March 17, 2026 • 46 mins
Hrishikesh Hirway is an acclaimed musician, composer, podcast creator, producer, and television host. Hirway is best known as the creator and host of “Song Exploder”, a podcast where musicians break down their songs and tell the story of how they were made. Hirway is also the creator and co-host of podcasts “The West Wing Weekly” (with co-host Joshua Malina), “Home Cooking” (with co-host Samin Nosrat), and “Partners”. In addition to the podcast, Hirway is the executive producer and host of the Netflix television adaptation of “Song Exploder”. As a composer, Hirway scored the Netflix television show “Everything Sucks!” and the films “Our Nixon”, “Save the Date”, and “Companion”. As a musician, Hirway has made multiple albums under the name The One AM Radio and his music has appeared on TV shows such as “Gossip Girl” and “One Tree Hill”. Based in Los Angeles, Hirway and host Alec Baldwin sat down for a live conversation recorded at On-Air Fest in Brooklyn.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from iHeart Radio. Few people illuminate the art of
music and storytelling like my guest today, Rishi Kish Hereway
didn't set out to become one of the biggest podcasters
in the world, but that's precisely what happened when he
created the Song Exploder podcast in twenty fourteen. In addition
(00:27):
to podcast host, Hereway is a composer, record producer, and artist.
His latest album, In the Last Hour of Light, will
be released April twenty fourth. Along with Song Exploder, Hereway
is the creator of the podcast partners The West Wing
Weekly and the award winning Home Cooking with Chef and
(00:48):
co host Samine Nosrats. As a composer, Hereway has penned
the scores for feature films and documentaries, a Netflix TV series,
and a video game. His music has appeared on hit
TV shows like Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill. Here
Way has a gift for tapping into the cultural zeitgeist
(01:10):
and drawing out the creative spark from some of the
world's best musicians. I asked Rishie to be my guest
for a live taping at The Wife Hotel in Brooklyn
for on AirFest. Growing up in an Indian household, I
was curious how Hereway's childhood shaped his cultural world view
and how we first connected with music.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, I have an older sister, Priya, and she's five
years older than me, So I really inherited so much
of my taste from her, and that basically meant listening
to top forty radio. You know, she went to school
and she found out what was cool from other friends,
and so we just listened to whatever she was listening to.
The first time that I got to actually make music
(01:52):
choices of my own was when she got a Columbia
House subscription. You know, you send in a penny and
they send you back eight cassettes, and she very generous
origin Yeah exactly. Yeah, she generously allowed me to pick two.
She gave me two of her eight selections, and so
I picked Aerosmith Permanent Vacation and White Snake by White Snake.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So music is in your life and then you start
to make music. You played the piano.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I played piano growing up, Yeah, just taking piano lessons,
and then I started playing in the school band. And
then when I got to high school, I started playing
in bands.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Did you play in the school band?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Drums, keyboard? But then I was in the percussion department
and everybody else it was me and six boys who
played the drum kit, but there's only one drum kit
to share, and everybody else played either a snare drum
or a bass drum. And eventually, when everybody else went home,
I would start sitting behind the drum kit myself, and
then I got really excited about playing drums. And so
(02:49):
then in high school I started playing drums in a band.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
What were you good at?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I don't know that I was or am good at anything.
I feel like I was like pretty good at some
of the things, you know, like guitar. I played, learned
to play guitar, I learned to play piano, I learned
to play drums, and I was like okay at all
of those.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And then when do you start making music that you're
going to sell?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, I started writing my own songs at the end
of high school and then starting into the beginning of college.
Selling it was still far from my mind, but just
writing it was the first step.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Before you get into the podcast world, where a lot
of us in an in depth analysis and examination of
other people's music, which is thrilling you play music, and
when does that When do you decide that's not where
you want to go, Because at some point you start
making enough money you live off.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Of the music business.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, that's right, Yeah, describe that period. So I think
in two thousand and seven was the first year that
I felt like I could say that I made music
as my living. I'd put out an album that year,
and I produced an album for another band, and I
actually was able to pay my bills just through music.
I didn't have to have, you know, my freelance graphic
design job or temping or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
You live fairly comfortably.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I mean it was comfortable for me. That was a
pretty big milestone for me. That felt like it's hard
to grow up in an Indian household and say I
want to be a musician. And I think my parents
never understood the sort of validators that I turned to.
It would be hard to say like, hey, look this
is going okay. You know, like I could say to
(04:23):
my mom, it's an A point one on Pitchfork and
she'd be like, I know those are all words, but
I don't know what any of them mean together.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I'm glad that means something to you.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
So being able to actually like make my living from music,
that was the first way that I was able to
sort of say to my family, Look, this is this
is turning out okay.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
It was a leap of faith for them to, you know,
even just understand that this is what I was doing.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Between twenty twenty and twenty eleven, those nine years, you
released four albums.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Two thousand and twenty eleven.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, and so pick one album and tell me what's
the process of getting that made.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So I always made my music kind of like in
my bedroom wherever that was, and I would write the
songs and sort of record them as I was writing
them and sort of try and design into whatever the
song was about, adding layers, you know, one at a time,
and it would take sometimes months and sometimes years before
I felt like it was it was done, and then
(05:21):
once I had enough of them for an album, then
that would be the album. It took a very long time,
and I would sometimes bring other people in, but for
the most part I tried to do as much of
it on my own.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Hurry down on dirty Yeah, and then when it's old
together the elements are together, where do you take it
who do you take it to?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, the first couple albums came out on like a
punk rock label, even though the music wasn't punk rock.
I kind of came up in a sort of we
need content. I came up listening to punk, and a
lot of my friends who were in bands played in
punk bands, and so that was kind of my community.
I would play like these basement punk shows as the
weird outlier, you know, just just a sad boy with
(05:59):
a guitar in between these screamy bands. But because of
that I got to meet some folks, including someone who
had a record label who said, I like your records
and I'd like to put them out, and so I
did that for a first couple and then when I
moved to La I signed with like an independent label
based there.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Your new album is called in the Last Hour of
Late and when's it coming out?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
It comes out in April.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
This is your piece at you all the eight tracks,
ten tracks, whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
No, So this one is very different from how I
used to make music. For this one, I sort of
went the completely opposite direction, and it's recorded live with
the band and sort of in a much more kind
of classic way, went into a studio, played with some
amazing musicians and taught them the songs in the morning,
and then we'd work on the arrangement and then we'd
record it, and then we'd break for lunch and then
(06:46):
do another song in the afternoon.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
The Beatles would say that, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
The Beatles would say, we would go into the studio
and we'd record four songs in the morning. Then they go,
he goes, then we go have a cigarette and it
pints and maybe some fish and chips, that we record
four songs in the afternoon. Yeah, they make an album
in a day.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, Well I had seven days and it was so
completely contrary to how I had worked the rest of
my music making life. I said to the producer Phil Weinrob,
I said, this is crazy. This is a crazy way
to make music. And he said no, actually, most music
in the history of recorded music was made this way.
The way that you've been making it is crazy.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
So in your music.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Career pre Song Exploder, I'm assuming that One Tree Hill
and Gossip Girl that came before Song Exploder.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yes, how do you get your music?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
The thing about you was it seems like every door
just opens to you. You know, how do you get
your music in front of the one Tree Hill people.
Gossip World was a huge hit. How do you get
in front of them?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I mean, especially in those days, in the sort of
heyday of indie music on TV, you know, kind of
like two thousand and five to twenty ten or so,
it was really wonderful because there were a lot of
shows on TV. TV still existed, music budgets still existed,
and they would actively have this mission to put cool
(08:07):
music in shows. And so there were music supervisors who'd
be actively looking for something that they liked to include.
And I got very lucky the label that I was on,
they had folks who would send the music to music
supervisors and yeah they were so they were were always
looking for music. Yeah, yeah, and they'd be putting you know,
they put out twenty four episodes of Gossip Girl and
(08:28):
then have like five or six songs in each episode.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
So the first thing I want to ask you is,
per song explorer, how do you get the rights to
the music? Oh, even when we do the show and
we want heavy with music, we struggle. We think the
artists is on our side and they're going to help us,
and it's like, are the people that have the rights.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
No, Yeah, the artist has no power or very little power. Occasionally, Yeah, well,
I work with a wonderful woman named Kathleen Smith who
has been working with me since twenty fifteen, and she
goes and knocks on all the doors and asks everybody
you know, would you please sign this piece of paper
that says we can use this song with song Exploder.
(09:06):
It's a little bit different, I think than other uses
because it's not like the music is scoring some other content.
The music is the content. You know, we're telling the
story of this song.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Gotta have it your license.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, I'm wondering you check out the right situation prior
to the show. They don't come on unless you're all
clear with the music.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
At this point, we sort of hope in you know,
feel like we've got relationships enough that like we can
tape the interview and the end as we're working on
the licensing at the same time, but we won't put
it out till it's all cleared.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Song Exploder whose idea was that it.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Was, you know, something that kind of had percolated over
a very long time, just the idea of trying to
make something that felt closer to what the music making
process was as I had experienced it. You know, I
would listen to or read interviews with artists that I admire,
and the interviews always felt like they were very big picture,
Like the interviewers would ask big picture questions and the
(10:04):
guests would answer in big picture answers. But I felt
like the creative process is so much more about the
inch by inch journey. You know, every single small creative
decision that gets made is really what shapes both the
final product and the experience. And I thought it would
be really fascinating if people could get inside that process
(10:25):
and hear what a song sounds like from the perspective
of someone who made it. Also, I wanted to kind
of circumvent the idea of a critic being the only
way into how a song could be thought of and
kind of re establish the idea of an author's intention.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
How did you develop the skill to help them unravel
the song?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Well, I think it helps to have someone ask questions
from a sort of empathetic position, you know, like I
tried to bring the kinds of questions that I was
trying to answer to the questions that I would be
posing to them. And part of the reason why I
used to cut myself out of the show entirely was
because I had never interviewed anybody, and I didn't want
(11:09):
to reveal myself to be the amateur that I was,
And I thought it would sound much more professional if
it just felt like a story being told from the
perspective of the artist. The reason it changed in the
Netflix show is because I got that idea that, you know,
the sort of non narrated thing which exists in so
much radio, But I got it from watching documentary films.
(11:29):
In the best documentary films, you just see the cameras on,
you know, close up on the subject, and they're telling
their story. You don't hear an interviewer. Sometimes you might
hear them off camera, but it's never about the two
of them. So I wanted my show to feel legitimate,
even though I was making it from my bedroom or
my garage. I wanted it to seem like, oh, elevated,
(11:50):
So let me make it like these documentaries. When we
went to make the Netflix show, I was talking to
the executive producer, Morgan Neville, who himself is an Oscar
winning documentarium four twenty Free from Stardom.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
We played that at the Hampton Film festal law summer time.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, amazing movie, amazing. So I was telling him, you know,
this is my reason for why I shouldn't be in
the show. We should keep the same kind of format
for the Netflix show. And he argued that it wasn't special.
Now we're basically going into the documentary format and the
thing that I was pulling for a podcast that had
felt special is not going to be special once you
(12:27):
return it to the original source. And he said, what
would be much more interesting and intimate? Because I was
saying I kept saying the word intimacy, it was felt
more intimate to just have the first person narrative from
the guest. He said, well, I think what would be
more intimate is to see the two of you having
a conversation.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I agree, you're so unattractive, that's the problem. I mean,
you should be on camera.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
And he said, well, look, let's shoot something. We'll put
one camera on the subject and if you decide that's all.
You know, you just want to do that, fine, but
let me also put a camera on you and let's
try it. You know, would you be game.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
For That'd you like it?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
It was stressful? And then in the edit, you know,
I kept on trying to cut out any kind of
reaction shots or anything like that. I was like, no,
it's it's distracting. It's but a lot of the time
what the directors or the editors were trying to bring
in were moments of real human interaction as opposed to
something too antiseptic and clean. But for me, I felt like,
(13:25):
oh clean was that's that's what I want. I wanted
to feel like my goal of the podcast. I wanted
to feel like it was just this beautifully made sculpture
where you couldn't see any seams and if you see
me laughing, or you see us like have this moment
of dialogue where you hear my question, doesn't that break
up the dream? I want the show to feel like
a dream and I don't want someone to wake up
in the middle. And they said, no, those moments are
(13:49):
real human interaction and that's actually something really wonderful to see,
and they all basically agreed, and at a certain point
I said, Okay, if you all think this and I'm
the only one on the other side, then like maybe
I just need to let it go. But it was
it was tough.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
We had people on our show over the years who
if you let it breathe if I can get in there,
because in the beginning I was very very hands on
trying to push them towards where I wanted them to go.
And when you come on and you just let it
happen and people are in the mood to talk to you.
We've had number a number of shows, but I like
in Name three, one was Tom Yorke. Tom Yorke came on.
I'm like, what the hell am I going to say
(14:25):
to this Guy's gonna be interesting to him. He doesn't
give a shit about me, He'd probably don't even know me.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And I'm sitting there talking to Tom York And it
was great.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It was heaven because he was he was in the
mood to talk. We did Nck Fleetwood, he was in
the mood to talk. We did Letterman. Letterman came and
even his own staff like had their hand over their mouth.
They couldn't believe what he was saying because he was
talking about how he was like, you know, he goes
how I was miserable. Well, I did was work, I
did have any kids, did have a family. Everything was work.
But he was really very very self disclosing, you know,
(14:54):
in that way where the conversation works of people just
flows now where we were talking about something like this
like Somebody is historic, you know, popular song.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Do you think that makes it easier for you?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
It certainly makes it easier for me because they know
what the parameters of the story is going to be.
And I think it also allows me to probe in
other parts because if they're talking about something that where
they're very comfortable, they're talking about their artistry. You know,
we're listening to stems and they're talking about the very
direct answer to a question of how did you make this?
(15:25):
I can then start to veer into well why did
you make this? And if I had started that way
and I didn't have the stems and I didn't have
the song to talk about and just said, you know,
out of the blue, hey why did you write this lyric?
They might clam up, or they might you know, have
a different kind of reaction. But I think the familiarity
of the material and the small parameter of just let's
talk about this one song, let's get deep in that
(15:47):
one song, it helps them open up. And you know,
musicians can be tougher interviews because they they speak through
their music exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Yeah, And they're not really that articulate.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
In terms of interviews about the music. They're really just
play it. I don't want to talk about it. I
don't want to do it, ye know. And I've come
across that from time to time.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Can I say one thing, by the way, But so
the Letterman interview, if it's the one that I'm thinking of.
You did a Letterman interview in December of twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
My god, that's uncanny.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It was important to me in a few different ways.
One because I had not interviewed people I was trying
to absorb. At this point, I had, you know, I
had the concept for the show. I'd made one episode
as a sort of pilot, and then I was like, okay,
I'm going to do this. I was trying to learn
as much as I could about interviewing from just taking
it in from other sources. And here's the thing is
(16:37):
one of the shows that I turned to. And the
other thing was I had never spoken into a mic before,
and i'd sung, but I hadn't recorded myself. And I
was like, well, how do I do this? And so
I launched the show in January of twenty fourteen. As
I was getting ready for that that episode that you did,
the last episode I think of twenty thirteen around that
(16:57):
it was a Letterman interview. I listened to that and
tried to, you know, learn what I could about interviewing.
But also I tried to learn how to set my
microphone to sound like your voice. I was like, how
do I emulate something like that? And so I was
fiddling with my EQ settings on my microphone.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
When you say that, it's interesting because it's to get
out of your own way to some guests come, they're
not in the mood to talk. You know, we do
the video now. I never wanted to do the video.
One of the first shows we did was Kathleen Turner
early on years ago, and Kathleen Turner comes in.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I called her on the phone and she.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Goes, oh baby.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
She goes, so I have to is it on camera?
Is it on?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Are you doing the video with this thing? And I
go she goes, thank god, I can just come in
a ponytail, in my sweats and like every woman to
be perfectly honest. It's mostly the actresses and public figures
who are women are like, thank I don't have to
get ready and fill right, I have to do my hair,
on my makeup, with my clothes and so forth.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Do you find that when you're doing an interview now
on camera that the responses you get are different, Like
people can port themselves different than knowing that they're on camming.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
That people who were professional public figures, they got it down.
We've been in front of cameras in all of our lives.
Now talk about West Wing? How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, So from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty, mainly I
made a podcast called The West Wing Weekly with my
friend Joshua Molina, who is an actor who was on
the West Wing, and we did about a hunt, you know,
one episode for every episode of the show, plus some
bonus episodes. I stole Zach McNeice. Zach came and mixed
our show. I posted a thing saying I'm looking for
(18:34):
someone to help me with the show, and he wrote
back and I saw here's a thing was on his CV,
and I said, well, I already have the settings as
close to what I think you've done, so here you go.
So I met josh It goes way back. Actually, when
I had was graduating college, I thought I wanted to
move to la because I wanted to make music for films.
(18:56):
I wanted to score films. But I had no idea
how one that. I had no idea how you I
grew up in Massachusetts, moving to LA seemed inconceivable, let alone,
how do you find a job in Hollywood? And I
was at Yell and I thought, I was like, this
isn't even the kind of college where, like, you know,
people come out of here that where there's no old
boys network, you know, where someone can say like, hey,
(19:18):
I want to get a job at Goldman Sachs. Oh,
you know, I know the Shrafts.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Anymore, you can hang out at the counter, right.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And then I had mentioned I had started watching again
through my sister's taste. I started watching Sports Night, Aaron
Sorkin's first TV show, and my friend said, well, you
know Josh Molina he went here, he went to Yell.
And I said, really, I know that I love that character.
I love that actor, you know.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And you didn't know him.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I didn't know him.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
No.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
And then months later I was living in Massachusetts. I
was working at you know, at a day job and
dreaming of this dream to get to LA. And one
night I looked up Josh's name on you know, this
is before Google. I looked it up on whatever alta
Vista or something ask Jeeves, and I found he had
a website. He had his own personal website with his
(20:06):
headshot and his resume and an email address. So I
clicked on it and I just sent him an email saying,
you know, dear Josh, we don't know each other. I've
just recently graduated. I'm trying to figure out how how
does one get to make music for films. I don't
know if you have any advice for someone like me,
but like, thanks, I fan hope to hear from you.
(20:27):
I was considering trying to move to LA or moved
to New York. New York was much easier, and I
had a lot of friends who were moving on why
easier geographically and easier, Yeah, and I knew people there,
and it just it felt daunting but much less daunting.
And I thought, well, I do know that there are
films that get made in New York. Maybe I can
skate by if I do that. Josh wrote back and
(20:49):
said he's like, look, I I'm not in that side
of things. I play cards with some composers, but my
senses in general is generally, if you want to do
stuff in films, you got to be here in LA
And I said, okay, thank you very much. I moved
to New York because I was just I was too
scared of her form.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, you're gonna flush that Yale degree down the toilet somehow.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah. And then I tried New York for a while.
It was hard in other ways and it just didn't
didn't end up working out for me and that. But
then I did move to LA about a year later.
And when I got there, I wrote to Josh and said, hey,
thank you so much for the advice. Here I am.
His email no longer worked, and I was like, well
that was that. And I slowly, you know, I found
(21:32):
a job as an assistant to a composer. I was
making my own records. I started, you know, just trying
to do music however I could. And then in twenty twelve,
I finally had my first feature film that I had scored,
went to Sun Dance, which was what it was called
Save the Date, directed by my friend Michael Mohan and
starring Alison Brie and Allison Brie. Alison Brie and.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
You wrote music for you. You did the score for
the whole film.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, I wrote the score and I wrote a song for.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
He asked you to come or you've pitched yourself to well.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
He had originally written a song of mine that I
had written into the script. One of the characters played
by Jeffrey Aaron was a songwriter and he and he
had written in the script a song of mine that
already existed, and then he was like, well, maybe is
that he sent it to me and he said, is
that weird that he's he's like writing a song, but
it's your song? And I said, yeah, maybe a little bit.
And he said, well, would you write a new song
(22:22):
for it? And I said yeah. So originally it was
just that write a song for the movie, but then
they asked me to score it as well. So I
went to Sundance and it was so exciting and I
met all these people, and then afterwards I was on Twitter,
back when Twitter was a nice place to be, and
I was just looking at like sort of Sundance chatter
and looking at movies that I'd seen, because one of
(22:44):
the great things about going was you know, you get
a pass and you can see just like everything, and
I saw I think like fourteen movies you know, and
I was just looking at seeing what people were talking about.
And in the conversation, josh Molina had replied to somebody
who you know I'd been looking at, and josh Molina
replied to him, and I was like, josh Molina, hey,
and I forgot that, like social media was a thing that,
(23:07):
you know, was a way that you could try and
reach people. And I clicked on his name and then
he had a link to his Facebook page and I
clicked on that, and then I sent him a message
and I said, hey, you might not remember this, but
over a decade ago, you gave me this advice, come
to LA if you want to score films. Well, it
took me a long time to do it, but I
didn't and I just scored my first film. And could
I take you out to lunch to say thank you?
(23:29):
And he wrote back the next day and said, as
an out of work actor, I make it a point
never to say no to a free lunch. And so
we met up and we just hit it off and
had a great time, and we later ended up making
a pilot for a game show, an idea that I
had tried to do as a live thing, and then
(23:50):
he participated.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
What was the game show? I read about this.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
So I had done this charity event called Celebrity Celebrity.
Do you know the game Celebrity. Imagine two teams and
there's a bold of names in the middle and people
have put in names of famous people and you might
pull it out and without saying the name of the person.
It was first this charity game, I said, let's raise money.
Let's what if it was celebrity celebrity celebrities instead of
(24:13):
just being the names of the bowl actually playing. Wouldn't
that be fun? And it was really fun.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
You did it?
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I did it.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Were some of your celebrity guests.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
So Josh was the captain of one team and on
his team was Sarah Silverman, Michael Ian Black, Rob Delaney.
There was another team with Martin Starr, Aubrey Plaza, Aleah.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Shashit good real comic talents.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
What happened?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
It was wonderful. And the curtain came down and I said, Josh,
thanks so much. I was like, I think there might
be something here and he said, I think so too.
And Josh, besides being on the Western Heat executive produced
Celebrity Poker Showdown, he'd co created that show, and so
I said, do you want to try and see if
this is something that could we could do for TV
with me? And he said yes, and so we pitched
(24:53):
it and we sold it. We got a we did
a pilot. We had Mike Leean Black hosting it, and
we had the cast of The West Wing versus the
cast of Scandal, two shows that Josh had been on,
and it was really fun. And then the network that
we sold it to got sold to another network and
somewhere in the shuffle between executives and things like that,
we got lost, and we were just waiting. And so
(25:15):
this was in twenty fourteen. We shot the pilot. Meanwhile
I started making song Exploder, and a year later, we're
still waiting to hear what's going to happen with the
game show with the Game Show, and eventually I said
to Josh, I said, hey, do you want to just
try making a podcast with me? Because I'm really enjoying
this format and it feels closer to the sort of
the punk rock thing that I came up with, which
(25:37):
is like we can just do it ourselves. We don't
have to ask permission, we don't need gatekeepers. Let us
do it. Yeah, we can just do it.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And this was a west wink and.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
This was about and I said, look, I've been very polite.
I have not peppered you with all of my questions
about the West Wing right, but we could do you
know this kind of There were some shows that existed
where people would go episode by episode, but none of
them at that time had someone from the show as
one of the hosts. It would take some of the
song exploder DNA of having someone who is intimately involved
(26:06):
with the creation of the thing telling the story.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
The thing with West Wing, I always view Sorkin. I
worked with him very guarded, very guarded guy, brilliant, but
very close to the vest. And I thought to myself,
what was it like working with him?
Speaker 3 (26:19):
And he did? I think I was told three episodes
of your show, correct.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I think even maybe more than that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
More than that.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Was it tough to lure him in or not?
Speaker 4 (26:26):
No?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
It was actually really he was always so game and
incredibly generous with his time. And you know, one time
we did a live taping in San Francisco. It was
for the finale of season three, and we were like,
would you please come? We had this possibility of doing
this and it's such a significant episode. And we said,
you know, could you come, We will fly you out,
you know, we'll fly you first class, Like what can
we do to get you? And he said, how about this,
(26:50):
I'll fly myself out and whatever you were going to
spend on the plane ticket, let's pick a charity and
you can give it to that or something like. He
just took care of of his own stuff. He's like,
he has don't need to spend money on me. And
it was so kind. And then, you know, I think
for him, we're just talking about everything that we loved
about the show and asking him questions. So I think
(27:11):
for him it was nice. I hope it was nice.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Musician and podcaster Rishi Cash here way. If you enjoy
conversations with creative innovators whose talents extend beyond music, check
out my episode with Julian Lennon.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
One of the really important things that happened to me
in my relationship with photography and the images was that
I would have people write to me, people that couldn't
financially afford to travel the world or go anywhere, couldn't
or were disabled and couldn't travel the world or go anywhere.
And what they had all said to me is that
(27:50):
you bring these stories to us, you bring the truth,
You bring life to us of cultures that we would
never necessarily know anything about.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
To hear more of my conversation with Julian Lennon, go
to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Hereway
shares the guest he was most excited to have on
song Exploder and one whom he would like to interview
in the future. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's
(28:30):
the Thing. Rishie Kish Hereway created song Exploder in twenty fourteen.
Since then, it has received critical acclaim, won many awards,
and was recently named by Time as one of the
one hundred best podcasts of all time. This year, here
Way will be presented with the twenty twenty six iHeartMedia
(28:52):
Innovator Award for his visionary approach to storytelling. Guests on
song Exploder have ranged from you Yo Yoma to Madonna,
from Billie Eilish to Metallica. Having interviewed so many music legends,
I was curious if there was one particular artist that
he was most excited to interview.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
When I first started the show, you know, I had
a few ideas of like the kind of artist that
would be a dream to have on you know, the
kind of people where their artistry is exceptional and also
mysterious to me. And one of those that small list
was Buyork. And so she did the show twenty sixteen.
So I had been doing it for two years and
(29:33):
that was just incredible. I couldn't believe that she got
to do it, and she was in London at the time,
so I had to wake up at five in the morning,
did the interview over the phone. She had somebody, you know,
like remote sinking her recording, and that was I couldn't
believe it. My wife afterwards, you know, when she woke up,
she's like, why did you get up so early? I said,
I had to interview Byorke and she's like, you what.
(29:56):
She also loves Beork and I hadn't even told her
that I was doing it because I so sure that
it was going to fall apart at any point and
I didn't want to jinx it or anything like that,
so I didn't even let anybody know that it was
happening until after I had done it.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
So New York was one that you got excited about.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Yeah, yeah, who's.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Someone you want Tom York if you can call him
up for me.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
I'll call Tom York. If you call Humfrey Bogart.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Deal, would you want Tom York?
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Absolutely. I mean Radiohead is another one that was on
that list.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Who's someone who their musicianship impressed you. You really were
amazed by their musician ship.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Oh so I just did an episode that you know,
this is just recency bias, but I just put out
an episode with the Mexican artist Silvana Astrada, and there's
a moment where I, you know, isolate just her vocals,
and her vocal take is just stunning. I just listened
to it over and over again, the way that she
can sing. She did this thing where she's holding out
(30:58):
such a long note and doing all the kind of
you know, Seraph's calligraphic kind of moves with her voice
as she goes through the note, and then somehow at
the end she ramps up and like crescendo's to the
end of the note instead of it just sort of
like dying out. And it's like a level of musicality
and musical instinct but also physical control, like there's an
(31:20):
athleticism to be able to do that. Everything about that.
It just blew me away, and I feel like I
get to encounter something like that pretty regularly in the show.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Let's take some questions.
Speaker 6 (31:30):
Hi, I'm glad you brought up classical music. I used
to writ about class music and I love classical music.
I know that you did some stuff with the Toronto
Symphony Orchestra, like the Symphony Exploder, and I know you've
done stuff with Steve Reisch. What are the particular challenges
of doing classical this format with classical music and do
you have plans to do any of that in the future.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Well, I think Steve Reisch was a wonderful opportunity because
not only do I love his music, he's alive and
so because the show is primarily about the idea of
telling the story from the creator's perspective. With most classical music,
that's not possible. With the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, you know,
the music director and conductor sort of stood in place
(32:07):
for Stravinsky talking about his interpretation of Stravinsky. It was
a really special experience and it was a different.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Kind of excercisies on Netflix.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
This was a live event that I did with the
Toronto Symphony orchestra.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Where is that available?
Speaker 2 (32:20):
It wasn't filmed. It was just an event that happened,
But I think it was interesting. But it felt like
it's a different idea than what song splitter.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Is anybody else here? Do we see anybody right over there?
What's your favorite acting performance of all time? Oh? For me,
favorite movie performance?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Can I say one that sticks in my head forever?
One line reading is in stateon Maine after the car accident,
the car flips over. You get out of there and
you say.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
So that happened. Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
No, But I mean movies are very ephemeral. They don't
really stick to you. You do movies and the movie
comes on TV and you're sitting there watching it, like
you're in your kitchen. It's two o'clock in the morning.
A movie comes on, you're in and literally the scene
comes on and you go, I remember that day, That's
when I had that accident in the Ventura Freeway. Remember
what happened in your life, in and around. But the
scenes themselves are not as indelible as when you do
(33:09):
in the theater.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
And in the theater, when you.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Do a play, especially if it's a good play and
you work at it, you wind up going to the
same show years later with your friends, and you ruined
the play for them. But you lean over and go,
I didn't do.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
It that way.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
We have the one right here in the foreground. You
stand up, Please.
Speaker 7 (33:26):
Question for your guest.
Speaker 8 (33:27):
So I, my daughter was then nine years old, do
a lipa episode like love Again? Was the song you
did and the symphony, But we were surprised that was
the song that was chosen. How was the song chosen?
Sometimes they weren't the most notable song for the performer.
How did you agree to choose the.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Song for that show, for that episode specifically.
Speaker 8 (33:46):
Or any of them, but that episode?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean normally for any episode, it's sort
of a it's a conversation between myself and the artists,
usually facilitated by a publicist. You know where I'm asking
for which is the song that has the story that's
the most emotionally significant to them, because I think it
would be easy for a story about the process of
a song to simply be like technical And for me,
(34:12):
it's a chance to have a little miniature biography, tiny
little portrait of an artist, and we're looking through the
song to find that. So not all songs provide that
some songs are really revealing of someone's process but also
who they are and you know, how their brain works,
and so by trying to narrow it to something that
(34:33):
feels like they have a lot to say and it
really meant something to them, then usually it's a more
compelling episode. Oftentimes, you know, the label will say, hey,
we want you to do the latest single, and you know,
and so sometimes you know, I can counter with that,
and sometimes it's the same song.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Tell me about the cooking show, talk about that.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, So I made a show called Home Cooking with
my friend Samin Nosrat, who is an incredible acclaimed cook
book author and chef. She wrote Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,
you know, which was a huge bestseller, and then there
was a Netflix show based on that that was also
a huge hit. Samin got called like the modern Julia Child. That's,
you know, she's really like humanizes and introduces people to
(35:14):
cooking in a very gentle and loving way. We became
friends by chance, you know, in twenty seventeen, and then
when the pandemic hit, suddenly everybody was in lockdown and
pandemic and everybody's relationship to eating changed because now there
were no restaurants available for that, you know, first week
of Lockdown, I was like, I don't know how long
this is going to go, but people are feeling like me,
(35:37):
and you know, there's so much uncertainty. And I had
been asking to me about a podcast previously, but then
I said, hey, is this the moment where you know
we can make a podcast where you can help people
answer their questions. You know, we would come back from
the grocery stores with such strange carts, you know, like
whatever was left on the shelf. It's like, well, I'm
(35:58):
trying a bean. I've never heard of you, but that
I have six cans of it? What do I do
with it? Could you help answer these kinds of questions?
And so she said yes, and so in March of
twenty twenty, we we were like, we'll just do this
like special series. What out four episodes and then you know,
this will blow over, and but we'll have provided some
fun and something, you know, while people are feeling lonely
(36:18):
and scared, here's something nice. And then of course the
things continued, and so then we made more episodes, and
then things continued, and then we made more episodes and
so and then we just and then we took a break,
and then we just made another season this year.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Anybody else, We have a couple more questions here.
Speaker 7 (36:33):
Hi, I have a question about celebrity for both of you.
The game now celebrities, I guess Rishiakisha, I'm curious. You
know you're talking to all of these extremely huge stars.
Do you find yourself feeling like a fan or has
that like changed over time because you talked to so
many people? But how do you see them as people?
And then question for Alec like do you feel like
(36:55):
there's sort of an obstacle because you're so famous in
connecting with people, like if you're out the world?
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Is that?
Speaker 7 (37:01):
I'm curious about your experience of celebrity as well.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
I'm sorry we're out of time. You go ahead to
be ahead.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Well, I think that my I'm so concerned with making
sure that the show feels like a professional experience for
everyone and that like I can get a good show
in the limited time that I have with someone, that
that overcomes any possibility of you know, fanboying or something
like that. Because sort of related to the previous question
(37:28):
about making someone feel comfortable, I think if you come
in with too much starstruck energy. It puts people in
the opposite place, or at least not the right place
where I want them, which is to feel relaxed. And
like you said, you know, just like have their guard down.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
You've got to convince them you're not to get them. Yes, well,
this is all about My show is all about appreciation.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, And I think if you can show genuine curiosity
at a deeper level than just like, oh I love
this thing, you know, then I think that also helps
people relax. So getting into that mind frame for me
is easy because I'm just trying to make the best
show possible. If it goes really well and the interview
(38:08):
is over, then I can sort of say, you know,
if they're happy, then I can say, by the way,
I've loved everything you've made, and you know, here's a
story about how I first got into your work or
something like that. But only if it goes well, and
only at the end, do we.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Have one more question before we go, because I have
another last one for you.
Speaker 9 (38:24):
Hi.
Speaker 10 (38:24):
I'm a big fan of Perfume Genius and I loved
your episode with them, but I wanted to ask, is
there an episode that you felt like really helped an
artist kind of level up their audience, or if it's
an older song, sort of like helped introduce it to
a new audience or generation.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
I wouldn't presume to try and answer for an artist
in terms of, you know, what an episode of the
podcast has done for them. I will say one thing
that was really nice was I did an episode with
Dan Wilson from the band Semi Sonic about Closing Time,
and you know, it's such a famous song, but I
think most people didn't know the real backstory behind it.
And after that episode came out, he was very kind
(39:05):
about it, and he said that he got more messages
from people listening to that episode and reacting to it
him personally than any other thing that he had done.
And you know, I think people were really moved by
his story. It's not my story, it's his story. You know.
I can't really claim any credit for it, but I
think that was something that was really nice where it's
(39:25):
not like that song needed any help in terms of
its popularity, but to be able to give Dana platform
to say, like, this is what the song is really about.
That was special.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Musician and podcaster Wishy Cash hereway, if you're enjoying this conversation,
tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the
Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get
your podcasts. When we come back, here Way shares how
he came to score the CNN documentary Our Nixon. I'm
(40:11):
Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. In addition
to creating award winning podcasts and recording multiple albums, Bashi
Cash Hereway as also a composer for film and TV.
He scored his first film, Save the Date, in twenty twelve.
A year later, an opportunity came to score the CNN
(40:32):
documentary Our Nixon. I wanted to know how here Way
went from the indie music and film scene to scoring
a CNN documentary.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
It's directed by a wonderful director named Penny Lane. It's
a real name, and it's all archival material except for
the score. She gathered the home movies of the Nixon
cabinet members. These eight millimeters home movies that they had
made while working for Nixon had been confiscated by the FBI,
and they sat undeveloped for decades, and then they got
(41:04):
declassified and in the world of like archivist nerds. These
were kind of like a holy Grail, and then they
came out and then they developed them. And her idea
was that these guys are the biggest villains in American
political history at the time, this is twenty thirteen. These
guys were the biggest villains in American political history. But
nobody's a villain in their own home movies. So what
(41:26):
does that look like and what happens if you try
and tell the story as seen through their eyes? And
I had seen a short film of hers called The Voyagers,
which is beautiful. Also highly recommended The Voyagers about Carl
Sagan and the Voyager Mission, and it's beautiful short film.
I was just a fan. Subscribed to her newsletter. One
day she mentioned that she was working on this Nixon documentary,
(41:48):
and I said, hey, I love what you do. I
love that era of American politics. I just think it
is a movie, you know.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Like, I'm a fan of too many Oliver Stone movies.
I mean I like them, they're okay, But his film
on Nixon, Montoni Happens, that's an amazing film.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
That just shattered me.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yeah, I mean, well, all the president's men, you know,
it's just I think that's probably part of the reason
why I love the story too. So I just said,
you're working on this documentary, do you have a composer?
Do you need a composer? Can I audition? How can
I work on this with you? And she wrote back
and said, no, we don't have a composer. But you know,
she didn't know we'd never met, so I had to audition.
I like wrote some music based on the idea of
(42:29):
what I thought the film was going to be.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
You're the poster boy for doesn't hurt to ask? Yeah,
that's your life. Doesn't hurt to ask? I wanted to
ask you two silly questions. I can't help myself.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
I'm sorry. What's your favorite food?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Cookies? Chocolate chip cookies?
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Okay? Really, well, Connor, what brand of cookie?
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Well? Here in New York there's the Jacques Torres Chalcosh cookie,
which is kind of I feel like, so fancy cookies. Yes, yeah, yeah,
no girls no, girls Scout cookie. No, I want the
New York Yankees of cookie where it's like they've spent
so much money on all the ingredients, Yeah, to make
it the best thing. That's yeah, that's what about food?
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Like a meal?
Speaker 2 (43:07):
A meal? I mean it's a cliche, but you know
my my mom was a great cook and I would
give anything to have her cooking again.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Let's have a round up a pause from my guest,
my thanks to Rishi Cash, Hairway and the on air fest.
I'll leave you with the latest single, roller Coaster, from
(43:34):
his new album in the Last Hour of Light. I'm
Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing that's brought to you by
iHeart Radio.
Speaker 4 (43:43):
Out on Cattarina. There's a hundred buffalo pending by the ocean.
The only now.
Speaker 9 (43:56):
Did they do my great names?
Speaker 4 (44:00):
They breathe in the salting? Can you miss the places
you're meant to be? If you earnther?
Speaker 2 (44:08):
The Does it go?
Speaker 3 (44:11):
And?
Speaker 9 (44:13):
And what if this goes on?
Speaker 4 (44:18):
And? And caught myself staring into nothing much at all,
past the fair ground, the graveyard, the empty shopping mall.
I drove till the road and they didn't, Uh Cody
(44:42):
Beach about the distance between me and everything that's out
of each Does it go?
Speaker 9 (44:52):
And? And what if this goes on?
Speaker 4 (44:58):
And and? On a road the cold stir a ride
upper gains seal that sky.
Speaker 9 (45:15):
What if this goes on and and.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
What if this goes on, and dope, and.
Speaker 9 (45:42):
What if this goes on and and so what if
this goes on and.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
And what if this goes on and
Speaker 4 (46:00):
And don
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from iHeart Radio. Few people illuminate the art of
music and storytelling like my guest today, Rishi Kish Hereway
didn't set out to become one of the biggest podcasters
in the world, but that's precisely what happened when he
created the Song Exploder podcast in twenty fourteen. In addition
(00:27):
to podcast host, Hereway is a composer, record producer, and artist.
His latest album, In the Last Hour of Light, will
be released April twenty fourth. Along with Song Exploder, Hereway
is the creator of the podcast partners The West Wing
Weekly and the award winning Home Cooking with Chef and
(00:48):
co host Samine Nosrats. As a composer, Hereway has penned
the scores for feature films and documentaries, a Netflix TV series,
and a video game. His music has appeared on hit
TV shows like Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill. Here
Way has a gift for tapping into the cultural zeitgeist
(01:10):
and drawing out the creative spark from some of the
world's best musicians. I asked Rishie to be my guest
for a live taping at The Wife Hotel in Brooklyn
for on AirFest. Growing up in an Indian household, I
was curious how Hereway's childhood shaped his cultural world view
and how we first connected with music.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, I have an older sister, Priya, and she's five
years older than me, So I really inherited so much
of my taste from her, and that basically meant listening
to top forty radio. You know, she went to school
and she found out what was cool from other friends,
and so we just listened to whatever she was listening to.
The first time that I got to actually make music
(01:52):
choices of my own was when she got a Columbia
House subscription. You know, you send in a penny and
they send you back eight cassettes, and she very generous
origin Yeah exactly. Yeah, she generously allowed me to pick two.
She gave me two of her eight selections, and so
I picked Aerosmith Permanent Vacation and White Snake by White Snake.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So music is in your life and then you start
to make music. You played the piano.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I played piano growing up, Yeah, just taking piano lessons,
and then I started playing in the school band. And
then when I got to high school, I started playing
in bands.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Did you play in the school band?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Drums, keyboard? But then I was in the percussion department
and everybody else it was me and six boys who
played the drum kit, but there's only one drum kit
to share, and everybody else played either a snare drum
or a bass drum. And eventually, when everybody else went home,
I would start sitting behind the drum kit myself, and
then I got really excited about playing drums. And so
(02:49):
then in high school I started playing drums in a band.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
What were you good at?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I don't know that I was or am good at anything.
I feel like I was like pretty good at some
of the things, you know, like guitar. I played, learned
to play guitar, I learned to play piano, I learned
to play drums, and I was like okay at all
of those.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And then when do you start making music that you're
going to sell?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, I started writing my own songs at the end
of high school and then starting into the beginning of college.
Selling it was still far from my mind, but just
writing it was the first step.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Before you get into the podcast world, where a lot
of us in an in depth analysis and examination of
other people's music, which is thrilling you play music, and
when does that When do you decide that's not where
you want to go, Because at some point you start
making enough money you live off.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Of the music business.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, that's right, Yeah, describe that period. So I think
in two thousand and seven was the first year that
I felt like I could say that I made music
as my living. I'd put out an album that year,
and I produced an album for another band, and I
actually was able to pay my bills just through music.
I didn't have to have, you know, my freelance graphic
design job or temping or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
You live fairly comfortably.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I mean it was comfortable for me. That was a
pretty big milestone for me. That felt like it's hard
to grow up in an Indian household and say I
want to be a musician. And I think my parents
never understood the sort of validators that I turned to.
It would be hard to say like, hey, look this
is going okay. You know, like I could say to
(04:23):
my mom, it's an A point one on Pitchfork and
she'd be like, I know those are all words, but
I don't know what any of them mean together.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I'm glad that means something to you.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
So being able to actually like make my living from music,
that was the first way that I was able to
sort of say to my family, Look, this is this
is turning out okay.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
It was a leap of faith for them to, you know,
even just understand that this is what I was doing.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Between twenty twenty and twenty eleven, those nine years, you
released four albums.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Two thousand and twenty eleven.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, and so pick one album and tell me what's
the process of getting that made.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So I always made my music kind of like in
my bedroom wherever that was, and I would write the
songs and sort of record them as I was writing
them and sort of try and design into whatever the
song was about, adding layers, you know, one at a time,
and it would take sometimes months and sometimes years before
I felt like it was it was done, and then
(05:21):
once I had enough of them for an album, then
that would be the album. It took a very long time,
and I would sometimes bring other people in, but for
the most part I tried to do as much of
it on my own.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Hurry down on dirty Yeah, and then when it's old
together the elements are together, where do you take it
who do you take it to?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, the first couple albums came out on like a
punk rock label, even though the music wasn't punk rock.
I kind of came up in a sort of we
need content. I came up listening to punk, and a
lot of my friends who were in bands played in
punk bands, and so that was kind of my community.
I would play like these basement punk shows as the
weird outlier, you know, just just a sad boy with
(05:59):
a guitar in between these screamy bands. But because of
that I got to meet some folks, including someone who
had a record label who said, I like your records
and I'd like to put them out, and so I
did that for a first couple and then when I
moved to La I signed with like an independent label
based there.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Your new album is called in the Last Hour of
Late and when's it coming out?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
It comes out in April.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
This is your piece at you all the eight tracks,
ten tracks, whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
No, So this one is very different from how I
used to make music. For this one, I sort of
went the completely opposite direction, and it's recorded live with
the band and sort of in a much more kind
of classic way, went into a studio, played with some
amazing musicians and taught them the songs in the morning,
and then we'd work on the arrangement and then we'd
record it, and then we'd break for lunch and then
(06:46):
do another song in the afternoon.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
The Beatles would say that, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
The Beatles would say, we would go into the studio
and we'd record four songs in the morning. Then they go,
he goes, then we go have a cigarette and it
pints and maybe some fish and chips, that we record
four songs in the afternoon. Yeah, they make an album
in a day.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, Well I had seven days and it was so
completely contrary to how I had worked the rest of
my music making life. I said to the producer Phil Weinrob,
I said, this is crazy. This is a crazy way
to make music. And he said no, actually, most music
in the history of recorded music was made this way.
The way that you've been making it is crazy.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
So in your music.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Career pre Song Exploder, I'm assuming that One Tree Hill
and Gossip Girl that came before Song Exploder.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yes, how do you get your music?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
The thing about you was it seems like every door
just opens to you. You know, how do you get
your music in front of the one Tree Hill people.
Gossip World was a huge hit. How do you get
in front of them?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I mean, especially in those days, in the sort of
heyday of indie music on TV, you know, kind of
like two thousand and five to twenty ten or so,
it was really wonderful because there were a lot of
shows on TV. TV still existed, music budgets still existed,
and they would actively have this mission to put cool
(08:07):
music in shows. And so there were music supervisors who'd
be actively looking for something that they liked to include.
And I got very lucky the label that I was on,
they had folks who would send the music to music
supervisors and yeah they were so they were were always
looking for music. Yeah, yeah, and they'd be putting you know,
they put out twenty four episodes of Gossip Girl and
(08:28):
then have like five or six songs in each episode.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
So the first thing I want to ask you is,
per song explorer, how do you get the rights to
the music? Oh, even when we do the show and
we want heavy with music, we struggle. We think the
artists is on our side and they're going to help us,
and it's like, are the people that have the rights.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
No, Yeah, the artist has no power or very little power. Occasionally, Yeah, well,
I work with a wonderful woman named Kathleen Smith who
has been working with me since twenty fifteen, and she
goes and knocks on all the doors and asks everybody
you know, would you please sign this piece of paper
that says we can use this song with song Exploder.
(09:06):
It's a little bit different, I think than other uses
because it's not like the music is scoring some other content.
The music is the content. You know, we're telling the
story of this song.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Gotta have it your license.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, I'm wondering you check out the right situation prior
to the show. They don't come on unless you're all
clear with the music.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
At this point, we sort of hope in you know,
feel like we've got relationships enough that like we can
tape the interview and the end as we're working on
the licensing at the same time, but we won't put
it out till it's all cleared.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Song Exploder whose idea was that it.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Was, you know, something that kind of had percolated over
a very long time, just the idea of trying to
make something that felt closer to what the music making
process was as I had experienced it. You know, I
would listen to or read interviews with artists that I admire,
and the interviews always felt like they were very big picture,
Like the interviewers would ask big picture questions and the
(10:04):
guests would answer in big picture answers. But I felt
like the creative process is so much more about the
inch by inch journey. You know, every single small creative
decision that gets made is really what shapes both the
final product and the experience. And I thought it would
be really fascinating if people could get inside that process
(10:25):
and hear what a song sounds like from the perspective
of someone who made it. Also, I wanted to kind
of circumvent the idea of a critic being the only
way into how a song could be thought of and
kind of re establish the idea of an author's intention.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
How did you develop the skill to help them unravel
the song?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Well, I think it helps to have someone ask questions
from a sort of empathetic position, you know, like I
tried to bring the kinds of questions that I was
trying to answer to the questions that I would be
posing to them. And part of the reason why I
used to cut myself out of the show entirely was
because I had never interviewed anybody, and I didn't want
(11:09):
to reveal myself to be the amateur that I was,
And I thought it would sound much more professional if
it just felt like a story being told from the
perspective of the artist. The reason it changed in the
Netflix show is because I got that idea that, you know,
the sort of non narrated thing which exists in so
much radio, But I got it from watching documentary films.
(11:29):
In the best documentary films, you just see the cameras on,
you know, close up on the subject, and they're telling
their story. You don't hear an interviewer. Sometimes you might
hear them off camera, but it's never about the two
of them. So I wanted my show to feel legitimate,
even though I was making it from my bedroom or
my garage. I wanted it to seem like, oh, elevated,
(11:50):
So let me make it like these documentaries. When we
went to make the Netflix show, I was talking to
the executive producer, Morgan Neville, who himself is an Oscar
winning documentarium four twenty Free from Stardom.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
We played that at the Hampton Film festal law summer time.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, amazing movie, amazing. So I was telling him, you know,
this is my reason for why I shouldn't be in
the show. We should keep the same kind of format
for the Netflix show. And he argued that it wasn't special.
Now we're basically going into the documentary format and the
thing that I was pulling for a podcast that had
felt special is not going to be special once you
(12:27):
return it to the original source. And he said, what
would be much more interesting and intimate? Because I was
saying I kept saying the word intimacy, it was felt
more intimate to just have the first person narrative from
the guest. He said, well, I think what would be
more intimate is to see the two of you having
a conversation.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I agree, you're so unattractive, that's the problem. I mean,
you should be on camera.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
And he said, well, look, let's shoot something. We'll put
one camera on the subject and if you decide that's all.
You know, you just want to do that, fine, but
let me also put a camera on you and let's
try it. You know, would you be game.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
For That'd you like it?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
It was stressful? And then in the edit, you know,
I kept on trying to cut out any kind of
reaction shots or anything like that. I was like, no,
it's it's distracting. It's but a lot of the time
what the directors or the editors were trying to bring
in were moments of real human interaction as opposed to
something too antiseptic and clean. But for me, I felt like,
(13:25):
oh clean was that's that's what I want. I wanted
to feel like my goal of the podcast. I wanted
to feel like it was just this beautifully made sculpture
where you couldn't see any seams and if you see
me laughing, or you see us like have this moment
of dialogue where you hear my question, doesn't that break
up the dream? I want the show to feel like
a dream and I don't want someone to wake up
in the middle. And they said, no, those moments are
(13:49):
real human interaction and that's actually something really wonderful to see,
and they all basically agreed, and at a certain point
I said, Okay, if you all think this and I'm
the only one on the other side, then like maybe
I just need to let it go. But it was
it was tough.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
We had people on our show over the years who
if you let it breathe if I can get in there,
because in the beginning I was very very hands on
trying to push them towards where I wanted them to go.
And when you come on and you just let it
happen and people are in the mood to talk to you.
We've had number a number of shows, but I like
in Name three, one was Tom Yorke. Tom Yorke came on.
I'm like, what the hell am I going to say
(14:25):
to this Guy's gonna be interesting to him. He doesn't
give a shit about me, He'd probably don't even know me.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And I'm sitting there talking to Tom York And it
was great.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It was heaven because he was he was in the
mood to talk. We did Nck Fleetwood, he was in
the mood to talk. We did Letterman. Letterman came and
even his own staff like had their hand over their mouth.
They couldn't believe what he was saying because he was
talking about how he was like, you know, he goes
how I was miserable. Well, I did was work, I
did have any kids, did have a family. Everything was work.
But he was really very very self disclosing, you know,
(14:54):
in that way where the conversation works of people just
flows now where we were talking about something like this
like Somebody is historic, you know, popular song.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Do you think that makes it easier for you?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
It certainly makes it easier for me because they know
what the parameters of the story is going to be.
And I think it also allows me to probe in
other parts because if they're talking about something that where
they're very comfortable, they're talking about their artistry. You know,
we're listening to stems and they're talking about the very
direct answer to a question of how did you make this?
(15:25):
I can then start to veer into well why did
you make this? And if I had started that way
and I didn't have the stems and I didn't have
the song to talk about and just said, you know,
out of the blue, hey why did you write this lyric?
They might clam up, or they might you know, have
a different kind of reaction. But I think the familiarity
of the material and the small parameter of just let's
talk about this one song, let's get deep in that
(15:47):
one song, it helps them open up. And you know,
musicians can be tougher interviews because they they speak through
their music exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Yeah, And they're not really that articulate.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
In terms of interviews about the music. They're really just
play it. I don't want to talk about it. I
don't want to do it, ye know. And I've come
across that from time to time.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Can I say one thing, by the way, But so
the Letterman interview, if it's the one that I'm thinking of.
You did a Letterman interview in December of twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
My god, that's uncanny.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It was important to me in a few different ways.
One because I had not interviewed people I was trying
to absorb. At this point, I had, you know, I
had the concept for the show. I'd made one episode
as a sort of pilot, and then I was like, okay,
I'm going to do this. I was trying to learn
as much as I could about interviewing from just taking
it in from other sources. And here's the thing is
(16:37):
one of the shows that I turned to. And the
other thing was I had never spoken into a mic before,
and i'd sung, but I hadn't recorded myself. And I
was like, well, how do I do this? And so
I launched the show in January of twenty fourteen. As
I was getting ready for that that episode that you did,
the last episode I think of twenty thirteen around that
(16:57):
it was a Letterman interview. I listened to that and
tried to, you know, learn what I could about interviewing.
But also I tried to learn how to set my
microphone to sound like your voice. I was like, how
do I emulate something like that? And so I was
fiddling with my EQ settings on my microphone.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
When you say that, it's interesting because it's to get
out of your own way to some guests come, they're
not in the mood to talk. You know, we do
the video now. I never wanted to do the video.
One of the first shows we did was Kathleen Turner
early on years ago, and Kathleen Turner comes in.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I called her on the phone and she.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Goes, oh baby.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
She goes, so I have to is it on camera?
Is it on?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Are you doing the video with this thing? And I
go she goes, thank god, I can just come in
a ponytail, in my sweats and like every woman to
be perfectly honest. It's mostly the actresses and public figures
who are women are like, thank I don't have to
get ready and fill right, I have to do my hair,
on my makeup, with my clothes and so forth.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Do you find that when you're doing an interview now
on camera that the responses you get are different, Like
people can port themselves different than knowing that they're on camming.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
That people who were professional public figures, they got it down.
We've been in front of cameras in all of our lives.
Now talk about West Wing? How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, So from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty, mainly I
made a podcast called The West Wing Weekly with my
friend Joshua Molina, who is an actor who was on
the West Wing, and we did about a hunt, you know,
one episode for every episode of the show, plus some
bonus episodes. I stole Zach McNeice. Zach came and mixed
our show. I posted a thing saying I'm looking for
(18:34):
someone to help me with the show, and he wrote
back and I saw here's a thing was on his CV,
and I said, well, I already have the settings as
close to what I think you've done, so here you go.
So I met josh It goes way back. Actually, when
I had was graduating college, I thought I wanted to
move to la because I wanted to make music for films.
(18:56):
I wanted to score films. But I had no idea
how one that. I had no idea how you I
grew up in Massachusetts, moving to LA seemed inconceivable, let alone,
how do you find a job in Hollywood? And I
was at Yell and I thought, I was like, this
isn't even the kind of college where, like, you know,
people come out of here that where there's no old
boys network, you know, where someone can say like, hey,
(19:18):
I want to get a job at Goldman Sachs. Oh,
you know, I know the Shrafts.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Anymore, you can hang out at the counter, right.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And then I had mentioned I had started watching again
through my sister's taste. I started watching Sports Night, Aaron
Sorkin's first TV show, and my friend said, well, you
know Josh Molina he went here, he went to Yell.
And I said, really, I know that I love that character.
I love that actor, you know.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And you didn't know him.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I didn't know him.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
No.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
And then months later I was living in Massachusetts. I
was working at you know, at a day job and
dreaming of this dream to get to LA. And one
night I looked up Josh's name on you know, this
is before Google. I looked it up on whatever alta
Vista or something ask Jeeves, and I found he had
a website. He had his own personal website with his
(20:06):
headshot and his resume and an email address. So I
clicked on it and I just sent him an email saying,
you know, dear Josh, we don't know each other. I've
just recently graduated. I'm trying to figure out how how
does one get to make music for films. I don't
know if you have any advice for someone like me,
but like, thanks, I fan hope to hear from you.
(20:27):
I was considering trying to move to LA or moved
to New York. New York was much easier, and I
had a lot of friends who were moving on why
easier geographically and easier, Yeah, and I knew people there,
and it just it felt daunting but much less daunting.
And I thought, well, I do know that there are
films that get made in New York. Maybe I can
skate by if I do that. Josh wrote back and
(20:49):
said he's like, look, I I'm not in that side
of things. I play cards with some composers, but my
senses in general is generally, if you want to do
stuff in films, you got to be here in LA
And I said, okay, thank you very much. I moved
to New York because I was just I was too
scared of her form.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, you're gonna flush that Yale degree down the toilet somehow.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah. And then I tried New York for a while.
It was hard in other ways and it just didn't
didn't end up working out for me and that. But
then I did move to LA about a year later.
And when I got there, I wrote to Josh and said, hey,
thank you so much for the advice. Here I am.
His email no longer worked, and I was like, well
that was that. And I slowly, you know, I found
(21:32):
a job as an assistant to a composer. I was
making my own records. I started, you know, just trying
to do music however I could. And then in twenty twelve,
I finally had my first feature film that I had scored,
went to Sun Dance, which was what it was called
Save the Date, directed by my friend Michael Mohan and
starring Alison Brie and Allison Brie. Alison Brie and.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
You wrote music for you. You did the score for
the whole film.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, I wrote the score and I wrote a song for.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
He asked you to come or you've pitched yourself to well.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
He had originally written a song of mine that I
had written into the script. One of the characters played
by Jeffrey Aaron was a songwriter and he and he
had written in the script a song of mine that
already existed, and then he was like, well, maybe is
that he sent it to me and he said, is
that weird that he's he's like writing a song, but
it's your song? And I said, yeah, maybe a little bit.
And he said, well, would you write a new song
(22:22):
for it? And I said yeah. So originally it was
just that write a song for the movie, but then
they asked me to score it as well. So I
went to Sundance and it was so exciting and I
met all these people, and then afterwards I was on Twitter,
back when Twitter was a nice place to be, and
I was just looking at like sort of Sundance chatter
and looking at movies that I'd seen, because one of
(22:44):
the great things about going was you know, you get
a pass and you can see just like everything, and
I saw I think like fourteen movies you know, and
I was just looking at seeing what people were talking about.
And in the conversation, josh Molina had replied to somebody
who you know I'd been looking at, and josh Molina
replied to him, and I was like, josh Molina, hey,
and I forgot that, like social media was a thing that,
(23:07):
you know, was a way that you could try and
reach people. And I clicked on his name and then
he had a link to his Facebook page and I
clicked on that, and then I sent him a message
and I said, hey, you might not remember this, but
over a decade ago, you gave me this advice, come
to LA if you want to score films. Well, it
took me a long time to do it, but I
didn't and I just scored my first film. And could
I take you out to lunch to say thank you?
(23:29):
And he wrote back the next day and said, as
an out of work actor, I make it a point
never to say no to a free lunch. And so
we met up and we just hit it off and
had a great time, and we later ended up making
a pilot for a game show, an idea that I
had tried to do as a live thing, and then
(23:50):
he participated.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
What was the game show? I read about this.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
So I had done this charity event called Celebrity Celebrity.
Do you know the game Celebrity. Imagine two teams and
there's a bold of names in the middle and people
have put in names of famous people and you might
pull it out and without saying the name of the person.
It was first this charity game, I said, let's raise money.
Let's what if it was celebrity celebrity celebrities instead of
(24:13):
just being the names of the bowl actually playing. Wouldn't
that be fun? And it was really fun.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
You did it?
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I did it.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Were some of your celebrity guests.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
So Josh was the captain of one team and on
his team was Sarah Silverman, Michael Ian Black, Rob Delaney.
There was another team with Martin Starr, Aubrey Plaza, Aleah.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Shashit good real comic talents.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
What happened?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
It was wonderful. And the curtain came down and I said, Josh,
thanks so much. I was like, I think there might
be something here and he said, I think so too.
And Josh, besides being on the Western Heat executive produced
Celebrity Poker Showdown, he'd co created that show, and so
I said, do you want to try and see if
this is something that could we could do for TV
with me? And he said yes, and so we pitched
(24:53):
it and we sold it. We got a we did
a pilot. We had Mike Leean Black hosting it, and
we had the cast of The West Wing versus the
cast of Scandal, two shows that Josh had been on,
and it was really fun. And then the network that
we sold it to got sold to another network and
somewhere in the shuffle between executives and things like that,
we got lost, and we were just waiting. And so
(25:15):
this was in twenty fourteen. We shot the pilot. Meanwhile
I started making song Exploder, and a year later, we're
still waiting to hear what's going to happen with the
game show with the Game Show, and eventually I said
to Josh, I said, hey, do you want to just
try making a podcast with me? Because I'm really enjoying
this format and it feels closer to the sort of
the punk rock thing that I came up with, which
(25:37):
is like we can just do it ourselves. We don't
have to ask permission, we don't need gatekeepers. Let us
do it. Yeah, we can just do it.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And this was a west wink and.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
This was about and I said, look, I've been very polite.
I have not peppered you with all of my questions
about the West Wing right, but we could do you
know this kind of There were some shows that existed
where people would go episode by episode, but none of
them at that time had someone from the show as
one of the hosts. It would take some of the
song exploder DNA of having someone who is intimately involved
(26:06):
with the creation of the thing telling the story.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
The thing with West Wing, I always view Sorkin. I
worked with him very guarded, very guarded guy, brilliant, but
very close to the vest. And I thought to myself,
what was it like working with him?
Speaker 3 (26:19):
And he did? I think I was told three episodes
of your show, correct.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I think even maybe more than that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
More than that.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Was it tough to lure him in or not?
Speaker 4 (26:26):
No?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
It was actually really he was always so game and
incredibly generous with his time. And you know, one time
we did a live taping in San Francisco. It was
for the finale of season three, and we were like,
would you please come? We had this possibility of doing
this and it's such a significant episode. And we said,
you know, could you come, We will fly you out,
you know, we'll fly you first class, Like what can
we do to get you? And he said, how about this,
(26:50):
I'll fly myself out and whatever you were going to
spend on the plane ticket, let's pick a charity and
you can give it to that or something like. He
just took care of of his own stuff. He's like,
he has don't need to spend money on me. And
it was so kind. And then, you know, I think
for him, we're just talking about everything that we loved
about the show and asking him questions. So I think
(27:11):
for him it was nice. I hope it was nice.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Musician and podcaster Rishi Cash here way. If you enjoy
conversations with creative innovators whose talents extend beyond music, check
out my episode with Julian Lennon.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
One of the really important things that happened to me
in my relationship with photography and the images was that
I would have people write to me, people that couldn't
financially afford to travel the world or go anywhere, couldn't
or were disabled and couldn't travel the world or go anywhere.
And what they had all said to me is that
(27:50):
you bring these stories to us, you bring the truth,
You bring life to us of cultures that we would
never necessarily know anything about.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
To hear more of my conversation with Julian Lennon, go
to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Hereway
shares the guest he was most excited to have on
song Exploder and one whom he would like to interview
in the future. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's
(28:30):
the Thing. Rishie Kish Hereway created song Exploder in twenty fourteen.
Since then, it has received critical acclaim, won many awards,
and was recently named by Time as one of the
one hundred best podcasts of all time. This year, here
Way will be presented with the twenty twenty six iHeartMedia
(28:52):
Innovator Award for his visionary approach to storytelling. Guests on
song Exploder have ranged from you Yo Yoma to Madonna,
from Billie Eilish to Metallica. Having interviewed so many music legends,
I was curious if there was one particular artist that
he was most excited to interview.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
When I first started the show, you know, I had
a few ideas of like the kind of artist that
would be a dream to have on you know, the
kind of people where their artistry is exceptional and also
mysterious to me. And one of those that small list
was Buyork. And so she did the show twenty sixteen.
So I had been doing it for two years and
(29:33):
that was just incredible. I couldn't believe that she got
to do it, and she was in London at the time,
so I had to wake up at five in the morning,
did the interview over the phone. She had somebody, you know,
like remote sinking her recording, and that was I couldn't
believe it. My wife afterwards, you know, when she woke up,
she's like, why did you get up so early? I said,
I had to interview Byorke and she's like, you what.
(29:56):
She also loves Beork and I hadn't even told her
that I was doing it because I so sure that
it was going to fall apart at any point and
I didn't want to jinx it or anything like that,
so I didn't even let anybody know that it was
happening until after I had done it.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
So New York was one that you got excited about.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Yeah, yeah, who's.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Someone you want Tom York if you can call him
up for me.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
I'll call Tom York. If you call Humfrey Bogart.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Deal, would you want Tom York?
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Absolutely. I mean Radiohead is another one that was on
that list.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Who's someone who their musicianship impressed you. You really were
amazed by their musician ship.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Oh so I just did an episode that you know,
this is just recency bias, but I just put out
an episode with the Mexican artist Silvana Astrada, and there's
a moment where I, you know, isolate just her vocals,
and her vocal take is just stunning. I just listened
to it over and over again, the way that she
can sing. She did this thing where she's holding out
(30:58):
such a long note and doing all the kind of
you know, Seraph's calligraphic kind of moves with her voice
as she goes through the note, and then somehow at
the end she ramps up and like crescendo's to the
end of the note instead of it just sort of
like dying out. And it's like a level of musicality
and musical instinct but also physical control, like there's an
(31:20):
athleticism to be able to do that. Everything about that.
It just blew me away, and I feel like I
get to encounter something like that pretty regularly in the show.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Let's take some questions.
Speaker 6 (31:30):
Hi, I'm glad you brought up classical music. I used
to writ about class music and I love classical music.
I know that you did some stuff with the Toronto
Symphony Orchestra, like the Symphony Exploder, and I know you've
done stuff with Steve Reisch. What are the particular challenges
of doing classical this format with classical music and do
you have plans to do any of that in the future.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Well, I think Steve Reisch was a wonderful opportunity because
not only do I love his music, he's alive and
so because the show is primarily about the idea of
telling the story from the creator's perspective. With most classical music,
that's not possible. With the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, you know,
the music director and conductor sort of stood in place
(32:07):
for Stravinsky talking about his interpretation of Stravinsky. It was
a really special experience and it was a different.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Kind of excercisies on Netflix.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
This was a live event that I did with the
Toronto Symphony orchestra.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Where is that available?
Speaker 2 (32:20):
It wasn't filmed. It was just an event that happened,
But I think it was interesting. But it felt like
it's a different idea than what song splitter.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Is anybody else here? Do we see anybody right over there?
What's your favorite acting performance of all time? Oh? For me,
favorite movie performance?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Can I say one that sticks in my head forever?
One line reading is in stateon Maine after the car accident,
the car flips over. You get out of there and
you say.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
So that happened. Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
No, But I mean movies are very ephemeral. They don't
really stick to you. You do movies and the movie
comes on TV and you're sitting there watching it, like
you're in your kitchen. It's two o'clock in the morning.
A movie comes on, you're in and literally the scene
comes on and you go, I remember that day, That's
when I had that accident in the Ventura Freeway. Remember
what happened in your life, in and around. But the
scenes themselves are not as indelible as when you do
(33:09):
in the theater.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
And in the theater, when you.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Do a play, especially if it's a good play and
you work at it, you wind up going to the
same show years later with your friends, and you ruined
the play for them. But you lean over and go,
I didn't do.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
It that way.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
We have the one right here in the foreground. You
stand up, Please.
Speaker 7 (33:26):
Question for your guest.
Speaker 8 (33:27):
So I, my daughter was then nine years old, do
a lipa episode like love Again? Was the song you
did and the symphony, But we were surprised that was
the song that was chosen. How was the song chosen?
Sometimes they weren't the most notable song for the performer.
How did you agree to choose the.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Song for that show, for that episode specifically.
Speaker 8 (33:46):
Or any of them, but that episode?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean normally for any episode, it's sort
of a it's a conversation between myself and the artists,
usually facilitated by a publicist. You know where I'm asking
for which is the song that has the story that's
the most emotionally significant to them, because I think it
would be easy for a story about the process of
a song to simply be like technical And for me,
(34:12):
it's a chance to have a little miniature biography, tiny
little portrait of an artist, and we're looking through the
song to find that. So not all songs provide that
some songs are really revealing of someone's process but also
who they are and you know, how their brain works,
and so by trying to narrow it to something that
(34:33):
feels like they have a lot to say and it
really meant something to them, then usually it's a more
compelling episode. Oftentimes, you know, the label will say, hey,
we want you to do the latest single, and you know,
and so sometimes you know, I can counter with that,
and sometimes it's the same song.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Tell me about the cooking show, talk about that.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, So I made a show called Home Cooking with
my friend Samin Nosrat, who is an incredible acclaimed cook
book author and chef. She wrote Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,
you know, which was a huge bestseller, and then there
was a Netflix show based on that that was also
a huge hit. Samin got called like the modern Julia Child. That's,
you know, she's really like humanizes and introduces people to
(35:14):
cooking in a very gentle and loving way. We became
friends by chance, you know, in twenty seventeen, and then
when the pandemic hit, suddenly everybody was in lockdown and
pandemic and everybody's relationship to eating changed because now there
were no restaurants available for that, you know, first week
of Lockdown, I was like, I don't know how long
this is going to go, but people are feeling like me,
(35:37):
and you know, there's so much uncertainty. And I had
been asking to me about a podcast previously, but then
I said, hey, is this the moment where you know
we can make a podcast where you can help people
answer their questions. You know, we would come back from
the grocery stores with such strange carts, you know, like
whatever was left on the shelf. It's like, well, I'm
(35:58):
trying a bean. I've never heard of you, but that
I have six cans of it? What do I do
with it? Could you help answer these kinds of questions?
And so she said yes, and so in March of
twenty twenty, we we were like, we'll just do this
like special series. What out four episodes and then you know,
this will blow over, and but we'll have provided some
fun and something, you know, while people are feeling lonely
(36:18):
and scared, here's something nice. And then of course the
things continued, and so then we made more episodes, and
then things continued, and then we made more episodes and
so and then we just and then we took a break,
and then we just made another season this year.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Anybody else, We have a couple more questions here.
Speaker 7 (36:33):
Hi, I have a question about celebrity for both of you.
The game now celebrities, I guess Rishiakisha, I'm curious. You
know you're talking to all of these extremely huge stars.
Do you find yourself feeling like a fan or has
that like changed over time because you talked to so
many people? But how do you see them as people?
And then question for Alec like do you feel like
(36:55):
there's sort of an obstacle because you're so famous in
connecting with people, like if you're out the world?
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Is that?
Speaker 7 (37:01):
I'm curious about your experience of celebrity as well.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
I'm sorry we're out of time. You go ahead to
be ahead.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Well, I think that my I'm so concerned with making
sure that the show feels like a professional experience for
everyone and that like I can get a good show
in the limited time that I have with someone, that
that overcomes any possibility of you know, fanboying or something
like that. Because sort of related to the previous question
(37:28):
about making someone feel comfortable, I think if you come
in with too much starstruck energy. It puts people in
the opposite place, or at least not the right place
where I want them, which is to feel relaxed. And
like you said, you know, just like have their guard down.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
You've got to convince them you're not to get them. Yes, well,
this is all about My show is all about appreciation.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, And I think if you can show genuine curiosity
at a deeper level than just like, oh I love
this thing, you know, then I think that also helps
people relax. So getting into that mind frame for me
is easy because I'm just trying to make the best
show possible. If it goes really well and the interview
(38:08):
is over, then I can sort of say, you know,
if they're happy, then I can say, by the way,
I've loved everything you've made, and you know, here's a
story about how I first got into your work or
something like that. But only if it goes well, and
only at the end, do we.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Have one more question before we go, because I have
another last one for you.
Speaker 9 (38:24):
Hi.
Speaker 10 (38:24):
I'm a big fan of Perfume Genius and I loved
your episode with them, but I wanted to ask, is
there an episode that you felt like really helped an
artist kind of level up their audience, or if it's
an older song, sort of like helped introduce it to
a new audience or generation.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
I wouldn't presume to try and answer for an artist
in terms of, you know, what an episode of the
podcast has done for them. I will say one thing
that was really nice was I did an episode with
Dan Wilson from the band Semi Sonic about Closing Time,
and you know, it's such a famous song, but I
think most people didn't know the real backstory behind it.
And after that episode came out, he was very kind
(39:05):
about it, and he said that he got more messages
from people listening to that episode and reacting to it
him personally than any other thing that he had done.
And you know, I think people were really moved by
his story. It's not my story, it's his story. You know.
I can't really claim any credit for it, but I
think that was something that was really nice where it's
(39:25):
not like that song needed any help in terms of
its popularity, but to be able to give Dana platform
to say, like, this is what the song is really about.
That was special.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Musician and podcaster Wishy Cash hereway, if you're enjoying this conversation,
tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the
Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get
your podcasts. When we come back, here Way shares how
he came to score the CNN documentary Our Nixon. I'm
(40:11):
Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. In addition
to creating award winning podcasts and recording multiple albums, Bashi
Cash Hereway as also a composer for film and TV.
He scored his first film, Save the Date, in twenty twelve.
A year later, an opportunity came to score the CNN
(40:32):
documentary Our Nixon. I wanted to know how here Way
went from the indie music and film scene to scoring
a CNN documentary.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
It's directed by a wonderful director named Penny Lane. It's
a real name, and it's all archival material except for
the score. She gathered the home movies of the Nixon
cabinet members. These eight millimeters home movies that they had
made while working for Nixon had been confiscated by the FBI,
and they sat undeveloped for decades, and then they got
(41:04):
declassified and in the world of like archivist nerds. These
were kind of like a holy Grail, and then they
came out and then they developed them. And her idea
was that these guys are the biggest villains in American
political history at the time, this is twenty thirteen. These
guys were the biggest villains in American political history. But
nobody's a villain in their own home movies. So what
(41:26):
does that look like and what happens if you try
and tell the story as seen through their eyes? And
I had seen a short film of hers called The Voyagers,
which is beautiful. Also highly recommended The Voyagers about Carl
Sagan and the Voyager Mission, and it's beautiful short film.
I was just a fan. Subscribed to her newsletter. One
day she mentioned that she was working on this Nixon documentary,
(41:48):
and I said, hey, I love what you do. I
love that era of American politics. I just think it
is a movie, you know.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Like, I'm a fan of too many Oliver Stone movies.
I mean I like them, they're okay, But his film
on Nixon, Montoni Happens, that's an amazing film.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
That just shattered me.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yeah, I mean, well, all the president's men, you know,
it's just I think that's probably part of the reason
why I love the story too. So I just said,
you're working on this documentary, do you have a composer?
Do you need a composer? Can I audition? How can
I work on this with you? And she wrote back
and said, no, we don't have a composer. But you know,
she didn't know we'd never met, so I had to audition.
I like wrote some music based on the idea of
(42:29):
what I thought the film was going to be.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
You're the poster boy for doesn't hurt to ask? Yeah,
that's your life. Doesn't hurt to ask? I wanted to
ask you two silly questions. I can't help myself.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
I'm sorry. What's your favorite food?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Cookies? Chocolate chip cookies?
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Okay? Really, well, Connor, what brand of cookie?
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Well? Here in New York there's the Jacques Torres Chalcosh cookie,
which is kind of I feel like, so fancy cookies. Yes, yeah, yeah,
no girls no, girls Scout cookie. No, I want the
New York Yankees of cookie where it's like they've spent
so much money on all the ingredients, Yeah, to make
it the best thing. That's yeah, that's what about food?
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Like a meal?
Speaker 2 (43:07):
A meal? I mean it's a cliche, but you know
my my mom was a great cook and I would
give anything to have her cooking again.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Let's have a round up a pause from my guest,
my thanks to Rishi Cash, Hairway and the on air fest.
I'll leave you with the latest single, roller Coaster, from
(43:34):
his new album in the Last Hour of Light. I'm
Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing that's brought to you by
iHeart Radio.
Speaker 4 (43:43):
Out on Cattarina. There's a hundred buffalo pending by the ocean.
The only now.
Speaker 9 (43:56):
Did they do my great names?
Speaker 4 (44:00):
They breathe in the salting? Can you miss the places
you're meant to be? If you earnther?
Speaker 2 (44:08):
The Does it go?
Speaker 3 (44:11):
And?
Speaker 9 (44:13):
And what if this goes on?
Speaker 4 (44:18):
And? And caught myself staring into nothing much at all,
past the fair ground, the graveyard, the empty shopping mall.
I drove till the road and they didn't, Uh Cody
(44:42):
Beach about the distance between me and everything that's out
of each Does it go?
Speaker 9 (44:52):
And? And what if this goes on?
Speaker 4 (44:58):
And and? On a road the cold stir a ride
upper gains seal that sky.
Speaker 9 (45:15):
What if this goes on and and.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
What if this goes on, and dope, and.
Speaker 9 (45:42):
What if this goes on and and so what if
this goes on and.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
And what if this goes on and
Speaker 4 (46:00):
And don
Host
Alec Baldwin
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