Charlie Puth

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Charlie Pooth is a singer songwriter whose knowledge of pop music runs deeper than your average chart topper. He studied music production and engineering at Berkeley College of Music and first gained widespread attention in twenty fifteen with his ubiquitous single see You Again, a collaboration with Whiz Khalifa for the Furious seven soundtrack. That song earned him his first Grammy nomination. In fact, three of them since Denny's released hits like Attention, We Don't Talk Anymore, and One Call Away, while also writing and producing for other artists, including co writing and co producing Stay for the Kid, Leroy and Justin Bieber. His fourth album, his latest, Whatever's Clever, comes out next month, and, as he'll reveal in this episode, is his most honest and personal work today. On today's episode, I'll speak with Charlie about making Whatever Clever and the process of recording a song with Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins. He also discusses the sly way he convinced Kenny geta appear on the album, and sits down at the piano to demonstrate how gospel chords always have found their way into pop music, revealing the harmonic foundations that shape his songwriting. This is Broken Record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my interview with Charlie Booth at over to YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast if you want to see the video. The new album is really really good.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: Well thanks.

00:01:48
Speaker 1: You went to Berkeley, Yeah, and I imagine there No, I can't tell, but like you know, I imagine there's like if you if you go to Berkeley, if you graduate from Berkeley, there's like an audience you could be focused on pleasing, if you if you're there, right, and then you come out of there and you're in the pop world and that's his whole own other audience that's might have to worry about, sure, pleasing very different. Yeah, And it seems like you somehow land somewhere between the two.

00:02:18
Speaker 2: Right. Well, I've always for even before I went to Berkeley, when I went to Manhattan School, and I always wanted to take what I learned in conservatory and apply it to pop music because I always just got the most visceral reaction from pop music, like listening to Lucky by Britney Spears, my all time favorite artist, like Max Martin production the drums being like sitting perfectly in the record. There's nothing better than a pop record that you can really crank up volume wise and just it won't pierce your ears because the mix is so crispy and good. But I would listen to you know, James Taylor. He I learned how to play piano by listening to Fire and Rain. And I'm listening to like a like like the intro to Mexico that he performed in like nineteen ninety three, and I'm like, this sounds is like kind of a Brazilian influence. But this guy lives in the berkshears in Massachusetts and he has a he's playing it but it's a pop song, but it sounds like Antonio Carlos Joe Beam, Like, oh, I get it. He's blending all of these different worlds together, and he is Thus James Taylor. I can blend different worlds together and be influenced by different things, work with boys, two men I've worked with James Taylor. I can work with X, Y and Z and be influenced and be Charlie Pooth, which is what I've always wanted to be. Yeah, which I finally really am.

00:03:57
Speaker 1: Now what do you mean by that?

00:03:59
Speaker 2: Meaning, I feel like I always put a front up the music, not musically but personality wise. That's why a lot of people might know my music before they know me. I never really gave them a chance to know me because I was kind of maybe growing up and trying on a lot of different hats, pretending to be a lot of different things, like dyeing my hair blonde one day and then shaving it the next day. I didn't really give people a chance to get to know me.

00:04:30
Speaker 1: When you're young, you don't even know yourself.

00:04:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, so how do you my frontal lobe developed twenty nine? Probably?

00:04:36
Speaker 1: How old are you now?

00:04:37
Speaker 2: Thirty four? So okay, relatively recent, relatively recently.

00:04:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, you felt the music was authentic? Do you feel the music? Yeah?

00:04:44
Speaker 2: I felt the music was authentic. I just thought everything else that came after it, I was fudging the truth a little bit because I was maybe not advised correctly that I needed to concoct some fake story or exaggerate this little element to get people intrigued. When all along my songs still are. People are discovering them like kids born in twenty fourteen, or discovering we don't talk anymore. For the first time and they like it just because it's a good song. They're discovering how long and attention and one call away all for the first time, just based on the music.

00:05:23
Speaker 1: The way that you were able to pick out James Taylor, Like what made James Taylor James Taylor? By the time you get out and you're signed to Atlantic, Like, did you feel like you could just figure out pop music? Like did it feel like I know what this is, I know how to.

00:05:36
Speaker 2: I knew what it was to me. I actually set out to write songs for other pop acts. I never in the back of my mind I wanted to be the artist, but I wouldn't admit that to myself, so I just kind of played a fake game of Oh, I'll just be the song. It wasn't I shouldn't say even say fake game. I wanted to write songs and hits for other artists. I just didn't realize how badly I wanted to be the artist. So I knew what it was like to be in the studio with X Y and Z and hear what they're working on and trying to improve it or come up with something similar. In that world, I got a really early glimpse on what it was like to be an artist and like what pop music was.

00:06:16
Speaker 1: What was your early impression.

00:06:18
Speaker 2: Well, I moved to la in the days of big co writes and you know, double triple sessions. Starting a session at seven o'clock in the morning after having just left the Interscope studios at five o'clock in the morning, I was like, I was grinding. So it was kind of it was high tempo and dancy and all over the place, lots of features, lots of syncopated rhythms like and that might come back one day. There's like a big nostalgic twenty sixteen trend going on right now. That's fair, that's right, But I mean that's I think the music industry changes every month now, really, yeah, it seems taste seems to change. There are artists that are popping right now that for the first time I'm not even aware of I used to be aware of everything. I don't know if that means I'm getting older what. I'm pretty keen on everything that's going on. But my friend showed me in our studies working on the other day, and she has this whole little fan base growing on kind of unusual sounding music and I was just like, wow, I maybe five years ago I would have known about that. But there's like fifteen other acts like that right now.

00:07:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're having a kid, right, Yeah, I hate to yeah, yeah, three, I hate to break it.

00:07:31
Speaker 2: Right, it might be done. My hard drive is partitioned right now, totally.

00:07:37
Speaker 1: Like you might be late to the party a few more times.

00:07:39
Speaker 2: I don't mind being late to the party because I can always show up late.

00:07:42
Speaker 1: That's right, That's right. Yeah, you know, I know there's a lot of people who have complaints about streaming, and there probably is a lot that is. It does create a lot of challenges. Yeah, but it does seem like one of the real benefits of streaming has been the way that people playlist things. And it's just like putting a Billy Joel song next to a you know, shod Day song, next to a Charlie Poot song next to and it's just like so everything is on the table, you know, forever for the listener.

00:08:07
Speaker 2: Absolutely to your point. I I was reminded of an amazing Billy Joel song the and so I don't know the lyrics to anything, and oh it's so Billy Joel, It's but I hadn't heard that song River of Dreams. I hadn't heard that album, I haven't on a CD. I just hadn't heard it in a long time, and it just showed up. It started playing one day after I was listening to I don't remember what the new song was, but that that is one of the benefits of streaming.

00:08:51
Speaker 1: Not great things, but it's broken like the audience out you know, like absolutely Michael McDonald, who's on your new album, and Kenny Loggins. Yeah, you think about like those guys and you know, they kind of got lumped into like at some point it was like it was like it was it still is. It's it was ao R album oriented rock when they were around, and it became yacht rock. It's like there was make an R and B you know, like but they wouldn't have the white guys just make R and B music. Absolutely God forbid, but.

00:09:14
Speaker 2: Absolutely all all. But again here we go with the taking it to the streets first chord. That is the most gospely chord that that that is, that is the chord of God. Right, there's like you can't sit down and be like I'm going to write a song today. It's that's gonna sound like no, this is like it's just it's very hard to explain, and I'm still trying to get better at explaining how music makes me feel. But that's that that comes close to it. But I do have Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins on my album.

00:09:50
Speaker 1: Did you have the song and then think this sounds like something that we could get Michael and Kenny on or did you reach out to them first and just kind of open ended?

00:09:59
Speaker 2: And I reached out to them and I said, let's make a song in a very classic way, blank session, and I was playing something. I think they thought it was cool, and Kenny came over and whispered in my ear quite loudly. In my ear. It was like, I think you should let Mike play something. And I was like, absolutely, I let me be the engineer. And Mike sat down and started playing. Oh, and Kenny took it, and then Kenny took a guitar and it was like I had a microphone like this, and they then I started. I just I wasn't the artist anymore. I was the engineer, which I'm totally fine with. He was like, okay, record this here is right, one, two, three four. I was like, why are we recording that? And he was like put it on top of it and I'm like oh, and I remember there was this I think it was like on Pretzel Logic Steely Dan really am you know a lot of music, any major dude would tell you that that albums Pretzel Logic. There was a snare drum that I just I want my snare drum to sound like that on any major dude and really dry, like a Hey nineteen kind of there. And Kenny was like, Okay, the song is called Love in Exile before the lyrics, before the were lyrics. I'm like, what. But by the way, that's happened to me before I wrote a song with Katie Perry called Harley's in Hawaii. She came up to me. She was like, this is the We're gonna write a song called Harley's in Hawaii. And then Cash looked at me with like you and I ride in Harley's in Hawaii. I'm like, oh, we're lit, or we're gonna.

00:11:47
Speaker 1: Make the whole thing. But it's a great title.

00:11:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a great title important to her. And I was like, Okay, we're gonna make a song called Love and Exile. Sounds like one of those the titles of books you see at the grocery store when you're checking out your food and like, oh, I'll get this book by Dan something Love in Exile. It sounds really intense. Are you sure? And he was like yeah, just like and Mike's just started. He was like, Okay, I think the prechorus should be what changed? And I'm like, Mike, what changed? What? What? What change? And he goes, I thought we were with it.

00:12:26
Speaker 1: I thought in it.

00:12:27
Speaker 2: I'm like, we were just communicating through song. And then I find out they lived twenty minutes away from me. I thought they drove like an hour because I live up in Santa Barbara.

00:12:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. They were like he's right there.

00:12:37
Speaker 2: Yeah I thought that, and they were like, no, do you want to go get some lunch after? We like sure. It was like the most casual, easy thing ever. And I said, we'll finish this at Conway Recording Studios in Hollywood, and that's what we did.

00:12:51
Speaker 1: Oh man, And did you ever get back on keys?

00:12:54
Speaker 2: Yeah? I kept there was something about the energy that I couldn't replicate from his playing, but I just added I kept the roads like a road seventy three that he played and then I just like, you know, sprinkled some like you know those those kind of one twelve sounding chords, and the bridge is out of control, like like, how the hell did we get back.

00:13:40
Speaker 1: To the b Those are amazing? There are a couple of amazing bridges on this album.

00:13:46
Speaker 2: They I can't take all the credit for writing that bridge. That was really like the two of them in their classic way getting together. They have a very modern approach to writing songs. What makes it modern meaning that's like, it's not outdated, it's just about the song. Just because they've been doing it for a while doesn't mean that they just stopped knowing how to do it. They are better at it than ever, and they're very particular about lyrics and like, well maybe we should approach this a different and like I feel like I'm honestly with Max right now. I feel like I'm in like you know, some of the songwriters who had hits last year, like they have. It's a song. A great song is a great song.

00:14:20
Speaker 1: They're not trying to capture.

00:14:21
Speaker 2: No, they're not trying to They're not trying to be like how they were forty years ago. They're just trying to be them now and that's that's what makes them still dope, and you know, playing on Thundercat records and like why they're still regarded and like a really hit way.

00:14:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, that's a good point. And they still sound great too, absolutely sound amazing.

00:14:39
Speaker 2: There are a lot of good bridges on I'm Glad you think so.

00:14:43
Speaker 1: One of the first things I noticed, it's okay if.

00:14:45
Speaker 2: You don't remember all the titles the songs cry, oh Man, thank You. I was just listening to that with somebody and I was at Conway. Just I live at Conway.

00:14:54
Speaker 1: It's a long way from Santa Barbara.

00:14:56
Speaker 2: It's a long way from That's actually one of the simpler songs, one of the only songs that just has four chords on the album. And blood Pop, my collaborator on this album, was like, you know, you can get any musician on your album, right, And I'm like, well, I don't want to bother anybody, Like, no, anybody would love to be on this album. You should call Kenny G. I'm like, I don't have Kenny G's number, Like, let's get it. So, like before we do that, why don't I have this program called Moyses A lot of it.

00:15:30
Speaker 1: You know, I use that too.

00:15:31
Speaker 2: I love Moyses and I found a YouTube video of Kenny G playing a Christmas song or something, because I could have easily gotten a soprano sax VST sound and just like you know, it would, but it wouldn't have sounded really that good. I like to work with audio, so I opened it up in Moyses and isolated Kenny G's soprano saxophone solo there and kind of laid it out in the song as like a map, almost like an audition, because I was so sure that.

00:15:59
Speaker 1: He was a solo from a Christmas like some random me.

00:16:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. But then I transposed it solely. It's like no, no, no, like like it was a completely different I was just grabbing samples at that point, and it was just to show mister Kenny G that, like I was serious and like I took the time to put a soprano map of what it could sound like if he did decide to make a solo and play a solo rather on my song cry because I had a really specific vision for it. We had a very specific vision for it. And my friend got his manager's number, I got Kenny's number. I said Hey, no worries if you have no time for this. But I took the liberty in mapping something out of there what this could sound like. And he was like, I'm going to be back from wherever in a week. I'll take a listen to it and I'll never forget. I'm in Goalita, California, going to the in and out with my very hungry wife at the time and me, who was also very hungry, and it was five o'clock because that's what you do in Santa Barbara. Five pm in Santa Barbara feels like ten pm. And I get a call from Kenny g and he was like, it's done. I had to record it right away. I was actually home, no.

00:17:14
Speaker 1: Way, no way.

00:17:16
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god. I called Blood and like, we have the first feature on the record.

00:17:21
Speaker 1: How close is it to what you had kind of mapped out?

00:17:23
Speaker 2: It was probably like seventy five percent there, Like there was that I did the I'd melodyne that and then he replayed it. It was just a trip hearing something that I melodined, but then actually having the guy play it.

00:17:41
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I mean, there's a world where he could have been offended that you even you were like, well, this is you know, Kenny, this is what I It's either could be thanks because you know and now I know where you want me to go with it, or could have been like, why I'm Kenny, g why are you?

00:17:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I think he knew my heart was in the right place for it, and I wasn't like, you know, putting it over a rock song or something.

00:18:00
Speaker 3: Right.

00:18:01
Speaker 2: It felt it had the big snare. It almost felt like it's a very Michael Bolton Baywatch hair blowing in the wind, running at you know, thirty two frames a second whatever slow motion with these Chords records. Yeah, a song for my dad.

00:18:18
Speaker 1: That's for your dad.

00:18:20
Speaker 2: It's about showing not being afraid to show emotion, which I guess all of us can use that reminder sometimes. But I wrote it a week before his mom had passed away, and I didn't realize how much he would need that song. So he's very grateful for that song.

00:18:37
Speaker 1: You were super close to your dad growing up too, right.

00:18:39
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, in terms of I'm still I'm still close to my dad.

00:18:42
Speaker 1: It's great to hear me because he was like a big he was really big supporter supporter of your music.

00:18:47
Speaker 2: Right, and my mom too number one support of my mom and dad always pushing me, like my mom was my first an R. I make the joke. She was always brutally honest growing up. If a song I made on my little sequence or on my NPC was good or not, she'd be like, I would change this, this, that, And I was like, Okay, I'm going to get better at this.

00:19:07
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Charlie Booths after the break. Remember the first song you think, the first good song you wrote, I.

00:19:17
Speaker 2: Probably see you again. No, I really I think before that. I think that's correct. Actually, I first, I think the first good song. It's so subjective. I think my fans from my early days of YouTube might hear my old YouTube music and be like, oh, maybe that you're first. Maybe something from there is like really great. But I cringe at a lot of that old music.

00:19:41
Speaker 1: What makes you cringe at that stuff? Because it's a lot of people who really love that.

00:19:44
Speaker 3: My voice sounded like this, I was really enunciating everything. I had a deviated septumb at the time, and mysk, the song's not good.

00:19:57
Speaker 1: No, I mean I was really great. Ideas in those old.

00:20:00
Speaker 2: There was a song on this little ep that I put on band camp back in college, and I remember I recorded the whole song in four thirty two hurts, not four forty one, so it all sounded kind of I was listening to a lot of Donuts by Jay Dilla at the time, and I think it was called full of It in the melody no No, And I remember I played it for a teacher in class and he was like, I'm really surprised. That was very nice and as so maybe that was an inkling of a first good song that I wrote. But when I wrote the ear, I was.

00:20:48
Speaker 1: Like, ah, that's how did how did that come? How did that melody specific? Because it seems like it's that melody that really well.

00:20:55
Speaker 2: I always played a sample with that melody and then we replayed it on the piano because that's it's so funny. I remind myself that's the only time that happens in the song, this little, this little iconic intro. You don't hear it again after that.

00:21:14
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize that until you just said it.

00:21:17
Speaker 2: And it's been a long day and after I after I took the chords, there's some things I can't explain it just from God just fell down. It's been a long day without you, my friend. And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again. And we all just looked at each other, Me Andrew Theater and DJ Frankie, and we had just met each other. They were working on a flow Rider record right before that. I think it was like I happened in my notes saved. I just saw a picture of it on my phone from three o'clock in the morning. I just wrote the lyrics down in my notes. Wow, it's a that was a if that never, If that moment never happens again, I'm totally fine because that was like an act of God. It really was.

00:22:02
Speaker 1: It's cool that you honor that song as much as because you know, some people get kind of tired of the you know, the hit that they have to play and live with.

00:22:09
Speaker 2: But it like no never never, certain songs. Yes, but I mean, I just I grow. I used to hate on my song Marvin Gay. I'm like, I don't like that song. It's it's it's corny, it's and then I listened to the production. It's kind of fun. It's like it's kitchy. It's of a time period. It reminds me of going to la for the first time, but see you again and one call away. I just I'm very happy to play those songs for the rest of my life. And that's, by the way, very churchy, and the live version I do it's it's it's almost that you hear that melody and you're like, I feel like I've heard that song before. It's like that song was written millions of years ago and I just found like a little portal and just pulled the star down and just brought it back.

00:23:06
Speaker 1: And also just the fact that your point, to your point that that only happens once in the intro, that.

00:23:12
Speaker 2: The little it's a hook in itself, and.

00:23:19
Speaker 1: It's such a strong hook that in your mind you think it occurs more than one way, more than like a few times.

00:23:24
Speaker 3: In this song.

00:23:25
Speaker 4: That's it.

00:23:29
Speaker 2: It was kind of modeled after a church song. Every great song if you get take away the drums, I'll take away all the background vocals, take away the organs, the horns. I was listening to a lot of Jadakiss at the time. You take all of that away, and if you can just it, it works.

00:24:05
Speaker 1: Wonderful gospel music big like big or small, is just I don't know, man, it's gospel music.

00:24:11
Speaker 2: He played a huge role into Simon and Garfunkle too, And like you listen to and it makes sense when you listen to Bridge over Troubled Water, that's that's a gospel chord progression. That's all. Any anytime a little flare of that isn't pop music. I believe it makes the pop music better.

00:24:39
Speaker 1: That was lay Neck tell. I think that did the piano on Bridge of Trouble Water.

00:24:44
Speaker 2: I would have been I don't know for sure. I think you're you're correct, people.

00:24:48
Speaker 1: I hope people fastiack me, but I think it is. And you know, he would have grown up.

00:24:53
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I can't remember who Paul Simon was listening to, but he said he was listening to someone specifically.

00:25:01
Speaker 1: I think that Dixie, Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And there's a gospel music's just amazing.

00:25:12
Speaker 2: Remember what was that?

00:25:13
Speaker 3: Uh?

00:25:14
Speaker 2: What the movie with Lauren Hill singing joyful Sister Sister act too like they're like people. That video was thirty six million plays on YouTube. People have a deep appreciation for all of those chords.

00:25:28
Speaker 1: Like.

00:25:31
Speaker 2: There's something that that that every anybody could be affected by that they all didn't have to grow up in the South or whatever. They just it's just about the note values we.

00:25:41
Speaker 1: Didnt think about. I mean you had voice to men on job voice notes voice men third Uh that Matt about thirty years ago, roughly. Yeah, as big as you could possibly be. And absolutely there's like that in their music and in their and in their hits.

00:25:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, and all of the and all through the influence of all their collaborators too. When and I was talking to Jimmy Jam about this once when I was like, you know, the coldest thing you ever did, Jimmy Jam and he was like what I was like when on Bend and knee when it started, that's the intro and then the chorus goes to the one can we go back to the days of love us?

00:26:21
Speaker 5: Can't somebody tell me to got things by the way they used to be?

00:26:31
Speaker 2: There's Jesus here. The sense like it's all in its DNA is gospel music. Yeah, And it's my quest to find everyone's influences where it first started.

00:26:43
Speaker 1: So when you're listening to the radio, is that how you're listening?

00:26:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it can be I mean it's jazz, gospel, R and B. You can listen to Digging on You by TLC nineteen ninety four off crazy, sexy, cool, Babyface and La Reid.

00:27:02
Speaker 5: Oh two Happy of the way I do.

00:27:07
Speaker 2: All I can think about you?

00:27:11
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, no, no, the baby fun you you know.

00:27:17
Speaker 2: That's like you could Bill Evans jazz pianists. We played lay embellished like that. That's jazz to me.

00:27:29
Speaker 1: What was the second chord on on D major?

00:27:34
Speaker 2: I would have warmed up my voice had a known I was singing, but you get the you get the feeling, no, no, no, no, the and Babyface like can we talk Tavin Campbell for Love to Know Your Name? And the bridge on that is very gospel and I've been oh my poor voice. It's what you would hear in a church. Yes, I believe that the best music it can be the poppyist of pop tark music. There's if it's great, there's a little bit of gospel or jazz hiding in there.

00:28:40
Speaker 1: Do you feel like gospel found its way mostly out of pop music in the last decade decade.

00:28:48
Speaker 2: And a half, I think so, like you hear, especially in the nineties, and there was so much iconic cinematography attached to soundtracks in the nineties. The Bodyguard. You listen to I Am every Woman like a Whitney Houston.

00:29:04
Speaker 5: I'm every woman everyone.

00:29:12
Speaker 2: And of course that was done before and in the prior arrangement, but it was brought into the Shaka one, but it was brought to the next level even more so, introduced to an entirely new generation at that time. And they have a gospel choir on that song. Diane Warren would write songs and there were and David Foster produced them. There would be gospel choirs in the background. You listen to a Britney Spears record, you listen to Lucky by Britney Spears, there's a gospel choir, not super prominent, but it's tucked in there. Maybe a better example.

00:29:42
Speaker 5: Is when you want it the most, there's no easy.

00:29:47
Speaker 2: Selene Dion, they do a whole.

00:29:53
Speaker 1: Easy.

00:29:54
Speaker 2: It's like it's there's a choir and the background tucked under Selene, but you're just listening to Selene. They're supporting her.

00:30:01
Speaker 1: He said the Bodyguard Wait in exile.

00:30:03
Speaker 5: Everyone fall he love some times, some times is wrong, and sometimes it's right. There comes upon well, no.

00:30:16
Speaker 2: No, I messed it up.

00:30:18
Speaker 5: It comes upon well we we access yeah, say shoot h m hm, oh you've got to say.

00:30:41
Speaker 2: And then you know the you know the bridge on that.

00:30:47
Speaker 5: Ye no no no no no no no no no.

00:30:53
Speaker 2: No, forgive me. I don't know the words. Sometimes you left, sometimes you fright. That's that's why for the Super Bowl I had the gospel choir on the field. I have all the orchestra elements because I just I And that's why it's all over my album too. I just I'm obsessed with those chords. Like a C major is nice, but when you add.

00:31:19
Speaker 1: A little, would you add a little?

00:31:22
Speaker 2: I think it's a nine bad little clusters. See that's the only part where I fall off. I don't really know the names of these chords. I just C major seven, something a little clustered? Does it? Does it well?

00:31:46
Speaker 1: So when you sit down the play, if you're just at home and you just set the piano cause you some reason is that typically the stuff you're playing.

00:31:53
Speaker 2: It depends on you as of recently. Yes, do you enjoy playing classical? I do, but not as much as I like just freestyling. And I like nock turn and C sharp minor by Chopan the just because of like how all the notes fall, and I'm like.

00:32:21
Speaker 1: It's the temperament of the piece.

00:32:32
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? I don't know what any of this is called. Yeah, etcetera, etcetera. There are people who can play it ten times better than me, but it's just the feeling that I get. Nothing makes me feel better than being in front of us.

00:32:51
Speaker 1: It seems to be clear that you do a lot of listening.

00:32:53
Speaker 2: And thinking and talking to myself. I love listening to music. I love music so much.

00:32:59
Speaker 1: Do you ever hear a song and feel like I want to do? Did you ever hear a song sit down and start playing it and then spin it and do something of your own?

00:33:09
Speaker 2: Yeah? That becomes complicated because you never want to take something because then you like, then it's not your song. But I mean, I haven't done that recently because on this album it was all about It was kind of and I had to really force myself. Blood Pop helped me, like get there. I had to really force myself to put the life experience first. Hey, you should write a song about your dad, no melody in mind? What would the lyrics be? And then the next day, let's figure out what the music is going to be. I was very uncomfortable with that, but I like being uncomfortable because that's how I get comfortable.

00:33:45
Speaker 1: And that was Blood Pop's influence on absolutely this album.

00:33:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I had it took a year to allow myself to get there, which is why I've been kind of gone a little bit. I haven't I haven't put out an album in three years.

00:33:58
Speaker 1: One last break and we're back with Charlie Booth. I was thinking about, might get the title wrong, but it's it's an essence. It's never never meet your heroes.

00:34:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't meet you, don't meet your heroes. Perfect. They six Stay Time Big Orchestra, nineteen people in that orchestra we recorded at Conway. Yeah, that came up. That's a great example that came about from a conversation I was having with Blood about the time I met someone who I really looked up to and was so excited to drive up to their house and then I met them and it was like maybe they were having a bad day. I don't know what it was, but it was just the vibe was terrible and it didn't like it kind of ruined it for me because someone I've like, you know, just admired in all sorts of ways. It's just like it wasn't ruined, and I just I just like it felt like growing up in like twenty minutes, like, Okay, it's not all the world's not all perfect.

00:35:09
Speaker 1: Your illusions shattered a bit.

00:35:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't meet your heroes. It's they're not as they seem. I just should have kept them on my TV screen kind of, it wasn't. That's a little bit of a fudgy lie. I wasn't watching TV.

00:35:18
Speaker 1: But well, and then there's another great line that's more fudgy lie. It's another line that's something like, you don't meet your heroes unless you know you all.

00:35:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't meet your heroes without knowing yourself.

00:35:30
Speaker 1: I'm knowing yourself.

00:35:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, dramatic. The reason why I said that is because if I think if I had met this person later in my thirties, it wouldn't have affected me so viscerally. I'd be like, oh, that's okay. You probably there's you have your life and I have my life. I'm not keen to everything that's going on. I'm not hip to everything that's going on in your life. It's it's okay, we'll put a pin in this. Butteen twenty three, being in LA and having access suddenly and all these people want to come meet you, and then you meet them and they're some are amazing and then some are just like kind of a letdown?

00:36:09
Speaker 1: Who were some of the amazing people? Because I know you've got I mean, you've there's people you've really looked up to that you've gotten to know, and it seems like it's been really positive.

00:36:16
Speaker 2: I think when when when Bruce Springsteen called me after I had sang his song somewhere and a seven three to two number popped up. I don't want to blow up a spot, but I have a seven three to two number. Yeah, that's right. And I think when Billy Joel called me personally asked if i'd open up for him. This is a long time ago getting to play beat yourself up for Max Martin leating knowing Max for ten years and not really we've never like officially like worked together, but just just having that relationship of like even if two months go by, like I can call him and he can give me advice, Like he's given me great advice about like what I maybe could explore musically?

00:36:58
Speaker 1: What is he he held you to explore?

00:37:01
Speaker 2: He called me once and said, do you know what I miss, and I said, well, what's that? He was like the emotion in some of these records. Sometimes I liked it when, like I really felt like I could feel what you were singing about and I couldn't even hear the lyrics, like it was something I'm paraphrasing, it was something to that extent, And then I ended up starting this album based on that, based on that.

00:37:29
Speaker 1: Some of that going on in this album Lookause even Cry, like there's a moment and I know you have perfect pitch, so and I actually want to ask you about that. I don't know how that impacts how you feel about your own performance sometimes, but like on that song Cry, there's a moment of opening few lyrics, like your voice sounds very.

00:37:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I knew it was something I knew I was and that was the first time I had sung that lyric. I didn't re sing that that it was. I knew that I was writing about my dad and like a message to my dad, because I had already seen him experienced the loss of his mother, who lived ninety four years old, a wonderful, beautiful life, but I never had written a song for him, and these chords even sounded like Dad, This is for you, Like, that's what those chords sound like to me, without any lyrics written. So the emotion was it was in the box right away, and.

00:38:21
Speaker 1: You didn't redo the top of that song.

00:38:24
Speaker 2: No, I added layers, but I didn't redo the lead vocal.

00:38:27
Speaker 1: It's really stunning because it is like it stands out, you know, it stands out as something. It feels you can it feels like a moment you know.

00:38:34
Speaker 2: That you're That's that's what I was hoping for.

00:38:36
Speaker 1: Having perfect pitch. I've always been curious because I have a baby right now. You can hell, how old is your baby? Five months old?

00:38:43
Speaker 2: Oh Congress, that's amazing.

00:38:44
Speaker 1: And so sometimes I'm up middle of the night just doing like ear training next to her because I've read that you can teach babies to have perfect pitch. So I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna see what I can do here. You know.

00:38:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't have to force it, though. I think the best thing you can do is just play music a lot, because their minds are sponges right having perfect pitches. There are amazing musicians who don't even know how to read music. Or play instruments and make the best music ever. It's just kind of a nice thing to have.

00:39:12
Speaker 1: Is it ever an impediment? Though? Like can you listen to like a The Loneous Monk song and be like or is it just like pain painful?

00:39:18
Speaker 2: Because I mean you saw me. I mean this piano is imperfectly it is imperfectly tuned, and you saw me wins at it. But I've you know, I got over myself so and now I'm used to it. Yeah, because I already have OCD diagnosed OCD and I really care about the details and my new details about everything, and I feel like the perfect pitch may make me want to make things a little too perfect sometimes. So it's great to have collaborators who either have it and are cognizant of like not making it too perfect, or don't have it at all, or might not even play an instrument, or like no, just make it simple, like I That's why I love collaboration for that reason.

00:39:55
Speaker 1: Are you able to hear songs like like you Know Dylan or like The Loneous Monk, Like you're able to hear the beauty in those songs even though they might not be massing to say like, no, I don't think Bob Dylan's songs are great, but no.

00:40:06
Speaker 2: But there's like, is it that's so funny? You're I was just talking about this with another artist just right before this too. And I will watch all the talent competitions and I'll hear there are so many better singers than me, and I can hear them sing the phone Book perfectly, hit every run, crisp and perfect. But I'm not getting any emotion out of it. I'm not going to be interested in it. Ultimately, I'd rather hear Dylan. I don't know a whole lot about dylan songs, but if I did, I'd rather hear him sing off pitch and sing it with conviction so I can really feel what he's singing about. I'm not really looking for him to, you know. Mariah Carey is a good example of somebody who can sing around the sun but has some restraint for the rest of us who can't do that. Makes That's why she has had so much success, that she's able to make music that's kind of universal for everybody.

00:41:05
Speaker 1: Think she pulls it back.

00:41:06
Speaker 2: I think she pulls it back, and then there are moments when she needs to hit the whistletone like on Dream Lover. She can she can do it, but she's not starting the record off with it. She's That's why Whitney was great too. Whitney. There will probably never be another singer like Whitney in our lifetime. She grew up in Nowork, the first New Jersey native to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl, and I was the second.

00:41:32
Speaker 1: No pressure man, no pressure.

00:41:34
Speaker 2: I wasn't as good as a singer as there, but she was able to. It's just like this fine line. She was so proficient vocally but made it so palatable for people who can't even sing. Everybody can feel. Everyone feels like I to sing when they listen to Whitney.

00:41:53
Speaker 1: It's interesting to bring up Whitney because the first two tracks on your album, which I think of the first two singles.

00:41:58
Speaker 2: Yeah Changes and beat Yourself Up, it.

00:42:00
Speaker 1: Kind of reminds me of like Whitney about like like you know, in terms of like they just go a lot of places, you know, like the way right, Like he's yes on a movement.

00:42:10
Speaker 2: A lot of movement, a lot of packed with instrumentation, but not not.

00:42:15
Speaker 1: Too much, not too big, not busy, you know, it's like it's like.

00:42:18
Speaker 2: It's like the album is constantly other than a couple songs like beat Yourself Up is like constantly if it went here too much, Yeah, and it did go here and I had to pull it back when I was mixing it with Manny, but like it hits here and then.

00:42:30
Speaker 1: Well, it's like I want to dance with somebody could like absolutely very easily, you know, spill over into too much, but it's it's but it's perfect.

00:42:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's I think there's a way to nudge at your influences without completely taking the art. It's that you're you're able to listen to Rick Astley never going to give you up, and you're able to listen to I want to Dance with Somebody. But it's just about like a feeling that those songs gave you. When you want that feeling.

00:42:57
Speaker 1: Capture that feeling. Yeah, yeah, I want to go back to the National anthem. Yeah, with a mutual friend in Eric Vitra.

00:43:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my guy.

00:43:07
Speaker 1: Eric's amazing dude.

00:43:08
Speaker 2: Amazing dude, such a like I've never seen him frown.

00:43:11
Speaker 1: The nice, the greatest, the best, that one of the most I study with him or he's just he's he's given he's giving me a lesson before and he's like offered to keep going. And it felt like, you know, like I don't want I don't want to waste his time.

00:43:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the kind of that's the kind of person he is. He doesn't think it's a waste of time. He's is so in love with teaching and he's been doing it for such a long time that like he just he doesn't He'll work with a list stars and people who are just starting out.

00:43:36
Speaker 1: I know, and he's lovely like that. But I'm like, I just you know, I'm like, I just I don't want to impose on him. But did you work with him with an on the National Anthem?

00:43:43
Speaker 2: I did work with him. I warmed up with him right beforehand, and oddly, I wasn't nervous before going on. I like wasn't nervous like putting the arrangement together in my head. I always kind of knew what it was going to be. I I always had I always knew it was going to be in D Major. I just like that. But it's kind of writing, like writing a song, It's like you have the finished product in your head. And then you reverse engineer it.

00:44:07
Speaker 1: What is what is warming up for an event like that? Like like what are you doing?

00:44:11
Speaker 2: You?

00:44:12
Speaker 1: You? You?

00:44:14
Speaker 2: And just your voice is a muscle, so your vocal chords are a muscle. Rather, it's like you're just warming them up. National Anthem is hard to sing too.

00:44:28
Speaker 1: It's it's insane, Like I feel the range of it is.

00:44:33
Speaker 2: Insane. You're going octave jump, like you know there's somewhere over the rainbow. I know who I want to take me home. It's all the octave jumps. But that's an octave jump plus a fifth. That's ridiculous.

00:44:49
Speaker 1: What's your favorite song on the new album?

00:44:51
Speaker 2: My favorite song on the album seems to change every day. I love changes so much. I love. I used to be cringe because I hated it when I first wrote it. It's not but because it's kind of the first time where I've made something that is a little almost like borderline comedic. It's like, why would you put that against such like kind of James Taylor maybe like Simon and garfunk calls sounding made me think of her majesty at the end of Abbey Road, like the way just pops in.

00:45:26
Speaker 1: Because it's not as short as that, but it's like, it's feels like a really great PostScript.

00:45:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought it was the I appreciate that, so I thought it was a perfect way to end the album because the whole album is filled with moments of me reflecting on past decisions of how I used to act and growing up as a young man in the ever changing music industry, being influenced by things. It's I thought it was a nice period mark at the end of the album. Who played that was my friend Curtis from Philadelphia. He's a wonderful guitar player. He played that at three o'clock in the morning, and I got so sick the next day. Thank god we got the guitar down because I was so spent. I was so tired.

00:46:11
Speaker 1: It was a The second half of the album is a little it feels a little heavier than the first.

00:46:19
Speaker 2: It's half, yeah, not.

00:46:21
Speaker 1: Like in About, but he just feels a little more weighty.

00:46:23
Speaker 2: By design, because I didn't want to come out right yeah, all the kids being like oh unks and his emo or whatever they say I want. I wanted to start with the fun stuff, and the album, in my opinion, is like how a concert should be laid out. You start with the fun stuff, and then in the middle it gets like a little melancholic and heavy, and then surprise, here's another fun one. It's not as fun as the first one, but it's like it's it's there. And then encore is a song that you wouldn't expect I'd play or something.

00:46:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's perfectly sequenced and it's like a really quick listen too, Like it doesn't it just goes. It goes by really quick.

00:47:06
Speaker 2: I want you to be able to replay it, replay value, a lot of replay value on it. And I just there there are I don't Don't Meet Your Heroes. I had a solo on there where I was really.

00:47:19
Speaker 4: Like all that and yeah, what was it the well, no, son, probably the jazziest thing on the on this.

00:47:33
Speaker 1: Album, and then.

00:47:41
Speaker 2: Don't Meet Yours They're not is I mean, it's the jazz is all over the album, but I think that's the jazziest one.

00:47:50
Speaker 1: Well, then there's a then there's a you scat along to a guitar solo.

00:47:54
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, hey brother, damn, yeah, you're not even using he's not even using notes right now. It's like impressive. That's Curtis playing the guitar too. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no. I I've always wanted to. I mean, I'll get better at that, just go on. But I just I always wanted to, uh, to answer your question from way before, probably from an hour ago, I've always just I've always known that jazz was a part of my DNA. When making pop music.

00:48:30
Speaker 1: It feels like a great synthesis of pop and jazz.

00:48:35
Speaker 2: And gospel in a way. There's choirs all I'm washed up. We have a choir, I think cry, there's a choir. Changes, there's a choir. Beat yourself up, no choir.

00:48:44
Speaker 1: The raven Lynee. Yeah, she's a new one too for me. My kids love her though. Yeah, she's she had a massive hit this year. She did, she did. She sounds She's like, she sounds amazing on your album. Yeah, and I love that song. It's almost like a called New Jersey.

00:48:59
Speaker 2: It has a but it sounds like it was produced in South Central, like like my love of the My one of my favorite songs is the intro record on the Chronic with the solo tip like and Snoop Dogg just talking immense amount of.

00:49:17
Speaker 1: Shazy, crazy ship. The craziest ship ever.

00:49:27
Speaker 2: Like that was, don't that is?

00:49:29
Speaker 1: That? Is?

00:49:29
Speaker 2: That whole album is feeling based. Nothing about that is diatonic. That's like that's C minor and a flat minor that should clash. Why does it feel good? It just does. It's it's all feeling based. How do we start talking about that? Oh yeah, New Jersey is very kind of a West Coast sonic anthem, but about the state I'm from, which is New Jersey.

00:49:52
Speaker 1: The Chronic was like the first album. I remember being like enveloped by like as a like not even by choice, which is as a kid and so and so, and you know, I'm from LA So I love that album very proud.

00:50:03
Speaker 2: What was it like when that dropped?

00:50:05
Speaker 1: Was what was more life before? I mean because I was so young, but it was I thought it was the way everything always was. Like I thought, yeah, like you know, even my age, I'm thirty four, thirty six, okay, thirty six, so you were kind of the same. Was the same three when that came out, and you know, you turn on the TV and it'd be like the promo of like the gin and Juice video.

00:50:26
Speaker 2: I got pouring out the whole like I'm looking at you know.

00:50:30
Speaker 1: It was there's nowhere I supposed to be seeing that, but you look at you like life is. Remember having the feeling of like I'm in for a ride like this life is. But you know, that was a moment in time there was.

00:50:39
Speaker 2: That, you know, the Source Awards in nineteen ninety five and Snoop when Doggy Style came out. I mean you have to imagine me a kid going the Catholic school listening to Doggy Style. My actually, my first Snoop dog album was paid the Cost to be the Boss, and I heard the Neptune's production from the Church to the Palace. Yeah, man, Chad Hugo, like why does those monds? That was the minor that that's not supposed to work, But it just worked because it was just the Neptune's feeling it and.

00:51:11
Speaker 1: It Snoop sounds sinister on it.

00:51:13
Speaker 2: It's like, damn woo, what are you going to do? Cauz with them? Baby Blue? Like I didn't even know what the crip walk was. I was in school listening to that, Oh I was. I was so enamored. It was the early days of YouTube and I was looking at all the videos. I think. Drop It Like It's Hot was the first music video I watched on the internet. Pharrell like blurring out the ice creams that he was like that, Like, I just I want people to be excited about music again because I feel like they're not. I feel like there's so much like you and I love music, but I feel like everybody feels that music is disposable because you can. You can go on Amazon and listen to it.

00:51:54
Speaker 1: You can go on Spotify, the spot Spotify.

00:51:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can go on Apple and you can. They can. It's just I used to have to order CDs. If I wanted the chocolate Starfish and hot dog flavored water, I had to put an order and it sold a mill copies first week off Interscope when Jimmy was there, Like the marketing was amazing.

00:52:14
Speaker 1: Crazy.

00:52:14
Speaker 2: I had to put an order in for Crazy Sexy Cool. They didn't have it at Jack's Music Shop in Redknack, New Jersey. I would stay in the record store and listen to the CDs I had, but it wasn't just me, like it was like, oh, you have the mixed CD, let me you have My name is off the Slim Shady LP let me borrow that, Like he kind of had to like jump through some hoops to get to music. You don't even have to illegally download anymore. It's all there's no need for bit torrents or anything. It's there's no LimeWire anyway. You just can if you want to hear a song, you can find it.

00:52:46
Speaker 1: Even LimeWire wasn't a bit of an impediment to Like there was a go through some hoopla and the thing I hear it.

00:52:52
Speaker 2: Would be like I had riddled my parents' computer with viruses, and but it was worth it because I got to hear Goodies by Sierra. These kids today like they like I shouldn't say that there's not an appreciation of music. I let's I retract my statement. There is an appreciation of music, it's just changed.

00:53:09
Speaker 1: It's just a fervor the way, Like I know what you mean. I think kids like to our earlier point, I think kids appreciate a wider array of music, no older music. You know that there's they really have. Yeah, but there's not like the excitement from it because the distribution is so easy now, like the excitement like even just like TRL was like, oh my god, I have any.

00:53:32
Speaker 2: Backstreet Boys seen all the fans line up for Christina Aguilera and you.

00:53:35
Speaker 1: Rush home from school to see it, like and if you didn't run it was it you? Like? How do I see that?

00:53:40
Speaker 2: Explain that concept to Jen Alpha. They don't. What do you mean I have to rush home to watch something? If I want to watch something, I'll watch it whenever I want. That's fine. That's I'm not going to be on and be like good old days like I'm I've had success in these new days. I'm very happy about that. I just want to make a body of work that makes people somewhat feel what I felt when I first heard who on the TLC tip and X Y and z I. I just I want that feeling to never die.

00:54:10
Speaker 1: Well. I think you captured a really great feeling on this thanks and like the melodies like that, there's so there's melodies for days and just the last thing I want to say about it, just just because I have you here, yeah, is when I was listening to it, like there are melodies that I feel like it's recycled through pop music and I don't hear any of those on here, Like it sounds it's just like, everything sounds appropriate to the song, organic, everything sounds new, it's inspiring.

00:54:33
Speaker 2: I appreciate that because I don't really listen to a whole lot of pop music. I'm not going to be the cool artist and like I don't listen to any pop music. I am cognizant of pop music. I know Olivia Dean, I know all Sabrina songs like.

00:54:46
Speaker 1: Wait, she's great. I mean for a pop I mean the fact that she's like, like, you know that some of these people are like popa artists. Now you're like it's that does speak to some of the savvy of of the music listening public at this point.

00:54:59
Speaker 2: I appreciate you saying that. It's very nice to you.

00:55:01
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It was great to meet you, man, very nice to meet you.

00:55:04
Speaker 2: So I feel like I've known you, like for my whole life. Weird, very nice, good to know you, to know you too. And this is a really wow, what a dump this is here?

00:55:13
Speaker 5: Right?

00:55:14
Speaker 1: Well, we'll get this, get this up, tune this, we'll get this going.

00:55:17
Speaker 5: And we just.

00:55:19
Speaker 2: Talked for more than a minute.

00:55:25
Speaker 1: In an episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist featuring our favorite songs from Charlie Proof. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to see all of our video interviews, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Taliday. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Rich