James Blake

00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Since making his major label debut in twenty eleven, James Blake has become one of the most distinctive voices in pop music. His gorgeous, haunting vocals in brilliantly edited collage style tracks have helped usher in a new sound in popular music. James has both produced and contributed vocals to artists like Travis Scott, Jay Z, and Spanish megastar Rosaliah. He even earned a Grammy for Best Rap Performance alongside Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, and Future on the song King's Dead from the Black Panther soundtrack. This month, James is releasing his sixth solo album, which is a nod to his electronic music roots. It's called Playing Robots Into Heaven, a title inspired by the modular synth James built for the album that creates sounds meant to evoke a spiritual experience conjured by machines. It's a heavy concept that translates into some of the most heartfelt and energized tracks James has made to day. On today's episode, Lea Rose talks to James Blake about how he and his longtime collaborator Dom Maker constructed key tracks on this new album. James also recalls how a conversation with Rick Rubin changed his life and reveals how he spent months making new music with Onery three thousand, only to learn on this podcast that it may never be released. This is Broken Record line of notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Michmond. Here's Lea Rose with James Blake. Do you remember last time you were on Broken Record and it was in twenty twenty and you spoke to Rick? Yeah? Do you remember what Rick said to you about the first time he heard your music? You know what? No, I don't what did he say? Oh? I remember a lot about working with Rick, but I don't remember that. I was hoping you would remember this. So I'm curious about this because I know we tend to remember sometimes more negative rather than positive things. He told you that when he first heard your music, he hadn't been introduced to any new music that he liked more than your music. Oh that's amazing. Yeah, my head's increasing in size as we speak. What did you take away from from working with Rick for your third album? Yeah? Well, I remember. I remember Rick was sort of came into my life at a very tumultuous point. You know, I was deep in mental health struggles, should we say, and kept sucking up my relationship. I just wasn't in a state of coherency, you know. I was just in a very incoherent state, and I was looking to any Honestly, I was looking for maybe an answer in the music, maybe, but you know, I knew it wasn't going to be there. And Rick was actually really helpful at that time, because you know, being English growing up, we learned to speak a certain way, you know, and I learned to speak a certain way, and it was very accusatory. You know, if you had a problem with someone, it was like you've done this to me, You did that, but you know, we didn't. We weren't taught. Like when I came to California and people were speaking like this, they were going, well, I just feel that, you know, the way you did that made me feel like this, and I feel this way. You know, it's like we didn't do that. We just had a go at each other. Would be so so in my relationships that would take form of just pushing people away quite easily. If I became frustrated or whatever, I just kind of say something that would be too spiky and kind of ultimately not serve the situations or like me or them and our relationship. And so Rick showed me and I told him about this, and I said, you know, I just it feels like every time we have an argument or something like that, I say something and I just suck it up. And he just said, check this out, and he showed me this book called Non Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, which completely changed my life because I until that point hadn't learned to convey my actual needs without being accusatory, yeah, and using accusatory language. I hadn't. I hadn't ever used non violent language in that way. For anyone listening. Non violent language doesn't mean that, you know, violent language could be could be described as something like, yeah, like what I was saying earlier, you know you did this, You shouldn't, you mustn't, you know, stuff like that, kind of taking ownership of somebody's behavior for them in a way and trying to control it. And actually it was an interesting lesson in blaming your needs so that everybody in the room realizes they have the same needs and that we can meet each other's needs all we can't, you know, And that's the decision. That's the decision, rather than having these huge emotional kind of tantrums. Did it change the way that you thought about things that had happened to you in your past? Does it take the blame away for situations if somebody you know, Yeah, well, I think what it is it gave me. It equipped me to go forward in peace in every situation, regardless of if I was hurt, which was alien to me previously, you know, and that just helps in all my friendships and all my all my relationships really and you know, that was a thing we talked about and I think that Rick had learned from too, And like, I think that was probably the best thing that came out of that set, out of that session, because the album's great, Like I love it and I'm proud of it, and Rick was great on the album, But the album didn't change my life. Yeah, that sit down for like twenty minutes change my life. So working with him there was there was actually time to have a deep personal conversation. It wasn't just all work all day every day. There was time to Yeah. We did a lot of speaking. Yeah, we did a lot of speaking. I mean I was there for like three months, so there was a long time, you know, and I was staying at Shangola, so there was a lot of time to kind of and he would come come in about twelve, leave about seven on the dot. By the way, like never never missed dinner for any idea, don't, no matter how explosive an idea sounded like it was going to become. He was out at seven. Did that make you sort of like panic as an artist, like, oh no, we gotta I eight clock. No. What it did is it taught me that as a producer, I didn't I don't need to just sit around and in a studio waiting for ship. And that is actually good to set those boundaries because otherwise, like you know, I have to spend a lot of time as a producer kind of just resenting the amount of time I'm spending somewhere in like a like room full of people that I don't really want to be around, and just you know, not taking ownership of that I can the fact that I can leave, and I started to I started to just leave. And what was it that Shark tank guy said? He was like, I don't hire the guy who who works seven days a week. I hire the guy who goes and does golf on the weekends. So it's like at least the person who takes a break comes back fresh. I'd come back fresh to sessions and feel like I could give people my best, which is what Rick was doing. Yeah, I just didn't understand it at the time. At the time, I was probably did. I probably did say like, wait what we just started to sing in a way, But no, I was I was like twenty twenty five or twenty six. I didn't really understand the idea of boundary setting totally. I was going to say it seems like a very mature approach to work. Definitely, definitely, And I'm sure Rick has acquired that by you know, doing the same thing I was, you know, just spending long days and nights in dark studios with no windows, you know. Yeah. I don't think he was leaving at seven when he was working with the Beastie Boys, doubt it. Yeah, what is your schedule, your working schedule, like like with this new album, do you have clear set hours every single day? Do you have like a schedule you stick to? You know what I could stick to a better sort of more ridge schedule. I try and start around eleven, and I like to do the the kind of functional finishing of music in the daytime, and I like to do the actual kind of creative spark stuff after seven pm. Okay generally so after seven pm would be new ideas, trying things out. I think it's as you get closer to the witching hour, it just becomes more and more inspiring. I think, you know, yea seven is actually pretty far. I mean, really the some of the greatest ideas come at like three in the morning. But it's just not really practical to live like that all the time for me. Do you ever get haunted by ideas? Do you get woken up and have to immediately record something? Yeah, So the best songs I've I've written, probably so far, came at around three or four, and they were written in the middle of the night, which was retrograde and You're too precious. They're two of my favorites. I think other times I get it right in the daytime and sometimes it's like, you know, eight nine, whatever. But I do think there's something special about those hours. I think it's just a sort of spiritual clarity that I think is hard to find and elsewhere do you think it's because the mind is quiet and the world is more quiet, and other things can sprout up. Yeah, I mean without sort of going all the way we were. I think it's like the the channels are kind of they're more open and they're less interfered with by outside influence. It's like, you know, it's like when you're in a house that's got like three Wi Fi routers. Some people are very sensitive to Wi Fi. They can they can feel it. You know. It's like it's a bit like that. It's like, can you feel it? I can feel electromagnetic stuff. I think like if I'm in a room and it's just got lots of you know, EMF, then then yeah, wow. We don't really think about it, but I think that, you know, it's feasible that in thirty forty years time we look back at all those signals as some kind of smoking. Very true with the new album. Let's talk about the new album. I saw that you released Loading today. Yeah. I love Loading so much. Thank you. It's such an excellent song, and I was hoping you could sort of walk us through the architecture of the song and how you put it together, because there's some really interesting choices you made, and certain things seem almost at odds with each other, but I'd love to hear you describe it. Yeah, it started with Dom bringing in a psalm. I think it was something he actually wrote and played, which is those kind of French horns at the beginning, and he had the sample on it that went, you know, the little poetry sample, and I wrote the wherever I go kind of melody over that, but I wrote it at the original pitch, and then in order to create what I realized is that if I just the way the melody worked, it could be pitched up and basically not need to be altered too much to create kind of a cascading or a falling melody all the way down. So if you start with the pitched up one and then you can go all the way down to the natural pitch. And once I've done that, it kind of just wrote itself. Really, it was just the d Then it was a matter of adding a beat and playing synths underneath the vocals to try and kind of recontextualize it outside of the corn sample. And then I started adding kind of more like ancillary like the crazier sense that go on later on. There's some funny vocal glitches that were happening. I left end. Yeah, so was that an accident? It was a happy accident, it was. I think it's a bug in flex pitch in logic. Logic is a great program, but it does have some kind of quirky bugs and things that don't aren't quite working as intended sometimes. And actually depending on what setting you have the kind of flex pitch too, whether it's monophonic or polyphonic, it behaves differently, and I think in this case it was polyphonic, and it kind of it was hearing something in the background maybe the way it like picks up on the transience of the vocal. It just freaks out and did this strange sound, which I love. Yeah, I love it, and so I left it in. Yeah, there are some things that are are just happy accidents like that that to me become Yeah, they just kind of become fabric of the track. And then for a long time, the beaches wasn't hitting and I just couldn't really figure it out. So me and me and Rob from my band Airhead, when we were looking for drum machines that could could hit a little bit harder than whatever I'd programmed in the box, and we had this sitting here, which is the drum box alpha base, and also the pulsar which you should be able to the blue thing there, and just jammed over it and until I found the right drum sounds on the tras, the roll in tras. So, yeah, just a bunch of analog drum machines to kind of like thicken it up. The percussions. Super cool. Yeah, the percussion is quite unique. I mean it doesn't really it's not exactly like a sort of trad house beat or whatever. There's a lot of claves and funny. Yeah, it sounded good in the club, and I just kept playing it and then I kept kind of tweaking it until the version that you're here now. Very cool. So when you are playing something for the first time, what do you base the effectiveness of the song on. Do you base it on people's reaction to it or just how it sounds in the room to you. It's interesting. There's like a magic that happens when a tune's hitting that you can't really describe. It's like there's a rush of like, oh that worked, you know, Like it's hard. It's really it is hard to explain. It's like tracks either a magic or they don't. Yeah, you know, there are some tracks that that when I play them to people, like the whole room like gets out of their seat. You can see it in people's body language. You know. It's like they start to be intrigued or interested, you know, and then they might start moving or they just they just get up because they can't help themselves. And you'll hear comments like this is the one, or like does it? You know, it's like people just playing it to a broad enough range of people, and the one and the tracks I tend to can are the ones that never really quite get the reaction I was looking for and never really quite hit the emotional peak. And I think it's a chemistry thing between the drums and the and the synse and whatever, but it's the overall impression. If the overall impression just feels hikes like a vibration thing, you know, like coming back to the California and speak high vibration or low vibration. You know, it's like is it uplifting you in some way? It doesn't necessarily need to be happy. Yeah, it's like this, this track relies on a kind of a kind of juxtaposition between these kind of quite sad chords. Yes, and actually a melody that well, a lyric that is basically saying I'm only okay when I'm with you, which is not the happiest lyric and actually has slightly dark undertones in a way. Yeah, not necessarily the best place to be, and yet for some reason the track sounds uplifting or engaging and kind of slightly higher vibration than the lyrics would would kind of have you expect. Yeah, do you think that opposition is necessary for a song to work? Like? It can't be all happy, it can't be all one mood. I think so it depends what it is. I mean Happy by Farrell, I think is all happy. I think there's anything in that song that is that that's trying to counter the feeling he was going for in that case, something as strong. You know. It's like, I think it's just about strong decisions. I mean it's very obviously it's hard to just like boil down what works about music. It's it's something you know in the moment you be the feel that you don't. But yeah, it's so cool. I think you know a lot of what you do I've heard you talk about how editing plays a really big role in how you make music, And I don't know if it's a superpower or a hidden power, but it gives you a whole extra layer of tools to use on what you make. Yeah, I think one of the frustrating the things one of the things I find frustrating about collaborating sometimes is that very often somebody just kind of wants a verse and there's not a huge amount of rim for creativity within it, and it's not really where I match usually at my best, Like I can write a verse for someone, but I feel most comfortable when I'm recording myself, yeah, and just taking the vocals and using them as a kind of material. Right, That's how I write most of my stuff, even if even if it's just spinning up for a second or putting an effect on it for a second to kind of create a moment that I can bounce off to write another thing. Maybe that next thing is a better idea than even the first stuff I wrote. But I I always use, almost always use editing as a kind of bridge to a better idea because my voice is it's easy to manipulate. I mean, I think I guess everyone's is, but I find that, I mean, I get bored in my own voice, you know, that's that's the other things like you know, I think everyone does. But after however many songs I've written, it's just like it. But if I've been writing a lot of music over the of the month, you're going to get more and more of me trying to experiment, to get away from how I regularly sound. But there are other times when I come to the piano and I just i'd feel everything sounds fresh, and I feel like I'm a new singer in a way. Would you ever consider releasing just a straight ahead you at a piano singer songwriter style album or does that feel boring in the way that you're saying you get you can get sick of your voice. I think if I were to do that, I'd have to I'd have to find new ways to play the piano and play my voice. I don't think it's not out of the question. I meant it. I sometimes think computers also become a massive hindrance, and editing becomes a kind of disconnecting thing, and staring at a laptop screen, is it hollows you really totally so in a way like after looking at a screen for about an hour, I start to make very bad musical decisions. By bad, I mean disconnected. I don't know. It's kind of no secrets. It's like some days I want to be at the piano. Some days I just it feels trite and done to death, and then other days the piano feels like the only place to express something, and it's and it's the most magical instrument. It's the only way I can really communicate it. So has your voice always sounded like your voice when you first started singing? Did it sound like the James Blake we know now or did you have a different tone or a different style. I had a different tone because I was stuck my voice was breaking at the time. Yeah, but I definitely I was copying other singers more than I am now. So like, would it sound like or what would who would you be copying back then? Well, it sounded and like I guess I'd be copying like it's like a mix between Stevie and then and then maybe something folkier and rougher. But definitely, yeah, not not a smooth voice in that moment. And as as it broke, I kind of found my falsetto, probably through some desire to get away from my identity as a I think there's there's an interesting article about falsetto being a kind of means to to disconnect yourself in a way, or you feel alienated already, so you leave your regular range, and I always thought that was quite appropriate. Really, just that's how I felt, and maybe that's why I did it. I don't know, but like endlessly singing in falsetto is not very satisfying for listeners. I don't think. I think we need a break, We need a range of somebody's capabilities, which is why I started to incorporate my lower range. Like actually, a lot of people like even in Retrograde, some of people's favorite parts, a lot of people's favorite part is the moment where I go, we're alone, and it's like I dropped down to that register. I guess it's a little surprising. Yeah, Well, it's just say like, hey, I'm here, like still, you know, I'm not just I'm not just over here, being this kind of kind of ghostly voice. It's like you're reaching through the TV and saying I'm actually still I'm still here. Yeah, so you mentioned that was one of I think you said that's one of your best songs. Yeah, do you consider it one of your best songs because it's one of the most well known songs or what you were setting out to do worked? Yeah, I just really want it. I just I just think I nailed it. There was no barrier between or membrane to punch through between the idea and what and what it ended up becoming. It just happened very fast, very naturally, and perfectly. When some thing like that happens so perfectly, do you try and recreate the conditions, like almost like a baseball player who will always wear the same batting helmet or never washed the jersey. Did you go through something similar? I know people that do that. No, now I didn't. I've always accepted that will never happen again. What we are chasing, when we chase that moment, isn't the song itself. It's it's the feeling of being on your path. It's the feeling of being of channeling and being in the flow state, being in the flow state, and in order to create a flow state. I've seen artists do lots of different things. I mean, one of my friends Monica Martin, who I think is just a generational talent. Like I think she's she's my favorite saying really, she just likes a candle. Every time she comes to the studio, wherever she is, she'll just like a candle. And I always, I don't know if it's if it helps her kind of tune in, but it helps me chune in a candle. A candle really helps. It's something that a lot of spiritual people talk about as helpful to kind of clear the energies of the room or whatever. But whatever it is, I mean, I'm always I'm always a kind of proponent of what works. So if that's the thing that works for you, then that's what you've got to do. But yeah, like I don't want to recreate the conditions even have retrograde. What I want to do is basically shield myself from all of the distracting factors. And I mean the phone is a good example. You know. It's like I can't be creative if I'm if I've got a ten hour day screen time, like I have to be. It has to be like two or lower or maybe none at all, and then I would really I can really tune in We're going to take a quick break and then come back with more from Leo Rose and James Blake. We're back with more from le Rose and James Blake the new album. When you started making this album, people are saying that it's, you know, you going back to your roots in a way. Is it feel more exciting and maybe a bit easier to make an album that's more dance music based. It's not completely dance music based at all, but is that almost an easier task for you? Honestly, yeah, it is. It's funny. I was I was playing Briany know the record, and we videoed his his reactions as well, and we're putting out sort of little clips here and there, and I said to him at one point, I was like, I was going to play you some of the more ambient side of things, but I guess you listened to ambient music all day, don't you? And he goes, James, I shit it, I shit ambient music. And it's kind of like that with you know, when I'm trying when I'm trying to aim at song you know, songwriting as like the first like the principal aim of the project, It's like it's tough it's really really daunting and tough, and I'm entering into a kind of category of you know, some unbelievable songs, and I, on the occasion can rise to that challenge, but it just doesn't. It's not my most natural state. And actually Rick mentioned he goes, I think you're best when you're doing collages. Yeah, and he was like, you're a good songwriter, but you're not not yet you can be. Basically what he was trying to say was it you can do it whichever way you want. I'll tell you where you really shine. Yeah. And I think that's kind of one of his strengths as a producer is the fact that he you know some I've heard some criticism of him about you know him he doesn't like you know, because he's hands off, right, So a lot of people will go to a producer and they think, well, why is he just sitting there on the buttons, Like why is he not like playing anything or you know, arranging stuff. And the thing that I think is one of the most effective kind of strength of Rick is that he will he can identify if your resonating at your strongest, and he can also identify when you're not and The thing that most artists don't want to be told in the creative process is that they're not resonating at their strongest. It creates some bitterness, I think, to acknowledge that you're not actually doing what's natural to you, or that you're not creating the best scenario, you know, the best scenario for your flow state. And I think it's Rick's right in some way that when I'm attempting to write a kind of straighter song, I find it hard to you know, there are moments where I can truly channel it, but sometimes it can feel more like an exercise and it's hard. It's harder for me. It's a skill I learned recently rather than and so, yeah, the collage is something that I understand deeply and I've always done it, and I've always been able to take a motif and kind of build a whole thing or a world around it and make that world change and make that world evolve. And that's where the editing comes in. That's where the editing comes in, and that's where that's kind of where loadings at, and that's where tell Me's at, and that's where all these other tracks on this album kind of and because I naturally I can tap into dance music from a very natural place because I've been doing it since I was nineteen or whatever. The alchemy is just quicker. Yeah, So yeah, that's I think this album is. What's nice about it is that I don't there's not a single skill that I needed to acquire over the course of making it. To make this album. It was all there already and I just tapped into what I knew. And I think the only thing is I just haven't shown people this kind of music that I've been making for many years. I think your fans are really excited about it. I've read some really sweet comments and people are saying, oh, James is weird again, you know he Especially with the first single that you put out, Big Hammer, people just were like using their mind over this song. Why did you decide to put that song out first? Well, firstly, I've been weird for the whole time. I mean, even the more straight ahead stuff I've done, by comparison to other music is very often there's always something a little bit odd about it. It's outside of material either either way. Even as even as much as I've tried to kind of like Trojan Horse, my way into pop music, It's like it's not really it seems like I'm never really seen as part of the crowd of you know, the I don't know crowd is tapping you to work with them. Yeah, but it's it's like again, it's that kind of compost thing, isn't it. It's like I'm not I'm just not. I'm not one of them. I'm not the I don't know. It's like you're not Brittany. I mean yeah, like if it's like when I went on I was looking at Apple TV one night. I was like, oh, they've got a YouTube, like a music sorry, music video channel, right, So I went on this music video channel and Apple TV and I looked at the music videos and I was like, oh, yeah, that's what like modern pop music is. And fair play, like fair play to them, and there's some amazing stuff here. But I can't. I can't do that. I can do my own thing, but I can't. I can't be something I'm not and my I don't know, I'm a weird guy. In some ways, my career has been like a push and pull of like do I want to be accepted in that kind a central position or that's never what's going to be and why would I even want to be that? Yeah, because what I do is something else and it's okay, And that's kind of what say what You Will was about. And what Rick identified was that it's like do your thing, like not just not not exactly stay in your lane, but like but remember what it is that you you have the most unique perspective on Yeah, and that's that was powerful. Yeah, Like he you know, he does get the criticism that he's a hands off producer, but what he told you is like a big picture overview that is so incredibly valuable that that could now become your north star. And what else is a producer supposed to do except guide you? I mean, in my opinion, a producer is supposed to change your life. I mean it's yeah, we can make a beat, like I can make I can make someone a beat. But the most successful sessions I've ever had with people, I've given them something that enables them to finish the record or like enables them to kind of look at a certain song in a certain way, or be confident in something that they that they previously didn't back because they couldn't back themselves because people were telling them that that song. You know, it's not this or it's not that, but it's like, but it's me. And it's like, I don't really necessarily make people hit songs. I mean I don't, like, I don't think I have made any want of any hit songs. But what I do is in the studio is I encourage people to be them. And I think that that is something that actually a lot of people in the mainstream don't often hear. You know, it's like because there are there are bigger there are bigger incentives, and there's more jeopardy and there's more there's kind of like there's more reason to play it safe. And I'm not really interested in the market per se. I'm interested in somebody's growth as a person. Like I want them to be become their full self. I want them to be truly happy with what they've made, and I want them to come back to me a year later and say, I'm glad you said that thing because like this has happened, and I'm really glad we stuck with that single, that that chain is the single rather than this other one, because that's the one I love the most. For example, you know, that's the kind of shit that I like, I'm not really if someone says, oh, I love this beat you made on this track, it's like, it doesn't really do much for me, to be honest, I love making beats and I love making music, but I've made so much at this point that that's not like it doesn't move me the same way. Yeah, speaking of people who are who feel like they're just themselves and just really someone who seems from the outside like a creative genius, I was curious what it was like working with Rosalie amazing. She's a force of nature and she was from the moment I met her, I knew she was a forcing nature and knew she was just going to be going to be huge, and she's so professional. She just came in and just nailed it, like really fast, dialed into what the tune needed immediately, and her verse happened really quickly. On Barefoot in the Park that was yeah, And we just immediately sounded great together on when we were doing harmonies and stuff, and it just felt magic. Yeah. I really liked her. I just liked her straight away. She was just pleasant. She was just so like it's very rare that you meet someone who is that driven and that talented and has that kind of voice who is also sweet and like kind, but also knows exactly what they want and knows how to say what they want. And it's aren't going to do something if they're not completely happy. That's a very rare proposition. I think that's why she got taken so seriously so quickly, because everyone she would have entered the studio with would have felt the same thing. And it's like, there are some people who who you meet who as you're working with them, you realize that this is a step. And I don't mean that in a negative way, but that that you're witnessing there there, they're going somewhere, and you're lucky to have met them in that moment. That's that's how it felt. But it's like early days as far as the artistic development. Yeah, because that was when I met her. It was just after she'd released Los Angeles and then I think she was working on I think Malamente was on the runway, but like hadn't come out yet and she was working on her next record, and I was just in love with the Los Angeles record. Yeah, and I hadn't heard of a voice like that that had moved me as much as that for years and years and years and years and years. Maybe not since boniv and Joanie and you know, but certainly to meet someone new who could evoke that kind of emotion in their voice, I mean, that's that's really special, and I just felt very lucky to have matter. Really. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the song if you Can hear Me on the new album. There's a line in their dad if you can hear Me. Where did the song come from? What's the inspiration for the song? The inspiration for the song was that I was one of the composers in contention for working on their movie ad Astra, which Brad Pitt is in, and so they ended up going with like a more traditional classical sort of angled composer, but one of the things they up so take a chance on no, I think actually in the end when I heard it, I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. But anyway, so I wrote the piano part too, if you can hear Me. It was just a It was a sample of me playing piano that Dom had cut together into a loop, and I just lay it out and then started humming over the top of it and It really just immediately felt very emotional, and it was one of mine and Dom's favorite pieces that we'd ever done together, Like just for ages, we always came back to it and we're like, what should we do with this? What we're going to do with this? And as I was sort of making this album, it just came back to me and I was like, I've got to do something with this, and I had this idea for a song, and I just tailored it to the way this sounded. But you know, I only really I think I had a couple of lyrics from it. I didn't have a whole song. It came that all came to me while recording it. Really I took it very literally, as if you're sending a message to your dad. Well, it's like in the movie, so I should probably explain. The movie has a scene in it where Brad character is communicating with his dad for the first time in years, and his dad's actually in space. His dad's in some corner of space that no one can get to, and they've managed to find a way of communicating with him via some kind of satellite phone thing, and it's just a very emotional scene. But to me, it felt like a kind of a metaphor, you know, for having gone and as every father son relationship is, you know, the sun has to go off and do their own thing, and yeah, hopefully carve their own path, but but ultimately the tender and see, what we don't realize is we're making the same mistakes and also having the same successes in some ways as our father a lot of the time, and don't realize how much we're repeating history. Do you think that's because of the story you've been told growing up? I think so, yeah, And I think like him being such a big figure in my life, I just looked up to him and still look up to him so much, and I think that you know, he was my inspiration for making music and getting into music, and he was also my guide when it came to who not to trust and when to trust in terms of the industry and like preserving myself. And you know, he's never tried to vicariously live through me. You know, He's always been someone who does his own thing really fucking well, and I do my own thing, and we talk about each other's music and we you know, he sends me stuff he's doing, I send him stuff I'm doing and it's lovely. But like you know, one of my biggest songs was his song The Wilhelm Scream. He wrote it, so he was Yeah. He wrote a song called Where to Turn, which was one of my favorite songs growing up, and I basically covered it. I interpretated. I took like one of the lyrics from it and kind of repeated them, and yeah, I guess the song is about you know, there's lyrics in it that are sad, and there are lyrics in it that are near and reflective. You know, for example, that we speak less than i'd like. I don't know how I grew away from the vine. You know, lots of kind of things that I'd love him to in a way harder to say in person than they are in a song. In some ways. You know, we talked so much and about our lives respectively, and so he knows everything that he knows what I feel, and I know what he feels, and it's great and that's why I felt safe to write a song like that. Yeah, have you thought about if you would want to be a father? I have thought about it, but I honestly don't think I will, because if I'm going to give up sixty or seventy percent of my life. I'm not sure which sixty or seventy percent it's going to be. And I'm so involved in my music and my friendships and my relationship that something's going to have to give. And I think in a lot of cases people often feel pressured into giving up some or all of those, yeah, in order to have a child. And I just don't know if I think it would make me resent them. That feels like a very mature decision, and a decision that comes from a place of really knowing yourself. I guess I've also not heard a single positive thing from any parent that I know about having children, really, not really. I mean I've heard some things that seem like consolations, but nothing that made me go, oh, that sounds great. What about talking to your own parents about now that obviously their child has grown. Yeah, well, if my have some positive things to say, yeah they do. But but also our relationship is not necessarily my relationship with my child, you know, And so even if it's you know, I had a loving, loving parents who, like every parent, makes mistakes and you have to heal them, and then you and then hopefully at a certain age you become mates, you know. But like I'm someone who sort of has hyper focus. My dad does too, and I think that my version of hyper focus doesn't really allow for much more than like a committed relationship and friends to be outside of it. Like I find it hard enough to have dogs, honestly, Like I worry sometimes that I'm not being at of enough for giving them enough of my time. And I try, and I have a great relationship with my dogs. But I just if that's how hard that is, then I can't even imagine what it's like having kids. And I, yeah, I guess I'm realistic about that. And I also would kind of consider myself a spiritual person now. And I don't know, I'm not one hundred percent sure that our biological family is our only family, you know, and in fact, if our biological family is our family, you know, like so many people have a chosen family and the idea of legacy of you know, continuing the bloodline and stuff like that, I just don't really resonate too much with that. Yeah, Like the same way I don't really resonate with, like hugely with nationality. And I'm not sure if I resonate necessarily with children that much either, Like whenever I meet kids, I'm like, oh, this is fun for like a while, but I'm never like, oh, that's made me really want to have children now, Like I just right, it feels like a lot. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that, because it seems like you've gotten You're talking about how your dad has been a role model and he sort of taught you so much about the world that you're in, about your artistic world, because that is such an important foundational relationship in your life that I don't know, there wouldn't be a desire to maybe guide somebody else in that way, but you can do that with chosen family as well. I do that all the time. I mean, I like, I'm that kind of person to other people. Even in music, it's the role of a producer is a kind of sometimes can be like a mentor and an advice when you need it. And just like what I said about Rick, you know, Yeah, And the wonderful thing about doing it in that context is that I get to go home just like leave the noise behind, because I am somebody who really values peace. I really value it, and I would find I know myself enough to know that I'd find children pretty unbearable when it comes to like noise and kind of like unwanted distraction, and you know, it's just like it would be so difficult for me. I think, Yeah, it's sensory overload. Yeah, and it's just for me. I mean, you know, I think if you want kids and it's just something you've always wanted, then then do you you know, yeah, totally. I'm not one of those people who's like I could never bring a child into this world. It's like that's I feel like every generation's probably said something like that based on you know, the Cold War, You've got like the fucking It's like, how many, how many terrible world endings, almost world ending situations have we've been through. It's like people still had kids, you know. Yeah, we're gonna take one last quick break and then come back with more from Leo Rose and James Blake. Here's the rest of Leah Rose's conversation with James Blake. I was curious because I watched the entire interview you did with Theo Vaughan m It was such a great interview, two hours and forty four minutes. Yeah, and as someone who's been doing interviews for so long now, you've been over ten years, you've been doing interviews. Do you prefer that format where it's just loose and it's more of a conversation rather than a structured, straight ahead interview. I think I do. And I also, like, you know, I quite like doing specialist things. I don't know, like I think my interest is too specific to do very general press. Yeah, I find it really dull, and I don't know, it's like with THEO and then some of the other things I've done, to think that the kind of format it is allows me to be actually myself. Yeah, you know, sometimes I think myself is too jagged or something or like not not quite not quite suited to a lot of mainstream press. And maybe it's just an insecurity of mine that I won't be I won't come across well, but I just don't always feel comfortable. And yeah, I'd like to just feel safe and in the interview. And I think that that's what Theo's great, great at, you know, like not only is he one of my you know, longtime friends, but he's also just a safe space. You know, he gives you, well, for a start, he's always going to be the more edgy one out of the two of you, regardless, so you can just rely on him to make you look pretty tame. And also he's hilarious, and he's just he's one of those people who just advocates total honesty and like someone he's just really vulnerable with his audience. And I just think that's so great. It's just surprising. You guys are friends like people in the comments are like, I would have never expected this relationship, right, and you're so sweet and supportive with each other. Well, I just think he's I think he does something similar to me. I don't know. I've always felt like that when even the first time I saw him do comedy, I just thought, Oh, this is someone who whose mind genuinely goes to the other the less trodden paths, you know, and it's the only way he can do it. I could see that there was a commonality where he was always looking for and I said this in the podcast, He's always looking for the way of saying something he hasn't said it before. Yeah, And that's to me, is is just great. And there's not really that much difference in doing that with comedy as as to doing it in music. It's it's pretty similar. I mean I don't have you know, I don't have loaded presets, you know, I sort of don't do things by template. Yeah, and I get bored really easily. So I think it's I think we're quite similar. Yeah. I've heard about other comedians talk about the connection or a similarity between comedians and musicians, like Dave Chappelle and Block Party said that all comedians want to be musicians and all musicians want to be comedians. And I don't think that's the most obvious connection. Yeah, I think it's true, well to some extent, I think it's true. I mean it, you know, so I don't actually want to be a comedian, and I'm never you know, you'll probably never seen me try to stand up, but it's just a different part of your brain that you admire the art form, and you sort of between musicians. I find that the musicians who love other musicians the most are always ones that just don't know how it's done. You know, it's like it's a magic trick, really, and you're and you're looking to figure things out. And if you're a producer or a musician, you really if if you can just hear that it's done by numbers, then that's not interesting to a musician. Like a musician's musician is someone who no one can really work out how they do it. And that's the same in comedy. You know, it's like THEO. No one really understands Theo's brain. I think I have a pretty good idea of it, and then he'll say something that takes me by surprise, and I just that's why it's fascinating. That's why it's fascinating, that's why it's engaging, and that's why it's always it's always fun. I feel the same way about my girlfriend Jamie's brain works, her comedic brain works in a way that like I can't fully understand, like even knowing her for eight years, Like she just makes me laugh all the time every day in ways that surprised me every time. And that's you know, and she says I do for her too, and I think it's funny. And there's nothing less funny than describing humor. But but that's that's what it is. Is that's the thing with the THEO, and it's the thing I enjoy. And I think that's the thing that musicians with comedians, they just we just don't know how they're doing it. Yeah, And speaking of musicians, musicians, I know a lot of people talk about Joni Mitchell that way that they can't figure out how she does what she does, how she plays guitar, or how she you know, the lyrics she comes up with. Yeah. Has there been anybody that you've collaborated with other musicians where you work with them and you just get that feeling Connin Mokinson, I think Connin mokinsin I have that with I mean, yeah, yeah, there's a handful of people who are one of ones, you know who it's very very difficult to pinpoint where an ideas come from or how it's how it's a arrived on the page. And people who have a certain kind of magic that can't be replicated. I think that's the you know, there are there are lots of different types of people who work in music, and you know, in terms of like writers and producers, there's a scale between people who are kind of have kind of studied what's happening and now and now are just adding to the adding to the ovary, you know, adding to the kind of the hubbub basically, and then on the other end of the scale, you have people who are like musical compost as Brian you know, described it to me, who who are there to catalyze music and who who don't necessarily always reach the levels of fame that some of the people in the middle do, but they provide ideas for the rest of music to bounce off. And that can be like a beautiful and a frustrating place to be for a lot of artists. And I've seen kind of a range of artists now as a producer, like having worked with a lot of people, I think I've just you know, accepted my place and whatever spectrum that you know, wherever I am on that spectrum, I think I've accepted it. But I think that's something that all of us have to come to terms with, whether we are genuine, genuine idea new idea creators, or if we're people who work best as facilitating yeah those ideas. You know, it seems like it could be difficult if you want to be someone who's bringing new ideas to the table but instead really your best at just facilitating. That could be sort of a conflict. Yeah, I'd hate that. That's that's that's not a great place to be. I mean you know, wanting to be something you're not is fundamentally a cause of suffering, you know, and being a facilitator isn't as sexy as moving a genre forward. Yeah, but you know, it's like there are people who don't necessarily have the skill in new idea creation or like you know, it might not have that magic, but they do have an incredible focus pulling kind of magnetizing charisma, which might be something else. And I think like in pop especially, you have like a it takes a whole village really Yeah. So, and I have to ask you about working with Andre three thousand. Sounds like you made a lot of music that hasn't been released yet. Yeah, And is that it's just sort of influx? Is there any way that will ever be able to hear anything? I hope so. But I mean, wasn't he on this podcast when he said that he wasn't going to be he wasn't going to be releasing any more music. That's actually how I found out. Okay, what's the catch? The song that you did with him, What's the catch? For your album? Is just phenomenal. Thank you. It's a crazy honor to get him get him on that song. Were you all together in the studio. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did months, but on that specific song is yeah, a couple of nights. But yeah, my god, You're you're dealing with a living icon who it's almost surprising to hear something new come from that person because you're so used to the songs that exist. You're like, almost it seems impossible that they could just be created. It feels like they were just divinely just put somewhere and they were just almost like you found them, like you know, like precious metals or something, and you know, in this case with Andrea, Yeah, I just just had to pinch myself a little bit and remind myself it was really happening. So yeah, I'm honestly so blessed. Like I've had some of the most unbelieving musical experiences and personal experiences in this career. Like I just I can't wait to see what's next. Really, So see your dad as a musician and how he's maybe changed or his focus has changed as he's gotten older. Have you thought about your own trajectory as a musician as you get into your forties and fifties. Have you thought about how your focus might change? God, I just just only struck me that I'm going to enter my forties at some point in I mean, to be fair, I'm thirty four, so it's a bit of a way off. But I've worked with some artists who've defied age expectation, and they've defied not only defied the expectation of age, but they've they've proven that if you have it, if you have something that is that has to be shared, you can share it forever, and you can share it in different ways forever. You know. It's like these people who we see people just it's like they never seem to leave relevance and we don't know. It's like, how is you know, how is Drake still making hits? And I'm not he's not even old, but you know what I'm saying, like, yeah, he's like two years older than me. I think three years old me. I mean, it feels like the run is never ending. It feels like this this person has just been on top. And by the way, we haven't even really worked together, but like, how long has it been. Yeah, it's one after another after another after another, and it's like it never stops. Well, I mean that's literally a Drake lyric it never stops. But it's not it's crazy and it maybe he's not maybe the best example of the age thing, but like I'm sure he's I'm sure he will be one day. And then when you look at like jay Z and like he just pops up on stuff and it's like what you did that verse he did on that dj Kalergene insane verse and something that a twenty five year old couldn't do. Yeah, like not even Nasa just comes back around run right now? Yeah, like nas having what another moment? Like another what he's okay? So like having another mainstream relevant moment. It's like how it's like people have wave they come in waves rather than that. I always thought that my career would be over by the time I was thirty. I was like, right, I've got this this amount of years to do this, and then and then it's and then basically my relevance is over. So I'm just going to like just enjoy it and then I'm going to go do something else. But for some reason, as long as I take care of myself, it's been shown to me that I never really have to stop doing what I do and that I can just keep kind of coming in and out and going in waves of not just it's not really about relevance, it's what to do with waves of like being in tune and doing your best work. I mean, there'll be people who listen to this record now and say, oh, I'm glad he's finally getting back to what he does best, right, And this will be a moment for them of like, oh, he finally did it again. And there'll be people who just don't get it at all, and that's that's fine, But it's like, but they can just wait for the next one. Yeah, absolutely, It's it's just you know, that's the point of things, Like you're always going to have a continuous stream. Yeah, it's not going to stop. Well, no, it hasn't so far. I mean it stopped when I got very depressed. But I guess I sorted that out and here we are. Was that before the Rick album, Now, that was during Color and Ending, but it but it meant Color and Anything took so long to make you know, it wasn't just three months with Rick. It was it was years between Overgrown and that and then and then the time after that to assume form. It was quite a long, long period of time and I really took a big detour in terms of my kind of what a lot of people thought my trajectory was going to be. And I think what the it's just to say is to say that, like every artist, as long as you are doing what you love, you can do it forever, you know, if you're really serious about it, and maybe money isn't the primary concern. And I think that was a surprise to me to learn from some of the people I work with that that, Like, you know, my friend Eric the architect telling me that George Clinton, he's got George Clinton on his album, just keep coming back around. Yeah, I mean I see that with you. I feel like, why would it start? Well, I've never seen it that way. I couldn't possibly say that for myself, but what I could say is I'm going to keep trying, and I do. And it gave me some hope that the other some of the people that I love the most are still killing it and still doing that thing popping up. It doesn't have to end at thirty. Basically, Yeah, thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate you so much. Man, me too, Leah, thank you, thank you, and congratulations on the album. I can't wait for people to hear it. Thanks me, T Chase. Thanks to James Blake for chatting about making his new album playing Robots in the Head. You can hear all of our favorite tracks from him, as well as songs featuring James Blake on a playlist at Broken Record podcast dot com. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Venttaladay, and Eric Sandler. Our editor is Sophie Crane. Broken Record is a 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 an uninterrupted ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. I Think Musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond, m HM.