Brittany Howard Goes Solo

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you can find a link to in the show notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right. Enjoy the episode. The rootsiness of the Alabama Shakes is super refreshing, which is why their success after the first release, Boys and Girls, in twenty twelve wasn't surprising, but it did seem to happen really really fast. In fact, their lead singer, Brittany Howard, was still delivering mail for the Postal Service while writing some songs for the album. It wound up with three Grammy nominations, including Best New Artist, plus the album's lead single, hold On, was named Song of the Year by Rolling Stone. Unlike most rock music these days, you can hear the blues in their sound, but the Shakes don't sound like a throwback act. They just sound soulful and funky and modern and raucous all at the same time. This song, Dunes, is from their second and most recent albums, Sound and Color. It earned the group six Grammy nominations after it came out in twenty sixteen. All the success surprised Britney Howard, the band's powerhouse vocalist, guitarists, and songwriter, because she worked through a serious bout of writer's block to get the album done. That writer's block returned when she and the band got together to make a third album, but this time, when she dug deep to write, something more personal came out, leading her to put the band on hold for a second and write some songs for herself. This is Georgia, from Brittany's debut solo album titled Jamie. On this week's Broken Record, Britney talks with Rick Rubin about how a couple of these songs came together, what was like to create and performed by herself, and later the interview, Britney starts asking Rick questions and things get kind of weird. This is Broken Record Season three. Liner notes for the middle Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's a bit more of brittany song Georgia. After her and Rick talk about how the song came together? How did that one get written and then recorded? Then I was into panga because that's why I was doing a lot of writing for this record, and it was like lunchtime, so making a sandwich, and I was reading this article and articles about this woman. Her name is Georgia and Muldrow. She's a producer, writer, rapper, singer, maker of things in general, and I have a lot of respect for I think she's wonderful and I love her creativity. So I was like, she works with all these people that I had a lot of respect for, and I was like, man, I wish, I wish Georgia would like notice me, because if she noticed me, that means I'm dope too. And then I'm still reading this article, I'm eating the sandwich, I'm squirm. I just want Georgia to notice me. And I was like, oh up, that's catchy. And then the bassline came in and I had this idea for this warring the warring clad with the bass and they're kind of doing separate things, and I was like, I gotta gotta put the sandwich down. I gotta write this song real quick. And then it turned into this like it turned into a completely different story, turned into this love song from a little girl to like an older girl, and it turned into this like love song I'd never heard before. But I wish I had and then it just ends on this huge dream sequence. What sounds like a dream sequence to me anyway. The organ part in the middle is really dramatic and beautiful. Elsewhere it really does yeah, really cinematic, really beautiful. We stuck very closely to the demo and we just retract things to make them sound more percussive and real, especially like the Roads. We had a lot of contact mics on the Roads, so that it sounded like something that was tangible and not just something that's like really dreamy and unattainable, like what is that like. We wanted everything to feel very visual and human and woody and close and familiar, So the contact mix had a big spot in that song. Cool. How did you make the original demo? They had a little MIDI keyboard. I'm like a real tiny one, I think the twenty eight keys or something, because twenty five keys, because when I get them bigger than that, I don't play them. It has to be like a tiny keyboard because if I have a full size one, I just get intimidated by it. So I had this little one. I use logic logic, which is cheaper than pro tools, so I use that and just electric guitar, a little crappy amp I found. That's about it. That's usually all I need, because you know, you got your kid on the MIDI and then nothing's like a real guitar, so you got to use a real guitar. Do you buy any chance? Have the demo in your phone? Yeah, but it's not as good. I'd love to hear it. I'd love to hear it, just to hear it, hear the process, you know. Okay, that's a great question. Can you can plug it in right behind you? There's a little that chord yet, just be fun to hear. Let's see here. It's great, you know. It just feels like molten lava just poured all over me. And I have to listen to the demos again. It's just so interesting how how much of the idea is there right from the beginning. Yeah, a lot of my demos are like that. They're just like there sound and Color was a song I did that's pretty much exact from album and shakes at Good. It's pretty much exactly like my demo is the same thing. Yeah, they come prett complete, not very well recorded, but pretty complete. Yeah. And from the time that you were eating the sandwich until that demo existed. How long was it a couple of hours? So same day the initial idea comes. When did the dream sequence ending? Did you realize that was the choice you were gonna be you were gonna make? Oh, it just kind of happened naturally because I was like, I've run out of ideas. Let me try just putting it through another sound and see if that creates a different section. And then it did, and then it made me think in different ways, and then started layering on all this like X files sounds and big kick drum, big dramatic ending. It's it sounds like hearing the demo makes it sound like it comes to you very naturally and easily, and that's beautiful to hear. Thanks. Yeah, I think all those songs are really I fight with and songs like that, I just put them down. I said, don't got it right now, or I just never do anything with it at all. Yeah. Yeah, How often do songs come? I don't. I don't really, it's not that easy for me. I feel like there's writers out there who write wonderful songs daily. They just they can sit down and write two or three songs a day. Everybody's different. For me, that's not how it works for me. I am. I feel very fortunate to receive any song I get, and I try to see it through because the way I think of it is like, if I'm as long as I'm saying open enough to receive this song, so to say, like if I'm sitting there trying to think, Okay, I gotta write a song, I gotta write a song. What's it about? What's it about? Like that doesn't work, really cuts me off from being creative. And I think whenever I just relax, like making a sandwich, pretty relaxing, that's when things hit me. So I'm the type of person that runs to the studio whenever I do get an idea because I realize it's very special. So I wouldn't say they come super super often. But then again, I'm not. I'm also doing other things. I'm just like a very mentally active person. Out of the way, let it come exactly. We'll be back with more Rick Rubin's conversation with Brittany Howard. We're back with more from Brittany Howard. What's the first time you ever sang in front of people? Probably fourteen and fifteen it's like a talent show at school, and I was writing songs then horrible songs, but I got there and did it. We got people's choice says something. It's like someone's drunk dad was out there going whoa Like the drunk dad loved it. He was like, man, y'all re mommy rush something like that. I was like, what did you did you like the experience of singing in front of people? I guess so it was. It was weird. It was like I was after something, but I still don't know what that was. I was like trying to achieve something. I'm trying to put myself back into that headspace of being like a teenager. Dare's wouldn't be good again a good band because my my ultimate goal, ironically enough, should be in a band. And I was gonna stop until I was in a band, and then my next goal was like I'm not gonna stop until we play a real show and an album and this all these really basic goals. You know, who would be the inspirations for wanting to be in a band. It was really weird. It was like at my school, we had like this old gym, had this old stage, and then one night I was in marching band. I was like eleven years old, and this older girl who's in marching band came up to me. It was like, are you going to the concert tonight? I was like what concert. She's like, it's that the old gym. It's at seven o'clock. You should come to it. It's gonna be bands. So I show up by myself and they had there's just these bands playing their kids I went to school with, and they're really good, and everybody's like dancing and I'm like standing there. It was like such a moment that was so surreal because like all these kids are dancing and then I look at the stage it's like a kid like I had pe with, and like this like a kid that I knew, and they're playing instruments and this moment happened where I was just like I have to be in a band. So cool, Yeah, so lucky that that happened. Yeah. I was like, this is the ultimate thing that one can do is do that. And and ever since I was eleven, I was like looking for band members. I remember teaching like a few kids how to play instruments so that I could start a band with them. Is the sheiks your first band? No, so what's your history? Wow, I've been a lot of bands, a lot of bands, a lot of bands I made, I formed. I had wanted to be like the singer for some bands and stuff because they're already formed, they are new to player instruments, but they're like, nah, you don't look apart. I was like, all right, I'll make my own band then, and then proceeded to just like train a lot of kids, like I pulled out a marching band, Like just how you play bass, Just how you play drums, Like you're the drummer. Now practice the drums. You're you're gonna be the guitar player. Because it's like the one kid that could play the solo from I Wish You Were Here that was a guitar player. So many bands I can't even really count. It would it would just be this menagerie of different kids from the band, and then we would always change our name and always have different members. But it was always like me and the drummer, Johnny, who's still my best friend to this day. You did that for how long? Say? From eleven to I found his Sheakes when I was twenty. Yeah, And how did that come together. Would they already playing together or no? It was so Zach bass player. I had a psychology class with him. Three of us all went to Sam High School. So Zach who would always wear the T shirts they had like the cool bands and nobody really knows about. So I was like, man, I figure out how to talk to Zach. I was really shy. I was like, I didn't know I'd approach him. He gave me nothing. I didn't know anything about his personality. He's kind of a jerk when I first met him. But I was like, look, man, and I've been writing these songs. I got this like demo. Do you wanna listen to it? Because I know you play bass. He's like yeah, okay, So go to the little Honda Civic and we're sitting in it and he plays it. He's like, yeah, it's pretty cool. And I'm like, will you wanna come jam sometime? It's like, yeah, I do that. So that's how I mean Zach got started. We were just like musicians first friends later and we you know, he taught me a lot about a lot of different type of music, like King Crimson and like lots of Prague kind of music. But I liked it. I got into it. So me and Zach were real tight from the beginning. And I was probably like sixteen, he must have been seventeen. And then men him were making this music and he's the guitar player. He got to hold one of our demos that we made. He was like, oh, they're pretty good. We should get them to open for us. And I was like, whoa. You know, when a drummer we ain't got a material, He's like, I'll help y'all out. Here's Steve, Steve from the music store. Now we're being and we we got thirty minutes in material and we did our first show. We did our first show Indicator, I'll be i'mna pay for thirty minutes. It was amazing. Like I remember walking up there and being so nervous. Everybody's looking at this crazy because I know we looked strange, like our drummer's Davie. He had like a like a a Clippers jersey on or something, just the Clippers jersey, and and Zach had liked this little funny mustache, and you know, he's looked like a nice guy. And then it was me, we're just like an odd bunch and then I opened my mouth to sing and then I just like blacked out. And the next day and everybody's cheering and standing up and they're like what's amazing and clapping, and I was like, whoa, I think that went really well. And then and then I got paid. I was like, what did get paid? Was that first set all original material? It was like all covers. I think we did. I think we had three songs that originally original material. Three songs that's just like James Brown covers like Zeppelin CDC. Because you wouldn't get hired where we're from if you didn't play covers. How will live be different? As a solo artist, It's a lot more vulnerable, tell you that much, because I don't. I'm a guitar player, but in the Shakes, I played guitar all the time, and this I play guitar and like three songs because they're the parts I wrote, are like way too technical for me to sing and play. So it's just me up there with Mike and I'm like, okay, I've never done this before, so it's new. It's new, it's exciting, it's fun, but at first is very very scary because I'm like I'm so good at this thing that I don't do anymore. Now what am I good at? Yeah? What do I do with my hands? Exactly what I say all the time. Thanks for saying that. I always say that. Nobody laughs, jeez. Tell me about the solo work and how is this solo work different than the band work. I think the solo work, to me, is a lot different than the band work. I loved the music we made together as a band. I just think the solo stuff is my opportunity to be a whole lot more adventurous and to steer my own ship and to make my own triumphs and my own mistakes explore, just do whatever I want. There's really no one to embarrass or anyone to let down. It's really just like I get to just be a free, creative person and that means like everything to me. It's very different. The process is different. It was just I like this with here. This is why I like it, this is how it makes me feel. It stays, you know, pretty simple. Play something else from the new album, just for let's see. That's incredible. That's one of them. Thank you, it's incredible. It's interesting when you described going on stage the first time and the feeling of blacking out and then hearing people applaud And when I hear this, my first reaction is the person who's singing that isn't it is so in the music that they don't exist outside of the music. Yeah, it's I'd say even as a performer, when I'm performing, it's like, if I can't get into my music, then I'm That's what I'm most upset about when I leave a stage is like I wasn't there, Like I couldn't get in there. It's usually some sort of weird technical difficulty or tiredness. And is it something it just comes naturally to you, that ability to kind of be in it? Yeah, because I feel like I learned really early. Yes, I feel like I learned really early on. Like if I'm not feeling it, then why would anybody else feel it? Yeah? And how is that song written? Oh? This song? I was short. It's called Short and Sweet. I was sitting on my back porch in Nashville. I remember being like a really nice day, wasn't too hot, and I remember there being these wind chimes in the background, And usually I don't record out there because of the wind chimes. And of course I don't take the wind chimes down makes too much sense. But that day I was just messing around. I just got this classical guitar and just started playing these chords. Then the first chord I opened up with, I don't even know what it's called, doom, Doom Doom. It's a really funny chord. I was like, Oh, that's so nice. And then I thought, how cool to be to start a song with this funny chord. And then I went to the g and then I and then the song just kind of came out. I just started there's something between it, like the words came out, and then I just did it. Yeah, matter of moments. And how are we able to remember it was? I just had my phone there. Oh and you just turned on the phone as soon as you started working on it. No, I kind of had it going a little bit and then I was like, oh, let me hit this record button. Yeah, and then I just like it was just kind of like top of the head. Yeah, amazing, it's really beautiful. Thank you so much. We'll be back with more from Brittany Howard. We're back with more Brittany Howard's conversation with Rick Rubin. Are you excited to make more music, Yes, that's all I want to do. Like I love touring, I love I love being a performer, of course. I love performing. I love meeting the fans. I love being in a studio because I'm inspired by the engineering aspect of it and not knowing anything about it and then finding out one little thing and then my brain just going and making the music and being inspired from something like that. That's my favorite thing to do, just to just mole around his studio and figuring little things out that excite me. Performers a little front. Obviously, you're on a bus for a long time, like twenty people just like it's just different. It's different. Yeah, when you when you talked about the Georgia song, you were inspired by something you were reading an article in that moment. How often does does the inspiration come from something in the world around you? Pretty often. I think this record was more inspired by my my own life memories, being nostalgic, just knowing myself better. And then the record before sound and color came from watching a lot of movies like Dune. I watched Is it just done or is it Dunes? There's a Dune they watched Dune, I was like, I gotta write a song about that. Watched this a Kia Krosawa movie called Dreams Watch. I mean, I gotta gotta write a song after watching that. Movies really inspired my last record for sure, because I'm like, I'm definitely like a visual person, and if I see and if I'm seeing all those colors and things like that, I already have my own soundtrack. Even though they're playing their sweeping soundtrack, I have my soundtrack, and I'm like, it's so much cooler in here, you know. So that definitely inspired sound of color. And then this one was just like my own life. I don't think a lot of people stop and reflect on how they got to where they are, or what kind of patterns they repeat, or where they're going or what they want. I don't I don't know if people really pause and take stock of how proud they should be of themselves already. And you know, that was there was just something I was checking out turning thirty. It was just checking out being more self aware. And then it kind of begat this record doing somethinking like that. In the case of being inspired by movies to wrect songs, you talk about having the soundtrack going in your head, So would it be more would it be more like you're watching a movie and you're imagining the score that you would do and that ends up being your song, or might it be based on well, this character in the movie is going through this thing, so it's that emotion. Yeah, definitely, the feeling, the definitely the feeling. Also the colors, the mood, what and also what would I do here? All of it? All of it kind of creates a thing all together. It can create or inspire me to write a song. And I wrote a song called Dunes after watching Dune. But the topics really don't have anything to do with each other. It's just the feeling of desolation. Anything else interesting that you could think of to talk about, yea, all tons of things. Okay, let's you still it's gonna be weird. I'm not afraid. All right, we're flipping an interview. Can you believe in aliens? I believe in everything? Okay, so yes, yeah, how about you? Yeah? Definitely. Have you ever had any other worldly or mystical experiences? Yes? Tell me. I used to live in a haunted house. It was so haunted I moved out and I was broke, So imagine it's pretty haunted. What would be an example of a haunting? Okay, well I'll just put it to make a long story short, getting locked out of my house from from the inside out and having doors and cabinets just slam right in front of me or behind me, and like blankets move, curtains move, what else? Oh my bass player has actually seen a shadow go from one room to another room. I've never seen anything well besides like things move. And eventually it just got like so it being bad that I just like wasn't sleeping good. So then I just moved out. I moved out in like twenty four hours, moved out of the house. Yeah, so something, I mean, it really freaked me out bad because I didn't really believe in ghosts. I thought, like I thought my mom was just making it up that there's a ghost in house to mess with me, but wasn't about me. It's a pretty selfish thought. Actually there's a ghost and house, and so there's that. I lived in a haunted house, but it was it was not so scary and it was more friendly, friendly spirits really, But that doesn't bother you knowing that there's like a whole other dimension of beings that can see you and you can't see them. No, it bothers me. I hate that. I hate that just thinking about it right now, Peeping Tom's not that they care. I'm just saying, that's what I'm saying. It's like you're assuming that they care. No, it's not. It's not like I don't care. What I mean, they're maybe they're dead. I don't know what it is. Maybe they're an interdimensional now. I have no idea. I'm just saying it freaks me out not having the knowledge of it, Like I don't understand it, and it makes me uncomfortable. I'm familien though, I'm like, oh, it packed me up. It's been wild down here since we're just doing this. Do you think a song it's like an entity or do you think it's not even like that. I've never thought of it like that before, but someone recently gave me that example, and it sounded fign when I heard it for the first time. But as I think about it, there's something. There's something about it, But I don't I don't think that the song itself is the entity. I think it's more of an expression of something else. It's like language isn't us it's it's more like a vehicle we use. Yes, I agree, I mean like you said, expression, it's expression, especially with just the landscape of what's happening behind the vocal telling the story. The vocals telling the story. But then the music is so important too. One of my favorite composers is David Axelrod. Incredible the way he could move you with the tone of the guitar, the size of the drums, and of course obviously all the composition happening. But everything mattered that that as as a songwriter and whatever I will do in the future, everything does matter. And he's one of my first teachers that showed me why everything matters, because in the end, you have a landscape, you have such a big story you're telling. I remember telling my partner about why I like jazz music because she didn't understand it's why I was listening to it, and I was like, you know, it's telling the story based on who's doing it, but it's telling the story of a time that we didn't understand. But it's blatantly telling me what it felt like to walk down the streets of you know. Selma Alabama nineteens. Everything's there, that's all the information I need. Yeah, you can read a book, of course, books are wonderful too, it's a different form. But the music tells me everything I need to know about the mood, what you're afraid, there's colors in it. It's like there's so much information when you don't say anything. But then when you're saying something, you're directing my thoughts of what to think. You know what I'm saying. That's the key. I think what you just said is the key to it. Is that the book or the movie tells you what to think, and then music puts you in a place where you can feel your feelings, your own feelings. Yeah, it really opens you up. Yeah, yeah, especially just music. Yeah. I think poetry also can can also have that effect. I feel like it's it's open enough where I don't feel like poetry is telling me what to think, especially when the poets that are really good at it. And I think I think all of expression of creativity, I think that really good stuff is what connects us back to ourselves. So even when you're looking at a giant painting, and I never understood art because I wasn't understanding what I was supposed to get from it. But now I've gotten older and I see some pieces and I'm just like, wow, this makes me feel like childhood, but like also like I don't know, I'm just I'm getting it more and more, I think, the more I learned about myself just as a person, and that's been just been really really cool and eye opening, especially like on this earth, all I want to do is create things, So it's been cool learning how to do that from everything that's differ from what I do, you know, But then also it ain't so different from painting what I do, you know what I mean, It's not so different. I don't think so either. Brittany Howard's first solo album, Jamie, came out this fall. You can check it out by subscribing to our playlists for the episode at Broken Record podcast dot com. You can also sign up for behind the scenes newsletter and check out other episodes of the podcast while you're there. I also want to let you know that Broken Record is going on a short hiatus, but we'll be back in January with episodes of the podcast, and I'm really excited to share got Ozzy Osborne with Sharon Bob, We're from the Grateful Dead, Kenny Beats, Nick Lowe, The XX, and a lot more. Plus we'll be releasing episodes every week in the new year. Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrel, Milo Bell, and Lea Rose. Our theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'll catch you back in January. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.