Sept. 30, 2025
Miguel
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Miguel, the Grammy-winning alt-R&B pioneer is back with a new album, Caos—his first full-length in eight years. It’s the latest step in a career that’s always pushed the boundaries of R&B, from his 2010 debut through albums that blended in psychedelia, dance music, and now touches of ’80s industrial and even ranchera rhythms.
On today’s episode, Miguel talks with Leah Rose about his unreleased 2023 album Viscera and how suspending himself from piercings in his back during its rollout helped him surrender control. He also shares the story of controversial imagery for his single “New Martyrs.” And, despite collaborations with Travis Scott, Mariah Carey, and Tame Impala, Miguel explains why he’s happiest just making music with his friends.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Miguel songs HERE.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Miguel, the Grammy winning ALTS R and B pioneer, is back with a new album, Chaos, his first full length in eight years. It's the latest step in a career that's always pushed the boundaries of R and B, from his twenty ten debut, through albums that dabbled in psychedelia, dance music, and now touches of eighties industrial and even rancherrhythms. On today's episode, Miguel talks with Lea Rose about his unreleased twenty twenty three album Viscera, and how suspending himself from piercings in his back during its rollout helped him surrender control. He also shares a story behind the controversial imagery for his single New Martyrs, and despite collaborations with Travis Scott, Mariah Carey, and Tamimpala, Miguel explains why he's happiest just making music with his friends. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's Lea Rose in conversation with Miguel.
00:01:19
Speaker 2: Okay, so I want to ask you about the song New Martyrs. I'm curious how you came upon the artwork for the song and tell me what the artwork is how you came up with the idea and what the thinking is behind it.
00:01:35
Speaker 3: So the artwork is.
00:01:38
Speaker 4: Almost like a meme because you know, this year, I think seeing Luigi Mangioni, you know, carry out what he felt was right, regardless of what it meant in terms of the law, and morally, seeing how that played out and how that resonated with so many people with their anger and their angst. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the disenfranchised and powerless feeling of watching a political system sort of cannibalize itself right in front of you, and see how corporate interest is really infiltrated and manipulated what is meant to be an equitable process and all inclusive process.
00:02:30
Speaker 3: It really is infuriating.
00:02:32
Speaker 4: And to see people really get behind an action that feels like vigilanteism in any other case would be considered absolutely wrong, unjust, but having that context and then also understanding the story behind the personal injustice that behind the execution, you know, seeing how people respond to that is like even I'm like, nah, yeah, I mean, you're really putting your money before people's health, You're overlooking your humanity for your own greed, and I feel this is a something that hit me so hard that I had to really look at myself and go, I mean, am I wrong for a kind of being in agreement?
00:03:18
Speaker 3: You know?
00:03:19
Speaker 4: Am I wrong for feeling like he kind of did the right thing on behalf of a lot of people who've been shitted on, you know, and more importantly, like, who have you know, had their loved ones at the cost of their loved ones, of their own lives of you know, so real humanity, you know, at the cost of humanity. I think this is something we're going to see more and more as we continue. I think that's a domino until there's some real correction, you know, until there's some real justice established and awaited to make right on things moving forward. I think that's why I have this dream where I'm like kind of like just doing what I feel is right, even though it may seem wrong. It's very much inspired by seeing that happen, seeing their response, and also addressing my own angst, my own anger and dissatisfaction with the world as it is not just this country, and so New Martyrs is about that line towards the end where it's like, yeah, give me what's mine. I think a lot of people feel that way, and more and more people are going to feel that way more so.
00:04:35
Speaker 3: What's behind that is like.
00:04:37
Speaker 4: Do right by me and right by us, right by the world, do the right thing because right now there's a lot of wrong being done.
00:04:47
Speaker 3: It's a lot of wrong and it's not.
00:04:49
Speaker 4: Like it hasn't been that way and what we know to be human history and our but it certainly feels as if it is insurmountable or is Yeah, maybe because we can tune in on everything at all times, whenever we want. But that feeling, I think a lot of people feel that way, and that's what inspired That's how I feel, and that's what inspired the song.
00:05:12
Speaker 2: How do you toe the line between bringing in these bigger issues like I know you've been active in issues around immigration and mass incarceration, but you're also known for making sensual, sexy baby making music, Like, how do you toe the line and talk about both of these things at the same time?
00:05:37
Speaker 4: I remind myself that as a human experience and people who only focus on are who primarily focus on, you know, speaking out about injustice, activism. Artists and musicians who who do those things are also human beings, and they also, you know, they have their own sexual life, they have their own romantic relationships and their experience with those things, and it's their prerogative to talk about those things when they want, and it's their choice not too or to. And this, for me, I think is probably top of mind because this is the world that I'm inheriting, that I've inherited, and I'm also in a position in my age and my experience to hold myself accountable and I can't not do that. I'm not twenty one or eighteen when I wrote Quickie. It's a different thing, you know. And so yeah, these things have become increasingly important in my mind, and I think naturally that that is why it's becoming more important to in my music.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: Do you ever question, like, if there's someone you're working with, like a producer, whoever's in the studio with you, do you ever turn to them and say like, oh, is this? Am I going too far with this?
00:06:54
Speaker 3: Definitely?
00:06:55
Speaker 2: Is this a downer? Yeah?
00:06:57
Speaker 3: How does that work? I mean it's pretty much like that. I'm like, is this too much?
00:07:05
Speaker 4: The great thing about I work with my friends, I think I've learned that that's the best way to maintain like that sense of play, the permission to explore.
00:07:18
Speaker 3: I just want to work with my friends.
00:07:19
Speaker 4: Man, I've done the transactional thing, and that shit sucks all the time. One, it's rarely a collaboration because it's easy to do shit, you know, remotely, so it's not like we're getting in a room and we're really collaborating, at least not in my experience. And when it's no friendship in the middle. If that's not the thing, then you got to go do some wax shit like promote a song that you that you would never ever do on your own. It would never come from your expression. It's not your point of view. And I to a degree, I can appreciate stepping into stepping into someone else's world and remaining in your point of view and in your style and you know, having a presence in a new way. I think there's beautiful times when that's happened, but most times it I think in the past when I've seen that, it's been like people who really fuck with each other, like they can go have they can go have a drink, they like the same kind of movies, or have something at the core that's like, oh no, like, I really fuck with you. What happens when it's not like that? It's like, now you got to go support not just the song, but like the video and then the promo behind it that turns out to be mad corny, and then you find out the person is really just a politician, and then you know what I mean, They're like, you don't you could care less, Like it's easy to become just some shit you don't want to do. So I work with my friends and in a room when I'm feeling like is this too much, they just be like do that, No, just do your shit, like just do it, do it, do it all. And most times the things that don't fit naturally will sort of kind of like they just get pushed to the side.
00:09:03
Speaker 2: How do you get in the proper headspace to cord and to express yourself and to be vulnerable or to be open. Have you found anything over the course of your career that really gets you there? Like whether it's like having a drink or like push ups or whatever it is like a certain time of night, have you found anything that gets you there?
00:09:29
Speaker 4: I mean in different stages, has been different things. For sure, alcohol was a big one, I mean a little tequila in the past. Was it before it was whiskey like Kaleidoscope dream is like whiskey and weed forties Nope, It's like I don't know why I was drinking forties.
00:09:45
Speaker 3: I was like like pounding forties.
00:09:47
Speaker 4: And yeah the aquila and wild Heart actually is the quila into mescot. So I was like finding, Wow, I was finding like mescov and smoking for sure Wildheart.
00:10:01
Speaker 3: I'm like smoking a lot of weed.
00:10:03
Speaker 4: I also like, I think it's really it's really interesting how drugs have influenced music along in these different periods of time. I mean, like jazz, it's like speed, you know what I mean, Like when jazz heroin right, it's like ending right. Or you listen to grunge music and you're like, yeah, heroin is this it's a heroin time. You're listening to how crack and cocaine influenced you know, hip hop, and it's it's play in that timeframe and the emerging artists. Drugs and alcohol and all kinds of illicit activity have always been a part of music and creativity, whether it be fine art or music and fine art. For me, getting in that headspace has been different in each era. This time, this album. I mean, I still love to drink. I hate to even say this, but like, if I'm out and there's a photo of me, I will guarantee you nine times out of ten I have I love I love this guys social lubricat and I'm very much a like introvert. Extrovert is like, I'm yeah, same, I can do that extroverted thing. I very much like to be for a time, for a time. The social meter is not it's not a large social media, but it exists. And I do think that you know, a little mescal with uh with sparkling water and the lime kind of extends the battery a little bit.
00:11:28
Speaker 3: That sounds nice, It sounds incredible right now.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: But yeah, you can go out for a period, but then you want to like rush home and get into the bean bag and just chill and just.
00:11:38
Speaker 4: Right in this room with a record, you know what I mean, in a conversation with a couple handful of like really fun interesting people, and.
00:11:47
Speaker 2: I'm good, yeah, yeah, no, I feel that very deeply. What are you listening to these days? Like, is there any new old music you've discovered or what have you been reaching for.
00:12:00
Speaker 4: New old Well, this album in this period, I've been really going back and like leaning into all all my like more alternative tastes and then fluences, going back to Pixie's records, going back to that whole grunge era, so all of Nirvana, all of Sound Garden, all of that sort of like you know Seattle area, Yeah yeah. Then jumping into some of like jungle stuff has been a big one. I've been like trying to find ways to infuse rhythms and chord progressions that just are nostalgic or styles that are nostalgic.
00:12:40
Speaker 3: To my to my youth.
00:12:42
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
00:12:43
Speaker 4: So kum Yah is one of those ones where you'll hear a little bit of that, and like Francea, you'll get a little bit of that in Chaos. I think overall, what I was searching for in listening to music and influences like anything that felt dissonant. I felt like there's a rub there that that created the tension that I was looking for.
00:13:04
Speaker 2: Do you still feel in a place where you're recognizing and thinking about chaos or has that all been exercised out through the album?
00:13:13
Speaker 4: No.
00:13:14
Speaker 3: On the contrary, I.
00:13:16
Speaker 4: Want to wield it more effectively. I mean my my thinking on it is this like it's just about conditions to grow are conditions in general? If it's not growing, it's dead. Shout out to Lauren Hill. I mean, one of the most poignant things that she said in an interview is like, if it's not growing, it's dead. And it's the truth. And for me, what I've realized is that in many ways, I think I've I believe in my core that we all need a little chaos to grow. Maybe I'm wrong, I know for me that's the outside of my depth that Bowie talks about is the place where an artist really can thrive. It's the unknowing, it's the uncertainty that pushes it outside of that comfort zone that that means we need to stretch in not ways that we necessarily know, but that we need. And so chaos, I think in my life this album represents my acknowledgment of the chaos that I've created in my life and making peace with it in a lot of ways in order to better utilize it for my purpose. And while I'm here and I want to continue to curate chaos in my life.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: How are you going to do that? How do you curate chaos in your life right now, like intentionally like mess up a situation just to get the feel that feeling and kind of like use that for growth. Is that what that means?
00:14:50
Speaker 4: Not toxic chasts. We don't want any more toxic chaos though. Old habits die hard, And I think me stepping into my adulthood and my responsibility is one way that I ensure that the chaos that I do curate in my life is really intentional. So I look at ways of like how do I infuse something that is not obvious and it's not normal or natural? So taking, I mean what a simple way is like like I love that port his head on three, Like switch up their whole all of their their instruments instead of everyone is playing a different instrument.
00:15:31
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
00:15:32
Speaker 4: Every that's chaos to me because no one is in a comfort zone when it's not.
00:15:37
Speaker 3: No, I understand that, you know what I mean.
00:15:39
Speaker 4: So I think of chaos in my life in that way. We definitely don't want any any more toxicity. Yes, we don't need it. It's I don't think that's necessary.
00:15:50
Speaker 2: No, especially not when you're approaching forty.
00:15:55
Speaker 4: I want look, and that's it, isn't it. It's a crazy thing because I know.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: For me, I wanted I want all stability.
00:16:01
Speaker 1: Bruh.
00:16:01
Speaker 4: I'm like, like I said, it is like I want to I want peace in my life in general, but again, controlled chaos in the right places, whether it's like shaking up my team and infusing someone who's not in the music business in a role that maybe is adjacent in a different field, you know, in a different yeah field, so that we have fresh thinking that we're we're not approaching things in yeah with the constructs of the status quo in mind. You know, it's like the chaos that means we're breaking rules, but for with a purpose.
00:16:39
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:16:40
Speaker 2: So did you realizing your place in the chaos or maybe creating it in some way where you weren't completely aware of it. Did you realize that through just natural aging or was it through like therapy work. I know you're about to turn forty and this album's coming out on your fortieth birthday. Yeah, that seems like a really big milestone, Like, how are you thinking about turning forty?
00:17:09
Speaker 4: I mean, I think for whatever reason, I've I wrote this song when I was much younger that I that we never put out called Hardway, which is like I always learned the hard way. Actually, no, it's on it's on the first album. What am I talking about? It's on the first album. See my brain is oxidizing as we speak. There's a song on the first album called hard Way, and it's like I always learned the hard way, and and I.
00:17:35
Speaker 3: Hate to have like.
00:17:37
Speaker 4: Maybe put that out in the that energy out there, or I've accepted that. But in some ways I've been able to see things before they happen and change course. But in a lot of ways, you know, I have learned the hard way, and I've been lucky to not learn the hardest way. But I've got a few bruises and scars, you know that that you know are reminders, And I think that's the that's the journey of life.
00:18:07
Speaker 3: Anyways.
00:18:07
Speaker 4: It's like Unterests Thompson, like not wanting to reach the end pristine and clean, but with fire shooting out of the back and screeching barely crossing the threshold. I think something about that has always been the way that I imagine my life kind of going. And thankfully it hasn't meant that I have reached the finish line prematurely, and I've been here at this point, I want to make sure it doesn't happen prematurely. But I do know of its seem like a healthy guy like or that's the key, seem nah yeah, yeah, yeah, like.
00:18:44
Speaker 2: You seem like healthy mind and body, like you're thinking about it.
00:18:48
Speaker 4: I mean, having the opportunity to do this every day, you know, and to express one's selves and one's emotions, I think is a key. And for me it's been the true meditation of my life. And I found you know, there's other tools that are super helpful. I think musicians and artists and of all me, through through all mediums do find real solace and peace when they're able to create and they find that connection.
00:19:20
Speaker 3: To the higher thing.
00:19:23
Speaker 4: But overall, I don't want to paint I don't want to paint myself into any corner where like I'm like out here just causing havoc or anything like that. But I do know that, you know, I've had to learn some hard lessons like anyone in the world, and I think I'm at a place in my life where I want to be real intentional about you know, the past. Let's taken that I really want to take, you know, and ones that actually are worth my time, are worthy of the effort, worthy of the risk, as opposed to kind of going into things too haphazardly.
00:19:59
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Miguel after the break.
00:20:05
Speaker 2: Was you getting into the suspension thing where you were hanging from your piercings? That seems very chaotic to me? Is that along the same lines of thinking for you?
00:20:17
Speaker 3: You know?
00:20:17
Speaker 4: The Tribby part about that is that even physiologically what that does is it actually well, first and foremost, it's like an adrenaline rush, right, and something about that is very calming. I found it to be really meditative and not chaotic. I mean, doing suspension has a different purpose and meaning for every person that has ever done it or that practices it. I wouldn't say that I practice suspension. But the purpose of doing suspension at the time was to open up a conversation that is relevant to this album, and that is like, what is my relation to pain? Why do I carry pain with pride? What pain am I carrying that I'm not really addressing or acknowledging? And how is that a part of the story I've written about myself? How does that enabling? How is it fueling? And how is it like holding me back. It was about having that conversation and kind of like giving it a visceral reference, but it was all about understanding pain and wanting to talk about talk about it publicly, which I believe we carried over into this album.
00:21:40
Speaker 2: What happened with that album it evolved.
00:21:44
Speaker 4: It definitely evolved. Viscera was initially it was initially meant to be bad Habits sad Anthems, which I still think is a fucking ill ast title. And then it became not just me wanting to just do an album of like kind of like the antithesis of what people know most about my music, and I think that it's like feel good, romantic, sensual dreamy to kind of go like, all right, how do I shake this up and make space for the other side of the coin, which is like that I do have bad habits, that there are sad anthems, and I wanted to do a whole album about that, and I think I in that process it was getting real heavy. It was like two even for me, I was like, maybe some of this stays in the vault.
00:22:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Did anything from that album carry out over to the new album?
00:22:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say a good quarter of that record. It was actually kind of like became what is chaos?
00:22:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, the album is so good, by the way, or what I've heard of the album is so great.
00:22:57
Speaker 3: That's really kind. Thank you so much, Thank you.
00:22:59
Speaker 2: I love the title track. Tell me about just the overall sound for it and what your vision was for it, how it came together.
00:23:07
Speaker 4: It started out I'd come up across a children's choir on Instagram and they had done do you remember that the THHXU? It was a crescendo, But it was kind of like, yes, you go to the movies for those of for those of you who aren't, you know who don't haven't been to the movies back in like the nineties or before that. You know, as you intro a movie, they wanted to flex the sound in the room, and very often the companies would have an audio kind of intro to give you a sense of like the ability and you know how incredible the sound system was and I think it's thx Please correct me. I'm sure someone will afterwards. But it was one of those companies that it had this beautiful crescendo, a chordal crescendo, and these kids were doing that that crescendo, but with their voices a children's choir doing it a glissano up or a port upwards. And I was like, man, this is so cool. And I asked the children, so, you know, asked them to come and they did, and they basically saying this part it's just.
00:24:13
Speaker 3: A then.
00:24:20
Speaker 4: And they do like a that whole gliss report and I just was like, this is the coolest shit.
00:24:27
Speaker 3: And I was like, we got to use that.
00:24:29
Speaker 4: Kind of sampled that first, and then I programmed like a rough drum section that I felt was like I wanted it to drive because I had this idea about talking about just chaos and what chaos is place in my life, and it just felt kind of the notes felt like they were giving me that It's dramatic, you know, it feels very dramatic, and it is kind of it kind of pulls you in.
00:24:57
Speaker 2: It's a little bit haunting too, it's a little bit creepy.
00:24:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:25:00
Speaker 4: It was just interesting the emotional context of visually watching them really be in it and like kind of the joy they're getting out of performing this thing.
00:25:08
Speaker 3: But then how the how it feels, how the notes.
00:25:11
Speaker 4: Feel against each other, and I thought that was the perfect place, and it sparked this idea that you know, in my life, I've subconsciously, i think, curated chaos in one way or the other in my life, and I've i think I've finally kind of come to a place where I'm understanding what that's about. I've never really taken time to really look at it, and that really set off the whole, the whole idea. It was like, man, there's a there's a childlike part of me that plays into this, and there's a joy that I get out of it that I don't understand, and that's why the first line is like I think I'm better under pressure, and that sort of sets the stage for the album, you know, and and the.
00:25:53
Speaker 3: Rest kind of kind of unfolds as it goes. So cool.
00:25:58
Speaker 2: You mentioned earlier that for the title track, you made sort of what sounds like a sketch of the beat, and then you passed.
00:26:07
Speaker 3: It to Bray.
00:26:08
Speaker 4: That's my that's my one of my best friends, and we've worked on this album a lot together, so we produced the song together. But the drum programming specifically is like that's his. I mean, he's incredible across the board, but I mean the way the drums hit, that's definitely his shit.
00:26:27
Speaker 3: I learned a lot.
00:26:28
Speaker 4: Working with him through this album, so on the technical side and as a producer.
00:26:33
Speaker 2: So is that normally how it goes for you? Like do you normally make sketches of the music and then pass it to him or what's the process usually?
00:26:43
Speaker 3: Like it varies kind of.
00:26:46
Speaker 4: Starting with Kaleidoscope Dream, I really got in my executive producer bag and really wanted to focus on the overall vision of the album and what that was communicating.
00:26:58
Speaker 3: Overall.
00:26:59
Speaker 4: I didn't produce, though I had. I was very much involved in the sonic nature of Kaleidoscope Dream and that kind of gave me a lot of confidence to actually use my own production. The only song that I produced on Kaleidoscope Dream is Adorn and that's like wow, top to bottom. So it was kind of the first time I had like I was.
00:27:22
Speaker 3: Like, all right, fuck it, like they fuck with it.
00:27:24
Speaker 4: But I was very I wasn't sure if it was if it was gonna work commercially or anything like that, like if it was going to feel professionally enough.
00:27:33
Speaker 3: Or what have you.
00:27:34
Speaker 4: Really, Yeah, so that's the first time I really like my production was released professionally and actually was you know, became something that was a success commercially.
00:27:45
Speaker 2: Wow. So yeah, does that make you feel like as a producer, does that validate your skills and your ear? Like what did that do to you as an artist? Knowing how well that song did.
00:27:57
Speaker 4: I mean, it's definitely encouraging. But there's absolute levels. There are levels to this shit. And the great thing about me is like, I'm not so focused on on how things sound sonically as much as I care about what they how they feel, you know, And I think there's a bit of ignorance that I always want to keep.
00:28:20
Speaker 3: I kind of like that.
00:28:21
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't really know like what I did there, but it just felt right And that's maybe my own my own idiosyncrasy or whatever. But there's definite levels to this and it's it is a science for a lot of people. That's why you that's there's incredibly successful producers who know down to the just down to the t on how to emphasize things in different ways to like.
00:28:46
Speaker 2: A doctor Dre like he's supposed to be like an incredible engineer producer obviously.
00:28:51
Speaker 3: But also Dre like, yes, yes, but then you know, Dre is different without Quick. You have to listen.
00:29:00
Speaker 4: You gotta know that DJ Quick is in there mixing and carving in a way that gives that sound like that's a lot of that is Quick's DNA And like anybody who knows knows this Quick as is DJ Quick is an incredible fucking engineer like and producer. So Dre is Dre and it's always gonna be Dre. But you know, like you're like we're saying, is like to know the science of yes how as Cidic Dave Sidek is one of my brothers and best friends. Also on this album my one of my favorite things, and this is him his theory on life. He's like, one cut is worth a million boosts and that is so true across life, across music. It's like it's not always about adding a lot of times the magic is there because the magic was instinctual, that was that came from something else. Your your choice is in the in the inspirational moment, in that oh I'm inspired now, all of those things that's meant to be there. And then most times, and he would say, you know, nine times out of ten, take something out, cut something out, eq that out. What's the most important part about that frequency. What's the most penetrating part of that harmony, what's the most you know, what is it in that in that in the feeling in the music that we need to make sure we preserve that's getting in the way of the emotional intention. So yeah, learning how to do that more intimately and like on a on a more like technical level is probably one of the most enjoyable things. Working with you know close like my boy, that's my He's not black, but that's my nigga, Like you know, he's like he's that's my guy, right, you know. And and I have I'm lucky to kind of have really like brothers and best friends and like spiritual warriors that I also get to work with. So that was the I think that was the big learning on this album. And there's some failings on this album too that are that I kept that I that I'm like, yeah.
00:31:02
Speaker 2: Like the focus on the negative, but a failing at this point.
00:31:07
Speaker 4: But that's what I love about this conversation and I love watching watching episodes of this is like the insight that you get that's like really for the nerds and who care about this shit? So I can like talk shit about my own shit, like on this album is about the feeling of the music, but like it's it's really like a shitty it's my own shitty mix on the record, and like you can hear it, like I'm like playing it in any room, Like yep, that shit could have been better, but it still feels like the feeling of what I meant is still there, like kind of like there is an angst in it. But it's actually it's about the line. It's a line in the first verse which is like I become a healer. I forget myself and I become a healer, and that in this mode, when I'm avoidant and leaning into my avoidant tendencies, it often leads into wanting intimacy because it it allows me to forget myself and my own shit.
00:32:14
Speaker 2: But at least you're aware of it. I feel like that's the first step. You're not just doing things blindly in a pattern over.
00:32:22
Speaker 4: And over till you die, you know, no, no, no, yeah.
00:32:26
Speaker 2: Are there any other songs on the album or any other moments in the studio, anything that was where maybe you had some sort of creative awakening or something different that you can take away from this project. And maybe use in the future.
00:32:43
Speaker 1: Hmm.
00:32:45
Speaker 4: Though it play though is like is a special one, but there's a lot of these are I mean sonically, I learned a lot, and and also in terms of like melding genre, yeah, and sort of wielding the sticky parts or the parts of certain genres that just I a very they are very much a part of my identity, infusing them together to make something that feels unique to me. This was a really fun experience that I think will inform the next couple records because I'm only I'm planning on leaning more into my heritage and more like the rhythms and approaches on both sides, but that are more like ethnic, you know, like my ethnic influences and leaning into those even more than I did this time, and marrying them even more with my cultural influences. I feel, I feel that I'm I'm right at the cusp of something that's really uniquely mine. Finally, and I think which is exciting for me is like going harder, going harder, and leading into them more.
00:34:07
Speaker 1: One last break and will be back with Lee Rose and Miguel.
00:34:14
Speaker 2: I feel like You've always had such a strong point of view and a lot of what you did early on helped sort of birth this whole like all R and B genre that is now just commonplace where it didn't used to be commonplace at all.
00:34:30
Speaker 3: Thank you.
00:34:31
Speaker 2: But when you say that you found, you feel like you finally found your voice. What does that sound like like? How would you describe that?
00:34:38
Speaker 4: I think the I think the rhythmic nature of that's just a part of where my parents come from and their experience and their parents come from. There is something that is universal about that that.
00:34:49
Speaker 3: I just have.
00:34:51
Speaker 4: I feel we're just scratching the surface on on this record, and it only happens in a couple places. I would love to lean into that as well as that alternative. I think the alternative, if you want to call it. That influence in my music has always been there, and so I want to experiment more with how I can make those work together and then also make my you know, my songwriting, make it more cohesive and sharpen my my songwriting on the you know, on the Spanish side, I think there's so much I'm excited to do that and to work with incredible songwriters and learn from them because there's a whole opportunity and unlocks the whole opportunity in terms of connecting ideas and that don't work in English, you know, so like the lateral thinking and the fun part about songwriting is like how we're connecting one thing to the next, not just by rhyme, but by like the analogies, all of the all the literary tools and how that can with that unlocks in terms of what I can say.
00:35:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, growing up, was there a lot of music in the house, Like what was what role did music play in your household?
00:36:02
Speaker 4: Music for me was was an escape when my parents were still together, so that only goes into age eight.
00:36:10
Speaker 3: In the house was I mean hip hop, lots of funk.
00:36:15
Speaker 4: My dad was kind of a yacht rock loved yacht rock, loved classic rock. He was a big Eagles fan, big Bowie fan, loved the Beatles Queen. I mean, he was a big Santana fan. War was big for him, earth Wind and Fire massive, I mean, and these are all this is that era, you know, we're talking about great everything from the sixties on.
00:36:43
Speaker 3: He was like heavy into heavy, heavy into Yeah.
00:36:47
Speaker 2: What about your mom what was she into?
00:36:49
Speaker 4: Big soul fan, you know, anything motown, anything coming from Detroit and anything that we would heart, you know, at a function. You know that they would that they used to dance to in high school because my parents were young, so they had me at twenty three. I believe they're the same age, twenty two, twenty three, and they met in high school. So all the things that they were they were enjoying in high school. Luther Vandros, you know what I'm saying, All of these things that were in the ether, Like I grew up in San Pedro an art punk haven. I mean, all just the Ramones have been through San Pedro. We've got we've got a lot of great punk culture in San Pedro that I grew up right around minute men, that's Pedro so and that's in the eighties when I was born.
00:37:46
Speaker 3: I was like really really.
00:37:47
Speaker 4: Young, Like I'm talking about one to five going into the nineties, like it had started to die down. But the scene and the venues that were being played at Firehouse we're talking about, these are like in within blocks of my of where I grew up, you know, Like I'm on Third and Center and we're talking about downtown San Pedro is like three blocks away, and this is like kind of like an epicenter of where a lot of that energy is like really being expressed.
00:38:16
Speaker 3: And I grew so I grew.
00:38:17
Speaker 4: Up around punks, I grew up around of course, I grew up around you know, cholos and gangsters, and so I got a lot of all of that.
00:38:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you the kind of artist who has hundreds of songs just like done on hand if you need them or when you start a new project? Are you very much like, all right, we got twelve, we got fourteen, We're done, move on.
00:38:42
Speaker 3: I wasn't. Before I took eight years to finish the album.
00:38:46
Speaker 2: I was.
00:38:47
Speaker 3: I was very much like, no, we want to create in the moment.
00:38:51
Speaker 4: This is what this is right here. I wouldn't say I have hundreds of songs, but I definitely have more. I have more songs that need to be cut and never see the light of day or ever need to be heard right anyone then I usually would, But I also say there's a lot of songs that I still want to use for you know, future albums or the next album. Would I would prefer to remake for the music to feel very current, And yeah, you know for me.
00:39:23
Speaker 2: And you always have struck me as a person who is creative first, meaning the most important thing for you is just to make things and how people categorize or maybe even interpret those things that come.
00:39:37
Speaker 3: Second.
00:39:38
Speaker 2: Does that sound accurate?
00:39:40
Speaker 4: Super accurate? I think breaking free of the expectation is a big part of what I've needed to I needed to kind of step away and re calibrate on because in the beginning, I think we start with all the excitement and possibility, and we mimic with no judgment. We imitate with a sense of play and excitement of what is possible to program our bodies to do, you know, And there's so much honesty and that jumping off place and allowing oneself to just explore and to be excited by what comes out, even if it's shit, you know what I mean, Because I've got more terrible things in the vault. That's just you know, it's even funny to go listen and go it's pretty funny, Like I see what I was trying to do there, and to hear the play in it, the exploration, the things that are wrong but that are right, the things that hit a chord within you know when you listen to it, and the things that are just trash, and you know to give it, to give it that kind of energy is making that right change in the right place, or everybody on the same page, catching up, feeling to move into another phrase or whatever that thing is. When you when you're able to do that and it garner attention, well then it's easy to lose sight of the whole, the thing, the glue, the purpose in it in the first place. And I think I wasn't doing enough calibrating along the way.
00:41:28
Speaker 3: You know, do you.
00:41:30
Speaker 2: Have any musical mentors or people in the business or in your position or in a similar position that you can talk to honestly and be like, look, I'm feeling lost right now, I need help. Is there anybody who you can go to as a guide.
00:41:47
Speaker 4: Throughout my career, I've mentioned Mark Mark Pitts as kind of one of those ones who believed early and had he had the leverage and the reputation to convince a lot of people who otherwise would have wrote me off, cut their losses and moved on, so to speak, when it wasn't all profitable, you know, when it was looking like there wasn't a way forward. That was someone that I could always call on and trust to give. Not business insight alone, I think more human insight, and so he was someone that I could always call on, but through life, through my life, I think it'll always be my family. I got lucky and I have an incredible, incredible mother and father who have been, you know, truly truly upfront about what they do and do not know, even when I was, you know, too young enough to care about it. They've always been there to kind of Mike, you know, that's not right, Mike, you know, and give me the thing that I need to hear that I can trust is coming from a really pure place, you know. So I got lucky, and that's in fact. You know, my brother is one of my best friends, nonchalant, He's on this album. And I've gotten lucky to have just great people along the way, including my you know, my team. Drew has been with me for years. Anyone who knows me and has been we've done business.
00:43:24
Speaker 3: With knows Drew. That's my guy. He's my right hand.
00:43:28
Speaker 4: He's been with me since I since my first real check performing outside of Los Angeles. You know, he literally was at my very first show way up in Connecticut.
00:43:37
Speaker 2: Oh, in Connecticut.
00:43:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was in Connecticut, a thousand dollars show to perform all I want is you at a club, you know, and it's like this, this is like someone who's been with me for you know, a decade plus more than you know, so we're talking about fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years. Yeah, I've been lucky to have people that I can trust, you know, but I've also yeah that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, I've gotten lucky in that way. So those are the people that I would I could lean on to kind of be like, hey man, you swerve it, you swerve it hard right now.
00:44:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. One thing I wanted to ask you before we go, I wanted to ask you about the visuals for Chaos for the title track, So cool, m h, what are you wearing? And where did all that come from?
00:44:25
Speaker 4: Banger as I As I kind of mentioned, like the themes of the album or the theme of the album is really centered around, you know, the purpose of chaos in my life and what I'm learning because of it and what I need to make peace with and in just kind of doing reading and some research on where I come from.
00:44:50
Speaker 3: My family is.
00:44:52
Speaker 4: From a region in Mexico that a tribe is from, so by blood, I have lineage to a tribe called the Booty patcha. I think it's Booty Patch. I might be killing the name Booty Pecha. But the only tribe in the region to not be conquered by the Aztec. They're like valley, They're like warriors, you know, and they were never conquered. So like kind of doing deep dives into like my heritage where my family is from, and it kind of led me to find a celebration in Mexico called Son of the Diablos, which is the dance of the of the devils. And contrary to what the set, what the title suggests, it's actually a celebration, a commemoration of slaves in Mexico, African slaves and Mexican slaves freeing themselves from their masters.
00:45:41
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:45:42
Speaker 4: And the visuals are an homage to this idea that I'm making peace with. I'm addressing and freeing myself in some ways from my own demons.
00:45:56
Speaker 2: How did it feel to put the clothes on? I'm powerful in itself just wearing the clothes.
00:46:01
Speaker 4: It's hot as fuck because it's so many layers. That shit is just hot. I'm talking about like a scarf on the head and then another scarfs around your neck and you gotta chivas and yes you got boots, huh, like.
00:46:17
Speaker 3: The chaps, right, yeah, yeah, that's a that's the chaps that they wear.
00:46:21
Speaker 2: Chaps, but like fur.
00:46:22
Speaker 4: Yeah it's goat here. Yeah yeah it looks sick, but it does feel. It does give you a whole other feeling. And I and I want to I wanted to make sure that we were paying homage, but not like ripping it, you know, and it just being like a full yank. So the key elements that I feel really resonated with me.
00:46:47
Speaker 3: And where the chivaras and.
00:46:50
Speaker 4: The garb appear, I think, because what that what that actually is for, is like to protect the face from the mask. And the artisans that make these masks, there's only a handful that are like known to be like them. It's like like a sort like a swordsmith. If you're a samurai, you want this kind of lathe. So in the same way, the makers of the garbs, they're artisans that are like these are the guys you go to. And the masks are pretty heavy. These shits are like wooden masks, and then they've got you know, they're all very different and they're ornate and in different ways.
00:47:28
Speaker 3: But them.
00:47:29
Speaker 4: Shits is heavy and when you put it on, if you don't have anything to protect your head, it's gonna like it's gonna hurt you.
00:47:37
Speaker 3: The sheer weight.
00:47:38
Speaker 4: And then the movement with it on also, it moves around and shit. So the garb is kind of like in anti anticipation of putting on the mask.
00:47:50
Speaker 2: But that's another way to process pain, you know, exager pain in a different way.
00:47:54
Speaker 4: Which is the reason why you won't really see me, because I think the purpose of this album and the proposition is that I'm making peace with my demon, so I don't have to wear a mask, you know, I'm freeing myself of them.
00:48:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, all I love all considered.
00:48:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you so much Michael for talking about this album and for making the album. Man, thank you, best of luck. I can't wait to see what comes next.
00:48:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, Thanksley, appreciate your time. Great to hang and hopefully you see you again soon.
00:48:28
Speaker 1: In an episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite Miguel tracks. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to see all of our video and others, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing and help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday. 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. Aff Our theme music expect Anny Beats. I'm justin Richmond, h
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Miguel, the Grammy winning ALTS R and B pioneer, is back with a new album, Chaos, his first full length in eight years. It's the latest step in a career that's always pushed the boundaries of R and B, from his twenty ten debut, through albums that dabbled in psychedelia, dance music, and now touches of eighties industrial and even rancherrhythms. On today's episode, Miguel talks with Lea Rose about his unreleased twenty twenty three album Viscera, and how suspending himself from piercings in his back during its rollout helped him surrender control. He also shares a story behind the controversial imagery for his single New Martyrs, and despite collaborations with Travis Scott, Mariah Carey, and Tamimpala, Miguel explains why he's happiest just making music with his friends. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's Lea Rose in conversation with Miguel.
00:01:19
Speaker 2: Okay, so I want to ask you about the song New Martyrs. I'm curious how you came upon the artwork for the song and tell me what the artwork is how you came up with the idea and what the thinking is behind it.
00:01:35
Speaker 3: So the artwork is.
00:01:38
Speaker 4: Almost like a meme because you know, this year, I think seeing Luigi Mangioni, you know, carry out what he felt was right, regardless of what it meant in terms of the law, and morally, seeing how that played out and how that resonated with so many people with their anger and their angst. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the disenfranchised and powerless feeling of watching a political system sort of cannibalize itself right in front of you, and see how corporate interest is really infiltrated and manipulated what is meant to be an equitable process and all inclusive process.
00:02:30
Speaker 3: It really is infuriating.
00:02:32
Speaker 4: And to see people really get behind an action that feels like vigilanteism in any other case would be considered absolutely wrong, unjust, but having that context and then also understanding the story behind the personal injustice that behind the execution, you know, seeing how people respond to that is like even I'm like, nah, yeah, I mean, you're really putting your money before people's health, You're overlooking your humanity for your own greed, and I feel this is a something that hit me so hard that I had to really look at myself and go, I mean, am I wrong for a kind of being in agreement?
00:03:18
Speaker 3: You know?
00:03:19
Speaker 4: Am I wrong for feeling like he kind of did the right thing on behalf of a lot of people who've been shitted on, you know, and more importantly, like, who have you know, had their loved ones at the cost of their loved ones, of their own lives of you know, so real humanity, you know, at the cost of humanity. I think this is something we're going to see more and more as we continue. I think that's a domino until there's some real correction, you know, until there's some real justice established and awaited to make right on things moving forward. I think that's why I have this dream where I'm like kind of like just doing what I feel is right, even though it may seem wrong. It's very much inspired by seeing that happen, seeing their response, and also addressing my own angst, my own anger and dissatisfaction with the world as it is not just this country, and so New Martyrs is about that line towards the end where it's like, yeah, give me what's mine. I think a lot of people feel that way, and more and more people are going to feel that way more so.
00:04:35
Speaker 3: What's behind that is like.
00:04:37
Speaker 4: Do right by me and right by us, right by the world, do the right thing because right now there's a lot of wrong being done.
00:04:47
Speaker 3: It's a lot of wrong and it's not.
00:04:49
Speaker 4: Like it hasn't been that way and what we know to be human history and our but it certainly feels as if it is insurmountable or is Yeah, maybe because we can tune in on everything at all times, whenever we want. But that feeling, I think a lot of people feel that way, and that's what inspired That's how I feel, and that's what inspired the song.
00:05:12
Speaker 2: How do you toe the line between bringing in these bigger issues like I know you've been active in issues around immigration and mass incarceration, but you're also known for making sensual, sexy baby making music, Like, how do you toe the line and talk about both of these things at the same time?
00:05:37
Speaker 4: I remind myself that as a human experience and people who only focus on are who primarily focus on, you know, speaking out about injustice, activism. Artists and musicians who who do those things are also human beings, and they also, you know, they have their own sexual life, they have their own romantic relationships and their experience with those things, and it's their prerogative to talk about those things when they want, and it's their choice not too or to. And this, for me, I think is probably top of mind because this is the world that I'm inheriting, that I've inherited, and I'm also in a position in my age and my experience to hold myself accountable and I can't not do that. I'm not twenty one or eighteen when I wrote Quickie. It's a different thing, you know. And so yeah, these things have become increasingly important in my mind, and I think naturally that that is why it's becoming more important to in my music.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: Do you ever question, like, if there's someone you're working with, like a producer, whoever's in the studio with you, do you ever turn to them and say like, oh, is this? Am I going too far with this?
00:06:54
Speaker 3: Definitely?
00:06:55
Speaker 2: Is this a downer? Yeah?
00:06:57
Speaker 3: How does that work? I mean it's pretty much like that. I'm like, is this too much?
00:07:05
Speaker 4: The great thing about I work with my friends, I think I've learned that that's the best way to maintain like that sense of play, the permission to explore.
00:07:18
Speaker 3: I just want to work with my friends.
00:07:19
Speaker 4: Man, I've done the transactional thing, and that shit sucks all the time. One, it's rarely a collaboration because it's easy to do shit, you know, remotely, so it's not like we're getting in a room and we're really collaborating, at least not in my experience. And when it's no friendship in the middle. If that's not the thing, then you got to go do some wax shit like promote a song that you that you would never ever do on your own. It would never come from your expression. It's not your point of view. And I to a degree, I can appreciate stepping into stepping into someone else's world and remaining in your point of view and in your style and you know, having a presence in a new way. I think there's beautiful times when that's happened, but most times it I think in the past when I've seen that, it's been like people who really fuck with each other, like they can go have they can go have a drink, they like the same kind of movies, or have something at the core that's like, oh no, like, I really fuck with you. What happens when it's not like that? It's like, now you got to go support not just the song, but like the video and then the promo behind it that turns out to be mad corny, and then you find out the person is really just a politician, and then you know what I mean, They're like, you don't you could care less, Like it's easy to become just some shit you don't want to do. So I work with my friends and in a room when I'm feeling like is this too much, they just be like do that, No, just do your shit, like just do it, do it, do it all. And most times the things that don't fit naturally will sort of kind of like they just get pushed to the side.
00:09:03
Speaker 2: How do you get in the proper headspace to cord and to express yourself and to be vulnerable or to be open. Have you found anything over the course of your career that really gets you there? Like whether it's like having a drink or like push ups or whatever it is like a certain time of night, have you found anything that gets you there?
00:09:29
Speaker 4: I mean in different stages, has been different things. For sure, alcohol was a big one, I mean a little tequila in the past. Was it before it was whiskey like Kaleidoscope dream is like whiskey and weed forties Nope, It's like I don't know why I was drinking forties.
00:09:45
Speaker 3: I was like like pounding forties.
00:09:47
Speaker 4: And yeah the aquila and wild Heart actually is the quila into mescot. So I was like finding, Wow, I was finding like mescov and smoking for sure Wildheart.
00:10:01
Speaker 3: I'm like smoking a lot of weed.
00:10:03
Speaker 4: I also like, I think it's really it's really interesting how drugs have influenced music along in these different periods of time. I mean, like jazz, it's like speed, you know what I mean, Like when jazz heroin right, it's like ending right. Or you listen to grunge music and you're like, yeah, heroin is this it's a heroin time. You're listening to how crack and cocaine influenced you know, hip hop, and it's it's play in that timeframe and the emerging artists. Drugs and alcohol and all kinds of illicit activity have always been a part of music and creativity, whether it be fine art or music and fine art. For me, getting in that headspace has been different in each era. This time, this album. I mean, I still love to drink. I hate to even say this, but like, if I'm out and there's a photo of me, I will guarantee you nine times out of ten I have I love I love this guys social lubricat and I'm very much a like introvert. Extrovert is like, I'm yeah, same, I can do that extroverted thing. I very much like to be for a time, for a time. The social meter is not it's not a large social media, but it exists. And I do think that you know, a little mescal with uh with sparkling water and the lime kind of extends the battery a little bit.
00:11:28
Speaker 3: That sounds nice, It sounds incredible right now.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: But yeah, you can go out for a period, but then you want to like rush home and get into the bean bag and just chill and just.
00:11:38
Speaker 4: Right in this room with a record, you know what I mean, in a conversation with a couple handful of like really fun interesting people, and.
00:11:47
Speaker 2: I'm good, yeah, yeah, no, I feel that very deeply. What are you listening to these days? Like, is there any new old music you've discovered or what have you been reaching for.
00:12:00
Speaker 4: New old Well, this album in this period, I've been really going back and like leaning into all all my like more alternative tastes and then fluences, going back to Pixie's records, going back to that whole grunge era, so all of Nirvana, all of Sound Garden, all of that sort of like you know Seattle area, Yeah yeah. Then jumping into some of like jungle stuff has been a big one. I've been like trying to find ways to infuse rhythms and chord progressions that just are nostalgic or styles that are nostalgic.
00:12:40
Speaker 3: To my to my youth.
00:12:42
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
00:12:43
Speaker 4: So kum Yah is one of those ones where you'll hear a little bit of that, and like Francea, you'll get a little bit of that in Chaos. I think overall, what I was searching for in listening to music and influences like anything that felt dissonant. I felt like there's a rub there that that created the tension that I was looking for.
00:13:04
Speaker 2: Do you still feel in a place where you're recognizing and thinking about chaos or has that all been exercised out through the album?
00:13:13
Speaker 4: No.
00:13:14
Speaker 3: On the contrary, I.
00:13:16
Speaker 4: Want to wield it more effectively. I mean my my thinking on it is this like it's just about conditions to grow are conditions in general? If it's not growing, it's dead. Shout out to Lauren Hill. I mean, one of the most poignant things that she said in an interview is like, if it's not growing, it's dead. And it's the truth. And for me, what I've realized is that in many ways, I think I've I believe in my core that we all need a little chaos to grow. Maybe I'm wrong, I know for me that's the outside of my depth that Bowie talks about is the place where an artist really can thrive. It's the unknowing, it's the uncertainty that pushes it outside of that comfort zone that that means we need to stretch in not ways that we necessarily know, but that we need. And so chaos, I think in my life this album represents my acknowledgment of the chaos that I've created in my life and making peace with it in a lot of ways in order to better utilize it for my purpose. And while I'm here and I want to continue to curate chaos in my life.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: How are you going to do that? How do you curate chaos in your life right now, like intentionally like mess up a situation just to get the feel that feeling and kind of like use that for growth. Is that what that means?
00:14:50
Speaker 4: Not toxic chasts. We don't want any more toxic chaos though. Old habits die hard, And I think me stepping into my adulthood and my responsibility is one way that I ensure that the chaos that I do curate in my life is really intentional. So I look at ways of like how do I infuse something that is not obvious and it's not normal or natural? So taking, I mean what a simple way is like like I love that port his head on three, Like switch up their whole all of their their instruments instead of everyone is playing a different instrument.
00:15:31
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
00:15:32
Speaker 4: Every that's chaos to me because no one is in a comfort zone when it's not.
00:15:37
Speaker 3: No, I understand that, you know what I mean.
00:15:39
Speaker 4: So I think of chaos in my life in that way. We definitely don't want any any more toxicity. Yes, we don't need it. It's I don't think that's necessary.
00:15:50
Speaker 2: No, especially not when you're approaching forty.
00:15:55
Speaker 4: I want look, and that's it, isn't it. It's a crazy thing because I know.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: For me, I wanted I want all stability.
00:16:01
Speaker 1: Bruh.
00:16:01
Speaker 4: I'm like, like I said, it is like I want to I want peace in my life in general, but again, controlled chaos in the right places, whether it's like shaking up my team and infusing someone who's not in the music business in a role that maybe is adjacent in a different field, you know, in a different yeah field, so that we have fresh thinking that we're we're not approaching things in yeah with the constructs of the status quo in mind. You know, it's like the chaos that means we're breaking rules, but for with a purpose.
00:16:39
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:16:40
Speaker 2: So did you realizing your place in the chaos or maybe creating it in some way where you weren't completely aware of it. Did you realize that through just natural aging or was it through like therapy work. I know you're about to turn forty and this album's coming out on your fortieth birthday. Yeah, that seems like a really big milestone, Like, how are you thinking about turning forty?
00:17:09
Speaker 4: I mean, I think for whatever reason, I've I wrote this song when I was much younger that I that we never put out called Hardway, which is like I always learned the hard way. Actually, no, it's on it's on the first album. What am I talking about? It's on the first album. See my brain is oxidizing as we speak. There's a song on the first album called hard Way, and it's like I always learned the hard way, and and I.
00:17:35
Speaker 3: Hate to have like.
00:17:37
Speaker 4: Maybe put that out in the that energy out there, or I've accepted that. But in some ways I've been able to see things before they happen and change course. But in a lot of ways, you know, I have learned the hard way, and I've been lucky to not learn the hardest way. But I've got a few bruises and scars, you know that that you know are reminders, And I think that's the that's the journey of life.
00:18:07
Speaker 3: Anyways.
00:18:07
Speaker 4: It's like Unterests Thompson, like not wanting to reach the end pristine and clean, but with fire shooting out of the back and screeching barely crossing the threshold. I think something about that has always been the way that I imagine my life kind of going. And thankfully it hasn't meant that I have reached the finish line prematurely, and I've been here at this point, I want to make sure it doesn't happen prematurely. But I do know of its seem like a healthy guy like or that's the key, seem nah yeah, yeah, yeah, like.
00:18:44
Speaker 2: You seem like healthy mind and body, like you're thinking about it.
00:18:48
Speaker 4: I mean, having the opportunity to do this every day, you know, and to express one's selves and one's emotions, I think is a key. And for me it's been the true meditation of my life. And I found you know, there's other tools that are super helpful. I think musicians and artists and of all me, through through all mediums do find real solace and peace when they're able to create and they find that connection.
00:19:20
Speaker 3: To the higher thing.
00:19:23
Speaker 4: But overall, I don't want to paint I don't want to paint myself into any corner where like I'm like out here just causing havoc or anything like that. But I do know that, you know, I've had to learn some hard lessons like anyone in the world, and I think I'm at a place in my life where I want to be real intentional about you know, the past. Let's taken that I really want to take, you know, and ones that actually are worth my time, are worthy of the effort, worthy of the risk, as opposed to kind of going into things too haphazardly.
00:19:59
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Miguel after the break.
00:20:05
Speaker 2: Was you getting into the suspension thing where you were hanging from your piercings? That seems very chaotic to me? Is that along the same lines of thinking for you?
00:20:17
Speaker 3: You know?
00:20:17
Speaker 4: The Tribby part about that is that even physiologically what that does is it actually well, first and foremost, it's like an adrenaline rush, right, and something about that is very calming. I found it to be really meditative and not chaotic. I mean, doing suspension has a different purpose and meaning for every person that has ever done it or that practices it. I wouldn't say that I practice suspension. But the purpose of doing suspension at the time was to open up a conversation that is relevant to this album, and that is like, what is my relation to pain? Why do I carry pain with pride? What pain am I carrying that I'm not really addressing or acknowledging? And how is that a part of the story I've written about myself? How does that enabling? How is it fueling? And how is it like holding me back. It was about having that conversation and kind of like giving it a visceral reference, but it was all about understanding pain and wanting to talk about talk about it publicly, which I believe we carried over into this album.
00:21:40
Speaker 2: What happened with that album it evolved.
00:21:44
Speaker 4: It definitely evolved. Viscera was initially it was initially meant to be bad Habits sad Anthems, which I still think is a fucking ill ast title. And then it became not just me wanting to just do an album of like kind of like the antithesis of what people know most about my music, and I think that it's like feel good, romantic, sensual dreamy to kind of go like, all right, how do I shake this up and make space for the other side of the coin, which is like that I do have bad habits, that there are sad anthems, and I wanted to do a whole album about that, and I think I in that process it was getting real heavy. It was like two even for me, I was like, maybe some of this stays in the vault.
00:22:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Did anything from that album carry out over to the new album?
00:22:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say a good quarter of that record. It was actually kind of like became what is chaos?
00:22:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, the album is so good, by the way, or what I've heard of the album is so great.
00:22:57
Speaker 3: That's really kind. Thank you so much, Thank you.
00:22:59
Speaker 2: I love the title track. Tell me about just the overall sound for it and what your vision was for it, how it came together.
00:23:07
Speaker 4: It started out I'd come up across a children's choir on Instagram and they had done do you remember that the THHXU? It was a crescendo, But it was kind of like, yes, you go to the movies for those of for those of you who aren't, you know who don't haven't been to the movies back in like the nineties or before that. You know, as you intro a movie, they wanted to flex the sound in the room, and very often the companies would have an audio kind of intro to give you a sense of like the ability and you know how incredible the sound system was and I think it's thx Please correct me. I'm sure someone will afterwards. But it was one of those companies that it had this beautiful crescendo, a chordal crescendo, and these kids were doing that that crescendo, but with their voices a children's choir doing it a glissano up or a port upwards. And I was like, man, this is so cool. And I asked the children, so, you know, asked them to come and they did, and they basically saying this part it's just.
00:24:13
Speaker 3: A then.
00:24:20
Speaker 4: And they do like a that whole gliss report and I just was like, this is the coolest shit.
00:24:27
Speaker 3: And I was like, we got to use that.
00:24:29
Speaker 4: Kind of sampled that first, and then I programmed like a rough drum section that I felt was like I wanted it to drive because I had this idea about talking about just chaos and what chaos is place in my life, and it just felt kind of the notes felt like they were giving me that It's dramatic, you know, it feels very dramatic, and it is kind of it kind of pulls you in.
00:24:57
Speaker 2: It's a little bit haunting too, it's a little bit creepy.
00:24:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:25:00
Speaker 4: It was just interesting the emotional context of visually watching them really be in it and like kind of the joy they're getting out of performing this thing.
00:25:08
Speaker 3: But then how the how it feels, how the notes.
00:25:11
Speaker 4: Feel against each other, and I thought that was the perfect place, and it sparked this idea that you know, in my life, I've subconsciously, i think, curated chaos in one way or the other in my life, and I've i think I've finally kind of come to a place where I'm understanding what that's about. I've never really taken time to really look at it, and that really set off the whole, the whole idea. It was like, man, there's a there's a childlike part of me that plays into this, and there's a joy that I get out of it that I don't understand, and that's why the first line is like I think I'm better under pressure, and that sort of sets the stage for the album, you know, and and the.
00:25:53
Speaker 3: Rest kind of kind of unfolds as it goes. So cool.
00:25:58
Speaker 2: You mentioned earlier that for the title track, you made sort of what sounds like a sketch of the beat, and then you passed.
00:26:07
Speaker 3: It to Bray.
00:26:08
Speaker 4: That's my that's my one of my best friends, and we've worked on this album a lot together, so we produced the song together. But the drum programming specifically is like that's his. I mean, he's incredible across the board, but I mean the way the drums hit, that's definitely his shit.
00:26:27
Speaker 3: I learned a lot.
00:26:28
Speaker 4: Working with him through this album, so on the technical side and as a producer.
00:26:33
Speaker 2: So is that normally how it goes for you? Like do you normally make sketches of the music and then pass it to him or what's the process usually?
00:26:43
Speaker 3: Like it varies kind of.
00:26:46
Speaker 4: Starting with Kaleidoscope Dream, I really got in my executive producer bag and really wanted to focus on the overall vision of the album and what that was communicating.
00:26:58
Speaker 3: Overall.
00:26:59
Speaker 4: I didn't produce, though I had. I was very much involved in the sonic nature of Kaleidoscope Dream and that kind of gave me a lot of confidence to actually use my own production. The only song that I produced on Kaleidoscope Dream is Adorn and that's like wow, top to bottom. So it was kind of the first time I had like I was.
00:27:22
Speaker 3: Like, all right, fuck it, like they fuck with it.
00:27:24
Speaker 4: But I was very I wasn't sure if it was if it was gonna work commercially or anything like that, like if it was going to feel professionally enough.
00:27:33
Speaker 3: Or what have you.
00:27:34
Speaker 4: Really, Yeah, so that's the first time I really like my production was released professionally and actually was you know, became something that was a success commercially.
00:27:45
Speaker 2: Wow. So yeah, does that make you feel like as a producer, does that validate your skills and your ear? Like what did that do to you as an artist? Knowing how well that song did.
00:27:57
Speaker 4: I mean, it's definitely encouraging. But there's absolute levels. There are levels to this shit. And the great thing about me is like, I'm not so focused on on how things sound sonically as much as I care about what they how they feel, you know, And I think there's a bit of ignorance that I always want to keep.
00:28:20
Speaker 3: I kind of like that.
00:28:21
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't really know like what I did there, but it just felt right And that's maybe my own my own idiosyncrasy or whatever. But there's definite levels to this and it's it is a science for a lot of people. That's why you that's there's incredibly successful producers who know down to the just down to the t on how to emphasize things in different ways to like.
00:28:46
Speaker 2: A doctor Dre like he's supposed to be like an incredible engineer producer obviously.
00:28:51
Speaker 3: But also Dre like, yes, yes, but then you know, Dre is different without Quick. You have to listen.
00:29:00
Speaker 4: You gotta know that DJ Quick is in there mixing and carving in a way that gives that sound like that's a lot of that is Quick's DNA And like anybody who knows knows this Quick as is DJ Quick is an incredible fucking engineer like and producer. So Dre is Dre and it's always gonna be Dre. But you know, like you're like we're saying, is like to know the science of yes how as Cidic Dave Sidek is one of my brothers and best friends. Also on this album my one of my favorite things, and this is him his theory on life. He's like, one cut is worth a million boosts and that is so true across life, across music. It's like it's not always about adding a lot of times the magic is there because the magic was instinctual, that was that came from something else. Your your choice is in the in the inspirational moment, in that oh I'm inspired now, all of those things that's meant to be there. And then most times, and he would say, you know, nine times out of ten, take something out, cut something out, eq that out. What's the most important part about that frequency. What's the most penetrating part of that harmony, what's the most you know, what is it in that in that in the feeling in the music that we need to make sure we preserve that's getting in the way of the emotional intention. So yeah, learning how to do that more intimately and like on a on a more like technical level is probably one of the most enjoyable things. Working with you know close like my boy, that's my He's not black, but that's my nigga, Like you know, he's like he's that's my guy, right, you know. And and I have I'm lucky to kind of have really like brothers and best friends and like spiritual warriors that I also get to work with. So that was the I think that was the big learning on this album. And there's some failings on this album too that are that I kept that I that I'm like, yeah.
00:31:02
Speaker 2: Like the focus on the negative, but a failing at this point.
00:31:07
Speaker 4: But that's what I love about this conversation and I love watching watching episodes of this is like the insight that you get that's like really for the nerds and who care about this shit? So I can like talk shit about my own shit, like on this album is about the feeling of the music, but like it's it's really like a shitty it's my own shitty mix on the record, and like you can hear it, like I'm like playing it in any room, Like yep, that shit could have been better, but it still feels like the feeling of what I meant is still there, like kind of like there is an angst in it. But it's actually it's about the line. It's a line in the first verse which is like I become a healer. I forget myself and I become a healer, and that in this mode, when I'm avoidant and leaning into my avoidant tendencies, it often leads into wanting intimacy because it it allows me to forget myself and my own shit.
00:32:14
Speaker 2: But at least you're aware of it. I feel like that's the first step. You're not just doing things blindly in a pattern over.
00:32:22
Speaker 4: And over till you die, you know, no, no, no, yeah.
00:32:26
Speaker 2: Are there any other songs on the album or any other moments in the studio, anything that was where maybe you had some sort of creative awakening or something different that you can take away from this project. And maybe use in the future.
00:32:43
Speaker 1: Hmm.
00:32:45
Speaker 4: Though it play though is like is a special one, but there's a lot of these are I mean sonically, I learned a lot, and and also in terms of like melding genre, yeah, and sort of wielding the sticky parts or the parts of certain genres that just I a very they are very much a part of my identity, infusing them together to make something that feels unique to me. This was a really fun experience that I think will inform the next couple records because I'm only I'm planning on leaning more into my heritage and more like the rhythms and approaches on both sides, but that are more like ethnic, you know, like my ethnic influences and leaning into those even more than I did this time, and marrying them even more with my cultural influences. I feel, I feel that I'm I'm right at the cusp of something that's really uniquely mine. Finally, and I think which is exciting for me is like going harder, going harder, and leading into them more.
00:34:07
Speaker 1: One last break and will be back with Lee Rose and Miguel.
00:34:14
Speaker 2: I feel like You've always had such a strong point of view and a lot of what you did early on helped sort of birth this whole like all R and B genre that is now just commonplace where it didn't used to be commonplace at all.
00:34:30
Speaker 3: Thank you.
00:34:31
Speaker 2: But when you say that you found, you feel like you finally found your voice. What does that sound like like? How would you describe that?
00:34:38
Speaker 4: I think the I think the rhythmic nature of that's just a part of where my parents come from and their experience and their parents come from. There is something that is universal about that that.
00:34:49
Speaker 3: I just have.
00:34:51
Speaker 4: I feel we're just scratching the surface on on this record, and it only happens in a couple places. I would love to lean into that as well as that alternative. I think the alternative, if you want to call it. That influence in my music has always been there, and so I want to experiment more with how I can make those work together and then also make my you know, my songwriting, make it more cohesive and sharpen my my songwriting on the you know, on the Spanish side, I think there's so much I'm excited to do that and to work with incredible songwriters and learn from them because there's a whole opportunity and unlocks the whole opportunity in terms of connecting ideas and that don't work in English, you know, so like the lateral thinking and the fun part about songwriting is like how we're connecting one thing to the next, not just by rhyme, but by like the analogies, all of the all the literary tools and how that can with that unlocks in terms of what I can say.
00:35:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, growing up, was there a lot of music in the house, Like what was what role did music play in your household?
00:36:02
Speaker 4: Music for me was was an escape when my parents were still together, so that only goes into age eight.
00:36:10
Speaker 3: In the house was I mean hip hop, lots of funk.
00:36:15
Speaker 4: My dad was kind of a yacht rock loved yacht rock, loved classic rock. He was a big Eagles fan, big Bowie fan, loved the Beatles Queen. I mean, he was a big Santana fan. War was big for him, earth Wind and Fire massive, I mean, and these are all this is that era, you know, we're talking about great everything from the sixties on.
00:36:43
Speaker 3: He was like heavy into heavy, heavy into Yeah.
00:36:47
Speaker 2: What about your mom what was she into?
00:36:49
Speaker 4: Big soul fan, you know, anything motown, anything coming from Detroit and anything that we would heart, you know, at a function. You know that they would that they used to dance to in high school because my parents were young, so they had me at twenty three. I believe they're the same age, twenty two, twenty three, and they met in high school. So all the things that they were they were enjoying in high school. Luther Vandros, you know what I'm saying, All of these things that were in the ether, Like I grew up in San Pedro an art punk haven. I mean, all just the Ramones have been through San Pedro. We've got we've got a lot of great punk culture in San Pedro that I grew up right around minute men, that's Pedro so and that's in the eighties when I was born.
00:37:46
Speaker 3: I was like really really.
00:37:47
Speaker 4: Young, Like I'm talking about one to five going into the nineties, like it had started to die down. But the scene and the venues that were being played at Firehouse we're talking about, these are like in within blocks of my of where I grew up, you know, Like I'm on Third and Center and we're talking about downtown San Pedro is like three blocks away, and this is like kind of like an epicenter of where a lot of that energy is like really being expressed.
00:38:16
Speaker 3: And I grew so I grew.
00:38:17
Speaker 4: Up around punks, I grew up around of course, I grew up around you know, cholos and gangsters, and so I got a lot of all of that.
00:38:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you the kind of artist who has hundreds of songs just like done on hand if you need them or when you start a new project? Are you very much like, all right, we got twelve, we got fourteen, We're done, move on.
00:38:42
Speaker 3: I wasn't. Before I took eight years to finish the album.
00:38:46
Speaker 2: I was.
00:38:47
Speaker 3: I was very much like, no, we want to create in the moment.
00:38:51
Speaker 4: This is what this is right here. I wouldn't say I have hundreds of songs, but I definitely have more. I have more songs that need to be cut and never see the light of day or ever need to be heard right anyone then I usually would, But I also say there's a lot of songs that I still want to use for you know, future albums or the next album. Would I would prefer to remake for the music to feel very current, And yeah, you know for me.
00:39:23
Speaker 2: And you always have struck me as a person who is creative first, meaning the most important thing for you is just to make things and how people categorize or maybe even interpret those things that come.
00:39:37
Speaker 3: Second.
00:39:38
Speaker 2: Does that sound accurate?
00:39:40
Speaker 4: Super accurate? I think breaking free of the expectation is a big part of what I've needed to I needed to kind of step away and re calibrate on because in the beginning, I think we start with all the excitement and possibility, and we mimic with no judgment. We imitate with a sense of play and excitement of what is possible to program our bodies to do, you know, And there's so much honesty and that jumping off place and allowing oneself to just explore and to be excited by what comes out, even if it's shit, you know what I mean, Because I've got more terrible things in the vault. That's just you know, it's even funny to go listen and go it's pretty funny, Like I see what I was trying to do there, and to hear the play in it, the exploration, the things that are wrong but that are right, the things that hit a chord within you know when you listen to it, and the things that are just trash, and you know to give it, to give it that kind of energy is making that right change in the right place, or everybody on the same page, catching up, feeling to move into another phrase or whatever that thing is. When you when you're able to do that and it garner attention, well then it's easy to lose sight of the whole, the thing, the glue, the purpose in it in the first place. And I think I wasn't doing enough calibrating along the way.
00:41:28
Speaker 3: You know, do you.
00:41:30
Speaker 2: Have any musical mentors or people in the business or in your position or in a similar position that you can talk to honestly and be like, look, I'm feeling lost right now, I need help. Is there anybody who you can go to as a guide.
00:41:47
Speaker 4: Throughout my career, I've mentioned Mark Mark Pitts as kind of one of those ones who believed early and had he had the leverage and the reputation to convince a lot of people who otherwise would have wrote me off, cut their losses and moved on, so to speak, when it wasn't all profitable, you know, when it was looking like there wasn't a way forward. That was someone that I could always call on and trust to give. Not business insight alone, I think more human insight, and so he was someone that I could always call on, but through life, through my life, I think it'll always be my family. I got lucky and I have an incredible, incredible mother and father who have been, you know, truly truly upfront about what they do and do not know, even when I was, you know, too young enough to care about it. They've always been there to kind of Mike, you know, that's not right, Mike, you know, and give me the thing that I need to hear that I can trust is coming from a really pure place, you know. So I got lucky, and that's in fact. You know, my brother is one of my best friends, nonchalant, He's on this album. And I've gotten lucky to have just great people along the way, including my you know, my team. Drew has been with me for years. Anyone who knows me and has been we've done business.
00:43:24
Speaker 3: With knows Drew. That's my guy. He's my right hand.
00:43:28
Speaker 4: He's been with me since I since my first real check performing outside of Los Angeles. You know, he literally was at my very first show way up in Connecticut.
00:43:37
Speaker 2: Oh, in Connecticut.
00:43:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was in Connecticut, a thousand dollars show to perform all I want is you at a club, you know, and it's like this, this is like someone who's been with me for you know, a decade plus more than you know, so we're talking about fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years. Yeah, I've been lucky to have people that I can trust, you know, but I've also yeah that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, I've gotten lucky in that way. So those are the people that I would I could lean on to kind of be like, hey man, you swerve it, you swerve it hard right now.
00:44:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. One thing I wanted to ask you before we go, I wanted to ask you about the visuals for Chaos for the title track, So cool, m h, what are you wearing? And where did all that come from?
00:44:25
Speaker 4: Banger as I As I kind of mentioned, like the themes of the album or the theme of the album is really centered around, you know, the purpose of chaos in my life and what I'm learning because of it and what I need to make peace with and in just kind of doing reading and some research on where I come from.
00:44:50
Speaker 3: My family is.
00:44:52
Speaker 4: From a region in Mexico that a tribe is from, so by blood, I have lineage to a tribe called the Booty patcha. I think it's Booty Patch. I might be killing the name Booty Pecha. But the only tribe in the region to not be conquered by the Aztec. They're like valley, They're like warriors, you know, and they were never conquered. So like kind of doing deep dives into like my heritage where my family is from, and it kind of led me to find a celebration in Mexico called Son of the Diablos, which is the dance of the of the devils. And contrary to what the set, what the title suggests, it's actually a celebration, a commemoration of slaves in Mexico, African slaves and Mexican slaves freeing themselves from their masters.
00:45:41
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:45:42
Speaker 4: And the visuals are an homage to this idea that I'm making peace with. I'm addressing and freeing myself in some ways from my own demons.
00:45:56
Speaker 2: How did it feel to put the clothes on? I'm powerful in itself just wearing the clothes.
00:46:01
Speaker 4: It's hot as fuck because it's so many layers. That shit is just hot. I'm talking about like a scarf on the head and then another scarfs around your neck and you gotta chivas and yes you got boots, huh, like.
00:46:17
Speaker 3: The chaps, right, yeah, yeah, that's a that's the chaps that they wear.
00:46:21
Speaker 2: Chaps, but like fur.
00:46:22
Speaker 4: Yeah it's goat here. Yeah yeah it looks sick, but it does feel. It does give you a whole other feeling. And I and I want to I wanted to make sure that we were paying homage, but not like ripping it, you know, and it just being like a full yank. So the key elements that I feel really resonated with me.
00:46:47
Speaker 3: And where the chivaras and.
00:46:50
Speaker 4: The garb appear, I think, because what that what that actually is for, is like to protect the face from the mask. And the artisans that make these masks, there's only a handful that are like known to be like them. It's like like a sort like a swordsmith. If you're a samurai, you want this kind of lathe. So in the same way, the makers of the garbs, they're artisans that are like these are the guys you go to. And the masks are pretty heavy. These shits are like wooden masks, and then they've got you know, they're all very different and they're ornate and in different ways.
00:47:28
Speaker 3: But them.
00:47:29
Speaker 4: Shits is heavy and when you put it on, if you don't have anything to protect your head, it's gonna like it's gonna hurt you.
00:47:37
Speaker 3: The sheer weight.
00:47:38
Speaker 4: And then the movement with it on also, it moves around and shit. So the garb is kind of like in anti anticipation of putting on the mask.
00:47:50
Speaker 2: But that's another way to process pain, you know, exager pain in a different way.
00:47:54
Speaker 4: Which is the reason why you won't really see me, because I think the purpose of this album and the proposition is that I'm making peace with my demon, so I don't have to wear a mask, you know, I'm freeing myself of them.
00:48:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, all I love all considered.
00:48:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you so much Michael for talking about this album and for making the album. Man, thank you, best of luck. I can't wait to see what comes next.
00:48:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, Thanksley, appreciate your time. Great to hang and hopefully you see you again soon.
00:48:28
Speaker 1: In an episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite Miguel tracks. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to see all of our video and others, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing and help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday. 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. Aff Our theme music expect Anny Beats. I'm justin Richmond, h
