa Monica for a time.
She yeah, she did the floral arrangements for Saint John's Hospital gift shop.
Tell me what happened at around like age eight when your father tells you about his new wave past. What did you make of that?
I think, Yeah, that was a really big moment for me. I remember I was sitting on the edge of my parents' bed and he was playing electric guitar and he was kind of finally admitting. He's like, you know, I used to be in a band, and you know, we played Madame Wong's and Whiskey a Go Go and we opened up for the Knack and I was like the Knack. He's like, you know the song my Sharona Sarona, And I was like, I do know that song? And you opened up for them, and it just blew my mind, and then it kind of clicked. I was like, oh my gosh, my dad was a rock star because he had, you know, became Christian, got a really straight job, and he still played music in church, but he was mostly just like a normal corporate dad by that time. So seeing him reveal this other side of him, I was.
Like, I knew it.
I knew it because I just felt like maybe that was my destiny, to like not give up and not go corporate.
Did he tell you all that because he wanted to deter you from music or did he want to go like this was a dream deferred for me but maybe shouldn't be for you.
It's really interesting you say that, because my mother really wanted to do music, but she kind of became a mother. She had, you know, three babies, and my dad was trying to support us, and I feel like they both kind of of chose the family route, and so I think for me, I always knew there might have been a secret yearning for like the unknown, the door that was not taken, the path. But I also knew that they had become so Christian that for them the value of the family and their their new life was like I don't think they were breeding me to be a songwriter, but there were cues and hidden messages and there are some subtext, but there was never a blatant like you got to do this.
But they did want you to be a Christian, I.
Think more so than a music shouldn't right. I think they knew that, you know, music was really tough, and I think they knew that you know, it's really difficult because I think every child of every parent has some seeds that are planted within them, whether it be subconsciously or otherwise. I think I don't really know if it's me.
Or them, probably algamation of yes both. When your family did move from California to Pennsylvania, how much of that was fueled by the born again Pentecostal church, Like, was that was that a big part of it.
No, that was just my dad just got a better job and medical publishing. Yeah, moving to Pennsylvania meant we got to have like, you know, a swimming pool, like all this weird, old school suburban stuff that we couldn't necessarily afford in California. So that was really cool. But it was like a time machine. It was like going back in time because Pennsylvania was culturally different. What does that mean In the late nineties, Pennsylvania was still pretty like old school Doylestown, Dolestown. Yeah, it was really a lot of mom and pop shops, independent businesses, and like weird old buildings. Everything was like in a state of decay. It was like, you know, the rusted steel belt. It was like moving into the rusted steel belt, which isn't really a thing in California. There's other things that are old and falling apart here, but for the most part, it's like a very generative, new, kind of progressive place in Pennsylvania is like a memory, a colonial memory.
You know. I bring up the church because your mom has talked about it. When it comes to religion. Your mom said, we weren't a religious household in the sense of having a lot of rules and regulations. We were kind of a different breed. Yeah, what does that mean? At different breed?
They had been like kind of hippie people. My dad was like a new Waiver and my mom was, you know, really obsessed with Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins and they were kind of like secular and they became Born Again, which was a movement in the early eighties. So it's like their spin on. It was way more less legalistic and less like Baptist and more esoteric.
And how did it shape you?
Well, I was allowed to listen to secular music, so I was like listening to weird music. I had to hide the parental advisory CDs for sure, But like there was still this appreciation for culture and it wasn't like we were homeschooled or like hidden. We were free range, as my dad likes to say. But there are still rules and there was still this cosmology we were all kind of living under. But there was an appreciation for music that wasn't just Christian.
I heard that they would ground you for like months at a time, which would in turn force you into a kind of creative isolation. Oh totally is that true? Yeah, And I mean I got grounded for very good reasons. I would like lie about where I was and take the train into the city and like make up somebody that I was staying with and I was just at some punk house, like it was worth getting grounded over. Or I'd like miss the last train home right and they'd think I was down the street at a friend's house and be like, sorry, I'm in the city, you know. Like so I would just go in my bedroom in those times and record on my four track. For people who only know your recent records, they'd probably be surprised to learn that you really got your start in the punk and experimental music space, because, like you said, starting in middle school then going into high school, you would take the R five train into Philadelphia and go to these punk shows in like the basements of churches.
Yeah, the first Unitarian church.
What would happen at those shows? Like what happened to you as a young kid there?
Well, I would go so early that they would just sometimes let me in for free. I'd come like four or five hours early and just you're like hi, and they're be like, oh, there she is, come on in.
Who didn't ask, like how old you were?
The oak They knew I was like fourteen or fifteen, so everybody they probably felt a collective responsibility for how precocious I was. But I remember there was a guy that had a record store. He would have a little stand inside the shows, and I would kind of go hang around him and like look through the records, and I was just like a little spo. I was just trying to soak everything up and see every band. And in some ways being raised Christian kind of contributed to this religious fervor I had about DIY music. We're going to a show. To me, that was like church and like moshing or like getting into it and standing side stage. These were all kind of like ways of transcendence, and it was really important to.
Me since the concerts took place in a church. Could you explain it away to your parents to go like, well, I did mosh, but it wasn't a church basement.
Yeah, but they're like, but it was a Unitarian church, which is the most loosey goosey church of all. But I think at that point my folks just knew I was into dark music. I mean I would listen to the crazy records in my room and my mom would come in and be like, this music is making you depressed?
Was it? Yeah?
I mean it was like the darkest Screamo and you know, all the stuff that is really beautiful and appealing to an angsty team. And the reason I liked, you know, some much music like that was it was the only thing you could see lives. If there was going to be a show in town, it was going to be like kind of a scream o hardcore show. And then if it wasn't going to be that, it was going to be like weird, grateful dead fish people.
You've once described yourself as a teenager as moody and weird. I had a lot of extra emotional software that I didn't know what to do with. What did that look like?
I think I was just very sensitive and in tune, and I think I knew about climate change and global warming in middle school, and I was like, something's off about the culture. I mean, I knew something was off about the culture. I think when Britney Spears and and Sync and all that stuff started coming out, it's like watching the change of the guard, like from kind of alternative music into that like early aughts pop. You just felt like there was like this dip, this death of culture. And the only other person I've talked to about this is Adam Curtis actually, and we tried to figure it out. We're like, what happened was at nine to eleven? Like what was it? And He's like, I think it's when the boomers started fearing death.
Say more about that.
Well, I think that's a really interesting take on it, because I feel like I started rebelling and getting angsty, probably because of puberty, but also because I was watching the world kind of shift into this new place and my generation was going to be known as the establishment generation, like Millennials were known as like not being rebellious. It was almost like we're not even allowed to be or something. So I don't know, I did feel that, and I was really young, and I was kind of in tune with that, and maybe that was part of the reason I was so moody. Is like, as a young kid being into Nirvana and alternative music, I was like, Oh, I can't wait to become a teenager and like actually have a chance to push the envelope and we'll have another wave of deconstructionist music. We'll take the man down, you know. And then it was not that it was like in sync and Britney spears. It's like, oh, the man is bigger than ever, and now everybody's just like eating it up, like it's really good.
So when you start making music on your own, I think it's around fifteen Ian. What did that sound like?
It was really progressive. It was kind of like freak folk meets some Hogy Carmichael meets some like I would like fill up pots and pans with different levels of water and hit them like xylophones, and there's some kind of scratch and sniff improvised jazz moments. But it was very folky and beautiful.
And you're going to perform that here today for us, right, Yeah, you brought I brought the pots?
Okay, cool, and I'm gonna singing cursive if you know.
The how does how do you sing in cursive?
You know what cursive singing is?
No?
Oh, I don't even want to tell you. But it's it's when people sing in that terrible accent that nobody really has.
The transatlantic one or what can you demonstrate?
No, because I sing in calligraphy, but cursive would be to sing kind of like wow, I don't even know how to do it. I don't even want to do it because it's so scary to me.
You look at me like the fear of your eye.
Yeah, no, I can't do it.
When you started making those songs as a teenager, who were the big influences? Was it people like Nico and Jonny Mitchell?
Well, no, no, Joni Mitchell was kind of my mom's music. I listened to so much of Jony as a kid, But as a teenager I was really into like Sid Barrett, and I was really into Ween and Sonic Youth and Radiohead and Fugazi and just like all the big alternative bands. I really loved that book Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azarod where he kind of goes through all the bands in the eighties and nineties kind of leading up to Nirvana.
Was there anyone that was a kind of template for you that you thought like, Okay, I want to make a career out of this.
Yeah, well, Sonic Youth for sure, because they were so fierce. It was such a legendary story to kind of go from being this extremely experimental underground band to kind of being a huge, headlining festivals, mainstream band. But because I didn't have bandmates, I kind of didn't. I was like, well, who's the solo artist I would want to be? I mean, it was never my interest to be a solo artist. It was almost just out of necessity or you know, out of what happened.
So what happened.
I just couldn't really find anybody to be in a band with. Like there was like a grindcore kind of hardcore band and I showed up with my guitar and my delay pedal, my loop pedal, and they're like, well, would you play bass? And I'm like no, I'm a guitar player. And they're like well bye. You know, like just like dudes, you know, like dudes weren't interested in having like a creative female force. I think they were interested in maybe having a bass player, a girl who could like support the vibe, but not like somebody was trying to do some different stuff. Like I did put a band together once, and I felt like the guys were a little embarrassed to play with me. So I just yeah, it wasn't like I was meeting people with the same interests as me. I mean, my musical tastes were different than a lot of the kids around me, And everybody would talk trash about sonic youth and act like they're bad, and then like years later they'd be like, wholl that was actually a good band. You were right that kind of a.
M When you leave home at the age of seventeen, you graduate high school early, you don't go to prom.
Didn't do prom. Still down to recreate it someday we'll talk.
About that afterwards. You then spend like the next decade really in transit for pretty much all of it. You go to La the New York Then you moved to Kentucky where you were tapping maple trees, New Mexico, where you studied herbs, Baltimore, where you made music in warehouses, before settling back in New York City, all while trying to forge a path as a musician. I knew none of that.
After that, I like moved every like six months or something.
I was thinking, do you think your trajectory is emblematic of the specific struggle your generation faced post the two thousand and eight recession? Like the past generation could work at a coffee shop, could also make music and live in a place that wasn't oh for sure horrible.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, for sure. I think that my kind of bouncing around and constantly being at the whim of a sublet or like an artist's residency or just something that was affordable, was because life was becoming unaffordable, and it was like so quick that it happened that it was like it kind of was happening under everybody's nose. Nobody really noticed it was happening. I just started noticing in my early twenties of like, oh, that friend has money, Like that friend has a parent who's willing to kind of step in and fill in the spaces because things cost more money now. And I just felt like I watched everything kind of shift from being totally manageable to completely unmanageable.
Would you say anything?
Yeah? But I think I also, like I still thought it was possible to live off rice and beans and like sell your cassette tapes and buy a funky old house and fix it up. But that was such a gen X thing, so I think it took a while for me to realize that that wasn't the case anymore.
I guess in the process of figuring that out, did you ever go like, h jeez, of course, I don't know if I keep going on this.
Of course, yeah, yeah, no. And it was a little sad because it was like my skills were so specific that it was really difficult to get good jobs. So it's like if I had a good nannying job, I mean, that could have supplemented my income and been pretty chill. But like I would go to a nannying job and the kid would be like, you only have one pair of shoes, Like you're just wearing the same clothes every day, and I'd be like yeah, And I think the kid would kind of lose trust in who.
I was because you only had one pair of shoes.
I just think that they weren't interested in somebody like that at that time. But yeah, no, I just found that I was constantly kind of being just like incapable of fully engaging in the workforce properly. I was too special, just too different. I'd go to a restaurant, I'd work at a restaurant for a couple months, and after a while people would be like, I don't know about it.
It's funny, like the the economic conditions that made Gen X and the musicians of that generation flourish, that made it possible for them to both make indie music and live a life that did not carry over into your generation, into post two thousand and eight America.
No, definitely not.
But the thing that did carry or at least as I understand it, was this kind of misogyny embedded within the music industry. You have a quote. I would go on tour with people and they would say, if you don't sleep with me on this tour, it's going to be the tour from Living Hell. I used to mute my sexuality and my femininity so that I could be considered a peer, and that has its own pitfalls.
Oh yeah, for sure.
How did you manage that stuff?
I mean it's like, how does any girl manage that stuff? It just happens. And I think I played it really tough because I had brothers and I kind of had this attitude about it that was very like, you know, just kind of like, oh, that's just the way it is, you know, like I had anger, but I also was just kind of so I was so much more interested in music and survival that I could put my convictions about the misogyny on the back burner for the sake of music, which that all became an issue, Like eventually it all had to kind of come to a head where I was like, oh, I have to face this mask.
And when did that happen?
I think when there was more women in music, and when it became clearer to me how they behaved, and it became clearer to me what happens when a group of men are in a room with one woman versus when one man it's in a room with a group of women, and you know, just kind of understanding that dominance hierarchy is kind of like the natural disposition of a group of men. So when you get a group of men in a you know, recording studio, they will tend to defer to one another and one person and will kind of become the one that everybody defers upon because they'll kind of take on the alpha stance, and if a woman shows any sign of weakness or kind of like I don't know what to do, that men see that as an opportunity to come in and be like, well, I'll tell you what to do, and it's not coming from any state of maliciousness. It's just this kind of natural settling of vibes. And I think that upon learning that, I kind of realized like, oh, there's been so many moments where I kind of let the guys kind of have their moment and then I'm kind of secretly controlling everything behind the scenes. And then I realized very quickly I was like, oh, I don't.
Even need to like do it secretly.
Yeah, we can just be like very blatant about this.
Did that happen on like your second record? Did you feel that? Yeah?
That was my like kind of learning curve where I was like, I was definitely dealing with a lot of men who had a lot of ideas, Like they kind of saw me as this raw clay, like raw putty, and I saw myself as like, oh, I'm just so glad that I get to be here, you know, going from a moldy basement to playing an actual venue, Like how exciting or like having an actual album deal, being in a real studio, and I'd be like, well, what do you think? What do you think? And I didn't really understand at the time that they were like so ready to tell me exactly what they thought. It wasn't necessarily they were like looking out for my best interest and getting that confidence, in that strength to know that I instinctually knew what I needed to be and that I was the boss. It's a beautiful thing when you can kind of finally clear that space and be the driver of your own chip.
So then when you got into the room to make Titanic Rising, did you say to yourself, I need to do this my own way, Like I can't do what I did on the last one.
No.
I think Front Row Seats Earth was the first album that I was just like and I was working with Chris Cohen, who is such a just an angel of a person, an incredibly intuitive, sensitive soul. So he really paved the way for me to do exactly what I wanted to do and to not feel like I constantly had to defer to other quote unquote more experienced gentlemen or whatever. And then on Titanic Rising, it was like, yeah, I was already just kind of ready to take the reins. And Rado and I have very similar feelings and ideas about sound and music, and so it was very collaborative and fun. But there are even moments where it'd be like the Lemon Twigs and Rado, it would be like a group of guys just kind of like going crazy, and I would just be in the background like, hey, you know, like but I had to like kind of let them get their yayas out and then I would take the record into my own hands and mute all the things they did.
What the hell are there yayas? I don't know.
And you get a bunch of musicians in a room and they're just kind of jamming, and they just go for it and depart the original plan, the idea, and it's very important. I think that that kind of generative, volcanic vibe in a studio is really important to just kind of let people cut loose and do what they want to do, and that's how you can capture some real magic. But that's also how you can get some stuff that has nothing to do with your music. It's good to deviate a little bit here and there and you can't be too strict with where things go, because when you're loose and you're kind of letting things unfold, you can surprise yourself.
After the break. More from Wiseblood. Hey everyone, this is Sam. As you may have noticed the past six months in Hollywood, they haven't been going that great. The actors and the writers went on strike against the AMPTP. The writers have recently reached deal, but the actors have yet to do so. Obviously, for a show like ours that has on writers, actors, filmmakers, this has proven to be a challenging time. I'll just be honest with you. It's been difficult to make a show about culture when culture has basically been put on pause for the most part. And yet myself along with our incredible, incredible team, have continued to make new episodes just about every Sunday. We've done this with authors like Zadi Smith and WashU, musicians like Leave and Ludwig Gorenson, who created the score for Oppenheimer. We had on st Higham, We had on reporters like Sam Sanders and Matt Bellanie. We did an episode about the border with Beto O'Rourke and my father. We had a conversation with screenwriter Alex O'Keeffe at the height of the strike about the conditions of being a modern screenwriter, the state of Hollywood, and really so much more. Through this turbulent, precarious time, we have continued to find stories that I think are worth telling and worth sharing with you. And so if any of those episodes, or if any of the episodes that I did not mention, have meant something to you, if the show has meant something to you, I would really appreciate if you shared the program on social media or with a friend, with a family member, anyone that you think would be interested in the kind of researched, thoughtful and honest conversations that we try to have here each in every Sunday. You can share and tag us at talk easypod across social media. If you want to drop us a line, you can reach me at SF at talk easypod dot com. That's sf at talk easypod dot com. Later this year we'll be starting our newsletter, which we are very excited to do and put out. But until then, sharing the show or reviewing it on the platform that you're listening to this right now. I know every podcas caster talks about it, but it really does help us continue doing the work we so love to do here each and every week. And with that, I hope you enjoy the rest of this conversation with wise Blood. I feel like fittingly this chapter turn that happened with Titanic Rising, it makes all the sense in the world, because even the cover of the record is like it's a recreation of your teenage bedroom, right, yeah, and it's like very clearly sitting at the intersection of the past and the present. Like, how would you describe the thesis of that album? We mentioned the trilogy at the top, Yeah, I.
Mean, I think that album is a kind of a very extroverted kind of alarm album where it's like coping with radical shifts change over the course of our lifetime, you know, kind of being born at the end of the twentieth century, at the end of a paradigm and kind of watching the new paradigm unfurl in front of our eyes faster than we could have imagined.
Eerie that it came out in April of twenty nineteen.
I know, it was right before the shit really hit the fan. Did you have a sense then, of course? I mean, that's why I made it I really felt. I was like, this is whatever's going on is so unstable and insane.
And what song do you think exemplifies that thesis?
I think something to believe and a lot's going to change. Both ended up being the most kind of universal feelings that a lot of people.
Felt, all right, this is a lot's going to change. Off the record Titanic Rising by wise Blood.
Go back to a time when I was just when Jack Me dro me that good thing could be taken away.
If I still believe, but start apply, You're gonna be yours.
Lord, it's gonna change in you talk trying to leave it all because.
The you I can't listen to. I can't listen to my own music.
Why can't you listen to your own music?
Because I just hear all the things I could have done differently.
Okay, let's rank them one through five. What are the things you want to change?
Oh? No, I can't give away all the secrets. It's kind of like the director's commentary on a DVD or something. It's like, you don't do that for music. Music is so subjective anyway, Why would you plan any seed about what was supposed to be or what was it meant to be when it is just what it is and it's kind of everybody's own personal experience.
I agree, But then why can't you just.
Listen to it like that. I'm a perfectionist and I'm constantly a work in progress. I think I'm still trying to figure out how to make music that sounds the music I hear in my head. I still don't know if I've successfully done that. I think I'm getting closer with the last three albums, but I feel like the next record I make, I've learned so much. I'm really excited to make another album.
When you perform this new record on stage, does it let you in some way get out of your own head about it all?
Yeah? No, Performing it live is really the salve for any kind of recording studio blues because it's so different. It's like it's just this one moment. It really is time and space, and recording is time and space. You're kind of creating a special space and creating a specific three to six minute amount of time. That's like a little transportation device experience for somebody. But it's this evolution, this process of growth and creation, and I mean that's kind of goes back to what I said earlier about trying to capture the music I hear in my head. It's like in the idea phase, it is so amorphous. It can be anything, and in some ways that limitless possibility, there's like a very exciting state when something is just an idea, and then when it becomes something solid, like a recording or like an album, you do have to kind of let go of all the little ideas that didn't make it.
You know, the songs in your head. Do you find yourself creating songs while you're in the midst of having like human experiences.
Yeah, this goes back to the party, Like I write songs in the most inopportune times, but when there's friction in the world and in between people or I don't know, I just yeah, it's in that state of friction that for me, songs come out. And that's why I write a lot of stuff on my phone because I used to write in a journal and it was just so obvious. You bust out a journal, everybody's going to look at you, like, what what are you doing over there? You think you're better than us, But if you're writing a poem and the notes app on your phone. Nobody knows, so I get away with it that way. Sometimes you can't really control when lightning strikes. It's just so random.
When it comes to the construction of these songs. Throughout this tour that you've been on this year, people have been coming to the shows with like a bunch of DVDs that they keep giving you, And I wanted to just talk about the role of film in the way you think of your music, because I'm curious how much of like Stanley Kubrick, informs the way you imagine your lyrics and your songs.
A lot. I've always tried to attain some kind of cinematic quality to the music because I've always been such a big fan of soundtracks and classical music and that creating and defining emotion on screen using melody and you know, even like Mickey Mousing, like just using sound effects to represent movement. That connection to me was always very strong, and it was like I could always kind of hear a soundtrack to life, and I could always feel when a song had an emotion to it that was really specific, and certain chord changes would make me feel this way versus others. And I just always found that connection to be so beautiful that you can kind of guide somebody over the course of a film with score, but also that when a film lacked score, that that silence in itself had its own really intense presence. So I think those dynamics in cinema always really inspired me, and I think when it came to Stanley Kubrick, he was always so interested in kind of the subconscious interpretation of images and movement, where he felt like instrumental music and silent scenes and film were just as effective as dialogue, and I'd have to agree. I think sometimes they can say even more. And that's kind of always why I have at least one instrumental track on my albums, because music itself, just as is with our subconscious kind of painting its own picture, is also very very transcend it.
Kubrick once said about two thousand and one a Space Odyssey, that I was trying to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeon holding and directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophical content.
Yeah, that's like exactly what I hope to do at times as well. I mean, I wouldn't aspire to necessarily well who knows, maybe I'll direct a movie someday.
That was the biggest smile you've had during this whole taping.
Really yeah, yeah, No. I have a real hankering for creating a visual universe that accompanies my music, and I look forward to exploring that more.
You mentioned Adam Curtis, and as we leave, I'm thinking about the intersection of your music and a visual element, which he made this great video for your song God turned Me into a Flower, And before we play it, I just kind of wanted to sit with that track and see, I don't know what it means to you having performed it all year long and live with it as long as you have.
Luckily, it's kind of continued to evolve. I kind of wrote it because I had just read The Culture of Narcissism by Charles lash and it was like a very interesting book to read to kind of diagnose the culture as being like kind of a little bit more narcissistic than it had ever been, and how our interpretation of that might be a little flawed because people think the myth of narcissist is about a guy who was obsessed with his own reflection, when in reality, the crux of that myth is that he didn't recognize that it was himself, that he was kind of obsessed with this reflection, not knowing what it was, thinking it was this external otherness, and becoming fully consumed and kind of missing the point that it was within himself, which is like a reoccurring archetype in a lot of religious myths, and I think it's so typical of modern culture too, like everybody's seeking external validation constantly and kind of going outside of themselves, hoping to find something that fills the void of their spirit, and in reality, it's, you know, the only thing that could ever really fulfill you is within you.
But many people turn to music to fill that void.
I think because music helps you get into that headspace, which headspace just like kind of a mythical headspace of taking something like the art of music in itself. It's a job is to kind of take these things that feel meaningless or feel hopeless and all of a sudden make them kind of transcend that and become a universal truth or universal experience, or kind of an encapsulation and a meaningful presentation of something versus just kind of like the passing, ticking moments of reality which slip away so quickly. Does that make sense? Uh huh so yeah, I guess my hope would be that the whole concept of getting turned into a flower is really to kind of become soft, and that the rigidity of our own beliefs and our own narratives that we tell ourselves in our head in some ways, that's what needs to change and becoming more flowerlike becoming more soft and kind of accepting reality in the most radical sense. And I know I've said that twice about acceptance, but it's such a long journey to even figure out what that means for yourself. You know, everybody kind of has to go on that journey of finding out that everything they've sought externally exists within themselves.
This is God turn Me into a flower by wise Blood.
You see the reflection. You want it more than the truth.
D dream you couldna get to because the person on the end of the side is old. It's just being.
Oh God, journey.
To coming back. You said right before the song that everyone has to go on this kind of journey to figure out what it means to you, What has it meant to you? Like? Where are you at on all of that?
You know, it's kind of like you you have to find the infinity in every moment. And as long as you're in your mind thinking about or hoping for some future or kind of fretting over some past experience, as long as you're not present, you're actually not steering your car in the right direction.
I don't know.
If you live within the moment and within the now, you can actually kind of see clearly and actually experience reality in a way that is present and like you can see what's happening versus if you're obsessed with some probable outcome, or if you're obsessed with what you want to be, if you're obsessed with everything that's missing from your life, if you're obsessed with things that you've lost, that that puts the focus to kind of more of an abstract, non existent place, and you kind of lose touch with the things that are actually happening in front of you at that moment. I think it's important to be able to enjoy the good times but not become too attached. Important to experience the bad times and not become too attached. And a state of detachment isn't nihilistic or apathetic or existential, but it's actually kind of like a cosmic sense of humor, and looking at it that way, I think you can live a little bit more passionately in the waves because inevitably everything's going to ebb and flow, and you want to learn how to serf that.
You did an interview this year where I think one journalist asks to you, like, do you think you're like a nostalgic person, and you said, I've been using the word sentimental more. I think I'm sentimental because sentimentality leaves you open to experiencing the future as something that's worth remembering. In our culture, it's so easy to just assume that the future is going to keep getting worse.
Yeah, no, I mean I really feel that. I think nostalgia has become more of a capitalistic trope nowadays than it's ever been, where they're just trying to kind of repackage things that we miss and sell them back to us. But sentimentality is anything can be sentimental.
I bring that up because as we're talking about the past and present in the future, the third part of your trilogy, which will be the next record, you said it's going to be about hope, and I wondered, is that still true, and if so, can you make the case for hope in twenty twenty three.
Yes, you can. I really do think that the universe ultimately is more benevolent than not, you know, I think we constantly live in a really exquisite balance of people trying their best. But I do think that it's hard to watch when that doesn't always kind of fulfill our greatest hopes and dreams for humanity. But I think on the whole, putting that onto the individual, like it's up to you personally to solve climate change, up to you personally to solve all this social unrest, I think that is where it gets unrealistic. I do think that we're kind of finding a new medium of communication with each other because the medium of communication has become kind of entertainment and media and social media and things like that that in order to effectively communicate with each other, it takes hope. It takes hope and acceptance for the inevitability of the finiteness of time and maybe the finiteness of culture or like civilization as we know it. And I don't think that that has to be all doomsday sad, you know, I think there's still hope in that So.
You're saying the next record pure bliss.
I mean, it'll be extroverted in its own way, but it's also not made yet, so it's like I can't say too much. I don't want to jinx it. But ideally, all the things that we've been talking about and the way you've seen me evolve over this year as a person that kind of feeds into your art.
Last night, in preparation for this conversation, I opened up the emails that we first sent each other we met, and I have this quote from you that's so good. He wrote, It's interesting to imagine what people are going to tell themselves in the next thirty years this record. This was about the latest one at the time. This record is the beginning of my narration the modernity myths.
I don't even remember saying that. That sounds pretty wind baggy, but you know how it is. I can't help it.
I thought it's kind of nice.
Yeah, No, I would think that we need myths and we need stories, and we need archetypes to cope with friction. It's a valuable thing for artists to do well.
If we were to do this again in five years, what do you want for yourself, both in the music and beyond it.
I mean, I feel so grateful that I get to do what I do that I would hope that I could continue. I would love to keep making records and touring for as long as that makes sense. It feels like something I was born to do. But I also it would be nice to the next five years. I don't know. That's such a deeply personal question, isn't it. I don't know what I want, and I think that's really beautiful. Like I think that I would like to know what I want in the next five years, but at this moment, I'm just kind of enjoying what it is.
Maybe in the next five years, you'll make a song that you'll be comfortable listening to in front of me.
Oh yeah, that's a very attainable goal.
That's cool.
I like that one. But yeah, no, I would love to develop a closer community of people and musicians and artists and friends. I do think that our culture is not fabulous for community, and I think that there has been a lot of fragmentation since the pandemic and we're still kind of coming back from it, and it's a slow crawl. And then there's also just the social fabric of America in general being completely unhinged and bizarre. So yeah, in five years, I'd love to see some nurturing happen, of closeness between people and friends, and maybe find other ways of expressing myself besides songwriting.
Well, before we go, is there a track that you want to leave us with?
Yes, I will leave you with Something to Believe?
Really you want to go to that record?
Well, I think something to Believe is cool. It's kind of like what we were talking about, Like if you needed to have some kind of faith in reality, it could just be faith that it's always changing.
Well, thank you for this and for that show the other night. Seeing everyone respond to songs that I remember you playing for me, like, you know, six months before they came out, it is kind of amazing to see the entire Greek theater lose their shit over things that, like I remember us just hearing when we didn't know how people were going to respond.
Well, yeah I will. I'll say this is a good story because I feel like I play you were one of the first people to hear the album. Yeah, besides the people that worked on it, and I was so nervous, but it made so much sense to hear it through your ears. It was almost like the premiere of it in my mind. I didn't know you that well. I was like, here's some random guy that knows a lot about cool stuff, and I'm just, you know, exposing myself. But I felt like when we listened to it, I could hear it with New Year's too, and it was great.
I will sign up for that job anytime you need me. Natalie A pleasure, Sam, thanks for having me. This is something to believe. Off Titanic Rizin by wise Blood.
Drank a lot of coffee today, God lost.
In the fray.
I gave all for a time, then bays Strange design, I got a case of alass for Gatten b and by lad to the band man living on the phone, and.
I just laid down a crown the regal baby. Something can see, something bigger, Sason.
Something terrible.
S And that's our show.
If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave us five stars on Spotify, Apple, wherever you do your listening. Whatever you can do to help ensures that we can keep doing this through the end of the year and into twenty twenty four. Now, with that, I want to give a special thanks to our guest today, my friend Natalie Mahring aka wise Blood. If you've not listened to her latest record and in the Darkness Hearts Glow, you can find it wherever you are listening to this right now. If you'd like to learn more about her and her work, or if you want to check out that music video we referenced in this episode, visit our website at talk easypod dot com. If you want to hear more episodes with other great musicians, I'd recommend our talks with David Byrne, Ludwig Gorensen, Questlove Lord, and Sleader Kenny. To hear those and more Pushkin podcasts. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at talk Easypod. If you want to purchase one of our mugs or our vinyl record with the inimitable fran Lebowitz, you can do so at talk easypod dot com slash shop That's talk easypond dot com slash shop Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is jenay Si Bravo. Our associate producer is Caitlin Dryden. Today's talk was edited by Clarice Gavara and mixed by Andrew Vastola. Our assistant editors are Lindsay Ellis and c J. Mitchell. Today's episode was engineered by Tim Moore out of York, recording here in Los Angeles, California. Our music is by Dylan Pack. Our illustrations are by Christian Schenai. Photographs today are by Julius Chu. Video and graphics by Ian Chang, Derek Aberzac, Ian Jones and Ethan Senica. I also want to thank our team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Julia Barton, John Stars, Kerrie Brody, Heather Feine, Eric Sander, Jordan McMillan, Kira Posey, Tara Machado, Jason Gambrel, Justine Lang, Malcolm Gladwell, and Jacob Weisberg. I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to another episode of Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next week. Until then, stay safe and so on.