Loud and Quiet Presents Midnight Chats.
That's right, everybody, it's close to one am and it's edging into the witching hour. So buckle down, you midnight campers, and open the windows and get ready, get ready.
For Midnight to bring you a psychic gift.
God bless Ryan Adams. He was our first guest on the podcast this year, and we just felt we had to play that again. This episode of the podcast is what some might consider a lazy one. I'm here with Greg, I'm Stuart And if you've listened to the podcast throughout the whole year, you'll know all the people that we've had on this year. But if you haven't, then you've missed some really good stuff. I feel and I don't
know where you've been. Do you feel good about twenty seventeen? Greg, It's the year that Jemma Collins fell down a hole.
Absolutely highlight, wasn't it. Yeah, That's what I'll probably remember twenty seventeen four. To be honest, Jimmer Collins falling down a hole. I'm taking the Yeah, I'm taking all the positives out of this year, feeling it wasn't as bad as twenty sixteen, was it?
No?
But in a way, I feel it lost a lot of the drama. I feel it lacked something this year.
What we're going to do, as Student's already said, we've had the highly original idea of putting together some of our favorite moments from this year. So you're going to hear small parts of the conversations that we've recorded for Midnight Chats from the last twelve months. Hopefully, if you're listening for the first time, it will give you a
bit of an idea about what we do. We publish a new podcast every fortnight on a Thursday at midnight, and the whole idea is that either stew or I sit down with an artist somebody who we think will have something interesting to say, and we have a conversation and generally it has a sort of late night feel. That's why it's called Midnight Chats.
We've had some.
Brilliant people on this year, and we're going to play out some of the best bits.
As they say, yeah, so we've kind of because we know that there will be some people that subscribe to the podcast and maybe listen to the most recent ones quite recently, we've not chosen them. That's not to say they weren't great. I particularly loved talking to Wesley Gonzalez a couple of weeks ago for the podcast. Before that, Charlotte Gainsburg. They would have been in my highlights if they've been earlier in the year, but we feel we should kind of call back to the beginning of the year.
Maybe people missed that Ryan Adams bit, so that's why that's in there. The first one I'm going to pick. So we've picked a couple about our own favorites, because, as Greg says, we take turns doing these interviews. The first one she goes straight for this. Now ready for this? Okay, So the first one that I picked. This is a short clip. This is the shortest clip I've picked, and this is Laura Marlin I spoke to in February for number nineteen, episode nineteen, So you can go back and
listen to the whole thing if this grabs you. This is Laura talking about why she doesn't tour that much and the fact that she has recently got into making cheese.
Well, right now, I've just got into making cheese.
That's fun, Okay.
I've been making Halloomi and we're trying to get Halluomi.
Down Hallumy's my favorite cheese.
It's it's the greatest cheese.
It's the best cheese.
So it's kind of not cheese.
I think when people say halloo is the greatest cheese that I think that's quite You're not meant to say that, are you not?
To the French.
No, it's quite sacrilege just to say that is the best cheese, but it is. Would I be right in thinking that you don't tour that much?
I don't in comparison to most people. I tour very very little. I like to be busy all the time, not necessarily doing work, but like I am either reading or knitting or you know, I'm not saying it's high brow shit. I'm always doing stuff. But what I find with tour is that it's a lot of empty time. It's a very inefficient use of a day, in my opinion. And so you know, one can do whatever one can, like go and see galleries or you know, get a
sense of the local stuff. But I've done it, and so I've seen all the gallery you know, I can go back whatever. But yeah, so there's bits of it I find a little bit tough, and I like to be at home and I don't like to feel like I'm a slave to my career and some you know, a lot of more sensible people than I do go out and tool their bolocks off because that's how you sustain a career. And I'm just about managing to do that without doing all the touring.
And you've got the cheese, Now, what is that?
You know, there's a huge gap in the Halloomi market in London and I'm ready to step in.
Did you come away from that episode of Midnight Chats with any of Laura Marlin's cheese?
No, she didn't bring any of the cheese with her. That was a really fun one to do. I felt quite privileged that we got Laura Marlin because she doesn't do much as well as touring, she doesn't do much press, and she doesn't do many interviews, so it was it was nice that she that she came on and she's got one of those voices that you could as you can hear from that we're pretty much talking a load of bollocks for most of it about really, I mean,
that's what this podcast essentially has become. That's when I feel it's that it's best Greg when we're talking about nonsense. We have chat about I mean, go back and listen to that. I recommend it to anyone if you missed it, because we also talk about Amazon and why I think
it's evil. And Laura and Marlin also has a fixation with the year nineteen sixty nine, Yeah, and has collected she collects memorabilia from nineteen sixteen and I think she's stopped that now, but we talk a little bit about that. So there's loads in there, but no no cheese.
Presumably if you're listening to this, it means you're a fan of podcasts. And Laura and Marlin has a really good podcast series that she made probably about eighteen months ago now, which is why we wanted to get her on. So that's called Reversal of the Muse. Yeah, and she went out and spoke to lots of other female artists, women working in the music industry to get their perspective on things. It was really inventive and really interesting.
So if you.
Are a fan of podcasts, which you obviously are because you're listening to this, then check out Laura Marlins as well.
I think it's on her SoundCloud. Okay, okay, and get it all there.
Yeah, A sign that we are starting to build a archive, a catalog of Midnight Chats for me came in this sort of early summer of this year when I went to go and meet Thundercat. You know that guy, the bass wielding California.
Dude, the jazz man, jazzy boy.
He's one of the is. You could definitely call him a dude. He's got an order about him and he's got an impressive selection of garments. I mean he looked on stage. He often wears what looks like a kind of really nice dressing gown. You know, he's a man
who smells good and wears great clothes. Anyway, I was looking forward to meeting him, and the sign that we've made lots of these episodes of the podcast now came there because Thundercat's really good mates with Flying Lotus, and in the middle of last year we recorded an episode of Midnight Chats with Flying Lotus in an old cinema in central London because he was screening a film called Royal, which went on to form part of another bigger feature
length film that Fly Notse made called Cuso, which came out this year twenty seventeen. Anyway, Flying Lotus and Thundercat. When they're back home in Los Angeles, they hang out, they play video games, they stroke Thundercat's cat called Tron, which he talked about in this podcast as well. And so when I caught up with Thundercat, I wanted to ask him what he made of that film Cuso, because to be honest, every time I think about it, we'll talk about it. I cannot begin to describe just how
gross and dark and weird and warped. I've never seen anything like that movie. So I basically wanted Thundercat to do my job for me, and I asked him if he could describe it.
Oh my god, Yeah, I don't even know.
I don't.
Yeah, that's a figured one, man. I honestly, you know, kind of threw me off there. I don't know how to describe that movie. It's just really intense.
He was saying that he's I mean so to feel people in and you've known each other probably about a decade or more, and that he's always wanted to make films as well as the Yeah, he's been kind of working on So how long have you, I mean, as sure as a kind of close native is have you been talking about the ideas and have been talking about this stuff that's coming to fruition now, but I bet it's gone back to conversations for years now.
Right man. It's mind blowing to see it coming to fruition.
You know.
It's like, you know, there were moments where, of course, you know, I know, you know Lotus's history with you know, film and stuff like that, and everything from that to him rapping his Captain Murphy was always a shock to me.
You know.
It was kind of like a little bit of a different facet of his character that he would never let on, you know, like you would never have known, You're like, no way, you know, And to see his first film, it's like it's fantastic. It honestly is. It's like, you know, we would talk every now and again about it, you know, and I feel like his uh, he influenced me in that manner a bit, because it's like I was a bit of a film buff, but not until I met Lotus, that dude. You know, he knows his film and to
a major degree. It's like if it would affect me to you know, to to the way I would write music and stuff too. But at the same time, it's like I would have never thought that he would actually, you know, do it. And you know, the best way to describe it is, you know, don't underestimate Flying Lotus. You know, Yeah, that's all you can That's that's how I can sum it up. Man.
I thought it was funny that when he was trying to describe the movie, because he had trouble himself, because it is a it's kind of it's dark, it's kind of full of dark humor, but it's also pretty much I mean, maybe maybe you've seen similar films, but I certainly haven't. If to me, it was something quite different and it's pretty gross. That's putting it very lightly. And he told me that his grandmother had been to see it, which I thought was just absolutely super.
You got to take the family. You got to let them know how crazy you are.
Exact.
You always have to ever reminder like, don't forget I'm crazy.
Yeah, Oh, it's definitely that when you I mean with going back, you know you now notice for a number of years and you mentioned there that until you met him, he was a he was a guy that could kind of school you in movies.
You never even heard of.
What's the best recommendation you ever had from movie from from Flying Nights.
Oh man, it was the day when he introduced me to old boy. Okay, yeah, he's the one that turned me on an old boy, you know. And it was just mind blowing. It was funny because it's like it's like guys of a certain cloth, you know. It's like he's like, hey, you know, you need to go see this movie. And I was like what, you know. I was like all right, sure, you know, and I watched
it and I was like, oh my god. He was like right, and I was like yeah, and he was like, we just need more movies like that, and I was like, yeah, we need more movies like yeah.
It's it's about opening for people that haven't seen it.
It's a Korean film, it's a it's a it's an amazing film, you know.
It's a it's a revenge story.
That's I wouldn't want to ruin it for anybody that hasn't seen it yet. But it's one of those things where it the twists are so hard in this movie that it just may give you whiplash.
Man.
It's it's it's it is intense, man, it's everything, it's violent, it's just everything you want to happen in a movie that you would be like, oh, that is cringe worthy. It's this is that movie, you know, and it's like, it's just got this amazing climactic moment in the movie that I just will just ruin your life.
This is some recommendation. Thundercat sounded very relaxed. Shall we say, yeah, Greg, did you get the fear? He was a relaxed guy. Guy likes relaxing. He is very relaxed.
He was backstage at a venue called Heaven in central London where we recorded that, and he was sat next to a throne that apparently Madonna and Britney Spears have both used on stage at that club. It's quite a famous gay club in the mid center of town. And yeah, he was. It was It was a relaxed scenario.
I'm going to now push straight on into my second highlight, second choice. This is Samuel t Herring of Future Islands and this guy is almost the complete opposite to Thundercat in his approach to kind of maybe everything in life, certainly to speaking. He is a ball of energy as if you've seen Future Islands play or you've heard him speak,
then you're you know, you'll know this. Like, Sam Herring is a man who likes to move around, and we didn't We didn't even speak about the new album that he was promoting when he was in town at all. We were just kind of talking one hundred miles an hour about all sorts of things from Baltimore and touring
and all. This is a hard grafting band who basically work their asses off until a certain moment in time, which I'm sure everyone knows about by now, when they got their first TV performance and they performed Seasons on the David Letterman Show. And that's what we're talking about here. It's one of those things that I think Sam is probably sick of being asked about. God bless him. He didn't mind me talking about it because I was. I was still fascinated to hear from his point of view
just exactly what had happened that night. If you know the clip, you'll know it. You'll you'll know exactly what he's talking about. If not, just check out on YouTube. It's probably had a billion views by now, Seasons on Let Them and you'll find it easily. And it was just this particular performance when Future Islands played that first TV show, and instead of adapting it to be on TV like most bands would, they just played it like they would any of their million gigs that they play
every year. And this is Sam talking about that experience and exactly how it played out from his point of view.
I mean, we were nervous, but we treated like any other gig. And the thing you don't see on camera is that that studio is smaller then.
We thought it would be, which was good.
Yeah, you know it's like a theater, right, yeah, so maybe fit's like three or four hundred. So so the audience isn't Actually they are far away from you, but it's not too far. But if you watch, you know, I'm walking past the monitors out towards the people. I'm actually like looking at grandmas who are are like what's happening? You know, they have they're not scared, but they have like kindind of like really kind of amazed looks on like what's happening right now? And you know our friends
in the audience. You know, I'm looking out to the people. And I think that's the big thing about that performance was that it wasn't it wasn't insular to a band like you're watching a band on TV on the stage, Like, but it's it's the connection that we've always had with people to try to connect with people and look at people in the eyes, like looking past the cameras, you know, because it's because it's not because there's something past behind the cameras.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, but yeah, you know that performance would have been very different if it had been three years prior. Not that it wouldn't have had the same impact. There's no telling, but the fact that you know, we had at that point, we'd played over seven hundred and fifty almost eight hundred shows like that shows and that performance, and also we aren't the band that was put together and played some shows and now is going to get their TV debut after putting out their first record.
Like we were old road dogs who were.
Getting a chance at uh at sharing what we what we do, and so you you know, I I mean I was reasoning with myself backstage, like am I going to do the things I do on stage? Are you going to go for the growl? Are you going to hit your chest? You know, like like how are you going to approach this?
And and you know, so.
There were there were nerves involved and not really being sure and even in the you know, I kind of blacked out on stage and just was in the performance. And that's where you want to be, you know, you
want to be. You want to be in a place where you're not really thinking about if your zipper is up or not you're gonna fall over, and that that was the beauty of his response was that the song ended, and in my head, I said, we did it, like we got through it, nobody like and this and I heard that whoa from the side and that's when I was like, oh, like kind of snapped back into it, and and he had his great response, which like, like I said, like even after that performance, we walked off
and we're like.
I think we did good. I think we did good.
Yeah, that felt pretty good and had no idea of the impact it would have because once again, we were just doing what we do every night. And that's been that's been the most the funniest thing to it about about how that performances has brought such a huge new audience to our band ash which is good because it's not like people people found out about us and then come to a show even still expecting that that's actually.
Going to happen.
Yeah, they're like they come to a show like was that real?
And then they come to show and see that it's actually even more intense and continues to be intense, you know, like like that three and a half minutes is only a small piece of a of a larger puzzle, of a bigger show and a range of more emotions, you know, and and.
So so that was cool.
We didn't because it took that long to get that moment. We didn't take any of the any of the accolades for granted.
Or the the.
The growth for you know. We were just like we felt like we earned it.
Old road Dogs roll dug, We're old road Dogs. I love that Samuel t Herring podcast because I think when we record these episodes, they're quite often well, they've been a whole range of feelings and emotions, and some of them are quite silly and some of them are quite serious and reflective. And that one in particular is really uplifting because as you hear him saying, their Future Islands have been a band for a long time. It took him eight hundred old shows before their breakthrough moment, and
it's just really nice to see isn't it. And he comes across. He came across really well.
I like the guy. Yeah, he's one of those people. He's very good at making you feel at ease as soon as you meet him, like he's just a very friendly guy. I do Sam a little bit of an apology, because when I do the bits of artwork for each episode, we just do the same bit of artwork with slightly with different coloring. That's what we do. And Sam's he got the short straw. He's got such a shitty color combo. And I don't know what I was thinking. It's like
a brown background and like orange lettering. I don't know what I was thinking with that one. And it's one of the ones that I look at and I think, well, that's that's the bad one. That's the worst one. I think it's not reflective of Sam. I just think I was having an off day with my colors.
The next clip we're going to play is from an episode that I recorded just in autumn, Just Gone By, with an artist called Julienne Baker, who is sort of at the opposite end of her career. Two Future Islands, or rather, what are you just hearing Sam Herring talking about there as in the fact that they've played almost a thousand shows or whatever. She's still really just starting out in a way. She brought out her second album in October called turn Out the Lights. And she's a
singer songwriter from Memphis in the Southern States. And we like to have a range of people on the podcast, some that have got some old world dougs with great stories and years gone by, and other people who are pretty much new on the block, the new kids on the block. And Julienne Is it's kind of that I didn't really know what to expect from her because the music she makes in that singer songwriter almost kind of folky tradition. It's a bit more maybe some people call it a bit more.
Emo than that.
But I thought she might be quite meek, maybe quite mild, and maybe softly spoken.
Not that at all.
She's one of the smartest young people I have ever met, and she was an amazing conversationalist, really really articulate, far more articulate than me, and I love chatting to her. And she came into the office. We had a very varied conversation. But I had recently been to America and traveled around where she's from, and so I was personally
really excited to talk to her about that. Memphis specifically I found really fascinating, not just because of the landmarks that people know of, obviously Graceland and the Peabody Hotel.
Ducks. Did you see the ducks?
Yes?
So that's like on my well, I'll let you finish. No, just to interject that, it's so funny to me that piece of Memphis lore, the ducks that you know, performed a little walk around. But I was in Germany playing each other the first time I ever came to Europe, and for me, the ducks are cool, but they're like a kitschy event. You know. The top sites to see that's probably fifth on the list. And someone in German and he was like, oh, you're from Memphis.
Is that that place with the ducks?
And I was like, yes, how.
Did you know this? I know, but it's crazy.
Did you see the ducks walk?
We did? So for people that if this is making no sense of people, there's a hotel called the Peabody, famous place in Memphis, been there for a long time, and they have this very quirky tradition of they have some ducks in the hotel that live on the roof, and maybe once twice a day I can't quite remember. The ducks come down in the elevator in the lift
to the ground floor. Hundreds of tourists gather around. The ducks walk from the lift to the fountain, go in the fountain for a bit, then they turn around and they reverse the journey and they go back upstairs.
They're trained to do this, and they're walked out by the was the guy there with the duck master? The duck master different than duck commander.
I actually don't know the different levels of the duck.
No duck.
I'm pretty sure duck commander is like a bass pro shop like hunting thing. Oh okay, But then there's duck Master.
So it's done in this big ceremonial way. So the duck Master does a bit of a speech and talks about the history of the Peabody. Then the ducks as if they're walking, they actually walk on a red carpet, so celebrity ducks, and they make their way over to the fountain.
Everybody applauds. It's such a surreal thing.
I must admit I came away thinking, okay, like, did I enjoy that. I mean, I enjoyed the spectacle of it.
I was about to say the spectacle.
There's so many things in Memphis I think that are bizarre enough that you just want to witness the absurdity.
Of the fact that it exists.
But you were saying, so you saw many things in Memphis and one struck you.
Yeah, so there was so Obviously when people think of Memphis, they think Grace and they think of maybe the Peabody Hotel. Maybe I've only just learned about that, but maybe you want to go and check that out. Then obviously Bale Street and BB King's Blues Club, and maybe if you're more into music then like Sun Studio places like that. But it's a city that's really characterized by its huge kind of historic landmarks, those places. What was the actual reality like of growing up in that city.
I think there's a duality to the city, but that those elements of the past, while they seem like kind of static fixtures of history, play into the locals conception of the city.
Right.
So I had never been to Graceland ever, you know, like growing up, I never went a single time. There's a thing called Graceland two, which just small sidebar. The man who ran it was he actually passed a little while ago, but Graceland two spelled too as in.
This is also grace Land.
Was this bizarre little house owned by this man who just filled it with Elvis memorabilia, And it was like this informal kind of cult activity that we would all go to grace landtoon if you just knock on the door, and I think the thing was you showed up with a six pack of coca cola, or if you don't the man at any hour of the night. I had friends that would go at like two in the morning. We'll invite you in and he will just walk you around his home. It's just like a person's house, and
he'll just show you all his crazy stuff there. But so there's a lot of like interesting dichotomy of Memphis where there's the normal thing and then the abnormal thing.
I've got a question on that go on. I have listened to this episode obviously, but I can't remember the guy that lets kids come to his house if they bring him coca cola?
Is that Okay, I've done any further research. He's passed away now, Okay. So, as she says in that clip, But I think I haven't looked too much into the history of Graceland.
Two. Did you go to Graceland one?
Oh?
Yeah, the original, the real Graceland. Was that any good? Yeah? Fascinating.
I'm not even a huge Elvis fan, but to get to walk around his home and in his gardens and there's like a squash caught out in the garden because.
He likes squash. Is he buried there?
He is?
Yeah, it's it's really well done. It's presented in a very American way. It's quite entertaining. It takes you on a bit of an emotional journey as you walk around. Even if you're not a fan of Elvis, it is quite amazing. He's got a lot of TVs in there. He loved TV. It's something like thirteen TVs in his house.
Didn't Elvis used to shoot TV shoot the TVs or didn't like what was on the TV? I don't know, but that if I made that up, I think that's sort of story. I think that's true. If he was watching, say, X Factor, it'd shoots at or you know, the model the equivalent in the day.
I don't know, but apparently he'd seen that the President had multiple TVs in their home, whichever president it was at the time, and that he thought, I want that. That seems pretty good.
Why not when you're Elvis? I mean fair enough? Okay, This next clip has got some It's got quite a bit of background noise on it because it was recorded. This is the noisiest one I think I've ever recorded. It was recorded in essentially in the lobby of a hotel at Premium Vara Sound. We were actually a little bit above the lobby, but you could still hear everything. This is with Angel Olsen and she had literally just
arrived from another festival in Switzerland, I think. And what we're talking about here is Angel's love for roller skating, which is something that she's obsessed with and has even put in a video, So the video for Shut Up and Kissed Me she refers to a little bit in this little clip. But this is me and Angel Olson in a very noisy lobby talking about roller skating. You roller skate, right.
Yeah, I actually see that's the thing. I want to get some I want to get some rollies for glastow. You know, I'm trying to do that.
I'm trying to get I'm trying to do do some some roller skates on the stage, but I don't want to hurt myself in front of people either.
That could be a big risk. How long have you my ability?
I don't know.
If they'd let me, I think they wouldn't be able to stop you.
I showed them videos. Maybe look it's me.
I'm good. I'm good skate outside. Do you skate? What's what kind of skates do you have? Do you go in line or do you go quads?
I do? What do you mean like THEO?
Did you like the two four two and two?
Yeah?
You don't do the inline rollerblades?
I when I was a kid, I used to play street hockey as a kid, and then the change happened and I stopped. I was great at defense, and so I got good at skating because I played hockey outside with a bunch of boys, including family members and cousins and stuff, and girls too. But we got really good at it, and then, you know, then I became a girl, and then I gave it up, and then I would secretly skate still, but I didn't play hockey as much
and developed interest in other things, obviously. But now I'm just kind of like, well, maybe I'll play street hockey again.
Maybe I'll do that again.
Yeah, because I put on a pair of roller skates and went to a roller rink just to do it one day, just to see.
What it was like. And it was the best sober.
Thing that I could have ever done in my whole life, like kids doing the socop and in Asheville especially, there was this one the one that I shot my videos at called Tar Wheels.
And so, and it's just.
Like stuck in time, like stuck in this The lights are have probably haven't been changed in years, like same signage and everything. And you see these all sorts of people and live in Asheville, you know, creatives, hicks, you know, just all kinds kinds of hipsters and scenesters, but then also retirees and you know, so it was an interesting scene. And when I would go, i'd go and listen to
music on my headphones and just skate in circles. And one day I saw this guy in a wheelchair just sitting there and one of the employees came up behind him and rolled him around, and I thought it was the sweetest thing.
I was like, this is why you skate because stuff like that.
You know, It's just like simple, simple happiness and it doesn't require anything from anyone.
You're just happy and everyone else is happy.
Do you have a skates to the shops?
It had to be a smooth gravel road, like a freshly paved road.
That's what happened in my video. I found this like one street that had just been paved, and I was like, this could be amazing or I could really eat.
I do like that.
We ask all the really hard hitting questions on midnight chats. Do you skate to the shop?
Do you ever skate to the shops? Tell me that the way that was edited is also sounded like I was being really impatient. Yeah, but yeah, but do you ever skate to the shops? I don't give a shit about any of this stuff that you're saying. What I really care about is how do you get to the shops? Do you skate there? I think I probably asked that because I used to skate in my day, Greg, did you Yeah? And I would skate to the shops.
Fantastic. What would you want to go and get some sweets?
Yeah?
Like yeah, or milk from my mum whatever, But yeah.
Great mode of transport.
I used to love it. I can I see what she means, you know, when like when you can stand up on skates, because I mean if you can't, it's one of those things that if you can do it, it is great fun and very freeing and like being a kid again. And if you can't, it's the worst day out in the world, Isn't it like going around on the edge? You know, you see people like holding
on to the edge, especially this time of year. I mean with ice skating, for example, the places around London, you just it's it's good entertainment for half an hour or so. Though if you just go and watch the people that skate, you don't need to pay and do it. Don't do it, just watch other people fail at it exactly.
There was a sort of defining moment in the middle of the summer this year for Midnight Chats, because we make a new episode every fortnight and put it on nine on a Thursday night. But then some hoodlum broke into our office and took all of our kit and we'd recorded a few episodes of the podcast that went they got they got taken in that unfortunate incident. So we did stop in the middle of the summer if you're a regular listener, you'll have noticed that because we
just disappeared. It kind of was an unintentional summer holiday for us.
And we lost some really good things. Oh yeah, you had Tom Morello in the bag.
I know. Tom Morello recorded on the day after the UK general election in the summer, which he was really good talking about, which is a bit of a shame. And you spoke to Adam from the War on Drugs.
Yeah, I mean that was mainly me asking him about what movies he watches on planes. And if you've listened to previous podcasts I've done, you'll realize that's a recurring theme, is how I dig myself out of a hole. I just go for that. You can't do that anymore now, No, I think I think actually, in reality, I think it's only made the cut of one, The Billy Corgan one, I think is the one where it's actually in Okay,
it's how I little tricks of the trade. Here, a little bit of small talk, you know, works wonders with the pop stars of today. Hey what did you watch on the plane on the way here? And now thinking this guy is no threat to me, this guy he's just shooting the breeze.
Let's have some cinematic chit chat.
Yeah.
This so the clip we're about to play it was basically our comeback episode, which was Benjamin Clementine, who won the Mercury Prize a couple of years ago. That was the moment when most people heard of him for the first time, I think, even though he've been making music
for a little while. He's the guy from North London who left home in his late teens and moved to Paris and was homeless and was in Paris busking on the streets and eventually got spotted, made an album and which wound up his debut album wound up winning the Mercury Prize. So anyway, I went to go and meet
Benjamin in a hotel room in West London. But we've been lucky a few times over the course of making midnight Chats where the timing of when we record these episodes is sometimes works out to be absolutely spot on. So for example, we had Mike Skinner back ages ago, who came in on the day that Trump was a left, wasn't it. We had back for Lashes, was with us when the Brexit result came and things like that, So
really big historical moments. Anyway, it just so happened that Benjamin Clemens I was chatting to us just before this year's Mercury, and so I couldn't really not ask him about what he remembered from that night.
It was a very emotional night, a week before that obvious the terrorist attack. I was, I was, I was torn and and I needed some sort of hope. I needed some some some sort of I I you know, I of course I am stronger. But music needed my music, you know. I think it just needed that sort of
I feel that it was meant to be. And so when when when I wanted, I just felt that it was appropriate that I brought everyone on the stage too, to somehow stand in front of death and go, well we won, you know, or trauma or or fear, and say that you know, whatever happens now know that we'll always win. So it was it was a very very what's called.
This?
This is the time? I never forget. It's not it's the Americay Prize is smaller than than the occasion, you know, because you can never bring it back. The prize is here, you know, but that moment made by the program and then that you know the occasion, it's it's a bigger award. It's much of a bigger award for me. Me the award was standing on the stage with those people, those artists van that can out television or you know, thinking, you know, you can't re see a lot of people.
Apparently there's a lot of people watching. Yeah.
Yeah, it was a really meaningful moment because I don't think that's been done in Mercury history before with an artist wh's one has basically invited the other nominees to eleven other nominees I think, up onto the stage to effectively kind of received the prize along with you, to celebrate that moment. And you're right, in the context of what happened the week before in Paris, it did feel like very emotional occasion. Clearly what happened in Paris was
still a very painful thing. Still, it is when was the first time after winning the award that you returned to Paris and kind of felt the atmosphere in the city and what was that like? I mean I should probably explain as well that obviously you born in London, but you spent three years or so in Paris more than that, and then you spent time in New York recently, but Paris is still a city that I assume means
a great deal toy. So yeah, that experience of going back to Paris after winning the prize to kind of witness how that city was in the aftermath, how was that experience?
Well, funny you just asked that question if you knew what I was about to say next. And that was that before winning the Mercurys, the week before that, I was in Paris, I was living in the brothel, but a very very it's basically it was. It was not brothel, but it was. It was a hostel. I chose to live. It's a hostel. And you know every now that was you know, someone screaming or you know, you know, having sex. And the room was about the little work bigger.
Than this room we're in.
I should say that.
Yeah, it's more of what kind of sixty's by sixty something like that.
And and I was, I was, you know, I had my computer and I was composing my keyboard, my little keyboard, and I came here, came out to England for the occasion. I didn't think I win, of course I wanted The next day I went back to the room. The room that's a little woman was called what's it called a wardrobe like wall? You know those small things you can put that glass or.
Whatever, oh, like a s a sideboard type thing.
Yeah, yeah, on the wall. I took the I took the prize and I just put it right there. I laid in my bed and looked out through the window and I just thought to myself, this is life. You know, this is life.
Well, I don't know. I don't know where to start with that.
Greg speaking to Benjamin Clementine. First off, I really like the guy, but also that podcast has ended up staying with me to the extent that just the way he was speaking about his sort of philosophical moment post winning the Mercury Prize has become a bit of an office mantra, isn't it for us?
The catchphrase of the year has.
Become Benjamin Clementine talking about saying, this is life.
Yeah, it's just let.
Go like they can't do anything about it. Life just happens. Absolutely fascinating person to have on the podcast. He was He was great, and.
I would say that is one of that's the episode of the year that you'll either love it or hate Benjamin Clementine in his singing voice as well as his talking voice. People either love it and really get on with it, or they or they just don't. And it's not the easiest listen, is it. But at the same time, they're just little There's a bit in that clip then when he's talking about the wardrobe, like so intensely trying to like put a name on this on a wardrobe.
He's talking about a wardrobe, for God's sake. I mean, yeah, he's in the current issue of the magazine if you've not picked that up yet. They go and he's got and he's a great interviewee and says some really interesting things and some really great photos of him. He's a striking guy. But yeah, go back and listen to that one. Unless you listened to that clip, I thought, no, thanks, not for me.
So we're going to finish up with a bit of a laugh in a second one of our favorite guests from twenty seventeen. Thanks for listening to this one off that we've done this highlights package of twenty seventeen. We hope you've enjoyed listening to a bit of a flavor of some of our favorite moments or a few of our favorite picks from this year. If you are a regular listener to Midnight Chats, thanks for sitting through it again. You've probably heard a lot of that before, but cheers
for sticking with us. If you are new to the podcast, new to the series, maybe that's given you sort of an idea of what we do and the types of people that we have on and encourage you to go back and listen to either those episodes or just check out some completely fresh ones.
They're all there.
You'll find all episodes we've done almost forty now, so there's plenty to dig into over the Christmas holidays. When you've got a bit of downtime. Just go and listen to an episode of Midnight Chats. And if you're there, and if you do like what we do, do rate us. Do subscribe to us so that you get every new episode that we make, And do tell your podcast loving friends family around the Christmas dinner table about Midnight Chats and tell them to check us out, because that would
be really helpful. But, like I say, we're going to end on a bit of silliness out there.
Yeah, this is a hoot, I mean, this is this is fun, right, This is Mac DeMarco, who was the twenty fifth guest. We had episode twenty five earlier this year in April, and we ended the podcast playing a game actually, because Mac to Marco has been in the magazine a lot, he's been on our website a lot. We've done we've done pretty much everything you can do with an artist. Now. He's had a cover feature, and he's had a little New Bands feature really early on
and all these things. And we have a feature called getting to Know You, and it's a it's a piece we do in the magazine where we send a survey of questions to an artist and they send them back and they're all very short, one word answers, and he took it in twenty fourteen, and I thought it would be fun to test him on the questions again, or some of the questions again and see if he can remember what he answered back then and what his answer would be now. So this is Mack and I playing
the getting to Know You quiz and that's that. Really, that's the end of the podcast for twenty seventeen, the best year on record. Nothing bad has happened, Gemmacollins fell down a hole. We'll be back in the new year. I think we're going to put up the first one of twenty eighteen, and maybe even in the first week of January. We've already recorded one, and I must say it's quite a special. Guess they're already short answers.
Okay, I'm going to ask you a couple of them and see then more comparing.
We'll compare the answers to what your answer would be now and what it was then. So what's your favorite word?
Probably butt cheeks. Butt cheeks is correct, single bang.
You haven't changed a bit. So you say you're getting older, growing up. That's I don't believe that. Okay, the film you can quote the most.
Of probably Star Wars. Maybe Amadeis.
Back then you went for Austin Powers.
Okay, it might have been fib and Meg then, okay, how about maybe Amadis. I don't know, who knows.
How About what's your favorite place in the world? What is it right now?
Right now? It's I love Tokyo. We got to go to Spinson's then, so I love it. But what was it then?
It was Hooters?
Then that's been a little jackass in this That's cute.
This is the very first one of these two did this is? This is like our test run. It's probably still the best one. The most famous person you've met?
I feel like I probably would have said something like Joe Mama or something. But m M, did I give me this? What did I give? Like a serious answer there.
I couldn't cool that because there's a chance you would have met this person, but I don't. I wouldn't be surprised if you are kind of say that I've never met.
Okay, well, let me say who is the most famous person I would have met? Now, I've met the dude from Twilight? What's his name?
Oh?
Yeah, I met him, dude. Yeah, I mean I was really drunk and I talked to him for like two seconds and have we met before? And I was like, I don't know. So he seemed nice. I don't know, we didn't really meet him. I guess who was who was the most famous? I met Jonah Hill, He's extreme.
Back then, you said Lindsay.
Lowan, Oh definitely have Oh no, yeah, I did meet Lindsay Lowan. I did.
Okay, that's that's good.
That's still you know why I don't remember those because I met her. I met I was getting introduced to these people on this couch and I was like, oh, hey, you know, hi, how you doing? You know? It was by my friend Sandy. And then when I got to Lindsay, I was like hey, and I couldn't really hear. There's a show going on, and like I was like, you know, Shirley or something like cool whatever, And I walked away and Kira was like, that's Lelo and I was like, no,
it wasn't. I looked over. I was like, oh, yeah it was. So I just completely blanked on it, which is.
You know, but I felt that that was cool.
He's pretty famous though she's famous, pretty famous. Yeah, Jny Hill is pretty famous too, though.
I think that niece now be your on some Yeah he's more famous than her now, right, I guess.
So I be a nice guy, Yeah he was. It was kind of you know, he was. He was a big fan, but he was kind of like, oh my god, not but you know, him freaking out at me, being like I love you. And then I was kind of like, but you're like John. You know, I saw super Bad when I was like super young. I've seen a ton of his movies. It's like super Bad is still his
best that movie's hilarious. I watch it last week. But but for to, you know, to have somebody that I should be freaking out on freak out at me preemptively. It was just like, oh, you know, it's like really weird, but he's a really nice guy.
Okay, let's just do a couple more. You're guilty pleasure.
I probably probably said you said cold play all the time, but I'm not guilty about cold play. Guilty pleasure just eating. I eat like ship. You know that's my guilty pleasure. Do you know?
Do you know what you said in Sea thousand and full seme? What you said pissing in the bath?
That that's true, that that's your was this over email? That I do this over emails? Must have been because I thought I must have thought these out. That's so sick. I love pissing in the bath. I do feel guilty about it, especially when my girlfriend's in there with me.
Okay, this is we just did this last one. Your biggest disappointment this this question that you can you can find out a lot about people and how they how they answer it.
So I don't have no idea what I would have said, but let me just say I'll say, now, the biggest disappointment, I don't know, I don't I don't really feel disappointed. Ever. I liked the new Star Wars movies. I'm trying to think movies. That's the only thing that really mm hmmm Star Wars. What other movies have even seen this year? Pretty much?
None?
Yeah, I didn't like the habit, but.
Then your biggest disappointment was my penis.
Fu.
Yeah.
Midnight Chats is a loud and quiet podcast production by Emma Snook Music courtesy of gold Panda. Search Midnight Chats on iTunes for more episodes and to subsequitribe. For more information, visit loudanquiet dot com