For the last 5 years, London band Black Midi have pushed experimental rock music to new and thrilling places, inspired as much by jazz fusion as math rock and no wave. But last month, quite unexpectedly, the trio split up. It was meant to be kept a secret, until singer and frontman Geordie Greep announced the news on Instagram. One week later, he announced his debut solo album, boldly titled The New Sound (out this month via Rough Trade Records).
Stu visited Geordie at his home shortly after these two bits of indie-shaking news broke, to discuss the end of the Black Midi and the start of Greep's solo career, as well as his time at the prestigious Brit School, and what makes Angels by Robbie Williams actually a very good pop song.
Also on this week's show, Greg and Stu pick apart the week's headlines, lament being so rubbish at predicting who would win the Mercury Prize, and count down the greatest award show speeches of all time.
You can watch clips of the podcast online now, just give us a follow on Instagram @midnightchatspod.
Further reading/listening/viewing
Black Midi Loud And Quiet interview
Geordie Greep 'Holy Holy' video
Lenny Henry full MOBO 2015 speech
Credits:
Editing by Stuart Stubbs
Mixing and mastering by Flo Lines
Artwork by Kate Prior
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good evening, I'm Greg Cochrane.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good evening, I'm Stuart Stubbs. We are a couple of
journalists who've been working in independent music since the days
of MySpace.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
One night a week, we become your guides through the
week in music, because, let's face it, the algorithms have
stop working for most of us, so.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We're here to share the best new underground music and
the news that you might have missed, as well as
discussing the week's biggest headlines and bringing you interviews with
some of our favorite alternative artists.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The show is called Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
If I was to say to you, we're just normal men,
what's your response to that?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Just normal men? Was my response? Is is this like
a trend thing that I'm supposed to know the answer?
Or are you asking me if we're just genuinely conventional?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Just google it later. I'm I'm shocked. Yeah. Last week
at End of the Road, Yeah, we were talking about
this in a group of friends and one person had
no idea what it was, and the rest of us
were appalled. And then since then I've realized lots of
people don't know what we're just normal men? Is I'm
just gonna let you google it. I think half the
(01:10):
people listening will be screaming at their phone right now
with the response that I wanted to We're just normal men,
and half will be saying, what is going on?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
This is?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
They will have no idea.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Those are my people.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
If they're your people, mine are the screamers. But you
are in for a treat once you google that. Trust me.
Let's talk about what's actually coming up on the podcast
this week. We've got a great guest coming up. I
spoke to Jordie Greep, which we will intro very shortly.
We're just going to have a little dive into a
couple of headlines that have happened since last week's episode.
(01:46):
Then we get into Greep, we play the Greep conversation,
which I think is an absolute cracker, and then after Creep,
we're going to come back. I've got a top three
for you in response to your top three that you
gave me last week, and we'll talk a bit more
about Greek the other side of it, once people have
got to hear what he's got to say, because he's
got some really interesting things to say.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
But I feel like we have to get this fairly
major news headline, music news headline out of the way
right at the top, because Stu, I feel like this
particular one is all of your birthdays, all of your
Christmases kind of rolled into one because in February twenty
twenty five, Kendrick Lamar is going to be the halftime
show performer at the Super Bowl. Now, some people might
(02:29):
not know this, but you are a massive American football fan. Yep,
you're in the UK, obviously, but like you know, you
get up at ridiculous hours in the night to watch
American football games and have been doing since you were
like seven years old. You've not missed the Super Bowl
since you were one year old.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's what I heard.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And also I know for a fact that you yeah,
you know you saw You've seen Kendrick Lamher a few times,
but I know that one of the last times you
saw him, you basically came back and saying that that
was the greatest thing I've ever seen. So the great
perform whatever at your most favorite kind of annual sporting
stroke cultural event ever, are you and Drake going to
be watching?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, no, I'm I'm already excited the Kendrick show that
I went. I mean you're right. I've seen you a
few times, but I went to see him on his
last tour at the O two and it is genuinely
the greatest show I've ever seen ever. And I was
so overwhelmed at the time that I came back saying
that to people, and I'm standing by it like it
still feels like that to me. So I can't wait
(03:31):
to see what he does on that on the halftime show.
Imagine I had the dancers out this year. I was
in America for the Super Bowl and watched it in
a bar. I won a thousand dollars in a bar
on a sweep steak. Didn't even know what I was
meant to do or how I won it.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Did you buy everybody in the drink? Did you buy
everybody a drink in the bar?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I did not.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I did not, you, stiff, Britt.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I know I'd spent so much money by the time
I won that, I was just recouping something. It hardly
dented my debt at that point.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
All right. So, after all of our pre chat the
last few weeks about what was going to happen at
this year's Mercury Prize, the Mercury Prize has happened, and
this is what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Twenty four Mercury Prize is English Teacher for.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
The album Okay to say, neither of us called that
one English Teacher. The Leeds Bands were crowned the winner
of this year's Mercury Prize for their album This Could
be Texas, their debut album. Now STU furious furious. I'm
(04:40):
not furious about all but furious. No, I'm not furious.
I'm furious at myself. I'm not furious at the band.
I love English Teacher and I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Very happy that they won. I'm furious that every single
year I go so hard on who I think is
going to win, and I should have learned by now
to just like bring it dial it back on our
Mercury episodes, I was so certain it was going to
be Charlie that I couldn't see that. I wasn't even
allowing the possibility of somebody else. Even up to the
moment they announced this, I was at where here comes
(05:09):
Charlie XCX, And once again I look like an idiot.
I've only called it three times, I think in the
existence of the of the Mercury, and that was Skeptera.
The XX and olt J. I think those three I've
got right, But that's not good because it's been going
on for.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Thirty years forever. So the judge is called this could
be Texas a future classic, don't know. I mean, having
listened to it, I'm not sure I would agree that
it's a future classic. But I mean absolutely great album.
But I don't know if I'll be like thinking about
that album in ten years time. If people did tune in,
(05:48):
they would have noticed it was a bit different this
year because instead of it being in a big music
venue with a few thousand fans there and all the
tables out and all the people from music industry getting like,
you know, wasted, it was an abby road stud and
it was very much the kind of production for TV.
It was very intimate, and they kept reminding us it
was very intimate with eleven of the twelve artists were
(06:08):
there to attend to hear the winner being read out.
But it was a different vibe. It was a completely
different vibe to Mercury prizes.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Well, intimate is often code that estate agents use for
a very underwhelming or small, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Well, this is your intimate extra bedroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
this is cozy. This is a cozy space, I guess,
being totally honest, it made me a little bit sad,
you know, like it wasn't you know, there was no
headline sponsor this year for the Mercury Prize, which I
have seen suggested in various reports when this was announced
that was the reason why they've kind of downscaled what
(06:45):
they were doing, because you know, this wasn't enough money
to go out and do a kind of big award
ceremony this year, and it didn't have quite the sort
of like energy in the vibe that I think those
past award ceremonies have had. And also it got me
thinking about the fact that like music Awards SAH in
twenty twenty four, right, we're seeing a fewer of them,
(07:05):
Like I feel like there's a bit of a slow
death of the music awards ceremony going on. Like I mean,
the Mercuries are still there, that's still happening, but was like,
as we just said, on a smaller scale, hasn't been
like an Enemy Awards for the past few years. Hasn't
been a Kerrang Award since two thousand and two. I know,
like COVID had like probably a lot to do with
that as well in the after effects of COVID. But
(07:28):
music awards like broad question here, but are they still relevant?
Is it too difficult to make them happen? Like does
you know in an era where music moves so quickly,
does it feel a bit kind of like irrelevant to
be looking back on the past year in music or
I mean, what do you think.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I don't think they're necessarily irrelevant. I think I think
the pace of music, I don't think that necessarily comes
into it, because I think it's still nice to look
back on the previous year and be reminded of things
that you might have forgotten. Oh yeah, that came out,
And I think that's why people love end of year
list so much. I think it just comes down to
the money that isn't in music right now and Kerrang Awards,
(08:10):
Enemy Awards, Q Awards.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Well, Que's relaunched, but they've not relaunched their awards. Rolling
Stone Magazine had their first awards earlier this year, I believe,
the UK version of Rolling Stone. But it all comes
down to wherever they can get sponsor. And actually, what's happened
to the Mercury this year is it's the first year
they've not managed to secure that sponsor, whereas that sponsor
(08:34):
hasn't been there for the last few years for Enemy
and those types of awards. I think it just comes
down to that, doesn't it. Companies aren't seeing the benefit
of sponsoring music awards. So hopefully it will come back,
because I think those sorts of things, if nothing else,
are fun and they are celebratory, and if we need
(08:57):
some more fun to come back into the music industry,
because you know, it's we're not going to get back
to the days of Led Zeppelin and pure excess and
ridiculous rock star lifestyles, and maybe that that's probably a
good thing, but we do want to keep some of
the things that are like frivolous and silly and ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I want to run a one line rebrand past you
to get what you you know, to get your thoughts
on this. What about Is it time? Given the eight
out of the twelve albums nominated for this year's Mercury
Prize with debut albums, is it time to rebrand and
call it the Mercury New Music Prize and make it
all about new music? Yes, excellent, let's move on. So
(09:38):
we've got an amazing guest on this week's podcast. Stu
tell us all about who's been joining us. I'm pretty
excited to share this with listeners.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yes, tonight's episode interview is with Jordie Greep, the former
front man of Black Midi. Not because he's left the
bandma because the band have split up. Black Midi are
a band who, over the last five years since they
released their debut album, have really pushed guitar music in
a completely new direction every time they've done anything, very
(10:09):
inventive band from South London, well London. People love this
band so much and they have quite suddenly decided to
split up. Now, for a little bit of context, I
went and met Jordi at his home. He's just announced
his debut solo album, which is called The New Sound.
(10:29):
I'd explain in this that two weeks before that he
announced that Black Midi was over, quite unexpectedly to fans,
and he did that via a Instagram live chat. He
was on Instagram Live and somebody asked him about what's
happening with the next Black Midi record, and his response
was no more Black Midy, It's over now. The next day,
(10:53):
the bassis of the band Cameron Picton. He posted the
following We agreed not to say anything about breaking up,
so I was blindsided as everyone else last night, but
maybe in a different way. I guess sometimes all you
can say is lol. So essentially, essentially what Jordie's done
(11:15):
is that the band obviously said they had split up,
they weren't going to tell anyone, and he came out
to anyone. So that's a little bit of context. That
was two weeks before we spoke. The only other thing
I wanted to clear up just before we get into this.
At the end of this conversation, I asked him about
the brit School. The brit School is a music college
here in the UK that has an unpressed It has
(11:37):
an incredible hit rate of making famous pop stars, essentially
adele Amy, Winehouse Kicks, Rizzle Kicks, Jesse j. I think
there's a big, big list, but they are all mainstream
pop stars and Black MIDI, this strange experimental art rock
(11:58):
band who are as influenced by jazz and fusion as
they are. Sonic Youth also came from there, So that
is a little bit of context about what that college
is and why I asked him about the fact that
this strange band had also come from this place that
is known for being a pop star factory from the
(12:19):
outside at least.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, I can't wait to talk to you about what
I made of this.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, let's play the interview and then we'll come back
and talk about this because there's some very interesting things
said here. Here is me and Jordie Greep in conversation.
You've had like a really busy two weeks. Really, last
week was your birthday, the same day you announced your
(12:47):
debut solo album, The New Sound. A week before that
was the announcement that Black Medi was no more. And today, obviously,
as I say so, acis DA's all people are talking
about how so like to tick those things. It's been
two weeks since the announcement about the Black Medi calling
it a day, And how do you feel about the
fact that, like, you know that that chapter's done and
(13:07):
you're moving on to something else really good.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I mean, I'm really happy with the music that's coming
out on this new album, and I'm really excited for
everyone's going to take it and how it's going to
be to play it live. So it's been a really
nice period. It's been exciting, and the response has been
really cool. Everyone is really into it. There's nothing to lose. Really.
It feels like a very exciting time and a time
(13:33):
of like saying, who knows what's going to happen, you know,
exciting in the way of like uncertainty in a good way.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Do you like that? You like that sort of.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Like definitely, what's the point of doing sign if you
know exactly how it's going to go.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
The response to like the band splitting up, on announcing
that you had split up, it's quite something. People were,
you know, the fans were like really upset, really supportive,
saying what a great band it was, and the I
can see that you'd left, Like were you surprised by that?
Speaker 4 (14:02):
I don't know, it was very I didn't expect it
to take off, you know. I was just on his
live stream, and I've said stuff like this before, especially
in a hyperbolic way of being like yeah, making grand
statements and stuff. So I didn't expect it would be like, oh,
now it's official, legitimate, like this is it. But it's
just how it happens, I guess. And then you know
(14:24):
the fact of people being nice and saying it was
a good band and stuff and it's obviously cool. I
also think is very the hindsight vibe of like, you know,
the whole time it was, you know, putting out albums
and stuff, especially the first two albums, it was like
people saying, yeah, this is all right, this is not
that good or whatever, saying oh yeah, this album's all right,
(14:46):
but it's a bit too they're trying to be a
bit too clever, or this is cool, but I don't
like it or whatever. And then the third album came
out and it was this is good, but it's not
as good as the first or second album, which was great.
And then now the saying the band's over. It's like
it was so good, it was so yeah the whole
time along the band is there, it's like, oh nah,
but they not as good as they think they are.
(15:07):
With It's like, I don't know, I think it's just
one of them things. You know. It's like, but let's
see how it goes with this new thing. Yeah, help
people are into that. Let's see, let's see.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So did you think when you put when you like
mentioned it in that in that live stream, did you
just think people would just because that just came about, right,
because somebody asked when the next record was and you're like, oh,
we're not making another record.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Well, it was like it's the kind of thing of
just saying it all the time, saying, what's going to
happen to the black media? It was going to happen
to black media?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
What on the screen is like, It's like that's the
question that keeps going no.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
No, no, every time I do one of these streams
or on Twitter or it replies and what is And
then yeah, it was like it was the wrong thing
to do. But in that moment of just being on
this live stream, I just thought, well, you know, what
have we got to lose by just sit telling the truth? Yeah,
so it's probably, you know, it's probably not going to
happen for a while because the band's not really active
at the moment, that doesn't really exist anymore. So we'll
(15:58):
see what happens. But I wasn't meaning to be you know,
over the top. It's trying to be like, you know,
just just a bit transparent with people because people kept
asking and thought, well, listen, they're not gonna stop asking.
They're only gonna it's going to gonna keep going. So
I just thought it was you know what I've got
to lose, you know. Yeah, yeah, and it's not it's
(16:20):
not a bad thing. It's not a negative thing. It's
not a thing of like, oh yeah, it's it's the end.
It's it's cool. It's so many great bands that they do,
you know, three great albums or whatever, three albums, are
happy with four and then they say, yeah, that's enough,
Velvet Underground or you know, Original Concrimtional whoever. Like, there's
loads of stuff where it's a brief but exciting period
(16:44):
and then you say, all right, let's we're happy with that.
Let's let's let's part that for now.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
And I think people maybe forget that five years three
albums in five years, that's like a lot of work,
and that is a long time for young men to
be together. You know, why do we when you started
the band like fifteen fifteen and you're twenty five. Now, yeah,
that's ten years of your life. That's a that's a
that's a big chunk, right, So like maybe maybe bands
(17:11):
don't need to last longer than five years, you know,
maybe maybe there's there should be these shorter sort of
windows and people move on to other things. I think
one of the reasons why people were surprised I'd same
or anything. Is because Black Midi has over those last
five years, really embodied this band, this group who are
(17:31):
completely It always felt like you were just scratching the
surface of what you could do because you're all such
brilliant players, right and so like, there's so many different
styles going on. It's really experimental. It's pushing things forward
all the time. And if there's one band that people thought, well,
this band could just go on forever and they could
keep reinventing things, they could keep changing that sound, then
(17:54):
it was Black Median. And I think that's probably why
a lot of people are like, what, like that can't
be the one that calls it a day this early
when so many others don't, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Well, it's it's part of the same thing. It's like
maybe it's this thing of the brand that's going for
it and pushing it and seeing how far they can go.
Finds out quicker that oh we've probably done enough for now.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, yeah, was that it was? It was it that
you felt like, we've got these three records and however
it felt on the outside to like listeners like me,
you just felt like we've done what we can do,
what we want to do. We've pushed this where we
want it to go, and we just want to leave
it now. Was that what it was?
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Well, it's just with times diminishing returns, and it's with
time it was like getting less and less done. It's
like less songs and less like creative things, and also
to a less high standard. Being like you felt like that, well, well,
not necessarily the albums, but with stuff since working on
tunes and stuff like behind the scenes trying to get
stuff done. It was like, yeah, this is all right,
(18:58):
this is all right, but none of it felttle. I
really disagree with this thing of doing music that doesn't
have to exist. You know, so much of music I
don't enjoy if probably you can probably boil it down
to the fact that it doesn't sound as if it
has to exist. It doesn't sound as if the music
is existing of its own volition or the best music.
It sounds like it's coming out of itself, like it's
(19:20):
like this is we have to we have to do this,
whereas you know, so much music just kind of dirges
on just a bit like oh the verse chorus, and
it's you know, Who's Who's that?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
For?
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Lots of people like that music, but does anyone love
that music for the sure?
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah, there's a there's a great quote that comes with
that was put out from you when the new album
was your solo album was announced, which sort of speaks
to that. Actually it was it's where you talk about
how I've got it here. It says you were like
bared of listening to music knowing in an advance what
(19:57):
it was, what it means, or what it was trying.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
To Yeah, like what it sounds like, like so many things.
I think a lot of critically acclaimed music music journalists
like it because they already have an opinion before they've
even put it on, and then they play the album
and it's like, oh, this corresponds with my read of
this band or this single or whatever, So that's good.
It's seven out of ten, eight out of ten, which
is fine. But it's like, I like stuff where you
(20:23):
listen to it and you don't know the first time,
the second time, maybe even the third time, what you
think of it, and you don't necessarily know what it's
about lyrically, but you know it's not about nothing, you know,
and it's this thing of you're working out as you
listen to it, you know whether it's a successful failure,
you know, sure, I don't know was that?
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Did you?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Have you always felt that way about music in terms
of wanting it to do more than some people take.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Over time, I think I've realized what the music I
like the most has in common with each other, and it's, yeah,
it's in part. A lot of it has this thing
of yeah, listening to it again and again and seeing
more and not necessarily liking at first, and it growing
on you. Some albums you think are great and then
they just get worse and worse. But there's also some
albums you like straight away that stay good or get better.
(21:15):
I think it's the thing with music. When you add
more complexity and more elements, you kind of introduce more problems, right,
There's more things that need to be done right and
done proficiently and done with confidence and stuff. And so
if you can pull that off and do stuff that's
(21:38):
really trying to do quite you know, technical or quite
white crock, quite far out things and it gets them right,
it's like a whole new layer, you know, that's added
to something. Of course, if it gets them wrong, it
sounds ten times worse and something that's just simple and
trying to do a simple thing and pulling off a
simple thing. But I think I've always responded to music
(22:00):
the most way. It's like you can tell that there's
you know, they have come a long way to get
to the point where they're putting out this album. You
can hear that they have practiced this a lot, or
that they've got, you know, come on a long path
to get to this point or where. But you know,
it's kind of hippie stuff, but you can definitely hear it.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
And someone I was like, what's the record then that
you loved it on first listen and you still love it?
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Ala Marvin Gay, what's goming on? It's like the best
album ever? You know, everyone likes that and it's so
easy to listen to. No one listens to that, and
it's like, oh, it's like immediately sounds good, but it
does get better because it's not that it's extremely well produced,
well written songs, amazing performances, well tied together. It has
(22:50):
a nice relationship between songs and all that. It's not
all of that. It's the spirit. It's this thing of
you're listening to something that so overwhelmingly positive in spirit
and attitude and execution that is very infectious. And the
more you listen to it, the more and Denial Boy is,
(23:12):
you know, and it's something that everyone likes the first time.
Here this sounds good, but you know it really it
really works. That's one album where and it is an
album actually where it was on the precipice of disaster,
with this whole save the world kind of vibe, So
save the babies he's saying, and all this kind of
like oh what are we doing? How do we fix
our world? It could be very you know, horrible, you know,
(23:34):
really annoying, but it somehow really comes together and and
you believe.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Him voice as well on it, Like his vocal takes
are just incredible, faultless, but.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
You believe him. You know, he says it, and you think, yeah,
fair enough. It's a kind of thing that you know,
some guy green peace guy or whatever like in the
town market can say and you but here this guy
is singing it over this music. I say, what, yeah,
we should be doing something about that man, And you're right,
so you know, fair enough. But there's loads of yeah,
(24:06):
there's there's there's loads of albums that are like that
you listened to it the first time. I think art
this is great and the opinion doesn't change. But I
think it is those albums that it takes your while
to figure out are the ones that end up they
have something to them that you because you don't forget that,
that your your own journey of growing to it.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Last week was your birthday? Happy birthday twenty five, feeling
good to be twenty five?
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Yeah, great, very like you know, optimistic, very good birthday,
good celebration.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
What did you do on your birthday? You announced the
record the Records called the New Sound. Did you obviously
that was on purpose? You thought I'm going to announce
it on my birthday?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Or did that? Was that just a pure no?
Speaker 4 (24:52):
I thought it tied together in a lot of ways.
It was like this new thing, calling it bluddy the
New Sound, you know, put out twenty fifth birthday Water
of a century. It feels like a new time. It's
a new, completely new approach to how I'm going to
do music. It just seemed to make sense, and it
seemed to that was you know, I thought it would
be a nice thing to remember as well. You know,
(25:14):
I've always been twenty fifth birthday. That's when I was,
you know, started this whole new thing because you know,
we'll see how it goes. But I really hope that
I'll be able to just keep this going and be
able to just do you know, an album every year
like this one?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Sure, announce it on your on your birthday every year?
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah yeah, well maybe Easter next year, Okay, yeah, maybe something.
I don't know. It's just it just seemed in many
ways are good and it's just fun. Why not?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Sure? So what is the new approach that you mentioned
as you've got a new approach to making music? What
what is that?
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Well, it's a solo album, so it's like, you know,
basically have the final say on everything that's on the
album and have to kind of you know, put it
all together in most of ways. You know, did even
did delay out the album cover and all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I love the album cover.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Oh yeah, it's cool. It y Japanese taykey is great. Yeah,
it really works. It's a good thing as well, because
it's something like that that's really graphic but not offensive. Yeah,
it's quite hard to find where it's.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
So what is that image? Explain the image to people
who think he might not have seen it. Put a link.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
In ins by a Japanese artist called Toshio Sayaki, and
he was a guy from the seventies, eighties, nineties whatever
to now, and he did these kind of really graphic
images of like, you know, a lot of stuff that
goes into quite hardcore almost fetish type thing of people,
(26:36):
you know, getting it decapitated and you know, demons and
stuff and grules and loads of sexual stuff, and they
have a nice style. And I was going through a
book of his images and found this one which is
of kind of a businessman in a field with a
(26:57):
peasant woman or whatever it was, sickle and then she's
kissing him and at the same time chopping his head
off and he's in the air and on the other
side all the blood is spurting onto some school girl.
That's just I just thought it was a great image, right,
And I saw it and thought, wow, this is brilliant.
This is definitely an album covered already. I looked it up.
It's not an album cover already, so for okay, I'm
(27:17):
going to use it before anyone else does. Great contact
the estate and everything, and you know, it was it
was all playing. That's a good sign, isn't it When
when something seems like it's been done before, she usually
a quite good sign.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. So sorry you were saying, so
you've you've now essentially the thing is you've got complete
free reign.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
To do exactly do whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
So like with stuff like that album cover, I just
you know, went for it. And what that's meant musically
is just using session musicians working with all different guys.
Of course everyone's probably seen by now. I did this
whole album, half of it in Brazil, so what Brazilian
music musicians did. The rest in London got loods of
people doing overdubs and stuff. Feels great.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
So you recorded half of it in South Paolo and
half of it here in London. How does the South
Palo think? Haven't was it that you wanted to go there?
So you were like, I'm going to record it there
and I'm going to find some musicians there or had
you found some musicians there? Which way round? Does that work?
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Way around?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Is?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
And why sou Polo?
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Well, me and Chank we produced. We were we were
looking to do a session in London last December and
we were trying to get top session guys or guys
we liked. We were trying to. We wanted to make
it sound like Billy Jean and make it a slick
as possible. And we also want the guys that had
experienced playing Latin music or were you know, comfortable in
that kind of thing, because a lot of the rhythms
(28:40):
and stuff, and a lot of the chord structures are
kind of based on a lot of that Latin stuff.
I was really into sal some music and a lot
of Brazilian music and stuff. So then I thought, why
am I trying to book a session in London. We're
actually going to Brazil to play with Black MIDI. So
I caught it the one guy I know him sal Paolo.
We had days off and stuff. I called it one
guy I know. I said, you know, musicians, I'd like
(29:02):
to do a little recording session. They said, yeah, no
worries man. I saw it out. This guy called Fernando Dotter.
He organized all the musicians, got them all together. I
send them the songs in advance, but they learned them all.
It was epic. I just went in gave them the music,
but they didn't need it. They just played it all.
We did four tracks. We did four of the songs
on the album, So this.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Was just another quote from you about the record which
I liked, which is the main theme of the record
is desperation. You don't hear an unreliable narrator, but someone
who is kidding themselves that they have everything under control,
but they don't.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Yeah, I just thought it was a neat way of
packing up all these songs, you know, yeah, turning into
one thing. It's a good theme. I think it's unexplored
a little bit in popular music, this whole thing of
like really over the top dramatic and at the same time,
you know, being very showy and over the top without
(29:56):
necessarily having any idea how to talk back where you're
saying whatever. I like that movie Sunset Boulevard. Oh yeah, yeah,
what's her name, Gloria is it? Whatever her name is.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Glorious Swans, Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, that's I'm ready
for my close up.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah exactly. And it's kind of theme of this kind
of performance the whole way, which is so desperate and
so theatrical, but being so theatrical and at the same
time to shying away the whole time, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
That's what this record has got. A real theatrical so,
I mean health I had certain theatrics to it as well.
I think this feels like you've really gone exploring in
that direction of sort of theater Cabaret, Holy Holy for example,
sounds like it could be from a musical. Are you
(30:49):
a musical fan of you or not? Particular?
Speaker 4 (30:52):
I mean a lot of the old school ones, you know,
like you know, Bloody west Side Story now everyone likes that. Yeah,
you know a lot of stuff that the show tunes
come from that everyone knows, you know, Wizard of Oz
and all this kind of thing. Yeah, But a modern musicals,
I think they've gone down a really weird rabbit hole
of hyper American singing and really weird songs and quite
(31:16):
there's not quite my bag, but who knows, you know,
at a certain point it's all to play for, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah. So like with this record, when you when you
went into making it, was this what was your goal
with it? Was there a certain thing you wanted the
record to be or to do.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Kind of just wanted it to pull together as many
things musically that I like and I wanted to kind
of put into my music the actual things I like,
and the actual things I like listening to to try
and creatively incorporate them into my own music. There's a
funny thing yet, where guys in indie bands, guys in
(31:56):
rock bands or whatever, they will do an interview and
they will say, oh, yeah, like I'm in this punk
band or I'm in this this indie rock band or
whatever it is, But it's not actually the kind of
music I like. I actually only really like listening to
like neoclassical music or minimalism, or or like Japanese folk
(32:17):
or or Latin American music or whatever it is. Ah, yeah,
but my music doesn't sound anything like that. But that's
the music I actually like. I don't actually like punk music.
And yeah, I mean it's fair enough, you know, we
all when guilty of that to degree to kind of,
you know, make yourself seem more rounded or more interesting.
But I just think that's so lame. It's like, why
are you going to like consciously not try and make
(32:41):
the music they actually like.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, I think that's because they don't feel that they've
got the chops to do that. Do you think it's
because they're like, I've just picked up a guitar because
that's an easier thing to do.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Yeah, but why not try? That's my thing. It's just like,
why not try at all? Because literally, like, if you
like this time music and you're not interested at all
to try and you know, to try and take what
you like about that and try and make something of
your own that that does the same thing or that
(33:12):
does something similar, or that you learn something from the
music you like. And yeah, I get the idea of
like you're saying, like it's you know, you can say, ah,
but that's beyond my pay grade, or it's too hard,
or it's different, or it's it from a different culture
or something you can quite do. But you know, what's
the point of doing something that you know you don't
actually like or that you know it's not the actual
(33:34):
music that you want to be listening to. See, that's dumb.
So it is. I was just like, well, the music
I actually like listen to is this a lot of
fusion stuff. There's a lot of this Latin stuff. There's
a lot of this kind of you know, crazy avant
garde stuff, and there's a lot of this kind of
you know, slick kind of you know steely Dan rock,
you know, radio whatever it is this kind of stuff.
(33:57):
So I'm going to try and incorporate that into my
own music and try and make music that I find
legitimately satisfying. I like the kind of music that I
would listen to if I wasn't making music.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
You know, is there anything that you listen to or
enjoy that you do feel is like that you've not
tried yet?
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Oh yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. But you
know it's you know whatever, because there's stuff that's so
ridiculously accomplished that it was just foolish to even attempt so,
you know, hinderstanding music or something, or like, you know,
a proper you know, baroque classical music or this kind
(34:35):
of thing, or it would be foolish to try and
completely say you're making that kind of music and just
jump that world and say, oh, yeah, well I'm doing
it now now I'm a musician playing this kind of thing.
But I still think you can and any type of
music really you can take what you like about it.
You can break it down and say, oh, well, I
like this because it has a kind of hypnotic thing
(34:58):
and then take that and incorporate to your own thing.
Or I like this because of the rhythm and take
that anything, you know what I mean. I just find
it a bit silly sometimes where it's this thing of like, yeah,
like people go out of way to say that they
had the music that they make is not the music
that they like. It's like, I find out, so weird.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Where do you find your music that you listen to?
Speaker 4 (35:21):
I think I had a very intense period of, like
when I was a teenager, of just listening to as
much music as possible. You know, some days just listen
to like fifteen albums a day, don't really go outside.
Another days, you know, got about town, you know, but
whatever it is is, I just had this thing of
I wanted to be able to say I'd listen to
(35:42):
every type of music at least giving it a girl right.
And I think the thing is some people they have
this thing where they get into you know, English folk,
or they get into R and B whatever it is,
and then they say that's the type of music I like,
and if anything sounds remotely like, they say, oh, well
(36:03):
I like this because it's this and I like that.
But I don't know. For me, I kind of found
early on that every music, every type of music, is
majority a bit bland. And if every genre there is
about you know, however, many albums that are wonderful that
just great to just dynamite, then there are loads that
(36:24):
are quite good, and then most of them are just
kind of okay, that's fine, But it's just the whole
thing is that every album that's really good doesn't sound
like the genre sounds like itself, you know, is like
you know, whatever classic you know, Led Zipplin four doesn't
it's not really like like it's obviously it's rock, but
(36:46):
it's not like it's not just that had a whole
way through it sounds like it's unique, sounds like itself
then like you know, in a silent way, but Myles Davis,
nothing sounds like that album. Or you know, however many
Croil Sister by Pentangle nothing sounds like that. It's not
like every you know, you'll go through and be like
all English flog is going to sound like this you
(37:07):
go through, nothing sounds like that. So the thing that's
unique is individuals who are really creative working under a
genre and then making something that's its own type of music. Yeah,
and that's that. So that so basically long and short
of it is that kind of thing of saying well,
no one music is truly good. You just have to say, well,
(37:28):
I have to listen to every type of music, because
every type of music is going to have a few
guys that are just geniuses that have just happened to
have been born into the circumstances that they're working in
that music. You know, like Milton neishment of the Brazilian
or Flipping Charlie Garcia, Argentinian musician, or you know whoever.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
And do you have you found that you've had to
listen to a lot of the average stuff to find
the gold within it, or do you just do the
research to be like, right, I'm going to start with
this guy because this guy's meant to be. He's one
of the greatest.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Well, I would say that often, Yeah, the things that
resonate with people generally are the best things, you know,
and there's some cases of stuff that's really popular, but
I wouldn't say is that great, But generally buy and
large if something you know gets to a lot of
(38:22):
people and they really like it, I think with music
there's not that many like hidden gems. There's stuff that
you find and it's obscure and it's great, but you know,
most of the time, if you find obscure like prog album,
it's really good, but it's not really as good as
Genesis or Yes or Being Floyd whatever. It's still really good,
(38:43):
but or obscure fusion album, it's not really as good
as the best Weather Report album or the best Man
of Visual album. You know. So there's a lot of
people who they can, like they find like an obscure
whatever it is album and say, oh, well, this is
obviously better because it's more obscure. It's like, it's really good,
but it's you know, it's not quite the same. You know,
(39:03):
there's nothing wrong with just saying yeah, like you know,
the things that strike a chord do for a reason.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Is there any any record or musician that you like
that it's unequivocally dumb.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
Unequivally dumb? Oh yeah, I mean hm hmm. Like like
there's some silly songs, you know, novelty songs. Yes, so
I can boogie and that's pretty good. It hits the
spot at certain point of the night, it hits the spot,
or you know, as pretty silly. Everyone likes that. There's
(39:40):
a great song. I mean, I mean unequivocally dumb is
a good one. I mean, what can you think of
something like, well, I'm.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Just thinking, I'm sort of wondering, like what what happens
at you know, a wedding. Have you been to many weddings?
Maybe you're not, you're young for a wedding season. There
will be there will be a point. It's probably about
five years away from at this point, you know, Yeah,
suddenly all your mates will start getting married and you'll
be going to hold three weddings a year, and you'll
(40:08):
hear the same mostly the same wedding songs, and it'll
be mister Bright's side by the Killers, and it'll be
and everyone'll be going wild. Yeah, and it'd be great fun.
But angels and stuff, yes, yeah, exactly, you know, sort
of mainstream floor fillers, really like how do you feel
about that? That site, that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Oh, what are good songs? You know? The other day?
That song Angels by Robbie Williams. This is actually quite
a good example of a song that's like really popular,
but you can break down it's good as well put together. Yeah,
because Angels, right was written by some random guy, some
(40:50):
random like some some guy that's gone on to have
a you know, decent career, perfectly good songwriters and all
of this. He had the song, and then Robbie Williams
and the producer whatever said, oh that's good, let's take that.
They paid him like a settlement fee, and then they
had the songwriting credit. And then but if you listen
(41:12):
to his version versus their version, his version, yeah, it's
obviously the same song, but when you listen to their version,
they've changed a lot of little things that make it
way better, right, And it's the sort of thing where.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
It's like, which is why it's a hit?
Speaker 4 (41:26):
Yeah, and you break it down, you say, ah, well,
his version is good. You can look at like you
can listen to on YouTube the original Angels and it's cool.
It's like and there's you know, there's part of you
that wants to be like, oh no, but they've really
done him wrong and stuff. But when you listen to
what they did with the song, they changed around a verse,
They changed around a lot of the chords. They introduced
(41:47):
like some harmony that gives it a lot of tension.
They changed the lyric around a bit, and it just
like they just elevated. They did all the things that
make a pop song a pop song, and there's an
art to that, and it's a good way of saying, Ah,
that's the stuff that makes something sell million units or whatever,
and it's quite cool.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Really, did you learn about that stuff when you were
studying at college. You're a songwriter, so you've spotted those things.
Is that just from learning on the job or did
you have seminars where you'd be like, this is how
you construct the perfect pop song.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
The thing is, there's no right way to do it,
and you in school they did have things where it
was like, oh, one thing you can do is for
the verse, go to the relative minor stuff or whatever
it is. But the problem is is there's basically if
you do something with the intention to make the song
more interesting, like oh, let's just do that or make
(42:40):
it better, usually just sounds crap. It's got to be naturally,
it's got to work with the lyrics, got to work
with the melody. Main thing is everything else should follow
the melody.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
I think, yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
The difference between a good song a bad song is
bad song is like they come up with some loops
and then try and fit a melody to it. Great
song is when they have a really interesting melody and
fit the whole thing around it. Weathering Heights by Kate
Bush goes between three four and four four. It's not
because she was like, oh, I want to make a
disfusion prog song. She had this melody, it was great
(43:10):
and they fit the music around it.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Is that how you start? Do you start with with
the top line?
Speaker 4 (43:15):
The thing is, I if I had a method that works,
I'll be happy. Every song is different.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
I felt like Black Midi did. One of the things
that you guys did was you gave people a different
perception of what the brit School was or is, should
I say, I think a lot of people sort of
had in that mind. It's the Amy Winehouse factory, it's
the adele thing, it's the mainstream pop star thing, right,
and then Black Midi come along and everyone say, oh,
(43:47):
you know they went to the brit schol and say, okay,
I thought that was a different type of thing. I
think a lot of people felt are there more people
doing sort of more experimental things? And we as the
general public don't necessarily know that because we know about
the big, huge pop stars that come out of it.
Or were you in that environment? Were you guys sort
of outliers doing your own thing, and that wasn't That
(44:10):
wasn't the norm.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
I mean, I think it was both is. Even if
you go there, they tell you on the course, don't
come in here expecting to get out and get rich
or to be taught how to do a song or
to be taught how to It's not like there's a
they give you a key. Earis unlocks to music industry.
(44:33):
It's just a normal school really, but the music department
is a bit better equipped. The reason I went there
is because at my secondary school, not enough people pick
music as a GCSE option, so it just wasn't a thing.
There was no music course, so I thought I heard
about this brit school thing. It's not a paying school.
(44:53):
You just have to apply. You just do an audition,
so thought, why not.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
You know what was your audition?
Speaker 4 (44:58):
I didn us by Stevie Wonder. Okay, you know the
songs in the Key of Life the album, right there's
like track four is like some really crazy like fusion tracks,
so crazy guitar solo. Yeah, it's great. But I did
that as my audition and I made the back in track,
played the drums and stuff, played bass and then play
it on guitar and it was super cool, man.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
So you put all of the back in track down
and when you go into your audition, is it you?
And like what a couple of people.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
The teachers that end up teaching you on the course.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Sort of saying whether you're in or not?
Speaker 1 (45:31):
And what?
Speaker 2 (45:31):
You give them a CD and they press play and
then you shred some guitar.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
And then remember what the what the reaction in the
room was, because they probably aren't getting that very often.
As the as the audition piece.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Not quite I remember it was. It was fine. They
tried to do like a little good cop bad cop thing,
if I remember, because one of the because I couldn't
read music or anything, and one of the teachers thing,
but you can read music. And I think it was
actually fine, but it was quite intimidating. I was like, oh,
is this really have blown it? Should I have made
(46:05):
up something? You know? But I think that they do
this interview and the main thing is just to check
that you're not, you know, the worst person ever, you know,
because anyway, it's it's it's a good schools, it's got
a good attitude and it's what you were saying originally
about will be like complete outlines and stuff. One of
(46:26):
the things is really good about is they really foster
this environment of like the only way to do music
is honestly and just do whatever you actually want to do.
There's no point in just doing what you think will
be popular or what you think is gonna make you
some money. And a lot of people go on the
music course, will go on because there's drama stairs and everything.
(46:47):
A lot of people go on the course there and
they end up actually not doing that thing. Loads of
people went and then just became you know, regular guys
working normal jobs, or went to music business, did whatever.
Or The main thing is it's a v occasional course.
It's just gives you the opportunity to to play music
and to play with different people and to play in
(47:10):
flake gigs. The thing is, if you think most guys
they're coming onto the circuit playing in a band and
they never even played on a stage before, whereas we
were very fortunate we'd had that before in school, playing
on stages and it was to the rest of the
school and stuff. It was a really good it's a
really good place. It's a really good system.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
They got well Geordie, thanks for coming on the podcast.
I'm glad everything's going so well for the future, and
congratulations on the new album.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
Man nice man, thanks very much. I have a good one.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
I'm going to fess up, Steve. When you were telling
me you were going to go meet Jordi Greep, I
was like, Oh, this is going to be an interesting
one because my understanding of black media. I love that band.
I love their music, by the way, but i'd like
I haven't I've read lots of interviews with them, never
really heard or what any interviews with him in particular,
and I just assumed that because of the way that
(48:05):
they looked and the way and the music that they
might be or Jordie might be a bit aloof or
maybe even a bit of austere, like very serious perhaps,
And so I wasn't quite sure what type of person
you were going to go meet. But actually I found
that chat. I was so into it. Basically, he came
across really warm. I really liked him. I just like
(48:27):
as a sort of like music fan. I liked him
hearing him talk about the music that he loves, very relaxed,
talking about the split of Black MIDI just like kind
of quite almost nonchalant, you know, but just makes a
lot of sense, very kind of like seemingly quite rational
about all of that stuff, Like, you know, hey, ho
(48:49):
is what it is? Wasn't quite what I had planned.
But onto the next thing, was he what you were
expecting and what did you make of it when you left?
Speaker 2 (48:56):
No, I wasn't expecting that either. I was expecting. The
thing is right that lots of musicians are very serious
people ultimately, and you think when they make the most
serious ones are the ones that make the most serious music.
And Black Midi's music, to some extent, is very serious
in the sense that it's so accomplished. When you hear
that hear that band play, they are so drilled and
(49:20):
schooled and they are incredible players, and it's very academically
put together. Right, So you think this guy talking about
it is maybe going to be the driest thing in
the world. But he was so chilled out. I found
him very calming. I thought what he did really well
was he spoke about music without making it boring, and
(49:41):
that's not an easy thing to do, especially when you're
talking about like the academic side of music and what
makes a good song. It was really nice to hear
him talk so positively about the brit School thing. Yeah,
and defend that school because there is a snobby attitude
about that from fans of indie music or you know,
alternative music, because they do just think, oh, this is
(50:01):
where like a production line. There's a production line, and
there's also an assumption that it's a paid for score
and only rich people go there, and it's just not true,
you know, Adele being a very good case in that.
It's just it's it's a college that you have to
audition to get into. And it was nice to him
talk about that as well. Yeah, he was great.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
My final thought on it was I loved that. I
loved his endeavor of being like, I'm going to go
and listen to all the classic albums of all of
the different genres to figure out what I like. I'm
just like what and that is an honorable pursuit. I
love that. And also his point about like hidden gems
being like the stuff that's good often rises to the top, Like,
(50:41):
you know, there's a reason why never Mind's considered like
an iconic grunge record. I think he makes quite a
valid point there.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Yeah, it's quite an anti snobby way to look at it,
to just be like, you know what. Dark Side of
the Moon is one of the best prog records ever. Yeah, okay,
I've got a top three for you in response to
the top three that you post to me last week. Yeah,
I want your top three. Acceptance speeches from Music Awards.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Okay, I love the surreal ones. So number one Byork
at the Brits in nineteen ninety eight, I'm a Grateful Grapefruit,
which is a classic, a classic picking up Best International
Female from Alexander McQueen. I love the surreal energy of
that and then just walks off. Number two. Arctic Monkeys
don't always get it right, but in two thousand and
(51:28):
seven I think they did when they won the Mercury Prize.
Were talking about earlier when they did the whole like
someone called nine nine nine. Richard Hawley has been robbed.
And the final one, which I think is possibly the
greatest of all time Lenny Henry at the MOBO Awards
in twenty fifteen, winning the Paving the Way Award, So
basically the Icon Award comes up on stage, lists all
(51:52):
of the people and organizations that he admires and stands
on the shoulders of for like two minutes and just
keeps going and like the crowd are like ramping up
and up and up.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
And give a shout out to Ara Holdridge, Paul Robeson,
Lord Kitchener, sy Grant, Billie Small, Desmond Decker, Bob Marley,
Charlie Williams, Josh White, Sammit Thomas, Tenny Lynch, Derrek Griffiths,
Layla Benjamin, Nina Baden, Semper, Hudof Walker, Greg mckinson, mister Brooks, Syrril, Regis,
(52:20):
Brendan Batson, Laurie Cunningham, Eddie Grant, Horace Ove, Norman Beaton,
Michael Abensais, Mustafa Matura.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
That is how you do a awards accept the speech
and is my favorite.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
I'm glad you said that one. Well, we'll let's try
and find them. We'll put them in.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
The They're going in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
We'll put lots of things down there, including the link
to our Instagram in case you want to give us
a follow at Midnight Chat's pod. We're also on TikTok.
It's sort of work sometimes, sort of doesn't cracking that Nat, Yeah,
and drop us a line d m us on Instagram
(53:01):
or you can email us. Email us at info at
loudon quiet dot com if you've got anything you'd like
to say about this episode, future episodes, past episodes. We'll
be back next week. Not sure what we've got coming
up next week, but we'll we'll come up with something
in the meantime. Enjoy yourselves, good night, See you on
the other side.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
We're just normal men. Midnight Chats is a joint production
between Loud and Quiet and Atomized Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
It's hosted by Stuart Stubbs and Greg Cochrane, mixed and
mastered by Flow Lines, and edited by Stuart Stubbs.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Find us on Instagram and TikTok to watch clips from
our recordings and much much more. We are Midnight Chats Pod.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
For more information, visit loudan Quiet dot com.
Good evening, I'm Greg Cochrane.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good evening, I'm Stuart Stubbs. We are a couple of
journalists who've been working in independent music since the days
of MySpace.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
One night a week, we become your guides through the
week in music, because, let's face it, the algorithms have
stop working for most of us, so.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We're here to share the best new underground music and
the news that you might have missed, as well as
discussing the week's biggest headlines and bringing you interviews with
some of our favorite alternative artists.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
The show is called Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
If I was to say to you, we're just normal men,
what's your response to that?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Just normal men? Was my response? Is is this like
a trend thing that I'm supposed to know the answer?
Or are you asking me if we're just genuinely conventional?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Just google it later. I'm I'm shocked. Yeah. Last week
at End of the Road, Yeah, we were talking about
this in a group of friends and one person had
no idea what it was, and the rest of us
were appalled. And then since then I've realized lots of
people don't know what we're just normal men? Is I'm
just gonna let you google it. I think half the
(01:10):
people listening will be screaming at their phone right now
with the response that I wanted to We're just normal men,
and half will be saying, what is going on?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
This is?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
They will have no idea.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Those are my people.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
If they're your people, mine are the screamers. But you
are in for a treat once you google that. Trust me.
Let's talk about what's actually coming up on the podcast
this week. We've got a great guest coming up. I
spoke to Jordie Greep, which we will intro very shortly.
We're just going to have a little dive into a
couple of headlines that have happened since last week's episode.
(01:46):
Then we get into Greep, we play the Greep conversation,
which I think is an absolute cracker, and then after Creep,
we're going to come back. I've got a top three
for you in response to your top three that you
gave me last week, and we'll talk a bit more
about Greek the other side of it, once people have
got to hear what he's got to say, because he's
got some really interesting things to say.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
But I feel like we have to get this fairly
major news headline, music news headline out of the way
right at the top, because Stu, I feel like this
particular one is all of your birthdays, all of your
Christmases kind of rolled into one because in February twenty
twenty five, Kendrick Lamar is going to be the halftime
show performer at the Super Bowl. Now, some people might
(02:29):
not know this, but you are a massive American football fan. Yep,
you're in the UK, obviously, but like you know, you
get up at ridiculous hours in the night to watch
American football games and have been doing since you were
like seven years old. You've not missed the Super Bowl
since you were one year old.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's what I heard.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And also I know for a fact that you yeah,
you know you saw You've seen Kendrick Lamher a few times,
but I know that one of the last times you
saw him, you basically came back and saying that that
was the greatest thing I've ever seen. So the great
perform whatever at your most favorite kind of annual sporting
stroke cultural event ever, are you and Drake going to
be watching?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, no, I'm I'm already excited the Kendrick show that
I went. I mean you're right. I've seen you a
few times, but I went to see him on his
last tour at the O two and it is genuinely
the greatest show I've ever seen ever. And I was
so overwhelmed at the time that I came back saying
that to people, and I'm standing by it like it
still feels like that to me. So I can't wait
(03:31):
to see what he does on that on the halftime show.
Imagine I had the dancers out this year. I was
in America for the Super Bowl and watched it in
a bar. I won a thousand dollars in a bar
on a sweep steak. Didn't even know what I was
meant to do or how I won it.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Did you buy everybody in the drink? Did you buy
everybody a drink in the bar?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I did not.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I did not, you, stiff, Britt.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I know I'd spent so much money by the time
I won that, I was just recouping something. It hardly
dented my debt at that point.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
All right. So, after all of our pre chat the
last few weeks about what was going to happen at
this year's Mercury Prize, the Mercury Prize has happened, and
this is what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Twenty four Mercury Prize is English Teacher for.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
The album Okay to say, neither of us called that
one English Teacher. The Leeds Bands were crowned the winner
of this year's Mercury Prize for their album This Could
be Texas, their debut album. Now STU furious furious. I'm
(04:40):
not furious about all but furious. No, I'm not furious.
I'm furious at myself. I'm not furious at the band.
I love English Teacher and I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Very happy that they won. I'm furious that every single
year I go so hard on who I think is
going to win, and I should have learned by now
to just like bring it dial it back on our
Mercury episodes, I was so certain it was going to
be Charlie that I couldn't see that. I wasn't even
allowing the possibility of somebody else. Even up to the
moment they announced this, I was at where here comes
(05:09):
Charlie XCX, And once again I look like an idiot.
I've only called it three times, I think in the
existence of the of the Mercury, and that was Skeptera.
The XX and olt J. I think those three I've
got right, But that's not good because it's been going
on for.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Thirty years forever. So the judge is called this could
be Texas a future classic, don't know. I mean, having
listened to it, I'm not sure I would agree that
it's a future classic. But I mean absolutely great album.
But I don't know if I'll be like thinking about
that album in ten years time. If people did tune in,
(05:48):
they would have noticed it was a bit different this
year because instead of it being in a big music
venue with a few thousand fans there and all the
tables out and all the people from music industry getting like,
you know, wasted, it was an abby road stud and
it was very much the kind of production for TV.
It was very intimate, and they kept reminding us it
was very intimate with eleven of the twelve artists were
(06:08):
there to attend to hear the winner being read out.
But it was a different vibe. It was a completely
different vibe to Mercury prizes.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Well, intimate is often code that estate agents use for
a very underwhelming or small, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Well, this is your intimate extra bedroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
this is cozy. This is a cozy space, I guess,
being totally honest, it made me a little bit sad,
you know, like it wasn't you know, there was no
headline sponsor this year for the Mercury Prize, which I
have seen suggested in various reports when this was announced
that was the reason why they've kind of downscaled what
(06:45):
they were doing, because you know, this wasn't enough money
to go out and do a kind of big award
ceremony this year, and it didn't have quite the sort
of like energy in the vibe that I think those
past award ceremonies have had. And also it got me
thinking about the fact that like music Awards SAH in
twenty twenty four, right, we're seeing a fewer of them,
(07:05):
Like I feel like there's a bit of a slow
death of the music awards ceremony going on. Like I mean,
the Mercuries are still there, that's still happening, but was like,
as we just said, on a smaller scale, hasn't been
like an Enemy Awards for the past few years. Hasn't
been a Kerrang Award since two thousand and two. I know,
like COVID had like probably a lot to do with
that as well in the after effects of COVID. But
(07:28):
music awards like broad question here, but are they still relevant?
Is it too difficult to make them happen? Like does
you know in an era where music moves so quickly,
does it feel a bit kind of like irrelevant to
be looking back on the past year in music or
I mean, what do you think.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I don't think they're necessarily irrelevant. I think I think
the pace of music, I don't think that necessarily comes
into it, because I think it's still nice to look
back on the previous year and be reminded of things
that you might have forgotten. Oh yeah, that came out,
And I think that's why people love end of year
list so much. I think it just comes down to
the money that isn't in music right now and Kerrang Awards,
(08:10):
Enemy Awards, Q Awards.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Well, Que's relaunched, but they've not relaunched their awards. Rolling
Stone Magazine had their first awards earlier this year, I believe,
the UK version of Rolling Stone. But it all comes
down to wherever they can get sponsor. And actually, what's happened
to the Mercury this year is it's the first year
they've not managed to secure that sponsor, whereas that sponsor
(08:34):
hasn't been there for the last few years for Enemy
and those types of awards. I think it just comes
down to that, doesn't it. Companies aren't seeing the benefit
of sponsoring music awards. So hopefully it will come back,
because I think those sorts of things, if nothing else,
are fun and they are celebratory, and if we need
(08:57):
some more fun to come back into the music industry,
because you know, it's we're not going to get back
to the days of Led Zeppelin and pure excess and
ridiculous rock star lifestyles, and maybe that that's probably a
good thing, but we do want to keep some of
the things that are like frivolous and silly and ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I want to run a one line rebrand past you
to get what you you know, to get your thoughts
on this. What about Is it time? Given the eight
out of the twelve albums nominated for this year's Mercury
Prize with debut albums, is it time to rebrand and
call it the Mercury New Music Prize and make it
all about new music? Yes, excellent, let's move on. So
(09:38):
we've got an amazing guest on this week's podcast. Stu
tell us all about who's been joining us. I'm pretty
excited to share this with listeners.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yes, tonight's episode interview is with Jordie Greep, the former
front man of Black Midi. Not because he's left the
bandma because the band have split up. Black Midi are
a band who, over the last five years since they
released their debut album, have really pushed guitar music in
a completely new direction every time they've done anything, very
(10:09):
inventive band from South London, well London. People love this
band so much and they have quite suddenly decided to
split up. Now, for a little bit of context, I
went and met Jordi at his home. He's just announced
his debut solo album, which is called The New Sound.
(10:29):
I'd explain in this that two weeks before that he
announced that Black Midi was over, quite unexpectedly to fans,
and he did that via a Instagram live chat. He
was on Instagram Live and somebody asked him about what's
happening with the next Black Midi record, and his response
was no more Black Midy, It's over now. The next day,
(10:53):
the bassis of the band Cameron Picton. He posted the
following We agreed not to say anything about breaking up,
so I was blindsided as everyone else last night, but
maybe in a different way. I guess sometimes all you
can say is lol. So essentially, essentially what Jordie's done
(11:15):
is that the band obviously said they had split up,
they weren't going to tell anyone, and he came out
to anyone. So that's a little bit of context. That
was two weeks before we spoke. The only other thing
I wanted to clear up just before we get into this.
At the end of this conversation, I asked him about
the brit School. The brit School is a music college
here in the UK that has an unpressed It has
(11:37):
an incredible hit rate of making famous pop stars, essentially
adele Amy, Winehouse Kicks, Rizzle Kicks, Jesse j. I think
there's a big, big list, but they are all mainstream
pop stars and Black MIDI, this strange experimental art rock
(11:58):
band who are as influenced by jazz and fusion as
they are. Sonic Youth also came from there, So that
is a little bit of context about what that college
is and why I asked him about the fact that
this strange band had also come from this place that
is known for being a pop star factory from the
(12:19):
outside at least.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, I can't wait to talk to you about what
I made of this.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, let's play the interview and then we'll come back
and talk about this because there's some very interesting things
said here. Here is me and Jordie Greep in conversation.
You've had like a really busy two weeks. Really, last
week was your birthday, the same day you announced your
(12:47):
debut solo album, The New Sound. A week before that
was the announcement that Black Medi was no more. And today, obviously,
as I say so, acis DA's all people are talking
about how so like to tick those things. It's been
two weeks since the announcement about the Black Medi calling
it a day, And how do you feel about the
fact that, like, you know that that chapter's done and
(13:07):
you're moving on to something else really good.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I mean, I'm really happy with the music that's coming
out on this new album, and I'm really excited for
everyone's going to take it and how it's going to
be to play it live. So it's been a really
nice period. It's been exciting, and the response has been
really cool. Everyone is really into it. There's nothing to lose. Really.
It feels like a very exciting time and a time
(13:33):
of like saying, who knows what's going to happen, you know,
exciting in the way of like uncertainty in a good way.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Do you like that? You like that sort of.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Like definitely, what's the point of doing sign if you
know exactly how it's going to go.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
The response to like the band splitting up, on announcing
that you had split up, it's quite something. People were,
you know, the fans were like really upset, really supportive,
saying what a great band it was, and the I
can see that you'd left, Like were you surprised by that?
Speaker 4 (14:02):
I don't know, it was very I didn't expect it
to take off, you know. I was just on his
live stream, and I've said stuff like this before, especially
in a hyperbolic way of being like yeah, making grand
statements and stuff. So I didn't expect it would be like, oh,
now it's official, legitimate, like this is it. But it's
just how it happens, I guess. And then you know
(14:24):
the fact of people being nice and saying it was
a good band and stuff and it's obviously cool. I
also think is very the hindsight vibe of like, you know,
the whole time it was, you know, putting out albums
and stuff, especially the first two albums, it was like
people saying, yeah, this is all right, this is not
that good or whatever, saying oh yeah, this album's all right,
(14:46):
but it's a bit too they're trying to be a
bit too clever, or this is cool, but I don't
like it or whatever. And then the third album came
out and it was this is good, but it's not
as good as the first or second album, which was great.
And then now the saying the band's over. It's like
it was so good, it was so yeah the whole
time along the band is there, it's like, oh nah,
but they not as good as they think they are.
(15:07):
With It's like, I don't know, I think it's just
one of them things. You know. It's like, but let's
see how it goes with this new thing. Yeah, help
people are into that. Let's see, let's see.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So did you think when you put when you like
mentioned it in that in that live stream, did you
just think people would just because that just came about, right,
because somebody asked when the next record was and you're like, oh,
we're not making another record.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Well, it was like it's the kind of thing of
just saying it all the time, saying, what's going to
happen to the black media? It was going to happen
to black media?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
What on the screen is like, It's like that's the
question that keeps going no.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
No, no, every time I do one of these streams
or on Twitter or it replies and what is And
then yeah, it was like it was the wrong thing
to do. But in that moment of just being on
this live stream, I just thought, well, you know, what
have we got to lose by just sit telling the truth? Yeah,
so it's probably, you know, it's probably not going to
happen for a while because the band's not really active
at the moment, that doesn't really exist anymore. So we'll
(15:58):
see what happens. But I wasn't meaning to be you know,
over the top. It's trying to be like, you know,
just just a bit transparent with people because people kept
asking and thought, well, listen, they're not gonna stop asking.
They're only gonna it's going to gonna keep going. So
I just thought it was you know what I've got
to lose, you know. Yeah, yeah, and it's not it's
(16:20):
not a bad thing. It's not a negative thing. It's
not a thing of like, oh yeah, it's it's the end.
It's it's cool. It's so many great bands that they do,
you know, three great albums or whatever, three albums, are
happy with four and then they say, yeah, that's enough,
Velvet Underground or you know, Original Concrimtional whoever. Like, there's
loads of stuff where it's a brief but exciting period
(16:44):
and then you say, all right, let's we're happy with that.
Let's let's let's part that for now.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
And I think people maybe forget that five years three
albums in five years, that's like a lot of work,
and that is a long time for young men to
be together. You know, why do we when you started
the band like fifteen fifteen and you're twenty five. Now, yeah,
that's ten years of your life. That's a that's a
that's a big chunk, right, So like maybe maybe bands
(17:11):
don't need to last longer than five years, you know,
maybe maybe there's there should be these shorter sort of
windows and people move on to other things. I think
one of the reasons why people were surprised I'd same
or anything. Is because Black Midi has over those last
five years, really embodied this band, this group who are
(17:31):
completely It always felt like you were just scratching the
surface of what you could do because you're all such
brilliant players, right and so like, there's so many different
styles going on. It's really experimental. It's pushing things forward
all the time. And if there's one band that people thought, well,
this band could just go on forever and they could
keep reinventing things, they could keep changing that sound, then
(17:54):
it was Black Median. And I think that's probably why
a lot of people are like, what, like that can't
be the one that calls it a day this early
when so many others don't, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Well, it's it's part of the same thing. It's like
maybe it's this thing of the brand that's going for
it and pushing it and seeing how far they can go.
Finds out quicker that oh we've probably done enough for now.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, yeah, was that it was? It was it that
you felt like, we've got these three records and however
it felt on the outside to like listeners like me,
you just felt like we've done what we can do,
what we want to do. We've pushed this where we
want it to go, and we just want to leave
it now. Was that what it was?
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Well, it's just with times diminishing returns, and it's with
time it was like getting less and less done. It's
like less songs and less like creative things, and also
to a less high standard. Being like you felt like that, well, well,
not necessarily the albums, but with stuff since working on
tunes and stuff like behind the scenes trying to get
stuff done. It was like, yeah, this is all right,
(18:58):
this is all right, but none of it felttle. I
really disagree with this thing of doing music that doesn't
have to exist. You know, so much of music I
don't enjoy if probably you can probably boil it down
to the fact that it doesn't sound as if it
has to exist. It doesn't sound as if the music
is existing of its own volition or the best music.
It sounds like it's coming out of itself, like it's
(19:20):
like this is we have to we have to do this,
whereas you know, so much music just kind of dirges
on just a bit like oh the verse chorus, and
it's you know, Who's Who's that?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
For?
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Lots of people like that music, but does anyone love
that music for the sure?
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah, there's a there's a great quote that comes with
that was put out from you when the new album
was your solo album was announced, which sort of speaks
to that. Actually it was it's where you talk about
how I've got it here. It says you were like
bared of listening to music knowing in an advance what
(19:57):
it was, what it means, or what it was trying.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
To Yeah, like what it sounds like, like so many things.
I think a lot of critically acclaimed music music journalists
like it because they already have an opinion before they've
even put it on, and then they play the album
and it's like, oh, this corresponds with my read of
this band or this single or whatever, So that's good.
It's seven out of ten, eight out of ten, which
is fine. But it's like, I like stuff where you
(20:23):
listen to it and you don't know the first time,
the second time, maybe even the third time, what you
think of it, and you don't necessarily know what it's
about lyrically, but you know it's not about nothing, you know,
and it's this thing of you're working out as you
listen to it, you know whether it's a successful failure,
you know, sure, I don't know was that?
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Did you?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Have you always felt that way about music in terms
of wanting it to do more than some people take.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Over time, I think I've realized what the music I
like the most has in common with each other, and it's, yeah,
it's in part. A lot of it has this thing
of yeah, listening to it again and again and seeing
more and not necessarily liking at first, and it growing
on you. Some albums you think are great and then
they just get worse and worse. But there's also some
albums you like straight away that stay good or get better.
(21:15):
I think it's the thing with music. When you add
more complexity and more elements, you kind of introduce more problems, right,
There's more things that need to be done right and
done proficiently and done with confidence and stuff. And so
if you can pull that off and do stuff that's
(21:38):
really trying to do quite you know, technical or quite
white crock, quite far out things and it gets them right,
it's like a whole new layer, you know, that's added
to something. Of course, if it gets them wrong, it
sounds ten times worse and something that's just simple and
trying to do a simple thing and pulling off a
simple thing. But I think I've always responded to music
(22:00):
the most way. It's like you can tell that there's
you know, they have come a long way to get
to the point where they're putting out this album. You
can hear that they have practiced this a lot, or
that they've got, you know, come on a long path
to get to this point or where. But you know,
it's kind of hippie stuff, but you can definitely hear it.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
And someone I was like, what's the record then that
you loved it on first listen and you still love it?
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Ala Marvin Gay, what's goming on? It's like the best
album ever? You know, everyone likes that and it's so
easy to listen to. No one listens to that, and
it's like, oh, it's like immediately sounds good, but it
does get better because it's not that it's extremely well produced,
well written songs, amazing performances, well tied together. It has
(22:50):
a nice relationship between songs and all that. It's not
all of that. It's the spirit. It's this thing of
you're listening to something that so overwhelmingly positive in spirit
and attitude and execution that is very infectious. And the
more you listen to it, the more and Denial Boy is,
(23:12):
you know, and it's something that everyone likes the first time.
Here this sounds good, but you know it really it
really works. That's one album where and it is an
album actually where it was on the precipice of disaster,
with this whole save the world kind of vibe, So
save the babies he's saying, and all this kind of
like oh what are we doing? How do we fix
our world? It could be very you know, horrible, you know,
(23:34):
really annoying, but it somehow really comes together and and
you believe.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Him voice as well on it, Like his vocal takes
are just incredible, faultless, but.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
You believe him. You know, he says it, and you think, yeah,
fair enough. It's a kind of thing that you know,
some guy green peace guy or whatever like in the
town market can say and you but here this guy
is singing it over this music. I say, what, yeah,
we should be doing something about that man, And you're right,
so you know, fair enough. But there's loads of yeah,
(24:06):
there's there's there's loads of albums that are like that
you listened to it the first time. I think art
this is great and the opinion doesn't change. But I
think it is those albums that it takes your while
to figure out are the ones that end up they
have something to them that you because you don't forget that,
that your your own journey of growing to it.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Last week was your birthday? Happy birthday twenty five, feeling
good to be twenty five?
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Yeah, great, very like you know, optimistic, very good birthday,
good celebration.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
What did you do on your birthday? You announced the
record the Records called the New Sound. Did you obviously
that was on purpose? You thought I'm going to announce
it on my birthday?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Or did that? Was that just a pure no?
Speaker 4 (24:52):
I thought it tied together in a lot of ways.
It was like this new thing, calling it bluddy the
New Sound, you know, put out twenty fifth birthday Water
of a century. It feels like a new time. It's
a new, completely new approach to how I'm going to
do music. It just seemed to make sense, and it
seemed to that was you know, I thought it would
be a nice thing to remember as well. You know,
(25:14):
I've always been twenty fifth birthday. That's when I was,
you know, started this whole new thing because you know,
we'll see how it goes. But I really hope that
I'll be able to just keep this going and be
able to just do you know, an album every year
like this one?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Sure, announce it on your on your birthday every year?
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah yeah, well maybe Easter next year, Okay, yeah, maybe something.
I don't know. It's just it just seemed in many
ways are good and it's just fun. Why not?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Sure? So what is the new approach that you mentioned
as you've got a new approach to making music? What
what is that?
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Well, it's a solo album, so it's like, you know,
basically have the final say on everything that's on the
album and have to kind of you know, put it
all together in most of ways. You know, did even
did delay out the album cover and all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I love the album cover.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Oh yeah, it's cool. It y Japanese taykey is great. Yeah,
it really works. It's a good thing as well, because
it's something like that that's really graphic but not offensive. Yeah,
it's quite hard to find where it's.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
So what is that image? Explain the image to people
who think he might not have seen it. Put a link.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
In ins by a Japanese artist called Toshio Sayaki, and
he was a guy from the seventies, eighties, nineties whatever
to now, and he did these kind of really graphic
images of like, you know, a lot of stuff that
goes into quite hardcore almost fetish type thing of people,
(26:36):
you know, getting it decapitated and you know, demons and
stuff and grules and loads of sexual stuff, and they
have a nice style. And I was going through a
book of his images and found this one which is
of kind of a businessman in a field with a
(26:57):
peasant woman or whatever it was, sickle and then she's
kissing him and at the same time chopping his head
off and he's in the air and on the other
side all the blood is spurting onto some school girl.
That's just I just thought it was a great image, right,
And I saw it and thought, wow, this is brilliant.
This is definitely an album covered already. I looked it up.
It's not an album cover already, so for okay, I'm
(27:17):
going to use it before anyone else does. Great contact
the estate and everything, and you know, it was it
was all playing. That's a good sign, isn't it When
when something seems like it's been done before, she usually
a quite good sign.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. So sorry you were saying, so
you've you've now essentially the thing is you've got complete
free reign.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
To do exactly do whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
So like with stuff like that album cover, I just
you know, went for it. And what that's meant musically
is just using session musicians working with all different guys.
Of course everyone's probably seen by now. I did this
whole album, half of it in Brazil, so what Brazilian
music musicians did. The rest in London got loods of
people doing overdubs and stuff. Feels great.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
So you recorded half of it in South Paolo and
half of it here in London. How does the South
Palo think? Haven't was it that you wanted to go there?
So you were like, I'm going to record it there
and I'm going to find some musicians there or had
you found some musicians there? Which way round? Does that work?
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Way around?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Is?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
And why sou Polo?
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Well, me and Chank we produced. We were we were
looking to do a session in London last December and
we were trying to get top session guys or guys
we liked. We were trying to. We wanted to make
it sound like Billy Jean and make it a slick
as possible. And we also want the guys that had
experienced playing Latin music or were you know, comfortable in
that kind of thing, because a lot of the rhythms
(28:40):
and stuff, and a lot of the chord structures are
kind of based on a lot of that Latin stuff.
I was really into sal some music and a lot
of Brazilian music and stuff. So then I thought, why
am I trying to book a session in London. We're
actually going to Brazil to play with Black MIDI. So
I caught it the one guy I know him sal Paolo.
We had days off and stuff. I called it one
guy I know. I said, you know, musicians, I'd like
(29:02):
to do a little recording session. They said, yeah, no
worries man. I saw it out. This guy called Fernando Dotter.
He organized all the musicians, got them all together. I
send them the songs in advance, but they learned them all.
It was epic. I just went in gave them the music,
but they didn't need it. They just played it all.
We did four tracks. We did four of the songs
on the album, So this.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Was just another quote from you about the record which
I liked, which is the main theme of the record
is desperation. You don't hear an unreliable narrator, but someone
who is kidding themselves that they have everything under control,
but they don't.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Yeah, I just thought it was a neat way of
packing up all these songs, you know, yeah, turning into
one thing. It's a good theme. I think it's unexplored
a little bit in popular music, this whole thing of
like really over the top dramatic and at the same time,
you know, being very showy and over the top without
(29:56):
necessarily having any idea how to talk back where you're
saying whatever. I like that movie Sunset Boulevard. Oh yeah, yeah,
what's her name, Gloria is it? Whatever her name is.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Glorious Swans, Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, that's I'm ready
for my close up.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah exactly. And it's kind of theme of this kind
of performance the whole way, which is so desperate and
so theatrical, but being so theatrical and at the same
time to shying away the whole time, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
That's what this record has got. A real theatrical so,
I mean health I had certain theatrics to it as well.
I think this feels like you've really gone exploring in
that direction of sort of theater Cabaret, Holy Holy for example,
sounds like it could be from a musical. Are you
(30:49):
a musical fan of you or not? Particular?
Speaker 4 (30:52):
I mean a lot of the old school ones, you know,
like you know, Bloody west Side Story now everyone likes that. Yeah,
you know a lot of stuff that the show tunes
come from that everyone knows, you know, Wizard of Oz
and all this kind of thing. Yeah, But a modern musicals,
I think they've gone down a really weird rabbit hole
of hyper American singing and really weird songs and quite
(31:16):
there's not quite my bag, but who knows, you know,
at a certain point it's all to play for, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah. So like with this record, when you when you
went into making it, was this what was your goal
with it? Was there a certain thing you wanted the
record to be or to do.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Kind of just wanted it to pull together as many
things musically that I like and I wanted to kind
of put into my music the actual things I like,
and the actual things I like listening to to try
and creatively incorporate them into my own music. There's a
funny thing yet, where guys in indie bands, guys in
(31:56):
rock bands or whatever, they will do an interview and
they will say, oh, yeah, like I'm in this punk
band or I'm in this this indie rock band or
whatever it is, But it's not actually the kind of
music I like. I actually only really like listening to
like neoclassical music or minimalism, or or like Japanese folk
(32:17):
or or Latin American music or whatever it is. Ah, yeah,
but my music doesn't sound anything like that. But that's
the music I actually like. I don't actually like punk music.
And yeah, I mean it's fair enough, you know, we
all when guilty of that to degree to kind of,
you know, make yourself seem more rounded or more interesting.
But I just think that's so lame. It's like, why
are you going to like consciously not try and make
(32:41):
the music they actually like.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, I think that's because they don't feel that they've
got the chops to do that. Do you think it's
because they're like, I've just picked up a guitar because
that's an easier thing to do.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Yeah, but why not try? That's my thing. It's just like,
why not try at all? Because literally, like, if you
like this time music and you're not interested at all
to try and you know, to try and take what
you like about that and try and make something of
your own that that does the same thing or that
(33:12):
does something similar, or that you learn something from the
music you like. And yeah, I get the idea of
like you're saying, like it's you know, you can say, ah,
but that's beyond my pay grade, or it's too hard,
or it's different, or it's it from a different culture
or something you can quite do. But you know, what's
the point of doing something that you know you don't
actually like or that you know it's not the actual
(33:34):
music that you want to be listening to. See, that's dumb.
So it is. I was just like, well, the music
I actually like listen to is this a lot of
fusion stuff. There's a lot of this Latin stuff. There's
a lot of this kind of you know, crazy avant
garde stuff, and there's a lot of this kind of
you know, slick kind of you know steely Dan rock,
you know, radio whatever it is this kind of stuff.
(33:57):
So I'm going to try and incorporate that into my
own music and try and make music that I find
legitimately satisfying. I like the kind of music that I
would listen to if I wasn't making music.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
You know, is there anything that you listen to or
enjoy that you do feel is like that you've not
tried yet?
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Oh yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. But you
know it's you know whatever, because there's stuff that's so
ridiculously accomplished that it was just foolish to even attempt so,
you know, hinderstanding music or something, or like, you know,
a proper you know, baroque classical music or this kind
(34:35):
of thing, or it would be foolish to try and
completely say you're making that kind of music and just
jump that world and say, oh, yeah, well I'm doing
it now now I'm a musician playing this kind of thing.
But I still think you can and any type of
music really you can take what you like about it.
You can break it down and say, oh, well, I
like this because it has a kind of hypnotic thing
(34:58):
and then take that and incorporate to your own thing.
Or I like this because of the rhythm and take
that anything, you know what I mean. I just find
it a bit silly sometimes where it's this thing of like, yeah,
like people go out of way to say that they
had the music that they make is not the music
that they like. It's like, I find out, so weird.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Where do you find your music that you listen to?
Speaker 4 (35:21):
I think I had a very intense period of, like
when I was a teenager, of just listening to as
much music as possible. You know, some days just listen
to like fifteen albums a day, don't really go outside.
Another days, you know, got about town, you know, but
whatever it is is, I just had this thing of
I wanted to be able to say I'd listen to
(35:42):
every type of music at least giving it a girl right.
And I think the thing is some people they have
this thing where they get into you know, English folk,
or they get into R and B whatever it is,
and then they say that's the type of music I like,
and if anything sounds remotely like, they say, oh, well
(36:03):
I like this because it's this and I like that.
But I don't know. For me, I kind of found
early on that every music, every type of music, is
majority a bit bland. And if every genre there is
about you know, however, many albums that are wonderful that
just great to just dynamite, then there are loads that
(36:24):
are quite good, and then most of them are just
kind of okay, that's fine, But it's just the whole
thing is that every album that's really good doesn't sound
like the genre sounds like itself, you know, is like
you know, whatever classic you know, Led Zipplin four doesn't
it's not really like like it's obviously it's rock, but
(36:46):
it's not like it's not just that had a whole
way through it sounds like it's unique, sounds like itself
then like you know, in a silent way, but Myles Davis,
nothing sounds like that album. Or you know, however many
Croil Sister by Pentangle nothing sounds like that. It's not
like every you know, you'll go through and be like
all English flog is going to sound like this you
(37:07):
go through, nothing sounds like that. So the thing that's
unique is individuals who are really creative working under a
genre and then making something that's its own type of music. Yeah,
and that's that. So that so basically long and short
of it is that kind of thing of saying well,
no one music is truly good. You just have to say, well,
(37:28):
I have to listen to every type of music, because
every type of music is going to have a few
guys that are just geniuses that have just happened to
have been born into the circumstances that they're working in
that music. You know, like Milton neishment of the Brazilian
or Flipping Charlie Garcia, Argentinian musician, or you know whoever.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
And do you have you found that you've had to
listen to a lot of the average stuff to find
the gold within it, or do you just do the
research to be like, right, I'm going to start with
this guy because this guy's meant to be. He's one
of the greatest.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Well, I would say that often, Yeah, the things that
resonate with people generally are the best things, you know,
and there's some cases of stuff that's really popular, but
I wouldn't say is that great, But generally buy and
large if something you know gets to a lot of
(38:22):
people and they really like it, I think with music
there's not that many like hidden gems. There's stuff that
you find and it's obscure and it's great, but you know,
most of the time, if you find obscure like prog album,
it's really good, but it's not really as good as
Genesis or Yes or Being Floyd whatever. It's still really good,
(38:43):
but or obscure fusion album, it's not really as good
as the best Weather Report album or the best Man
of Visual album. You know. So there's a lot of
people who they can, like they find like an obscure
whatever it is album and say, oh, well, this is
obviously better because it's more obscure. It's like, it's really good,
but it's you know, it's not quite the same. You know,
(39:03):
there's nothing wrong with just saying yeah, like you know,
the things that strike a chord do for a reason.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Is there any any record or musician that you like
that it's unequivocally dumb.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
Unequivally dumb? Oh yeah, I mean hm hmm. Like like
there's some silly songs, you know, novelty songs. Yes, so
I can boogie and that's pretty good. It hits the
spot at certain point of the night, it hits the spot,
or you know, as pretty silly. Everyone likes that. There's
(39:40):
a great song. I mean, I mean unequivocally dumb is
a good one. I mean, what can you think of
something like, well, I'm.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Just thinking, I'm sort of wondering, like what what happens
at you know, a wedding. Have you been to many weddings?
Maybe you're not, you're young for a wedding season. There
will be there will be a point. It's probably about
five years away from at this point, you know, Yeah,
suddenly all your mates will start getting married and you'll
be going to hold three weddings a year, and you'll
(40:08):
hear the same mostly the same wedding songs, and it'll
be mister Bright's side by the Killers, and it'll be
and everyone'll be going wild. Yeah, and it'd be great fun.
But angels and stuff, yes, yeah, exactly, you know, sort
of mainstream floor fillers, really like how do you feel
about that? That site, that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Oh, what are good songs? You know? The other day?
That song Angels by Robbie Williams. This is actually quite
a good example of a song that's like really popular,
but you can break down it's good as well put together. Yeah,
because Angels, right was written by some random guy, some
(40:50):
random like some some guy that's gone on to have
a you know, decent career, perfectly good songwriters and all
of this. He had the song, and then Robbie Williams
and the producer whatever said, oh that's good, let's take that.
They paid him like a settlement fee, and then they
had the songwriting credit. And then but if you listen
(41:12):
to his version versus their version, his version, yeah, it's
obviously the same song, but when you listen to their version,
they've changed a lot of little things that make it
way better, right, And it's the sort of thing where.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
It's like, which is why it's a hit?
Speaker 4 (41:26):
Yeah, and you break it down, you say, ah, well,
his version is good. You can look at like you
can listen to on YouTube the original Angels and it's cool.
It's like and there's you know, there's part of you
that wants to be like, oh no, but they've really
done him wrong and stuff. But when you listen to
what they did with the song, they changed around a verse,
They changed around a lot of the chords. They introduced
(41:47):
like some harmony that gives it a lot of tension.
They changed the lyric around a bit, and it just
like they just elevated. They did all the things that
make a pop song a pop song, and there's an
art to that, and it's a good way of saying, Ah,
that's the stuff that makes something sell million units or whatever,
and it's quite cool.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Really, did you learn about that stuff when you were
studying at college. You're a songwriter, so you've spotted those things.
Is that just from learning on the job or did
you have seminars where you'd be like, this is how
you construct the perfect pop song.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
The thing is, there's no right way to do it,
and you in school they did have things where it
was like, oh, one thing you can do is for
the verse, go to the relative minor stuff or whatever
it is. But the problem is is there's basically if
you do something with the intention to make the song
more interesting, like oh, let's just do that or make
(42:40):
it better, usually just sounds crap. It's got to be naturally,
it's got to work with the lyrics, got to work
with the melody. Main thing is everything else should follow
the melody.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
I think, yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
The difference between a good song a bad song is
bad song is like they come up with some loops
and then try and fit a melody to it. Great
song is when they have a really interesting melody and
fit the whole thing around it. Weathering Heights by Kate
Bush goes between three four and four four. It's not
because she was like, oh, I want to make a
disfusion prog song. She had this melody, it was great
(43:10):
and they fit the music around it.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Is that how you start? Do you start with with
the top line?
Speaker 4 (43:15):
The thing is, I if I had a method that works,
I'll be happy. Every song is different.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
I felt like Black Midi did. One of the things
that you guys did was you gave people a different
perception of what the brit School was or is, should
I say, I think a lot of people sort of
had in that mind. It's the Amy Winehouse factory, it's
the adele thing, it's the mainstream pop star thing, right,
and then Black Midi come along and everyone say, oh,
(43:47):
you know they went to the brit schol and say, okay,
I thought that was a different type of thing. I
think a lot of people felt are there more people
doing sort of more experimental things? And we as the
general public don't necessarily know that because we know about
the big, huge pop stars that come out of it.
Or were you in that environment? Were you guys sort
of outliers doing your own thing, and that wasn't That
(44:10):
wasn't the norm.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
I mean, I think it was both is. Even if
you go there, they tell you on the course, don't
come in here expecting to get out and get rich
or to be taught how to do a song or
to be taught how to It's not like there's a
they give you a key. Earis unlocks to music industry.
(44:33):
It's just a normal school really, but the music department
is a bit better equipped. The reason I went there
is because at my secondary school, not enough people pick
music as a GCSE option, so it just wasn't a thing.
There was no music course, so I thought I heard
about this brit school thing. It's not a paying school.
(44:53):
You just have to apply. You just do an audition,
so thought, why not.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
You know what was your audition?
Speaker 4 (44:58):
I didn us by Stevie Wonder. Okay, you know the
songs in the Key of Life the album, right there's
like track four is like some really crazy like fusion tracks,
so crazy guitar solo. Yeah, it's great. But I did
that as my audition and I made the back in track,
played the drums and stuff, played bass and then play
it on guitar and it was super cool, man.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
So you put all of the back in track down
and when you go into your audition, is it you?
And like what a couple of people.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
The teachers that end up teaching you on the course.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Sort of saying whether you're in or not?
Speaker 1 (45:31):
And what?
Speaker 2 (45:31):
You give them a CD and they press play and
then you shred some guitar.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
And then remember what the what the reaction in the
room was, because they probably aren't getting that very often.
As the as the audition piece.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Not quite I remember it was. It was fine. They
tried to do like a little good cop bad cop thing,
if I remember, because one of the because I couldn't
read music or anything, and one of the teachers thing,
but you can read music. And I think it was
actually fine, but it was quite intimidating. I was like, oh,
is this really have blown it? Should I have made
(46:05):
up something? You know? But I think that they do
this interview and the main thing is just to check
that you're not, you know, the worst person ever, you know,
because anyway, it's it's it's a good schools, it's got
a good attitude and it's what you were saying originally
about will be like complete outlines and stuff. One of
(46:26):
the things is really good about is they really foster
this environment of like the only way to do music
is honestly and just do whatever you actually want to do.
There's no point in just doing what you think will
be popular or what you think is gonna make you
some money. And a lot of people go on the
music course, will go on because there's drama stairs and everything.
(46:47):
A lot of people go on the course there and
they end up actually not doing that thing. Loads of
people went and then just became you know, regular guys
working normal jobs, or went to music business, did whatever.
Or The main thing is it's a v occasional course.
It's just gives you the opportunity to to play music
and to play with different people and to play in
(47:10):
flake gigs. The thing is, if you think most guys
they're coming onto the circuit playing in a band and
they never even played on a stage before, whereas we
were very fortunate we'd had that before in school, playing
on stages and it was to the rest of the
school and stuff. It was a really good it's a
really good place. It's a really good system.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
They got well Geordie, thanks for coming on the podcast.
I'm glad everything's going so well for the future, and
congratulations on the new album.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
Man nice man, thanks very much. I have a good one.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
I'm going to fess up, Steve. When you were telling
me you were going to go meet Jordi Greep, I
was like, Oh, this is going to be an interesting
one because my understanding of black media. I love that band.
I love their music, by the way, but i'd like
I haven't I've read lots of interviews with them, never
really heard or what any interviews with him in particular,
and I just assumed that because of the way that
(48:05):
they looked and the way and the music that they
might be or Jordie might be a bit aloof or
maybe even a bit of austere, like very serious perhaps,
And so I wasn't quite sure what type of person
you were going to go meet. But actually I found
that chat. I was so into it. Basically, he came
across really warm. I really liked him. I just like
(48:27):
as a sort of like music fan. I liked him
hearing him talk about the music that he loves, very relaxed,
talking about the split of Black MIDI just like kind
of quite almost nonchalant, you know, but just makes a
lot of sense, very kind of like seemingly quite rational
about all of that stuff, Like, you know, hey, ho
(48:49):
is what it is? Wasn't quite what I had planned.
But onto the next thing, was he what you were
expecting and what did you make of it when you left?
Speaker 2 (48:56):
No, I wasn't expecting that either. I was expecting. The
thing is right that lots of musicians are very serious
people ultimately, and you think when they make the most
serious ones are the ones that make the most serious music.
And Black Midi's music, to some extent, is very serious
in the sense that it's so accomplished. When you hear
that hear that band play, they are so drilled and
(49:20):
schooled and they are incredible players, and it's very academically
put together. Right, So you think this guy talking about
it is maybe going to be the driest thing in
the world. But he was so chilled out. I found
him very calming. I thought what he did really well
was he spoke about music without making it boring, and
(49:41):
that's not an easy thing to do, especially when you're
talking about like the academic side of music and what
makes a good song. It was really nice to hear
him talk so positively about the brit School thing. Yeah,
and defend that school because there is a snobby attitude
about that from fans of indie music or you know,
alternative music, because they do just think, oh, this is
(50:01):
where like a production line. There's a production line, and
there's also an assumption that it's a paid for score
and only rich people go there, and it's just not true,
you know, Adele being a very good case in that.
It's just it's it's a college that you have to
audition to get into. And it was nice to him
talk about that as well. Yeah, he was great.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
My final thought on it was I loved that. I
loved his endeavor of being like, I'm going to go
and listen to all the classic albums of all of
the different genres to figure out what I like. I'm
just like what and that is an honorable pursuit. I
love that. And also his point about like hidden gems
being like the stuff that's good often rises to the top, Like,
(50:41):
you know, there's a reason why never Mind's considered like
an iconic grunge record. I think he makes quite a
valid point there.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Yeah, it's quite an anti snobby way to look at it,
to just be like, you know what. Dark Side of
the Moon is one of the best prog records ever. Yeah, okay,
I've got a top three for you in response to
the top three that you post to me last week. Yeah,
I want your top three. Acceptance speeches from Music Awards.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Okay, I love the surreal ones. So number one Byork
at the Brits in nineteen ninety eight, I'm a Grateful Grapefruit,
which is a classic, a classic picking up Best International
Female from Alexander McQueen. I love the surreal energy of
that and then just walks off. Number two. Arctic Monkeys
don't always get it right, but in two thousand and
(51:28):
seven I think they did when they won the Mercury Prize.
Were talking about earlier when they did the whole like
someone called nine nine nine. Richard Hawley has been robbed.
And the final one, which I think is possibly the
greatest of all time Lenny Henry at the MOBO Awards
in twenty fifteen, winning the Paving the Way Award, So
basically the Icon Award comes up on stage, lists all
(51:52):
of the people and organizations that he admires and stands
on the shoulders of for like two minutes and just
keeps going and like the crowd are like ramping up
and up and up.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
And give a shout out to Ara Holdridge, Paul Robeson,
Lord Kitchener, sy Grant, Billie Small, Desmond Decker, Bob Marley,
Charlie Williams, Josh White, Sammit Thomas, Tenny Lynch, Derrek Griffiths,
Layla Benjamin, Nina Baden, Semper, Hudof Walker, Greg mckinson, mister Brooks, Syrril, Regis,
(52:20):
Brendan Batson, Laurie Cunningham, Eddie Grant, Horace Ove, Norman Beaton,
Michael Abensais, Mustafa Matura.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
That is how you do a awards accept the speech
and is my favorite.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
I'm glad you said that one. Well, we'll let's try
and find them. We'll put them in.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
The They're going in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
We'll put lots of things down there, including the link
to our Instagram in case you want to give us
a follow at Midnight Chat's pod. We're also on TikTok.
It's sort of work sometimes, sort of doesn't cracking that Nat, Yeah,
and drop us a line d m us on Instagram
(53:01):
or you can email us. Email us at info at
loudon quiet dot com if you've got anything you'd like
to say about this episode, future episodes, past episodes. We'll
be back next week. Not sure what we've got coming
up next week, but we'll we'll come up with something
in the meantime. Enjoy yourselves, good night, See you on
the other side.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
We're just normal men. Midnight Chats is a joint production
between Loud and Quiet and Atomized Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
It's hosted by Stuart Stubbs and Greg Cochrane, mixed and
mastered by Flow Lines, and edited by Stuart Stubbs.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Find us on Instagram and TikTok to watch clips from
our recordings and much much more. We are Midnight Chats Pod.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
For more information, visit loudan Quiet dot com.
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