May 18, 2021 • 49 mins
In 2005 singer Bonnie "Prince" Billy a.k.a. Will Oldham and guitarist Matt Sweeney released the Superwolf album, which has developed a cult following that includes Rick Rubin who absolutely fell in love with the project. Now, 16 years later, they’re back with the follow-up, Superwolves.
The new album was five years in the making—a leisurely pace that allowed Oldham and Sweeney to be incredibly intentional with their creative choices. On today’s episode, Rick Rubin talks to Oldham and Sweeney about their work together, which Rick considers some of his favorite contemporary music and the reason he’s since used Sweeney on so many of the sessions he’s produced including the Dixie Chicks, Cat Stevens, and Adele. Will Oldham talks about his philosophy on connecting with his audience, and how if this pandemic were to take us all, Superwolves would be a great album to go out on.
Subscribe to Broken Record’s YouTube channel to hear all of our interviews: https://www.youtube.com/brokenrecordpodcast and follow us on Twitter @BrokenRecord
You can also check out past episodes here: https://brokenrecordpodcast.com
Check out a playlist of our favorite Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Matt Sweeney songs HERE. Also, here is a playlist of some of Oldham's favorite songs and here is a playlist of some of Sweeney's. You can purchase their new record here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. In two thousand and five, single Will Oldham and
guitarist Matt Sweeney released the Superwolf album, which has developed
a cult following that includes Rick Rubin, who absolutely fell
in love with the project. Now sixteen years later, they're
(00:36):
back with the follow up, Superwolves. Other folks will make
mistakes and leave you with the mass. Other folks have
ways of fucking past, but you know best they're lost.
To begin with, This new album was five years in
the making, a leisurely pace that allowed Oldham and Sweeney
(01:00):
to be incredibly intentional with their creative choices. Oldham, who's
recorded under a number of different monikers in the past,
including Bonnie Prince Billy, wrote all the lyrics before sending
them over to Sweeney to write his guitar parts. The
duo also added a new flavor, tapping the West African
musician m Dumaktar to play guitar on a few tracks.
(01:22):
On today's episode, Rick Rubin talks to Oldham and Sweeney
about their work together, which Rick considers some of his
favorite contemporary music, and it's also why he's used Sweeney
on a lot of the sessions he's produced, including the
Dixie Chicks, Cat Stevens and Adele. Will Oldham talks about
his philosophy on connecting with his audience and how if
this pandemic were to take us all, super Wolves would
(01:44):
be a great album to go out on. This is
broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond.
Here's Rick Rubin with will Oldham and Matt Sweeney. How
(02:05):
are we being graced with a new super Wolf project
all this time since the last one. Matt and I
thought it could be a good idea. We didn't think
about it till till too late, but it could be
a good idea to get up to speed with your
conversational style in this forum. So I was listening a
little bit earlier today to a conversation that you were
(02:27):
having with Adam Cohen. You were saying that there's you
just can't control it. You can't control He says specifically
that a record isn't a Fay dot COMPI And he
has a beautiful little French Canadian accent when he says it,
and he you know, and he goes on to say,
even with the right songs and the right producer and
the right blah blah blah, you know, you can't guarantee
and you say, yeah, you can't, there's no And I
(02:49):
feel like if you just do something like take your time,
you can kind of get close to guaranteeing it. So
to answer your question, we just took a little bit
of time. We wanted to make a good record. As
you've probably experienced most records that you probably feel strongly about,
whether you participated in them or not, something did just happen,
(03:11):
of course that made them specifically rise above the other records.
But having been aware of that, if you have the
leisure because you're doing other things, to build something slowly
and just be sure that you only act when the
charge is there, absolutely, would you say, in the writing process,
do you consider the audience or not at all? Yeah, No,
(03:33):
it's it's all about the audience, like entirely. Yeah, the
whole reason to sit down and write is for the audience. Interesting,
it's probably less than fifty fifty that that would be
the answer to people who write songs. Yeah, you never
hear people say that. I feel like Chuck Berry is
the kind of person who would say it. He would,
he would be a little colder in the way that
(03:53):
he phrased it. But but if you read about him
talking earlier in his career. He's less less harsh. But yeah,
people don't say that. I had a revelation recently that
I'll share with you, which is I've always worked towards
this idea of greatness and they didn't know what greatness was,
but but that was the feeling. It's like, it's not
it's not about selling a lot, it's not about making
(04:14):
anybody else like it. It's about it has to be great.
It has to be great in a way where it
stands up to the test of time and it's forever,
and it's like the the bar was higher. And recently
I've come to realize that actually we're making art as
an offering to God. And if you're making art for God,
there are no shortcuts to take, there are no low
(04:36):
vibration energies involved in the process. It's like, that's the
that's what we're really aiming for. Is this um a
sharing on a different plane? Really, I like to think
that in what we do, or at least what I do,
the offering is not the work. The offering is the
(04:58):
connection made between the work and the audience. You know,
my mother was a visual artist. Nobody ever saw her
visual art. It's it's great, but she I would maybe
say that those could be considered offerings to God because
they weren't shared with anybody, so in and of themselves,
that's what they were. But because our labor goes to
making a connection, you know, you're you're asking for an audience.
(05:21):
For to have any degree of success, whether it's financial
or spiritual or artistic, there does need to be some
sort of a connection to a recipient. And so that
that the connection itself, building a connection that you that
you feel that that is sturdy or beautiful or complex,
that that that's the offering that you're rather than the
(05:43):
peace itself, or rather yeah, rather than the piece itself.
I've noticed, at least in the context of Superwolf, particularly
the first album, there are lyrics that I find they
pull me in emotionally and then they'll be I'll call
them surprises, certain land mines lyrically that you might not
(06:04):
be expected in a song that sounds like these sound intentional, unintentional,
definitely intentional. I wish I could pull examples from from
my brain. I can think of songwriters like John Prine
or Bob McDill, who wrote a lot of songs that
Don Williams ended up playing. Where do you know Don
(06:28):
Williams music at all? You know, you know, good old
boys like me. That song where he says, you know, uh,
you know something I ran with the kids down a
kid down the street who you know, got himself something
like burned up on bourbon and speed. And of course
in the chorus when he says those Williams boys and
he says, Hank in Tennessee. And it still is always
like something to marvel at. It's still a surprise, and
(06:49):
it keeps me coming back. You know that song sounds
like something You turn it on and it sounds exactly
like what it sounds like. And then lyrically he keeps
confounding the sound of the song. I don't know, I
feel all of a sudden, I know I'm at home here.
It's not you know, this is where I belong. I
belong in this thing that's a little more convoluted or
(07:11):
a labyrinthine then, But it's very friendly too, It's very
open and loving because it sounds like something that you
love right away. But if it only was something simple
like that, like a fair faucet poster or something, you know,
you would lose interest after a little while. Instead, it
has a little bit of creepiness or a little bit
of gore in there that keeps you on your toes
(07:31):
and remembering that when the song starts again, you have
a sense memory of This sounds pretty good, but it's
actually even better than it sounds, because the lyrics are
going to take me someplace that the music is belying great.
Do you do songs typically start with a concept or
(07:53):
a lyric. What's your way in? Typically? I like these days,
I like triggers. For the past few years, my wife
has done something for me which I need to get
her to do again. Is I put a piece of
paper on the wall and every day I just asked
her to write a song title on that piece of paper.
(08:15):
And then that just gives me something to sit down
and stay in shape with. And every once in a while,
something like I think the song my Blue Suit that
it's on this new record, it was a Elsa title
song where she just wrote my Blue Suit. But then
then there's also there's three songs on this record where
(08:36):
I think, up at the end of the street there
was a bookstore and the guy who the guy would
be able to buy overstock. There was a buyer who
bought overstock and he curated his overstock you know, super
discount new book selection amazingly and he put on the
table one day this book called Falkland Road, which is
(08:57):
about Mumbai red light district, and it's just kind of
one picture per two pages and then a little maybe
a sentence or two sentences are three sentences that could
be a quote from an interview with one of the
people who's in the photograph. And there's three songs from
this record that that came like. And I was just
(09:18):
sharing those with because I hadn't shown them to Matt
until just like yesterday, right, man, Well, you hadn't shown
them like that. I'd seen that photo, the first photo,
the good to my Girls photo, I know, I'd seen
that tools. Yeah, I'd seen that just at your house,
I guess, sitting around or something, is that I mean, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
and Rick, I almost sent you these pictures as pre production,
but then I said, fuck preproduction. But I thought that
(09:39):
that was a really fascinating way in and kind of
an insight into how will write words, which is, you know,
like you look at a photograph, for example, do you
mind if we listened to a song. Can we listen
to Good to My Girls? Yeah? Good to my girls?
Yeah we have way too naked scene. We are are
(10:09):
not hard or bad, and I chop down trees and
spitting faces and laugh when you are sad. Your happiness
(10:30):
means almost less. That all that's in the world my
existence his Oh, can't I guess? Because I'm good to
my girls. I take them to the movies. I put
(10:56):
food in their bellies, I sow the hose in their life,
shut and temper any hoping. What else can I say?
I didn't ask. I'm good to them and thereby my
(11:17):
share of life. Day they make beautiful song. Thanks Rick,
so so so. The line that the that the woman
says is I'm good to my girls. I take them
to the movies once a month. Business is bad now,
but I still buy good food. I spent seven hundred
and fifty rupees for clothes for Christmas. When I heard
(11:40):
the song, I thought for sure it was an autobiographical song.
Well it is, that's the thing I thought it would.
But I thought it was I thought it was you
talking about your wife. I assumed you had either a
daughter or more than one. And you were talking about
being good to you girls, and then you get to
(12:00):
the hard part, and that's more like um self reflection.
Concerns you have about yourself might not even be true,
more like obsessive thoughts of not being good enough. It's
just interesting like that. That's what I heard, is like, oh,
it's this is this one's really about him? Well, I
mean there's no other source from which to truly draw
(12:21):
to get a you know, a multidimensional lyric, so that
it comes from you know, that's the that's the ideas
that it comes and triangulating. I can triangulate, you triangulate
with this, madam, in order to make something that I
can sing hopefully again and again and again and again
and again and again and still engage. And then also
an audience member can hear it again and again and again.
(12:41):
And it comes from, you know, documenting a shared experience
rather than a unique experience. What would be other lyrical
influences for you? Historically? Danzig, Danzig, We've talked about this Rick,
but Danzig, Yeah, I mean Danzig huge. I mean he's huge,
and still like I understand that he was, you know,
(13:02):
virtually a child when he wrote a lot of the
you know, the lyrics that he wrote in the eighties,
and yet I get so excited by the potential energy
that's wound up in his lyrics. They're just so incredible
and so beautiful that I always think, well, that's something
to continue to aspire to, because if it, you know,
too many writers write better as children than they do
(13:25):
as adults, which is I think it's an absolute sin
that it's allowed to happen, you know, that the songwriters
themselves allowed to happen, and that people in the world
allow it to happen as well, that we don't ask
more of our senior lyricists or senior singers, expect more
from them rather than oh this is as good, you know,
or comparing them to the past. Yeah, talking, we're talking
(13:47):
about all this stuff. Can can you devote like thirty
five to forty seconds around the phenomenon of of Glenn
Danzig writing the song for Roy Orbison? Sure had an
opportunity to do a song with Roy Orbison, and I
could find you know, I could cast any writer. And
(14:09):
I knew that Glenn loved Roy, and I knew that
he wrote great songs, and I knew that he would
write a different song than anyone else who might write
a song for Roy Orbison would write and I wanted
to hear what that was. And he wrote, he wrote
the song. He wrote, and we went and we played
it for Roy, Me, Glenn and Roy. I remember we
(14:30):
went to Roy's house in Malibu and Glenn played him
the song and he loved Glenn just play it live
for him, like played, So I think he did. Yeah.
I can't really remember, but I think he did yeah.
And then and he's like, Okay, I'm in let's do it. Yeah.
But then takes a lot of I mean, that's a nice, beautiful,
complicated relationship to voice and melody and connecting to artists
(14:54):
who are makes so much sense. And and also Glenn's
song on the first American record is That's I think
it's my favorite song on the because he's so good,
he's so brilliant at But but knowing, I mean, you
have to understand, you have to have a pretty deep
understanding of what a lyric is rick to risk, to
(15:16):
take that risk, to know that it's a it's a
risk that's going to pay off, because most people would
would laugh at you. You know, I wouldn't let you
know when we were when we were kids and we
heard this legend that that Glenn had just you know
it was working with Roy Orbison. We you know, it
took us a year before we realized it was the truth.
It sounded so ridiculously far fetched and perfect, but you
(15:38):
had to have an understanding of like, oh, well, this
guy understands how to build a song lyrically as well
as melodically, and he probably studied under these masters, and
so I can put him in the same room with
these guys and everything's going to be just fine. It's
also interesting this leads back to something we were talking
about earlier about people doing great work when they're young.
(16:00):
That we had. We had the elder statesman and Roy
who could still do what Roy does, and we had
the the performative performatively, and we had the young energy
of Glenn Danzig like prime songwriting and it and I
guess you could say the same things true for Trent
(16:22):
Resiner and Hurt with Johnny. It's like, even though when
Johnny sings it, it sounds like he wrote it, it
sounds like he's telling his story, but the fact that
it's written by, you know, a twenty two year old
kid in his bedroom. It's just fascinating. It's fascinating how
that works. Yeah, or I see a darkness in Johnny Cash.
(16:42):
Same deal, Same deal. I wanted to I wanted now
that I've always wanted to see the two of you
guys together and ask about that that scenario which was Rick,
I saw you at a party. I just gotten back
from a European tour with Will, and we had a
bonus show in New York. And I knew that you
would you had been in contact with you would ask
(17:03):
for some Will records because you were working with Johnny Cash.
You were interested in in him checking Will's music. I
had that intel, soho I went up to you, invited
you to the show, and you were enthusiastic, and you
went to the show, and then you guys could take
over from there. Just about how it came to pass
that Johnny Cash ended up doing one of Will's songs. Well,
I didn't remember what you just I didn't remember meeting
(17:27):
you at a party. Yeah, I didn't remember coming to
the show, although I did remember seeing you in New York,
Will at where was it Awry Ballroom? Yeah? And it was.
It was a mesmerizing show. It was a mesmerizing show.
It was a mind blowing show. And that's where and
then I think that's where. I think that's where you. Yeah,
you said that you all had cut the song and
(17:50):
we're you know, and you said if I wanted to
come out and or come to a session and play
the piano part on it, that that that was something
that was needed for the song. And I agreed, and
we exchanged numbers, and then a couple of days later
I called you and left a message admitting that I
didn't know how to play the piano and asking if
(18:11):
I could. I think I said just that I had
no expectations, but the only if there was any way
that I could be around John and June for for
any moments, because they were, you know, together end separately heroes,
and it's so rare, you know, because of so many
bizarre communication and other logistical walls. It's so rare for
(18:32):
younger musicians to have access to their heroes. And so
here's this little crack, and I was just like, if
I could, you know, yeah, you I had your ear,
and if I could, if I could just sit and
watch them do something working, and you were kind enough
to say, yeah, Okay, we'll be right back with more
from will all Them and Matt Sweeney. We're back with
(18:56):
Rick Rubin, will all Them and Matt Sweeney. How did
you guys meet on the street by our friend Britt Walford,
the drummer from Slint and Britain Britain I grew up
with together. Yeah, it was. It was. It was when
like the I See a Darkness record, We my brother
and some other musicians and I had started a small
(19:16):
a smaller record label than Drag City UM to put
out a few records, including I See a Darkness. And
since we were, in many ways starting from scratch, I
moved to the big city to uh, you know, get
a to hire hire a publicist, and just to be
more present for the delivery of this record than because
I just knew I needed to be, just to figure out, well,
(19:39):
how do you put a record out? And and so
I was in New York and that's when we started
to become friends. Tell me about the choice of recording
under different names. For a long time, I thought, you know, records,
why not file them under the title of the record
because they are such, you know, oftentimes such different and
(20:02):
distinct entities. UM and that, you know, it can be
completely like it could be the same artist, but there's
nobody else except for the artist, the art you know,
quote unquote artist that's the same from another record. So
why not just say it's a record, it's this record.
And so for just a few years in the nineties
and when I was trying to figure out what it
was to make music and write songs and make records,
(20:24):
just thought, ah, well, I don't you know, for me,
I just want to make records. I don't want to
create an artist persona or an artist name or a
band or anything like that. I just want to make
a record, you know, keep making records. And thought, well,
if I modify the name a little bit, just to
reflect that you should be focusing on the record and
not on anything else. It turned out, you know, I
(20:46):
learned in a few years just the model was too
foreign to how things work. And people started to, you know, say, well,
what's up with the names, and it's like, no, no,
that's the opposite, you know, it's you know, so I realized, like, oh, well,
just come up with a name and then forget about it.
So it just came up with the name Bonding Prince
Billy and just it doesn't mean anything. It's just a
(21:07):
way for distributors and you know, streaming services to you know,
organize things. From the outside, it seemed like you were
doing whatever you could to have people not find your work.
That's what it seemed like. I never just like like, wow,
I guess he doesn't want us to hear it, because
we want to want people to find it, not based
on a name, you know, based on you know, way
(21:30):
based on do you hearing it on the radio, or
a friend saying I like this song. Do you like
this song? Yes, I like this song, and not like, oh,
I'm so into fucking you know whatever the birthday party
and it's like, okay, that's cool. That's that said, I'm
so into and just be like okay, well, you know,
yeah Bridges to Babylon insane record, dude, but you know, yeah,
(21:52):
so so just you know, have it be as much
about the music as possible. That was That was it,
And just have it not be as you know, as
little bullshit as possible, so that when you go to
play shows, you know, you don't have a bunch of
you know, people who don't care where they are. They
care where they are they you know, you have a
room full of good It's a wild choice, you know. Rick,
So when I met when I met Will, So we
(22:13):
had a friendship through our friend Brick. But then in
the office I asked him the same question because he
had just made this record Colossia Darkness, and he's called
himself Bonnie Prince Billy, and so I remember it like
I was actually sitting behind a desk and I was like, dude,
why are you calling it Bonnie Prince Billy? And I remember,
WILLI you go, I'm trying to alienate my fan base.
It worked, Yeah, No, it didn't work because that was kids.
(22:37):
The opposite happened. I mean, if the idea is just
like that, now I can still we can you know,
we can go play shows and I can I can
look forward to meeting people, which I do because because
there was a consistency, because people are there not because
of you know, whatever they're they're there because they they're
anticipating that they may witness some music that's gonna do
(23:00):
something for them. Do you remember when you each heard
the other one for the first time? Yeah, I had.
I knew Will's recorded music, and I'd seen him play live,
but yeah, the first I mean again, it happened really quickly,
like Will came over to where me and Britt were saying,
and I had a guitar and I was dicking around
on it, and Will said, oh, that sounds really good,
and then we were recording a few days later, recording
(23:22):
a few days later for what There's a French film
director named Bertrand Bonello and he had made a he
was weight making a movie called Kilcus Show's Door Ganique
and he wanted to h I think he wanted to
license the song that I had recorded, and I said,
I don't like to license songs, but if you would
consider commissioning a song, I'd like to, you know, I'd
(23:45):
love to write a song, you know, and if you
have the time to do that, and he bit so
he you know, I told me the story and gave
me give us a time frame. And that's right when
Matt picked up his guitar and I was working on
this song and just said, I'm supposed to record this
song sometime in the next couple of weeks. Are you down?
(24:06):
And it was interesting, It was it was kind of
around the time that I had I feel like turned
into corner on guitar, and I a sort of confidently fingerpick,
and I had kind of made a leap in playing guitar.
Come to think of it, actually, what like like I
had sort of gotten finger picking down right when I
met you, Will. Yeah, it felt it felt new too,
like you were really writing it. Yeah, it was really exciting, Matt.
(24:28):
What had you done already in music at this point
when you met Will? I had done I had When
I met Will, I had already done Chavez, which was
my nineties rock band, which still maybe we'll play again,
but yeah, so I had done that, and it had
been slowing down. The other band members were moving on
(24:50):
with their lives and stuff, so so I was. I
actually had some time and was sort of in a
space of uh, not having my regular band to play with,
and I sang for that band, and that band was
very much of a collaborative kind of thing, and then
all of a sudden, I kind of didn't have as
much to do, and I've been finger picking and stuff.
It was it was fortuitous that I met like a
(25:11):
good singer who was who shared a lot of the
same tastes in music that I did, and whose songs
I liked, which is Will and you played and sang me, yeah,
I didn't know that you sang come on, dude, had
no idea. You didn't really had no idea. I had
a really exciting moment, Rick. I was opening on a
tour for New York and there was a couple of
(25:31):
days off and I wanted to see and we were
in the New York area, so I went out to
mont Talk because I wanted to see it. I've never
been there. And you know, got a motel room and
I went to the gas station. They had DVDs for rent,
and I rented a DVD to watch a movie in
my little motel room. And it's it's a movie about
it's a sort of a comedy, a meth comedy, you know,
a crystal meth comedy called Spun. And I just put
(25:54):
it on and this, you know, the opening song comes on.
It's really cool sounding. It sounds fucking great, and just
the music sounds great, and then uh, and it's guitars
and then this voice comes on and I'm like, ah,
I know this voice. I know that it's this song's
so cool, it's so good, it's so effective. I know
(26:16):
this voice, but I couldn't figure out what it was,
and I had to wait till the end credits, and
it turns out it was Sweeney singing a cover of
Iron Maiden's Number of the Beasts with the sort of
acoustic version of the Zuan band that he was a
part of back in the early two thousands. Amazing. Yeah,
was it just the two of you? It was just
Meat guitar and Corrigan kind of looking yeah. Yeah. It's
(26:39):
really a sweet, sweet sounding song and the and the
vocals are awesome. So as soon as that that, you know, discontinued,
the first thing that I think either of us did
musically when Zuan ended was get together and make the
Superwolf record. Wow. Yeah, Yeah. What had happened was, yeah,
the Juan stop playing. Kind of in the middle of
(27:00):
a tour, all of a sudden, I was back in
New York and Will wrote and said, Hey, I have
a show. I have a solo show booked at a
big venue in London. Would you want to maybe come
and you know, I'll come over there and you can
play a couple of songs and stuff. And there was
a tacit understanding that I was kind of screwed. They
got Unwill's part, so it was it was a nice
offer for just for something for me to ev and
(27:21):
do and then and I said yes, And then he
wrote and the email it wrote an email and said challenge.
And he said, hey, how about I send you some
lyrics and you write some songs and we play them
at that show. So I said okay, And so then
he sent the lyrics to what are you Beast for THEE?
And bed is for Sleeping? Yeah, and so so so
(27:41):
that was the beginning of Super Bowl. So I have
these lyrics, you know, and and I have to write
a song to play in front of like three thousand
people in London in like a month or something like that.
Unbelievable and it's a challenge. When somebody says that, it's
it's kind of terrifying, you know what I mean. But
then at the same time it made me respond, you know,
and getting these incredible lyrics and then being like, holy shit,
(28:03):
I had this guy thinks I'm good enough to do this,
And then that made me do good work. Do you guys?
If we listen to the beast in me a Beast
for THEE? I'm sorry wrong song, Let's do it. Why
(28:37):
aren't you come to me? You could so easily take
me in your arms and see they donkey a beast
(29:02):
for thee. If you had half a mind, eve worldly
things behind, devote to be kind you too, me beast
(29:37):
for thee. Love in some way choose God's plan. Can
easy boos one bone and blood mass we fuges, and
I can be beast for thee. So hearing that, it
(30:06):
just makes me wonder, why do you guys ever make
musical part? You need to make that. Yeah, I mean,
the joy of collaboration is comes from accessing somebody else's world,
and if if if you're already fully full time accessing
(30:26):
that person's world, you know, it's the joy is Yeah,
going out and doing things and then coming back together.
And this is what I got. Oh yeah, well this
is what I got. Oh no, you also have this
amazing yeah for sure. Like I was thinking when I
was listening to that, I was like, it really is
cool how this music sounds. The record that that that's
(30:48):
coming out sounds like this record that's sixteen years old,
Like it's just it's all one thing. But I was
thinking that the reason that this record, that the new
record is good, has a lot to do with experiences
that I had with you, Rick, just as far as
like being thrown so many Kerner balls in high pressure situations,
you know, Like, I mean, dude, I had no idea
(31:08):
what I was doing. I told it the first time
that I met you were I was like, I was like, thanks,
I don't know what I'm what do I do? I
don't know what I'm doing? And you had you had
this really empowering line, you know. I was like, so
this is we were recording Johnny Cash songs. We were
recording you just to a click track and Johnny Cash's voice,
and it's Tom Petty's band, and I'm the new guy
(31:30):
and it's Tom Petty's band, plus Smoky Hormel. He's like
the world's greatest guitar player. And then it's me and
I's and Rickett invited me into this, into this group,
and and and you know, I was like, like, do
I like just make up stuff like what I would
do normally, Like just kind of make up stuff like
what if that's not appropriate? And you go, Rick says,
(31:50):
you're isolated. We could just hit a race. Yes, But
what was so great? It was a great thing because
I was like, it totally me. Yeah, it made me
feel really really free. And also I think you I
think you said, you know, I think you said, you know,
you do you like do what you want to do.
You're isolated. We could always say to race and then
(32:10):
you kind of gave a devilish smile. Um, But like
that was a really big deal, you know, just even
that was like all right, you know, like I definitely
felt like going back in with Will was like, okay,
I could, I could get to where we need to
go quicker, and I feel way more sure footed and stuff.
And also I'm really grateful that I had the time
(32:31):
to be to stumble around the dark and be terrified
and have all these experiences that led like I can't
sound the way that I sound that I sound now
without having all this crazy you know, face plants and
successes and just general high wire terror that that that
you provided me with. Thanks, Well, the reason you were
(32:53):
there was to do what you do. That's the only
like if it was just to have someone play guitar.
There's a lot of people who play guitar, but I
wanted Matt Sweeney to play guitar. And the only reason
you want Matt Sweeney to play guitars because he plays
like Matt Sweeney. Yeah, it's so cool how Matt Sweeney
play like Matt Sweeney, just like it's it's amazing. It's ridiculous,
sciting to be in the recording studio and to hear
(33:14):
you know, and to hear it, you know, going down
on tape or what passes for tape right now is
just to hear it and just think, well, there it is,
it's right there. It's really funny that you're you had
that moment renting a DVD and hearing a voice and
wondering who it was, and it being Matt and me
listening to the Superwolf album and hearing that guitar and
(33:37):
going who is that? And both of us came to
Matt and and it's interesting that, like, for you, the
vocal was the spark from me the guitar with the spark,
But it definitely came from not knowing what we were
listening to. To like, whoa this and to hear something
that you don't know what it is and to care
enough about finding what it is is a really big deal.
(34:03):
That doesn't happen again, It doesn't happen so often, especially
in the pre Shazam days. It was really uh yeah,
a job to make that happen. Now. I was I
was talking to someone about the first time I heard
the Sean Marshall cat Power and it was on the
radio and Virginia somewhere, and it was a woman singing
(34:23):
this exploded, deconstructed version of Hank Williams. I can't help
it if I'm still in love with you. And it
took me months months of asking people, do you know
I heard this song? You didn't know. I don't know
what you're talking about, and they would give me these
stupid ideas of who it could have been. No, no, no, no, no,
you don't know what I'm saying. This crazy thing, it's
you know. And months yeah, yeah, and now it is
(34:46):
a little easier. We'll be back after a quick break
with Will Oldham and Matt Sweeney. We're back with the
rest of Rick Rubin's conversation with will Oldham and Matt Sweeney.
But before we jump back in, let's hear some of
their new song, My Popsicle. We crawled towards a warmth
(35:16):
less night, towards a wild and endless night. My pop
my pops circles, My pups circles, My pops circles made
(35:40):
by your mind and me. Time Square Once wears dark
and wild and frightening to a guileless child. My Pop,
(36:05):
my pops, sacles, maybe you and Wow. The music you
(36:29):
guys make is I could literally listen to it forever.
It's unbelievable. It's like it I might like listening to
your music more than any other music. So it really
is ridiculous. How it. I feel like I'm the audience
you're making it for me. It's it is ridiculous. It's
(36:50):
I mean, it's ridiculous. But I think I think that
some of that is you know, when we were when
we had this sequenced and then mastered, my brother Paul
mastered it, and my wife and I, you know, one evening,
we're ready to listen to the master and listen to
it all the way through and throughout the record. I
(37:12):
was listening to it. I was crying sometimes, and I
was laughing a whole lot, and you know, my wife asked,
you know, She's like, why are you laughing? And it's
hard to fully explain, but part of it is gratitude
for the way that it came together, Because it ended
up coming together in such way that it is a
(37:35):
the things that records have done for me is not
something that's easy to find. I just it felt good
to yeah, to have participated in making a record that
has this kind of content, musical and lyrical content, and
that it's worth sitting with it song after song, and
(37:59):
I think I kept laughing because I would remember where
I was in the record and think, oh, this part
still hasn't happened, and I feel like this, and this
part is still going to happen, and I feel like this.
It's been a long time since I've been carried away
by a new record. I guess it's funny in this year,
(38:20):
this crazy year where everyone's perception is so so so different,
but but just feeling like, wow, it's not a bad
record to you know, if if the plague takes us,
you know, I feel okay about this being the record
that we ended things with. It's really a beauty. It's
a beauty that correct anything different in the process between
(38:43):
making this album and the first album sixteen years ago. Yeah,
we had a Ti Egg band. I'm the super Bowl record.
The only outside musician is Pete right, Yeah, Pete talent
and the drummer, you know, So it was that it
was insular and then with this one, which is pretty
interesting that the way that this record got kick started
(39:04):
was when I had done a recording session with m
du Moktar, who rick if you checked him out yet?
Oh mind, Yeah, you're going to lose your mind. Okay.
So Mr Martar is a try I got like, like
to New Orleans. He's from Yeah, he's from Hierias, from
the desert, and he's an explosive, mind blowing musician. And
(39:26):
we got a chance to use him and his band
on a song that Will and I had already written.
And the song was actually had a lot of parts,
a lot of this and that to it, and these
dogs nailed it, which is pretty wild because they're not
like trained musicians they and they play a very specific style.
But because we had such an incredible connection with these guys,
(39:47):
and particularly like that they seem to actually bob, I mean,
they clearly vibed with how Will sang and how I
played guitar, like we meshed and that was exciting and
definitely exciting enough for because Will and I have had
already been exchanged writing songs with the idea of recording,
but this was enough for Will to be like, well,
(40:08):
I guess we should probably use them as a band,
you know, you know, try writing like maybe that should be.
That was the way we started the Super Bowl procort,
just like, use this mind blowing band and see what happens.
And so we did. Yeah, we had, we had, we had.
We had a fantastic recording session with them on another
unrelated song, and or everybody, everybody at the end of
the day, you know, it's one of those days in
(40:29):
the recording studio where everybody's glowing at the end of
the day and you just think, we'd like to do
this again. Sometimes Oh yeah, we would too, Let's do
it again, you know. So it was just up to
when when they were going to come back to the
United States of America, and when they did, you know,
we said, well, if you've got a few extra days
in New York, can we book a session and we'll
go back in and do more. And then so we
knew we had to get We knew I had to
get our act together by then. Yeah. Yeah. And the
(40:53):
song that we recorded in that session one was a
competition that came together with all of us in a room,
which is also like very very very different than everything else, um,
which is everything. Yeah, every so, yeah, every every Like
the night before the session, you know, the afternoon before
the session, the song didn't exist in any way, shape
or form. And then that that night we all got
(41:14):
together in an apartment and everything, all of the music,
all the lyrics, all the melodies, everything came together that night.
And then we attracted them. And as far as like
the power of like music connecting. Uh just they where
the town that they live in is a twenty eight
hour bus ride to the nearest airport, okay, like so
like these guys are from a different place, you know,
(41:36):
so so you know the connection it felt good, you know,
and and uh so we came over the song together.
And then we also got to use them on songs
that we'd written before. Um and and we were pretty
conscrientious about what we were what what the other songs were,
you know, like sort of taking advantage of using these musicians.
(41:59):
For example, the song I'm a Youth, which is an
Irish traditional traditional Irish song. Well again addressing the differences
between the yeah, MD's on that the first record we
did it, you know, we spent probably up to a
year putting the songs together. Then we went in and
for a week tracked and mixed in Shelbyville, Kentucky. One
(42:21):
session the two of us, my brother Paul engineering, our
friend Pete playing drums. This time. You know, we wrote
over the course of five years and did it in
two sessions, one in New York and then the other
in Nashville with ferg and then the mdu Maktar ensemble
playing on the New York thing. So those are the
significant differences in how the record itself was the two
(42:43):
records were made. So check out Holiday. I mean as
far as like, just as an example, this is what
happened when we got together with these gentlemen from from
a very different place. Yeah, tip and then drive you
(43:18):
Go and gry y'all, drill muss even a death again,
all of death. You know. We put this song out
(43:48):
as a single couple few weeks ago, right and and
people have talked about it, and there's been a positive
response to it, right um, there has been. As far
as anything that I've heard from anybody, I haven't heard
word one mentioning the fact that there are lyrics to
the song, much less what the lyrics are. You know,
(44:09):
in general, it's interesting that people don't really listen to lyrics.
You know, most people will say, I don't even listen
to the lyrics, you know. That's that's what streaming, the
streaming model is built around, is the people not listening
to lyrics. Like when we made the song in the
recording studio, we made the song which we tracked it
all live except for the lead guitar, and that was
that's him Do's guitar. And for some reason, I can't
(44:30):
remember if he was I think he maybe he had
he had a friend of his like died in an
automobile accident in Africas. He was on the phone and
you know, he was so overwhelmed with grief he couldn't
play with us. So we played. And then I think
two days later we like, you know, would you play
on this song? And and he's sitting there to go
(44:51):
into play, and uh, we're all sitting there. I'm sitting
on the floor at his feet, and Matt says, well,
you know, to help him him do why don't you
will want you explain you know, what the song is about.
And I'm taken aback because you know, I didn't have this.
I wrote the lyrics on three days before and so
(45:12):
I didn't filter anything, you know, and and it's essentially
just about the horror and desperation of years of having
of my mom living in you know, being in communicado
because of Alzheimer's disease and living in a nursing home
and what it's like to go to her, you know,
(45:32):
on on an extremely regular basis. And so okay, I'll
fucking explain these lyrics. I'm not sure if it's going
to help his guitar playing or not. We'll see, you know,
with this song, because in the past, Steam will like
be like, hey, the song, so go like that, you know,
like like I've seen I've seen you given that direction
or I had seen to go to that direction before.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm thinking. And also I'm kind
(45:54):
of curious because all I know, I think I knew
I don't know if I really heard could hear any
of the things, any of the actual words. I could
hear the melody that he was singing, but everything was
why we we we recorded the song live. The vocal
is live in a really loud room, you know, so
so I did not know what the words were, so
I figured, you know, and you know, how how is
(46:15):
m do gonna know what the words are anyway. So
then Will says what the words are about, and it's shocking,
you know, And and it spurs a conversation then because
MD begins to go into a tirade about how shitty
Americans are to their elders. And you know, I have
a similar sense, you know, like the horror of visiting
(46:38):
my mom. You know, a huge part of the horror
of visiting my mom in this place is thinking, like,
what brought circumstances, you know, what what brought this circumstance
to happen that my mother that I am a responsible
human being, a functioning, fucking responsible human being, and and
I don't have it, you know, I can't live a
life and also take care of take care of her,
and there's not a support system to take care of
(47:00):
her so that she can stay at home, you know.
But but he's you know, basically like hammering everything that
I felt shitty about in my life for the past
five years and just saying you, you know, you suck,
you fucking suck, because this is who you are. You know,
That's what I'm hearing, you know, yeah, you know. And
then and then I eventually like have to leave. I'm
so upset I have to leave, and and this the
(47:21):
session kind of falls apart that week, I don't sleep
for days. Anyway. I hear it as like one of
the strengths I think of my working with with Matt
is that he allows for a greater amount of vulnerability
in the in the lyric and then also in the
in the in the singing, and I hear nothing but
this horrific vulnerable vulnerability in that song. And so and
(47:45):
it's also, you know, I hear the electricity of the
excitement of our collaboration with the ensemble from niger Um.
But it it sits for me beautifully in the record
because I have, you know, because it's it's you know,
people people say like, oh, it's this propulsive rock song
blah blah blah, and I'm like, Okay, to me, it's this,
(48:07):
you know, really hard song about how we what do
you do about the fact that you know the you
are of the guilty mistreating children in these death institutions,
you know, these institutions that are built around, you know,
allowing people to die ignored. Hey Jam, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(48:29):
hey Jam. Anything else, you guys feel like we should
talk about anything that would be helpful or interesting. We
do good. You're really good at this, Rick, Thank you
so much for doing this, Thanks for having it. Thank you.
Thanks to Matt Sweeney and Will Oldam for talking about
(48:50):
their creative collaboration with rad To hear super Wolves along
with our favorite Bonnie Prince Billy songs, head to Broken
Record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our
YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast,
where we can find new and old episodes. You can
follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is
producer of help from Leo Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,
(49:14):
Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee.
Our executive producer is Meal of the Broken Record is
a production of Pushkin Industries and if you'd like to
show please remember to share, rate, and review us on
your podcast. Act of the music. Expect any beats. I'm
justin Richmond bass
Pushkin. In two thousand and five, single Will Oldham and
guitarist Matt Sweeney released the Superwolf album, which has developed
a cult following that includes Rick Rubin, who absolutely fell
in love with the project. Now sixteen years later, they're
(00:36):
back with the follow up, Superwolves. Other folks will make
mistakes and leave you with the mass. Other folks have
ways of fucking past, but you know best they're lost.
To begin with, This new album was five years in
the making, a leisurely pace that allowed Oldham and Sweeney
(01:00):
to be incredibly intentional with their creative choices. Oldham, who's
recorded under a number of different monikers in the past,
including Bonnie Prince Billy, wrote all the lyrics before sending
them over to Sweeney to write his guitar parts. The
duo also added a new flavor, tapping the West African
musician m Dumaktar to play guitar on a few tracks.
(01:22):
On today's episode, Rick Rubin talks to Oldham and Sweeney
about their work together, which Rick considers some of his
favorite contemporary music, and it's also why he's used Sweeney
on a lot of the sessions he's produced, including the
Dixie Chicks, Cat Stevens and Adele. Will Oldham talks about
his philosophy on connecting with his audience and how if
this pandemic were to take us all, super Wolves would
(01:44):
be a great album to go out on. This is
broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond.
Here's Rick Rubin with will Oldham and Matt Sweeney. How
(02:05):
are we being graced with a new super Wolf project
all this time since the last one. Matt and I
thought it could be a good idea. We didn't think
about it till till too late, but it could be
a good idea to get up to speed with your
conversational style in this forum. So I was listening a
little bit earlier today to a conversation that you were
(02:27):
having with Adam Cohen. You were saying that there's you
just can't control it. You can't control He says specifically
that a record isn't a Fay dot COMPI And he
has a beautiful little French Canadian accent when he says it,
and he you know, and he goes on to say,
even with the right songs and the right producer and
the right blah blah blah, you know, you can't guarantee
and you say, yeah, you can't, there's no And I
(02:49):
feel like if you just do something like take your time,
you can kind of get close to guaranteeing it. So
to answer your question, we just took a little bit
of time. We wanted to make a good record. As
you've probably experienced most records that you probably feel strongly about,
whether you participated in them or not, something did just happen,
(03:11):
of course that made them specifically rise above the other records.
But having been aware of that, if you have the
leisure because you're doing other things, to build something slowly
and just be sure that you only act when the
charge is there, absolutely, would you say, in the writing process,
do you consider the audience or not at all? Yeah, No,
(03:33):
it's it's all about the audience, like entirely. Yeah, the
whole reason to sit down and write is for the audience. Interesting,
it's probably less than fifty fifty that that would be
the answer to people who write songs. Yeah, you never
hear people say that. I feel like Chuck Berry is
the kind of person who would say it. He would,
he would be a little colder in the way that
(03:53):
he phrased it. But but if you read about him
talking earlier in his career. He's less less harsh. But yeah,
people don't say that. I had a revelation recently that
I'll share with you, which is I've always worked towards
this idea of greatness and they didn't know what greatness was,
but but that was the feeling. It's like, it's not
it's not about selling a lot, it's not about making
(04:14):
anybody else like it. It's about it has to be great.
It has to be great in a way where it
stands up to the test of time and it's forever,
and it's like the the bar was higher. And recently
I've come to realize that actually we're making art as
an offering to God. And if you're making art for God,
there are no shortcuts to take, there are no low
(04:36):
vibration energies involved in the process. It's like, that's the
that's what we're really aiming for. Is this um a
sharing on a different plane? Really, I like to think
that in what we do, or at least what I do,
the offering is not the work. The offering is the
(04:58):
connection made between the work and the audience. You know,
my mother was a visual artist. Nobody ever saw her
visual art. It's it's great, but she I would maybe
say that those could be considered offerings to God because
they weren't shared with anybody, so in and of themselves,
that's what they were. But because our labor goes to
making a connection, you know, you're you're asking for an audience.
(05:21):
For to have any degree of success, whether it's financial
or spiritual or artistic, there does need to be some
sort of a connection to a recipient. And so that
that the connection itself, building a connection that you that
you feel that that is sturdy or beautiful or complex,
that that that's the offering that you're rather than the
(05:43):
peace itself, or rather yeah, rather than the piece itself.
I've noticed, at least in the context of Superwolf, particularly
the first album, there are lyrics that I find they
pull me in emotionally and then they'll be I'll call
them surprises, certain land mines lyrically that you might not
(06:04):
be expected in a song that sounds like these sound intentional, unintentional,
definitely intentional. I wish I could pull examples from from
my brain. I can think of songwriters like John Prine
or Bob McDill, who wrote a lot of songs that
Don Williams ended up playing. Where do you know Don
(06:28):
Williams music at all? You know, you know, good old
boys like me. That song where he says, you know, uh,
you know something I ran with the kids down a
kid down the street who you know, got himself something
like burned up on bourbon and speed. And of course
in the chorus when he says those Williams boys and
he says, Hank in Tennessee. And it still is always
like something to marvel at. It's still a surprise, and
(06:49):
it keeps me coming back. You know that song sounds
like something You turn it on and it sounds exactly
like what it sounds like. And then lyrically he keeps
confounding the sound of the song. I don't know, I
feel all of a sudden, I know I'm at home here.
It's not you know, this is where I belong. I
belong in this thing that's a little more convoluted or
(07:11):
a labyrinthine then, But it's very friendly too, It's very
open and loving because it sounds like something that you
love right away. But if it only was something simple
like that, like a fair faucet poster or something, you know,
you would lose interest after a little while. Instead, it
has a little bit of creepiness or a little bit
of gore in there that keeps you on your toes
(07:31):
and remembering that when the song starts again, you have
a sense memory of This sounds pretty good, but it's
actually even better than it sounds, because the lyrics are
going to take me someplace that the music is belying great.
Do you do songs typically start with a concept or
(07:53):
a lyric. What's your way in? Typically? I like these days,
I like triggers. For the past few years, my wife
has done something for me which I need to get
her to do again. Is I put a piece of
paper on the wall and every day I just asked
her to write a song title on that piece of paper.
(08:15):
And then that just gives me something to sit down
and stay in shape with. And every once in a while,
something like I think the song my Blue Suit that
it's on this new record, it was a Elsa title
song where she just wrote my Blue Suit. But then
then there's also there's three songs on this record where
(08:36):
I think, up at the end of the street there
was a bookstore and the guy who the guy would
be able to buy overstock. There was a buyer who
bought overstock and he curated his overstock you know, super
discount new book selection amazingly and he put on the
table one day this book called Falkland Road, which is
(08:57):
about Mumbai red light district, and it's just kind of
one picture per two pages and then a little maybe
a sentence or two sentences are three sentences that could
be a quote from an interview with one of the
people who's in the photograph. And there's three songs from
this record that that came like. And I was just
(09:18):
sharing those with because I hadn't shown them to Matt
until just like yesterday, right, man, Well, you hadn't shown
them like that. I'd seen that photo, the first photo,
the good to my Girls photo, I know, I'd seen
that tools. Yeah, I'd seen that just at your house,
I guess, sitting around or something, is that I mean, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
and Rick, I almost sent you these pictures as pre production,
but then I said, fuck preproduction. But I thought that
(09:39):
that was a really fascinating way in and kind of
an insight into how will write words, which is, you know,
like you look at a photograph, for example, do you
mind if we listened to a song. Can we listen
to Good to My Girls? Yeah? Good to my girls?
Yeah we have way too naked scene. We are are
(10:09):
not hard or bad, and I chop down trees and
spitting faces and laugh when you are sad. Your happiness
(10:30):
means almost less. That all that's in the world my
existence his Oh, can't I guess? Because I'm good to
my girls. I take them to the movies. I put
(10:56):
food in their bellies, I sow the hose in their life,
shut and temper any hoping. What else can I say?
I didn't ask. I'm good to them and thereby my
(11:17):
share of life. Day they make beautiful song. Thanks Rick,
so so so. The line that the that the woman
says is I'm good to my girls. I take them
to the movies once a month. Business is bad now,
but I still buy good food. I spent seven hundred
and fifty rupees for clothes for Christmas. When I heard
(11:40):
the song, I thought for sure it was an autobiographical song.
Well it is, that's the thing I thought it would.
But I thought it was I thought it was you
talking about your wife. I assumed you had either a
daughter or more than one. And you were talking about
being good to you girls, and then you get to
(12:00):
the hard part, and that's more like um self reflection.
Concerns you have about yourself might not even be true,
more like obsessive thoughts of not being good enough. It's
just interesting like that. That's what I heard, is like, oh,
it's this is this one's really about him? Well, I
mean there's no other source from which to truly draw
(12:21):
to get a you know, a multidimensional lyric, so that
it comes from you know, that's the that's the ideas
that it comes and triangulating. I can triangulate, you triangulate
with this, madam, in order to make something that I
can sing hopefully again and again and again and again
and again and again and still engage. And then also
an audience member can hear it again and again and again.
(12:41):
And it comes from, you know, documenting a shared experience
rather than a unique experience. What would be other lyrical
influences for you? Historically? Danzig, Danzig, We've talked about this Rick,
but Danzig, Yeah, I mean Danzig huge. I mean he's huge,
and still like I understand that he was, you know,
(13:02):
virtually a child when he wrote a lot of the
you know, the lyrics that he wrote in the eighties,
and yet I get so excited by the potential energy
that's wound up in his lyrics. They're just so incredible
and so beautiful that I always think, well, that's something
to continue to aspire to, because if it, you know,
too many writers write better as children than they do
(13:25):
as adults, which is I think it's an absolute sin
that it's allowed to happen, you know, that the songwriters
themselves allowed to happen, and that people in the world
allow it to happen as well, that we don't ask
more of our senior lyricists or senior singers, expect more
from them rather than oh this is as good, you know,
or comparing them to the past. Yeah, talking, we're talking
(13:47):
about all this stuff. Can can you devote like thirty
five to forty seconds around the phenomenon of of Glenn
Danzig writing the song for Roy Orbison? Sure had an
opportunity to do a song with Roy Orbison, and I
could find you know, I could cast any writer. And
(14:09):
I knew that Glenn loved Roy, and I knew that
he wrote great songs, and I knew that he would
write a different song than anyone else who might write
a song for Roy Orbison would write and I wanted
to hear what that was. And he wrote, he wrote
the song. He wrote, and we went and we played
it for Roy, Me, Glenn and Roy. I remember we
(14:30):
went to Roy's house in Malibu and Glenn played him
the song and he loved Glenn just play it live
for him, like played, So I think he did. Yeah.
I can't really remember, but I think he did yeah.
And then and he's like, Okay, I'm in let's do it. Yeah.
But then takes a lot of I mean, that's a nice, beautiful,
complicated relationship to voice and melody and connecting to artists
(14:54):
who are makes so much sense. And and also Glenn's
song on the first American record is That's I think
it's my favorite song on the because he's so good,
he's so brilliant at But but knowing, I mean, you
have to understand, you have to have a pretty deep
understanding of what a lyric is rick to risk, to
(15:16):
take that risk, to know that it's a it's a
risk that's going to pay off, because most people would
would laugh at you. You know, I wouldn't let you
know when we were when we were kids and we
heard this legend that that Glenn had just you know
it was working with Roy Orbison. We you know, it
took us a year before we realized it was the truth.
It sounded so ridiculously far fetched and perfect, but you
(15:38):
had to have an understanding of like, oh, well, this
guy understands how to build a song lyrically as well
as melodically, and he probably studied under these masters, and
so I can put him in the same room with
these guys and everything's going to be just fine. It's
also interesting this leads back to something we were talking
about earlier about people doing great work when they're young.
(16:00):
That we had. We had the elder statesman and Roy
who could still do what Roy does, and we had
the the performative performatively, and we had the young energy
of Glenn Danzig like prime songwriting and it and I
guess you could say the same things true for Trent
(16:22):
Resiner and Hurt with Johnny. It's like, even though when
Johnny sings it, it sounds like he wrote it, it
sounds like he's telling his story, but the fact that
it's written by, you know, a twenty two year old
kid in his bedroom. It's just fascinating. It's fascinating how
that works. Yeah, or I see a darkness in Johnny Cash.
(16:42):
Same deal, Same deal. I wanted to I wanted now
that I've always wanted to see the two of you
guys together and ask about that that scenario which was Rick,
I saw you at a party. I just gotten back
from a European tour with Will, and we had a
bonus show in New York. And I knew that you
would you had been in contact with you would ask
(17:03):
for some Will records because you were working with Johnny Cash.
You were interested in in him checking Will's music. I
had that intel, soho I went up to you, invited
you to the show, and you were enthusiastic, and you
went to the show, and then you guys could take
over from there. Just about how it came to pass
that Johnny Cash ended up doing one of Will's songs. Well,
I didn't remember what you just I didn't remember meeting
(17:27):
you at a party. Yeah, I didn't remember coming to
the show, although I did remember seeing you in New York,
Will at where was it Awry Ballroom? Yeah? And it was.
It was a mesmerizing show. It was a mesmerizing show.
It was a mind blowing show. And that's where and
then I think that's where. I think that's where you. Yeah,
you said that you all had cut the song and
(17:50):
we're you know, and you said if I wanted to
come out and or come to a session and play
the piano part on it, that that that was something
that was needed for the song. And I agreed, and
we exchanged numbers, and then a couple of days later
I called you and left a message admitting that I
didn't know how to play the piano and asking if
(18:11):
I could. I think I said just that I had
no expectations, but the only if there was any way
that I could be around John and June for for
any moments, because they were, you know, together end separately heroes,
and it's so rare, you know, because of so many
bizarre communication and other logistical walls. It's so rare for
(18:32):
younger musicians to have access to their heroes. And so
here's this little crack, and I was just like, if
I could, you know, yeah, you I had your ear,
and if I could, if I could just sit and
watch them do something working, and you were kind enough
to say, yeah, Okay, we'll be right back with more
from will all Them and Matt Sweeney. We're back with
(18:56):
Rick Rubin, will all Them and Matt Sweeney. How did
you guys meet on the street by our friend Britt Walford,
the drummer from Slint and Britain Britain I grew up
with together. Yeah, it was. It was. It was when
like the I See a Darkness record, We my brother
and some other musicians and I had started a small
(19:16):
a smaller record label than Drag City UM to put
out a few records, including I See a Darkness. And
since we were, in many ways starting from scratch, I
moved to the big city to uh, you know, get
a to hire hire a publicist, and just to be
more present for the delivery of this record than because
I just knew I needed to be, just to figure out, well,
(19:39):
how do you put a record out? And and so
I was in New York and that's when we started
to become friends. Tell me about the choice of recording
under different names. For a long time, I thought, you know, records,
why not file them under the title of the record
because they are such, you know, oftentimes such different and
(20:02):
distinct entities. UM and that, you know, it can be
completely like it could be the same artist, but there's
nobody else except for the artist, the art you know,
quote unquote artist that's the same from another record. So
why not just say it's a record, it's this record.
And so for just a few years in the nineties
and when I was trying to figure out what it
was to make music and write songs and make records,
(20:24):
just thought, ah, well, I don't you know, for me,
I just want to make records. I don't want to
create an artist persona or an artist name or a
band or anything like that. I just want to make
a record, you know, keep making records. And thought, well,
if I modify the name a little bit, just to
reflect that you should be focusing on the record and
not on anything else. It turned out, you know, I
(20:46):
learned in a few years just the model was too
foreign to how things work. And people started to, you know, say, well,
what's up with the names, and it's like, no, no,
that's the opposite, you know, it's you know, so I realized, like, oh, well,
just come up with a name and then forget about it.
So it just came up with the name Bonding Prince
Billy and just it doesn't mean anything. It's just a
(21:07):
way for distributors and you know, streaming services to you know,
organize things. From the outside, it seemed like you were
doing whatever you could to have people not find your work.
That's what it seemed like. I never just like like, wow,
I guess he doesn't want us to hear it, because
we want to want people to find it, not based
on a name, you know, based on you know, way
(21:30):
based on do you hearing it on the radio, or
a friend saying I like this song. Do you like
this song? Yes, I like this song, and not like, oh,
I'm so into fucking you know whatever the birthday party
and it's like, okay, that's cool. That's that said, I'm
so into and just be like okay, well, you know,
yeah Bridges to Babylon insane record, dude, but you know, yeah,
(21:52):
so so just you know, have it be as much
about the music as possible. That was That was it,
And just have it not be as you know, as
little bullshit as possible, so that when you go to
play shows, you know, you don't have a bunch of
you know, people who don't care where they are. They
care where they are they you know, you have a
room full of good It's a wild choice, you know. Rick,
So when I met when I met Will, So we
(22:13):
had a friendship through our friend Brick. But then in
the office I asked him the same question because he
had just made this record Colossia Darkness, and he's called
himself Bonnie Prince Billy, and so I remember it like
I was actually sitting behind a desk and I was like, dude,
why are you calling it Bonnie Prince Billy? And I remember,
WILLI you go, I'm trying to alienate my fan base.
It worked, Yeah, No, it didn't work because that was kids.
(22:37):
The opposite happened. I mean, if the idea is just
like that, now I can still we can you know,
we can go play shows and I can I can
look forward to meeting people, which I do because because
there was a consistency, because people are there not because
of you know, whatever they're they're there because they they're
anticipating that they may witness some music that's gonna do
(23:00):
something for them. Do you remember when you each heard
the other one for the first time? Yeah, I had.
I knew Will's recorded music, and I'd seen him play live,
but yeah, the first I mean again, it happened really quickly,
like Will came over to where me and Britt were saying,
and I had a guitar and I was dicking around
on it, and Will said, oh, that sounds really good,
and then we were recording a few days later, recording
(23:22):
a few days later for what There's a French film
director named Bertrand Bonello and he had made a he
was weight making a movie called Kilcus Show's Door Ganique
and he wanted to h I think he wanted to
license the song that I had recorded, and I said,
I don't like to license songs, but if you would
consider commissioning a song, I'd like to, you know, I'd
(23:45):
love to write a song, you know, and if you
have the time to do that, and he bit so
he you know, I told me the story and gave
me give us a time frame. And that's right when
Matt picked up his guitar and I was working on
this song and just said, I'm supposed to record this
song sometime in the next couple of weeks. Are you down?
(24:06):
And it was interesting, It was it was kind of
around the time that I had I feel like turned
into corner on guitar, and I a sort of confidently fingerpick,
and I had kind of made a leap in playing guitar.
Come to think of it, actually, what like like I
had sort of gotten finger picking down right when I
met you, Will. Yeah, it felt it felt new too,
like you were really writing it. Yeah, it was really exciting, Matt.
(24:28):
What had you done already in music at this point
when you met Will? I had done I had When
I met Will, I had already done Chavez, which was
my nineties rock band, which still maybe we'll play again,
but yeah, so I had done that, and it had
been slowing down. The other band members were moving on
(24:50):
with their lives and stuff, so so I was. I
actually had some time and was sort of in a
space of uh, not having my regular band to play with,
and I sang for that band, and that band was
very much of a collaborative kind of thing, and then
all of a sudden, I kind of didn't have as
much to do, and I've been finger picking and stuff.
It was it was fortuitous that I met like a
(25:11):
good singer who was who shared a lot of the
same tastes in music that I did, and whose songs
I liked, which is Will and you played and sang me, yeah,
I didn't know that you sang come on, dude, had
no idea. You didn't really had no idea. I had
a really exciting moment, Rick. I was opening on a
tour for New York and there was a couple of
(25:31):
days off and I wanted to see and we were
in the New York area, so I went out to
mont Talk because I wanted to see it. I've never
been there. And you know, got a motel room and
I went to the gas station. They had DVDs for rent,
and I rented a DVD to watch a movie in
my little motel room. And it's it's a movie about
it's a sort of a comedy, a meth comedy, you know,
a crystal meth comedy called Spun. And I just put
(25:54):
it on and this, you know, the opening song comes on.
It's really cool sounding. It sounds fucking great, and just
the music sounds great, and then uh, and it's guitars
and then this voice comes on and I'm like, ah,
I know this voice. I know that it's this song's
so cool, it's so good, it's so effective. I know
(26:16):
this voice, but I couldn't figure out what it was,
and I had to wait till the end credits, and
it turns out it was Sweeney singing a cover of
Iron Maiden's Number of the Beasts with the sort of
acoustic version of the Zuan band that he was a
part of back in the early two thousands. Amazing. Yeah,
was it just the two of you? It was just
Meat guitar and Corrigan kind of looking yeah. Yeah. It's
(26:39):
really a sweet, sweet sounding song and the and the
vocals are awesome. So as soon as that that, you know, discontinued,
the first thing that I think either of us did
musically when Zuan ended was get together and make the
Superwolf record. Wow. Yeah, Yeah. What had happened was, yeah,
the Juan stop playing. Kind of in the middle of
(27:00):
a tour, all of a sudden, I was back in
New York and Will wrote and said, Hey, I have
a show. I have a solo show booked at a
big venue in London. Would you want to maybe come
and you know, I'll come over there and you can
play a couple of songs and stuff. And there was
a tacit understanding that I was kind of screwed. They
got Unwill's part, so it was it was a nice
offer for just for something for me to ev and
(27:21):
do and then and I said yes, And then he
wrote and the email it wrote an email and said challenge.
And he said, hey, how about I send you some
lyrics and you write some songs and we play them
at that show. So I said okay, And so then
he sent the lyrics to what are you Beast for THEE?
And bed is for Sleeping? Yeah, and so so so
(27:41):
that was the beginning of Super Bowl. So I have
these lyrics, you know, and and I have to write
a song to play in front of like three thousand
people in London in like a month or something like that.
Unbelievable and it's a challenge. When somebody says that, it's
it's kind of terrifying, you know what I mean. But
then at the same time it made me respond, you know,
and getting these incredible lyrics and then being like, holy shit,
(28:03):
I had this guy thinks I'm good enough to do this,
And then that made me do good work. Do you guys?
If we listen to the beast in me a Beast
for THEE? I'm sorry wrong song, Let's do it. Why
(28:37):
aren't you come to me? You could so easily take
me in your arms and see they donkey a beast
(29:02):
for thee. If you had half a mind, eve worldly
things behind, devote to be kind you too, me beast
(29:37):
for thee. Love in some way choose God's plan. Can
easy boos one bone and blood mass we fuges, and
I can be beast for thee. So hearing that, it
(30:06):
just makes me wonder, why do you guys ever make
musical part? You need to make that. Yeah, I mean,
the joy of collaboration is comes from accessing somebody else's world,
and if if if you're already fully full time accessing
(30:26):
that person's world, you know, it's the joy is Yeah,
going out and doing things and then coming back together.
And this is what I got. Oh yeah, well this
is what I got. Oh no, you also have this
amazing yeah for sure. Like I was thinking when I
was listening to that, I was like, it really is
cool how this music sounds. The record that that that's
(30:48):
coming out sounds like this record that's sixteen years old,
Like it's just it's all one thing. But I was
thinking that the reason that this record, that the new
record is good, has a lot to do with experiences
that I had with you, Rick, just as far as
like being thrown so many Kerner balls in high pressure situations,
you know, Like, I mean, dude, I had no idea
(31:08):
what I was doing. I told it the first time
that I met you were I was like, I was like, thanks,
I don't know what I'm what do I do? I
don't know what I'm doing? And you had you had
this really empowering line, you know. I was like, so
this is we were recording Johnny Cash songs. We were
recording you just to a click track and Johnny Cash's voice,
and it's Tom Petty's band, and I'm the new guy
(31:30):
and it's Tom Petty's band, plus Smoky Hormel. He's like
the world's greatest guitar player. And then it's me and
I's and Rickett invited me into this, into this group,
and and and you know, I was like, like, do
I like just make up stuff like what I would
do normally, Like just kind of make up stuff like
what if that's not appropriate? And you go, Rick says,
(31:50):
you're isolated. We could just hit a race. Yes, But
what was so great? It was a great thing because
I was like, it totally me. Yeah, it made me
feel really really free. And also I think you I
think you said, you know, I think you said, you know,
you do you like do what you want to do.
You're isolated. We could always say to race and then
(32:10):
you kind of gave a devilish smile. Um, But like
that was a really big deal, you know, just even
that was like all right, you know, like I definitely
felt like going back in with Will was like, okay,
I could, I could get to where we need to
go quicker, and I feel way more sure footed and stuff.
And also I'm really grateful that I had the time
(32:31):
to be to stumble around the dark and be terrified
and have all these experiences that led like I can't
sound the way that I sound that I sound now
without having all this crazy you know, face plants and
successes and just general high wire terror that that that
you provided me with. Thanks, Well, the reason you were
(32:53):
there was to do what you do. That's the only
like if it was just to have someone play guitar.
There's a lot of people who play guitar, but I
wanted Matt Sweeney to play guitar. And the only reason
you want Matt Sweeney to play guitars because he plays
like Matt Sweeney. Yeah, it's so cool how Matt Sweeney
play like Matt Sweeney, just like it's it's amazing. It's ridiculous,
sciting to be in the recording studio and to hear
(33:14):
you know, and to hear it, you know, going down
on tape or what passes for tape right now is
just to hear it and just think, well, there it is,
it's right there. It's really funny that you're you had
that moment renting a DVD and hearing a voice and
wondering who it was, and it being Matt and me
listening to the Superwolf album and hearing that guitar and
(33:37):
going who is that? And both of us came to
Matt and and it's interesting that, like, for you, the
vocal was the spark from me the guitar with the spark,
But it definitely came from not knowing what we were
listening to. To like, whoa this and to hear something
that you don't know what it is and to care
enough about finding what it is is a really big deal.
(34:03):
That doesn't happen again, It doesn't happen so often, especially
in the pre Shazam days. It was really uh yeah,
a job to make that happen. Now. I was I
was talking to someone about the first time I heard
the Sean Marshall cat Power and it was on the
radio and Virginia somewhere, and it was a woman singing
(34:23):
this exploded, deconstructed version of Hank Williams. I can't help
it if I'm still in love with you. And it
took me months months of asking people, do you know
I heard this song? You didn't know. I don't know
what you're talking about, and they would give me these
stupid ideas of who it could have been. No, no, no, no, no,
you don't know what I'm saying. This crazy thing, it's
you know. And months yeah, yeah, and now it is
(34:46):
a little easier. We'll be back after a quick break
with Will Oldham and Matt Sweeney. We're back with the
rest of Rick Rubin's conversation with will Oldham and Matt Sweeney.
But before we jump back in, let's hear some of
their new song, My Popsicle. We crawled towards a warmth
(35:16):
less night, towards a wild and endless night. My pop
my pops circles, My pups circles, My pops circles made
(35:40):
by your mind and me. Time Square Once wears dark
and wild and frightening to a guileless child. My Pop,
(36:05):
my pops, sacles, maybe you and Wow. The music you
(36:29):
guys make is I could literally listen to it forever.
It's unbelievable. It's like it I might like listening to
your music more than any other music. So it really
is ridiculous. How it. I feel like I'm the audience
you're making it for me. It's it is ridiculous. It's
(36:50):
I mean, it's ridiculous. But I think I think that
some of that is you know, when we were when
we had this sequenced and then mastered, my brother Paul
mastered it, and my wife and I, you know, one evening,
we're ready to listen to the master and listen to
it all the way through and throughout the record. I
(37:12):
was listening to it. I was crying sometimes, and I
was laughing a whole lot, and you know, my wife asked,
you know, She's like, why are you laughing? And it's
hard to fully explain, but part of it is gratitude
for the way that it came together, Because it ended
up coming together in such way that it is a
(37:35):
the things that records have done for me is not
something that's easy to find. I just it felt good
to yeah, to have participated in making a record that
has this kind of content, musical and lyrical content, and
that it's worth sitting with it song after song, and
(37:59):
I think I kept laughing because I would remember where
I was in the record and think, oh, this part
still hasn't happened, and I feel like this, and this
part is still going to happen, and I feel like this.
It's been a long time since I've been carried away
by a new record. I guess it's funny in this year,
(38:20):
this crazy year where everyone's perception is so so so different,
but but just feeling like, wow, it's not a bad
record to you know, if if the plague takes us,
you know, I feel okay about this being the record
that we ended things with. It's really a beauty. It's
a beauty that correct anything different in the process between
(38:43):
making this album and the first album sixteen years ago. Yeah,
we had a Ti Egg band. I'm the super Bowl record.
The only outside musician is Pete right, Yeah, Pete talent
and the drummer, you know, So it was that it
was insular and then with this one, which is pretty
interesting that the way that this record got kick started
(39:04):
was when I had done a recording session with m
du Moktar, who rick if you checked him out yet?
Oh mind, Yeah, you're going to lose your mind. Okay.
So Mr Martar is a try I got like, like
to New Orleans. He's from Yeah, he's from Hierias, from
the desert, and he's an explosive, mind blowing musician. And
(39:26):
we got a chance to use him and his band
on a song that Will and I had already written.
And the song was actually had a lot of parts,
a lot of this and that to it, and these
dogs nailed it, which is pretty wild because they're not
like trained musicians they and they play a very specific style.
But because we had such an incredible connection with these guys,
(39:47):
and particularly like that they seem to actually bob, I mean,
they clearly vibed with how Will sang and how I
played guitar, like we meshed and that was exciting and
definitely exciting enough for because Will and I have had
already been exchanged writing songs with the idea of recording,
but this was enough for Will to be like, well,
(40:08):
I guess we should probably use them as a band,
you know, you know, try writing like maybe that should be.
That was the way we started the Super Bowl procort,
just like, use this mind blowing band and see what happens.
And so we did. Yeah, we had, we had, we had.
We had a fantastic recording session with them on another
unrelated song, and or everybody, everybody at the end of
the day, you know, it's one of those days in
(40:29):
the recording studio where everybody's glowing at the end of
the day and you just think, we'd like to do
this again. Sometimes Oh yeah, we would too, Let's do
it again, you know. So it was just up to
when when they were going to come back to the
United States of America, and when they did, you know,
we said, well, if you've got a few extra days
in New York, can we book a session and we'll
go back in and do more. And then so we
knew we had to get We knew I had to
get our act together by then. Yeah. Yeah. And the
(40:53):
song that we recorded in that session one was a
competition that came together with all of us in a room,
which is also like very very very different than everything else, um,
which is everything. Yeah, every so, yeah, every every Like
the night before the session, you know, the afternoon before
the session, the song didn't exist in any way, shape
or form. And then that that night we all got
(41:14):
together in an apartment and everything, all of the music,
all the lyrics, all the melodies, everything came together that night.
And then we attracted them. And as far as like
the power of like music connecting. Uh just they where
the town that they live in is a twenty eight
hour bus ride to the nearest airport, okay, like so
like these guys are from a different place, you know,
(41:36):
so so you know the connection it felt good, you know,
and and uh so we came over the song together.
And then we also got to use them on songs
that we'd written before. Um and and we were pretty
conscrientious about what we were what what the other songs were,
you know, like sort of taking advantage of using these musicians.
(41:59):
For example, the song I'm a Youth, which is an
Irish traditional traditional Irish song. Well again addressing the differences
between the yeah, MD's on that the first record we
did it, you know, we spent probably up to a
year putting the songs together. Then we went in and
for a week tracked and mixed in Shelbyville, Kentucky. One
(42:21):
session the two of us, my brother Paul engineering, our
friend Pete playing drums. This time. You know, we wrote
over the course of five years and did it in
two sessions, one in New York and then the other
in Nashville with ferg and then the mdu Maktar ensemble
playing on the New York thing. So those are the
significant differences in how the record itself was the two
(42:43):
records were made. So check out Holiday. I mean as
far as like, just as an example, this is what
happened when we got together with these gentlemen from from
a very different place. Yeah, tip and then drive you
(43:18):
Go and gry y'all, drill muss even a death again,
all of death. You know. We put this song out
(43:48):
as a single couple few weeks ago, right and and
people have talked about it, and there's been a positive
response to it, right um, there has been. As far
as anything that I've heard from anybody, I haven't heard
word one mentioning the fact that there are lyrics to
the song, much less what the lyrics are. You know,
(44:09):
in general, it's interesting that people don't really listen to lyrics.
You know, most people will say, I don't even listen
to the lyrics, you know. That's that's what streaming, the
streaming model is built around, is the people not listening
to lyrics. Like when we made the song in the
recording studio, we made the song which we tracked it
all live except for the lead guitar, and that was
that's him Do's guitar. And for some reason, I can't
(44:30):
remember if he was I think he maybe he had
he had a friend of his like died in an
automobile accident in Africas. He was on the phone and
you know, he was so overwhelmed with grief he couldn't
play with us. So we played. And then I think
two days later we like, you know, would you play
on this song? And and he's sitting there to go
(44:51):
into play, and uh, we're all sitting there. I'm sitting
on the floor at his feet, and Matt says, well,
you know, to help him him do why don't you
will want you explain you know, what the song is about.
And I'm taken aback because you know, I didn't have this.
I wrote the lyrics on three days before and so
(45:12):
I didn't filter anything, you know, and and it's essentially
just about the horror and desperation of years of having
of my mom living in you know, being in communicado
because of Alzheimer's disease and living in a nursing home
and what it's like to go to her, you know,
(45:32):
on on an extremely regular basis. And so okay, I'll
fucking explain these lyrics. I'm not sure if it's going
to help his guitar playing or not. We'll see, you know,
with this song, because in the past, Steam will like
be like, hey, the song, so go like that, you know,
like like I've seen I've seen you given that direction
or I had seen to go to that direction before.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm thinking. And also I'm kind
(45:54):
of curious because all I know, I think I knew
I don't know if I really heard could hear any
of the things, any of the actual words. I could
hear the melody that he was singing, but everything was
why we we we recorded the song live. The vocal
is live in a really loud room, you know, so
so I did not know what the words were, so
I figured, you know, and you know, how how is
(46:15):
m do gonna know what the words are anyway. So
then Will says what the words are about, and it's shocking,
you know, And and it spurs a conversation then because
MD begins to go into a tirade about how shitty
Americans are to their elders. And you know, I have
a similar sense, you know, like the horror of visiting
(46:38):
my mom. You know, a huge part of the horror
of visiting my mom in this place is thinking, like,
what brought circumstances, you know, what what brought this circumstance
to happen that my mother that I am a responsible
human being, a functioning, fucking responsible human being, and and
I don't have it, you know, I can't live a
life and also take care of take care of her,
and there's not a support system to take care of
(47:00):
her so that she can stay at home, you know.
But but he's you know, basically like hammering everything that
I felt shitty about in my life for the past
five years and just saying you, you know, you suck,
you fucking suck, because this is who you are. You know,
That's what I'm hearing, you know, yeah, you know. And
then and then I eventually like have to leave. I'm
so upset I have to leave, and and this the
(47:21):
session kind of falls apart that week, I don't sleep
for days. Anyway. I hear it as like one of
the strengths I think of my working with with Matt
is that he allows for a greater amount of vulnerability
in the in the lyric and then also in the
in the in the singing, and I hear nothing but
this horrific vulnerable vulnerability in that song. And so and
(47:45):
it's also, you know, I hear the electricity of the
excitement of our collaboration with the ensemble from niger Um.
But it it sits for me beautifully in the record
because I have, you know, because it's it's you know,
people people say like, oh, it's this propulsive rock song
blah blah blah, and I'm like, Okay, to me, it's this,
(48:07):
you know, really hard song about how we what do
you do about the fact that you know the you
are of the guilty mistreating children in these death institutions,
you know, these institutions that are built around, you know,
allowing people to die ignored. Hey Jam, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(48:29):
hey Jam. Anything else, you guys feel like we should
talk about anything that would be helpful or interesting. We
do good. You're really good at this, Rick, Thank you
so much for doing this, Thanks for having it. Thank you.
Thanks to Matt Sweeney and Will Oldam for talking about
(48:50):
their creative collaboration with rad To hear super Wolves along
with our favorite Bonnie Prince Billy songs, head to Broken
Record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our
YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast,
where we can find new and old episodes. You can
follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is
producer of help from Leo Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,
(49:14):
Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee.
Our executive producer is Meal of the Broken Record is
a production of Pushkin Industries and if you'd like to
show please remember to share, rate, and review us on
your podcast. Act of the music. Expect any beats. I'm
justin Richmond bass
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