Songwriters Roundtable: Mark Ronson, Kesha, Jack Antonoff, Diane Warren, Boots Riley | Close Up

[Music] hello and welcome to close-up with The Hollywood Reporter I'm Rebecca Ford and I'd like to welcome Kesha Tim McGraw Mark Ronson Diane Warren boots Riley Jack Antonoff and David Crosby thank you guys for joining us today I'm gonna start it off and take you way back and have you tell me about the first song you ever wrote and when it was and and how old you were and what it was about well Tim what's this I don't know if I can remember that far back honestly I can't and I didn't really think about it hadn't thought about in years the T said and it's it's weird but I grew up in a little town start Louisiana which is probably the size of this room very small town just cotton farming and bean farming and driving a tractor my whole life and all that stuff and but I remember specifically I don't remember exactly how old I was but it was when Princess Diana and and whit was with this a wheeler Charles got married when pressed Charles got married and as a kid there was something about her that I fell in love with her like everybody else there probably every boy did at that time fell in love with it so I sat down and wrote a song about their wedding and about Princess Diana and how beautiful she was and I don't remember how it goes I just remember something about you look so much like a queen something like that it was it was terrible but that was the first thing I remember actually sitting down and writing and getting enjoyment out of writing a song and understanding that you could actually put words to paper in a tune in a melody and come up with something that you think is good whether it was or not it's a whole different story we've all been down that road but it was about Princess Diana that was the first thing I remember I just remember it was really bad I was like 12 and it was about champagne I have no idea what about you um I was writing the school play I didn't wrap or anything but I was it was requested that we did a East Oakland version of West Side Story raps in it instead of songs and so I think the first thing that was easy for me was our version of what's the song that they sing something to be in America or something when it would be enemy yeah yeah yeah so I wrote a rap version of that and wrote the raps for the thing thinking okay this is gonna be terrible and it was terrible but nobody booed I was like fifteen you know so that and that was the first rap that wrote David how about you remember your first one I do I do I had already decided that I wanted to sing I my dad was a cinematographer made films and so I thought originally well I've got an in there I'll get to be an actor mainly because of girls that was sort of my main motivation in life at that point it's all the good what's the under the coffeehouse and I sang and I realized I loved singing and so I the first song I wrote I was following a there was a folk duo called bud and Travis and Travis Edmondson one of the two guys they had split up and he was playing at a coffee house in in Hollywood and I was sort of sitting there Hawk and his changes you know go there at night and sneak in watch how he played the guitar figure out how he was doing when he was doing because he was pretty good at it and I wrote a song for him and he recorded it right away we wrote a song and he recorded it right and it was a terrible your first song got cut down on a record I don't think I wrote a song the night that I would have played for any of you until I was in the Byrds I wrote one called hi everybody's been burned that was the first decent song I wrote but before that there were several absolutely crap songs there's no question after that all genius were you I mean as a writer I mean I know I'm certainly this way really hard on yourself and hard on your songs like harder than you wouldn't doing other people's yeah yeah no egos involved you want to be good yeah and and in the bands that I was in not know I'm in the co-operative band now but I was in a very competitive band so we were always trying to top each other yeah frantically trying to go to you know make the songs be as good as we possibly could did that make the songs better than in your cooperative oh I think co-operative works better than compared to them you know I think collaborative works better than competitive mm-hmm competitive winds up at war collaborative winds up in a symphony orchestra that's from my side of the clock I mean that's really where I when I was a little kid I saw a Symphony Orchestra and it stuck in me that the power of the whole thing was all those elbows moving at the same time I got the picture that it was big because all those people were cooperating to make a one thing that really stuck in me somebody did write the power that hit me with was the cooperative effort of that 90 people in the orchestra all making one sound like the government supposed to be let's talk about the writing process though what is it like for you do you get writer's block what do you do if it's just a song just isn't working for you Diane um I don't get writer's block a lot knock on I was more here than there um like I'll spend two days on two lines but the rest of the song was like easy if I believe in a song I just have to like you know walk away for a minute going into like the first day of a new project for me is like this the worst combination of like terrible first day first day of school like you just feel like oh this is gonna be the one everyone remembers I'm gonna find out I'm a fraud I'm gonna have no great ideas and you just forget everything and then you just kind of sit down and then like maybe over one day or two days I okay something's coming back I mean that's just obviously for me and yes one thing that I've been obsessed with lately is it does go away it's not an endless well and I think all writers know that so like your point like is like is it over as everyone to find out I'm a fraud like it's 30 unless unless you well my life is infinite so there's like always something to write about yeah I agree there's always other ideas always and you think it could be like luck for instance I keep you have luck and then one day you wake up and you just don't have luck anymore I think that we have to live to have write about but then you have to be in the hole to Constance I think so I'm going to do this fascinating thing where they have one foot in and one foot out which is why I think a lot of songwriters have tough personal lives because I think about all you guys here right aren't you always like someone says something you're always kind of like clocking it so I think that that having half of your mind or body not in reality because you're putting it this while cabinet and [ __ ] great for songwriting but for life is yeah because you need the life experience to write and you need to be half there to remember I have a good imagination I don't know I've never had a personal life my whole life really you just measure what you know what would it be like like I wanna have a near life experience cuz this has happened to me recently I started out writing by myself and as I said I was in competitive dance and it was pretty pretty much a solo thing then I wrote a song with with other people and I liked it wooden ships that wrote it with stills and Vulcania and since then particularly recently in the last like four years I've been writing almost constantly with other people because the other guy always thinks of something I didn't it's as if you had two painters and they each had a palette this guy had seven colors in this guy had seven colors put them together you got 14 colors that's better painting oh my you do that well my thing is basically purely collaborative because I rarely sit down and write by myself at a piano you know usually I'm producing an artist and sometimes you're there to give a lot of the song sometimes you're there just to help with a few lyrics be a bouncing board give a few chords help finish the next line so I only know that side of it and I think spark you they they do absolutely sparking like what I would say also what you're saying jack is like about it running out luckily so better for worse the best songs come when you're going through a trying time really that's what I find and luckily life will always find a way to deal your [ __ ] hand every now and then so I feel like that's the good thing about it like you'll never get the well roam run dry because I feel like you always have those kind of life experiences and in that place whether it's like an Amy Winehouse or whoever it is like I get to I get to sort of tap into their well of giant emotion for a little while and it's sometimes it's not even fair because I'm going along for the ride on their horrible tragic life experiences because that's my job to make the best song with that I can with them and I didn't have to necessarily go through the half of that stuff but I think that that's that's what keeps me every new project like just really juveniles me because I'm always getting into somebody else's sort of life experience and then seeing how it matches up with my own you like that chemistry don't you I do like it yeah also with me um for my last couple albums I work with my co-producer Damian Gallegos and what's weird is he was my friend for a long time and we just were in the same building doing stuff but he always has these references that sometimes I hate like I'll be working on a song like that reminds me of but give it I can help but exactly then it really just it it helps me see a side of the song that I wouldn't have seen before exactly you know speaking of collaboration Marc tell me about working with Gaga on shallow you know I know you've worked with her on Joanne before and the it's a little more of the natural I guess yeah and of her how did the two of you sort of come to that I think that we were probably lucky that we had worked on Joanna bit and like broken some ground where she was ready to go somewhere very personal when we wrote shallow I think probably if it was a regular songwriting session we just met the day before I don't know if we would have tapped into that she was obviously writing as Ally you know she had that character she knew that that's what she wanted to to do and I and I but you can't help but tap into your own emotion like I feel like if you're just writing a song like specifically for the character and only doing that than yours you're almost like just completing a task but like if you want to get emotion that obviously everybody even if you're writing for the film is drawing from something in their own life and that's what kind of makes people feel it in their gut when they hear that song well I can only speak for myself but I know she was writing for Ally and you know this was supposed to be I guess we can probably imagine it was the end credits song we had no idea at the time it was going to become this part of the narrative but the way that uh it that's everybody's for lack of a better word everybody's [ __ ] and life experience and trials and tribulations is kind of in that song and being channeled but for this one person to sing you know what you're proud of what a job she did I couldn't believe it because when you have somebody like that that you can write a really really good song that's subjective but when you have a brilliant filmmaker and this performance like that is just like giving your song like the biggest to give it a little call it a leg up is an understatement of all time I thought she did a great job yeah I remember leaving actually I saw early cut and the first time I saw that Bradley had worked the song into the script and I just I couldn't wait to leave because I can't wait to call my friends be like you guys aren't gonna [ __ ] believe when you see this song like what like what it's become and you're gonna have to pay around for three months and and cash and Diane you both wrote songs from films about Ruth Bader Ginsburg this feminist boys are notorious every long may she live she's wanted to retire forever no don't even say that word in the same sentence of she's hanging out there because she knows we need but tell me about approaching those songs when you know you are writing for a story about such an icon okay you know I wanted to you know write like a song that could be her theme you know because she is a fighter so I'll fight you know she speaks so softly but she's so like she's louder than anybody you know what she's what she has to say in what she stands for which is us but when I went when I write I write a song for this or whenever I song for any movie I wanted to live out like obviously first and foremost it has to live for the movie and be Ruth Bader Ginsberg theme song but I wanted to be also outside in the movie were it could be you could be saying that to your friends you could be saying it to your kids yeah like that I'll fight that war for you like that just that I've got your back you know so it's it's you know being very articulate but anyways I was honored to be able to to do to be a part of this movie for you how did you approach it I've never written a song for a movie before so I went and saw the movie on the basis of sex first and it was kind of daunting because it supposed to be the end credit song and after you watch what she's done for women and just everything I felt even more overwhelmed like [ __ ] was a big task and I had three hours in the studio and I left for the next day so we went in and I was just like crossing my fingers but like kind of worried about it and then we just like [ __ ] about for like 20 minutes and we wanted the song to feel like because it's a period movie that it could have been from the 50s could have been from the 70s or could be current it was very much inspired by Bob Dylan I think that if you listen to it's obvious mm-hmm and the the the film sort of show how she had to sort of fight against Messiah on her on her journey we're either of you taking inspiration from intolerance you may have experienced in the music industry when you were writing these not not me the song we wrote was called is called here comes a change so it was kind of more about culture and politics political mmm-hmm thank you both meet her have you both I got to talk to her since they've heard this song well yeah I was thought I was supposed to meet her like there was a screening Laurie like I met Gloria Steinem Oh amazing you know like that was cool so but she was posed to come this like couple weeks ago and like and like the last minute she didn't show up because there was like she had another event to go to we were all pretty bummer I'm like I'm cool I met Gloria Steinem that's pretty awesome if you hear of your decimeter what are you tell her well over yeah she's such a superstar so when you're writing for a film how does that process work for you do you always need to watch the completed film first are you starting to think about it before that boots especially for you since it was your own movie did that make it harder well what's funny is I actually made two soundtracks because when I wrote the screenplay I immediately was I was working on a soundtrack and finished it but that it took a long time to get this film made so all those songs I had released by then and put out so for this it was weird because I had to deal with myself you know as an artist I might have wanted to make different songs what I did but as a director I had to kind of you know make myself make certain songs and so the first version I wrote were songs that fit with the the theme of the film and really you know the things that I talked about are all the same and most of my music is what the film talks about so that's easy but I needed to make music that so I realized with the soundtrack that we did put on the film that I needed to make music that I believed that they would be listening to in the world and so that was a different way for me to think because our music that the soundtrack it's it's only except for one song it's only happening when the characters can hear it that's that's the rule in the tune-yards did the score and the characters can't hear that so you know except for the one one song that's the only time we broke the rule so I had to you know we're usually I'm just like [ __ ] it this is the stuff I like I don't care if it's the thing that anybody will ever play on the radio or anything this is just I want to put my passion in there and this I had to kind of I decided to think in a in a different way so that it felt you know like it was something that they might be playing at the sideshow or something that you know a deejay would play in a certain situation so yeah I know it was it was and I also we also did the soundtrack while we were editing so we're adding 12 hours a day and you know I we had made most of the music before that but a lot of that's you know once you film the the movie there there's there's random things that happen that changed the aesthetic a little bit that you find while you're there so we had to actually make some stuff from scratch just to work and and you know it was I was wishing that I hadn't agreed to do but because that's how I sold it it's like look I can even do the soundtrack and I was wishing that I hadn't said that [Music] for you and love Simon you know these high school romance movies in in the past have always resulted in these sort of classic soundtrack songs were you thinking about that when you were making the music first yeah well I I had never done a sound track before I'd only been songs and doing a song is the soundtrack is I believe so much in soundtracks it was raised my generation Reality Bites was really big which I still hear any of those songs and I go right to the film I love John Hughes it's a big part of my life growing up and I grew up in real suburban environment and kind of had to dream about a lot of things not really experience like there wasn't a lot of like drugs or sex or anything he was sort of in your room thinking about it and I always felt that John Hughes and those songs spoke to that that spoke to me I'm from New Jersey and so when I started talking about drugs or sex and you will probably not use that but the environment I grew up in like I was I was I grew up like middle-class Jewish community at the Jewish school and it was sort of like I don't know if anyone went like Catholic school or something like so it's it's different same where it's just like it's this little world and you know where I started touring when I was 15 and so that was it was like before that was just sort of like in the bedroom you know writing songs and thinking about things then going right out into the world and there's lots of drugs and stuff outside of New Jersey but [Laughter] but not in my experience I was in a little weird hold so John Hughes and those films meant a lot to me and so I thought when I start talking about soundtrack I try to ask yourself you know you spent a lot of years of your life not being invited right and then if you have any success you start getting invited and you start asking yourself can I actually help here or do I just want to do this you don't mean don't you have those things like someone asked you to do something you're like oh it sounds amazing and you think well I'm actually gonna help or am I do I just want to do it totally like and in this and so I I the concept of working on the soundtrack because they mean a lot to me and then when I saw the film because even the film's dice you like this idea of an LGBT love story rocketed into the mainstream like it go so wrong or so right it could really like just be that's like gross corporate spin on a group of people or it could be beautiful mm-hm and I found to be totally beautiful and it felt like a modern John Hughes movie and I just wanted to write songs from the perspective of me growing up and being in high school and thinking that deeper than that thinking that my life was gonna continue to be extremely unimportant by my standards which i think is how most people feel and although I didn't have the experience that main character I wanted to write the soundtrack because I did have the experience of just what you think most field is just feeling like [ __ ] I thought more in my life and that's really what the film is about and I think that's why it's progressive is because it's the gay story that has nothing to do with gayness it has to do absolute people people gay people people exactly that's that's the thing that was so great about the fad well when I was afraid when I when I went to screen it I was like this this gets dicey if it is like this big you know like story that's different because it's gay but it just felt like an 80s John Hughes movie and it didn't matter and that's why I thought it was so progressive is because they weren't patting themselves on the back about it they were just telling a great story about growing up David tell me about getting involved with little pink house how you first got involved inhaled a song sort of came to you it's a very odd circumstance I actually wrote the song before the movie and here's how it happened it's a woman and I think it's Connecticut she had a house it was her house it was a biggest deal in her life she was a nurse very plain ordinary little woman she loved this house dearly she painted it pink there is a thing called eminent domain mm-hmm where towns can take stuff for supposedly the common good it's misused every time they use it it's always somebody getting paid under the table to take public land and give it to somebody wrongly every time that's how it gets used that's what happened here they took our house away from her doing to make a shopping center or something and they never even used it she fought it all the way the Supreme Court passionately and lost and they bulldoze the house a friend of mine wrote a book about it again him Jeff Benedict and I loved the book it was three emotional book she's a very brave woman and he called me up one two instant listen they want to make a movie about it would you consider writing the song and I said boy I'd love to write a song about that so I went to my son James Freeman who was one of my main writing partners brilliant musician and we sat down and we wrote that song it works I wish they'd used it inside the film instead of it over the credits at the end I think it would have been even stronger but to me you know a movie is the height of art in this country that's like it uses all the other arts you know dancing and painting and singing and songwriting and everything else to make this one conglomerate art piece that's so strong in this movie even though it's a tiny little movie not very much money was done by people who loved it and they really worked hard they did a good job so I'm I for me it was a great experience fantastic I've had you know songs and movies before they started Woodstock with my song but I this this really felt like creating something you know correctly I felt good about the whole thing an entire process I loved it Tim what about for free Sola were you able to see the film first and how do you write a song for this real free climber and his sort of daring journey that he did I did I saw the mood for I mean for me you know I always preface songwriting discussions when I'm talking about anything to do it's alright I I think of myself as a sit was loosely as a singer first and a songwriter second I'm don't consider myself like this prolific songwriter and I've always written and and always write for every project I do and I don't always record my songs on my project so I'm I always might when I asked you about being hard on your songs I'm always super hard on my stuff so even though if I think it's good somebody else is gonna beat mine if it's see if it's anywhere close to as good as I think mine is I'll pick theirs first and but looking back on after we're talking I've written a couple of songs for four movies and when this one came along and always do at collaborative collaboratively - by the way but when this one came along I was in the middle of a tour of my second year of touring with my wife we were doing our soul to soul tour and we've been touring together we were - in the middle of it trying to finish it out and at the same time I was flying in and going to the studio and sleeping on the couch for three - three days at a time getting my next solo project started and working on so I didn't think I had any time to do it Brian louts who works at CAA called me and he told me about the film and asked if I'd be interested in writing a song for it and my first answer was I just don't have time I don't think I have the brain power right now with everything I'm doing to have time to do it and secondly I don't know anything about mountain climbing I'm afraid of heights understand what we did at the start was I don't know that I can relate to this subject matter at all so I I couldn't figure out any way I would be interested no but I said look I have a couple of days send it to me it'd be nice to just watch a cool movie anyway so send it and watch another I started watching it was immediately hooked on it on Alex and his and his focus and his journey and in the bigger picture I think of how you can pursue something in life and succeed is something with with intent and purpose and to me that's always something that comes from our sports background it's you know everything you do if you with intent and purpose you could get somewhere with it so I was enthralled by by what he was doing and how you could believe that much in yourself to put yourself in a position where you can't make a mistake so that's what really got me so I started writing notes and and thinking about it and I thought well this is pretty interesting my Lori McKenna who in my opinion is one of the great songwriters to write music out of Nashville she lives in Boston a senator I've told her I'll overnight you this and if you like the movie you know maybe we can work on something so overnight it to her and she fell in love with it and sent me her notes that she made and ironically our notes were almost identical with the words that we were using in some of the phrases we were use it so within a week of emailing back and forth we rewrote it and you know I told them that look we'll write something but I don't really have a lot of time to keep going back and forth and trying to perfect the song or trying to you know change things I give you a shot at it's all I could give you not only you feel like you're married to me you know you like it you like if you don't you don't were big kids we can move on and they like the song that we wrote after about a week of email and then texting back that's what they like the song you like writing from a distance I think it's cool it's different you know that you can do it now well cuz you also you get to go into your weird place yeah because sometimes when you're in the room there's this like ideas ideas ideas and every once in a while like sends you something you can really you can dig into it or nice and I think it's it's cool and I also think that it's um there's no there's no there's no crap it's like you hear something someone send you it's good or it isn't yeah you're not watching them think of it and they're not watching you think of it as you know so could you know when you're in the studio and you can't say that really sucks and yeah yeah but you but yeah but you can very nicely be like I feel like um I feel like you know we can beat it I just think that's like I've been doing a lot of that lately I think it's I think I like it I like it better than actually sitting in a room and writing for me you know myself I like both yeah do you I mean I don't I don't not mind it but I you know I don't write alright from a very instinctual and visceral place I don't have a process to go through writing for me it's like it's got to either hit me or not hit me and I can't sit and make an appointment every day and like go five days a week at two o'clock with three people sitting in a room and write a song I just can't do it yeah somebody there's no process like like everyone cuz I'm sure you guys always get this question like what's the process like because I think people who don't write songs are fascinated with how they get rich I was I think that too like I'm like I could ask you how you made a movie all day because it seems like magic to me but you know it literally like does every song not come from the most bizarre place like it's just well for me that split into two things for me there's just the music which is something that is usually some collaboration of some sort you know sometimes it'll come just from me and putting but even then I have to work with musicians to realize it but that I'll make a whole lot of music and then see what what strikes me and then I then I have to think about what that emotion is that I'm feeling and then plugged into the lyrics which are you know that's how I came into all of this was the lyric side so then with that then I have to get in touch with myself that that like raw emotion that I'm feeling from that song what is that relate it to I feel like my mind I feel like I feel like I could make music all day so fun and then I have to write a lyric to it that's when I like that's when I start to like when my anus with animals would say split yeah that's when they could get Stacie sure yeah we all agree this lyrics or the hardest part yeah yeah here's the best note anybody ever gave me about writing lyrics Mitchell damn her being so good she's my only for about a year and I produce her first record and I and I love her I still love her you mentioned that a few times me I mean companies came a couple times well I can't help but I think she's brilliant singer/songwriter she told me a great thing she said write that down I said write what down she said what you just said I said what did I just say she said something good you do that all the time you compose something that's words and its really good and you don't remember it if you don't write it down it didn't happen click if you don't write it down it didn't happen Thank You Johnny because then I started writing it down if I get four words in a row I like I write them down because later you go back and oh wait a minute early on I would do I would use my brain as the filter like if I don't remember it it wasn't that good I feel like songwriters people I almost think songwriting is not necessarily this skill that you have to put words together better than other people it's more like you just have this net to catch it like for example you know if anyone on the street could say something that could be the greatest song of all time and a songwriter didn't think of those words they knew to grab it mm-hmm and so any there's a huh if you look back at this tape I'm sure everyone here I don't know if you were here but including you like sit what has said something that was could be an amazing song like what was the first great song you just talked about that you wrote everyone moves if nobody has been burned everyone's been burned everything burned is an incredible song but but those words together or something that anyone could have sang England could a songwriter would have known everybody has been known for Lou Reed used to go around this is just folklore I wasn't with him at the time but he used to go around museums and just trail people and just kind of hang back and listen for like turns of phrase and stuff I had a record Lou Reed smart yeah let's just take a walk on the wild side oh that's I had a record where I just kind of I liked the lyrics of Steely Dan cuz I think Stephen it's interesting because they tell stories it's like kind of these noir things but the rhythm section is killing and so I wrote this letter to my favorite author this author Michael Schaben who wrote one of my favorite books Kavalier and clay and I said would you be interested in writing some lyrics for and I know all authors like Steely Dan so I knew it wasn't gonna be a big ass would you be potentially interested I kind of need to be into it but what was cool is almost in that Elton John Bernie Taupin like Bernie Taupin write all the lyrics and Elton would write the valleys to it now I'm certainly no Elton John but what I really liked about the experience was that his lyrics even if they were clunky at times would inspire melodies and stuff that I never would have written him by myself in a million years just because maybe the cadence and and they would start to almost dance off the page or then I was like and I would know where the chords were going like weirdly and and that was like a very nice experience and on the other side of it say writing a song like shallow like that couldn't have been done if you weren't hearing Gaga's voice while you're writing it because she she writes where everyone has headphones on so you get every little nuance of a voice while you're writing and it's one of the most inspirational things and that that keeps telling you where the next line goes and because she's she's almost like pulling it out of you you know in the movie industry you go through test screenings to get feedback on what works and what doesn't who do you first show a song to would you my wife my wife Jim been married to her for 41 years and and part of my writing process is I we finished dinner we need to know together a family I go in the bedroom make a fire and then I smoke a joint then I take a guitar off the wall and then I play that's one of the only things pots any good fourth you get hung up playing those are almost the lyrics to our house I was like I know this that's part I forget where I started but it might give my wife Jan she's there and so as I'm you know fooling around and finding melodies and sets of changes so if she's sitting right there and she will take her phone if Ike if it gets good that's how I know I'm pleasing her and I'm coming up with something good the phone will slide out from underneath the pin out of the pillow you know just get it over next to record it didn't happen yeah funny process will she tell you if something's not working or is no good no one will and stays right I have the voice note has changed huh the voice note app is I use a Walkman I'm obsessed with the voice no saying like that it's always good to have someone's could tell you something sucks or somebody that I work with Julie I've worked with for a long time that I'll play something she's like now you know like it's good to have those people you need to yeah I want to tell me something is totally a group in a lot of times for me as people that most of the group of people I go to her people that's not they're not in the music industry at all no but they're people who's changed your dress because other songwriters have too much baggage yeah exactly they're not telling you for me what I usually do is I play it for something the person who at least thinks gonna like it yeah no no ask questions no I only say if it's if it's good then my than someone who's not a musician we'll call it the something song so I'll give a good lyric then they'll be like oh the Hat song crucial that you have people that you will sing stuff to that are not afraid of you and will be critical to you and you can trust that because I know I can think of at least one really perfect example of somebody who doesn't have anybody near them that doesn't work for them oh yes that's been around you know I only have people oh darling it's just yes this last thing we want to say girls are with them and so that doesn't help you in any critical you have a group of people that always hated everything I did the right person either though they're gonna hate every well I mean it's good then I had some other folks that you know also we're into but I'd also just well okay what part do you hate the most and I trust them you know I know that I trust their case because they've done good work my trainer as my I have a trainer that's I've worked out with for like twenty nine years now and I've taught him about song like he's learned about song structure he'll go yeah that you better have that second verse be you know that be sectioning strong like like he's a trainer bite but he has really good taste you like listen to him yeah you know what I love it is the I feel like I'm really into bouncing something then walking down the street anywhere in the street because I feel like right away if you're on the street you can tell like oh that sound is so stupid and so over thought that lyric is so trite or whatever it is because you just start to imagine people especially in cities yeah you start to imagine people listening to it like what would embarrass you a moment thrill you like you know and you're listening something you're like I wish you could hear this versus you're walking out straight you're like oh I hope that's a big test for me my mom tells me everything I send it alternate and she'll just be like she's brutal rude oh she's so brutal it's true like this is terrible this sucks you're trying way too hard oh my god she's right she's always right oh [ __ ] you mom thank you mom I'll take my stuff to Best Buy and Target and just play it and walk into the other aisle on the Bluetooth just like I guess you even and just see if anybody's see what's working because I mean sometimes people are there just in their own world anyway but every now and then you get something and you're like okay that's like the way cool their version of like taking it to the club so artists are often influenced by the current political climate I'm curious for you all how are you feeling about the climate we're living in now and how is that inspiring your work I'll say I think it's important to have to do something to to write songs I can have meaning and can inspire people so I'm it since that makes sense because you were talking her about the sixties and how prolific the writing was and how the great protest songs are great meaningful songs I think it's a part of our job I think it comes from the troubadours in Middle Ages Europe people who carried the news John John they were the media town criers it's 12:30 and it's all well - 1 o'clock in the morning media there there there was a thing there and that's descended to us - the singer songwriters that's part of our job this is a crucial point it's only part our main job is to make a boogie our main job is to take down a little emotional voyage make a food good take your story could do it all things you could do those to you music yeah it's a lifting force it makes things better yeah same way war drags us down and brings out the worst in humanity music lifts shots right so I think that's you know what do you do you mean how do you I mean and certainly there's no clear-cut answer but how do you look at it when it when the turbulent times is it is it I think more so you write politically in turbulent times or a big message and turbulent times or do you write more so to entertain people and uplift people I'm torn both ways yeah I want to be I just made a record that has really very little political stuff on it but it lifts you and makes you feel warm makes you feel good because I think it's priorities just inspiring does every political but that is political in the moment we're in everything is inherently political so sometimes not being less on the nose like if you put out a song that as you would say makes you boogie that's political right now because that's in the face that was that because it lifts yeah well I think being directly political is appropriate sometimes I think if they start shooting children and on campus at Kent State you should write well I think every every piece of art and everything we say is political because you know to use a well-worn analogy if you were a singer in Nazi Germany and your thing was let's all party that would be a political statement because you are normally right so it's all political it's all some source but I think what what music does what art does is it's like people like yelling at the stars and saying you know I'm we're here this moment is happening it's a way for the listener and the artist to be engaged with the world engage with the universe and feel this moment more now so go building on that with my music I'm always encouraging people that the best way to be engaged with the world is to change it and you know like it's like if you go to a party and and everybody's dancing and you're just standing on the wall you know you might brag to your friends later on how great the party was and all that if you're a teenager or whatever and nope but if you weren't dancing you weren't really taking part of that moment so you know I I try to haven't done the song you're watching them dance to them yeah huh you might have been doing research you know but but yeah so I I try I I think building on that like giving people ways that they can be part of changing the world but current stuff I think my stuff is sometimes is directly current I mean it's always directly current unfortunately because as long as we have capitalism the stuff that I'm talking about is going to be relevant this movie that I wrote and directed is I wrote it in 2012 and everybody thinks that it's about the Trump presidency but unfortunately we've had the same stuff going on and sometimes we choose to ignore it and sometimes we don't and so so do you think it's part of our gig part I think it's part of harmonies to be a witness every once in a while to be a witness I think art in general is you create something people can project onto in a lot of ways where you find a way to project your life and what's going on in your life and in the world into that that piece of art I think that that's part of our job I think exactly like you can only really write what genuinely comes out of you I ever liked and if that is yours you're leaning for me I am actually like it's probably the only person who's not really a lyricist like I write music so I try and let my political whether it's supporting swing left or whatever it is and putting it on you know my records are that that's what that's what I can do I mean it feels a small drop in the bucket compared to what you've done you know the Bay Area was obviously the most politically outspoken of all the early hip-hop movements as well so it's like I guess I just I'm sort of envious of what you guys have been able to do and I just try and find my way in or whatever I feel I can do this appropriate know I feel like sounds can be really punk rock and political also just sonically it's not saying it as obviously as words but I feel like you and you hear like an insane face son for instance like that can be really moving at least to me the passion that comes out of it yeah but I think later it can be turned into whatever you know like you can have I mean the reason that that Dead Kennedys broke up is because they were trying to use a holiday in Cambodia for Volkswagen commercial and he didn't want all the meaning taken out of that now whatever your stance is on that the point is is that if if rebellion is only aesthetic then it won't that aesthetic won't be rebellious for that long because that aesthetic gets consumed and used and well that's what we're in now yeah you turn on the TV and like every commercial is like so absurdly what on one hand it's incredible but other hand there's a party with us still like you guys didn't give a [ __ ] like until it became part of like a money-making machine so there's yeah I think we're living in a weird time right now where it's like being politicized has become mainstream mm-hmm so it's almost like it's artists can't afford to not be politicized which sort of bastardize is the concept so I think what's interesting to Mark's point where it's like I think you can be a political figure so like for example like you got the whole world dancing uptown funk right and then you as a figure are donating and spreading information about places so it's like it doesn't have to be in the song because we know okay the forces behind the song or part of the future your behavior your behavior you're a you set an example and that's one of the main ways that we can be leaders if we if you want to be is to try and set an example that way with with what your choices are but I think you know I think it's a good thing when we do it and I think we need to restrain ourselves from it be I've seen people who are into the cause of the week well save all the little kittens in southern Austria and and I don't want to do that I don't want to be you know madly waving my hand about some subject or another in order to get it we also don't want that in a movement about me getting attention because I'm doing the current thing I you want to get attention for the cause that you believe you but you have to look at stuff and see what really matters to you you know it really managed me that I fight racism I [ __ ] don't like it I never did I'm gonna always fight it that's real clear to me I don't like that the deck is stacked against women always has been always has been everywhere in every country in every religion the deck is stacked against women I don't like it there are places where I can see clear-cut stuff that I feel like putting my dukes up about it but I don't think we should lose track of the fact that we want to make people feel good I think though in in that going along with that like I believe that we should just whatever you're feeling make that song if that's what's moving you but I think sometimes we edit out we we compartmentalize these thoughts that really we're thinking about all the time like you know a love song is generally like I love you do you love me back how long you're gonna love me do you love that person a little bit more than me or not and you know that goes a little bit for but in real life we're thinking like I love you and can you not laugh like that in front of my parents because you know like there are things that in if we put those real real things in there then all of a sudden it's not a love song or something like that anything with this where it's like historically feels in a crystal so this is a bigger point which is that I think you can do both I think what's interesting about songs is there's tons of songs that enter people's consciousness I mean I [ __ ] heard Ohio at weddings and people are dancing and it's like I was in there listening the lyric I'm like damn and then at the same time there's a kid in bed listening in Ohio who's like getting is nobody that's a trip it's a groovy song like it works but but like there's Springsteen does a lot of that where he's shouting about something and everyone's dancing and then he's really secretly saying something really serious and dark Christmas music though like because you just said this about love song it's every Christmas song is basically like I hope my life is not this bad yeah and it's this crazy even like as a juice I've always listened to Christmas music it's like this need to have a stating time of year where like the radio gets overtaken by the heart breaking and then all my friends really go boppin doing it and from an early age I was always kind of like wow like it's sort of that we talk about a lot of time in the studio but like the idea that someone's dancing to a song someone's crying of a song same time in in ones in America ones in Japan whatever it is and I think that same thing of politics where the song can hit someone extremely charged and someone else is a love song and I think it's our job here sort of balance that so you actually reach people yes if you're just screaming in their face you'll miss they'll never listen to you or their quit listening to you eventually and you're both individually and together that's one of the reasons that you have to limit team at did you do it yeah absolutely one time I had to write really quick us I had been lying about being starting on this album I got the money from the record labels epitaph records and Andy caulking called me and he's like how's that going and I just fallen in love and I was like just really like in the house with this girl for like six months and where the studio was and he was like you got that I was like oh yeah I got a lot of stuff almost done and you know I I got one song though just totally like and he was like great I'm in Oakland like let me come by and so I wrote this song real quick just because I was I had to like put it all together yeah yeah I had again I had the music already wrote this song real quick and I was like okay how do I be true to what I'm thinking at this moment on and it's a song called I just want to lay around all day in bed with you but it really is talking about because of the pressure and all that like time and what we would do with our time if we didn't have to make money with it and which is the basis of exploitation and all of those things but a lot of times we think of those things is all separate when they're not really in our head they're not separate they're all connected and there's just a tradition of cutting out these other things and and making it you know quote unquote not political alright guys I could feel like this conversation going forever but I have a few more things to get through before you so how has music saved you in your own life give me an example of the time but you should repeat that time every every single day music saves me um I think music is something that almost gets channeled through me so like you guys were talking about earlier you never know if you're gonna kind of lose it like you'll wake up one day and I won't have my magic power kind of but so as long as I have it I will just be asleep or in the shower and I have an idea and all of a sudden I go into a panic and I start yelling because I get the phone it's like an emergency situation and everybody in my house just knows like give me a tape recorder or whatever or a piece of paper and after I write something it just feels like so cathartic that and I love knowing that as a woman I can be self-sufficient and it's something nobody can ever take away from me is my ability to write and I don't know that makes me feel safe mmhmm yeah absolutely well in a literal sense I mean it saved me because I don't I was getting an eviction notice from my apartment I got one personal hold each other but same week so literally saved me that way but uh yeah I always say in a broader sense than the general says everything good that's happened to me in my life that's come from music particularly in my case country music everything good this happened to me I met my wife through it which was the first turning point of my life into real understanding of what love is and what a future could be and finding out who you are in a lot of ways and discovering the bad side yourself in the good side years though and yeah I just like you were saying it it's it's such such therapy you know and especially if you grew up in sort of a dysfunctional environment to have that as a tool that you can go to and release yourself this is something that I'm always grateful for and I'm always grateful that I try to be grateful not always grateful I try to be grateful that it can go away at any moment you can wake up one morning and like you said your magics gone I'm not gonna worry about it it could but I can't think about it but cathartic exactly the word yeah so much stuff in our lives we've gotten to to crystallize and look at you know by having come out and you go oh wow is that what I'm thinking Wow oh [ __ ] and you know you get to look at parts of your life and things that you that you're going through in a way that and that's the magic of music there's all you go here oh just really fast this is a really interesting I mean to me is that the music saves you but it's saving other people too because a song you write you know you know it's artists like what they what they do like I'm just a song where I'm not an artist but you know I get notes from people like literally songs can save your life like the people wanting to kill themselves and they you know and then somehow a song you wrote like in your little room just saved someone's life so what we do is really important it's a powerful thing what we do and it was very fortunate to be able to do it very fortunate to be in a position to be able to a lot of people never get in the position to be able to do it on a scale that we're able to do it's wonderful it's a wonderful thing so powerful challenging and I yeah I actually really don't go to happy music I guess I guess I don't know how you guys are but I always find myself like if I'm in it's like a depressed state or whatever I actually want to listen to sad songs I want to feel like someone understands me not like not because I want to wallow in it but you just want to be like I do have an idea or someone has it yeah yeah yeah good for you so I I think it's like I'm kind of sort of known for making this slightly like your oppressively happy music which is so like crazy when I just like obviously sound like uptown funk is like a bit of an anomaly but like all I do is just get pictures and videos for my friends and their two-year-old kids and they love and like they played it at the wedding or we loved it I would actually never listen to a song like I'll tell them fun by myself I'm so proud of it and it's amazing but every now and then I'll like go I will be in a shitty mood and I hear like a song that just makes me absolutely joyous like Stevie Wonder I believe when I fall in love with you to be forever or something I don't and then I'm like oh now I realize like what people feel like when they tell me that this song took them out of like a shitty mood because you're like right there because you take it for granted because that's what we lucky enough to do for living and elevate people like depending on the kind of music you make and then every now and then when you end up it's like Superman too when you're on the other side of the glass and you get the powers taken away like oh I'm that guy now and I need that song is quite a lovely thing it reminds you why you have a job you know you know there's a lot of people a lot of artists you can you listen to a song you know oh I get how they feel I mean I can hear that they're telling me how they feel but they're really key and I think in the real power and what really works is when somebody hears something and you tell them how they feel because they couldn't put it into words and you put it into words how they feel and maybe they didn't know they felt that way till they heard you say absolutely I have some bad news that we're almost out of time so I have to sort of fun lightning round questions for you and then we're done so name a song when you didn't want to kill you the first one is actually um what is your go-to karaoke song and is there a song that you think people should stop karaoke Wow I don't I and restaurant not just cuz it's long but I think it's kind of cool you can go through all the motions and I think Billy you can act it out Bob read write and you could be Brenda already and I think Billy Joel has gotten a tough break sometimes and those songs need to be he's a great song but some people are like weirdly like well it's been you it's like the thing like if it depends on how you heard it true you know and where you came in at did you come in at river of dreams no I mean alright I've looked at him you know in retrospect so you know being somebody you know he knows you know hip-hop producers you've got all these records yeah yeah yeah it's going through Allentown's whatever song I would do karaoke if I could carry my vocal chain everywhere I'm trying to get the mic turned off I just yell and tell them like you had to turn me down all saying going through a big DN domine Dallas oh yeah I likes old country songs like talking head so you could just sort of like yeah shout yeah some of the that'd be cool I felt like like school bus rap music from the 80s and 90s like the far side pass me by it everybody knows every word so that's kind of a safe all right and our last question here what was the first concert you ever attended I got lucky older sisters Beatles whoa cool is that twice Billy Squier done I think mine was Ted Nugent Wango Tango the Munroe success me and some friends snuck into Houdini and ut'fo the Henry J Kaiser and that was you know I was already a teenager never been to it with that fresh vest yes it was fresh yeah yeah you have a t-shirt yeah my dad took me to see Al Kooper who is probably famous for super chasings and first blood sweat and tears album but there's a song on the first blood sweat tears album called I love you I just I saw him perform it and I think it's still one of the greatest songs ever but that was like a small show and he had out Cooper from passing me by by the far side as well really it's that cover it's his cover of season of the witch that is the sample Cooper's a bit of a hero he's great he did the organ and like a rolling stone yeah it's funny what looking back on 60s and 70s who who got their due and who didn't like because not a lot of people my age know about Al Kooper and he's one of the greatest probably no you know it says no King round with this group it was like at the racecar track in Nashville they had a festival but you have to keep walking like they heard you like cattle it's really weird do you remember that's Rancher yeah you did well I remember it was just like we were walking around in circles being like herded around a race track and I remember singing leann rimes play was a songwriter so I was probably like Wayne oh yeah was that when she was that like it was like I did songs for her long that was before she's like 15 well what she's still an amazing singer Wow she saw Elvis yeah I was when yeah Jackson Mississippi there's never a big family a big fan of the of the air release I love the air release yeah I tell you Elvis for vocal for a vocal you listen to Love Me Tender on headphones water oh yeah that's one of the best vocal you ever hear anyone - you're a person with your first concert my first concert was actually a classical music concert of a Symphony Orchestra and I was about four years old it you remember it I remember it clearly because it impressed the first concert I went to that was our kind of stuff was a Kingston Trio trio Santa Barbara Bowl and I followed them down the hall and caught up with them at the gas station and got their otic drill I've always been kind of stuck on harmony I've always loved it and so they spoke to me pretty loudly well guys thank you so much this was a really wonderful conversation and I appreciate you all doing it oh man you represent great if I had to pick a bunch of people to talk about songwriting man I would a pick hey it's Ke$ha hey I'm mark grunts I'm David Crosby thanks for watching The Hollywood Reporter a Hollywood Reporter The Hollywood Reporter songwriter roundtable songwriter roundtable on Pirate Bay I mean YouTube [Music]

Channel: The Hollywood Reporter

Views: 84,643

Keywords: thr, the hollywood reporter, hollywood reporter, entertainment, hollywood, close up, kesha, here come the change, on the basis of sex, tim mcgraw, gravity, free solo, mark ronson, shallow, a star is born, diane warren, i'll fight, rbg, boots riley, oyahytt, sorry to bother you, jack antonoff, love simon, david crosby, home free, little pink house, songwriters roundtable, close up with the hollywood reporter, close up with thr, film, roundtable, the hollywood reporter roundtable

Id: qyhJQSifHR8

Length: 65min 40sec (3940 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 18 2019