Geoff Barrow (Portishead) interview/battle!

Hey, one song nature. We've got an exciting episode for you today. We're unlocking the Patreon, and releasing our already famous and contentious interview with Jeff Barrow, a Portis Head, Beak, and scores of classic films like X-Mac and Ensemble War. That's right. This conversation began after Jeff Barrow from Portis Head. One of my favorite bands got a little beefy in the DMs underneath one of our one-song videos. And it turns out we have pretty different views about breaking down music. Like, even should it be done? Should the show exist? Hey, and for the record I have your back, Lux. I appreciate that. Enjoy the most polite fight-of-the-century luxury versus Jeff Barrow. One-song Patreon people in the red corner in a really cool designer T from a really cool band, whispering a interpolation to himself over and over. The man so hardcore, he rocks double X's in his own name Luxury. And in the blue corner, a musician, producer, remixer, and film score from the band Portis Head, the record label Invana, and films such as X-Mac and Ensemble War in the upcoming game. The one, the only Jeff Barrow. Why are these music legends fighting? It all started in the DMs. The question, does breaking down music ruin it? We're getting into that today only on the one-song Patreon. Let's go! It's great to have you on and I love the origin story that people need to know how we got here. So let's get into it. Besides being fans, you commented on a video wonderfully about a month or so ago. One of our episodes that we did, the far-side episode, we talk about Dilla. And that was one of those in-the-weeds breakdowns. We do them every episode, but that was especially in the weeds. And perhaps in that moment, I mean, I want to hear from you, so I won't, I won't, I won't pre-set it up too much. But something-- Oh man, this fight is already going horribly. You're way too polite, Blake. You're way too polite. Something trapped your hide, you jumped in the comments, and you wanted to discuss whether this was the best thing to do with music. Talk about it at this level. Tell us more about what prompted you to jump in the comments and say, "Are we sure we want to break down music this much?" I spoke, first of all, I didn't ask, "How are you guys?" It's been one of them weird days. I'm at the end of the working week, and it's just been, yeah, a bit of it for long, and I've just realized that I've got now talk about this thing, and I didn't ask now. And I didn't ask how you guys were, and how was your weeks? You know, and I was-- No, we've had a great week. We've had a great week, in part because we've been looking forward to talking to you. Jeff, when I say, we don't say this to everybody we talk to, I feel like your music has meant so much to us for decades, and so just the idea that you might leave a comment that Blake would take it terribly, and that we would end up on the Zoom together. I've got to keep making him the bad guy. It's just, it's amazing to me that we get to talk to a person who we have so much respect for, and I'm not going to-- and with that, I'm not going to put you on the spot. Yeah, please, please stop. It's a weird feeling, you know what I mean. Well, now you're just-- Now you're just a friend of ours, so we want to-- Yeah, yeah, that's all right. Yeah, so we can insult each other quite freely. Listen, if you like, I'll actually answer your question really honestly to give you a bunch of opportunities to find really soft, vulnerable spots, terrible week, not in a good mood, other than talking to you, you know, a little bit distressed about what do musicians do for money at a certain point? Like all of that's really on my mind, so this is a great distraction that we are going to break down, breaking down music with a legend. That's so exciting for me. Well, look, so I mean, I know what your week's been like, I mean, I've run-- I run our label over here in Vader, and I've been part of indie music, even though it was signed to a major. I don't know how we got there in the end, but I mean, ultimately, you know, everything we did was always kind of-- we-- everything-- all the music we ever loved was all kind of indie stuff, you know what I mean, whether it be on Stone's Roll, whether it be on whatever, you know what I mean, it was like, you know, but so yeah, it's tough at a moment, I was just talking to an artist now, and it's tough out there, so it's pretty mean at the moment, you know. Like people are really concerned that I mean, like they put all their heart and soul into a record, and then it can just be someone just swipes past it, you know what I mean, it's like, it's pretty demoralizing, you know. And if you take it that way, it can be really bad, you know what I mean, so you have to find some joy. You have to find some joy somehow, you know. You have to find some joy, yeah. And it's interesting that you mentioned that because obviously, just for people who don't know, since Portishead, you have been doing-- you have continued to make music under various guises from Beek, which is one of the great-- maybe underrated, I mean, maybe you feel like you're wonderfully perfectly rated, but I love Beek. And Beek is, if anyone who loves Portishead and hasn't discovered Beek, do that next. You will love it. And I don't know about that. You think Portishead fans are disappointed? You can say that, but I think that most people that actually listen to Portishead would just go what the living fuck exists, you know what I mean, like, you know. But yeah, no, I have been, I have been, but yeah, we made third in 2008, since then I've not really stopped, I've kind of like, you know, so I sat up in Vader, which mainly do film scores. It's kind of my main kind of day job now, it's doing film scores, but we release other people's, we just, you know, we do Stranger Things and Carla Michael and all that stuff. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, and we do, you know, Netflix stuff and, you know, drive the soundtrack. We release that on vinyl and it's mainly vinyl stuff, but, yeah, we just did an amazing film, Surat. I don't know if you've seen a film called Surat, yeah. No, isn't about the painter. One of the most devastatingly amazing films out there. It's just like, it won a lower awards. It's like a techno score, but as a film, it's astonishing. It's just like, and that's what really, we have film really got to float to my boat, you know, music, of course, but I feel like I've been in the trenches with that for far too long. I have a lot of questions about that, but you've just, you're about to release, I think, your first film, is that right, that you actually co-wrote and produced? Yeah, I sat up in Vader films based off in Vader records, like, we've made a film, 150 grand, with a bunch of friends. It's getting, it's coming out on acidoscope industries, which was, the Beastable was film company. That's going to be coming out in the States. So I'm just, I'm absolutely amazed that someone over there actually saw it and really liked it. So, so a young and a common, and hopefully it'll be in some cinemas. So, I mean, it's a tough game, but we're in it, you know, that's incredible. That kind of brings us full circle. So, maybe we can back up and we'll get to the fight in just a second. We'll get to the arguing, and it may not be contentious at all, unfortunately, because we're friendly polite people. And actually, it was even fun in the comments. I mean, like, I never, Diallo was being funny, but like, the back and forth was extraordinarily just gentle and like, academic, like it wasn't important. Look, I introduced this with a boxing, with a boxing sound, so we have to keep it contentious. Right. Yeah, what do I'm up for that? We'll play it up in a second. But because you've mentioned it, to me, what's interesting, and I'm already going to analyze you, sorry, just momentarily, in a small and bloody obvious way, clearly cinematic music has been a driver for all the music I've ever heard by you. There's clearly, there's been something about sound and e-oking, maybe, visuals that's been there since the earliest Portus Head videos. Wasn't it music about a film that was ever made or something like that? Yeah. Tell us about that. I think, basically, it's like, when you write scores, you're not tied down to the traditional songwriting, kind of, you know, set up. So, you know, chorus bridge, you know, just arrangements. And then also with sounds like, you know, you're not chasing like a popular sound you're actually trying to get. If you're doing a psychological thriller, you're trying to get, trying to basically explain, it was in someone's head to a sound. I mean, so for me, it always was like, you know, the. amazing stuff if you listen to experimental kind of you know and everybody was doing it as well so people like in film music were taking from pop music they were taking from like music concrete you know they were just like everything really and yeah so it's always been it's always been a thing that most of the samples from port they'd really come usually come from films you know and and now it's so it made sense when I moved into film scores and I started working with Alex Garland you know and did ex-mac and civil war and stuff amazing work on this it just made sense you know I mean that this is you know the idea of writing a song kind of it was I was kind of over it really you know yeah I just wanted to take a step back and I remember Melody Maker at describing your first album is music noir for a movie not yet made I came to you via hip hop because you know people early on in the 90s were like you know there's like this music that's primarily coming out of the UK that sounds like kind of sounds like hip hop but it's got like white people singing over it you know what I was described to me but you know to this day I can talk to people who are hip hop DJs and like people who don't really listen to a whole lot of like non you know black American music who will still talk about Porta said in the same tones that they'll talk about DJ premiere DJ shadow and and stuff like that I do want to bring up you know did you would you started transitioning to you know exit out of the get shop and some of these other did you find it was a completely different process or was it sort of like pulling together the music that you had done before um yeah that was an interesting one because I started started on that film as just like as a kind of a music supervisor really and then but they realized that we could just make or you know we could just make our own you know music that sounds like it's from like you know like wild style or kind of and so that was a it was an amazing thing for me to just kind of just experiment and go oh man how did they do that and what did they do that and now I'm now I'm getting into this kind of conversation where basically you're gonna have me over with because I've just told I've just said that I was really into the finding out what production actually happened in things I well start and then the other day my comment on your post was was was politically don't reveal the magic don't pull back the curtain no exactly so so anyway going back to what you're saying about you know um you've discovering what was it through hip hop for me that was the greatest thing that ever that ever happened to me basically was the idea that you know I was this kid from like just outside of Bristol in a pretty rural town made some made some beats and made some music the the people that I'd I'd absolutely you know they were my gods you know like I can remember you know someone saying that DG Premier played one of our tunes and I was like oh my god I'm finished I'm done I'm I can retire I can retire now you know and you know me in kind of you know the far side or what and you just think and you know all the guys on stone show as well it's just I've been I feel like I've been incredibly lucky you know but but yeah I mean just for me that was the greatest thing ever can I before before we move on from your influences I promise we will get to the to the punching in the kick yeah yeah but I do want to ask you like you know it seems to me that the 90s was a time when there were a lot of people who were whether you were in hip-hop or whether they were artists like you I remember more Chiba was another one that a lot of us hip-hop guys were listening to like it seemed like you guys were there's a lot of like I had to call it audio collaging going on like there was like a sample from here a sample from there there's a lot of talk about post-modern music and I wonder in this time now when like people sample a lot less I just kind of want to get your read on like where the music is now because I feel like people don't sample the same way they don't there's there's a lot of just creating on on laptops and and computers and all the sounds coming from one place what should we it's weird because madly have made that record on on an on an iPad any like on one of I think one of his new new tune and newer things and he's just got so he's just got talent the transfers to any type of you know like hardware software whatever you know what I mean but yeah I don't know it's a it's a it's a funny one you get like a lot of the NPC 60 boom back merchants you know you know still plugging it you know sampling like Indian tunes and and putting a big kind of kick and snare over the top and I mean but you know music moves on doesn't it so it doesn't surprise me that there's no samples so much I know the guys are actually writing getting it AI you know prompting to make you know soul tunes and then sampling them you know which kind of like in the line of hip hop doesn't really surprise me and it doesn't make me frown of them it's just like you know I mean it's like it's kind of a weird thing that's a collage anyway it's a combination of people trip yeah it's a tough one I don't support it I don't support AI but but if you're a dude and you and you've just got your computer and you've got like you know you do whatever and it's coming out with some mad 60s organ thing you can sample it and then strip it into AI kind of beats bass and keyboards then you're gonna do it and yeah you know what I mean it's in the lineage of that production tradition of like taking stuff that already exists recordings drum machines and transforming it reusing it in a new way it is just kind of the latest version of that absolutely it is yeah I mean I suppose that thing of like I've always paid for the samples but you know the majority of the world hasn't you know so I suppose it's the same thing people who you know there's those you know kind of the people that AI are ripping off are still aren't getting paid either right that's true that's true and by the way hip hop and music production has always to a certain extent been about hey what do I have access to so you know a lot of kids and the Bronx didn't have right instruments to play so they start to play in records punk rock yeah it's it's usually just like what do I have access to what I'm gonna make the music that I want to hear using that now exactly and a lot is what has been the one of the baddest things is hip hop and sampling but was it that was like that's been a mental I mean like I think rizz at rizz at samples like one of our tunes and I'm like you know what the hell you know like and but but the thing is we've always had a policy if a if a hip hop band samples pause that we don't charge them but if basically if the weekend or someone wants to like wants to do that they can play full whack the weekend is pop the weekend is pop is your case yeah well no it's just that anyone is signed to a major label and they're just okay okay okay they can afford it but if you're here you know an actual hip hop crew like you know and you've got no money then take it that's it that's great I love that attitude and I think that's really healthy and and also you know maybe maybe reasonable based on your own history however as you you know you do clear your samples to be clear you know to to give you proper credit well the ones today can find any like wait a second scavenger hunt alert we want to ask you to reveal any new source see that's see that's my problem let's get into it let's get into it that's my problem here we go that's my problem let's do it right that's my problem with guys like you oh guys like me what the juice you know I mean dudes dudes like you just basically breaking everything down removing all the all the you know the magic the guys into making music you know let's let's let's okay here we go we're gonna get into it I actually wanted to start by reading your actual comment I feel weird about the whole breaking stuff down I find when people find their own way it leads to more interesting music because they get it wrong which I think is so interesting and I agree with that part one let's put a pin in that you got you went on to say if it's laid out on a chart the sounds are available you end up with a photocopy and then last but at least Portis had sounded like it did because that stuff wasn't available I'm not knocking what you do it's really interesting thank you for the compliment I just worry we've lost some magic if you want to live argument about it you'll come on the show and here we are so here we are yeah well I didn't wanted to I didn't want to kind of you know support the thing of breaking down what if it was that songs you know I mean yeah yeah we we were originally I was asking if we could do that you're like no let's not do that because that's doing exactly what I'm against right but where is the line so like let's talk about that because as you just alluded to I'm not gonna put one over on you but you're right it is in your own history to try and figure out how something you liked came to be so at what point does it what is the what is the line where it's too much breaking down where the magic is getting lost for you I saw a breakdown just literally 20 minutes ago of of old dirty bastard do you know what I mean Jimmy Jimmy you know yeah I think I know the one you're talking about okay And it makes sense, you know, someone's broken down, someone's got the break, someone's got the snare drums, like, you know what I mean, and they broke it down, right, and that's obviously gonna happen, right? But basically, if you turn music into process and maths, right, I think that that's why people have ruined music historically, right? Yeah, because, because you only got to look at what happened to rock, what happened to, you know, to metal, or what I just said, rock, but, you know, almost like, and what's happening to hip-hop, you know, it's just like, well, in the, in the kind of boom-back world, you know what I mean, in that still kind of like that East Coast kind of thing. And then, and then you look at trap, you know what I mean, and you look at basically how many, how many kind of plates you can get as the, as the trap hi-hat, and like, you know, and like a thousand track beats you can buy. I mean, I, I get all that, but it's kind of like, it's kind of turning music into maths and turning it into like, it, like jazz turns into fusion, you know what I mean? And now you've got these kids out of Berkeley, playing like, and now you've got, I mean, you know, what's that, what's that band from LA that just do all that mad, uh, oh, yeah, wolf pack, you know what I mean? Oh, oh, yeah. And you just go, what the, you know, this isn't, this is just about how many notes you can play, you don't mean. But can I come up, we're going to slow this down because there's so many things to invest in. Yeah, there's a lot of impact there specifically about, um, basically instrumental skill as a precursor as a requirement. We, first of all, all three of us on this call, probably are super aligned on how that not only isn't a precursor to good music, it may be a barrier to it. You mentioned fusion, you mentioned wolf pack. I imagine a shared thesis among us is if you know too much, your music's going to get crappier and crappier. Like, there's a degree to which the more the faster you can play and the more scales and modes, you know, and I was just talking about this with my friend Brad, who's also a composer. Yeah, you tend to use that and your music tends to become prog or really complicated and it loses some of the innocence. But at the same time, it's not like an if then statement, it's not the case that if you learn stuff, you will make bad music. So is or not that it is. No, no, I think it's also I think there's some really good music in that world as well. You know, I mean, I think, you know, in the math rock world, I mean, you know, kind of speed metal, whatever you want to call it, you know, I mean, there are some really good things. But what I'm talking about is this general move of people just to kind of when someone just plays a thousand notes, it's just like, it's kind of like, well, they're better than someone who plays two. Right. And also, we all know, I know that you guys know that as well, you know, I mean, I'm not, you know, not saying that it all it does is it's part of the world that then breaks down the production. Right. Of songs, you know, I mean, it's like, I can remember like about 10 years ago, I've got a friend Craig Sylvie was a brilliant producer. He makes who does arcade fire and stuff and and he was, he collects all those all the original recordings of the bg's and, you know, you know, you know the ones, you know, I mean, you've got them all somewhere on some hard drive. I do too. Yeah, I'm the same guy. Yeah, exactly. And when you heard those things, you were like, wow, this is amazing. Like that extra little pick in staying alive or whatever it was that didn't sound like staying alive unless you put the little guitar. And so there is this thing as a musician where you kind of an a producer get drawn to these magic moments, like emptying, you know, seeing behind the curtain, you know, the magicians, you know, watching the magician from the from side of stage, you know, I mean. And part of that is the humanity and imperfection that actually turns out to be behind the curtain. That's part of what I think the lesson is of our show is like guys. They don't have to be perfect. In fact, you don't try, try not to be. No, I know I'm not, I'm not sure though. I think I think that might be your what you want to do, but so many people that watch it will take it as basically if I get that plate and, you know, like, and that script or those notes. The J. Dele moved his snare drums to there or played them live or whatever, then basically I will be I will be him or are be as good as him, right. And, and but that's kind of almost like some weird mass test. You're attached. Like, you know, it's what we both know that that'll never happen to. We both know that there's always a gap. There's always something that you do either wrong or wonderfully human or wonderfully you where you're attempt to recreate whatever it is turns into that. I mean, at least in my own personal experience, my efforts to be, you know, a little bit new order, a little bit sister's or mercy, whatever, whatever, all the things that were in the pot. The result was just luxury. It was just the music I made and then maybe later on I could point out where I thought I was. Yeah, but that's right. The liked thing. But that's yeah, that's great. But did you when you were doing that, were you using your ears and also loving sister's a mercy or what or the sister's mercy, whatever. And then were you kind of just your brain would take you off on something and then you would play music. You wouldn't actually kind of go, okay, sister's a mercy. They played this. This is the point. This is the that's the pedal and that's the thing. Well, a little bit of both in my case, in my case, a little bit of both. Yeah, but there's always a bit of that. Right. Right. There's always a bit of that. But when you just remove all mystery, you know, I mean, and I think at the moment that's where we're at. But here's my hypothesis. I don't think that you're wrong or that I'm right or vice versa. But what I do think potentially is in the mix here is that different people's reaction or use of whatever we're breaking down is maybe going to reflect just who they are and how their rainworks. And maybe some high percentage of it will be crap, but that's just kind of how it always is. And there will be some enough of a percentage of people who get something new, a new idea or a new inspiration. And this, by the way, there's no right or wrong answer like in our humble opinion, we haven't stopped the show yet because we think whatever percentage of people get something useful from the breakdowns and make good stuff from it is worth continuing the show. Oh, no, absolutely. And I'm not and I'm definitely not saying you should not stop the show. I'm just saying that it's a more an overview of the whole industry is the whole is the overview of basically of like, no, you have to have this bit of care if you're going to do this, you know what I mean. Right. And there's a lot of, you know, and where a lot of kids are going to be making beats on on their iPads and yeah, and like, you know, we had a whole thing in the UK where people, you've mostly did it over there where people are using play stations to make beats. Yeah, yeah. And it's like that thing is just like creativity will come out of somewhere. It's not like, oh, no, yeah, but that's not going to that's not going to sound any good because you're not using this brand new mini NPC. This is why this is why I agree with that. And to be honest, I don't think that's anything new, because we just were talking about metal and we were talking like in the 80s when I was growing up and learning guitar. It was in way, it was Eddie Van Halen. And one would feel as a guitar player really insecure and lesser than if one could not do that. And then thank God for punk rock as a discovery in my life. Because that just changed the game as far as like what was considered like how much skill you needed to have to be legitimated as an artist. Has it not always been so that there are going to be intimidating rules that are bullshit that you need to rail against and say screw you Berkeley school of music, you know. Yeah, but not even that. I mean, I think it's just the point of the industry and manufacturers of music gear and microphones and everything else like, you know, it doesn't fuck it. It doesn't matter what you record your folklore. If it's if it's a tune, it's a tune, if you've got talent, it's a time. It's just like, it just doesn't matter if you listen to old rock and roll records, they sound shit. You know what I mean? And that's great. Could we love that sound? It's just, yeah, anyway, I'm getting on. Sorry. Deala, please jump in. Yeah. No, I look a couple of things real quick. I want to, they're a couple of things I wanted to dress real quick. Number one is that obviously we're only talking about tools here on the show. And, you know, I'll never forget my father is saying that, you know, there was a whole generation of guys in New York who bought, you know, a trumpet or a saxophone started taking heroin and they thought they're going to be Charlie Park. That was their breakdown. That was their tool. And then, and then all they turned out to be were junkies and they figured out that he was a genius who happened to use heroin, not a person who used heroin to become a genius. And so I think that one thing that I love about our show And to be clear, is something that we do enjoy doing is that I think sometimes by removing the mystique on a song like, you know, the example I use is "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince, is that, hey, when you listen to the stems and you, you know, here's some of the story about how I got made and some of the ideas that were rejected, you realize that as genius as Prince is, there may be something inside of you that can, you know, begin to approach this greatness. And the sense that like, you know, nothing arrives perfect that you have to like, work to get there. I think that's an important part of what we do. But listen, I totally also understand the viewpoint that because of social media, I'm learning, sometimes I feel like I'm learning too much on how the sausage got made. Like, you know, it doesn't even have to be music related. There are so many videos where they talk to actors about their famous scene in that movie and you find out, oh, yeah, you know, I had, I had things stuffed in my ears so I could actually hear the other actors and that's why I'm not reacting to what he said in that scene or you'll be like, oh, the director started throwing pepper at me and that's the real reason why I look so agitated. Like, we are finding out sometimes, I think, maybe more than we want to know about some of our favorite art and I ended, I totally get, because I feel it too, sometimes I'm like, we're finding out too much. I didn't want to know that. I just wanted to exist as the perfect piece of art that I've grown up with and known and love. So I think we sort of understand that. And I also think there's a third rail that none of us want to go near. I know the, I know the breakdown that I think you started this whole conversation with about a certain song by old dirty bastard and I'm like, oh, I think that sample snitching because that is not on who sampled, you know, Blake and I go out of our way to make sure that we never bring up a sample that's not sort of public, publicly known, already identified on who sampled with the lawyers and so about because we aren't trying to mess up anybody's retirement plan by having somebody come at you and a lawsuit. So I think that we're actually quite aligned on most of this stuff and I think it's just sort of a, at the end of the day, like Blake was trying to say, I think it is case by case because sometimes you just want to know that, you know, as an aspect, because I think a lot of aspiring musicians and producers do listen to our show. I think they want to know, hey, it doesn't have to start off perfect. I just have to work towards it. And for that, I think removing the mistake around some of our favorite songs is sort of a good thing because it lets you know, hey, you can do it too. You just got to set aside the time to do it and don't do heroin is another thing. No. And it's also very selfish. I just want to quickly add to that. I don't want to hear your response. And selfishly is because it's what I wish existed when I started because I took, because of what I just described, my 80s, like the pressure on having to be instrumentally, like insanely great, stop me from making music for too long. So a lot of this show in some ways is sort of maybe me talking to a younger version of myself saying, there's a lot of ways in, you can be inspired by something and that also includes kind of some of the copyright stuff, don't. There's a lot of fear even now in the songwriting community about, like, you can't be inspired by something. Well, we need to break that. That's bullshit. Everything is inspired by something else. So what we try to do on the show is, is demystify, is lower the barrier to entry for creative people. That's exactly it. Yeah. And also a lot of stuff that pushes on the genre of music is because they've been inspired by other genres. Absolutely. It's not like there is, it's like a doggy in their own shit, you know, I mean, it's not. It's like what you've seen before and you do not want to go there. Exactly. But that's what happens is if you get, if you only ever listen to hip hop radio, you only listen to rock, you know what I mean, it's like the people that kind of out there really doing stuff are listening to everything, aren't they, and just like, you know, it's a weird one as well. I mean, I know what it's like to hit kind of like a block in music as well. I mean, like, you know, from our second album to our third album, it was 10 years, you know, I didn't release a record in 10 years because I didn't feel good enough. I didn't feel I was ready enough or had enough to say or, you know, I had to relearn, I had to relearn everything that I had done, you know, I mean, like not relearn, I had to learn other skills, I had to try and find other skills and learn. And it was weird because even I don't think there wasn't this kind of, this is how Jackie recorded the drums on Vitamin C in, you know, in, it can's album, you know what I mean, this is not, I didn't know how to do it. So it's just experimentation, and like I said, you kind of get it wrong and it becomes something else. And that, that is ultimately my point. It's like, if you go, if you're a guy in a band and you just go, right, I want to, I want to sound like can, right? And then basically now, you know, there's going to be reddits of like what they recorded in this, you know, they recorded in a cinema and in the cinema, the dimensions of the cinema, on the walls, they were kind of carpet and then this and he was in this area of the room and it didn't have a base, you know, trap. So basically that's the reason why there was this flat back and then they, and it's like, yeah, I get it. But, but, you know, you're not going to find your own way. You're not going to sound like yourself, you know, but yeah, but I don't, I don't know that I agree that the result of trying to recreate is that a Connie Plank, whatever recording. I don't know. If you're trying to get that, that, that 1970 crowd rock, if you're James Murphy, because that's what he did. Yeah, but I mean, it sounds like, it sounds like presets to me. Uh, okay. Well, I guess what I was going to say about that comparison is that James Murphy obviously, obviously, you know, his references are not only audible. They are also part of the stick, right? Him pointing out that he is influenced. So, you know, losing my edge and all that. But James Murphy, LCD sound system is a little bit can meets the fall with the vocal delivery and, you know, I just saw them as, I just saw them as an awful band. Okay. Well, I didn't know we were going there. My point was going to be that he failed to properly, you know, quote unquote, failed to quote unquote properly rip off the bands. His influences are obvious, but the result is, is a new thing, which I have, it's kind of, you know, his people, the drink is Starbucks and, you know, I mean, I like it. Jeff's come to fight several people today and I like it. I love it. I've always thought, I've always thought people, I mean, I don't really think I'm great. So I'm not saying, look, I'm better than any of these people and I know James Murphy is a really talented producer and I think the early stuff on DFA was really, really interesting and great. But I just, but the, the whole idea, I don't really know enough about him. I just don't like him, you know what I mean, I thought I was setting them up as a counter example of what you were saying. But in fact, they are a good example of what you were saying. They did try to recreate the canned drum sound and to you, it came into Starbucks. No, I don't think they did. I think they're just a, I think, don't they, aren't they just a band that says words and people go, cool, like, you know, they say reference words and it's cool. And they do know them. They're the same age as me and, and all of us. And so it's fine. I just think their music sucks. And so I'm sure they're lovely people. Hey, you, I thought it was going to be you versus Luxury, it turns out it's you versus LCD. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I thought I'd gone on against them other than the music rights. That is so funny. Listen, could I ask you a question? I want to go back to something you said just a second ago, which is, yes, you waited a long time in between the Portishead album and the follow-up in 2008 and, yes, exactly. And, and did you feel, I mean, basically, there are only a couple of bands I think they can pull that off, like to wait that long in between, you know, albums. But the fact is it has the result of you only releasing a few, very, very great albums. Was that always your intent? Did you know, I imagine the answers no, but I would ask, did you know that there would be that big of a gap coming in and was it intentional? In other words, you weren't chasing the gold like some of these bands. You were like, hey, we'll come out with a new album when it's right. Or was it just the pressure of how well those first two records were received? Yeah, the first one went really well. I don't really, I stand behind the first and the third one. I don't stand behind the second. I don't like it. Really? Oh my God. I love the second album. No, no, no. It's nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't what I wanted to be, you know. It was too much like the first in the sense of production. It was like, it's supposed to have moved on. It really supposed to have moved on by that point. And it just, but it didn't, you know, it was, it was a horrific experience right in that record. Wow. Recording it and promoting it and everything. It was terrible. You know, I will say sometimes it pays to have an awful experience because sometimes it can lead to somebody's favorite. I'll say that all my music is a damn perfect song to me. You know. Yeah. No, I dig that people dig it and it's really great that it means it's meant something to so many people. It was just it wasn't what I intended it to be and, and I mean, so much so I quit music for five years after that record, you know, that's the other reason it took 10 years is because I didn't want anything to do with music anymore. It was like, you know, the, I'd seen the industry for what it was, I like, we weren't really an industry band. We've just kind of been thrust into it. We made a record that people bought, you know, and we wanted full control over our career. So that meant everything that pause they'd ever did had to be controlled by us. It wasn't like, we had to make our own videos, we had to do our own art, we set, we kind of pretty much wrote the marketing strategies, you know what I mean, it's like, and it was, it was just exhausting, you know what I mean. When you also, the artist doing, doing the, you know, the, all the interviews and all that crap. What was the reason the experience between of making the second record? Because it came out three years later, was that a sort of, was time pressure and label pressure or any sort of external needs? It wasn't any external pressure at all, it was just ourselves. Yeah. Interesting. What was the key, what looking back maybe with the hindsight of 2020 vision, looking back? If you didn't have that pressure, because that's what I would have assumed, I think a lot of people would have assumed, given what you just said was an experience. What was it that was, Trump, that was hard. Why was it hard? Because we, I just had an empty tank, I mean, just like, so basically I put everything I'd ever learned and loved into dummy, and I think, you know, best did as well, and Adrian, you know, obviously. And then, and then basically it was just like, right, you've got to do it again now, it's the classic thing, really, you know, you're not a machine, you're not, you want to, you want to change what you do, you want it to develop, you just don't want to copy yourself because that would be awful. And the tank was empty, I had, you know, my record box was, was, you know, I did, I haven't been out there in like, yeah, I've been out playing live and doing press and, and doing the whole promo thing for dummy that lasted three years, really. And then you're, you know, pushed in, what not pushed, then you're into the studio, which I thought I had to do, but I had nothing in my town, I like, it's, it's one thing that Tricky said once was the basically took his whole life and he puked it out like was puked it on his first album and then he had to do it again. It's just like, I've not had any life experiences, I've not had any, what am I going to talk about, you know, and that, and that is the truth. Was there a similar version of that between that and the third album, or was it a different story that time for the 10 year gap there? Yeah, they're telling you about, I just hadn't achieved, I felt, I felt like I failed on the second album. And so, so basically that's the reason I just quit. I mean, we did a tour, we did, it's really, it was really weird, we did this tour. We ended up not, we ended up being the headline of Loser festivals where we were never supposed to have been the headliner, but we never got the headline of money because all the bands that were supposed to headline split up. So basically, so we ended up losing 300 grand each, I think, on a two year, like a year and a half tour. Like, it was just, then we sacked on management. And then I moved to Australia and, you know, sat up in Vader and started Quakers and stuff. But just, kind of, like, just forgot about what was it, really, it was like, it was done. That was the end of it, you know, until 10 years later. When I think I saw you guys at, at your, you were, do you play Coachella in 2008? Did you not? Yeah. Yeah. That was, it was oddly a really good gig. Yeah. No, it was great. That was out there. Losing my, losing my, pulling my hair out. Yeah, it was me. I mean, I just never thought that we would go down well, like, and it was just one of the best gigs I've ever been part of ever. I'm not saying it as an old man. I do think that, you know, for the first 10 years, it was around Coachella was really something special. It does feel like a different thing now when I see it on YouTube for my home, but I remember that it was a very special time. I think it's a combination of kind of commercial, commercialism and us being really old, I think. It's probably so. And just, you know, this actually gives a good transition to a question that I had. It's almost sort of an outlier. You mentioned, um, Stone's throw before Chris, peanut butter, wolf is a friend of mine. Yeah. So we put on this or W great guy. He's actually mentioned you before, um, so I'm glad to finally be talking to you directly. But he, um, when I toured, um, the, uh, Stone's throw offices and he went to the vinyl vault. He gave me a whole bunch of great stuff from their incredible incredible catalog. And one of them is the record that you made, which has turned out to be like a late discovery. It's, it's, it's Anika, Anika, is that how you say your name? Yeah. Anika, yeah. 10 record, which has all these incredible, like you covered, I go to sleep by the pretenders and masters of war and a, there's even a, a yoga ono song, yanging is on there. Yeah. I'd like to just ask you about that record, like how did that come about? Cause like I said, I, I played almost every week on my show. It's 15 years old, but I just discovered it and it's so, so good. Lots of people haven't discovered it and, and, and I've discovered it over, you know, slowly over many years, it's really, it's really strange. I mean, so basically, beek, after I, after I've kind of finished with Porta's head, basically what happened was that, um, I wanted to just enjoy music again, really. And, um, and I, and I had done, so I had done third and we recorded it. And I thought, I really want to do something else, which is just me playing drums, like I used to when I was like 16, like a 15, 16, like, no instruments, by the way, is that where you started? Yeah, yeah. I'm not a great drummer. It doesn't really matter. We're just, and so, so I got this brilliant bass player who's basically Bill, who's amazing, played the Robert Plan and stuff, but he's an incredible bass player and holds the band together. Um, and this guy called Matt, who's this Noiza, it's from Bristol, who's now, I think this year's release in his eight-years album, I think, um, but, but, and he's just like amazing. And then we went, we went to a room, we formed Beak, um, and we just started playing music, put, put the mics up, didn't matter where they were, as long as it was being captured. And, um, and we wrote an afternoon of music and that became the first three tunes of the Beak album. Are you, when you're saying you wrote music, you're jamming or do you, do you have a starting point? Yeah, we're just jamming. Yeah, yeah, we're not, we're just going to write someone's set up a voice. You sit down, you play a beat, and then they follow. Kind of like that. No, it's more likely Matt will play an organ piece and then I'd jump in and build, you know what I mean? And then, then we would put it together through edits, you know, I mean, there's a session, you know. And what it was, it was a way that I didn't have to care about music production anymore. I didn't have to care about compression and, and any of that shit anymore. And like, I, I just, it could sound crap, but it just didn't fucking matter. But it didn't sound crap, but it sounds good. And that, is that what I'm hearing on the record, mostly for the, on the instrumental, on the non vocal side of it? Is it, is it those sessions then edited pretty much? Yeah. And then a lot of the vocals were actually in the room at the same time. So it was like, you know, it wasn't like, I'd go off and write lyrics on top. It was just, on the later albums, it became a lot more like a band and more organised than everything else, right? Yeah. But anyway, so from, when did you say it was 2015, Anika record, or when, when, when, I make back in the day. I think it's 2011. 2011. I think 2011. So, by the way, this is one reason I like doing the show because Luxury and I have never discussed that album. And yet I'm a big fan of Masters of War. I love Terry. Yeah. You know, this is a great, this is a great album. Yeah, well, that is, what it is is basically. So B-CAD is kind of sound or whatever. And then I thought it would be really good to do just to be like a band for a, for a singer, right? So I phoned my mate up who runs a, a, a gig in Bristol and runs a pop and I said, do you know anyone who can, who's a bit of a singer who like, but can't really sing, do you know what I mean? Like someone who's just doing it. Yeah. It's not like that. I didn't know anything about Nika. I didn't know, I knew about Nika, but I didn't, I wasn't aiming for that. Okay. It was more like, it was more like early on you sound. Yeah. You know, I don't know if you know it. Yeah. Adrian Sherwood, right? It was a massive influence for me. Me too. And the new age, the new age stepper stuff is that what you mean? Yeah. With REO. So, yeah. Adrian Sherwood is basically, I think one of Britain's greatest ever music producers. Hands down. Absolutely. There's really, except from like nerds and dudes, but honestly, his work, his work, you know, there wouldn't be LCD sound system without what it does. Yeah. And obviously, you know, there's all the liquid, liquid stuff that was, you know, like, there is those, all those other things, but he's, yeah, but the whole thing of like reggae industrial, like disco dub, I mean, it's like, yeah, he's done it. So, so I thought, um, so he said, yeah, I know this singer called Annika. She works beyond the bar. She's not really a singer. her, but she kind of does poetry and stuff. So I got her over to the studio and she didn't know who any of us were. She was English German and then we just started doing tunes together and we put out this album eventually. Everybody hated it, like really, like couldn't get it reviewed, couldn't do anything with it at all. Like literally struggled to get anyone to go to the gigs. There were a few heads who dug it, right? And then Chris being one of them and he said, and this is easy, he goes, "Can I license it?" And this was a way after. I went, "Man, you do what you want with it, you know what I mean?" And it's been great because she's really had a career out of it. She's gone on to do lots of really cool stuff, you know? So just instrumentally, it's the same, it's beak with Anika on vocals. Essentially is that sort of what we're hearing? Yeah, the only difference is, I bought a drum machine, I don't know where it is. It's a metal drum machine, it's like a kid's drum machine with four pads on it. And we were playing as a band and it was like, it was missing something. It was missing some glue, right? Like the thing to go, "Okay, this is the Anika sound." So we'd go there and got a mic out of it and stuck it into a twin reverb, put the reverb on, and that was it. That was the sound of the album. It's on every track pretty much, this drum machine and that's it. End of the story really. It's so good. And just one last thing to kind of question since I get to talk to you about this record, that's so wonderful. And hopefully a bunch of people listening to this will discover it and then it's life will continue to discover an item. It does, I can't not hear a little bit of sonic glue with the rest of your catalog going back to dummy and probably whatever you were doing in high school that led to Porta said being formed. When you think about that question, is there or rather that phenomenon? Like what is the, you're called BAS apparently to your, to your mates? Is that what we should be calling you Jeff? No, I don't know why that's just really old. It comes as bad. When he asked me my name on stuff, I just put BAS sometimes. Is there a Jeff Barrow? Is there kind of like, for me, I'll just answer and let's see if you have a version of this. For me, hearing Georgie O'Marotor as a kid with 16th notes. That's like my whole life is looking for whatever that feeling was. I'm sort of chasing that. Is there anything from your earliest musical experiences that you're like, that was a sound, a record, a label, whatever that just did me in and I am part of, I'm not, okay, this goes back to our other conversation. It's not that you're chasing it or trying to deconstruct it to recreate it, but is there something that did your head in similarly at an early age? Yeah, so basically the record that absolutely changed my life is, is Robert Outer Paul's Public Enemy. It's just, it's, it's, I used to go to an under, under age nightclub. It was four people under 18, so I would have been 15, 14 a while back and I used to get the bus from Paul's head to the center of Bristol and it was like a big kind of, it was a big nightclub. It was kind of like where guys used to turn up, wearing shirts, you know, and, and the weekend and like, you know, it was like, it would have been big, you know, a big nightclub in the disco years and then would be kind of turned around and kind of that stuff, you know, and then it, and it hadn't gone into kind of house music really. It hadn't discovered club culture and such. It was still really just like where you go to pick up girls and drink and fight. Not, I mean, I know. Yeah, well, yeah, and but they used to do an under age ones who weren't allowed to drink alcohol because it's 18 here. So basically, but it was a guy called Tristian Bee. He was a local DJ, radio DJ, like really important guy in the Southwest of England. And he was on Radio Bristol and he said, he was a DJ that night and he was on stage with his decks. And then I could remember basically kind of being, I used to go there, I was in bands, I was into hip hop and everything else and it was this thing of like, I was wearing stupid clothes because I thought that, you know, I would get me a girlfriend and so on, you know, like, it was around that time. And I was stood upstairs and I saw this guy run across the dance floor and then hand him a record, like in a bag. And he literally pulled it open. I got the record, stopped the record that was playing. And he just said, you got to hear this and played it. And it was rolled out of pause. It was like a white label or whatever. And they had a massive sound system there. I mean, it was like a big like really expensive sound system. So hearing something like that on a massive system is some, and it just broke me. I was like, right, I have no interest in clothes or girls at the moment. I just want to do music for the rest of the day. I'm done. I'm done. I'm fucking done. The sound of public enemy at that age through that sound system just changed the trajectory of your life. It sounds like massively. Yeah. It was just that it was, honestly, I just, my head exploded basically. Yeah. No, it's just funny because Blake knows this. The first, you know, I loved the British stuff growing up. I was a weirdo black kid at an old black school, but I loved all the like British, I called it British R&B, but really it's like new wave and British pop. The thing that made hip hop my favorite music form was the first time a buddy of mine popped in the CD for fear of a black planet. Yeah. Contract with a world love jam came on. And about the time brothers want to work it out started. I was like, Oh, hip hop is my absolute favorite genre of all time. And it was for many, many years. And now it's like electronic and a bunch of other stuff. But I bring all that up just to say that I find it so interesting that we spent a lot of time today talking about hip hop. And you discovered new music by going to the club. I got it from a friend. And I have to ask you because I wanted to ask you for quite some time in this conversation. My beef with the music nowadays is not with the music itself is the way we get music. It seems really hard to discover new music. Like there was a time when I used to stream BBC Radio One and artists like Jal's Peterson and Ben G. B over there because I felt like they were playing new music as really into. I have to ask of somebody who came at a brand new genre to a certain extent through hip hop. Where do you get your new music from now? You still get from radio? Do you get it from friends? Unfortunately, I don't. Yeah. I really, really don't. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it is. I don't know whether that's my age and whether I just kind of, I've just, you know, I don't, I just don't. I was talking to a friend about this the other day. I don't know how so many people that are into into a new film and new books and new art and new music have nowhere to go to really trust people just to kind of just as a, I mean, a million podcasts, right? About how to fix your toilet, right? And fucking whatever it is, but ultimately I doesn't seem to be one that resonates with people that actually just want to hear. I'm not talking about radio. I'm just like, just people going, yeah, this is great. Check this out. You know, I don't find one. It's mental. I just think that we used to go into record stores and people in the record store would be like, hey, you should check out that album over there. There's so many places radio record stores where we don't go anymore for, so literally the algorithms are feeding us. I don't want my recommendation from robots. I think that we have to restore the human touch to the song recommendation. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you've got like a weekly podcast and you've got someone like, I don't know, like Mike D or you've got someone like, you know what I mean? You got somebody just, you just go, okay, yeah, he's been there and done it and like, or someone who's just like, you know, it's cool or not cool, you know what I mean by cool, you know, like, just like not up themselves and whatever. And they just go, yeah, these are the records that are out. It's just like, you know, this isn't being paid by some massive corporation and it's like with bots kind of, you know, and I mean, we know that there's going to be a new guerrillas record out, right? I mean, you know, we know that. Yeah. So just maybe some other records. You know, I mean, it's just like, you know, I mean, not to pat ourselves on the back, but hopefully the reason why I joined KCRW is some crazy faith, which is like, maybe delusional that because that is what Chris and I do on air with our fellow case, our WDJs, is try to be what you're saying. I don't know if we succeed, but we are trying to be. No, I think. Yeah, I think that what you're doing is right, but I do wonder whether it's that thing of just like, if you've got a listenership which you guys have, it's just like do, you know, do a half an hour side joke or the review, and just like tell us what. I mean, from this podcast, we have a thing called One More Song, which is supposed to be me and Luxury saying, "Hey, here's a song that I like that you as a listener of one song I'd also like." Yeah, it hasn't got to be new, it's just like, it's just whatever, but I just think that there's a lot of that, you know, with films as well, I mean, I just put out my own film, and God, that's hard, you know what I mean? It's just trying to get into cinemas, you're like, going up against. Going up against like James Bond, you know? I mean, the Marvel one. You know, man, it's just like, you've got one guy going, "Yeah, I really like the film, I'll give you Tuesday at midnight." You bring it up, you bring it up, so let's bring it up now, we were going to bring this up to the very end, but your first feature film, called Game, has this US release early next year via oscilloscope. Anything you want to tell us about it? Yeah. What do you want us to see it, you know, with no expectation? No, no, absolutely. I mean, basically, it's basically 1993. It's about a dude, he's two-old rave, he goes to a rave outside of Bristol, he finds a guy that's kind of passed out, and then steals his drugs and money, gets back in his car, but on the way back from the rave, he's been drinking, he turns his car upside down, and then he flips it into into the woods, and then he's stuck, he's just, and so it's about a survival film, about a guy in 1993 with no phone being upside down in a car. Something happens, and then he meets someone else, but it's not the person that he wants it to be, and I can't wait to see it. And ultimately, but what's really interesting, that other person, I don't know if you know a bank or a sleeper mod, it's all, yeah, so Jason from sleeper mods is the other person in it, so it's his first full role. Oh, you can't reveal that, I feel like you might be a bad guy. Yeah, yeah, yes. But it was amazing, like I said, we made it for 150 grand, it was all the money that invader records had in our bank account, and my business partner kind of agreed for me to do it, and now he regrets it, I'm sure. No, no, no, we're going to come out and mass to see it, my friend. Yeah, congratulations on that. Thank you. I'm going to come to LA for the screening when it comes out anyway. Well, let's hang out. That's awesome. Yeah, listen, as we wrap up, I don't know if we, if there's enough blood was said today, I think maybe any listeners who are excited by the initial setup, maybe disappointed that we're all just kind of talking like friendly people. I think it's disappointing for people wanting blood, you know, I mean, but just like return to the original question, just to summarize, would you, does breaking down music, ruin music? Did we change your mind as a moment of time? It might, the moment it does, because unless, unless you're kind of like, the trouble is that you like musicians are kind of like, I kind of told they need to see and break down these things more than actually just play the music themselves. It's kind of like, you know, this is, this is going to make you famous. If you break, if you break this stuff down, it's like hip-hop guys, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, it's, it's, it's weird. I think it's the whole thing. It's just weird. And, and I don't blame you for it, really. I just saw it and just went, what, like, more of this stuff, and I shouldn't have, you know, no, no, no, no, no, please, I'm not, I apologize for it. Well, I think we should agree to disagree, and so far as I think it's, I think it's a matter of degree personally. I hear everything you're saying, but I also think you kind of bring to a breakdown, you bring to any education, you bring to any book, anything that's explaining something else, you're going to bring to it a little bit your own experience, and you're going to take away from it, either something useful or not, and then at the end of the day, you're either going to make something good or bad, and those are not all controllable, but none of them are the faults of the breakdown itself. It would be my, it would be my case. I don't believe that. He is so blunt. I think, I think you should, obviously, you're going to continue to do it, but it should come with a warning. Okay. I don't know you'll come up with that. I think the warning you want is us to say, hey, we're going to show you how Dilla did it, but even if you won't do it like Dilla, you ain't going to be Dilla. Exactly. That's exactly it. And sometimes, stop looking at the production, and like how many milliseconds of the snare drum is, you'll put your headphones on and find it for yourself. We, we can only agree on that 100%. And to, just to put, you know, I don't, I don't expect that you've listened to all 138 hours of our podcasts with our 38. But frequently, we frequently pause at some point during the breakdown to say, listen, we just want to reiterate that just because you have the ingredients and the recipe in front of you, your cake is not going to taste the same as this. I'm not barking at you. I'm like, honestly, it's just, it was that one-off random thing. I think it was just like, I was like, oh, man. I think you have fun today. And I think that proves our point that talking about music sometimes is a lot of fun. Yeah. I mean, I suppose I've not talked about the Anika record in a very long time. You know, so, um, and, and Luxury and I have never talked about it. So I think we're going to have a lot of fun, you know, this conversation leads to a lot more fun conversations. I think we're out of time, Jeff, but we want to thank you for coming on the show. It means so much to us. And thank you for giving us your time. No, thanks for having me on. It's really glad to meet you guys, you know, I mean, and, um, and I'll let you know when I'm over for the film and we can get a beer somewhere. That would be amazing. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for your time. No, it's the same to you. Have a great weekend. Hey, one song, Nation. We've been away for a little bit, you know, replaying a few of our classic episodes, but we're excited to announce that a whole spate of new episodes of one song is coming to you starting October 15th. That's right. October 15th market calendar. That's right. Y'all. And we're also excited to announce that we've got a new partner for the upcoming season. That's right. We are now part of the campsite media family. Kip site. Woohoo. Kip site. I don't know if I should probably shouldn't come up with hand signs for our new partner. Now with a C at least. Dude, we've got some great episodes hitting your feet soon, breaking down everything from the reminisce over you by Pete rock and see all smooth, closer by nine inch nails and the queen of the mall sharday smooth operator and many, many more. There's so much good stuff coming and remember you can always join our patreon at patreon.com one song to get early access to episodes ad free and uncut. Plus bonus episodes on new music and interviews with some of our favorite artists. So get ready for the new season of one song starting October 15th. We'll see you soon. Be there.