February 15, 2018 • 35 mins
Nine-time GRAMMY® winner Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys and the Arcs) sits with host Scott Goldman for an intimate conversation on his incredible career in music, his love of Nashville and the launch of his record label.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Scott Goldman, the executive director of the Grammy Museum,
and this is required listening. Each week in the Clyde
Davis Theater at the Grammy Museum. I get the opportunity
to speak with great music artists across every genre, from
emerging to legendary, about their careers, their process, their latest projects,
(00:21):
and what inspires them to make great music. And I
want to bring these conversations to you on today's show,
my conversation with Black Keys co founder and frontman Dan Auerbach. Now,
as you may know, the Black Keys announced themselves as
a primal force in rock and roll back in two
(00:42):
thousand two, with a real grounding in the blues. But
these guys were not retro minded purists. They really proved
themselves to be songwriters of considerable depth, with a real
willingness to take the sonic chances as they progress through
their career. And even though Dan had been living in
Nashville for a period of years, the Keys were always touring,
(01:04):
he didn't necessarily spend a lot of time at home,
and as such, he felt like he didn't really know
the music community in Nashville. Well. When the band finally
took a hiatus. He took the time to build his
own studio and put together a group of truly legendary
musicians with whom he could make music. It's a remarkable
(01:25):
thing to hear an artist talk about that process of
discovery within his own community. We talked about his most
recent album, Waiting on a Song. So let's go to
the Clive Davis Theater and listen to my conversation with
Dan Auerbach. Would you please welcome Dan Auerbach. Alright, alright,
(01:52):
it's actually nine Grammys, nine grad Did I get that wrong? Damn? Sorry,
thank you all for me here. Good night, Um, thank
you for coming. Appreciate it, um, and thank you for
correcting me on my bad math. I guess. Um, so
you've called, I want to talk about the new record
(02:13):
and then we'll we'll wind the video tape back at
you know, at some point. But you've called this record
a love letter to Nashville. Yeah, sort of something like that. Yeah,
I mean it was for the first time. I've lived
in Nashville for eight years, but um, like you said,
I've been on the road, so this is sort of
the first time I ever got to settle in Nashville
(02:36):
and get into the scene there and start doing Nashville
things like songwriting sessions stuff like that, which I've never
done before. So I guess that's why it's so Nashville record. Um.
And you know you talk about the songwriting sessions, and
you know there's a whole tradition as I'm sure you
learned in Nashville about songwriting. And you know you have
(02:58):
the ten am co write with whoever in the twelve
PM and co write with and you talked around the
time of l Camino, you talked about working with Brian
Burton Danger Mouse and how that was unusual for you.
And in terms of writing with somebody else, absolutely, I
mean Pat and I were always very reluctant to let
(03:18):
anyone into our world, you know. I mean we started
recording on a four track, you know, in the basement.
We were just so young and kind of insecure. We
didn't you know, we were too afraid to ask anybody
for help. So we just did our own way and
kind of had some success. So we just never I mean,
we didn't record in a proper studio until our fifth,
(03:40):
fifth record. But when it came time to do this record,
you're you know, you're co writing you're working with other people,
you know, it's kind of in that Nashville thing. Have
you become more comfortable in terms of co writing? I
mean I didn't even really know what co writing was
all about until a year and a half ago. Um. Yeah,
(04:01):
I'm really comfortable with it because it's the thing about
is it should be easy. I mean, if you get
paired with the right person, you have the right chemistry,
that's what you're looking for, you know, kind of it's
someone to help the momentum grow. And I met some
people like that, and you know, I mean I could
have gotten together with Prime and maybe nothing would have happened,
(04:21):
you know, And but it it did. It worked, and
we wrote six or seven songs together. You know, I
have to. I mean John Prine literally, and for those
of you who might not know John Prine, I would
encourage you to go check him out. A treasure in
American music as far as one person is concerned. First
of all, how do you how did you meet the guy?
(04:43):
I met him through my friend Fergie David Fergus. Yeah,
he was He was protege of a guy named Cowboy
Jack Clinic who's very important in Nashville music. He was
sort of the guy who started to think outside of
the box in Nashville. Nashville music city a long time ago,
along before Cowboy got there. He used to work for
(05:03):
Sam Phillips in Memphis, but he moved to Nashville. He
had these huge hit records with people like Charlie Pride
and Don Williams, and so anyway, Fergi learned from him,
and he met all these great people and and I
guess I've just sort of been meeting people through Fergie
since I moved to Nashville. I met him when I
first moved to town. He was kind of Fergy. I mean,
(05:24):
he he was kind of your your introduction to the
music community. Yeah. He introduced me to tons of people
and and Prime was one of them. Yeah. And he
brought me to see Prime for the first time at
Station in in Nashville. And you said about that when
when you saw him at the station, and you said,
seeing him is something and this is a quote that
(05:45):
can change you. And I'm wondering what what changed about
you after you saw Prime? Well, I mean I was
familiar with his music, but I don't think you can
really get the whole full experience until you see him
in person. I think that's where he really shines. You.
I still don't think he's made a record as strong
as he is when you see him in person. And
(06:05):
for me, it was just I was just kind of
bowled over by the simplicity of it all. And he
was also playing in a way that reminded me of
all the songs that I learned as a kid from
my mom's family, bluegrass songs, fingerpicked folks songs. You know
that he was playing in that style. So for me,
it's I just felt an immediate connection to it. But
(06:28):
also it was just how beautiful songs are, how simple
they are. You know, he never tries to go over
your head. He always hits the bull's eye, you know.
And actually listen listening to the record. We'll talk about
some of the songs in a minute, but listening to
the record, you can hear prime. You can definitely hear
here and there. Um, you know when you when you
(06:49):
did keep it hid and as you were writing those songs,
this record is a departure from that. I would describe it,
and don't take this the wrong way, as a particularly
sunny quote unquote album. Yeah, how would you describe it?
I mean I've heard that a lot, and I think
(07:10):
that these songs as collection songs, it does have an
uplifting feeling to it. And it's a direct result of
how I felt when I made the music. You know,
I was just it was pure joy every day at
home in the studio writing and recording with some of
these musicians who have made some of my favorite records
of all time. You know, I mean, it was like,
(07:33):
you know, elated every day. Yeah. You know. One of
the one of the things you've talked about is, you know,
in your in your past life, you worked at a
record store, um um Ut Records in Akron, Ohio. One
of my first jobs out of college was Tower Records,
Columbus and Bay, San Francisco. But be you know, be
(07:54):
that as as it may. You were looking at these
albums jackets and unfortunately this is something that is lost
generations lately, and looking at the names of the people
who played on these records, and over time you would
come to realize that the records that you love man
a lot of lot of the same name of the
(08:14):
same names. Isn't that interesting? Yeah? And I'm and I'm
wanting and I'm wondering these guys that you put on
this album. You know how many times did you see
their names? So I had some people on this record,
people like Bobby Wood who played, uh, he played the
organ on Hey There, Little Red Riding Hood by Sam
the Sham. He played on the Son of a Preacher
(08:36):
Man by Dusty Springfield and in the Ghetto and Suspicious
Minds by Elvis Presley and uh at American Sound at
American Sound Studios for Chip's Moment. And you know he
cut Neil Diamond Sweet Caroline Sweet just by the way,
I mean just one Dby wrote that part the bump
(08:57):
bump he did. He wrote it, He wrote it on
the keyboard, and then they covered it up with horns.
So as your means and the way, there's one more
thing about there's there's there's a YouTube audio of a
recording session from the Elvis Presley sessions, and uh, there's
a section where you can listen. There's like this long
(09:19):
twenty four minute They just let the tape roll while
they were rehearsing, and you hear Elvis singing, and then
you hear somebody go no, no, no, Elvis, no no.
It's like this, and then things and then and then
you hear Elvis go, thank you, Bobby Wood. It's amazing.
If that were me my career, I'm done. I'm done.
(09:41):
That's so, you know. But as as you're as you're
working with those guys, is the bubble over your head going?
These dudes played with Elvis. This is like the coolest
thing I could be doing. Yes and no. I mean,
at the same time, you know that I worshiped them.
I also feel so connected to them in a way
that I haven't felt connected to certain people. You know,
(10:03):
we both have this similar addiction, you know. I mean,
all they've ever done is make music in the studio
for a living. That's it, you know, That's all I've
ever done, you know. And uh, we just met in
Nashville and now we've we've been working constantly together on
all kinds of different projects. Yeah, you said something really interesting.
(10:23):
You produced a record with Dr John I think in
two thousand and twelve, Lockdown, terrific album. But one of
the things you said about that, which I think is
so important, is you did not treat him as and
this is in quotes and antiquity. Yeah, in other words,
like some sort of like a precious egg or something
(10:46):
caught an amber. You know, you pushed him to be,
you know, his best, and I'm wondering you produced this
record and as a producer, I'm wondering, did you kick
these guys in the ass a little bit? Which guys
the known? Yeah? Well, no, no, no, the dudes on
this record, did I kick him in the ass? I
think that they were ready. They were ready for me.
(11:09):
It's almost like they've been laying dormant, do you know
what I mean. They've been working the system, you know,
playing sessions and stuff. But they all of them have
independently told me that they're like, this is how it
felt when we were making records, because it's so much creativity,
anything goes. I mean, you know Bobby and and his
buddy who plays drums from Jane Chrismin. We call him Bubba.
(11:32):
He and Bobby have been playing together forever. But they've
been on number one country hits, They've been number one
soul hits, number one pop hits. But they never really
thought about it. They were just they were just making music,
you know what I mean. So I love that about
those guys, and that's why they fit in so well.
I think you know, you also had someone Who's who's
(11:56):
a hero to many people. Dwayne Eddie, Yeah, is on
this record, Dwayne Who who's lived in Nashville for many,
many years. And I'm wondering, did you have that sound
of rebel rouser, you know, that guitar sound in your
head when he walks in the studio. Dwyane is like
(12:16):
seventy nine, I think maybe, but he's really tall, and
he's got a perfect posture. He wears all black, he's
always got cowboy boots on, and he's got a had
a big black hat. So hell yeah that of course,
when did you When did you first hear Dwayne Eddie?
What was your first introduction to Dwayne Eddy It would
(12:38):
have been on radio growing up. I knew all his
songs just from from hearing him in the ether while
I was a kid. Those are the kind of songs
that you just know instinctually. There are certain artists who who,
for whatever reason, they just become part of your DNA.
You know, you hear the Duyne Eddie was kind of
one of the inventors of rock and roll guitar, I mean,
if not the and you know he also started in
(13:01):
the studio with Lie Hazelwood and Phoenix, you know, and
they came up with a sound experimenting in the studio.
So Dwayne loves me, and he's a studio rat just
like all of us. So, I mean he was there
all the time. Just he was like my session guy.
He was playing on sessions, whatever the song needed. He
was there as you were going through the songwriting process,
(13:24):
and and you talked about, you know, particularly as as
you were doing Keep It Hid, you were inspired a
little bit by Charles Bikowski, the you know, the great writer,
and you were looking at you were interested in and
I actually wrote this down unfancy interesting language, just like
John Pryn, same thing, you know, something that he was able.
(13:45):
I mean, that's I love that. I mean, that's it's
it's the similar thing that they have where they're able
to do so much for so little, you know, and
and that people who are able to do that I
find to be the most interesting to me, you know
what I mean, when you can with the most simplest
ingredients um makes something so potent. I find that to
(14:06):
be really inspiring. You know, one one of the other
You've got Mark Knopfler on on this record. Speaking of
guitar players, First of all, how did you get him
on the record. We emailed him perfect perfect, and he
just said, yeah, I'll do this. Well, we cut. We
cut this song called Seana Me and I went back
(14:29):
into the control room to listen to playback, and I
was sitting at the console and I was listening and
I just I could hear his guitar. I could hear
it on the song. So that night we did a
rough mix. I sent it to my manager and I said,
can you please find Mark Knopfler and send him this
song and asked him very nicely if he would want
(14:50):
to participate in any way. I didn't give any instructions
or anything. And then two days later we got the
song back with his guitar, which, by the way, if
you listen to the song, you can absolutely identify. Yeah,
we're we're not. But I mean, it was just sort
of like I think that's sort of one of the
things that I took from doing all these sessions and
(15:11):
working with all these guys, like, you know, if it's
meant to be, it'll happen, and if it's not, it won't,
you know, and that's sort of the fun of it,
you know. And Mark came through and It was awesome
because he did exactly what the song needed to which
was so interesting, which which you had no preconceived notions about.
And I'm wondering, you sent it and you listen to it,
(15:32):
you send it to a guitar player, and you assume
that the guitar player is gonna do a guitar solo,
you know what I mean. He didn't. He just played
the rhythm guitar. That's what the song needed. That's all
it needed. He knew what it needed, just like all
these guys I'm working with. That's why I knew he'd like,
he'd connect with it, because uh, he just I know
that he's worked with Chad Atkins and he's got a
lot of respect for Nashville. I just knew that he
(15:53):
would understand it, and he did. It was so you know,
It's funny. I'm wondering because you've you've talked about how
you've lived in Nashville since two thousand ten, but you
really didn't get acquainted with it until more recently. And
I'm wondering if if you've learned something about, you know,
working with people who have this level of experience that
(16:14):
you don't necessarily need to tell them what to do
they don't understand. That's something I learned with working with
Brian Burton. That opened my eyes too. If you let
the right people in the make what you do better,
you know what I mean, or they can excite you
in a way that pushes you to new levels of creativity.
(16:34):
So I mean after learning that, yeah, I always had
my mind open, get my ears open, heard about some
of these people, you know, made made weird phone calls
and reached out to these people that hadn't met, and
it was like, if it was meant to be, it
was going to be meant to be. And and I've
just met this incredible crew of of people. I mean,
you've definitely talked about how this experience and really kind
(16:58):
of becoming acquainted with the players in Nashville has changed
You're thinking about recording. Yeah, I mean, you know, I
have been producing records for long time, and I'd used
a lot of these guys on some records. You know,
I use some of these people on this record, played
on the Lanado re record, Raylmon Team, just other things
(17:18):
that I made. Dr John records some of these people
played on. So but I think I really assembled a
group at this point, you know what I mean. I
was using one guy here, one guy there, But now
I sort of almost have this crew that are always there,
that we always work together. It's just different. It's like
having the toolbox fully stocked with all the snap On tools,
(17:42):
well expensive one. Yeah, and speaking and speaking of the
expensive snap On tools. So this was done at Easy
I Studio, which is which is the I Sound in
nashund which is which is your studio in Nashville. And
you've described this as your field of dreams. Well that's
what it became really because I built it because I
(18:05):
wanted to have a space like the studios that made
the records I loved, like high studios and an American
sound and Stacks and Motown and all of these great
places that you could record a whole band in a room.
So that's what I wanted. I didn't know the musicians,
but I knew that's what I wanted. So I built
(18:25):
the studio and then little by little, like I said,
I met all these people and now it's packed every
week and I got a crew. Drums haven't moved in
two years. All the amps are set up. I mean, everybody,
no woman, no one brings instruments anymore. It's just there,
we're ready to go all the time. I'm wondering, now
that you've got this set up, as you bring other
(18:47):
artists to this, has a change you're thinking about producing? Well, yeah,
I mean I definitely have, like I said, different tools
now to use, and I the possibilities are kind of
endless now. But that's the fun about making records that
it doesn't have to be any one thing, you know,
and it's it's different every time. So but I can
do I feel like I can do anything now. Yeah.
(19:09):
I do want to roll the video back a little
bit and talk about your early career. You grew up Akron, Ohio. Um,
your uncle's were bluegrass players, My uncle, yeah, my uncle's
my aunt Yeah. Yeah. They all played bluegrass and and
and folk songs and blue songs and those were the
first songs that I heard. And my mom plays piano too,
(19:30):
but she was more classical. Yeah. Is there particularly at
a at a young age, I'm wondering what you were
hearing besides maybe what was being played around the house,
what were you hearing maybe on the radio or well,
my dad had record collection and that was stocked and
he was like you know, an old hippie. So he
had Grateful Dead was on all the time, Allen Brothers
(19:52):
on all the time. He had the Beatles on all
the time, you know, but then he also played Sam
Cook and Otis Reading and uh Louie Jordan's. I guess
this qualifies me as an old hippie. But it's all
the stuff I listened to. But you know, so yeah,
that stuff was on all the time, and it was
the combination of all that plus whatever is on the radio.
(20:13):
I mean, I swear to god, I know every Tom
Petty song. I've never even owned a Tom Petty record.
That's like Northeastern Ohio Radio rock radio. Man, they pumped
out the jams. That goes back, that goes back to
being in your d n A. You know, you hear
that stuff and it just gets in there and you
know the words and you don't even know why you
know the words. And then but I mean, growing up
(20:35):
in the nineties when I was in middle school, you know,
it's like hip hop was really popular, so I had
all this different music around me all the time. We
were talking about guitar players and I have to ask you,
because when you hear this guy, I immediately hear the
Black Keys and that's Junior Kimbro. Yeah, tell me about
(20:56):
the first time you heard Junior Kimbro. Well, the first
I heard Junior Kimbro was on a Fat Possum that
was his record label, Fat Possum Records, And um, they
did a comp with a very beautiful black and white
photographed from of a woman dancing in this cement. It
looked like a bass something ended up being Junior's choo
(21:18):
cho in his club that he owned. He played in
every week. And there's a compilation of all these different
artists are all burn Side Team, Model Ford, Robert Bell
for Johnny Farmer, Jelly Roll Kings, and it had Junior
Kimbro on there, And um, I wasn't into it at first.
I didn't quite understand it. It was a little too weird,
(21:38):
but I slowly got into it, and then all of
a sudden I realized that I wasn't listening to anything.
But yeah, it was sort of like that. It crept
on and then it just it was sort of like weeds,
you know, and then it just took over. Yeah. Well,
because you took and you know, to to one person's years,
you took what junior Kimbro was doing, and you kind
(22:01):
of moved it into, for lack of a better term,
in the modern world. You know, you turned it up
a little bit. You gave it maybe even more grit
than he had. Yeah, definitely a lot more. I think. Yeah,
I go back and listen, I'm like, oh, he was
playing kind of quiet. Yea, I used to think that
was really rocking. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And um, the early
(22:25):
Black Keys records we were all done, I think in
your basement. Well, yeah, we did some in Pat's original
rental house basement that was on Richmond Place, and um,
then he moved and he had his four track over
to his other house, and and then we rented a
space in in the old General Tire factory building on
the second floor. Terrible building, really frightening, big, scary. Were
(22:49):
the only people in this giant tire factory at night.
It was so scary. I was scared to go to
the bathroom. It was just a nightmare, you know, really
really cheap, though I'm sure it's incredibly cost In fact,
it's you. It's you and Pat guitar and drums. That
(23:10):
no consideration that there should be a bass player, No
that's not totally true. I mean, we wanted to have
other people in the group when we started, but we
couldn't find anybody. It's not like there was huge scene
in Akron, Ohio. And I mean I was like listening
to RL Burnside so add on that. It's like not
a lot of who wanted to listen to that kind
(23:31):
of stuff, so or even understood on any level? How
did How did you meet Pat? He grew up around
the corner for me, so I always knew him. He's
just somebody I always knew. But he was a grade
apart from me. He was a year younger, so you
know how when you're in school, one grade is like
at is like a lifetile lifetime. So I never saw him.
But his younger brother and my younger brother were best friends.
(23:56):
And so one afternoon my brother said, hey, you know Pat,
And I'm like, know who's that? And he said from
around the corner. He he said he has a drum kit.
You should bring your guitar over there. And so that
was it. So we brought my guitar over there and
we started jamming, and I mean we kind of got
a record deal off of those recordings from the basement.
(24:22):
First guitar, What was your first guitar? Well, I bought
my mom bought me a Straton. But I wanted to
have a guitar like cound Dog Taylor when he played
a Japanese Tisco it's called Tisco del Rey and four
big pickups. That's what I wanted. So she took me
this place in Cleveland where this guy had a guitar shop.
(24:44):
He played in this easy top cover band, so he
had had big and I was like, hey, I want
to trade this for this Japanese guitar. And the Japanese
car is probably worth seventy Stratt was probably worth He
was like, sure, man, done, done, fair. That seems fair
to me. We'll even throw in a gig gig bag.
(25:09):
So but I still I still use the guitar. Well.
And I must say, as someone who fancies some guitars,
I recall seeing you guys at UM the Jazz Festival,
New Orleans Jazz Festival a couple of years a few
years ago. UM, and the rig you have of the
amps that go from the largest down to the smallest,
(25:31):
that it's just you wheel that thing out the obnoxious
in the best possible way, just all giant tax right
off everything I can fit. You know, one thing you're
going going back to to waiting on a song. I
read that the musicians that you were working with, we're
(25:53):
all responding very positively to the way you were doing
this because you were recording most of this live on
the floor. Yeah, that the foundation of every song is
a live performance with at least five or six musicians. Yeah.
Talk about the difference that makes to you as a
producer in terms of what you're trying to get out
(26:16):
of the song. Well, I mean, I think that it's
hard to really put into words. I guess you're just
trying to capture magic. Really. I mean, you can get
the greatest musicians in the world, but it just might
not be your day sometimes, you know. So I felt
like the more we did it, the more we kept
our odds up. It's sort of like a betting game,
(26:36):
you know what I mean. I mean, I mean I
learned a lot from these guys, kind of like to
let song breathe and kind of get out of the
way my own self sometimes you know, how to open
the songs up. And yeah, I mean there's just all
kinds of little delicate things that happened that. That's an
interesting point in terms of thinking about where you were
(26:57):
recording in that factory in grin to where you are today.
How do you how do you think you've evolved? You're
changed as a songwriter. You know, It's like the more
things change, the more they stay the same, you know
what I mean. I feel like I have learned so
many things and I've gotten better, but my base instincts
(27:18):
are kind of still the same as they've always been,
do you know what I mean? I feel like my
DNA was fixed a long time ago, and I still
always go back to certain things that I do that
are just a part of who I am musically, do
you know what I mean? And I guess with the
way the world is now, where you can change everything
so instantaneously, and I think one of the things I
(27:41):
learned from these guys was to, like I said, get
out of my own way and just not really worry
too much, not overthink it, you know, and uh, just
the idea of having simple be okay, you know what
I mean. I didn't even really know how to do
it when I first started, you know what I mean,
just all over the place. But I don't the idea
(28:03):
of not not necessarily overthinking. One of my favorite quotes,
and some people here have probably heard me say this before.
Neil Young said, um about working in the studio, if
you're thinking, you're stinking, Yeah, yeah, and and and many
artists seem to sign up to that. What you want
to what you want to really accomplish is you want
(28:25):
the song to just flow out naturally. But it's six seven,
eight people, so it's luck. You just have to feel
it and you'll hear it in the headphones when you're tracking.
If you feel you know, that's the that's the thing
you get addicted to because when it works, the songs
sound like that in the headphones when you're cutting, the
(28:47):
ones that you end up hearing a year later when
the record comes out, but that first moment when you
hear it, it's incredible. And when I'm playing with all
these guys, Bobby and Bubba, it's like some people say
the record sounds like it has soul influences, but it's
it's like, no, Actually, the guys playing on the record
invented soul music sort of, you know what I mean.
(29:09):
And I'm hearing these guys in my headphones playing things
that sound like a record. I'm hearing this record in
my mind and that's just so addictive. Yeah, And I
also read that you guys would would do these sort
of marathon kind of sessions. Were in four days you
you put down fifteen songs. Yeah, we try to do
(29:31):
about three or four a day. Is working quickly important?
I think? So? Yeah, Yeah, you don't want to overthink
it if it's not if it's not happening, and it's
not happening for a reason generally, and you should kind
of move on there. And there were there was something like,
I think sixty songs that you had to choose from
(29:52):
for this album. Yeah, there's more than that. I mean, yeah,
so I recorded a couple of hundred songs and last year. Yeah,
so how do you ultimately kind of go about the
business of figuring out, Okay, what's gonna be on the record?
I picked one or two that I knew I wanted
to be on the record, and then I picked ones
that went with those couples, and that sort of shaped
how the record ended up sounding. Got it. So these
(30:13):
ten songs together sound very uplifting, But I mean, of course,
two songs, there's all kinds of does that mean there
there could be a waiting on waiting on a song
part two at some point down the road. Ye oh yeah, definitely, Yeah, absolutely.
I haven't heard it here. First. I haven't stopped really
and not not really. Yeah, since last summer, I've been
(30:35):
writing and recording every week pretty much. Yeah, are you
planning on taking this on the road? Are you gonna
You're gonna tour with these guys. I'm not opposed to
the idea, but we we don't have any plans right now. Yeah. Yeah,
we've been talking about it though, And I mean you've
been touring fairly relentlessly prior to prior to doing this record,
you know, with Patrick and with the Arcs for four years. Yeah,
(31:00):
and and at some point, you know, I guess you
kind of felt like it was time to stop doing that.
Oh yeah, it was. It's so grueling. It's such a
grueling lifestyle. And the way that Pat and I did
it was like we acted like we might never see
another dollar bill again. I think it has something to
do with being cheap skates from acron Ohio. But that's
(31:25):
how we did it. And I mean, when I decided
to stop touring last summer to take a break. We've
been touring for like four years straight, pretty much. Yeah,
I'm sure it's in your mind at some point to
put to put that back together. Oh yeah, sure, definitely. Yeah.
Any any any plans to be writing with Patrick anytime?
Plans at the moment, still just enjoying our nice vacation. Yeah. Um.
(31:51):
The reaction so far to this record, everything that I've
read has been incredibly positive. Yeah, it's been really overwhelmingly positive. Yeah. Absolutely,
And and uh you know radio station playing cuts you know,
God knows outlawed country that I happened to listen to
on serious exam has been playing the record really Oh
(32:12):
yeah yeah that's amazing. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, absolutely outlawed country.
Yeah happen happens to be a serious sex time channel.
Sixty happens to be my favorite serious sex time channel.
What's that? Mojo Nixon exactly? Yeah, crazy Mojo Nixon. Bobby
and Bubba they toured with the Highwaymen. Ye, well there
you go there the but when we we just went
(32:34):
to New York City and Bubba's suitcase said Whalen on it.
It was the one that he said, Whalen bought it
for me. When we went on tour. He said, I'm sorry,
I'm done. If someone says that. He said, those guys
all the backup musicians whenever they did a tour in
South America for the Highwomen, but Christofferson, Johnny Cash, Whalen,
Willie Willie. But he said, they did a whole tour
(32:57):
of South American. The first thing they did when they
landed was look for the embassy, which was the McDonald's.
That's what they looked for. First. I read that you've
developed a friendship with with Prime. Yeah um um. And
then you guys go out and eat get hot dogs.
(33:18):
Well yeah, yeah, we we always eat food is really
bad for you. Basically, well, he's from Chicago, so I'm
not surprised that he um knows where the meat Love
Special is every day of the week. And um we
uh we wrote waiting on a song and then um
(33:39):
we went to Whitecastle perfect when when when? And then
we came back and finished another song. When I first
started going to Nashville and like nineteen White Castles, like
the Palate Cleanser, Oh yeah, I get it. In between
the songs when I first started going to Nashville and
ninety two White Castle was about as good as it got.
(34:02):
It was either that or what they called down there
and meat and three because you get your you know,
you get your tray, you get your meat and three sides. Yeah,
and the sides can also be meat. It's very confusing.
That's the thing about stuff. That's really cool that vegetables
(34:23):
can also be meat. Well, hey, can I tell you
how pleased we are that you took the time to
come down here you talk about this. It is terrific.
So the album is called Waiting on a Song. If
you don't have a usually, wouldn't we all like to
(34:45):
spend a little time eating hot dogs with Dan Auerbach
and John Prine. I don't know about you, but that
would be a singular goal in my life. Waiting on
a Song is really a terrific album. I encourage you
to have a listen if you haven't already. M that's
your required listening for today. We'll be coming to you
(35:06):
every week on Thursdays. You'll find us on all the
social platforms at Grammy Museum. We'd love to keep the
conversation going. And if you're coming to Los Angeles, please
come and see us at the Grammy Museum. All of
the information is at our website Grammy Museum dot org.
Check out the public program schedule. We'd love to have
(35:27):
you in the Clive Davis Theater as we do one
of these programs. Finally, a big thank you to the
required listening team Jason James, Justin, Joseph, Miranda Moore, Lynn Sheridan,
Jim Cannella, Kittrick Kern's, Jason Hope, Chandler Maye, Nick Stump,
and everybody at How Stuff Works. Until next time, I'm
Scott Golden.
I'm Scott Goldman, the executive director of the Grammy Museum,
and this is required listening. Each week in the Clyde
Davis Theater at the Grammy Museum. I get the opportunity
to speak with great music artists across every genre, from
emerging to legendary, about their careers, their process, their latest projects,
(00:21):
and what inspires them to make great music. And I
want to bring these conversations to you on today's show,
my conversation with Black Keys co founder and frontman Dan Auerbach. Now,
as you may know, the Black Keys announced themselves as
a primal force in rock and roll back in two
(00:42):
thousand two, with a real grounding in the blues. But
these guys were not retro minded purists. They really proved
themselves to be songwriters of considerable depth, with a real
willingness to take the sonic chances as they progress through
their career. And even though Dan had been living in
Nashville for a period of years, the Keys were always touring,
(01:04):
he didn't necessarily spend a lot of time at home,
and as such, he felt like he didn't really know
the music community in Nashville. Well. When the band finally
took a hiatus. He took the time to build his
own studio and put together a group of truly legendary
musicians with whom he could make music. It's a remarkable
(01:25):
thing to hear an artist talk about that process of
discovery within his own community. We talked about his most
recent album, Waiting on a Song. So let's go to
the Clive Davis Theater and listen to my conversation with
Dan Auerbach. Would you please welcome Dan Auerbach. Alright, alright,
(01:52):
it's actually nine Grammys, nine grad Did I get that wrong? Damn? Sorry,
thank you all for me here. Good night, Um, thank
you for coming. Appreciate it, um, and thank you for
correcting me on my bad math. I guess. Um, so
you've called, I want to talk about the new record
(02:13):
and then we'll we'll wind the video tape back at
you know, at some point. But you've called this record
a love letter to Nashville. Yeah, sort of something like that. Yeah,
I mean it was for the first time. I've lived
in Nashville for eight years, but um, like you said,
I've been on the road, so this is sort of
the first time I ever got to settle in Nashville
(02:36):
and get into the scene there and start doing Nashville
things like songwriting sessions stuff like that, which I've never
done before. So I guess that's why it's so Nashville record. Um.
And you know you talk about the songwriting sessions, and
you know there's a whole tradition as I'm sure you
learned in Nashville about songwriting. And you know you have
(02:58):
the ten am co write with whoever in the twelve
PM and co write with and you talked around the
time of l Camino, you talked about working with Brian
Burton Danger Mouse and how that was unusual for you.
And in terms of writing with somebody else, absolutely, I
mean Pat and I were always very reluctant to let
(03:18):
anyone into our world, you know. I mean we started
recording on a four track, you know, in the basement.
We were just so young and kind of insecure. We
didn't you know, we were too afraid to ask anybody
for help. So we just did our own way and
kind of had some success. So we just never I mean,
we didn't record in a proper studio until our fifth,
(03:40):
fifth record. But when it came time to do this record,
you're you know, you're co writing you're working with other people,
you know, it's kind of in that Nashville thing. Have
you become more comfortable in terms of co writing? I
mean I didn't even really know what co writing was
all about until a year and a half ago. Um. Yeah,
(04:01):
I'm really comfortable with it because it's the thing about
is it should be easy. I mean, if you get
paired with the right person, you have the right chemistry,
that's what you're looking for, you know, kind of it's
someone to help the momentum grow. And I met some
people like that, and you know, I mean I could
have gotten together with Prime and maybe nothing would have happened,
(04:21):
you know, And but it it did. It worked, and
we wrote six or seven songs together. You know, I
have to. I mean John Prine literally, and for those
of you who might not know John Prine, I would
encourage you to go check him out. A treasure in
American music as far as one person is concerned. First
of all, how do you how did you meet the guy?
(04:43):
I met him through my friend Fergie David Fergus. Yeah,
he was He was protege of a guy named Cowboy
Jack Clinic who's very important in Nashville music. He was
sort of the guy who started to think outside of
the box in Nashville. Nashville music city a long time ago,
along before Cowboy got there. He used to work for
(05:03):
Sam Phillips in Memphis, but he moved to Nashville. He
had these huge hit records with people like Charlie Pride
and Don Williams, and so anyway, Fergi learned from him,
and he met all these great people and and I
guess I've just sort of been meeting people through Fergie
since I moved to Nashville. I met him when I
first moved to town. He was kind of Fergy. I mean,
(05:24):
he he was kind of your your introduction to the
music community. Yeah. He introduced me to tons of people
and and Prime was one of them. Yeah. And he
brought me to see Prime for the first time at
Station in in Nashville. And you said about that when
when you saw him at the station, and you said,
seeing him is something and this is a quote that
(05:45):
can change you. And I'm wondering what what changed about
you after you saw Prime? Well, I mean I was
familiar with his music, but I don't think you can
really get the whole full experience until you see him
in person. I think that's where he really shines. You.
I still don't think he's made a record as strong
as he is when you see him in person. And
(06:05):
for me, it was just I was just kind of
bowled over by the simplicity of it all. And he
was also playing in a way that reminded me of
all the songs that I learned as a kid from
my mom's family, bluegrass songs, fingerpicked folks songs. You know
that he was playing in that style. So for me,
it's I just felt an immediate connection to it. But
(06:28):
also it was just how beautiful songs are, how simple
they are. You know, he never tries to go over
your head. He always hits the bull's eye, you know.
And actually listen listening to the record. We'll talk about
some of the songs in a minute, but listening to
the record, you can hear prime. You can definitely hear
here and there. Um, you know when you when you
(06:49):
did keep it hid and as you were writing those songs,
this record is a departure from that. I would describe it,
and don't take this the wrong way, as a particularly
sunny quote unquote album. Yeah, how would you describe it?
I mean I've heard that a lot, and I think
(07:10):
that these songs as collection songs, it does have an
uplifting feeling to it. And it's a direct result of
how I felt when I made the music. You know,
I was just it was pure joy every day at
home in the studio writing and recording with some of
these musicians who have made some of my favorite records
of all time. You know, I mean, it was like,
(07:33):
you know, elated every day. Yeah. You know. One of
the one of the things you've talked about is, you know,
in your in your past life, you worked at a
record store, um um Ut Records in Akron, Ohio. One
of my first jobs out of college was Tower Records,
Columbus and Bay, San Francisco. But be you know, be
(07:54):
that as as it may. You were looking at these
albums jackets and unfortunately this is something that is lost
generations lately, and looking at the names of the people
who played on these records, and over time you would
come to realize that the records that you love man
a lot of lot of the same name of the
(08:14):
same names. Isn't that interesting? Yeah? And I'm and I'm
wanting and I'm wondering these guys that you put on
this album. You know how many times did you see
their names? So I had some people on this record,
people like Bobby Wood who played, uh, he played the
organ on Hey There, Little Red Riding Hood by Sam
the Sham. He played on the Son of a Preacher
(08:36):
Man by Dusty Springfield and in the Ghetto and Suspicious
Minds by Elvis Presley and uh at American Sound at
American Sound Studios for Chip's Moment. And you know he
cut Neil Diamond Sweet Caroline Sweet just by the way,
I mean just one Dby wrote that part the bump
(08:57):
bump he did. He wrote it, He wrote it on
the keyboard, and then they covered it up with horns.
So as your means and the way, there's one more
thing about there's there's there's a YouTube audio of a
recording session from the Elvis Presley sessions, and uh, there's
a section where you can listen. There's like this long
(09:19):
twenty four minute They just let the tape roll while
they were rehearsing, and you hear Elvis singing, and then
you hear somebody go no, no, no, Elvis, no no.
It's like this, and then things and then and then
you hear Elvis go, thank you, Bobby Wood. It's amazing.
If that were me my career, I'm done. I'm done.
(09:41):
That's so, you know. But as as you're as you're
working with those guys, is the bubble over your head going?
These dudes played with Elvis. This is like the coolest
thing I could be doing. Yes and no. I mean,
at the same time, you know that I worshiped them.
I also feel so connected to them in a way
that I haven't felt connected to certain people. You know,
(10:03):
we both have this similar addiction, you know. I mean,
all they've ever done is make music in the studio
for a living. That's it, you know, That's all I've
ever done, you know. And uh, we just met in
Nashville and now we've we've been working constantly together on
all kinds of different projects. Yeah, you said something really interesting.
(10:23):
You produced a record with Dr John I think in
two thousand and twelve, Lockdown, terrific album. But one of
the things you said about that, which I think is
so important, is you did not treat him as and
this is in quotes and antiquity. Yeah, in other words,
like some sort of like a precious egg or something
(10:46):
caught an amber. You know, you pushed him to be,
you know, his best, and I'm wondering you produced this
record and as a producer, I'm wondering, did you kick
these guys in the ass a little bit? Which guys
the known? Yeah? Well, no, no, no, the dudes on
this record, did I kick him in the ass? I
think that they were ready. They were ready for me.
(11:09):
It's almost like they've been laying dormant, do you know
what I mean. They've been working the system, you know,
playing sessions and stuff. But they all of them have
independently told me that they're like, this is how it
felt when we were making records, because it's so much creativity,
anything goes. I mean, you know Bobby and and his
buddy who plays drums from Jane Chrismin. We call him Bubba.
(11:32):
He and Bobby have been playing together forever. But they've
been on number one country hits, They've been number one
soul hits, number one pop hits. But they never really
thought about it. They were just they were just making music,
you know what I mean. So I love that about
those guys, and that's why they fit in so well.
I think you know, you also had someone Who's who's
(11:56):
a hero to many people. Dwayne Eddie, Yeah, is on
this record, Dwayne Who who's lived in Nashville for many,
many years. And I'm wondering, did you have that sound
of rebel rouser, you know, that guitar sound in your
head when he walks in the studio. Dwyane is like
(12:16):
seventy nine, I think maybe, but he's really tall, and
he's got a perfect posture. He wears all black, he's
always got cowboy boots on, and he's got a had
a big black hat. So hell yeah that of course,
when did you When did you first hear Dwayne Eddie?
What was your first introduction to Dwayne Eddy It would
(12:38):
have been on radio growing up. I knew all his
songs just from from hearing him in the ether while
I was a kid. Those are the kind of songs
that you just know instinctually. There are certain artists who who,
for whatever reason, they just become part of your DNA.
You know, you hear the Duyne Eddie was kind of
one of the inventors of rock and roll guitar, I mean,
if not the and you know he also started in
(13:01):
the studio with Lie Hazelwood and Phoenix, you know, and
they came up with a sound experimenting in the studio.
So Dwayne loves me, and he's a studio rat just
like all of us. So, I mean he was there
all the time. Just he was like my session guy.
He was playing on sessions, whatever the song needed. He
was there as you were going through the songwriting process,
(13:24):
and and you talked about, you know, particularly as as
you were doing Keep It Hid, you were inspired a
little bit by Charles Bikowski, the you know, the great writer,
and you were looking at you were interested in and
I actually wrote this down unfancy interesting language, just like
John Pryn, same thing, you know, something that he was able.
(13:45):
I mean, that's I love that. I mean, that's it's
it's the similar thing that they have where they're able
to do so much for so little, you know, and
and that people who are able to do that I
find to be the most interesting to me, you know
what I mean, when you can with the most simplest
ingredients um makes something so potent. I find that to
(14:06):
be really inspiring. You know, one one of the other
You've got Mark Knopfler on on this record. Speaking of
guitar players, First of all, how did you get him
on the record. We emailed him perfect perfect, and he
just said, yeah, I'll do this. Well, we cut. We
cut this song called Seana Me and I went back
(14:29):
into the control room to listen to playback, and I
was sitting at the console and I was listening and
I just I could hear his guitar. I could hear
it on the song. So that night we did a
rough mix. I sent it to my manager and I said,
can you please find Mark Knopfler and send him this
song and asked him very nicely if he would want
(14:50):
to participate in any way. I didn't give any instructions
or anything. And then two days later we got the
song back with his guitar, which, by the way, if
you listen to the song, you can absolutely identify. Yeah,
we're we're not. But I mean, it was just sort
of like I think that's sort of one of the
things that I took from doing all these sessions and
(15:11):
working with all these guys, like, you know, if it's
meant to be, it'll happen, and if it's not, it won't,
you know, and that's sort of the fun of it,
you know. And Mark came through and It was awesome
because he did exactly what the song needed to which
was so interesting, which which you had no preconceived notions about.
And I'm wondering, you sent it and you listen to it,
(15:32):
you send it to a guitar player, and you assume
that the guitar player is gonna do a guitar solo,
you know what I mean. He didn't. He just played
the rhythm guitar. That's what the song needed. That's all
it needed. He knew what it needed, just like all
these guys I'm working with. That's why I knew he'd like,
he'd connect with it, because uh, he just I know
that he's worked with Chad Atkins and he's got a
lot of respect for Nashville. I just knew that he
(15:53):
would understand it, and he did. It was so you know,
It's funny. I'm wondering because you've you've talked about how
you've lived in Nashville since two thousand ten, but you
really didn't get acquainted with it until more recently. And
I'm wondering if if you've learned something about, you know,
working with people who have this level of experience that
(16:14):
you don't necessarily need to tell them what to do
they don't understand. That's something I learned with working with
Brian Burton. That opened my eyes too. If you let
the right people in the make what you do better,
you know what I mean, or they can excite you
in a way that pushes you to new levels of creativity.
(16:34):
So I mean after learning that, yeah, I always had
my mind open, get my ears open, heard about some
of these people, you know, made made weird phone calls
and reached out to these people that hadn't met, and
it was like, if it was meant to be, it
was going to be meant to be. And and I've
just met this incredible crew of of people. I mean,
you've definitely talked about how this experience and really kind
(16:58):
of becoming acquainted with the players in Nashville has changed
You're thinking about recording. Yeah, I mean, you know, I
have been producing records for long time, and I'd used
a lot of these guys on some records. You know,
I use some of these people on this record, played
on the Lanado re record, Raylmon Team, just other things
(17:18):
that I made. Dr John records some of these people
played on. So but I think I really assembled a
group at this point, you know what I mean. I
was using one guy here, one guy there, But now
I sort of almost have this crew that are always there,
that we always work together. It's just different. It's like
having the toolbox fully stocked with all the snap On tools,
(17:42):
well expensive one. Yeah, and speaking and speaking of the
expensive snap On tools. So this was done at Easy
I Studio, which is which is the I Sound in
nashund which is which is your studio in Nashville. And
you've described this as your field of dreams. Well that's
what it became really because I built it because I
(18:05):
wanted to have a space like the studios that made
the records I loved, like high studios and an American
sound and Stacks and Motown and all of these great
places that you could record a whole band in a room.
So that's what I wanted. I didn't know the musicians,
but I knew that's what I wanted. So I built
(18:25):
the studio and then little by little, like I said,
I met all these people and now it's packed every
week and I got a crew. Drums haven't moved in
two years. All the amps are set up. I mean, everybody,
no woman, no one brings instruments anymore. It's just there,
we're ready to go all the time. I'm wondering, now
that you've got this set up, as you bring other
(18:47):
artists to this, has a change you're thinking about producing? Well, yeah,
I mean I definitely have, like I said, different tools
now to use, and I the possibilities are kind of
endless now. But that's the fun about making records that
it doesn't have to be any one thing, you know,
and it's it's different every time. So but I can
do I feel like I can do anything now. Yeah.
(19:09):
I do want to roll the video back a little
bit and talk about your early career. You grew up Akron, Ohio. Um,
your uncle's were bluegrass players, My uncle, yeah, my uncle's
my aunt Yeah. Yeah. They all played bluegrass and and
and folk songs and blue songs and those were the
first songs that I heard. And my mom plays piano too,
(19:30):
but she was more classical. Yeah. Is there particularly at
a at a young age, I'm wondering what you were
hearing besides maybe what was being played around the house,
what were you hearing maybe on the radio or well,
my dad had record collection and that was stocked and
he was like you know, an old hippie. So he
had Grateful Dead was on all the time, Allen Brothers
(19:52):
on all the time. He had the Beatles on all
the time, you know, but then he also played Sam
Cook and Otis Reading and uh Louie Jordan's. I guess
this qualifies me as an old hippie. But it's all
the stuff I listened to. But you know, so yeah,
that stuff was on all the time, and it was
the combination of all that plus whatever is on the radio.
(20:13):
I mean, I swear to god, I know every Tom
Petty song. I've never even owned a Tom Petty record.
That's like Northeastern Ohio Radio rock radio. Man, they pumped
out the jams. That goes back, that goes back to
being in your d n A. You know, you hear
that stuff and it just gets in there and you
know the words and you don't even know why you
know the words. And then but I mean, growing up
(20:35):
in the nineties when I was in middle school, you know,
it's like hip hop was really popular, so I had
all this different music around me all the time. We
were talking about guitar players and I have to ask you,
because when you hear this guy, I immediately hear the
Black Keys and that's Junior Kimbro. Yeah, tell me about
(20:56):
the first time you heard Junior Kimbro. Well, the first
I heard Junior Kimbro was on a Fat Possum that
was his record label, Fat Possum Records, And um, they
did a comp with a very beautiful black and white
photographed from of a woman dancing in this cement. It
looked like a bass something ended up being Junior's choo
(21:18):
cho in his club that he owned. He played in
every week. And there's a compilation of all these different
artists are all burn Side Team, Model Ford, Robert Bell
for Johnny Farmer, Jelly Roll Kings, and it had Junior
Kimbro on there, And um, I wasn't into it at first.
I didn't quite understand it. It was a little too weird,
(21:38):
but I slowly got into it, and then all of
a sudden I realized that I wasn't listening to anything.
But yeah, it was sort of like that. It crept
on and then it just it was sort of like weeds,
you know, and then it just took over. Yeah. Well,
because you took and you know, to to one person's years,
you took what junior Kimbro was doing, and you kind
(22:01):
of moved it into, for lack of a better term,
in the modern world. You know, you turned it up
a little bit. You gave it maybe even more grit
than he had. Yeah, definitely a lot more. I think. Yeah,
I go back and listen, I'm like, oh, he was
playing kind of quiet. Yea, I used to think that
was really rocking. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And um, the early
(22:25):
Black Keys records we were all done, I think in
your basement. Well, yeah, we did some in Pat's original
rental house basement that was on Richmond Place, and um,
then he moved and he had his four track over
to his other house, and and then we rented a
space in in the old General Tire factory building on
the second floor. Terrible building, really frightening, big, scary. Were
(22:49):
the only people in this giant tire factory at night.
It was so scary. I was scared to go to
the bathroom. It was just a nightmare, you know, really
really cheap, though I'm sure it's incredibly cost In fact,
it's you. It's you and Pat guitar and drums. That
(23:10):
no consideration that there should be a bass player, No
that's not totally true. I mean, we wanted to have
other people in the group when we started, but we
couldn't find anybody. It's not like there was huge scene
in Akron, Ohio. And I mean I was like listening
to RL Burnside so add on that. It's like not
a lot of who wanted to listen to that kind
(23:31):
of stuff, so or even understood on any level? How
did How did you meet Pat? He grew up around
the corner for me, so I always knew him. He's
just somebody I always knew. But he was a grade
apart from me. He was a year younger, so you
know how when you're in school, one grade is like
at is like a lifetile lifetime. So I never saw him.
But his younger brother and my younger brother were best friends.
(23:56):
And so one afternoon my brother said, hey, you know Pat,
And I'm like, know who's that? And he said from
around the corner. He he said he has a drum kit.
You should bring your guitar over there. And so that
was it. So we brought my guitar over there and
we started jamming, and I mean we kind of got
a record deal off of those recordings from the basement.
(24:22):
First guitar, What was your first guitar? Well, I bought
my mom bought me a Straton. But I wanted to
have a guitar like cound Dog Taylor when he played
a Japanese Tisco it's called Tisco del Rey and four
big pickups. That's what I wanted. So she took me
this place in Cleveland where this guy had a guitar shop.
(24:44):
He played in this easy top cover band, so he
had had big and I was like, hey, I want
to trade this for this Japanese guitar. And the Japanese
car is probably worth seventy Stratt was probably worth He
was like, sure, man, done, done, fair. That seems fair
to me. We'll even throw in a gig gig bag.
(25:09):
So but I still I still use the guitar. Well.
And I must say, as someone who fancies some guitars,
I recall seeing you guys at UM the Jazz Festival,
New Orleans Jazz Festival a couple of years a few
years ago. UM, and the rig you have of the
amps that go from the largest down to the smallest,
(25:31):
that it's just you wheel that thing out the obnoxious
in the best possible way, just all giant tax right
off everything I can fit. You know, one thing you're
going going back to to waiting on a song. I
read that the musicians that you were working with, we're
(25:53):
all responding very positively to the way you were doing
this because you were recording most of this live on
the floor. Yeah, that the foundation of every song is
a live performance with at least five or six musicians. Yeah.
Talk about the difference that makes to you as a
producer in terms of what you're trying to get out
(26:16):
of the song. Well, I mean, I think that it's
hard to really put into words. I guess you're just
trying to capture magic. Really. I mean, you can get
the greatest musicians in the world, but it just might
not be your day sometimes, you know. So I felt
like the more we did it, the more we kept
our odds up. It's sort of like a betting game,
(26:36):
you know what I mean. I mean, I mean I
learned a lot from these guys, kind of like to
let song breathe and kind of get out of the
way my own self sometimes you know, how to open
the songs up. And yeah, I mean there's just all
kinds of little delicate things that happened that. That's an
interesting point in terms of thinking about where you were
(26:57):
recording in that factory in grin to where you are today.
How do you how do you think you've evolved? You're
changed as a songwriter. You know, It's like the more
things change, the more they stay the same, you know
what I mean. I feel like I have learned so
many things and I've gotten better, but my base instincts
(27:18):
are kind of still the same as they've always been,
do you know what I mean? I feel like my
DNA was fixed a long time ago, and I still
always go back to certain things that I do that
are just a part of who I am musically, do
you know what I mean? And I guess with the
way the world is now, where you can change everything
so instantaneously, and I think one of the things I
(27:41):
learned from these guys was to, like I said, get
out of my own way and just not really worry
too much, not overthink it, you know, and uh, just
the idea of having simple be okay, you know what
I mean. I didn't even really know how to do
it when I first started, you know what I mean,
just all over the place. But I don't the idea
(28:03):
of not not necessarily overthinking. One of my favorite quotes,
and some people here have probably heard me say this before.
Neil Young said, um about working in the studio, if
you're thinking, you're stinking, Yeah, yeah, and and and many
artists seem to sign up to that. What you want
to what you want to really accomplish is you want
(28:25):
the song to just flow out naturally. But it's six seven,
eight people, so it's luck. You just have to feel
it and you'll hear it in the headphones when you're tracking.
If you feel you know, that's the that's the thing
you get addicted to because when it works, the songs
sound like that in the headphones when you're cutting, the
(28:47):
ones that you end up hearing a year later when
the record comes out, but that first moment when you
hear it, it's incredible. And when I'm playing with all
these guys, Bobby and Bubba, it's like some people say
the record sounds like it has soul influences, but it's
it's like, no, Actually, the guys playing on the record
invented soul music sort of, you know what I mean.
(29:09):
And I'm hearing these guys in my headphones playing things
that sound like a record. I'm hearing this record in
my mind and that's just so addictive. Yeah, And I
also read that you guys would would do these sort
of marathon kind of sessions. Were in four days you
you put down fifteen songs. Yeah, we try to do
(29:31):
about three or four a day. Is working quickly important?
I think? So? Yeah, Yeah, you don't want to overthink
it if it's not if it's not happening, and it's
not happening for a reason generally, and you should kind
of move on there. And there were there was something like,
I think sixty songs that you had to choose from
(29:52):
for this album. Yeah, there's more than that. I mean, yeah,
so I recorded a couple of hundred songs and last year. Yeah,
so how do you ultimately kind of go about the
business of figuring out, Okay, what's gonna be on the record?
I picked one or two that I knew I wanted
to be on the record, and then I picked ones
that went with those couples, and that sort of shaped
how the record ended up sounding. Got it. So these
(30:13):
ten songs together sound very uplifting, But I mean, of course,
two songs, there's all kinds of does that mean there
there could be a waiting on waiting on a song
part two at some point down the road. Ye oh yeah, definitely, Yeah, absolutely.
I haven't heard it here. First. I haven't stopped really
and not not really. Yeah, since last summer, I've been
(30:35):
writing and recording every week pretty much. Yeah, are you
planning on taking this on the road? Are you gonna
You're gonna tour with these guys. I'm not opposed to
the idea, but we we don't have any plans right now. Yeah. Yeah,
we've been talking about it though, And I mean you've
been touring fairly relentlessly prior to prior to doing this record,
you know, with Patrick and with the Arcs for four years. Yeah,
(31:00):
and and at some point, you know, I guess you
kind of felt like it was time to stop doing that.
Oh yeah, it was. It's so grueling. It's such a
grueling lifestyle. And the way that Pat and I did
it was like we acted like we might never see
another dollar bill again. I think it has something to
do with being cheap skates from acron Ohio. But that's
(31:25):
how we did it. And I mean, when I decided
to stop touring last summer to take a break. We've
been touring for like four years straight, pretty much. Yeah,
I'm sure it's in your mind at some point to
put to put that back together. Oh yeah, sure, definitely. Yeah.
Any any any plans to be writing with Patrick anytime?
Plans at the moment, still just enjoying our nice vacation. Yeah. Um.
(31:51):
The reaction so far to this record, everything that I've
read has been incredibly positive. Yeah, it's been really overwhelmingly positive. Yeah. Absolutely,
And and uh you know radio station playing cuts you know,
God knows outlawed country that I happened to listen to
on serious exam has been playing the record really Oh
(32:12):
yeah yeah that's amazing. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, absolutely outlawed country.
Yeah happen happens to be a serious sex time channel.
Sixty happens to be my favorite serious sex time channel.
What's that? Mojo Nixon exactly? Yeah, crazy Mojo Nixon. Bobby
and Bubba they toured with the Highwaymen. Ye, well there
you go there the but when we we just went
(32:34):
to New York City and Bubba's suitcase said Whalen on it.
It was the one that he said, Whalen bought it
for me. When we went on tour. He said, I'm sorry,
I'm done. If someone says that. He said, those guys
all the backup musicians whenever they did a tour in
South America for the Highwomen, but Christofferson, Johnny Cash, Whalen,
Willie Willie. But he said, they did a whole tour
(32:57):
of South American. The first thing they did when they
landed was look for the embassy, which was the McDonald's.
That's what they looked for. First. I read that you've
developed a friendship with with Prime. Yeah um um. And
then you guys go out and eat get hot dogs.
(33:18):
Well yeah, yeah, we we always eat food is really
bad for you. Basically, well, he's from Chicago, so I'm
not surprised that he um knows where the meat Love
Special is every day of the week. And um we
uh we wrote waiting on a song and then um
(33:39):
we went to Whitecastle perfect when when when? And then
we came back and finished another song. When I first
started going to Nashville and like nineteen White Castles, like
the Palate Cleanser, Oh yeah, I get it. In between
the songs when I first started going to Nashville and
ninety two White Castle was about as good as it got.
(34:02):
It was either that or what they called down there
and meat and three because you get your you know,
you get your tray, you get your meat and three sides. Yeah,
and the sides can also be meat. It's very confusing.
That's the thing about stuff. That's really cool that vegetables
(34:23):
can also be meat. Well, hey, can I tell you
how pleased we are that you took the time to
come down here you talk about this. It is terrific.
So the album is called Waiting on a Song. If
you don't have a usually, wouldn't we all like to
(34:45):
spend a little time eating hot dogs with Dan Auerbach
and John Prine. I don't know about you, but that
would be a singular goal in my life. Waiting on
a Song is really a terrific album. I encourage you
to have a listen if you haven't already. M that's
your required listening for today. We'll be coming to you
(35:06):
every week on Thursdays. You'll find us on all the
social platforms at Grammy Museum. We'd love to keep the
conversation going. And if you're coming to Los Angeles, please
come and see us at the Grammy Museum. All of
the information is at our website Grammy Museum dot org.
Check out the public program schedule. We'd love to have
(35:27):
you in the Clive Davis Theater as we do one
of these programs. Finally, a big thank you to the
required listening team Jason James, Justin, Joseph, Miranda Moore, Lynn Sheridan,
Jim Cannella, Kittrick Kern's, Jason Hope, Chandler Maye, Nick Stump,
and everybody at How Stuff Works. Until next time, I'm
Scott Golden.
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