TN:100 FINNEAS

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Hello and welcome to Tapet Notes, the podcast that looks behind the scenes at the magic of recording and producing music. Every episode will be re-uniting an artist and producer and talking through some of the highlights from their collaboration in the studio. So join us as we lift the lid on the creative process and the inner workings of music production to see what lies beneath. Hello, I'm John Kennedy and joining me for this milestone 100th episode of Tapet Notes is Phineas to talk about how he wrote, recorded and produced the album, Optimist and his new single, Mona Lisa Mona Lisa. Phineas O'Connell is an American singer-songwriter, producer and actor, best known for his creative partnership with his sister, Billy Eilish. Raised in Los Angeles with both parents' actors, Phineas grew up in a highly creative household. Often surrounded by discussion of music, especially songwriting, he began making tracks of his own at the age of 12. While taking various acting jobs, Phineas started writing a performing with his own band The Slightly's. When his younger sister, Billy, aged 14 at the time, was asked by her dance teacher to write a song for a performance, Phineas gave her ocean eyes, originally written for the band, as he thought it suited her voice. Posting the song on SoundCloud, it gained an unexpected amount of praise and attention, inspiring multiple remixes and leading Phineas to collaborate further with Billy. A debut EP, Don't Smile For Me, followed in 2017 on Interscope Records, starting a snowball of success for the duo. At the same time, Phineas also released a series of solo singles, culminating the Blood Harmony EP in 2018. Released on his label, O-Y-O-Y, it highlighted his modern approach to production, and reached number 14 on the US Heat Seekers' Chart, with three tracks certifying gold, and the single, Let's Fall in Love for the Night, going platinum. The release of Billy's debut album, When We All Fall asleep, Where Do We Go, came in 2019. Produced and co-written entirely from Phineas' bedroom studio, the album became a global mega hit. As well as topping charts across the globe, it won six Grammy Awards, including The Big Four, Best New Artist, Record, Song and Album of the Year, with Phineas singled out as producer of the year. Not long after, they picked up another Grammy, and an Oscar for their James Bond theme song, No Time to Die. Whilst Phineas also shared his talents on records from artists including Selena Gomez, Camilla Cabello, and Justin Bieber, among others. In July 2021, three months after delivering Billy's second chart-topping album, Happier than Ever, and still a crucial part of her live band, Phineas also released his much-enticipated debut album, Optimist. The record once again demonstrates his command of timeless songwriting with a perceptive viewpoint and sharp production edge, all traits apparent in his brand new single Mona Lisa Mona Lisa. Today, I'm at Lightship 95 Studio, a float in Trinity Boy War Feast London, and I'm joined by Phineas between a string of performances at the O2 Arena, and what better way to start our conversation than by hearing something from the record? This is The 90s. But you could sign me up for a world without the internet. Hey, how easy they can find me. Just by looking up my mom's address, I think about the 90s. When I was not a problem yet, all the time I should have been so happy I was here, wasting it on where we end, just made it disappear. Now my head feels so heavy, I'm left-holding up the levee. It is The 90s by Phineas from the album Optimist, and I'm very pleased to say that I am sat with Phineas here at Lightship 95 Studios. Hello Phineas. Hey, thanks so much for having me, I appreciate it. Really exciting and a real pleasure. So we've come to Lightship 95, which is on Trinity Boy War, by the River Thames, and just opposite is the O2. Is it by the River Thames or is it in the River Thames? I think it's possibly by his The War of Sightly. I'm not sure. We're in the war if we can check. Maybe we'll get a definition on that before we start. I don't really know my oceanography. No, fair enough. But you have just played at the O2 last night. We did, yeah. And you're kind of going to residency. How many nights in a row? Yeah, Billy, well, we were playing six in totality, three in a row, and then I think some other wonderful artist moves in. And then we go back on the 16th and play a fourth. And then presumably other wonderful artists move in. And then we go back on the 25th and 6th and play five and six. Right. Over the course of a month, we're playing six shows, which is ridiculous. So yeah, but you have a little break in between. Or do you run off and do something? We run off, yeah. We go off to play Glasgow and Birmingham. Right. Yeah, it'd be really fun. But for the moment, you're based in this area. So this is your neighborhood. That's right. Yeah, my zip code. Excellent. So it's so good to have you here. Thanks for having me. The idea was that we're going to dig into optimist the album, the much anticipated debut album by Efinius. And how did you feel about that? I mean, having had so much success with Billy, with your sister, how did that weigh on you in terms of your own material? Because you started first. That's funny. That's funny. Yeah, I mean, I think that there was, I think about music in terms of sort of appetite for an audience. It's kind of always how I've looked at it. Like when Billy and I first started, you know, we were lucky that there were some people listening to her music at first. But it really in the grand scheme of things wasn't a huge amount of people. So we put out a single or two. And then when we deemed it appropriate, we put out an EP that was a little bit long by EP standards. Six songs or seven songs. And then a year and a half later, we put out her debut album. And I think we thought of that as sort of like, okay, well, the EP brought in a larger audience and a larger audience once a longer body of work. And so I thought of my solo music the same way. I made the decision in the beginning of 2000. And I guess the beginning of 2018, I just said, okay, well, I'm going to put out a song every six weeks all year. And I was independent at the time. I used the distribution platform A Wall, which was through the publishing company I was signed to. But it's not a wall stands for artists without a label. Just a distribution platform. They were wonderful people there. And I put out a song every six weeks all year. And it was just about sort of building appetite, you know, giving people something to keep coming back to, but not overwhelming them. I don't know about you, but I feel like in today's sort of rapid climate, an artist that I really like will put out an album suddenly without warning. And I think like, oh, I got to factor this into my schedule somehow. You know what I mean? Because it's a commitment. I want to really listen to it. But one of the reasons I like touring is I have a flight to really listen to a full album, you know, 45 minutes to devote to something. So as an artist, it was like, I'll just, you know, three minutes every six weeks is pretty easy to ask of people. And then a year later, it was like, well, let me put out an EP and I can ask 20 minutes of people. And then a year and a half after that, I thought, all right, let's put out an album and we can ask, we can ask that if people. So, you know, that's kind of always how I thought about it. And I think I was just mainly excited that people seemed to want a full length album. That was really exciting. Yeah, yeah, totally. Well, as somebody who is so key to the success of Billie Eilish, you know, people would be interested in what you're going to do as well. Yes. And how did that affect you creatively? No, did you feel you needed to do something completely different? Or turn it upside down or just actually do what you wanted to do? Well, I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I appreciate you saying that, but I did feel that that in order for it to be authentic would need to be different. You know, I'm not Billie in terms of, you know, she has an incredible vision and executes it to an incredibly high level, in my opinion. And, you know, she just has a different vision that I love. But I thought the worst thing I could do was make the same thing as a solo artist. And probably that would be the most kind of inauthentic really. Just because, you know, we're just different people. And so I feel like that was very important to me to be sort of planning a different flag. I loved the idea that sure, if you were a huge Billie fan, you might hear my music and like it. And I loved the idea that maybe you wouldn't. Maybe you'd be a huge Billie fan and hear my thing and think like, this isn't really for me. And then somebody who maybe, you know, the music I make with Billie isn't for them would hear my thing and think, oh no, I like this more. You know, I liked that idea of the differentiation. Yeah. Somebody would react and say, what? What? What? What? He's Billie Eilish's brother. What? No way. Yeah, so I mean it's an eclectic record. No, in terms of styles. Yeah, so you go from No, a concert six months from now where you're an acoustic troubadour to something like the 90s where you know I guess that nods a little bit to certain sounds that we might have heard with your production work with other people Yeah, but the songs we're gonna look at today are different again Yeah, and the first one we're going to look at is how it ends which closes the album. Yes, so we're kind of beginning at the end Kind of yeah, but you know what's funny. I initially thought this was gonna start the album so it kind of all makes sense Yes, we always talk right. Yeah, that's good. So maybe we should hear a little bit of the last of the master version and get what you're saying all right So I'll play some of this What was the point All of those migrates If life's so short Don't spend in my way Try to avoid Pointless time If you want to see the world Don't take the highway If you want to dance again you come dance again use a lifeline I don't want to find it'll take some time it'll make you glad So that is how it ends by finneus from optimist and in some ways finneus that seems to me Yeah, it is the optimistic track. Yeah, there's a kind of great optimism to that song. Yeah, there is I mean, I was I was writing that song in the sort of Peak or the valley whichever you want to call it of the lockdown So that you know on a kind of a literal front there's that whole like if you want to dance again you can dance again You know, I was just sort of thinking about the fact that it felt like it was a long time and it was but that it wasn't gonna be forever And you know, it's been really satisfying like you know, we played the O2 last night It's full of kids jumping up and down and hugging each other and it's very heartwarming because obviously there were I Think we all think everything kind of is forever. So when COVID was happening there was this sort of like nothing's ever gonna be good again It's really exciting, you know, yeah people are enjoying themselves again. Yeah, totally so your positivity No, it has seen some fruition. Yeah, it's supposed to have an end. Yeah, and how do you go about creating your songs? No, yeah, it's all you know different every time I started making music as a 12 year old You know, I didn't know how to produce or anything so I would I knew a little bit of piano. I was sort of a remedial pianist remedial guitar So I would play the two three chords I knew and you know make up words and melodies over that and that was really how I wrote everything for the first five or six years like that was the only way and then I Started you know bands with my friends in high school and then it was a fun, you know I'd have a great drummer and he'd play a beat and that would maybe inspire like slightly more rhythmic lyrics and melody and that was exciting and then as I got a little bit older throughout high school I was like trying to figure out how to produce and so that was the other thing was making little instrumental loops with MIDI tracks and writing over those because they do inspire different things I think it would be hard to write an incredible rap over you know something with no rhythm at all to sort of play off of and it can be done and great rappers do it But you know, it's more typical to write you know more rhythmic lyrics over rhythm. Yeah, yeah I read that you went on a production course with your mum Was this an afternoon or a week long? Experience so my mom does write songs. She never you know made a living out of it really at all But wrote songs is kind of a hobby and When we expressed a little bit of interest when we were young she sort of was like well, you know There's no wrong way to write a song, but let's talk about song structure. You know, let's talk about what a bridge is and What a rhyme scheme is and you know once you're able to identify those things You're able to identify a lot of commonality in music and then you can break all those rules But it's cool to know them and understand them but there was never any production But you know in terms of songwriting was really fun It was you know she'd sort of be like because I think sometimes as a songwriter you feel a lot of pressure to like express your inner most We really bear your soul and she really instilled in us a kind of a like yes But also you could just write a song that's made up that's about something else and I remember one time she was sort of suggested that we write a song about like a plot of a TV show You know you put yourself in the shoes of some character on TV It's very liberating and I think about the sort of Scope of our career now and I think like oh that's one of the reasons like doing something like the James Bond song Felt so natural to us was because we'd sort of had this like childhood of An awareness of writing about somebody other than yourself, you know And it takes the pressure off sometimes so as you're not going through a heartbreak And it's like writing a song about heartbreak would be inauthentic if you were like I have to feel it, you know Yeah, yeah totally, but it sounds like you know that whole part of growing up you were surrounded by a Million of of creativity but also discussion of music discussion of songs what they're all about both with us within your family Also with your friends and you were clearly somebody who was who was gripped by it? I was obsessed with music. Yeah from the time I was about 10-11 I mean I listened to music growing up constantly, but then Yeah, I remember having this little stupid MP3 player like when iPod was getting big I couldn't afford an iPod so I had like whatever the thing that you'd and then I'd like load lime wire songs onto it Which isn't stealing so I'm saying it on this show is file sharing it's different thing But I had some stupid little MP3 player with it had no screen so you just kind of like be like blind shifting through songs So I was really obsessed with that as a kid, you know under 10 and then when I was like 11-12 I just got so obsessed with sort of like a deeper understanding of it and listening to songs and understanding What about it was you know sounding cool to me and why it made me feel a certain emotion? You know it's always been like so exciting to me. Yeah, yeah, so when we get to something like how it ends Where did this start? So let's break it down. I had a synth recommended to me by a friend of mine and Yes, let's see. So we have this drum loop. I Think that's on a synth called It's either an M audio venom or it's a prophet X and I'm leaning toward it being an M audio venom But anyway, I have a couple of synths in my studio now that are I'm a big sort of advocate for not You know not buying a bunch of expensive gear. You can make stuff with great stock plugins from logic, or Ableton But I do find that it is Inspiring once you've made hundreds of songs with those things to get something that you don't fully understand and it's brand new So the M audio venom is it basically like a discontinued like toy synth that I got on eBay for some nominal amount of money And it had this felt very kind of like disco-y to me And over top of that I layered a thing that I am fairly certain is a Prophet X patch which was this kind of That sounded like it's a synth patch, but it sounded almost like sort of like Seagulls or something And it conjures a completely different world to the one that you end up with yeah But it but it really is under the whole song that really was the foundation of everything and Over top of that I played sort of an organ patch Which has no rhythm It's very soft, but it's cordal and so it's the thing that has kind of a Tonal cordal based happening And so those chords alone probably were the baseline for writing lyrics which is kind of off in the case for me was the point All of those my great you can hear a little bit of the bleed of the drums in the headphones Don't spend it my way I think there's also a track which is a Farfiza plugin which is very distorted This is buried really far down But that's what it sounds like when it's loud That's sitting below everything else but altogether that makes up this And when you do that vocal is that to finish vocal or is that a do you just Improvise words or do you write them out first or an hour? Question on this song the first thing I did which Got thrown away. I don't think I could pull it up unfortunately But I did one scratch take of a vocal while I was writing it. I think I could be totally wrong. I want to say it was like into a vocoder mic Which is like a little crappy mic attached to a synthesizer called ultranova by novation and Yeah, I mean you know something to get the sort of you know the melody lyric across without being pressed. about takes, if I pull up like the take list. Yeah, there's about like 16 takes of that verse that I then comp together and process and do a little tuning. I've sort of never, I've never really tuned Billy's vocals 'cause she's such a good singer but I have to tune mine all the time. I'm not as good. I think there's some harm. Do you think that is self-awareness or is that necessary? If you were working with another producer who was producing you rather than you producing you, do you think they'd be saying, "Latin, Finneas, actually, you're doing yourself." Is this why they hit? By tuning. Yes. Maybe. It's also probably impatience. Billy, you know, does, we're working on a song right now. She just, you know, 80 takes. I do about 12. Sometimes I do like six. I'm pretty impatient about vocal recording and I usually make somebody else comp them too. I have a couple of vocal editors and then I know that I did for this song too. I had a Justin Gamala do the vocal comp for me because I find it harder to have perspective on something that I'm singing and writing and then also editing. Yeah. Easier for me to comp something that someone else sung. Yeah. So I had him do it. Over top of that, I layered some harmonies as the verse moved into the second half. ♪ Try to avoid a pointless time chain ♪ Just a little octave up. I kept it really quiet. ♪ A pointless time chain ♪ And how do you process your vocals then? I do very little processing on the harmonies. There's nothing that would completely dry. Yeah. There's nothing on the harmonies. They're running in my studio through a CL1B that sort of classic blue compressor unit that's probably somewhere in this room. Yeah. The sort of like the most standard compressor. But that's a new thing for me. Also, I used to use just the logic compressor plugin. But I've started running it through that. Yeah. And do you have a favorite Michael? Or do you always use the same microphone? I use it a lot. Yeah. I spent many years using a TLM 103 Neumann microphone, which is still what I have on the road. So I still do a lot of recording on it. I think that makes awesome. At home, I use a Chandler Red on my own voice and on a lot of other people. And then Billy sings into a telephone in 251 at home, which I think sounds awesome on her. Before we started making her second album and then my first album after that, we had some downtime and did like real shootouts, microphone shootouts, which we'd never done in our lives. We had the time and it was fun. And that was the one that she thought sounded the most exciting on her voice. And I liked the Chandler Red too. So that was what we landed on. Yeah. And great idea. And great that you had the time to do that. Because it ends up saving time in order to live the long run. Well, and I also sort of, again, like maybe by accident, and I've always been kind of a stickler for sort of not. Like, it's hard for me to believe the hype about things. If somebody goes, oh my god, you got to use this. It's the best. I'm like, well, is it, am I going to notice? Because I've been doing, like the first mic we ever used was called an AT2020, which is what we did. Oceanize and a couple of other songs on it. It's like $80. And, you know, I always had a feeling like, "My mic sounds fine." And it was like a little noisier than I like. I don't like a high noise floor. I can't really stand the sure SM7. SM7 microphone because even with a cloud lifter, it's too much, like it just sounds like that. And I like real silence in between words. So I used this AT2020 for a long time. And then I graduated to this Noim and microphone, which I probably literally picked out of like the best seller list on Sweetwater or something. And used that all through her first album. And then, you know, again, it was always about like, if I'm convinced, then I'll change, you know. So if we do this shootout, and we're really like, "Okay, we can hear a difference," you know. But I feel like it's like being a connoisseur of anything. It's like people swear they can hear the difference between a, you know, wave and an FLA C. I can't. I wish I could, but I can. Yeah, very interesting. And so going back to how it ends, I mean, you're making it seem really simple and straightforward the way that you're running through these different elements of the song. Maybe it was. Yeah, I mean, it was for lack of a better word. It was pretty straightforward. And that's kind of why I wanted to talk about this song was, oftentimes I sit and I write a song at piano, and then I have to throw it into this world of production and figure out if it's going to have rhythm, if it's going to have drums, what they're going to sound like. And this song I was writing over top all these elements. So the elements were kind of predetermined, which is, you know, kind of a time saver, to be honest, because you're, it's twofold. It's a little dangerous, and it's also a time saver. The dangerous part is, I probably spent hours getting that cake snare and synth sound to where I wanted it to be. And I had no song. And then I had to write a song over it. And there's always a potential that you're going to write a really terrible bogus song that you devoted hours to drums on already. And so in some ways, it's not super advisable because at least if you've written a song and you think it's incredible, and then you work on the production, any time spent figuring out the perfect snare sound and the perfect guitar sound, you know that your foundation is a song you really like that you really want to put out. So there is kind of a questionable quality to working this way where you're writing a song thinking like, oh my god, I hope I write something good over this because I've spent too long on this kick drum to write a mediocre song that I then will, you know, when you listen to something back in its final form, you'll know if it's a crappy song and you'll think, oh my god, I'm not going to put this out. And that's, that's happened before, where you, I've spent hours and hours working on an instrumental and then written a mediocre song and then thought like, well, I guess I should try to write another song because this instrumental is outshining this crappy song. Yeah, but hopefully you learn something along the course. Oh yeah, every failure in music, just like most failures and everything you learn to turn from, it's very true. Yeah, and when you're recording your vocals, do you just sit down in front of the equipment that you're using and just sit there casually or do you prefer to be in a particular place or zone or something? Yeah, I've turned into, you know, I've never really had an assistant engineer or anything up until very recently. I've started to use somebody because I've had to. I haven't really had the time otherwise. But so I have to be pressing record and pressing pause and moving the playhead at the same time. So I do, I sit right in front of my keyboard and look across the room at the TV monitor, which is where my computer screen is. And yeah, I have to be doing both at the same time. It's not dissimilar to this setup right here where I have my keyboard right here and I have a mic in front of me and I'm seeing the track. It's just sort of right there. And I do sit for everything. I sit with pretty good posture to have my diaphragm open. But I straight back. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I have good posture when I sing, but that's about it. I don't stand or anything. Yeah, because some people would say, oh no, you can't possibly sing. I know you're sitting down. And you know what? Sometimes just sort of to really lean into something I might stand. And especially if we're really rocking out, I might stand so I can move my body a little more freely. But yeah, in general, you know, if you're sitting with good posture and you're taking deep breaths, I feel like I don't notice a difference. Yeah, it's the good posture in eight. Is this a family trait? Or did you have to learn that? Yeah, I sang Billy did to me, sang in a very serious children's choir from the time we were, probably it was time she was about eight. Time I was like 12 until I was 17 and it was, you know, they were very strict and very serious. It was very classical. You know, I think we sang a couple, you know, new pieces, but they were written by very traditional composers, so to speak. You know, we were not singing a kid's bop, you know, we were singing hymns. It was great. It was a secular organization. We did rehearse and acquire, but it was, you know, we did music from all faiths. It was cool, but yes, they were very particular about our posture. Yeah. So we learned a lot. Yeah, that sounds great. I mean, because that kind of education, when you're not even realizing you're getting an education becomes a part of who you are, it's just fascinating. So going back to how it ends, are there any other elements that we should be listening to? Yeah, let's see what's interesting. There was a time where I thought this was maybe going to start the album, and then I thought that a concert six months from now was going to make a better start to the album. So I thought this would make a good ending. Yeah, let's move to the chorus. If you want to dance again, you can dance again. Use a lifeline, hug the phone, a friend. I like the idea of having melodies playing over top the vocal melody on this part of the song. So that was a fun way to sort of articulate it. So that was fun just to sort of add into it. I think there's also a little bit of what is this track right here. Yeah, just some really noise gated claps. ♪ Honey, phone, I'm fine, it'll take some time, make you glad ♪ And then the bass comes in here too, which I thought was important. This is just the Trillion plugin. I'm an impatient person, so I sometimes will record live bass. But oftentimes the time between plugging the actual bass in and tuning it up and finding the right patch is longer than I'm interested in waiting. So I'll just use the Trillion plugin because it's almost instantaneous, which is exciting. ♪ Who's a lifeline ♪ Oh yeah, and there's this one other drum. This was on the profit, I believe. which I thought added some neck to the song. And then in the chorus, big vocal stack. ♪ And ♪ ♪ Put down our band ♪ Super noise gated, which I like the sound of. I like when words punch out in backing vocals and they don't have all of the consonants and loose S's or anything. I think that's exciting. This also has a decapitated plugin on it. It's a little bit distorted, a little bit crushed, and it has a little bit of reverb. So in that case, it's much more processed than the lead vocal. Lead vocal has compression, and then it also has a little bit of slapback delay. ♪ This isn't where we put down ♪ Oh, it got really into slapback on this album for some reason. And then there's some fun synths on this chorus too. That's really nice. I think that's a profit as well, profit X. ♪ And then ♪ ♪ And then ♪ That's an ominous fear patch that I thought was cool. This is a massive patch, massive the native instruments plugin. ♪ And then ♪ A little more farfisa too. ♪ And then ♪ There's some other leads over top of that. So are these presets for you creating these sounds? They're very often presets. I like to scroll through a plugin bank or a synth bank and find a preset I like. And then maybe I'll tweak it if it's got, it's a little brighter than I want it to be. I'll adjust the envelope, or maybe I'll change the delay parameter, but I'm a preset guy. Yeah. Speed seems to be of the essence. While you're thinking about something moving on, capturing that sort. Yeah, combining it with something else. I would say that sort of, so we have the verse built in the song and then we're moving into the chorus. And I kind of know what I want to accomplish with the chorus. I want to make it sort of open up and get wide. And I want to be more exciting than where the verse is unless restrained. And I want to just sort of allow it to have this kind of depth to it that the verses don't. And so I'm looking for things that are going to help me achieve that goal. I think that's part of the speed thing. It's like, all right, I have this objective in mind. Let me scroll through patches and play. So, okay, I like that patch. Let me see what I should play with that patch. So on the first chorus, it was all those synth layers. And then moving on, there's this little moment at the end of the second pre-chorus. ♪ You come dance again ♪ ♪ Use a lifeline ♪ ♪ Turn your phone in front ♪ ♪ It'll make you cry ♪ - There's a little, little and sort of one and two and three and four. Over top of that. And then the other thing that I thought was cool in the second verse. And this was how the whole vocal sounded initially. This was this, the first time I sang the vocal in this song, I think I was probably holding a handheld mic, like a Sure 57. And I was probably just playing it in the room. And I was running it through like really aggressive auto tune. ♪ Who wants a million there ♪ ♪ Well, you can never find ♪ - That's auto tune. It's also a plugin called Little Alter Boy that I think had like the octave shifted on it. So it's super processed. But I thought that specific line was really cool. So I left all the new vocal in up to that. And then I threw that line in. ♪ It'll make you cry ♪ ♪ When you make amnes ♪ ♪ Who wants a million there ♪ ♪ When you can never find when it ends ♪ - And then there's some really mediocre guitar playing on the second. I'm a really crappy guitarist, but I do play a bunch of guitar. Yeah, so terrible. But to me, it's like, you know, again, it's like, it's all accomplishing a goal. Like, you know, it's so far down in the mix anyway that it's like it would be a waste of time of calling one of the great guitarists I know and being like, hey, come play this dumb part that nobody's gonna hear. - Yeah, and you know, it's in there. And it does add an element that, - Yeah. - No, it would be missing if you could play it. - I understand why they don't, but I wish that every great artist would make their stems, their files accessible to everybody because you would hear the like true mediocrity of the, you know, parts as individual elements. It's the sum of the parts that sounds great. When I listen to songs, I've been lucky enough to have access to some stems of some of my favorite songs. And they're pretty bad. Like, they're loose. They're not played super well. The piano is a little out of tune. There's a high-noise foot, but it's the glue. It's the combination of everything that sounds so beautiful. So, it's cool. - Yeah, and we, I think we've definitely heard that with Howard Enns, because one of the great things I like about doing techno is that when you get to hear the individual components, and to me, in my mind, they could head off in so many different directions, but the artist chooses to combine them with these other elements and suddenly you've got Howard Enns, because there's all those different elements you could have gone into a real dance zone or, you know, go quite gothic in, in a way. But then you have all these other shades that lighten it and help create that optimistic feel. And that positivity. - It's true. - Excellent. Well, let's have a recap of the Blaster Master, Round off Howard Enns, and then we'll move on to another song. (upbeat music) ♪ I'm glad we got to hear some of that guitar ♪ I'm glad we got to hear some of that guitar ♪ - Hi Tony, thanks for speaking with us. Can you explain how right produced release shapes the experience of the course? - Hi John, thanks for having me. So right produced release is really at the heart of the MA in songwriting at Trinity Larbon. The idea is simple. Students don't just study songwriting in theory, they actually do it from start to finish. They write original material developing skills in melody, harmonies, and lyrics. Then we move to production, building confidence, we've used in DAWs and shaping their tracks into something more polished and professional. And finally, they release music, exploring identity and technology while also learning a practical site, such as the IP, building a brand, mapping a five year career plan, all of that kind of stuff. So by the time they graduate, they not just leave them with ideas, they leave with a finished portfolio and a confidence to stand behind that sound. - And it's very flexible. This isn't a traditional full time in one room, Masters, is it? - No, so it's the one thing we're really excited about is that the course is designed as an online first, which makes it ideal for working musicians and global students who can't relocate. And then in a summer, everyone comes together in London when intensive writing can be modeling on the professional industry writing sessions. - Amazing. Who do you think the Masters is designed for? - Well, the good thing is that it's really for anybody who's serious about songwriting and want to build a sustainable career. We see emerging artists who want to build a credible portfolio. We also welcome working musicians who want to sharpen their production skills or better understand the business side, which is really, really important these days. So if you're driven, curious and ready to release music is a great fit. - Thanks, Tony. It sounds fantastic. So if you're ready to deepen your craft, define your voice and actually release music while you study, the songwriting masters at Trinity Lavin might be your next step. To find out more, head to trinitylavin.ac.uk. That's trinitylavin.ac.uk and search for the MA in songwriting. - So the next song we're going to look at by Phineas is Medieval, but I need to check. So we're sat on lightship 95, which is a studio on a boat or on a ship and it is swaying a little. Are you okay if you've got sea legs? - Yeah, I was just thinking that I'm not really noticing that it's swaying at all. - That's good. I am a bit. - I guess you can see it. I guess you can see it on the water. Like the water is a little bit. - Just tremble on the water in the glues. - A little bit, a little bit of skew, but I'm not trying to play marbles or anything, so I'm not really noticing. - Yeah, so that's okay. Few, I just wanted to check. So let's hear a blast of the Master of Medieval. - You got it. ♪ If it was a little medieval ♪ ♪ If you ask me like I'm watching a sequel ♪ ♪ I've already seen ♪ ♪ I could tell you what happens ♪ ♪ To the new king when he goes out of fashion ♪ I want my money back now I've been in the wrong crowd I'd never say it out loud But I've hated every word that comes out of your mouth What should we fight about this time? What will you write about this time? What does it matter if you're not fine? You should have kept this shit off So that is medieval And how did that start then? The reason I wanted to bring this one up is the exact opposite I sat at a piano and wrote this song in its entirety And knew I liked it and then in translating it to recorded form thought Well, I don't think this is a ballad So it was about building a production around chords and lyric and melody that I liked But it was a very different sort of origin story to a song that ended up in a similar instrumental place A bunch of guitars, drums, keys So I thought it was interesting to bring up the sort of parallel Yeah, definitely So it started with you, sounds like a piano Do you have any illustration of that? I don't know if I have a demo but I have, you know, here's a vocal of it And then let me isolate just the piano Because this would give you an idea of sort of how it sounded But I'd never say it out loud But I've hated every word that comes out of your mouth What should we fight about this time? And did the song come from the chords you were creating on the piano Or did the chords shape from the words that you were thinking of? Because the lyrics are really searching and really interesting Yeah, I do this sort of sitting at a piano or sitting with a guitar It's all kind of happening simultaneously as a sort of an improv I'm playing chords and I'm singing stuff And I'm making it all up at the same time And I'm seeing where it goes but it's very fluid And it's rare that there's one before the other It's just sort of all happening concurrently Yeah And with Medieval and lyrically looking at a subject that you touch on a few times on the record Which is probably a subject that only an artist of your generation Would be able to comment on within any certainty in that you've grown up in this world You know where we're surrounded by this constant coverage That we can share whatever we like to millions of people Whether they want it or not And other people can do the same about us And we're forced to deal with the reaction to that Yeah, I think this song was kind of a layer cake of things for me I think there's the sort of probably most obvious angle of it Which is that it's about you know You know, cancel culture and being eviscerated online But I think the other thing and the thing that really was the impetus for writing the song in general was more to do with The sort of like not cancellation but a kind of a cultural thing That I don't even think is very new Which is a thing becomes popular and it's invoked And there's this kind of mass like all we love this thing And then maybe through overexposure It crosses the bridge from cool and exciting to like overrated and cast out And I think that I was thinking about it You know, myself as a teenager And I won't name names because I don't want to embarrass anybody But you know, an artist or a band I might have thought was so great And then you know, they put out their second or third album And I was like, this is trash And you just like abandoned ship on this artist that meant so much to you And the poster of them on your wall, you know And I just think that like that combined with the cancel culture is just kind of a weird like Old King is dead, long live King thing that we do with media in general Like I love this song, I love this film, I love this book And then a year later it's like fuck that, I don't like that at all You know, it's a weird thing that we all do So that was sort of the thing that I was thinking about and I was writing it Yeah, and you make that comparison between, you know, the humanity of now Who thinks that hey, everything's new, we got these new shiny toys and our culture has evolved And you point out that actually no, this is a human trait that goes back to the primit of time Yeah, for sure, and it's you know, I think that's the other thing It's like when something goes out of fashion And I think at the time when I was writing this song it was probably It was also during the George Floyd Black Lives Matter protests in America And I did not really feel qualified or interested in writing or commercializing any of that I wrote sort of two songs during that period of time I wrote this song and I wrote a song called What They'll Say About Us And what they both, there's undercurrents of it in both those songs, what they'll say about us was about Nick Credero and his wife Amanda Clutz and Nick Credero was dying And it was all happening at the same time, it was like the first time anyone had paid any attention to anything that wasn't COVID Since COVID started because George Floyd had just been murdered and they were protested every day And I was thinking like wow, we're all paying attention to something else, but everybody's still dying of COVID So in that song I was writing about it and then in this song it was like You know, we'd had this very fortunate ascent to sort of whatever you want to call it Notarize your influence and it was the first time we'd spoken out on You know, what I consider apolitical things, I consider them human rights issues But you know, people who disagree with you consider them political And so it was like just sort of feeling the backlash of talking about something that I thought couldn't be more clear which side was the correct side to be on You know, so it was just kind of writing about like the nature of like the kind of messages I was getting For posting again like slogans like Black Lives Matter does not seem super hard to get behind for me And anyone that was like I used to be a fan like Jesus Christ Alright, off with you and so yeah, I was kind of thinking about that at the same time There's that like if you get political, then make your criminals all a bit biblical just like anything God forbid you have an opinion Yeah, yeah, it's a tricky thing because you can end up getting your wings clipped by that kind of reaction And it's difficult to think hang on a minute, no, I couldn't say Well, and people you know, I have friends who are staunchly again like to me it's not political but I have friends who are staunchly apolitical on the internet because they're terrified of alienating their fanbase, their audience And it's like I empathize because they've built a livelihood off of it And I don't think anybody wants to like lose the thing that they've worked really hard to attain But you know the end of the day to me, it was like well this is who I am So anyone who cares about who I am needs to know this is how I feel about this thing Yeah, and it also like the whole thing was frustrating me because it felt like hosting some article to donate to the you know Bale fund or whatever we were doing like it all felt like the bare minimum It did not feel like I was being some champion or some hero felt like the easiest lowest common denominator Positive thing I could possibly do so the idea that was like getting hate for that was like this is so this is so mean And silly yeah, yeah, so you're there at the piano thinking all these thoughts yeah trying to put some of these thoughts into words And then combine them with music yeah, so then you're faced with a series of questions about what am I going to do with all this That's right. Yeah, so I had this song that I thought was really cool on its own Sounded like that with the piano and the vocal and then I think the first thing I did was I started to build a drum loop That I would sing over let me go through and pick out some drums These are claps. That's just me clapping a bunch in front of a microphone. There's some reverb on it It's a artificial reverb because the room I was clapping in was very dry I think this is a layer of synthetic claps so to speak I think these are claps that I these are samples that I found I thought layered nicely and then this is this weird kick sound and then there's a kick snare And there's a bass on top of it And the claps sit over it And I thought that was exciting. I thought I liked the idea of singing the song over top of that And so I threw the vocal over that sounds just like you'd imagine it would So you'd already recorded the vocal? No, that was the thing I added. I started singing over top of that There's a couple other tracks on top of it. There's a yeah, this is quick sampler This is also playing at the same time I thought that was super weird and cool The sample I loaded in called toy music box This reminded me of like a merry go round or something Every wood that comes out of your mouth What should we fight about this time? What will you write? I thought this was really cool. This was a contact synth that I loaded in I think it's a plugin called Analog Strings by Output And then it's got overdrive, decapitated in Valhalla room Without the processing I bet it sounds like Violins Like this sounds like psycho, right? In the shower But then it's super distorted It's interesting how when isolated all these different elements Actually link in to the lyrical elements quite well You know, it's quite interesting I find that music is the pretty. world is sort of you were saying it earlier. It's just completely limitless, right? You could take a song in any different direction and you could, there's no status bar on a song. You don't ever get told it's done or it's complete. So I do try to be as sort of like thoughtful as I can be in terms of, you know, okay, what am I saying here? What am I trying to articulate emotionally? Like what should I add? What should I take away? Because then it gives me kind of a compass to go by. Of like, all right, well, here's the song. Let me see what I can add, what I can subtract. I think there's also this is a cool, on the sphere patch that is run through clip distortion. That was really cool. (upbeat music) Some guitars. So that's all in this pre-chorus, I believe. ♪ Should we fight about this time ♪ ♪ What will you write about this time ♪ ♪ What does it matter if you're not fine ♪ ♪ You should have kept this shit off line ♪ There's a plugin by FabFilter called FabFilter Twin, too, that I think is amazing. Just textural, just stuff happening underneath it to give it kind of a depth. And then in the chorus, the chorus is sort of a double chorus. And I did a thing that I've done many times and I'm hardly the inventor of, but I filtered the highs out of the vocal and I took out most of the instrumentation for the first half to just give some release. (upbeat music) So the vocals dulled down. The elements under it are very minor. Even the drums are dull. I brought in some really big synths over top of that. (upbeat music) Where's the biggest one? Yeah. Some like stranger things, 80s synth. I love arpeggiators. I feel like I'm a big fan of an arpeggiator, which for the layman is just a chord broken up in played and sequence. It can be low to high, it can be high to low, it can be randomized, but as opposed to playing notes on top of each other, it's playing them in a pattern at a certain value, note value, half note, whole note, quarter note. So this is eighth note. (upbeat music) That's the basis of an arpeggio, but I do like the way that it breaks everything up. So that's the chorus. (upbeat music) There's a lot of harmonies too. Let's see where those live. So that's the other thing that I always do when I'm pulling a chorus is play a billion harmonies. Yeah, we got octave, third down, third up, and double. I'll sit in there, we're. ♪ It feels a little medieval ♪ ♪ Kissing the ring in a gothic cathedral ♪ ♪ If you ever seen what really happens ♪ ♪ To people like me when we go out of fashion ♪ And then I had a different second verse, but I really liked the way that the rhythm of the song felt. So I rewrote it. So that was the only thing I wrote over this instrumentation was. ♪ They're gonna tell you from your pedestal ♪ ♪ It's almost inevitable ♪ ♪ I'm not being cynical ♪ ♪ So I'm under it ♪ Cool guitar, cool bass over it. (upbeat music) ♪ Well I'm not being cynical ♪ ♪ So I'm under it, you know ♪ ♪ If you get political ♪ ♪ They'll make you criminal ♪ ♪ It's all a bit bit more ♪ ♪ Don't put your camera down ♪ ♪ You don't go to heaven in a crown ♪ ♪ It's not worth the money ♪ ♪ Bringing me back from the dead ♪ And how long would this process have taken? How many goes at it? Would you have done this all in one session, one long, long day, or would you have a few ideas? Play around. My favorite way to produce a song is to have a start point where there's no deadline, where it's very explorative. I go in one direction and then I change my mind and I go in a different direction and I sort of make an amalgam of everything. And then I find deadlines to be pretty important ultimately because without them it's easy to just overthink something forever and it's good to be like, all right, it has to be done, it has to be done. I think in this song's case, we were working on a crazy vinyl deadline. I wanted the album, I had a tour booked for end of October of 2021 and I wanted the album to be out before the tour started and the vinyl lead time, which now is like 10 months, or a year, the vinyl lead time was six months so the album had to be mixed and mastered six months before it would come out and it was whatever that was March. I was like having to finish the song to mix it, to master it. So there was kind of a tight deadline but I had started the production and I'd started it. So it was, in reality it was sort of finishing it under a tight deadline. But I've also like, I've had shocking, a shocking amount of deadlines in my career. Everything, everything cool that I've ever done has been under duress. - Right, I mean, when do you know when to stop adding things? I mean, can you sense the completion? - Yeah. - Or does the deadline tell you right? - I usually think of it as like load bearing. I usually think you kind of fill up this bucket and then it gets too heavy and you're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I have to stop adding stuff or I have to take something out to add something else and that's usually when I know it's done." And sometimes that's like no elements at all. I have a reputation for sort of minimalistic productions and I've made a lot of those where there's a piano and vocals and some little synth and that's about it and those songs, they would sound crazy if they had anything else, you know, even though they could. They could have a million other things 'cause they're very simple. It's like they don't sound good with more stuff. So that's the way I know. It's like, I think it's full. So what you know to stop eating, right? I feel full, I'm no longer hungry. - Yeah, yeah, I like that analogy. Right, let's hear a bit more of the Master of Medieval and then we're gonna move on to a third song, which is a new song you know. They're exciting. ♪ It feels a little medieval ♪ ♪ If you ask me like I'm watching a sequel ♪ ♪ I've already seen ♪ ♪ I could tell you what happens ♪ ♪ To the new king when he goes out of fashion ♪ ♪ It feels a little medieval ♪ ♪ Kissing the ring in the Gothic cathedral ♪ ♪ You ever seen what really happens ♪ ♪ To the people I can be when we go out of fashion ♪ - So that is Medieval. The next song we're going to look at from Phineas is a brand new song. - This will be brand new. - This episode is being supported by Mate Nois Pro Audio, the UK's GoTo Retailer for used studio equipment. From Neve preamps to vintage 1176s and everything in between, microphones, compressors, consoles, drum machines, outboard units, Mate Nois Pro Audio cover it all. Alongside used gear, they also sell new products from established brands such as ATC, Solid State Logic, Franklin Audio and many more, making it the one stop shop for all your gear purchases. And if you need to free up space in your studio or fund your next purchase, Mate Nois will buy or part exchange your old gear. With next day delivery and free UK shipping on the majority of products, you can get your hands on new studio essentials and toys in no time at all. And as the tape notes exclusive, they're offering listeners a 10% discount on all gear from Franklin Audio. So to find your next studio favorite, head over to MateNoisProAudio.com and use the code tapenotes10 to access your 10% discount on all Franklin Audio products. The next song we're going to look at by Phineas is a brand new song called Mona Lisa Mona Lisa. Is that right? - Correct. - Fantastic, but we're going to hear a little blast to the monster now. (upbeat music) - So that is Mona Lisa Mona Lisa. Where did it all start Phineas? - I wrote a song on piano that had verses that were that didn't make a lot of sense. And like I couldn't sing them to you now, I don't remember them. But I wrote that chorus over the same chords and really liked the chorus. Thought the sentiment was cool and the melody was good, but it was a very ballad at the time. And I was unattached to the rest of the song. I didn't think I'd done the chorus justice, which is the thing that happens a lot in songwriting. You end up with a, sometimes it's the verse, sometimes you end up with this one part that you think this is great, but I haven't gotten the rest good enough yet. And that was the case in this song. I just thought that chorus was great. And I thought, what would really do that chorus justice? And then let me work backwards. And I liked the idea of having it be fairly energetic. And I've kind of, there was a lot of sort of live instrumentation on the album. And I've really been enjoying leaning into it, live drums, live guitars, et cetera. And I just thought that would be a fun place to take that chorus. So at first I recorded some, I used some like fake drum sounds, which the song starts off with. And played some guitars and then ended up writing new verses over top that. And that was sort of breathing this new life into the concept of the song. So that's some bass, some guitars, some claps. And then we have an incredible touring drummer named Andrew Marshall. And I sent him a reference track with like terrible sounding programmed drums playing like a live drum pattern, which I've never had a live drummer on any of Billy or my music up until this point. It's always just been drums that I used samples and built kits out of, you know, like a snare sample, a kick sample. So I sent him this kind of like road map and said, I'd love for you to play actual drums. And follow this road map as much as you feel that it fits. The song was written. The song was recorded with the exception of real drums. And he very generously sent back amazing drums. Better than layered with all the synthy drums. But they just sat in a really nice way. And they brought a sort of energy to the song that was unrepicable. And they combined with all your live instrumentation to make it feel like, hey, there's porfinises in a room. Exactly. Yeah, the vocal is primary vocal. Let's see. The chorus is super thick. There's so many vocal layers on this chorus. I thought I really wanted to sound like a ton of people in the same room singing at the same time. And then on top of that, I took all those vocals and then bounced them into one single vocal and then ran it through a sort of a, like, Leslie. It's actually a tremolator plugin by Sound Toys, but it sounds kind of like a Leslie that the Beatles would use. And again, it's like one of those things where I didn't pre-meditate that. I didn't go like, oh, I know what would sound brilliant. I can't give myself credit. I just was experimenting and trying different stuff out. And in that case, I can see from the order I have everything in. I thought, maybe I'll do a layer of distortion, tried that. Maybe I'll do a reverb, tried that. Maybe I'll do this tremolator plugin and try that. And then thought it sounded really exciting and made the chorus stand out a little bit more. Why did I keep hearing my head? There's a synth called an electron that I bought while we were on tour that sits in my dressing room every day that I love and played a little counter-mality for the chorus over top of that. ♪ You might just see it out in the spring ♪ It's not even really poking out. It's pretty buried, but it gives a nice kind of melodic sense to something that otherwise is like a lot of distorted guitars. There's a lot of guitars on this song too. That's the other thing that I ended up with a bunch of. These are all in the chorus. ♪ You might just see it out in the spring ♪ And there's acoustic too. ♪ You might just see it out in the spring ♪ Acoustic guitars are super, super rhythmic. If you're not making the actual fretboard of an electric guitar, you're losing a lot of the rhythm of the strums because it's just capturing the amp, which is capturing the pickup, which is capturing the note itself. So you're not a super rhythmic instrument unless you're playing them through, like, you know, you can do like palm muted chugs, which can be more rhythmic, which I do a lot in this song, but I find an acoustic guitar so rhythmic, even at a super low volume, because you're hearing all that like jangle of the strings. So it's that layering of those two elements that's really what's exciting to me about recording electric and acoustic instruments. ♪ And it gets quiet and I can feel my breath ♪ And I had recorded some tambourines, some shakers and stuff, but our drummer did a better job. So Andrew Marshall played all that too. Which I left pretty loud in the mix. I love the way that a shaker sounds with a drum kit. I feel like it's an underrated part of percussion on songs. Good tambourine, good shakers. I learned that lesson from my high school drummer, David Maranelli, he was, I remember being like, I love the sound of this album talking about like a bad son's album. And he was like, there's a lot of shaker on this album. He was like, I think that's one of the things you like about it. It was like the shaker. And there was like, I think a vibrant slap on it too. And I was like, oh, you're right. I really like auxiliary percussion. I always remembered that. And so where were you recording all of this? I did 100% of the song on the road. I think we started Billy's 2022 tour in New Orleans. And so I started recording it in my dressing room in New Orleans. So I did this whole song on a TLM 103 microphone. I have one electric guitar, one acoustic guitar, and one bass guitar in my green room. So I didn't have a lot of options there. And I just recorded all of the guitars on that. Did all the vocals. Over the course of probably about two weeks, I think. Went on this song. But yeah, it was all in green rooms on tour, which is pretty typical for us. You know, we do a lot of work on show days because we have a great crew and we don't have to be out there, setting everything up. So we sit around and record stuff. Yeah, fantastic. I love that idea. And it's so constructive because here you are. You've got a brand new song ready to go. What's the plan with Mona Lisa? Mona Lisa comes out on the 15th of July. Yeah, 15th of July. Right. So it comes out right around the corner. And stand alone single or do they need to be in the next project? Yeah, I've got a bunch of new music that I'm really excited about. But this one's a standalone that probably will be rolled onto a album at some point in the next calendar year or the next 12 months. Exciting. Should we just hear another quick blast of it? And then I have another couple of questions for you. Sure. [MUSIC PLAYING] So the latest release from Phineas, Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa. And although it's recorded on the road, do you think it was informed by life on the road in terms of being up there on stage with band playing to crowds, that you were trying to capture some of that? Yeah, probably not consciously, but yeah, probably subconsciously. I feel like it's very hard to not be informed by your daily life. So that's a good observation. I haven't thought about it. But yeah, that's probably totally true, just sort of like knowing what a concert venue feels like. And our touring life has informed a lot of the music we've made. We made Billy's first EP in my first couple songs, having never played shows. And so we had no idea how they would translate live when we started to play shows, because we'd never played one. I played shows in high school. But with Billy, we'd never played shows. And I remember making the first album really to tour. I remember the song "Bad Guy" being the number one thing I remember thinking about and fantasizing about was like this would be awesome to come out on stage to "Bat Coachella." That would be really exciting. Because I think when we were making "Bat Guy" we'd already been booked for Coachella or something. So it was like that would be sick if we opened the show with this song. Which of course became ridiculous because it became at the time our biggest song. You're shooting the can off in the first three minutes of your show. But that was what we made it for. So the first album was very informed by sort of touring. And then the second album as well. I mean, the song "Happier than Ever" was also a real like, you know, this is going to be a great song to end the show with. It was one of those things we thought when we were making that song. Not when we were writing it so much, but when we were recording it and putting it all together. And yeah, with my music too, it's been sort of an understanding of, you know, what a live show feels like and looks like. So yeah, that's a great observation. I hadn't really thought about it. So everybody comes on tape notes. We ask them a couple of questions. Okay. One is about tech. Favorite piece of technology or equipment or an instrument that you can't work without. Yeah. Software wise, I got to give it up for the plugin Omnisphere. That plugin is on 99% of every song I've ever made at this point in time. It's just one of those plugins that's like too good not to turn to. It's so vast. It has so many different things that I really, it's just a masterpiece of a plugin in terms of hardware, huge fan of the the Fender Acoustasonic these days. I think that's a really cool instrument. The other question we like to ask people is about advice. Whether through experience or through the wisdom of somebody else, you picked up a piece of advice that you would want to share or pass on to other people. Sure. I wish that advice was more broad. I feel like everybody's career in the same field is so weirdly different that I could give advice that worked well for me that would be the wrong advice for somebody else, which is just sort of par for the course. And I feel like you watch these sort of seminars at Berkeley and whatever and people say like one thing and it's applicable for some people and not others. So with that grain of salt, the thing that I would say that I thought was very profound when I heard it was a mastering engineer when I was like 13 who was like a friend's dad. I called him and was like, how do I make my song loud? Which is such a thing you say when you're first figuring out how to learn how to produce music. And he told me about like limiter. So I didn't know what a limiter was. And then he said, he said, listen, it's really important that you understand the delineation between the correct way to do something and whether you like it or not. He was like, you know, everyone in the music world is going to tell you why you did something incorrectly. You know, there's, oh, that's too loud. That's to this. That's to this. And he was like, it's really important to like something or not like it because your taste is what really matters. And it's also going to be your greatest defense if somebody goes, oh, that vocal sense that vocals too compressed. That's true if you don't like the way it sounds. That might be the reason. But if you go, no, no, I compressed it that way on purpose. I like it. Even if it was an accident, if you like how it sounds, then it's the correct way because it's tasty. So I remember that being very profound. And I always thought about that, especially as a self-taught person where I'm always doing something wrong. But my defense is like, do I think it sounds good or not? And if I do, then it's correct, even if I did it wrong. Yeah, that's great. And one final thought is what's exciting you most in the world of production at the moment do you think? Are the yours or other people? Yeah, mine is the most exciting. Well, it might be something you've kind of stumbled upon in your career. Well, I'm a big fan of this whole resurgence of 2001 Hillary Duff era like Pop Rock. I'm pumped on that. In terms of producers, they're like blowing me away. I just found this album called "Pornow Violence" by A.V. Dummy. It's really crazy. It's really cool. What else have I been liking? Been listening with a lot of cake, the band cake. I know that's not new, but it's been exciting. Chase Plato, really cool production. And when you listen to stuff like that, is it to escape? Is it to further your education? No, what do you mean? Because especially now, so you're on the road, you're playing to loads of people in different places and in a way when music becomes your job, it can be a bit of putting to even turn to it. I don't listen to it for market research. For sure, I definitely only listen to music that I respond to. I'll listen to something once if it's recommended to me, but I won't listen to it twice just because it's critically acclaimed or something. It's all about what I like and what I don't. And to answer the other part of that question, it's totally true. And I listen to a lot of podcasts as a result of that. I've just sort of like, yeah, I just spent 10 hours working on a piece of music. The thing that would not bring me peace right now is listening to another hour of music on this drive. It's like, let's, I'm going to listen to a, you know, interesting podcast. So for sure, it can kind of burn you out on it. But at the end of the day, I mean, I still love music all the time. And I'm still, you know, obsessed with it and everything else, but it is true. It's like a weird sort of give and take. I was just thinking about it in terms of like, I love to cook, but I'm not like a chef. And I was thinking about like, how fucked up your relationship with food might be if you're a chef, you know, firm any angle from the fact that you're having to make something over and over to perfect it. You're taken abit of it when you couldn't be less hungry because you've taken abit of the last six batches of it to knowing the difference between slightly undercooked, slightly overcooked and perfect about everything and, you know, tasting something and being sort of never able to let go of your intellectual like, this is a little bit overcooked, you know, it's like something, a layman like me, like I don't notice that stuff, you know. And so I don't, I don't envy that. I think that's the sacrifice you make for a profession that you love and that you might be talented at is then you kind of let go of your perspective or maybe your lack of perspective. So it's challenging. You do kind of have to let go of having a really simple opinion about something. Yeah. Yeah. Really interesting. Finneus, thanks so much. Thank you guys. One board with the ship to have this chat really fascinating stuff. We should play one more song as an outro for you guys to miss. What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? What we haven't heard. Let's do Peaches Etude versus a P.L.A. piece I wrote from my dog. Lovely. Thanks again, Finneus. And thanks to LightShit95 Studio for allowing us on board and good luck for all the O2 shows and everything else, Finneus. Thank you. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed the episode. If you have a moment, do tell your friends and leave us a review, it all really helps. Thanks to those of you who have already donated to the show, I'm just one part of the team that brings you tape notes. It relies on your support. If you'd like to donate, please head to our website. Once again, thank you for listening. Until next time, goodbye. [Music] [Music]