John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants

alternative rock, spanning genres. With air tight harmonies and avant garde humor, they're sort of like gen X's answer to the Bonzo Dog DoD band tracks like Particle Man and Istanbul not constantinople first during them attention from MTV in the early nineties, but these days you never quite know

when they'll pop up. In addition to sixteen studio albums, they're creative endeavors have included jingles for toys and themes for Beloved Sitcom's animated appearances on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, and contributions to the soundtrack for the Broadway productions SpongeBob square Pants the Musical. Now, they're gearing up to release

their latest record on November twelve, titled Book. Yes. The records titled Book It's informed by the hellish realities of the last two years with their anxieties, often channeled for comedic effect. Yes, we laugh to keep from crying. The album Book is being released alongside a book called Book. The one four page hardcover volume features original work by Brooklyn Street photographer Brian Carlson, alongside song lyrics said among

typographical illustrations by graphic designer Paul Sair. Today we're gonna talk about the book Book, the album book, the upcoming toward to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of their breakthrough album Flood, and also we're gonna talk a lot about the Beatles. So buckle up. It's my pleasure to welcome the mighty John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants. I hope you

enjoy our conversation. Well, first things first, you have a new album coming out called Book, which is fittingly accompanied by a book which features text, design, lyrics from the songs and Brian Carlson Street photography. How did this collection begin for you? Did you create the book and did that inform them music or is the music the impetus for the book? Well, like so many things that They Might Be Giants, there was absolutely no master plan. We kind of backed into it um in an odd way.

You know, we've made a lot of albums and I think we like the album format and uh just you know,

making sets of songs. It's an interesting way to present your work, and I think it's a very music centric way of of presenting your work, and in a funny way, by making this big package, in this big book, we're the the immediate side effect is it's just bringing a lot more attention to the idea of making an album project um and so in the same way that All Things Must Pass or you know, Sign of the Times or any any album from your from your childhood if

you're crazy old like me, reminds you of like that

kind of music centric listening experience. The whole idea of book is to uh kind of pull you into the album deeper and uh, you know, finding the balance of visual elements that would work in a book and compliment the music was a little bit tricky, but fortunately we've been We've been collaborating with this really amazing graphic designer, Paul Sair for the last fiften or fifteen years, and he's you know, he's actually a kind of a big wheel in the world of graphic design, and he his

publisher had and he and Paul had talked about this idea of doing or they might be Giant's book. And I think the first thing that most people think of when they hear about like rock books is like, oh, it'll be like a scrap book. It will be like like a little strolled down of memory lane. And I think that's exactly what most people assume whatever book we did would be, because that's the kind of thing that

bends that have been around for a long time do. Um, this is a little bit more unexpected, but I think it's it's a it's it's much more interesting and it's a The process was a bunch more interesting for us.

I mean working with Brian and working with Paul. Paul the Paul created all these sort of poetry concrete or concrete poetry lyric images while he was typing on IBM selectric typewriter by hand, and then created all these wild designs on on on paper And it's very hard to describe, but it's kind of easy to understand if you actually see it. But um, it's it's it was a really fun project. Um. I guess the truth is is like a question we do get asked a lot is like

how do you keep going? And I think the true answer is we keep going because we actually are going. We're not just doing the same stuff over and over again. I mean just the book just as an object is absolutely gorgeous. I mean just the fabric cover and sort of the embossed type that. I mean, it's so cool. And I mean you've been working with Paul, I mean back since join us with the with the pink with

the pink cardboard. Um yeah yeah, monster truck hurse, Yeah, that Paul has been you know, Paul is really a kindred spirit. I feel extremely lucky that we found him. I mean, the truth of the matter is like I've I've started in graphic design, uh when I was a kid, and that was kind of my fallback, you know, day job in New York when I when we first started the band, I was working in publishing houses and uh, you know, there's a there's sort of like a graphic

sensibility that they might be giants. That's kind of consistent. But I've collaborated with a lot of designers over the years, and I feel like in a way, um, I kind of burnt out designers working with them, you know, like, well I'll be with you know, a designer for a couple of years, and at a certain point they're just like, man, this is like more than I can handle. Like it's just because a lot of times to do stuff with the band, it's just requires a level of time that

is uh, it's much. It's it's it's a little more intense than doing, uh than doing like a regular graphic job, which can you know, it's usually done in a couple of days, Like I think, I I really ask a lot of people. Fortunately, the thing about Paul is that he just has boundless energy and and doesn't mind. He's unafraid of doing things that take extraordinary amounts of time. I mean it really shows in this bookment. What was the process, Like I'm actually choosing the images to juxtapose

with the lyrics. I mean there was some great I mean the one I want to give too much away, but the one with the with the skeletons, I really enjoy that. That is an amazing photograph. Well, I mean, Brian, it has done the time that it takes to be a successful street photographer. I mean the times I've talked to him, I've I've never been in face to face, but I FaceTime to him a few times, and inevitably he's outside, he's got a camera, you know, he's he's

like hitting the streets. He's always uh, preparing himself to find out what photographs are out there. I think all any image in the book probably represents hours, if not days, of waiting for a photograph to happen. Because when you see the book, there is this thing about it where it's like a lot of times it's very much a moment and um, and you can't just you can't just decide you're gonna you know, those moments are gonna happen.

So it's it's an interesting challenge for him. Um. He was very generous with the photographs that he had taken in recent years. I mean, this is all we started, really embarked in the book right as right before Lockdown happened. So we have we so we had something to pour

our energies into once we were in lockdown. Um and Uh, it was really mostly about finding the images that combined with the song lyrics would kind of have a multiplier effect, like something that would pull something out of the lyric and amplify. Um. But yeah, the image he has endless images that are very very mysterious and and kind of enigmatic.

The the thing about making books in the modern world now is, um, some of the photographs, I mean, he's, he's, he doesn't do that many photographs that are really just portraits. But there's this problem in the twenty one century with permissions and street photography being published in a book, is

that you still have rights issues. And that was something that Paul was kind of tuned into, something that I was not expecting or thinking about, and we were we were kind of we kind of put together a first draft of images, and there was a clutch of really powerful photographs that just were too uh too risky because you could get you can get sued for defamation, which

is something that I never even considered. Um, if you if you have a gallery show and are putting up photographs of people street photography and show people's faces, that's totally protected artistic expression. But the actual publishing of a book with somebody's face in it is not unless they're a public figure. And none of these people are public figures.

So there are a couple of amnages that we kind of shied away from, but that they were few and far between, and we actually got the sort of verbal permission from a few people that are in the photographs that Brian knew, just to give them the heads up that the book was coming, and they were fine with it because they're just they're young people are just doing crazy stuff. I mean, I hadn't thought of this until you said it. But there is a spontaneity to the book.

I mean, you you hear of found poetry, these photos are found moments, and even with the with the IBM S electric, there's something very spontaneous about, you know, not getting all the types set exactly, you know, fitting in with a publisher. But it's it's an it's an act done in the moment, and I really came through in the book. Yeah, I mean, it's it was you know,

we made a bunch of very specific decisions. I think we we were nervous about doing something that might appear messy, and uh, you know, we just made some choices and kind of stuck to those and I think the book is better for that. It's a it turned out really good. I'm proud of it. I mean, getting back to the album you mentioned earlier about having fun with sort of enjoying the the you know, the act of listening to

an album as a physical thing. I mean, it's funny thinking back to earlier in your career when you had the dial a song line, which really kind of seems to almost predict streaming services. It was so ahead of its time. And now you released your new album on eight track, which I believe sold out, you know, and vinyl and cassette, Like, yeah, what, what does tell me more about sort of the motivation behind releasing uh, your

new work on these formats that you know? I mean, I I listen to most of my music on a record player, so I totally get it, but I want to hear more about your well, you know, I us because we were putting the album out as a book, but it's also on all other typical formats as well. Um, we just thought people were sort of wondering if it was only going to be, you know, sold as a book with a download, or if it was going to actually be everywhere else, and uh, we just kind of

went format crazy. We we we uh decided we were going to make except, which was like the first time

we've made a caucet in a really long time. And as soon as we put that on sale, it's so like crazy, and it was like, really, that's wild, Like there actually is a cassette culture out there that's relatively healthy and uh and then uh, Pete in our management looked into uh people manufacturing eight tracks and sure enough there are actually two different companies now uh pressing eight tracks in the United States, and uh, you know, I mean we made we did the eight tracks against the

limited edition. I'm sure there are people who are into a tracks listening right now who are like, that's that's my only thing, that's the thing I care about. You know, how can I get one? We made like two and fifty of them. And then it was just like the truth of it is, it's all of the eight tracks are essentially handmade. The guy who the guy that we're working with, he I didn't realize that this is how

they did it. But it's it's actually like almost like an object lesson in um some future uh what is the term? Like real it's it's like an up cycled thing. He's he's uh, he's taking old eight tracks, cracking them open and replacing the parts inside them, putting them back together, and then putting new covers on them. So he's not they're not manufacturing new shells and new and new cartridges for these eight tracks. He's actually rehabbing old ones, which is,

I guess the only way you can really do it. Um, I don't think the demand that there's a lot. You can buy a lot of views a tracks on eBay for ten dollars and get a thousand highly nonfunctioning a Trex. The truth of the matter is a tracks are a terrible format just from a mechanical point of view. They do not last. But if you're driving around in your Pinto or something and you know you gotta it helps, Yeah, it's it creates the experience. Yeah, I've been. I've been.

I've been watching the Americans during all this lockdown, which a show I had never watched before, and you know, I was very One of the things that's delightful about the show is, Uh, they clearly purchased like a baby blue Pinto at the beginning of the filming and every every fifth exterior scene somewhere is parked this this Pinto. And Uh, listeners out there, I'm sure many of them do not know what a Ford Pinto is, but uh, and the reason is because it is a really crummy car.

If you there. There was a time when there are probably as many there it explodes, but it also just doesn't last. I think they're like classic rustbuckers. Did you think about every time you see of Volkswagen Beetle, there probably was a Ford Pinto manufactured exactly at the same time, but none of those cars lasted. You know, think about how many old Beetles you see, you see a million. Uh. You never see Pintos anymore. They just they just didn't make it. That's you also never see you never see

a MC cars anymore either. Well, I mean, you know you mentioned watching UM the Americans during during lockdown UM. You know, listening to some of these tracks, I mean the single I Can't Remember the Dream uh, and even the opening tracks synopsis for Latecomers, there's a sense of certain anxiety and some of these songs, and I was wondering how much did the pandemic uh play, you know, impact the music you're working on. Well, I mean, you know, we I think we as writers, we have a natural

impulse to just kind of hype every impulse. I mean, I think we're if we're writing a song about anxiety, we tend whatever's kind of naturally in there we also sort of pump up. And it's I think that's true of almost everything. I mean, maybe it's just the nature of of writing that you wanted to be as extreme as it can be. If you're writing a song about being mad about a breakup, you end up writing a

song about revenge. You know. It's like you tend to just make more out of things than might be there on a regular day. And something I've I've loved about your music is that so often there are these gorgeous melodies paired with these very kind of anxiety producing lyrics that really undercut the merriment of the music. I wanted to ask you more about, you know, your tendency towards the sort of lyrical bait and switch. Well, that's something that got spotted a while ago, and it wasn't something

that we really thought about that much. Um, but I think it might really come out of trying to figure out how to balance the elements within a song. I mean, when you're writing a song, you have a lot of you have a lot of things at your disposal, Like you can, you can balance things. But one thing about melody that's that's unusual is that even though it might even though the overall idea of the song might be quite clearly complicated. Melodies have a way of simplifying your

emotional response to things. I mean, I don't think I don't think our melodies are particularly cheerful, but I think we live in a time when melodies are almost an endangered species. So it's like writing anything with a song, any song with with a melody in it, um is is UH might might come across as seeming old fashioned, or or cheerful, or or sentimental. Um So I think I think it's something that just kind of crept in there.

I mean, sometimes I wonder if we should, like if it would be interesting to do the inverse of that, like right, really gloomy, kind of do doomy music and then with extremely happy lyrics. But somehow I don't think

that's going to work as well. There was an interview you gave recently where you talked about I think you called it the lab work that goes into UH to writing a song, all the all the prep work, kind of laying out all the ingredients like a chef before you start cooking, Which is such an interesting notion because me as somebody who who has never written a song in his life. That's something I'd never really occurred to me.

I want, what does that process like for you? Well, you know, the evolution of the recording process is is uh pretty baroque at this point. I mean, when people were making records in the middle of the last century, they were just standing in front of a micro on and making a sound, but you know, by either by themselves or with a band or whatever. And what happened

is what went to the record. Um. These days, we're working with computers and there's an incredible even just making a demo, there's there's so many decisions that can be made. And you know, the thing about working with computers is that if you're in that kind of inquiry period, there's no time limit, you're never gonna go and say, like, I mean, it can be helped to have a time limit, because otherwise you you kind of can start going about

the business of finishing a song. Before you've even started, you're just like, oh, you know, I want to make this this song be really strange and echoy and all. And you don't even have a chorus written, and you're and you're like swimming around in a reverb sound or something so um. Sometimes I lean on the inquiry process of finding sounds as a way to stave off writer's block. Um but um, it's when you're doing a demo and

arranging a song. The thing that you really have to remember is like all the parts have to fit together.

You're you're kind of making you're, you're, you're you're tweaking out all those little details like whether it's like, for instance, like if you're There's a song on the new album called Moonbeam Raised that has no and this is not something that I think people would notice necessarily, Um, but there's actually no high hat on on the song, and um, they're very I think there are very few people, very few drummers who would approach doing any pop song and think, oh,

I'm not going to play the high hat on this. But one of the things that happens immediately when you don't play the high hat is you're making all this room for the vocal because the where the high hat sits in the mix is exactly the same spot as where a vocal is. In fact, sometimes if um, somebody doesn't sing an s in a song will actually just grab a closed high hat sound and put it in where where the s would be because it sounds exactly

like a human being singing in s um. You know, if you if you sing a line like hands and you and you swallow this suh, you can just if you want it to be both, you just grab a stray closed high hat and put it in at the end of the hands. That will sub substitute very nicely for a well enunciated s. It's a little studio trick

that we learned a long long time ago. Um. I mean, you can also go back and sing an s. But it's like sometimes if you're working on digital stuff, it's just it's easy to just grab a strong s from a high hat. That's so interesting. Drum machine high hats work even better. But um, yeah, so so I guess we're always thinking about the final product, and you know, having recorded a lot of songs, it's you can kind

of get there. Just it's it's it's a fun challenge to sort of, uh, you know, keep the sonics interesting. I mean, you you're involved in so many different mediums. How much of your day is is taken up with music? Is it a daily practice for you? Is that something that you're always working on or does it depend on on your mood and other projects you have going on. Yeah, I I basically go to work every day. I mean, my my dad was kind of a workaholic, and and I think I kind of got hit that kind of

daily routine from him. He worked at a home office. He always worked every weekend. Um. Yeah, it's just something that you know, it's it's fun to do. I mean, I think the truth is just like, uh, you know, as we say in the tour of Us, when things are not going so great, you wanted to be in a band. Um, you know, I feel like incredibly grateful that I've I've been able to have like, you know, a life making recordings and and doing live shows. It's

like it's incredibly fun and it's it never stops being interesting. Um, when I don't feel really up to finishing a song or or getting in the middle of of working on a song, I do have this kind of exploratory thing happening, and you know, I've got a I've got a I've got you know, twenty unfinished kind of rhythm. You know. I think in some ways we John and I probably have more in common with like hip hop artists who

have like big libraries of beats stacked up. I think we have kind of our version of of that kind of work all not not as many lyric fragments and progression fragments. We also have these like kind of uh, just recording ideas, arrangement ideas, musical you know, beats and chords, and I don't even know what to call them. They're just kind of half They're just unfinished songs in a way. What was your initial point of connection creatively with with John?

I know you go guys go way back to to high school, But was there a moment when your mind sort of met creatively? Well, we both ended up kind of. I was. Let's see, well, John and I were friends in high school. I didn't really play an instrument in high school. Um, then the sort of new way of punk rock explosion or nothin seventy seven happened, and my friend Brad Smith gave me a guitar, uh, which was

really how I started playing. And I started writing songs right away because it was easier to write new songs than figure out how to play quickly enough to play other people's songs. And um, this is all really much. At the end of high school, John went away to Rhode Island and was in an actual was in a real professional band when he was like nineteen years old and I was eighteen UM and started doing home recording and we both moved to New York at the same time.

John moved to New York to kind of make it big with his other band, and UM, I was going to art school at Pratt and I had been in a band with another high school friend of ours when I was living in Ohio for just like six months, called the Blackouts, and that was super fun. So both John and I were having this like band experience. UM. When we started doing this, it was kind of more

of just like a home recording project. I don't think we knew how we would take it out out because we didn't have drummer UM, but we started making recordings and uh, the idea that sort of the abstract idea of having a band appealed to us, but it didn't

seem really realistic. And then this fellow that we knew UM, who was from New York City, started doing a one man band thing with a drum machine, which seemed really revolutionary, Like he had a Roland like eight seven oh seven or something some some very early Roland kind of very toy like, uh, drum machine. But he you know, he had really good songs. He was a really good singer

and a really good guitar player. His name was his stage was Mick Milk, and um, he had and it was one of those things where he had a huge following because he had gone just gotten out of college and so all his college trans will show up. So whenever we did a show, there'd be like a hundred fifty people there, all just partying their brains out. And but we didn't know that. We just thought, oh, he's doing the new kind of music that everybody wants to hear.

He's doing drum machine music. So um, it seemed like kind of a sassy move to, uh work with the drum machine, because all of a sudden, you're sort of liberated from from this big social hurdle of finding a drummer who likes your music. I think. I mean, somebody said if there were twice as many drummers in New York City, there'd be twice as many bands, and I think that's really true. Um, you know, New York City is a very hostile place to try to start a

band in the first place. It's very hard to find places where you can make noise, um, even just small amounts of noise. So uh, that was really the start of it for me and John and UM. For a while, it was really just UM, I don't think we had any big professional ambitions. I mean we our professional ambitions kind of stopped at the idea of just getting shows like we knew we could get chose and that was

a big enough challenge. You're about to go, speaking of shows out on the road for a blated thirtieth anniversary of anniversary tour for Flood, what is your relationship like

to that album now thirty years on. Oh, it's you know, it's funny doing the Flood shows versus just doing regular shows, because it's almost inadvertently a trojan Trojan Horse, because I don't we we sell them to shows where we don't play Birdhouse and Your Soul and Assemble and we usually play Particle Man, and we often play the song Twisting and Dead and Your Racist Friend, and we play a lot. You know, there's a clutch of songs off that record

that are some of our best known songs. There are also songs on that record that are exceptionally unusual even by our standards, And so when to go about doing a flood show where we're playing the complete album in a weird way where I wonder whose dream we're really fulfilling? Um because they, you know, I guess, I guess for for people in the front row, they're just you know, kind of basking in the glory that is that most

popular album. But just from a theatrical point of view, I always wonder if it's actually what people were bargaining for, because a regular show is much closer to a greatest hit show than a flood show. But you know, you know, we're proud of the album. It was a big leap forward for us in terms of being record makers. We learned a lot making the record, a lot of technology, it evolved, and the circumstances on which we made the record were a lot less, uh tense than we actually

had time and focus. And it was it because that was the that was the first project we did were being something being in the band and recording was really like our that was our professional creative challenge. Like before then we were working in the middle of the night seeing of the studios for you know, tiny you know, just for tiny numbers of hours working as frantically as we could. So it was nice to actually just be able to have the time and focus to do a record.

Thinking about your incredibly diverse career, normally in music, but in just different arenas as well. Has there been a creative venture for for you that you know has gone on fulfilled so far? Is there anything left that that you both would really like to uh to achieve, either musically or otherwise. Um. Everybody tells us we should do a Broadway musical, but I don't really know what it would be. Um. In the back of my mind, I think whoever does a q and On musical first will

be the big cultural winner. Um, although I don't know how safe that would be. Maybe you just get stocks and then someone would burn down your house. But um, but I still think like uh when I think of the really interesting musicals of the past, like like Hair for instance. You know Hair was made at the height of the Vietnam War. There's no particular reason, and and Vano War was just as contentious as any other war. I mean, there are plenty of plenty of riots in

the streets over that one. So I don't see why there couldn't be a Q and non musical. Um, but uh, we haven't really taken it to that seriously. I think it would be it would be nice to do something like that, though not specifically a Q ANDN musical, but to do some kind of to do some kind of musical projects that could could go on without us being the engine behind it. I think it would be fun. You were the SpongeBob song, right for Yeah, Yeah, that was.

I mean we've done a lot of kind of one off things where people call us up and say, like, well, you do a song, you know, write a song for this thing or that thing. We just did a thing for the Central Park show on Apple Plus and that was fun as well. But yeah, it's just doing something that was sort of a bigger format and had the sensibility of the band would be would be an interesting challenge. Um. And I don't know. I mean, we could even do an you know, an animated do do like a like

an animated film that had music to it. I think would be interesting. We've worked with a lot of great animators over the years, and it would be fun to kind of really dive deeper into that world. Um. But you know, right now, it's like between the live shows and and just making albums. Uh. But then again, like you know, uh, we just decided that people are still making albums. I feel like Spotify is kind of decided

that people aren't making albums anymore. So have you have you heard this term Lucy's being it's it's it's what, it's what people if, it's what people at Spotify or not at Spotify, but people working within the world of Spotify refer to like all the preview tracks and all the one off songs that are released into the world, because that's a really you know, We've released five teaser tracks off this album, and like our our audience is saying, like,

why are you previewing so many songs off the album? But their their acts that basically dole out every song on the album before they put the album out. And uh, but evidently the in the inside terminology is Lucy's, which is uh in New York City, is is like buying a single cigarette at a bodega. Uh, if you're trying to they certainly do do it. I can I'm not a smoker, but I can tell you that Lucy's are very popular in lots of bodega's. I think they cost

I think they still cost buck. I did not know that. I I live out in Williamsburg. I have to go check on my corner bodega when I got home. Yeah, give it a try. How's Williamsburg doing. I haven't been in Williamsburg in years now. Oh it is wild. I mean I've been in my same apartments the dividing line between Williamsburg and Bushwick, and it's I mean, there are the whole whole blocks that are unrecognizable to me that I've been there in ten years. Yeah, yeah, I mean,

what's funny is I moved to Williamsburg. And what's funny to me is, you know, I moved to Williamsburg in the eighties and there was never ever any new construction. It wasn't like nobody, nobody was investing in Williamsburg at all. And then right as I was leaving, I sort of realized, you know, I felt like I could hear the the the engines of the of the Renault trucks coming down the tree, and everything seems to have been either facelifted

or just completely gutted and restored. It's it's insane how much construction is happening here. But I think it's because the housing stock is just really crummy, you know, I mean the original stuff was made. Really the apartments that I lived in were so so bad, so raw. There was the apartment that that dial A song was housed in. There was not a parallel wall or ceiling. I mean like it was like it was it was Van Gogh's bedroom. Everything was, you know, at this jaunty angle. The whole

building had kind of sunk to the right. It was and yeah, it was it was rough. All the drawers on my desk hang open because that is some urban realness there. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, you know, Williamsburg was. It was fun while it lasted, but it turned into like St. Mark's place. I just could I couldn't handle the population density. Also, when I first moved into my building, I was the youngest person by decades. It was all

like old Polish ladies. And by the time I moved out, Uh, there was like a technow in DJ living above me and at two and it's like he had like supports facing the floor on and at two in the morning, it was to be like and and uh, you know, it's ridiculous, Like I'm a guitar player, I'm gonna be like taking pounding a broom on the ceiling or like yeah, I'm not gonna start like can't you please turn it down? But they did push. They pushed me out. The guy the wall that it butts my bed um starts doing

the same thing, starts playing tech. Begins at three in the morning, ends at five. I don't know what I do that that's what it wears off. That's what it wears off. Yeah, yeah, I think you know, you come back from the clubs and you're still feeling it, so it's like there you go. Um, yeah, it's a party zone for sure. The first thing that happened we lived on the North eighth Street across from Teddy's, and uh,

like it was always on weekends, every weekend. I mean, this part was kind of like living in the West Village or something, because a lot of people would go to Williensburg on dates. You know, there's like a lot of people would It was kind of a date destination for other people other areas of New York City, and

people would always be having breakups on our block. You know, they would walk off off of Bedford Avenue and be like, Okay, let's find someplace quiet so we can yell and cry at each other and um so every you know, every Friday night or Saturday night and be like, when is it good time to talk about it? You? And it's a horrible thing waking up to people breaking up. I'm just I'm trying to picture like that, you know. I mean it was this where this is where the dialo

song answering machinems also had sometimes yeah for anally. Yeah yeah, I'm like, you guys, keep it down. I'm trying to make some music in here. Wow. I mean that's a lot of energy in that in that corner, I guess. I mean thinking about that, those confluence of of influences there. Wow. Yeah. But I also I did have an open high speed WiFi uh modem that I just I just defeated the password of it. So basically because I was like, I don't need to hide my modem, you know, I can.

I I was. I think I was one of the earliest people to get whatever the high speed pipe was, and I thought, I'm just going to share this with the neighborhood. I'll be in Teddy's drinking coffee and wishing I had high speed internet. So I just I just opened it up and sure enough, you know, it only

had to travel halfway down the block. And so for years I would look at all those people and Teddy's with their with their uh you know, laptops open, working on whatever they were working on, and I was like, I'm helping those people stay connected with the Internet. I mean, this is this is gonna sound like a silly question, but it's it's since it's a sincere one and it's one that I'm I'm currently grappling with in my own life. How is moving to you know, nature affected you creatively?

Like have you found it easier to focus? Have you found it more you know, inspiring. I know that's such a cliched way of of thinking about it, but how has that that shift been for you? Well? You know the thing, the truth is like, no matter what room you're making you're writing in, you're kind of just writing inside a room. So I mean, it's nice to be in kind of a prettier part of the world. But um but I like New York City too. I Mean I think of New York City as as as kind

of a beautiful place in its own way. Um, I for most of my adult life Uh. I wrote and recorded in one one room in one apartment, and that was my workspace and my living space for many years as well. And leaving that place did make me think, like, um, what is that part of like broadcast news where the woman says to Albert Brooks, like, maybe it's because you realize the good part of your life is over and

the bad part of your life is beginning. And I think I was a little bit apprehensive that I was leaving the place that was where my creativity came from, which is a ridiculous and and kind of you know, that's not it doesn't work that way. I mean, that's just that's just being super very superstitious. But um but yeah, it kind of you know, especial actually because so much of what I'm doing, and they might be giants is

a computer based you know. I mean it's a lot of it is just like combing through audio files and doing like really intense pointless editing. Um it I wish I wish it was a bigger change, you know. I wish being in the country meant like, oh, you know, everything's pastoral now it's it's it's still very much uh, you know, very much about looking at a screen and that I wish it was less that, but such as such as modern music making, hauling an old stud or

four track or something and just do it like that instead. Right, those are the well, that's my those are my roots. I mean I've got I've still have a t X four track, but um, and it works. But I don't know, that's that's a whole other challenge. Well, my my last question, I don't know to up too much more of your time, but unfortunately it's a big one. I have never written a song before. How do I start? Uh, well, um, you might want to do you play an instrument? Yeah?

I just can't write. I would this, this would be this would be My best strategy is get get a tape recorder or your phone and just record uh playing your playing the instrument that you play, just going back and forth between two chords. Um, that can be kind of interesting chords or chords that aren't so related to one another. And then as you're listening back to that, sing over that and find yoursel put yourself in a

place where nobody can hear you singing. You know. So that's important because you don't want people to make you feel self conscious. But but that. But you know, disconnecting the act of playing the instrument and singing can be useful because singing and playing at the same time is not the necessarily the easiest thing to do. So you'll sort of find you can get like more fluid results

that way. And uh, you can even like start singing like a melody without words and then listen back to that, you know, the the instrument and the and the voice together and figure out like, well, what words would go with that, and that would be I feel like I'm I'm like doing the Paul McCartney junior thing, the Paul

McCartney one two three. Somebody who's playing out some Beatle maniac was pointing out something interesting about that special to me, which is that Rick Rubin, who is a musical person and is certainly you know, can talk about sophisticating musical ideas, he had the opportunity to ask Paul McCartney what the opening chord of A Hard Days Night really is, and um, for people who are not obsessive Beatle fans out there, the opening chord of of Hard Day Night, which is

also like the opening chord of the anthology series, and it sort of used as like the classic stinger on all uh Beatles related material. It's it's this really ambiguous chord because it's created by both a guitar doing like a sophysiated chord, a bass that's playing a note that isn't in the chord the guitar is playing, and then I guess on top of it, there's even a there's a kind of a phantom keyboard part being played by George Martin, which I I can't really hear, but but

maybe I should listen closer. But but it is a very unstable and mysterious bit of musical information. And Rick Rubin had every opportunity to delve deep into that and just didn't. I mean, I'm on, I think I'm in the midst of writing. It's up to seven thousand words and my editor is gonna kill me. Peace on the new letter B box set. So you're I was just earlier this week watching a ten minute tutorial on that chord, which go to show you what my life is like.

It was like an f AD thirteen or some there's like, it's some insane chord. Well, what what is an f uh uh? Well, I mean that I'm trying to think what an F thirteen would be what is it? What is it? What is the interval that's being added? Um, well, we should take this off the air because I want to talk to you about the Beatles. I mean, has has the movie come out? Has the Get Back movie?

Are there any previews? All right, there's a there's a three minute trailer that dropped yesterday, which can trailer you. It's not the one that he did in December with, but it's it's like a three and a half minute It's so good everything about it. I mean even I mean some of the stuff you saw in anthology, you know, in the in the final anthology, but still it's just the clarity of it. It really it's like a play.

I mean, I know they have the book that just came out to with Day by Day where they've excerpts from the transcripts and it reads like a Joe Orton play or something. I mean, it's just it's so funny. What was the Like, I'm trying to figure out what

the director? Guy? Who is he? He's the Lord of the Rings guy, Peter Jackson, you know, his his take on not putting the record out during COVID reminds me of like listening to like Jerry Seinfeld talking about like, you know, how people shouldn't be sense, you know, political correctness is killing humor or something. It's like, why why

wouldn't you put the movie out during COVID? We need this, We need this so bad, you gotta you know, you got a bunch of really depressed people who would like nothing more than to just bask in the glory that

was the Beatles. Um you know, maybe slowly breaking up, you know, Uh, but I hear that the you know that the movie is much more optimistic that even though they are breaking up, it's very clear that they still got a lot of joy out of the process, which is not obviously does not come across in the original movie Let It Be at All, which is a hoomsday thing. I read an article that was saying that Let It Be the movie that they did one preview of the original edit of the movie and it was decided that

all cameo appearances of other people had to be cut out. Well, that was an how inclined edict that was like because he was like, no, it's just gonna be about my clients. That's why all the shots are so tight, and it feels so claustrophobic, and you kind of even though they're in that you know, big Twickenham sound stage, it feels so like it doesn't feel nice to watch that. It's

so yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happened. Yeah, so, I mean evidently in the original edit, like they're all these people hanging on, like you know, Mick Jaggers coming around, Keith Richard's coming around, and and all these other people play into it much much more. Um, but uh, you just don't see those people. So I wonder if they'll be I wonder if it'll be just be a parade of the fresh faces of classic rock. Um. But yeah,

I'm looking forward to that. Uh right, you know, as soon as get off with me, you gotta check out the new just dropped yesterday. It's so great it will make your day. It's it's really really wonderful. I can't wait for Well, let's let's wrap up here before we make people unconscious talking about the Beatles. We got that part out. Well. Thank you so much for your your your your time and your music and your advice to

me for songwriting. I hope anyone else is out there who's who struggling to how to uh, you know, put your hand on the white keys and then you move your hand over a little bit and that's another chord. And that's good. Yeah. Yeah, I love about me, just like it's easier for Paul McCartney. Thanks Paul, exactly. Yeah. Everything. I found it very helpful. I found your advice very helpful. So thank you for that. John, thank you very much. Thank you With you, sir, have a beautiful rest your day.

Check out that trailer and hope to see you on stage soon. Yeah, peace and love. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio, a production of I Heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows, check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.