July 31, 2025 • 63 mins
Phil and David welcome the brilliant singer-songwriter Regina Spektor from Russia with Love for a funny, warm, moving and inspiring “Naked Lunch” about Regina growing up in Russia, coming to America with her family, her remarkable life and career in music, including stories about Tom Petty, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jeff Lynne and more. For more on Regina’s limited edition vinyl reissues of some of her classic albums and her current Midsummer Daydream Tour, go to https://reginaspektor.com. To learn more about building community through food and "Somebody Feed the People," visit the Philanthropy page at philrosenthalworld.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Good morning, David, Good morning, friend of rapper Ray Romano. Yeah,
can you believe this?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Let's play a little bit of this thing that happened?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Are you ready?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
All right?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
What do you think of that?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I think eminem is writing scaracter?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
What do you call it when you appropriate the appropriator? Yes, exactly,
but aren't impressed with his skills and also not to
mention the memorization.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Uh listen. I watched him on your show and then
parent should and men of a certain a becoming a
great actor, and that was a great rapper exactly. It
is very proud of Rain.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yes, I'm also very proud of you, David, because you
The best thing about doing this, besides the fact that
I hate to admit it, but I like you, is
that you've turned me on to such great musicians and
actually allowed me to meet them in person and fall
(01:19):
in love with them, not just for their music, but
for their character, their personalities and who they are. And
I have to be honest, I never listened to our
guests today. I just was unaware of her, as I
am unaware of a lot of music, and you've turned
me on to some great stuff. And I have to say,
Regina Spector is now one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And I have to tell you that I have never
met Regina Spector. Now. I have been a fan since
Tom Petty, of all people, his daughter Adria directed and
was an key collaborator to Regina on her early work. Right,
he was the first person to tell me, he goes, David,
this Regina Spectors. I have been a fan ever since.
(02:03):
But she her people when they put out they reissued
five of her albums. Yes, and she's on her tour
this summer, the Midsummer Daydream Tour right now, and they
they said, they suggest that she should be on the show,
and I was like, oh my god, I've always wanted
to talk to her, such a fan, such an interesting story,
because yeah, this is you know, a young lady who
(02:25):
grew up in Moscow until she was nine, came to
New York incredible and has become one of the great
sort of artists of her.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
As singer songwriters. Yes, yeah, just great. So I'm thrilled
to talk to her. We're talking to her on Zoom today.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And Riverside something different from Zoom.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Oh yeah, that's right, it's not soon. It's something called Riverside,
which I've used in some of my interviews.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I guess the qualities a little bit at you people.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
You can tell us, yes, you tell us how do
I look like?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
You look like? You can wrap it?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Not as well as I cannot.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I'm gonna have to get his secret for wrapping.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But let's get to know an artist we both love.
This is for naked launch. This is our summer of
specter and let's get to meet Regina Spector.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Let's build the beans to the fat, food for thought,
jokes on tap, talking.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
With our mouthsful, having fun.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Bes the cake and humble pies, serving up slice lovely,
the dressing on the side.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
It's naked lunch.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
Clothing optional.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
All this MUD's gonna breaks my heart and it breaks
my heart and it breaks what it breaks?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Are you doing, Regina?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Don't want to play? To meet you? We're both.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
Oh, thank you, thank you. I'm a big fan as well.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We have a couple of things in common. Yes, uh,
first is Riverdale? Oh so I lived there from the
time I was two to the time I was nine.
I lived on Netherland Avenue. Where did you live?
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Of course, of course I lived. I came to Kingsbridge Avenue. Great,
I don't know if you know it's right by the
subway and it's down the hill.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You went to the academy there?
Speaker 6 (04:34):
Yes, yes, it was. It was where I learned English
and Hebrew at the same time. I was just thrown
in a deep.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
What what did you like better?
Speaker 6 (04:46):
Well? I could start reading Hebrew faster because it was
kind of a simpler way to sound it out, because
it didn't have all the like walk talk, all the
like sneaky things that are pronounced different. It's it's a
exactly as it's written. But but ultimately I speak better English.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I learned Hebrew. Two Did you have to go to
Hebrew school and learn Hebrew at all?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I did? In fact, I grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey,
not far from another period of your life right after
by the way, you came from Moscow at nine Moscow
and the Hudson to which a movie that has more
significance I think for you, Yes, but you can't when
I'm from New Jersey and you did some time studying
(05:33):
in in New Jersey? Is that right?
Speaker 6 (05:35):
Yeah? I went to far Lahn High for a year
and a half.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I apologize for a New Jersey. I don't know if
Jersey I know when I went as a teen tour
as a kid to Israel. I was in the middle
of the desert and there were these poor kids selling
like soft drinks to people like in a They had
no ice, they had no anything, and they stopped.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
We stopped.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
There were the greatest kids, and they said, where are
you from? I said, New Jersey and they went New
Jersey and pointed at me, laughing, And I'm like, there
is literally no place in the world where New Jersey
is not a punchline.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
Unfortunately, I know whereas like when I traveled and I
told people I was from the Bronx, they'd be like,
show me your scars.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
They don't know that Riverdale is nicer than most places
in the United States.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
Yeah. Yeah, and even Kingsbridge, which is like right under
it is really great.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah. And by the way, you've shown your scars in
a series of albums now that have like, you know,
your great artistry by showing.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
You my emotional star.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Have you been back to Moscow?
Speaker 6 (06:44):
I've had the chance one time.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
For all I know, it might be the one and
only time because I'm not getting there, not going there
anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
When were you there last I was there.
Speaker 6 (07:02):
I went there with my record cheap seats and I
went there in twenty twelve, and it was the most
incredible feeling. It was just part of a European tour,
but somehow the way that these things work out and
life gives you these little poetic moments even when you
(07:23):
don't realize it's going to happen. My booking agent who
booked the tour, booked Vienna right after the Moscow show,
and that literally was I went from the same airport
that I went as a nine year old refugee to Vienna,
which was the first stop because Soviet refugees at the
time that I left had to go to Austria then stop.
(07:47):
Then they looked at our X rays of our lungs
and they did some interviews with our parents, and then
we went onwards to Italy, and then it was just
sort of open ended and people some people waited there
for a couple of weeks, some people waited there for
a year. So you just kind of lived in Italy
in these you know, amazing little sort of tiny communities
(08:13):
within the larger community of Italy. So we would go
to we lived in Ladispli and and it was just
a bunch of Soviet Jews waiting to get interviewed. And
we lived in an apartment with many many families per room.
Each family lived in a room, and and we just
(08:37):
we would go to the free beach. We would sort
of we we would we would buy the cheapest food
there was, which is like I think frozen turkey wings,
which they named the you know, Soviet wings or something like.
Every everything became a joke, and we would sell things
to the on the on in the in the market
(08:57):
that we had brought out like some I know, my
dad brought some melodia LPs, and we brought tablecloths and
sort of like little chatch keys and like little kitchen
Yes exactly we could maybe you know, maybe, oh we
don't know who that is, uh, but but it was.
(09:23):
It was sort of this, uh for I think for
our parents extremely stressful and for us extremely adventurous and
fun experience.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
You know immigration that kids kids can make fun anywhere, yes,
but Italy must have been felt like a paradise to you.
Do you ever see that movie Hope and Glory? No,
I want to record. It's by John Borman, who's done
a lot of great films. But it was about his
childhood during the London Blitz and even though it was
(09:59):
war and you could get killed at any time, and
he and his friends would have so much fun. Every
morning they would wake up and there was a new
rubble to play in.
Speaker 6 (10:10):
Right, right, I mean that I could. I could absolutely
see that. It's like it's like having exploring the insides
of apartments that you'd never get the chance to go
into otherwise.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
That it's one of the best movies I've ever seen
about that kind of experience. Your parents are worried, sick
and struggling, and you get to have, you know, a
childhood stuff.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
Yeah. I found out later that my dad had this
nightmare for months and months already after coming to America,
even where he would wake up and he would be
back in Moscow and he would have no idea how
to get back out and how to get any of
the papers that we'd gotten anything, and he would just
(10:54):
wake up in a cold sweat, over and over for
months and months.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, what was life like in Moscow? Do you remember it?
Speaker 6 (11:03):
I mean, I remember, I think I I remember a
lot of it. It's it's hard for me because I
think I'm sort of so much of my how do
I say this, Like my relationship to reality and imagination
(11:24):
is kind of it's ever so flowing, so especially as
a kid, I definitely I have very very vivid memories,
whether or not there exactly as things happened. I think
that probably not, because even when we went back, you know,
my mom came on that tour and it was so amazing.
(11:46):
We went and and revisited all the places from my childhood,
and and I went to some new places I'd never been.
And we went to my old neighborhood. Yeah, and I
and I looked at it with my mom and I said,
oh my god, this has become so run down like
it had this It just looked like a Fellini film
(12:10):
in my mind in my memory. And she said, wow,
they've really fixed this place up. So that was I
think the moment where I was like, okay, so maybe,
but you know, in a lot of ways, you know,
kind of like Fellini's film Armor Cord and how that's
(12:31):
I love that film so much. But do you remember
that scene where there's snow banks and they're like as
tall as they're walking through the I actually have that
memory because because we would just have so much snow
and it would fall like in, it would fall in
in I would say October or November, and then it
(12:53):
would just last till April. And what was interesting is
because it would be just layers and layers and more
and more would build up, so when it was melting,
it was like an archaeological discovery of like all the
dog poop and like everything, just everything that had been accumulated.
But we had so much snow to play with and
(13:14):
build with, and we would have to sort of just
nobody took it away. It just got added to. So
whenever there would be really big snows, all the grown
ups would go outside and they would sort of make
these slides out of snow, life size slide like in
a playground with rails with packed snow, and then they
(13:36):
would pour water just over the slide part that you
slide down, so then we could just climb up all
winter long and then slide down. And yeah, there's just
a lot of these. All our summers were spent in Estonia,
(13:56):
so we went to We went a lot to like
Talin and Piano and actually on a tour I went.
I've played Talent a few times and again my memories
of it were so different. But I think also it's
a different time. Like even when I went back in
(14:18):
twenty twelve, I was talking to one of the security
and she was saying that she was just a young woman,
like twenty one years old, and she had a young
teenage brother, and she was saying, yeah, and you know,
when it snows, nobody plays outside anymore. Everyone's just at
(14:42):
home on their phones or video consoles. And just she
was just basically kind of like exactly like here. But
I just it was so to me. It was just
such an interesting thing where on the one hand, we're
all trying to sort of, you know, reach everybody and
kind of connect. On the other hand, all this individuality
(15:06):
of places is disappearing and just becoming homogeneous. Like it
was really cool that Estonia was really different from Moscow,
and Moscow was really different from Tokyo and from New York.
Like that's the fun of it. If you're just going
like this everywhere, then it's just all the same.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Well, it's interesting, Regina. I don't know. If Phil does
a show, you know, where he goes around the world,
somebody feed Phil where there's all these places and their
unique qualities to the people. But he also did a
movie called Exporting Raymond, because I don't know if you know,
he created the show Everybody Loves Raymond.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yes, and Exporting Raymond, which I love.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
He took it to Russia and worked with the Russian
Broadcasting world to translate his show, and it's an amazing
for me. It was just like because the subject of Russia,
you know, is such a big one, and it really
brought it home for me in a way.
Speaker 7 (16:01):
To meet the head of comedy for the Russian network.
We meet him and he doesn't look like a head
of comedy, and he gets around to saying, when I
read Raymond.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
Because it's not funny, I don't have to.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Come to Moscow to be told I'm not funny. I
could hear that in my house. I was there in
two thousand and nine filming that came out in twenty eleven.
But Russia, I saw the Moscow that I saw. The
center of the city. You must have seen a great
difference from when we were a kid to coming back.
The center of the city was like now a great
well off European city.
Speaker 6 (16:38):
Because I lived so so on the outskirts, I sort
of like lived in the Bronx of Moscow. Yeah, you know,
I've always been a burrough girl, I guess, But I
just I feel like the few times that I'd gone
(17:02):
in were I went only to the most impressive places,
and to me at that age, it was stunning. But
like I went once to the Bulsh, Yeah, I went
to the I went to the Valet, I went to
the Bulsha. Actually saw a terrifying opera that the one
(17:24):
and only opera I had seen live till many many
years later in America. And it was it was called
kawun Sshin, and it was all about these two different
sects of Christians murdering each other because one of them
wanted to cross themselves with two fingers and that was
the old people, and the other ones wanted to cross
(17:46):
themselves with three fingers. And there was like a lot
of fire and huts burning, and and it really captured me.
It was Mussorski, but wow, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Luckily we don't have that conflict like that anymore.
Speaker 6 (18:01):
Right, that's all in the path they did have. They
did have a lot of They had this fortune teller
who could drop drip wax hot wax into water and
read that, and that really made a huge impression on me.
Just yeah, it was it's a really it's a really
beautiful opera, but I was definitely too young to see it.
(18:25):
I was probably like seven or eight. But you know,
my kindergarten graduation though, really kind of freaked me out
because as a present for graduating kindergarten, which you graduated
at six in Russia, it was like a year later
than here, we got taken to the mausoleum of Lenin,
(18:49):
of Grandpa Lenin and the wash so we we first
of all, at the time, it was a fascinating scene
because all the Russians had to sort of wait, and
the first people who got to kind of freely go
in were all the visitors, all the tourists, so they
(19:09):
got to experience the really. So you would have tourists
from all over the world and they would bring flowers
and you know, and other people from other communist countries
or you know, would just be very excited. So by
the time it was time for my kindergarten class to go,
we were you know, there's these guys with bayonets, and
(19:30):
there's a long and it's the mausoleum is dark stone,
you know, kind of and it's just a long sort
of dark rectangle you walk in. Yeah, and then there's
alongside this thing, there's dudes with bayonets all around. And
I was and they basically say, don't step out of line,
(19:52):
don't touch anything. So I was sure that I would
like trip and some guy would like spear me. So
I was just like, you know, and then you get
there and the reward is that you get to see
this dead yellow man in a suit just on a
stone slab.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Fun for the kids, super fun.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
But yeah, so so it was kind of different than
growing up here. But but I so like, but to
me everything looked beautiful right that I that I'd experienced.
But it's just that when I came, I saw how
modern everything. I mean, we never had anything like stores
with things in them, you know, like you could just lie,
(20:39):
you know. Some some went back to bed.
Speaker 8 (20:53):
Not Macheur left on his head a slice wonder bread,
and we right to bed. And a history books forgot
about us, and a Bible.
Speaker 6 (21:05):
Didn't mention us.
Speaker 8 (21:07):
And a Bible didn't mention us, not even one.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I want to get to your music, but one more
question about childhood, just as a parent yourself, Now, what
do you when you think of Ilia and Bella and
the you know, their collaboration makes all of your artistic
career possible. Your parents when you think of about them
making the leap and coming here and the world that
(21:38):
opened up for you as a parent, Now does it?
How do you interpret it? How do you make sense
of it?
Speaker 6 (21:47):
I mean, the the amount of gratitude that I feel
is is indescribable. And I felt that from the very
very beginning. I think as I have grown, I've understood
how hard it was. I really just they kept you know,
(22:08):
that's kind of the sort of the benefit and the
privilege of well taken care of kids is that you're sheltered.
You're really sheltered from most things like that. But I
think because I was always sort of sneaky and interested
in what the adults were talking about, or you know,
(22:29):
I was always listening in on all the kitchen conversations,
so I was privy to a lot of their struggle.
And in Russia it was struggle about you know, all
of the Soviet stuff and obviously the Jewish stuff. I mean,
it was really not fun to be a Jew in Russia.
I still find out stories all the time. I just
(22:51):
found out a story about my mom's sister that she
had been this really brilliant engineer and when she graduated,
she would go and and go and interview for a
position and they would say, oh, my god, thank god
you're here. We really really need this position filled. You're perfect.
(23:14):
And then she would come the next day and to
really get a job, you had to bring your papers,
your documents, and they would open her passport and under
number five, you know, it always said jew on every
Jewish person's passport, it had, it was stamped in there,
and they would say, oh, oh, hold on one second,
(23:35):
I'm sorry, I just thought and they would go off
into some back room and sometimes some of the people
came out and it was this unspoken thing where they
would feel really bad doing this, and other times they
felt just fine doing it, and other times there was
contempt in their eyes, but they all would say, oh, actually,
you know it, it was a misunderstanding. We don't actually
(23:59):
have a job. I'm so sorry. And she did this
for for a long, long long time and she just
could not get a job. And that was such a
common experience, and that was just one of the million
different ways that what my parents had to deal with that.
I you know, they took me out of there so
that I wouldn't have to deal with it as far
(24:20):
as being a parent right now. You know, it's interesting
because I'm watching what's going on, you know, here in
my home country. As far as you know, the Jewish
people are concerned, and I would I would be I
(24:42):
would be lying if I didn't say I was in shock,
because this was the good place, you know, this was
the place you come to to to sort of be
a free Jew. And I never thought, I never gave
a second thought to wearing my start of David on
a subway alone on my own record covers, you know,
(25:02):
and like and whatever. And when I think about my children,
my next thought is, you know, are they you know,
depending on how the wind blows, are they going to
have to learn a new language? You know? Are they
going to have to do what I did and go
somewhere else if things get really bad? And only time
(25:23):
will tell, you know, only only time will tell if
people are okay going down this road yet again and
again and again.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
You know, I'm listening to you, and of course that's
said that you should feel this way, But at the
same time, you are so not alone. In fact, we
meaning immigrants. I'm the I'm first generation American. My parents
survived the Holocaust to come here. We are a nation
of immigrants. Most of the country is immigrants, either first
(25:56):
or second generation immigrants, many more of us than them.
And that is the hope that I keep.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, now that we have confronted the horror of our times,
I'm going to turn to the joy of music. And
I want I want to tell you the way I
and and when we began the preview for this the
little intro of this episode, Phil thanked me because I
get to introduce him. He introduces me to so many people.
But I introduced him to a lot of great musicians,
(26:28):
and I had to confess we've never met, which is
but I first heard about you. I can remember the
moment I heard about you, because it was by hearing
it directly from Tom Petty, who you know I wrote
about a cover story and when I moved out here
in ninety one, and then he sort of adopted me
(26:49):
into the you know, his home at that point. And
but I think in one of the later conversations after
you know, many years later, he was bragging so proud
of Adria, his daughter and how she was working with
a great young artist and Tom. I don't know, you
(27:11):
worked with Tom, you toured with Tom. Tom was not
a bullshit artist. If he loved if he said he
loved your music, he loved your music. And I wonder,
you know, what was it meaningful for you to not
only have the genius of Adria as a sort of
video maker and artistic collaborator, but to have the you know,
(27:31):
to be embraced by an artist like Tom Petty.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
Oh, it was honestly just it hurts in a good
way to even like talk about him at that time
because it was just so magical. And I just can't
believe that he's gone. And I think that we all
could have used his wisdom and his insight. You know,
(28:00):
it was so amazing. It was just yeah, it was.
It was magical. It was like it was it was.
It was a world I really didn't know about, you know,
in a lot of ways, even just getting signed coming
out to California. It's this whole other universe that no
(28:22):
one in my family, no one I knew, nobody in
the music industry or any kind of thing, like it
was just all sort of it was all so new
and I was also very very I had these huge
holes in my education, like I didn't. I found out
about Tom through Adria. The first time that I looked
(28:45):
at a Tom Petty record, I said, oh my god,
he looks so much like you. Because even though, of
course later I realized how much of that music had
been sort of just in the in the in the
in the earth that I was walking on. You know,
it's like it was played in every store, it was
(29:06):
played on radios, it was in films, it was in
But I didn't grow up. I sort of grew up
in what I call the immigrant bubble, which is when
you live in the country but you eat your own food.
You don't have money to buy records or go to
the movies, or go to see Broadway or go to
see anything. Like you know, when I played on Broadway,
I had a residency. I brought away people. What does
(29:27):
it mean to you to be on Broadway? It was like,
I don't know, like it's exciting, it's exciting. Yeah, well
it was like I get it. You know, it's fun
to be in a playbill because you know, anytime my
parents could get enough money, we'd go to Carnegie Hall
or go to you know, go to a classical concert
or something. But it wasn't it wasn't that thing that
(29:48):
I knew. I mean I found out about David Bowie
when Goldie and Seymour put when I was still in
the process of being signed Seymour.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Stein who Sire Records and Michael.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
And Michael Goldstone the label. Yeah. Yeah, like they gave
they made me a little iPod and they filled it
with music. And it was really I mean honestly going
to those record different record labels and raiding their closets.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Oh yes, when they were when.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
They were like, come sign with us, and then you know,
here's a closet full of things. And then they would
mail me.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
They get up they.
Speaker 6 (30:28):
Yeah it is and they would get they would get me,
you know, like a whole box of CDs or something
to you know, send it back home to New York
because I couldn't even carry it in my luggage it
was so heavy. I would take everything. Yeah, I would
take the entire everything, and so and and and that's
kind of how I got my music, like education. And
(30:49):
I was already you know, twenty four when I was
doing that, so it's kind of late for a lot
of sort of American culture. I'm still catching up on
a lot a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Well, were you taking piano lessons as a little kid
in Moscow?
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Yeah, I started taking piano lessons when I was six,
and we left when I was nine and a half,
and I was really I think in a lot of ways,
besides the fact that I was leaving my grandparents and
some other relatives, that was the most painful thing was
leaving my piano, my lessons, my teacher. I loved it
(31:29):
so much. I loved it, and I was like, and
I practiced all the way through immigration because I would
just play on a table, you know, and I would
just and windowsills because I was so afraid to like
lose my technique whatever that means, you know, at nine
and a half, and then I kind of missed an
(31:53):
entire year of learning. But when I got to America,
in our local synagogue in the Bronx like Kingsbridge center
of Israel, they had a they had a a piano
in the basement, so they started letting me come and
(32:14):
practice in the basement of the synagogue. And then my
dad one day coming back, he was he was working
this this very very very low paying job in in
uh in a color printing in a film printing photo
(32:38):
printing place in Manhattan, and he coming back on the subway,
met this man who who with a violin case, just
started up a conversation because my dad was very, very friendly,
which is like I think one of the most incredible
things about him is that even with broken English, he
(32:59):
would just make friends with people all the time. And
through that, through that man Sam and his wife Sonya,
I actually ended up getting free piano lessons for my
entire music education till I was seventeen.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Wow, and that's that, Sonya Vargas.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
Is that right, Yes, Sonya Vargus.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
I wonder, you know, because something that I've got involved
with over the years, I think even maybe a show
with Tom Petty music education shows supporting music education. I
just wonder from your point of view, like when you
think about I think about like when I first became
a fan of yours, I didn't even know who to
associate you with because I think you're such a unique talent,
(33:41):
and like I've sort of come to think in my head,
I think the first thing I ever came up with
is like she's the perfect uh you know, I know
your real parents we talked about. But like, musically, I
think of you're like the child of George Gershwin and
Kate Bush, which is a pretty good musical marriage of geniuses.
(34:01):
But I wonder what you think about the importance of
music education one of the millions of things that like
people are gutting arts programs. You know, music education has
been gutted for years now. How shortsighted is it when
like you're and I know, like all really talented musicians.
Billy Joel always said, I got one good hand. He said,
(34:22):
I wish I had Elton. You know, you know, people compare,
but you're a real musical talent. How how important is
a music education to transforming lives of kids like you?
Speaker 6 (34:36):
I think, you know, I think that music education. I
think honestly, any kind of an education in the arts,
any kind of a skill that you could teach somebody
that can help them take something internal and make it external.
So if you teach somebody writing skills, if you teach
(34:58):
somebody poetry, if you teach somebody to walk through a
museum and love paintings, that is one of the quickest
ways to improve somebody's quality of life. Because all of
a sudden, you can have somebody who doesn't have a
(35:19):
huge salary, doesn't have isn't able to travel freely throughout
the world and hop on a plane and go to
Venice or go to this place or that place. But
they could walk into any library, they could sit with
a tiny instrument in their room in a corner of
a room. They could go into any museum on a
(35:41):
free day, and they will be filled, they will be
filled with joy. So to gatekeep these simple things like singing, playing, writing,
you know, painting, obviously sports arts, because that's like a
combination of not just artistry, but embodiment all that stuff.
(36:06):
You're you're keeping your you're you're not giving people that outlet.
You're basically not taking care of your citizens because you're
you're you're you're not giving those internal feelings and outlet. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's it's like it should be. I do think that, Like,
(36:28):
you know, there's this concept of shadow artists, right, people
who have all the feeling of artists, and they have
all of the pull towards something, towards creating something, but
they have none of the skills. So they become shadow
artists because they don't they can't express.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
It, and don't look at me when you say that.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
But the best critics, like David, they celebrate the artistry
and others and that in itself is an art form too.
Speaker 6 (37:02):
Well, it is, because then you have to you what
you have to what. But what you're also able to
do is to take your internal thoughts and feelings and
put them out into into a piece, which is art.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Listen, I wouldn't be here without the after school plays
that I got to do as a kid, right, And
it doesn't matter what your art form is. If you're
a dancer, if you're a sculptor, you have to have
that outlet. And the only way to discover it is
to be exposed to it when you're young.
Speaker 6 (37:34):
You and and and that's the thing that people really
don't understand is that that there's we're so pliable, we're
so like still, we're very much ourselves from the time
that we're born. We have certain traits, but as far
as like being able to be open to things or
(37:55):
being able to to kind of connect with each other.
The more you give these skills like music or art
or or acting or writing, the more you give people
the chance to connect with others because that's like, that's where,
that's why it's like the place that Yeah, exactly like
(38:17):
doing it whatever a school musical or.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Something, and you get a sense of self. You get
a sense of who you are and that maybe I
do have something to offer the world.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Down to new shoes, stuck to Aging freedom goes their action.
I'm not recognized Aging streetent.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Well, I wonder you're heading out I think literally as
we're recording this, I think in a day or two
on your Midsummer day Dream tour, which and I don't know,
it's very interesting to me you and Phil both go
out and you're going out a little later. He's just
he's been on the road the last few years, talking
about food and travel in the world and meeting with
(39:23):
people in great theaters like you. You did the London
Palladium recently. You are doing that, Yes.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
But I have no talent. This is a person who
can sing and play and write songs I talk about.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
But I do wonder, Regina, like, when you go out there,
do you realize that on this day Dream tour that
I actually heard some I think it was an NPR
reporter interviewing you, and he talked about bringing I think
his daughter to see you and the idea of like
there are young girls, young boys who are in that
audience with their parents hopefully being supervised, but who are
(39:58):
out there and being so inspired by you. Like to me,
you're very young because you came along after I was
already in music, but you're already at you know, having
you've built this body of work. You've reissued five of
your albums on vinyl that everyone we can you know
that we encourage everyone to go get start with, begin
to hope, and then keep hoping and get all the record.
(40:20):
But when you go out there on the road, do
you ever encounter the fact that you are inspiring day dreams?
Speaker 6 (40:27):
I honestly like I think if I had to it
within the arts, you know, if I had to pledge
allegiance to like one little country within the arts themselves,
it would be it would be fiction, right. I love stories,
fairy tales, myths, I love dreams. I love I love
(40:47):
places where you can go and sort of take all
of your very real world emotions, your personal history, anything,
and then just go and jump into things that are
all imagination and can sort of the collective unconscious. That
(41:08):
that's my happy place and in some ways, I feel
like my songs have always been tiny little stories that
you could just kind of go into and and sort
of hop around, and and I just love the fact
that that there's that when I opened my eyes back up,
(41:29):
because I end up actually playing with my eyes closed
most of the time, which is so fun. On television,
everybody's always like, oh, keep your eyes open, and I'm like,
you know, but but I really kind of go into
a world, and when I emerge, the fact that there's
somebody out there and they went there with me is
(41:49):
still one of the most magical things I think, and
especially I know, you know, it is fun to kind
of get to to to do it throughout the years
because there are so many people that are like, I
grew up on your music, and I always think, how
is that possible? I guess it is.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Well, you know, to show your your history is deep.
We and talk about how you're you know, your songs
are stories, and they're movies, and they've worked their way
into movies and they've also worked their way into TV.
So we we got a question from a friend of
both of ours, really who you were instrumental in writing
(42:28):
the theme song for her brilliant show.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
So let's hear a little bit of that theme song
right now.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
The animals, the animals, trap, trap, trap, So the cages.
Speaker 6 (42:39):
Full, the cages full.
Speaker 8 (42:42):
Day's new and everyone is waiting waiting on you new gone.
Speaker 9 (42:53):
Here's a special message from Jenji Cohen, creator of Orange
is the New Black.
Speaker 5 (42:58):
Hey, we love.
Speaker 10 (43:00):
I'm recording this as I walked down the street New York,
wishing I were in LA with you and Phil. My
question to you is, how are you finding small M
magic in your life these days? I know we both
want big M which sounds gross when I say I
love but we're the little bits of magic creeping in
(43:20):
these days.
Speaker 4 (43:21):
I love you so much.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Talk to you soon.
Speaker 6 (43:24):
Oh I love you, Donji? Oh, yes, talk about I
mean that's a that's a magical person. I mean she's Yeah,
she's like my big M magic, you know. I I think, uh,
I think a lot of it. For me at this
particular moment is in human beings, human beings that you
(43:51):
can have a real conversation with where I really I
think And maybe that's also my soviety like Spidey sense background.
I'm really sensitive to my ability to truly say what's
on my mind freely and not feel judged, destroyed, you know,
(44:16):
erased whatever I and I feel like for whatever reason,
our society at this particular moment is going through something
where it's not allowing us. We're doing the sort of
sovia double think where we're like, this is safe to
say this, I shouldn't say this will get taken and
and that kind of a mental and emotional jail is
(44:40):
not healthy for us. It's not good for us. So
so because and I don't I have you know, I'm
not some kind of a global social thinker in that way,
but I sometimes think that maybe maybe technology is doing
some of it, maybe social media is doing some of it.
Maybe maybe be in general our attention spans ore a
(45:01):
certain ways, so we have to have things very black
and white, which is very very Soviet. You're either with
us or you're against us. You're either on the right
side of history or the wrong side of You're either
the good guy or the bad guy. And that's you know,
that's how witches get burned, that's how inquisitions happen, that's
how everything happens. That's how you end up in the
gulag whatever. So to me, a lot of my sort
(45:23):
of small m magic is that ability to hang out
with somebody who loves me and who I love and
who I trust and they trust me, and we just
talk as human beings and we don't have to worry
that if we say something the person's going to get
that cold, steely look and be like, what did you say? Yeah?
(45:46):
You know. And and I think that, even though it
doesn't mean that we have to agree on everything, I
love the place where a person could say, well, you know,
I'm not sure about that actually, because I think that
I love that, I don't love that, I love yes.
And so that's sort of my magic is the nuance.
I think the most punk thing you could do right
(46:09):
now is be nuanced. It's like literally the wildest, craziest
thing you could do right now. And so so so
that's where my and I encourage everybody to just like,
if you feel yourself in that back, just just you know,
wiggle a little bit, make that box a little bit bigger,
find those people that you could be yourself with, and
(46:30):
empower yourself to be more and more yourself. You know,
our culture does a good job of talking about authenticity
and all that stuff, but it's not actually rewarding it.
So it's one you know, and that's it's saying, be authentic,
but it's actually the other hand is kind of whipping
you for it, you know, And so we need to
(46:52):
reinstate it. I think a little bit more.
Speaker 8 (46:55):
If I.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
It's so well said, and we are the hope. Yes,
when the government isn't taken care of it or us,
we have to take care of us. And that's what's beautiful,
that's the hope. That's what I was saying before. There's
more of us.
Speaker 6 (47:13):
Yeah, And I think that the only other thing I
would just add to that, and I think it's because again,
we can't see the back of our own head as
we walk down the street. This is our blind spot.
The only thing that I would say is something that
again I've noticed as such an outsider of an outsider
of an outsider that I am, is that a lot
(47:35):
of the time we love to have that person that
we blame, right or that entity that we blame, so
we can just outsource all that to whatever government which
is obviously failing us horrendously, you know. But I would
just add that there needs to be some kind of
(47:57):
a mea culpa at this point. You know it's not.
We can't just collectively just look over there and point
all arrows at government and just say you you know,
it's like it's us. Also, we're letting ourselves down because
we're all jumping on each other and not letting each
other be free. Also, it's not just coming from the
(48:21):
outside it the call is coming from inside the house.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
And by the way, never a better excuse to play
the song us. So we'll play it a little of
us right now.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
They made a statue and put it on the mountains
up noctors come and start us.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
I do have a question about, like when you go
on tour at this point, especially because of the way
you tour. You know, it's not like I don't think
you're doing so much technological programming that you can't do
what you feel like in the moment. So on a
night to night basis, you now have, at a very
young age, a deep catalog that many people can be
(49:25):
buying in our summer of specter that Phil and I
are having. You know, I'm buying more vinyl so I
can play it on vinyl and feel it in that way.
But how do you feel what should be in the
setlist every day? Because I will tell you, like Phil
discovering your music here in twenty twenty five, and I've
been discovering it gradually ever since Tom Petty told me
you were one of the next great you know things.
(49:48):
But like, like, for instance, Phil and I, he goes,
have you heard Becoming All Alone? And I'm like, oh, yeah,
that's one of my absolute favorites.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Get all the things to make a bad let don't
care see through.
Speaker 6 (50:17):
Yay, just on a ride.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
But this, how do you use it beside what songs?
Going to the set every every night?
Speaker 6 (50:28):
Well, so, first of all, I'm such a luddite that like,
this particular tour is a solo tour. But even when
I play with the band, there's not that many bells
and the whistles we just play. This tour is just
me and piano and I play the The setless thing
is interesting because well, one of the things that I
(50:50):
make sure to do is I always look up and
thank God for what is it? Setless dot FM or
there's a website where you do FM it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
It's a place where you can go. Not only can
you look up what your favorite artists played last night,
you know, if you want to know, But I can
go back for this podcast we've had on like I
think Daryl Hall, you know, all these artists who I've
had to go back to my first concerts, like the
day that Laura Wharton, who I think was Russian, my
first girlfriend, I went to Hall and Notes at the
(51:22):
Palladium and you can look up the date, you can
find you know, and often you get to test your
own memory. But I'm sorry, what is why do you
love it so much?
Speaker 6 (51:32):
Well? I make sure I go and I sort of
make sure that that if I've been practicing, because a
lot of the time I sort of practice so many
songs for a tour that I could pull from, and
then there's always like certain songs that I'm like, Okay,
(51:52):
well I really should play that because that'll make like
maybe the majority of people happy to if I don't play,
it might be a bummer. So then I have a
few of those in the in the real estate, and
then I have some that are like completely nobody would
be expecting that, and that's kind of fun to throw in.
And then I always just make sure that I look
(52:14):
at what I played last time I was there, and
then I'm like, oh, well, I played that last time,
I'm not going to play it this time. I'm going
to play something, you know, Like a lot of the time,
I sort of even though of course it's all imaginary,
especially like you know, my tour starts in San Francisco,
and I just did that just because it was the
first show.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
So I.
Speaker 6 (52:33):
Made a little list of that, and then I was like,
but that was three years ago, Like they matter, you know,
it's not like they're coming to like a weekly residency
and I'm like, oh, I shouldn't play that. I played
that last week. But but it is kind of like
energetically wi its like a nice thing to do because
then you're like, Okay, this is what I was feeling.
A lot of it is just very sort of spontaneous.
(52:57):
As a matter of fact, I make a set list
every show, and I have never once been able to
follow my set list ever. And even when I play
with a band, I have a little tiny microphone off
of my microphone to the side, yeah, and I have
a little little button that I could step on to
speak just into the in ears of my crew. And
(53:21):
if I know that it's like a song that needs
like a certain kind of lights, it'll really throw them
if I just start playing and I just whisper whatever
it is, or if to the band, because then they
could hear.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
And yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Do you ever do covers too?
Speaker 6 (53:36):
Almost never, because honestly, they're so it's easier for me
to write a new song than to figure my way
into a cover. I have. I have done covers in
the past.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
But you sang. You sang two covers with a friend
of mine, Jacob Dylan, for the Echo in the Canyon one,
which was a song everybody well, I think, or most
old hippies will know, uh, Buffalo Springfield song Expecting to Fly.
But you did a song by Love, the group Love,
which is a little less known now.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Uh. And I absolutely wait Theodora Theodosia, yes from Hamilton.
Speaker 8 (54:19):
Dear Theodojah, what to say?
Speaker 6 (54:22):
Do you? You have my eyes? You have your mother's name.
Speaker 8 (54:27):
When you came into the world, you cried and it
broke my heart. I'm dedicating every day to domestic life.
Speaker 6 (54:44):
That was when when Lynn was putting together the mixtape.
He's actually a rare person that I we became friends
from the internet. Like I I just wrote about how
much I like seeing Hamilton at the public and then
he he contacted me and then he's like, do you
(55:06):
want to be on I'm going to make a mixtape.
Then of course the mixtape became like crazy like it.
But at the time I think I was like the
first person on the mixtape.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
And by the way, I saw something online where he
goes and he plays on the radio your song and
basically cops to like how influenced you know, Slash might
have ripped off slightly a little of your music and
it's interesting to watch. He's a genius. I think we
are all.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Can and Regina there might be some money there. Your
AI chatbot could not write this song.
Speaker 6 (55:43):
Yeah no, he could not, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 9 (55:45):
Like nobody, but Regina Spector could have written this song
on the radio.
Speaker 4 (55:50):
You'll hear November ran that solos off long, but it's
a good refrain.
Speaker 6 (55:57):
You'll listen to me twice because the Dejas.
Speaker 1 (56:05):
Bubbles will you are like deep songs like that. I'll
one song I love is Genius next Door, which uh
you know you did uh on the far record with
Jeff Lynn, who I have worked with done like liner
(56:28):
notes and stuff with him over the years. He just
had to cancel his big Hyde Park Farewell show, which
is heartbreaking, but I found the most Like, again, you're
you have such an interesting view into music, and I
think it's reflected in how interesting your music is. But
if I remember correctly, uh, you asked to work with
jeff Lynn not knowing elo or jeff Lynn's career. You
(56:51):
knew that he produced Tom Petty record that you and
I one of our and we're only two of the
only people who are obsessed with Highway Companion, which I
raised my kids in carpools driving them to that record.
Uh uh And and but is it true that you
basically said, you know, there's so many named jeff Lynn
who did this record, and you didn't know who he was,
(57:12):
and yet you got.
Speaker 6 (57:13):
To work with him. Yeah, so this was this was
like a this again that that's part of that immigrant bubble,
just like accidental ignorance, not purposeful at all. But you know,
before doing a record, like people, you know, there are
a lot of people, there's a lot of musicians who
(57:34):
are they're basically like half musician, half a in our person,
Like they're just so smart. They know everything, they know
what's on what label, they know all the history of music,
like they'll be like oh, like like even names of
record labels didn't mean anything to me, Like they'd be like,
oh Columbia or this or that, you know, they'd just
be like.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
What you know?
Speaker 6 (57:53):
Uh, and and and but before doing a record, I
mean this was very early because this was sort of
like my second proper signed record after Begin to Hope.
And there was this kind of conference call and and
(58:14):
they wanted to know, like, who are some of the
producers I'm interested to work with? And I was like,
I was like, I don't, I don't know producers. But
I'd been listening to Highway Companion all the time. So
I literally like ran over to this and opened the jacket.
I'm like, okay, oh it's jeff It's this guy Jeff Lynn.
So on the call, I'm like, well, what about this
guy Jeff Lynn? And there's just silence, silence on everybody
(58:38):
just get uh. I guess we can I guess we
can ask him. I mean it would be I don't know,
I mean he and then and I basically found out
he like only worked like with the Beatles, and you know,
like and and so I was like, okay, you know,
and they're like and they basically prepared me. They were like,
he's probably gonna say no, you know, he just doesn't
(58:59):
and and he said yes.
Speaker 4 (59:02):
The genius next door was bussing table. Well, I haven't
clean the kitch.
Speaker 8 (59:08):
Your bottle labeled.
Speaker 5 (59:12):
Getting high mumbling German fables didn't care as long.
Speaker 4 (59:19):
As he was able.
Speaker 8 (59:23):
Disturber's gloves on by the dumbst.
Speaker 5 (59:28):
At night.
Speaker 6 (59:28):
Well everyone and I loved working with him, and it
was one of those things that when I decided to
do far, it had been so many years of just touring, touring,
touring that I was like, Okay, this is my chance.
I treated producing as sort of like like like master classes,
(59:50):
so I was like, I'm not going to just work
with one producer. I'm going to work with a bunch
of producers, so I could take a class with each
one and learn how they hear and how they experience
music and all this stuff. It was super fun so
so when I worked with Jeff, it was just incredible
because not only are his story is amazing, and he's
(01:00:11):
amazing and so funny, so funny, so.
Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Dry and so funny. And I'll tell you, you know,
we've taken we we don't want to go over our
time with you. But I want to say that, like
I've got to watch him in his little side room
of his house making these amazing records by himself. In
the large measure, I realize some people are musically so
talented they are. He is an orchestra and you're an orchestra.
(01:00:37):
That's why I encourage everyone to go out on this tour.
If you can see Regina, See Regina, get the records
on vinyl, because really, you are such a unique talent
and I'm so happy I finally got to, you know,
got to actually meet you with She's not in La
on this tour, but we're going to beg her to
add a date.
Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
What's wrong with us?
Speaker 6 (01:00:59):
Let's go to San France, come to San Francis. I
was next time I come to La, please come to
my show. I would love that so much to happen.
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Yes, where's the best Where's the best Russian food in
America that you found? And do you cook Russian food
for the kids?
Speaker 6 (01:01:15):
I do. I cook a lot of Russian food and and.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
I loved it in Moscow. I thought the food was great.
I mean, all surprisingly goes very well with vodka.
Speaker 6 (01:01:28):
And I was just gonna say I spent the entire
time so drunk. It was crazy. It was it was insane.
It was like it was like cold borsh nickles harring
vodka over and over, keep it coming.
Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Right, I mean that just the just the ice cold cabbage.
Pickled cabbage with vodka is one of the great pairings
in the world.
Speaker 6 (01:01:50):
What what did you think? So one of my favorite
sort of like Russian food pickles, is the pickled watermelon.
Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 6 (01:01:59):
So and they can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I mean, it's so cheap, right, it's peasant cuisine and
it's phenomenal.
Speaker 6 (01:02:08):
Yeah. What was the food that you tasted there that
you were just like wow? How what like I've never
heard of this thing before.
Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Oh, that's a good question. Well, just that the cabbage
in the vodka. That was like a revelation because you
would never imagine it just sounds like is this all
you get to eat here?
Speaker 8 (01:02:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
I heard things were bad, but and then it's it's like, oh,
I get it.
Speaker 6 (01:02:35):
Yeah. I feel like another secret weapon of Russian food
is dil. Yes, people really underestimate the power of dill.
Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
It was my mom my favorite thing.
Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
That's the title of your next record, The power of
dill of Dyl. Thank you Regina so much.
Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Gina, You're You're just so charming and great and in
addition to being so super talented. We love you. We
can't wait to see you any person.
Speaker 6 (01:03:03):
Yes, me too, Thank you so much for speaking with me.
Speaker 9 (01:03:07):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley, Produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chella. If
you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend, But
if you can't take my word for it, take Phil's.
Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
And don't forget to leave a good rating and review.
We like five stars.
Speaker 7 (01:03:32):
You know.
Speaker 9 (01:03:32):
Thanks for listening to Naked Lunch, a Lucky Bastard's production.
Good morning, David, Good morning, friend of rapper Ray Romano. Yeah,
can you believe this?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Let's play a little bit of this thing that happened?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Are you ready?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
All right?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
What do you think of that?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I think eminem is writing scaracter?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
What do you call it when you appropriate the appropriator? Yes, exactly,
but aren't impressed with his skills and also not to
mention the memorization.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Uh listen. I watched him on your show and then
parent should and men of a certain a becoming a
great actor, and that was a great rapper exactly. It
is very proud of Rain.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yes, I'm also very proud of you, David, because you
The best thing about doing this, besides the fact that
I hate to admit it, but I like you, is
that you've turned me on to such great musicians and
actually allowed me to meet them in person and fall
(01:19):
in love with them, not just for their music, but
for their character, their personalities and who they are. And
I have to be honest, I never listened to our
guests today. I just was unaware of her, as I
am unaware of a lot of music, and you've turned
me on to some great stuff. And I have to say,
Regina Spector is now one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And I have to tell you that I have never
met Regina Spector. Now. I have been a fan since
Tom Petty, of all people, his daughter Adria directed and
was an key collaborator to Regina on her early work. Right,
he was the first person to tell me, he goes, David,
this Regina Spectors. I have been a fan ever since.
(02:03):
But she her people when they put out they reissued
five of her albums. Yes, and she's on her tour
this summer, the Midsummer Daydream Tour right now, and they
they said, they suggest that she should be on the show,
and I was like, oh my god, I've always wanted
to talk to her, such a fan, such an interesting story,
because yeah, this is you know, a young lady who
(02:25):
grew up in Moscow until she was nine, came to
New York incredible and has become one of the great
sort of artists of her.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
As singer songwriters. Yes, yeah, just great. So I'm thrilled
to talk to her. We're talking to her on Zoom today.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And Riverside something different from Zoom.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Oh yeah, that's right, it's not soon. It's something called Riverside,
which I've used in some of my interviews.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I guess the qualities a little bit at you people.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
You can tell us, yes, you tell us how do
I look like?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
You look like? You can wrap it?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Not as well as I cannot.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I'm gonna have to get his secret for wrapping.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But let's get to know an artist we both love.
This is for naked launch. This is our summer of
specter and let's get to meet Regina Spector.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Let's build the beans to the fat, food for thought,
jokes on tap, talking.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
With our mouthsful, having fun.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Bes the cake and humble pies, serving up slice lovely,
the dressing on the side.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
It's naked lunch.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
Clothing optional.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
All this MUD's gonna breaks my heart and it breaks
my heart and it breaks what it breaks?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Are you doing, Regina?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Don't want to play? To meet you? We're both.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
Oh, thank you, thank you. I'm a big fan as well.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We have a couple of things in common. Yes, uh,
first is Riverdale? Oh so I lived there from the
time I was two to the time I was nine.
I lived on Netherland Avenue. Where did you live?
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Of course, of course I lived. I came to Kingsbridge Avenue. Great,
I don't know if you know it's right by the
subway and it's down the hill.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You went to the academy there?
Speaker 6 (04:34):
Yes, yes, it was. It was where I learned English
and Hebrew at the same time. I was just thrown
in a deep.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
What what did you like better?
Speaker 6 (04:46):
Well? I could start reading Hebrew faster because it was
kind of a simpler way to sound it out, because
it didn't have all the like walk talk, all the
like sneaky things that are pronounced different. It's it's a
exactly as it's written. But but ultimately I speak better English.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I learned Hebrew. Two Did you have to go to
Hebrew school and learn Hebrew at all?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I did? In fact, I grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey,
not far from another period of your life right after
by the way, you came from Moscow at nine Moscow
and the Hudson to which a movie that has more
significance I think for you, Yes, but you can't when
I'm from New Jersey and you did some time studying
(05:33):
in in New Jersey? Is that right?
Speaker 6 (05:35):
Yeah? I went to far Lahn High for a year
and a half.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I apologize for a New Jersey. I don't know if
Jersey I know when I went as a teen tour
as a kid to Israel. I was in the middle
of the desert and there were these poor kids selling
like soft drinks to people like in a They had
no ice, they had no anything, and they stopped.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
We stopped.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
There were the greatest kids, and they said, where are
you from? I said, New Jersey and they went New
Jersey and pointed at me, laughing, And I'm like, there
is literally no place in the world where New Jersey
is not a punchline.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
Unfortunately, I know whereas like when I traveled and I
told people I was from the Bronx, they'd be like,
show me your scars.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
They don't know that Riverdale is nicer than most places
in the United States.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
Yeah. Yeah, and even Kingsbridge, which is like right under
it is really great.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah. And by the way, you've shown your scars in
a series of albums now that have like, you know,
your great artistry by showing.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
You my emotional star.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Have you been back to Moscow?
Speaker 6 (06:44):
I've had the chance one time.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
For all I know, it might be the one and
only time because I'm not getting there, not going there
anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
When were you there last I was there.
Speaker 6 (07:02):
I went there with my record cheap seats and I
went there in twenty twelve, and it was the most
incredible feeling. It was just part of a European tour,
but somehow the way that these things work out and
life gives you these little poetic moments even when you
(07:23):
don't realize it's going to happen. My booking agent who
booked the tour, booked Vienna right after the Moscow show,
and that literally was I went from the same airport
that I went as a nine year old refugee to Vienna,
which was the first stop because Soviet refugees at the
time that I left had to go to Austria then stop.
(07:47):
Then they looked at our X rays of our lungs
and they did some interviews with our parents, and then
we went onwards to Italy, and then it was just
sort of open ended and people some people waited there
for a couple of weeks, some people waited there for
a year. So you just kind of lived in Italy
in these you know, amazing little sort of tiny communities
(08:13):
within the larger community of Italy. So we would go
to we lived in Ladispli and and it was just
a bunch of Soviet Jews waiting to get interviewed. And
we lived in an apartment with many many families per room.
Each family lived in a room, and and we just
(08:37):
we would go to the free beach. We would sort
of we we would we would buy the cheapest food
there was, which is like I think frozen turkey wings,
which they named the you know, Soviet wings or something like.
Every everything became a joke, and we would sell things
to the on the on in the in the market
(08:57):
that we had brought out like some I know, my
dad brought some melodia LPs, and we brought tablecloths and
sort of like little chatch keys and like little kitchen
Yes exactly we could maybe you know, maybe, oh we
don't know who that is, uh, but but it was.
(09:23):
It was sort of this, uh for I think for
our parents extremely stressful and for us extremely adventurous and
fun experience.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
You know immigration that kids kids can make fun anywhere, yes,
but Italy must have been felt like a paradise to you.
Do you ever see that movie Hope and Glory? No,
I want to record. It's by John Borman, who's done
a lot of great films. But it was about his
childhood during the London Blitz and even though it was
(09:59):
war and you could get killed at any time, and
he and his friends would have so much fun. Every
morning they would wake up and there was a new
rubble to play in.
Speaker 6 (10:10):
Right, right, I mean that I could. I could absolutely
see that. It's like it's like having exploring the insides
of apartments that you'd never get the chance to go
into otherwise.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
That it's one of the best movies I've ever seen
about that kind of experience. Your parents are worried, sick
and struggling, and you get to have, you know, a
childhood stuff.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
Yeah. I found out later that my dad had this
nightmare for months and months already after coming to America,
even where he would wake up and he would be
back in Moscow and he would have no idea how
to get back out and how to get any of
the papers that we'd gotten anything, and he would just
(10:54):
wake up in a cold sweat, over and over for
months and months.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, what was life like in Moscow? Do you remember it?
Speaker 6 (11:03):
I mean, I remember, I think I I remember a
lot of it. It's it's hard for me because I
think I'm sort of so much of my how do
I say this, Like my relationship to reality and imagination
(11:24):
is kind of it's ever so flowing, so especially as
a kid, I definitely I have very very vivid memories,
whether or not there exactly as things happened. I think
that probably not, because even when we went back, you know,
my mom came on that tour and it was so amazing.
(11:46):
We went and and revisited all the places from my childhood,
and and I went to some new places I'd never been.
And we went to my old neighborhood. Yeah, and I
and I looked at it with my mom and I said,
oh my god, this has become so run down like
it had this It just looked like a Fellini film
(12:10):
in my mind in my memory. And she said, wow,
they've really fixed this place up. So that was I
think the moment where I was like, okay, so maybe,
but you know, in a lot of ways, you know,
kind of like Fellini's film Armor Cord and how that's
(12:31):
I love that film so much. But do you remember
that scene where there's snow banks and they're like as
tall as they're walking through the I actually have that
memory because because we would just have so much snow
and it would fall like in, it would fall in
in I would say October or November, and then it
(12:53):
would just last till April. And what was interesting is
because it would be just layers and layers and more
and more would build up, so when it was melting,
it was like an archaeological discovery of like all the
dog poop and like everything, just everything that had been accumulated.
But we had so much snow to play with and
(13:14):
build with, and we would have to sort of just
nobody took it away. It just got added to. So
whenever there would be really big snows, all the grown
ups would go outside and they would sort of make
these slides out of snow, life size slide like in
a playground with rails with packed snow, and then they
(13:36):
would pour water just over the slide part that you
slide down, so then we could just climb up all
winter long and then slide down. And yeah, there's just
a lot of these. All our summers were spent in Estonia,
(13:56):
so we went to We went a lot to like
Talin and Piano and actually on a tour I went.
I've played Talent a few times and again my memories
of it were so different. But I think also it's
a different time. Like even when I went back in
(14:18):
twenty twelve, I was talking to one of the security
and she was saying that she was just a young woman,
like twenty one years old, and she had a young
teenage brother, and she was saying, yeah, and you know,
when it snows, nobody plays outside anymore. Everyone's just at
(14:42):
home on their phones or video consoles. And just she
was just basically kind of like exactly like here. But
I just it was so to me. It was just
such an interesting thing where on the one hand, we're
all trying to sort of, you know, reach everybody and
kind of connect. On the other hand, all this individuality
(15:06):
of places is disappearing and just becoming homogeneous. Like it
was really cool that Estonia was really different from Moscow,
and Moscow was really different from Tokyo and from New York.
Like that's the fun of it. If you're just going
like this everywhere, then it's just all the same.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Well, it's interesting, Regina. I don't know. If Phil does
a show, you know, where he goes around the world,
somebody feed Phil where there's all these places and their
unique qualities to the people. But he also did a
movie called Exporting Raymond, because I don't know if you know,
he created the show Everybody Loves Raymond.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yes, and Exporting Raymond, which I love.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
He took it to Russia and worked with the Russian
Broadcasting world to translate his show, and it's an amazing
for me. It was just like because the subject of Russia,
you know, is such a big one, and it really
brought it home for me in a way.
Speaker 7 (16:01):
To meet the head of comedy for the Russian network.
We meet him and he doesn't look like a head
of comedy, and he gets around to saying, when I
read Raymond.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
Because it's not funny, I don't have to.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Come to Moscow to be told I'm not funny. I
could hear that in my house. I was there in
two thousand and nine filming that came out in twenty eleven.
But Russia, I saw the Moscow that I saw. The
center of the city. You must have seen a great
difference from when we were a kid to coming back.
The center of the city was like now a great
well off European city.
Speaker 6 (16:38):
Because I lived so so on the outskirts, I sort
of like lived in the Bronx of Moscow. Yeah, you know,
I've always been a burrough girl, I guess, But I
just I feel like the few times that I'd gone
(17:02):
in were I went only to the most impressive places,
and to me at that age, it was stunning. But
like I went once to the Bulsh, Yeah, I went
to the I went to the Valet, I went to
the Bulsha. Actually saw a terrifying opera that the one
(17:24):
and only opera I had seen live till many many
years later in America. And it was it was called
kawun Sshin, and it was all about these two different
sects of Christians murdering each other because one of them
wanted to cross themselves with two fingers and that was
the old people, and the other ones wanted to cross
(17:46):
themselves with three fingers. And there was like a lot
of fire and huts burning, and and it really captured me.
It was Mussorski, but wow, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Luckily we don't have that conflict like that anymore.
Speaker 6 (18:01):
Right, that's all in the path they did have. They
did have a lot of They had this fortune teller
who could drop drip wax hot wax into water and
read that, and that really made a huge impression on me.
Just yeah, it was it's a really it's a really
beautiful opera, but I was definitely too young to see it.
(18:25):
I was probably like seven or eight. But you know,
my kindergarten graduation though, really kind of freaked me out
because as a present for graduating kindergarten, which you graduated
at six in Russia, it was like a year later
than here, we got taken to the mausoleum of Lenin,
(18:49):
of Grandpa Lenin and the wash so we we first
of all, at the time, it was a fascinating scene
because all the Russians had to sort of wait, and
the first people who got to kind of freely go
in were all the visitors, all the tourists, so they
(19:09):
got to experience the really. So you would have tourists
from all over the world and they would bring flowers
and you know, and other people from other communist countries
or you know, would just be very excited. So by
the time it was time for my kindergarten class to go,
we were you know, there's these guys with bayonets, and
(19:30):
there's a long and it's the mausoleum is dark stone,
you know, kind of and it's just a long sort
of dark rectangle you walk in. Yeah, and then there's
alongside this thing, there's dudes with bayonets all around. And
I was and they basically say, don't step out of line,
(19:52):
don't touch anything. So I was sure that I would
like trip and some guy would like spear me. So
I was just like, you know, and then you get
there and the reward is that you get to see
this dead yellow man in a suit just on a
stone slab.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Fun for the kids, super fun.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
But yeah, so so it was kind of different than
growing up here. But but I so like, but to
me everything looked beautiful right that I that I'd experienced.
But it's just that when I came, I saw how
modern everything. I mean, we never had anything like stores
with things in them, you know, like you could just lie,
(20:39):
you know. Some some went back to bed.
Speaker 8 (20:53):
Not Macheur left on his head a slice wonder bread,
and we right to bed. And a history books forgot
about us, and a Bible.
Speaker 6 (21:05):
Didn't mention us.
Speaker 8 (21:07):
And a Bible didn't mention us, not even one.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I want to get to your music, but one more
question about childhood, just as a parent yourself, Now, what
do you when you think of Ilia and Bella and
the you know, their collaboration makes all of your artistic
career possible. Your parents when you think of about them
making the leap and coming here and the world that
(21:38):
opened up for you as a parent, Now does it?
How do you interpret it? How do you make sense
of it?
Speaker 6 (21:47):
I mean, the the amount of gratitude that I feel
is is indescribable. And I felt that from the very
very beginning. I think as I have grown, I've understood
how hard it was. I really just they kept you know,
(22:08):
that's kind of the sort of the benefit and the
privilege of well taken care of kids is that you're sheltered.
You're really sheltered from most things like that. But I
think because I was always sort of sneaky and interested
in what the adults were talking about, or you know,
(22:29):
I was always listening in on all the kitchen conversations,
so I was privy to a lot of their struggle.
And in Russia it was struggle about you know, all
of the Soviet stuff and obviously the Jewish stuff. I mean,
it was really not fun to be a Jew in Russia.
I still find out stories all the time. I just
(22:51):
found out a story about my mom's sister that she
had been this really brilliant engineer and when she graduated,
she would go and and go and interview for a
position and they would say, oh, my god, thank god
you're here. We really really need this position filled. You're perfect.
(23:14):
And then she would come the next day and to
really get a job, you had to bring your papers,
your documents, and they would open her passport and under
number five, you know, it always said jew on every
Jewish person's passport, it had, it was stamped in there,
and they would say, oh, oh, hold on one second,
(23:35):
I'm sorry, I just thought and they would go off
into some back room and sometimes some of the people
came out and it was this unspoken thing where they
would feel really bad doing this, and other times they
felt just fine doing it, and other times there was
contempt in their eyes, but they all would say, oh, actually,
you know it, it was a misunderstanding. We don't actually
(23:59):
have a job. I'm so sorry. And she did this
for for a long, long long time and she just
could not get a job. And that was such a
common experience, and that was just one of the million
different ways that what my parents had to deal with that.
I you know, they took me out of there so
that I wouldn't have to deal with it as far
(24:20):
as being a parent right now. You know, it's interesting
because I'm watching what's going on, you know, here in
my home country. As far as you know, the Jewish
people are concerned, and I would I would be I
(24:42):
would be lying if I didn't say I was in shock,
because this was the good place, you know, this was
the place you come to to to sort of be
a free Jew. And I never thought, I never gave
a second thought to wearing my start of David on
a subway alone on my own record covers, you know,
(25:02):
and like and whatever. And when I think about my children,
my next thought is, you know, are they you know,
depending on how the wind blows, are they going to
have to learn a new language? You know? Are they
going to have to do what I did and go
somewhere else if things get really bad? And only time
(25:23):
will tell, you know, only only time will tell if
people are okay going down this road yet again and
again and again.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
You know, I'm listening to you, and of course that's
said that you should feel this way, But at the
same time, you are so not alone. In fact, we
meaning immigrants. I'm the I'm first generation American. My parents
survived the Holocaust to come here. We are a nation
of immigrants. Most of the country is immigrants, either first
(25:56):
or second generation immigrants, many more of us than them.
And that is the hope that I keep.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, now that we have confronted the horror of our times,
I'm going to turn to the joy of music. And
I want I want to tell you the way I
and and when we began the preview for this the
little intro of this episode, Phil thanked me because I
get to introduce him. He introduces me to so many people.
But I introduced him to a lot of great musicians,
(26:28):
and I had to confess we've never met, which is
but I first heard about you. I can remember the
moment I heard about you, because it was by hearing
it directly from Tom Petty, who you know I wrote
about a cover story and when I moved out here
in ninety one, and then he sort of adopted me
(26:49):
into the you know, his home at that point. And
but I think in one of the later conversations after
you know, many years later, he was bragging so proud
of Adria, his daughter and how she was working with
a great young artist and Tom. I don't know, you
(27:11):
worked with Tom, you toured with Tom. Tom was not
a bullshit artist. If he loved if he said he
loved your music, he loved your music. And I wonder,
you know, what was it meaningful for you to not
only have the genius of Adria as a sort of
video maker and artistic collaborator, but to have the you know,
(27:31):
to be embraced by an artist like Tom Petty.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
Oh, it was honestly just it hurts in a good
way to even like talk about him at that time
because it was just so magical. And I just can't
believe that he's gone. And I think that we all
could have used his wisdom and his insight. You know,
(28:00):
it was so amazing. It was just yeah, it was.
It was magical. It was like it was it was.
It was a world I really didn't know about, you know,
in a lot of ways, even just getting signed coming
out to California. It's this whole other universe that no
(28:22):
one in my family, no one I knew, nobody in
the music industry or any kind of thing, like it
was just all sort of it was all so new
and I was also very very I had these huge
holes in my education, like I didn't. I found out
about Tom through Adria. The first time that I looked
(28:45):
at a Tom Petty record, I said, oh my god,
he looks so much like you. Because even though, of
course later I realized how much of that music had
been sort of just in the in the in the
in the earth that I was walking on. You know,
it's like it was played in every store, it was
(29:06):
played on radios, it was in films, it was in
But I didn't grow up. I sort of grew up
in what I call the immigrant bubble, which is when
you live in the country but you eat your own food.
You don't have money to buy records or go to
the movies, or go to see Broadway or go to
see anything. Like you know, when I played on Broadway,
I had a residency. I brought away people. What does
(29:27):
it mean to you to be on Broadway? It was like,
I don't know, like it's exciting, it's exciting. Yeah, well
it was like I get it. You know, it's fun
to be in a playbill because you know, anytime my
parents could get enough money, we'd go to Carnegie Hall
or go to you know, go to a classical concert
or something. But it wasn't it wasn't that thing that
(29:48):
I knew. I mean I found out about David Bowie
when Goldie and Seymour put when I was still in
the process of being signed Seymour.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Stein who Sire Records and Michael.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
And Michael Goldstone the label. Yeah. Yeah, like they gave
they made me a little iPod and they filled it
with music. And it was really I mean honestly going
to those record different record labels and raiding their closets.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Oh yes, when they were when.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
They were like, come sign with us, and then you know,
here's a closet full of things. And then they would
mail me.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
They get up they.
Speaker 6 (30:28):
Yeah it is and they would get they would get me,
you know, like a whole box of CDs or something
to you know, send it back home to New York
because I couldn't even carry it in my luggage it
was so heavy. I would take everything. Yeah, I would
take the entire everything, and so and and and that's
kind of how I got my music, like education. And
(30:49):
I was already you know, twenty four when I was
doing that, so it's kind of late for a lot
of sort of American culture. I'm still catching up on
a lot a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Well, were you taking piano lessons as a little kid
in Moscow?
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Yeah, I started taking piano lessons when I was six,
and we left when I was nine and a half,
and I was really I think in a lot of ways,
besides the fact that I was leaving my grandparents and
some other relatives, that was the most painful thing was
leaving my piano, my lessons, my teacher. I loved it
(31:29):
so much. I loved it, and I was like, and
I practiced all the way through immigration because I would
just play on a table, you know, and I would
just and windowsills because I was so afraid to like
lose my technique whatever that means, you know, at nine
and a half, and then I kind of missed an
(31:53):
entire year of learning. But when I got to America,
in our local synagogue in the Bronx like Kingsbridge center
of Israel, they had a they had a a piano
in the basement, so they started letting me come and
(32:14):
practice in the basement of the synagogue. And then my
dad one day coming back, he was he was working
this this very very very low paying job in in
uh in a color printing in a film printing photo
(32:38):
printing place in Manhattan, and he coming back on the subway,
met this man who who with a violin case, just
started up a conversation because my dad was very, very friendly,
which is like I think one of the most incredible
things about him is that even with broken English, he
(32:59):
would just make friends with people all the time. And
through that, through that man Sam and his wife Sonya,
I actually ended up getting free piano lessons for my
entire music education till I was seventeen.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Wow, and that's that, Sonya Vargas.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
Is that right, Yes, Sonya Vargus.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
I wonder, you know, because something that I've got involved
with over the years, I think even maybe a show
with Tom Petty music education shows supporting music education. I
just wonder from your point of view, like when you
think about I think about like when I first became
a fan of yours, I didn't even know who to
associate you with because I think you're such a unique talent,
(33:41):
and like I've sort of come to think in my head,
I think the first thing I ever came up with
is like she's the perfect uh you know, I know
your real parents we talked about. But like, musically, I
think of you're like the child of George Gershwin and
Kate Bush, which is a pretty good musical marriage of geniuses.
(34:01):
But I wonder what you think about the importance of
music education one of the millions of things that like
people are gutting arts programs. You know, music education has
been gutted for years now. How shortsighted is it when
like you're and I know, like all really talented musicians.
Billy Joel always said, I got one good hand. He said,
(34:22):
I wish I had Elton. You know, you know, people compare,
but you're a real musical talent. How how important is
a music education to transforming lives of kids like you?
Speaker 6 (34:36):
I think, you know, I think that music education. I
think honestly, any kind of an education in the arts,
any kind of a skill that you could teach somebody
that can help them take something internal and make it external.
So if you teach somebody writing skills, if you teach
(34:58):
somebody poetry, if you teach somebody to walk through a
museum and love paintings, that is one of the quickest
ways to improve somebody's quality of life. Because all of
a sudden, you can have somebody who doesn't have a
(35:19):
huge salary, doesn't have isn't able to travel freely throughout
the world and hop on a plane and go to
Venice or go to this place or that place. But
they could walk into any library, they could sit with
a tiny instrument in their room in a corner of
a room. They could go into any museum on a
(35:41):
free day, and they will be filled, they will be
filled with joy. So to gatekeep these simple things like singing, playing, writing,
you know, painting, obviously sports arts, because that's like a
combination of not just artistry, but embodiment all that stuff.
(36:06):
You're you're keeping your you're you're not giving people that outlet.
You're basically not taking care of your citizens because you're
you're you're you're not giving those internal feelings and outlet. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's it's like it should be. I do think that, Like,
(36:28):
you know, there's this concept of shadow artists, right, people
who have all the feeling of artists, and they have
all of the pull towards something, towards creating something, but
they have none of the skills. So they become shadow
artists because they don't they can't express.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
It, and don't look at me when you say that.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
But the best critics, like David, they celebrate the artistry
and others and that in itself is an art form too.
Speaker 6 (37:02):
Well, it is, because then you have to you what
you have to what. But what you're also able to
do is to take your internal thoughts and feelings and
put them out into into a piece, which is art.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Listen, I wouldn't be here without the after school plays
that I got to do as a kid, right, And
it doesn't matter what your art form is. If you're
a dancer, if you're a sculptor, you have to have
that outlet. And the only way to discover it is
to be exposed to it when you're young.
Speaker 6 (37:34):
You and and and that's the thing that people really
don't understand is that that there's we're so pliable, we're
so like still, we're very much ourselves from the time
that we're born. We have certain traits, but as far
as like being able to be open to things or
(37:55):
being able to to kind of connect with each other.
The more you give these skills like music or art
or or acting or writing, the more you give people
the chance to connect with others because that's like, that's where,
that's why it's like the place that Yeah, exactly like
(38:17):
doing it whatever a school musical or.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Something, and you get a sense of self. You get
a sense of who you are and that maybe I
do have something to offer the world.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Down to new shoes, stuck to Aging freedom goes their action.
I'm not recognized Aging streetent.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Well, I wonder you're heading out I think literally as
we're recording this, I think in a day or two
on your Midsummer day Dream tour, which and I don't know,
it's very interesting to me you and Phil both go
out and you're going out a little later. He's just
he's been on the road the last few years, talking
about food and travel in the world and meeting with
(39:23):
people in great theaters like you. You did the London
Palladium recently. You are doing that, Yes.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
But I have no talent. This is a person who
can sing and play and write songs I talk about.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
But I do wonder, Regina, like, when you go out there,
do you realize that on this day Dream tour that
I actually heard some I think it was an NPR
reporter interviewing you, and he talked about bringing I think
his daughter to see you and the idea of like
there are young girls, young boys who are in that
audience with their parents hopefully being supervised, but who are
(39:58):
out there and being so inspired by you. Like to me,
you're very young because you came along after I was
already in music, but you're already at you know, having
you've built this body of work. You've reissued five of
your albums on vinyl that everyone we can you know
that we encourage everyone to go get start with, begin
to hope, and then keep hoping and get all the record.
(40:20):
But when you go out there on the road, do
you ever encounter the fact that you are inspiring day dreams?
Speaker 6 (40:27):
I honestly like I think if I had to it
within the arts, you know, if I had to pledge
allegiance to like one little country within the arts themselves,
it would be it would be fiction, right. I love stories,
fairy tales, myths, I love dreams. I love I love
(40:47):
places where you can go and sort of take all
of your very real world emotions, your personal history, anything,
and then just go and jump into things that are
all imagination and can sort of the collective unconscious. That
(41:08):
that's my happy place and in some ways, I feel
like my songs have always been tiny little stories that
you could just kind of go into and and sort
of hop around, and and I just love the fact
that that there's that when I opened my eyes back up,
(41:29):
because I end up actually playing with my eyes closed
most of the time, which is so fun. On television,
everybody's always like, oh, keep your eyes open, and I'm like,
you know, but but I really kind of go into
a world, and when I emerge, the fact that there's
somebody out there and they went there with me is
(41:49):
still one of the most magical things I think, and
especially I know, you know, it is fun to kind
of get to to to do it throughout the years
because there are so many people that are like, I
grew up on your music, and I always think, how
is that possible? I guess it is.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Well, you know, to show your your history is deep.
We and talk about how you're you know, your songs
are stories, and they're movies, and they've worked their way
into movies and they've also worked their way into TV.
So we we got a question from a friend of
both of ours, really who you were instrumental in writing
(42:28):
the theme song for her brilliant show.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
So let's hear a little bit of that theme song
right now.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
The animals, the animals, trap, trap, trap, So the cages.
Speaker 6 (42:39):
Full, the cages full.
Speaker 8 (42:42):
Day's new and everyone is waiting waiting on you new gone.
Speaker 9 (42:53):
Here's a special message from Jenji Cohen, creator of Orange
is the New Black.
Speaker 5 (42:58):
Hey, we love.
Speaker 10 (43:00):
I'm recording this as I walked down the street New York,
wishing I were in LA with you and Phil. My
question to you is, how are you finding small M
magic in your life these days? I know we both
want big M which sounds gross when I say I
love but we're the little bits of magic creeping in
(43:20):
these days.
Speaker 4 (43:21):
I love you so much.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Talk to you soon.
Speaker 6 (43:24):
Oh I love you, Donji? Oh, yes, talk about I
mean that's a that's a magical person. I mean she's Yeah,
she's like my big M magic, you know. I I think, uh,
I think a lot of it. For me at this
particular moment is in human beings, human beings that you
(43:51):
can have a real conversation with where I really I
think And maybe that's also my soviety like Spidey sense background.
I'm really sensitive to my ability to truly say what's
on my mind freely and not feel judged, destroyed, you know,
(44:16):
erased whatever I and I feel like for whatever reason,
our society at this particular moment is going through something
where it's not allowing us. We're doing the sort of
sovia double think where we're like, this is safe to
say this, I shouldn't say this will get taken and
and that kind of a mental and emotional jail is
(44:40):
not healthy for us. It's not good for us. So
so because and I don't I have you know, I'm
not some kind of a global social thinker in that way,
but I sometimes think that maybe maybe technology is doing
some of it, maybe social media is doing some of it.
Maybe maybe be in general our attention spans ore a
(45:01):
certain ways, so we have to have things very black
and white, which is very very Soviet. You're either with
us or you're against us. You're either on the right
side of history or the wrong side of You're either
the good guy or the bad guy. And that's you know,
that's how witches get burned, that's how inquisitions happen, that's
how everything happens. That's how you end up in the
gulag whatever. So to me, a lot of my sort
(45:23):
of small m magic is that ability to hang out
with somebody who loves me and who I love and
who I trust and they trust me, and we just
talk as human beings and we don't have to worry
that if we say something the person's going to get
that cold, steely look and be like, what did you say? Yeah?
(45:46):
You know. And and I think that, even though it
doesn't mean that we have to agree on everything, I
love the place where a person could say, well, you know,
I'm not sure about that actually, because I think that
I love that, I don't love that, I love yes.
And so that's sort of my magic is the nuance.
I think the most punk thing you could do right
(46:09):
now is be nuanced. It's like literally the wildest, craziest
thing you could do right now. And so so so
that's where my and I encourage everybody to just like,
if you feel yourself in that back, just just you know,
wiggle a little bit, make that box a little bit bigger,
find those people that you could be yourself with, and
(46:30):
empower yourself to be more and more yourself. You know,
our culture does a good job of talking about authenticity
and all that stuff, but it's not actually rewarding it.
So it's one you know, and that's it's saying, be authentic,
but it's actually the other hand is kind of whipping
you for it, you know, And so we need to
(46:52):
reinstate it. I think a little bit more.
Speaker 8 (46:55):
If I.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
It's so well said, and we are the hope. Yes,
when the government isn't taken care of it or us,
we have to take care of us. And that's what's beautiful,
that's the hope. That's what I was saying before. There's
more of us.
Speaker 6 (47:13):
Yeah, And I think that the only other thing I
would just add to that, and I think it's because again,
we can't see the back of our own head as
we walk down the street. This is our blind spot.
The only thing that I would say is something that
again I've noticed as such an outsider of an outsider
of an outsider that I am, is that a lot
(47:35):
of the time we love to have that person that
we blame, right or that entity that we blame, so
we can just outsource all that to whatever government which
is obviously failing us horrendously, you know. But I would
just add that there needs to be some kind of
(47:57):
a mea culpa at this point. You know it's not.
We can't just collectively just look over there and point
all arrows at government and just say you you know,
it's like it's us. Also, we're letting ourselves down because
we're all jumping on each other and not letting each
other be free. Also, it's not just coming from the
(48:21):
outside it the call is coming from inside the house.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
And by the way, never a better excuse to play
the song us. So we'll play it a little of
us right now.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
They made a statue and put it on the mountains
up noctors come and start us.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
I do have a question about, like when you go
on tour at this point, especially because of the way
you tour. You know, it's not like I don't think
you're doing so much technological programming that you can't do
what you feel like in the moment. So on a
night to night basis, you now have, at a very
young age, a deep catalog that many people can be
(49:25):
buying in our summer of specter that Phil and I
are having. You know, I'm buying more vinyl so I
can play it on vinyl and feel it in that way.
But how do you feel what should be in the
setlist every day? Because I will tell you, like Phil
discovering your music here in twenty twenty five, and I've
been discovering it gradually ever since Tom Petty told me
you were one of the next great you know things.
(49:48):
But like, like, for instance, Phil and I, he goes,
have you heard Becoming All Alone? And I'm like, oh, yeah,
that's one of my absolute favorites.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Get all the things to make a bad let don't
care see through.
Speaker 6 (50:17):
Yay, just on a ride.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
But this, how do you use it beside what songs?
Going to the set every every night?
Speaker 6 (50:28):
Well, so, first of all, I'm such a luddite that like,
this particular tour is a solo tour. But even when
I play with the band, there's not that many bells
and the whistles we just play. This tour is just
me and piano and I play the The setless thing
is interesting because well, one of the things that I
(50:50):
make sure to do is I always look up and
thank God for what is it? Setless dot FM or
there's a website where you do FM it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
It's a place where you can go. Not only can
you look up what your favorite artists played last night,
you know, if you want to know, But I can
go back for this podcast we've had on like I
think Daryl Hall, you know, all these artists who I've
had to go back to my first concerts, like the
day that Laura Wharton, who I think was Russian, my
first girlfriend, I went to Hall and Notes at the
(51:22):
Palladium and you can look up the date, you can
find you know, and often you get to test your
own memory. But I'm sorry, what is why do you
love it so much?
Speaker 6 (51:32):
Well? I make sure I go and I sort of
make sure that that if I've been practicing, because a
lot of the time I sort of practice so many
songs for a tour that I could pull from, and
then there's always like certain songs that I'm like, Okay,
(51:52):
well I really should play that because that'll make like
maybe the majority of people happy to if I don't play,
it might be a bummer. So then I have a
few of those in the in the real estate, and
then I have some that are like completely nobody would
be expecting that, and that's kind of fun to throw in.
And then I always just make sure that I look
(52:14):
at what I played last time I was there, and
then I'm like, oh, well, I played that last time,
I'm not going to play it this time. I'm going
to play something, you know, Like a lot of the time,
I sort of even though of course it's all imaginary,
especially like you know, my tour starts in San Francisco,
and I just did that just because it was the
first show.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
So I.
Speaker 6 (52:33):
Made a little list of that, and then I was like,
but that was three years ago, Like they matter, you know,
it's not like they're coming to like a weekly residency
and I'm like, oh, I shouldn't play that. I played
that last week. But but it is kind of like
energetically wi its like a nice thing to do because
then you're like, Okay, this is what I was feeling.
A lot of it is just very sort of spontaneous.
(52:57):
As a matter of fact, I make a set list
every show, and I have never once been able to
follow my set list ever. And even when I play
with a band, I have a little tiny microphone off
of my microphone to the side, yeah, and I have
a little little button that I could step on to
speak just into the in ears of my crew. And
(53:21):
if I know that it's like a song that needs
like a certain kind of lights, it'll really throw them
if I just start playing and I just whisper whatever
it is, or if to the band, because then they
could hear.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
And yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Do you ever do covers too?
Speaker 6 (53:36):
Almost never, because honestly, they're so it's easier for me
to write a new song than to figure my way
into a cover. I have. I have done covers in
the past.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
But you sang. You sang two covers with a friend
of mine, Jacob Dylan, for the Echo in the Canyon one,
which was a song everybody well, I think, or most
old hippies will know, uh, Buffalo Springfield song Expecting to Fly.
But you did a song by Love, the group Love,
which is a little less known now.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Uh. And I absolutely wait Theodora Theodosia, yes from Hamilton.
Speaker 8 (54:19):
Dear Theodojah, what to say?
Speaker 6 (54:22):
Do you? You have my eyes? You have your mother's name.
Speaker 8 (54:27):
When you came into the world, you cried and it
broke my heart. I'm dedicating every day to domestic life.
Speaker 6 (54:44):
That was when when Lynn was putting together the mixtape.
He's actually a rare person that I we became friends
from the internet. Like I I just wrote about how
much I like seeing Hamilton at the public and then
he he contacted me and then he's like, do you
(55:06):
want to be on I'm going to make a mixtape.
Then of course the mixtape became like crazy like it.
But at the time I think I was like the
first person on the mixtape.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
And by the way, I saw something online where he
goes and he plays on the radio your song and
basically cops to like how influenced you know, Slash might
have ripped off slightly a little of your music and
it's interesting to watch. He's a genius. I think we
are all.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Can and Regina there might be some money there. Your
AI chatbot could not write this song.
Speaker 6 (55:43):
Yeah no, he could not, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 9 (55:45):
Like nobody, but Regina Spector could have written this song
on the radio.
Speaker 4 (55:50):
You'll hear November ran that solos off long, but it's
a good refrain.
Speaker 6 (55:57):
You'll listen to me twice because the Dejas.
Speaker 1 (56:05):
Bubbles will you are like deep songs like that. I'll
one song I love is Genius next Door, which uh
you know you did uh on the far record with
Jeff Lynn, who I have worked with done like liner
(56:28):
notes and stuff with him over the years. He just
had to cancel his big Hyde Park Farewell show, which
is heartbreaking, but I found the most Like, again, you're
you have such an interesting view into music, and I
think it's reflected in how interesting your music is. But
if I remember correctly, uh, you asked to work with
jeff Lynn not knowing elo or jeff Lynn's career. You
(56:51):
knew that he produced Tom Petty record that you and
I one of our and we're only two of the
only people who are obsessed with Highway Companion, which I
raised my kids in carpools driving them to that record.
Uh uh And and but is it true that you
basically said, you know, there's so many named jeff Lynn
who did this record, and you didn't know who he was,
(57:12):
and yet you got.
Speaker 6 (57:13):
To work with him. Yeah, so this was this was
like a this again that that's part of that immigrant bubble,
just like accidental ignorance, not purposeful at all. But you know,
before doing a record, like people, you know, there are
a lot of people, there's a lot of musicians who
(57:34):
are they're basically like half musician, half a in our person,
Like they're just so smart. They know everything, they know
what's on what label, they know all the history of music,
like they'll be like oh, like like even names of
record labels didn't mean anything to me, Like they'd be like,
oh Columbia or this or that, you know, they'd just
be like.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
What you know?
Speaker 6 (57:53):
Uh, and and and but before doing a record, I
mean this was very early because this was sort of
like my second proper signed record after Begin to Hope.
And there was this kind of conference call and and
(58:14):
they wanted to know, like, who are some of the
producers I'm interested to work with? And I was like,
I was like, I don't, I don't know producers. But
I'd been listening to Highway Companion all the time. So
I literally like ran over to this and opened the jacket.
I'm like, okay, oh it's jeff It's this guy Jeff Lynn.
So on the call, I'm like, well, what about this
guy Jeff Lynn? And there's just silence, silence on everybody
(58:38):
just get uh. I guess we can I guess we
can ask him. I mean it would be I don't know,
I mean he and then and I basically found out
he like only worked like with the Beatles, and you know,
like and and so I was like, okay, you know,
and they're like and they basically prepared me. They were like,
he's probably gonna say no, you know, he just doesn't
(58:59):
and and he said yes.
Speaker 4 (59:02):
The genius next door was bussing table. Well, I haven't
clean the kitch.
Speaker 8 (59:08):
Your bottle labeled.
Speaker 5 (59:12):
Getting high mumbling German fables didn't care as long.
Speaker 4 (59:19):
As he was able.
Speaker 8 (59:23):
Disturber's gloves on by the dumbst.
Speaker 5 (59:28):
At night.
Speaker 6 (59:28):
Well everyone and I loved working with him, and it
was one of those things that when I decided to
do far, it had been so many years of just touring, touring,
touring that I was like, Okay, this is my chance.
I treated producing as sort of like like like master classes,
(59:50):
so I was like, I'm not going to just work
with one producer. I'm going to work with a bunch
of producers, so I could take a class with each
one and learn how they hear and how they experience
music and all this stuff. It was super fun so
so when I worked with Jeff, it was just incredible
because not only are his story is amazing, and he's
(01:00:11):
amazing and so funny, so funny, so.
Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Dry and so funny. And I'll tell you, you know,
we've taken we we don't want to go over our
time with you. But I want to say that, like
I've got to watch him in his little side room
of his house making these amazing records by himself. In
the large measure, I realize some people are musically so
talented they are. He is an orchestra and you're an orchestra.
(01:00:37):
That's why I encourage everyone to go out on this tour.
If you can see Regina, See Regina, get the records
on vinyl, because really, you are such a unique talent
and I'm so happy I finally got to, you know,
got to actually meet you with She's not in La
on this tour, but we're going to beg her to
add a date.
Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
What's wrong with us?
Speaker 6 (01:00:59):
Let's go to San France, come to San Francis. I
was next time I come to La, please come to
my show. I would love that so much to happen.
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Yes, where's the best Where's the best Russian food in
America that you found? And do you cook Russian food
for the kids?
Speaker 6 (01:01:15):
I do. I cook a lot of Russian food and and.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
I loved it in Moscow. I thought the food was great.
I mean, all surprisingly goes very well with vodka.
Speaker 6 (01:01:28):
And I was just gonna say I spent the entire
time so drunk. It was crazy. It was it was insane.
It was like it was like cold borsh nickles harring
vodka over and over, keep it coming.
Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Right, I mean that just the just the ice cold cabbage.
Pickled cabbage with vodka is one of the great pairings
in the world.
Speaker 6 (01:01:50):
What what did you think? So one of my favorite
sort of like Russian food pickles, is the pickled watermelon.
Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 6 (01:01:59):
So and they can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I mean, it's so cheap, right, it's peasant cuisine and
it's phenomenal.
Speaker 6 (01:02:08):
Yeah. What was the food that you tasted there that
you were just like wow? How what like I've never
heard of this thing before.
Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Oh, that's a good question. Well, just that the cabbage
in the vodka. That was like a revelation because you
would never imagine it just sounds like is this all
you get to eat here?
Speaker 8 (01:02:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
I heard things were bad, but and then it's it's like, oh,
I get it.
Speaker 6 (01:02:35):
Yeah. I feel like another secret weapon of Russian food
is dil. Yes, people really underestimate the power of dill.
Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
It was my mom my favorite thing.
Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
That's the title of your next record, The power of
dill of Dyl. Thank you Regina so much.
Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Gina, You're You're just so charming and great and in
addition to being so super talented. We love you. We
can't wait to see you any person.
Speaker 6 (01:03:03):
Yes, me too, Thank you so much for speaking with me.
Speaker 9 (01:03:07):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley, Produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chella. If
you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend, But
if you can't take my word for it, take Phil's.
Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
And don't forget to leave a good rating and review.
We like five stars.
Speaker 7 (01:03:32):
You know.
Speaker 9 (01:03:32):
Thanks for listening to Naked Lunch, a Lucky Bastard's production.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!