PJ Morton

00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, Today we begin our month long celebration of Black Music Month with p J. Morton, the New Orleans based singer, songwriter, producer, and keyboardist of Maroon five. Morton recently earned a Grammy Award for Album of the Year for his contributions to John Battize We Are. But even though he's been up from multiple Grammys, he almost gave up on the idea of a solo career altogether. But then he moved back home to New Orleans and reconnected with what got him interested in music in the first place. Now, Morten's releasing his eighth studio album, Watched the Sun. The new album was made up of eleven original songs and features collaborations with artists like Stevie Wonder, Nas, Jill Scott, and Wallet. On today's episode, p J Morton talks to Bruce held Them about what it was like growing up a preacher's son and how his relationship with gospel impacted the way he makes music. He also talks about being a recovering workaholic and his friendship with the great Stevie Wonder. This is broken record Liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchell here's Bruce Head them and p J. Morton. You played organ growing up, right? Oh yeah, what was the organ in your church? Yeah? I could be three? It was okay, Yeah, it was auld B three. Uh yeah. My brother in law taught me. I learned on the job basically and by ear, you know, but he taught me to draw bars and settings, and I kind of just built from there. Yeah. I was amazed to hear that. Well, I heard it on your record. You said it. You don't read music. I don't read music. Yeah, so you learned to play in church by ear by ear? Yeah, it kind of blows my mind. You know, when I think about the things I can play, I just remember not being able to play, and then I remember being able to play. I don't really remember learning. Like the only thing I remember I would just play the same thing over and over, and then I would make a mistake and my ear would say, oh, that's the chord from that song. Oh that's how they did that. It literally like one foot in front of the other. Now, your album New Orleans begins with a tape of your father, Paul S Martin. That's right, yeah, introducing you at church. Well, we were actually at home or you were at home. Yeah, so my dad every year since like nineteen eighty three. I mean, I remember the camp chords got smaller and smaller through the years. That was the big one. Every year though, we would have a talent showcase during Christmas. It was me and my sisters. We all had to do something. You know. My sister was a singer. You can see me through the years ago from drums to trying to play guitar to finally you see me set land on piano about seven years old or eight, you know, and that was I think that was eight or nine. Do you remember what you played? Yeah, I used to think I invented this. It was like, oh no, I really thought that I wrote that. I don't know why I thought that, but that was what I played. I remember that clearly. Now you're playing in church. Your father ran the church. Oh yeah, he was the pastor and of course an amazing singer as well, so music was really important. Yeah. Now, what was the relationship between church music and secular music in your house? Because your dad is a very big gospel singer. Yes, he's a very big gospel singer who also was born and raised in wins Or, Ontario. Canada, so he was right across the tunnel from Detroit. So there was so much music in gospel. Of course the Whinings and Cluck Sisters, but Stevie and all of that stuff that was happening as well. So there was a high appreation for music in the house and it was almost like you could listen to it because not on Sundays. We weren't allowed to listen to secular music on Sundays on the radio. It would had to be gospel music. But one of my dad's favorite singers was Anita Baker. I remember Michael Jackson and Prince and Stevie and Whitney Houston. I remember hearing that stuff in the household too, here and there. You know. One of your dad's big hits, let It Rain, Yes, which he did after Katrina. He does a little purple rain in this A little purple rain. Yeah. I used to try. I used to travel with him as he ministered, you know, and did revivals and stuff. We would go full purple rain on there. So it was all right. Yeah, So that's what I mean by the influence was always there. My dad is a musician, so you know, as a musician, you can't pick and choose what's good and bad. I think it became more of an issue if you decided to be a recording artist doing that. You know, once you decided, oh, I'm gonna be a secular artist, that is kind of when you started to get some pushback. Okay, and did you get pushed back from him? I did. Yeah. Initially I got pushed back because I was a very young songwriter. So I think for a preacher's kid, it always comes off as rebellion at first. You know, he's just trying to go against what we're doing. You're a PK. I'm a p K. Yeah, I'm a PK. But for me, it was much purer than that, and it was coming from a real place. And I think once they realized it wasn't like a rebellious phase, they became like my number one supporters. It wasn't this is the family business. Yeah, I felt that pressure initially. I was it's me and my two sisters. I'm the only boy. I'm his namesake. You know. The jais for Junior, you know, so it was almost like that path was written out for me. I mean, it was like this is yours, you know, But for me, I didn't want that, and my dad never quite put that pressure on me. It was more coming from everybody else members, or like just in general, because my dad was known outside of just our church. Of course, he traveled all around the world, and I think everybody just assumed that. So I felt the pressure from everywhere. But internally, I think my dad saw something in me and saw that I was going to be different, and he eventually empowered me to do that. He came around, oh yeah, big time. I don't know the gospel style so well, is there a lot of Detroit gospel and what your dad did? Oh yeah, what's Detroit gospel? What's New Orleans gospel? I think New Orleans gospel always felt like New Orleans music in general. It was I think the blues and the jazz of all of that was all mixed. In Detroit at that time when I was growing up, was always kind of ahead of the game. I mean, when you talk about them, like the Clark's Sisters, Twinkie, who was the producer and one of the lead singers of The Clark's Sisters, it sounded like Stevie Wonder. It just had gospel lyrics. So they were pushing that line of it feeling like what current music was doing. She said she got that song from like master blaster, you know, but it's saying do mean that day name way, So it was like very modern, you know, for that time in New Orleans, I think was still in the you know, someone in a traditional sense. Everybody says, well, it's a gospel piano player. I don't really know what that means. People say, well, this is the gospel scale. I think that's just the scale. Everybody uses this, I think maybe gift and curse. But because I didn't learn music, I can't relate to any of that. I don't I don't even know scales, so I don't you know, you don't know any scales. I mean, I don't know what they are. You know, I know, but and I know that's a g major scale, but I don't know what a gospel scale is. I mean, I guess some people would look down on that, you know, which is there was some purists, you know. I have a weird relationship with some purists because I think the genius is being able to do it, you know, without being taught. I think that before there was notation, somebody had to play it to write it. And I think somewhere along the line notation became higher than being able to do it. But I take pride in the fact that it came through me. It comes through me, and that it's a gift that was given to me. I'm in a huge pop band, you know what I'm saying, Just like, I just play music whatever the moment calls for. So I don't really get into that or I'm not even sure what that means exactly. Of course, I can play church music because that is my foundation, you know, but I don't know that I would consider myself a gospel piano play. Well, your your friend John Batigue, Yeah, he went to juid he wants to Juilliard. Yes, so you can just say to him, yeah, I didn't have to do that. I mean, listen, I think those things and it depends where you're taking it, right. I mean, he's able to score soul and like do all these amazing things. You know, these these different things are tools for different paths, and he's undoubtedly a genius. I mean when he sits at this piano, yes he learned the notes, but you can't teach what he does. I remember, you know a friend of mine who actually was who did go to Berkeley and came to start playing with me. He would tell me stuff like that's wrong or you playing that wrong, and I was like, you know what do you There's no such thing, you know what I mean? And he had to eventually learn that. But I do think, yeah, because I don't know. It allows me to not know what the boundaries are supposed to be. And also the things that I listened to, I mean, when you talk about Stevie or you talk about Quincy, they would have different choices, you know, And these are the things that I that I grew up paying attention to the Beatles as well. I mean when you talk about like different chords and different structures, those guys they were they were all about it. Can you show me, and maybe this will probably help listeners. You've done a couple great versions of How Deep Is Your Love? Yeah, And a lot of your music is like this, including your gospel music. Your gospel music sounds like love songs. Your love song sound like gospel music, which is always nice. It was because he talking about God or you gotta listen. Yeah, So can you just show me when you probably heard that song growing up in the ears because it was on radio when you sat down to say, okay, I'm going to try and play. What was that process? Yea, it was so crazy. Is My sister and I used to transform songs from I mean, Annie was our favorite movie growing up, so I would always always already hear those songs a certain way like so, bgs are you I really need to? Right? And for me, I heard it a deep bits your life, I really mean to that's church right there? Okay, stop there? What's the church about it? Because you just don't really that's where I That's why I hear that voicing. When I say church, I mean the voicing of it, because I could have easily said because yeah, right, but I said, you know, it's just some voicings that I mean, some people call it church, some people call it soul. I hear it that way in my head, and they're probably vocal lines originally, right, It's like a choir sound almost as far as what what you were just playing. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that chord right there is like you know, I think you I use that a lot, like a dominant um. But I hear those voicings, those harmonies. That's a very cost thing as well. Yeah, wow, did you ever hear from Robin gibb or I just very good. Pardon right, yeah, I did well. I heard from the social media account. Okay, I talked to somebody, but no, I got word that they loved that version, and I'm I'm honored. Man. It was always one of my favorite songs and it was a last minute decision to record it. It became one of I have to play that now. You know. You recorded that on Ze on Gumbo. It's on Gumbo and then Gumbo Unplugged with Yebba, and then I did it on the Piano album again with Alex Eisley, a totally different, broken down piano version, yeah, which is a great great Your whole piano record is Oh, thank you man, it's fabulous. We have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more from Bruce Headlam and PJ Mortin. We're back with more from Bruce Heatham's conversation with PJ Martin. Did you study a lot of the traditional New Orleans players? You remind me of Alan Tussant maybe because you're a songwriter, yes, and you accompany a lot of people. I was a church kid, right, so I missed a lot of that and because I didn't read, I didn't go through the traditional jazz path in New Orleans. You know, it kind of made me an outcast actually growing up there, because I didn't fit into any New Orleans box. Really, Alan Tucsont later on in life became a blueprint for me because he represented what I wanted to be, you know, which was New Orleans through and through, but really lend my hand outside of New Orleans as well in a big way. The way he had a studio in New Orleans that was all his own, you know, it was a blueprint for me. And you're right, the way he was a producer for a lot of different artists is how I saw myself. So Alan Tussant was He was the person I looked to to say that's what I want to be, But that came later on in life. He was a couple of generations ahead of me. But no, I didn't. I didn't study in that way. I was studying gospel musicians and then I got when like Chick Carea. And for me, though although I was a musician, I was always drawn to the songs. It was always the songs over the plan, over the singing. So I never really studied outside of chick trying to learn Spain. I never really studied keys that way. I studied songwriters. So I was drawn to Stevie of course, Like that's what started it all for me. Do you remember what the song or album was with him? I do. I don't remember if it was an album, but a friend of mine gave me a cassette tape and I knew I'm an eighties baby, right, so I knew I just called to say I love you and you know, part time lover when I was you know, I knew those songs, but I hadn't heard that early voice and it was I ain't never dreamed You're leaving somebody that song. I can remember playing that cassette tape and hearing that and like my mind just like, how does why is this making me feel this way? You know? And soon after he gave me Donnie Live, Donnie Hathaway Live. It seemed like that was happening all like back to back to back, and my lad, I don't remember how much there was a break in it. But then I heard the Beatles and I'm like, we like, what are these melodies and how are they saying the same thing? But a different way. And then that got me to James Taylor somehow. Actually was watching an Awards show and they were honoring him and they were playing Fire and Rain as he was walking up, and I was like, what is that? You really were a church kid. You hadn't heard James Taylor. I hadn't heard James Taylor, and I knew the big stuff, you know, but like it was a different mind as a songwriter. It was like I started to want us do that. How wild were you when you heard Stevie wondering Donnie Hathaway? That was like twelve. Somebody gave me that stuff at twelve. Like again, I had heard Stevie and he was just a part of it, you know. I hadn't heard Donnie actually, but that was about twelve or thirteen. The Beatles my mom told me stories because my name's Paul, and my little sister was born and she got a Lullaby CD and it had Hey Jude on there. So I was really young at that time. I was probably seven, but I didn't really get to the Beatles until later. So what was it like when you finally met Stevie Wonder And how did you meet Stevie wonder So like Matt in person, there were a couple of like quick ones. Remer Kirk Franklin is the first person that introduced me to him in person, but that was really quick. And then twenty thirteen, I had a song called Only One that I wanted him to play harmonica and didn't know him at all. But I just was like, you know, I'm just gonna try stout to a drummer friend of mine, Teddy, who was played for him, and he hooked me up with a stylus of his who happened to be from New Orleans and it happened to be familiar with me, so she was down to get him the song. If you can get it to him, that's I mean, that's it's two things. He's got to want to do it and you gotta be able to get it to you know. But it's not like you can sell him on the idea of this being a good career move. Yeah, you know, it's like he just gotta want to do yeah. Yeah, man, Stevie, I'm telling you, if you just do this one, it's gonna take you to the top. You know. It was none of that. I feel like he heard some of himself in it and was down and he cut harmonica on it. That still hadn't met him in person. Then we were on a plane and I didn't know he was sitting behind me and I went to the restroom and Stevies comes behind me like meaning to use the restroom too, and I turned around like, Stevie, it's it's PJ. You just did my song and he was like, oh, I love that song. And we we connected then and that was special, but it didn't really turn into a full relationship until maybe three years ago. He invited me to do toys for Todds his Christmas thing, and we did a song together and we really started to build. Then after my album Gumbo first began, he told me love this song. He told me he wished that he wrote that song, which is, you know, I don't need any more compliments in life. That's it, you know, that's it for me. And so now we have a bond that is and I'm not over it. But he told me, like you can call me like you don't have to, you know, we're friends. I'm like, you're Stevie wonder though, you know, it's like more than I ever dreamed. This is that's the biggest that's the biggest thing I ever dreamed. So it's amazing. Have you ever talked about songwriting with him? We talk about it in a way we more talk about life. But what's fascinating about Stevie to me is his recall I don't have that, I can't I got. If I don't record it in my phone and like have a voice note, I'll forget something great. He'll recall ten songs that he's never put out that he's got and he'll just run through them. I think it just speaks to his genius. You know that he can hold all of this stuff full songs and me will play them for me. But we never really talked about technique or anything. I mean, I think he just appreciates what I do, and he tells me. He's not bashed for about telling me how much he supports me. I think that in general. I don't think that's unique to me. He's very encouraging to artists and writers that he believes in. Now you almost you've done a lot of producing. I think he wouldn't your first Grammy for India Aria, I think, yeah, well not technically, so I had to I had to come back. I thought the Grammy rules. I didn't get a trophy for that album. I wrote and produced on the album and it won Best R and B Album, But I didn't produce a certain percentage of the album, so I didn't get a trophy for it. But yeah, I was a part of this Grammy Award winning album my junior year in college. Yeah, wow, did you take time off from college for that? No? I went right. It made me want to quit. The only thing that got me through is I had one semester left. I finished more House in three and a half years, and that was my junior year. The first semester and I was like, oh, this is all I want to do, Like, I got to get out of here. But I had like one more semester, something like, let me just knocked this out. That's the best summer job ever. Oh, for sure, I was mowing one. You were winning Grammy, Man, it was amazing. I moved off campus my second year and met Indi re right there in the apartments we were living in. Well, her brother was living there, and she happened to be up there and heard me playing the piano, and we started talking about Stevie Wonder and she hadn't put out her first motown record yet, and she let me hear that, and so when the other one came around, we were friends by then, and I had this little song and played it for and she loved it. And the restless history and you'd never produced before that. I had produced some gospel stuff, yeah, because my first placement as a producer was when I was sixteen. Yeah, fifteen, I did the song sixteen it came out, and so I kind of was used to it a little bit, but that, in my mind, that is the first thing that I truly produced. But then after a couple of your own albums, you were gonna you were gonna stop doing solo stuff? Yeah? Why what was going on? Yeah? Right before Gumbo, I was just Gumbo was going to be the last thing I think for me. I had been pushing independently for a long time, and you know, it's an uphill battle. I mean, it can be, you know, and I just felt like I didn't necessarily fit in. I would give these songs, I could write songs for other people, but when I did my presentation, it was just kind of like the labels didn't get it. You know. We went to every label at one time and couldn't get signed, and I just felt like, all right, listen. I was in my room five a few years by then, and I'm like, you know, this is great. I mean, I'm fine. You know, I was still producing, right, and I think part of it was I just wasn't successful at being myself or it just hadn't come together, you know. So then I signed a major deal. I was with Young Money, with Lil Wayne and Universal, and that was cool. It was a learning experience. But then that didn't work out. So I asked to get off the label and I was India again, and I'm like, you know what, I'm leaving La and I'm leaving all of this, like I just you know, so Gumbo kind of was my I was just disarmed, you know. I wasn't thinking about anything business wise, radio, pr, none of that. I just was like, I'm just gonna make what I want to make, which I realized now that that's what was missing, just me overthinking some things. Yeah, I was making good songs and doing all of this, but I wasn't fully connecting because I had those blocks, and I wasn't creating fully in a free way, not since my very first album. It just put me back where I was supposed to be, I guess, because that's when a lot of the more recent success started. Yeah, and you've got your own studio now, yeah, I got on Yeah, yeah, Morn Records. Yeah. But you're still producing for other people, and you're still producing and we just snow A Legra shout out to snow A Legra. She was just up at the Grammys for a song that I helped write. Now I'm going to continue to do that. I just love other voices, I love other expressions, So I always want to lend my hand when when I can add something. And you're going to restore Buddy Boone's help. Yes, yes, yes, it was a happy mistake that happened after Katrina. It was a house not far from my parents' church, literally steps away, so the church brought up most of the land after Katrina and happened to buy this house not knowing. No, we should explain who he is because yeah, oh yeah, yeah for sure, because that's that's part of where my passion comes from. Because I didn't know who he was growing up, unfortunately, and we all should. Buddy Bolden, the legend has it that he is the seed that planet jazz music. The story is that he was playing his horn too loud in the house, so his mom told him go outside. He goes on the stoop and plays it. The legend says you could hear him all the way like across town, and so a friend of his heard him playing and they formed the band that majority of the world says is the first time they heard jazz music. He died at a young age. He died mental illness. You know. There's a theory that he had a vitamin deficiency, is that right, which is very common apparently if he were poor, and that it wasn't you know, because people assumed to schizophrenia because I think he ended up an asylum, but they may have actually been breakdown. It may have been a nutritional Wow. Yeah, something so simple now right, YEA, like seemed complex then. But I just think his story is important. There's literally one picture of him that exists, no recordings, and we're still talking about him one hundred years later. So he did something, you know, King Oliver playing this band different people, right, that's right, and that these are the people who carried on his story. Um, So we got this house which was actually low income housing before Katrina wasn't nobody was making a big deal about it, which is probably why my parents didn't know. Um. So it's it's been sort of an uphill battle just because it was new for me. I was just excited about it, but never been in the nonprofit space, never had to raise money for anything. But this vision man is so important. It's the house that he actually lived in, and then there's an identical house right next to it, so I'm calling it the past house in the future house. So I want his actual home. The left side of it to be a small museum just the lineage of New Orleans, which I think is not only jazz but really American music. You know, our jazz didn't really turn into contemporary jazz. It turned into R and B with Fats and those guys, and I feel like Elvis was chasing Fats, you know, and became rock and roll, you know. So I just think that it's an important story to tell. So we want to do the museum, and then the right side where he actually lived, will be his house as it was lived in. And then the right house I want to make like an event center to continue that innovation. I want to teach everything from except performance really, because I think New Orleans has that cover it. But I want to teach the things that maybe left him to die broke, you know, teach publishing and teach songwriting, and teach engineering and law. So I'm really excited about it. It has taken much longer than I wanted it to, but I'm still inspired and still passionate about the project and can't wait to see it come to fruition Fully. We'll be right back after a break with more from PJ Martin and Bruce had them. We're back with the rest of Bruce Hethlem's conversation with PJ Martin. I do want to talk about this new album yea, Watch the Sun. Yeah, of course, tell me about the recording of this album. Tell me what you were thinking going into it. Yeah, while I wasn't really planning on doing an album, I just was coming off of a like crazy run. I mean, I just went back to back to back with music more than I ever had before. Actually, but it just was rolling. So I was rolling with it and then we got shut down. I was with my Room five in South America. In real time, the show started to get canceled. We had to fly back to the States and when we got back. Initially I had voice notes from like March twenty twenty. I was in this creative like it was just coming faster than I could even control it. And I got some music beds that actually ended up on this album two years later. But my laptop crashed like right after that, and I lost all that stuff. All that was the voice not he couldn't nobody could get it back. I got a lot of my files back, a lot of my drums back, but not those new songs that I was working on. It was just not saved yet. It was pretty pretty always back up for the musicians. Oh my god, please, yeah, I know this too, Like this is what I did, was it got bad and I probably could have recovered it. I went further than I should have and got this something offline to say that could save my files, and it just my computer did something I've never seen before. It was so bad. I was just desperate. What I realized was I needed to stop, like to stop, you know, and not do anything. It's okay, like I'm just you know, I say, I'm a recovering workaholic. So I took that time to really focus on family, focus on life, taught my two youngest how to ride bikes. I mean just just really, I was building bookcases and bikes and all kinds of stuff, you know. So I had these music beds because I wanted to start with just music, no lyrics. And I usually don't do that. I go pretty quick after I have music, I usually go and write it. But I wanted to be so intentional this time around, like more intentional than that. I've ever been, more honest and open than I've ever been, and so I took that time to just have the music beds. Then we moved into Gumbo Studios and I started to build it even more, still music no lyrics. And maybe about a year after that, I told my engineer, Reggie, that we should find a studio where we could lived there. So you just built a studio and then you wanted to use the studio else because you know, I don't know if people realize, but when we were all shut down, we lost all these gigs, but it was replaced with live streams and like more interviews than ever really because you were there, you know. So I feel like I had to. I wasn't away enough, you know, Like I needed and away from the away. So I was like, I just need to go away. And we discovered studio in the country in Buggaloosa, Louisiana, where Stevie did Secret Life of Plants. There's a Frankie Beverly and May's album that was made out there. Here, there's an unreleased Betty Davis record that was recorded out there. But this amazing studio that was built in the seventies, and there's a house on the grounds that you can stay at. Me and the band, and this was the first time we were even starting to you know. I remember we had to test to go out there. First time we were around people without mat ask and so that was freeing in itself. And this place was so magical. It just made me want to write immediately, like that's all I wanted to do. I threw myself into it, and this is the first time I started to write some lyrics. I feel like I had finally processed these things I want to say, and we just started building. I had the band, so that how it would go is I'd wake up because I wake up pretty early every day, and go in myself, go to piano right, come up with some ideas and then I called the band in to hit the parts that I wanted to hit, and first week of us being there is majority of the album as far as sonically, Yeah, a couple of the vocals. I ended up cutting vocals. Later Reggie and I went again. I mean we did three four trips to the country. I didn't fully started singing, and to the second time it just wasn't experienced. It felt magical and it felt deeper than just records. At this point, it's like I really was by being as honest and authentic as I was trying to be. I think it's going to connect to people. I've seen it that I've let people here now, but I think it's going to connect in another way. After you made as much music, if as I made, It's almost like that was all that was left at this point was for me to get, you know, just give you more of myself because the type of songwriter I am, there's always myself in it. But I also in general bring other people's stories. I'm a people watch her, you know, but this time was a lot more specific to me. Can you play a little bit of a song that came out of that first week? Yeah? Well please don't walk away. I said this on the Piano album, just as a passing thing, where when I before I sang to my wife, I said that, you know, this has been like the toughest either I said year or you know, it's been a rough period for us. But that was true. We had really gone through some challenges, you know, been married thirteen years, that married really young. So please don't walk Away was literally the first song I think I wrote lyrics to, um um, I just do the verse. It's never gone this far, it's never been this bad, But I won't lady to raise the memories of good times we've had. Oh and even with everything that we've been going through, Oh, you never have to ask. I still choose you. Oh girl, please don't walk way from my love. Please don't oh wait, from my love. Yeah. Yeah, that was the first one. Yeah, I hope it did the tray it did. She didn't walk away all as well. We're good now. Yeah. I can't write another one, so I was fabulous, right. Yeah. What's crazy is we were in a good space then, like we had. It's almost like I have to process it and go through it first, uh, in order to talk about what I can't really talk about what's happening while it's happening. Usually, Yeah, but a lot of the album's very heartfelt, very vulnerable. I would say, yeah, very much about breakups or the possibility of breakups. It's a tough album. Sure when you sat down, you know, you play that for your band and then you don't write music, So how do you arrange it with them? Yeah? Well, thankfully, I mean, well I do have you know, Berkeley graduates with me and stuff. So but but thankfully all my guys around me are also church cats the way I grew up, So we communicate in a different way. It's not through you know, sheet music, is through just talking. You know. I can call out two or five or one, you know, or four, so I know enough where we can communicate musically. It's not because I didn't go through school. It's not that I don't understand the movements of things. We just kind of have come up with our own language. I guess it's a shame they had to go to Berkeley. Really, yeah, it takes them so long. So what's next for you? I am going to get on the road though I missed that so much. We just did a few shows and I can't wait to play this new stuff live. I mean, it's made for it. I thought of the album in that way. The album just continues like my shows, do you know. It's not really a lot of break in there. They just flow from one to the other. And I just can't wait to present that to everybody. And really it's the community. I think it's me that church, growing up in church and having that weekly community where you share this experience. I just can't wait to share this experience of this really honest music with my supporters. So that's next. I'm scoring an animated film right now. Okay, what's that like? It's fun man, well in my case because the director is a fan of mine, Like, you know, he really already digs what I do. I imagine it could be frustrating when somebody is just you're just put in a position to do it. But this guy wants PJ song. So it's so cool because this story is so weird that it allows me to go places that I would never get to go in my own music. So it's like PJ doing weird, different, cool stuff. It's really exciting for me. I'm enjoying that process. So there's that there's some TV shows that I'm scoring as well. I like that side of it too, because my music is so visual that I like when I have to create two a visual it's pretty fun. So recovering workaholic. Yeah, in my in my sense, you know, even like this big tour, this is new for me, brand new for me. Where in the summer will do two weeks on, two weeks off, something I've never done in my life. But I understand now that just as much as I plan for these things, I have to actually plan for the other stuff that's important to me. So we'll see how that goes. But two weeks on, two weeks off is a big start for this recovering work. Okay, let's see how that works. We'll see. I'll check back in. Okay, it's been fabulous and the album is fast. Thank thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for having so beautiful and Pleasure's great album's retreat. Thanks to PJ. Morton for taking us through his incredible career as a solo musician and a sideline. We can hear all of our favorite PREJ Morton songs on a playlist at Broken record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you can find all our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced Helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Beentaliday, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez for engineering help from Nick chaf Our. Executive producer is Mia Lobell. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like 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 Podcasts subscriptions, and if you'd like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app or the music Expect any beats. I'm justin hedgment