What Makes @phoebebridgersmusic 1 in a MILLION?

[Music] [Applause] oh my god that record is so good crazy [Music] she's crazy and you're crazy that production is insane i feel like my favorite thing about phoebe's songwriting is that no one saw no song is ever about one thing if you want to know who phoebe is just listen to that song [Music] someday i'm gonna live this is how you do it it hits so hard it's it's not superfluous and [Music] hello welcome back to professional musicians react we have seen your comments people of the internet and we're doing it this is the phoebe bridgers episode with two members of team phoebe we are so lucky to have tony berg himself here today tony is a producer was md for bette midler played with tom waits quincy jones peter gabriel produced recordings for amy mann bob dylan randy newman squeeze bruce hornsby fiona apple andrew bird phoebe bridgers uh tony berg welcome tell me how much okay and on his left one of my bestest friends uh harrison whitford one of my favorite guitar players plays with phoebe has been in phoebe's band forever harrison i i think you're one of the world's best kept secrets as far as guitar talents emerging guitar talents i i intend to keep it that way yeah tony i think tony has a hand in that he wants you all to himself you uh you're also an amazing singer songwriter i love your songs so much i love your singing so much you released a record called afraid of nothing last november which people should check out i like looking at you while you compliment me so first normally i'm tearing you down today i'm here to build you up it feels really good okay guys what is a song we like to do these icebreaker questions um what's the song that you're listening to right now that you love tony what's your name uh first of all i have a problem remembering titles but i've been listening to the mitsky album over and over which i just love i love her [Music] uh i've been listening for whatever reason on repeat to uh nina simone's version of isn't it a pity which is just i don't know it's just it's just been listening to it getting nonstop the pity you don't know what i'm talking about yet but i'm gonna tell you soon i've been listening to this song automatic man by michael cimbello who wrote that tuned maniac i don't know that song it's and it's great it's an amazing songwriter an automatic man is i think as good of a song as maniac [Music] um my mine for whatever reason i keep coming back to this record uh it just makes me feel so good which is sinatra and count basie it might as well be swing the song more from that album the arrangement is so uh yeah it's a great song it's a great song and the arrangement is so good i only live to love you more each day tim tell us tell us about garden song let's dive in this is the lead single from her album punisher released in 2020 it was first performed live on tour in japan in 2019. when asked what the song was about phoebe said it's about dreams and manifesting it's about all your good thoughts that you have becoming real and all of the shitty stuff that you think becoming real too it was produced by mr tony berg and ethan gruska and phoebe bridgers and it was recorded at tony's studio here in l.a let's take a listen here we go here's garden song [Music] in your house up on the hill and when your skin head neighbor goes missing i'll plant a garden in the yard then they're gluing roses on a flat bed you should see it i mean thousands i grew up here till it [Music] [Music] when i was 17. [Music] oh my god that record is so good crazy she is crazy she's crazy and you're crazy that production is insane so good insane ethan and phoebe we uh we call ourselves the trilemma which is a real word is it really yeah uh you invented it no no i didn't invent it dilemma it's a real word choices a trilemma is three three choices i have to ask you some nerdy questions on this for a second just because i i it's it's such what we're here for different production it's so different um it sounds like everything is one thing except for her yes is it running all through a speaker it's muffled it's fuzzy it's old it's distorted is the whole track going through one signal chain except for her so it kind of sounds like it sounds like she's sitting on how how is that well like i could answer that okay i'd have to kill you uh i've seen him do it i have done it uh it starts with uh the fact we have a brilliant young engineer named will mcclellan who recorded this song there is a plug-in we used very effectively that shall go unnamed so that you at home can't imitate this record but it basically does what you're hearing and it's like on the it's not on the master because their voice isn't gone but it's on the most on every car it's on the guitar but there's that kick drum too that's super we've rolled off all the top ends yeah it's just this muffy bass pulse yeah beautiful you know the j dilla experience you roll off all the top end and it sounds like it sounds like to me maybe this is just since there's compression on the whole thing it sounds like it's sidechained to the guitar track so the guitar track is popping slightly underneath it yes yeah is it two guitars yeah both rubbers rubber bridge one is i don't think both of them i think there's a 12 string on it too really yeah in the chorus in the second chorus there's that clean guitar that comes in on the right side yeah well that's a counterpoint to illustrate the ascent the chromatic ascent yes which is that beautiful line before the second chorus and then it sounds like some of the dirty drops out in the second chorus something drops out it may what really happens in the choruses when we were recording this uh we had the track done and phoebe said uh i think my european road manager yaroon should sing on this i said have you ever heard him sing she said no and i said oh okay and he came in and that's what he sounds like he's two octaves below her yeah that's not pitch shifted that's his voice so what was so interesting about that to me was we are so used to hearing the drop octave pitch shift with all these new harmonizers and stuff and when you're here you're a human doing it it is mind-blowing six foot seven man and there's like literal bass in his speaking voice he sounds like a giant yeah he's amazing he's a giant it's such a cool way of making that chorus pop yes and it speaks to phoebe's instinct as a producer she's like i haven't heard him sing but i want him to double my vocals but i know he's right yeah yeah i i think this might be a good moment to pay homage to your the way that you mentor around you has has is this wellspring of generational talent that it just seems to sort of emanate from everywhere that you go blake really nice blake and sean everett and for you to bring you know you produce the first phoebe record and to bring phoebe and ethan into the production process and sort of foster their own producerial ability and i've just seen you do it with so many people and it's such an amazing quality the one thing i would say to any aspiring producer as she or he ages is keep your ear to the ground not to your record collection um how do you do that in your life how do you make sure your ears on the ground i just love what people in their teens and 20s too i'd rather make a debut album than a superstar album it's it's just thrilling that they the discovery and the and the uh the wide-eyed innocence it's just something i look forward to for something like this song can you can you describe the process of how it goes from phoebe saying hey here's here's a lyric and an acoustic here here's the song how does it go from that to this does this take two weeks in the studio does it sit there for two years does it happen in a day how does this happen this was really a day this is one day yes uh because she co-wrote this one with christian he is a great guitarist and he thinks arrangementally when he plays he's just not filling in spaces the way harry is describing and they worked out a two guitar performance of the song and there it was it was just apparent but we knew we wanted the pulse to kind of generate a subliminal momentum so we made that kick sound they performed on top of it she sang it as she sings uh exquisitely uh the only real overdub is yaroon uh this mad dutchman but i will say this the engine of this song is the lyric yeah it's among the best lyrics i've ever heard much less gotten to work on and if you want to know who phoebe is just listen to that song because it's all there it's all true there's this heartbreaking line when i grow up i'll look up from my phone and see my life it's it's it might as well be a motto for the age so much of the time when i hear the lyrics that try to speak to the age you know what i mean lyrics that talk about phones and textures it sounds so stupid you know what i mean yeah and this this is how you do it it hits so hard it's it's not superfluous it speaks to a truth that we all sort of she's got a very rigorous cheese monitor going on oh yeah all the time you know when something is anything less than the real deal yeah the look on her face is disdainful yeah i just want to highlight the doctor put her hands over my liver she told me my resentment's getting smaller come on it happened really yeah yeah that's a real story yeah phoebe's like an antenna yeah whatever is happening she's hearing it yeah she yeah that is like isn't that what great songwriters are obviously they're observers you your ear has to be you have to walk through your life and overhear the conversation at the coffee shop with your friend that weird word it's like when when i feel like i'm writing well it's because it's my full-time job it's because you're thinking everywhere you go looking for little pieces of magic and absolutely and being able to like you know wrangle all those things together in a way that is effective you know because that's like the hardest part about songwriting i think is not just like if i feel like my favorite thing about phoebe's songwriting is that no one saw no song is ever about one thing you know there's there's like a three-dimensional quality to the subject matter where you can sort of step inside this world and there's contradictions and there's things that are different characters you know just the fact that it's not all about one thing because i don't know i feel like any piece of art is never purely about the thing that it's about yes there's the artist in there and there's you know there's so many different forces yeah et cetera just to go back and talk about how you guys met how you all how you met phoebe how you met phoebe how did this all sort of how did you all your past cross and how did all this grow well i met phoebe almost 10 years ago i was living in nashville and um i was playing music with a friend i had made their sort of casually he hit me up and was like i'm coming to nashville with a friend of mine and we're gonna like play a couple shows would you play guitar with us and uh that friend was phoebe and um and also i was just like met her and heard her and was just super compelled i think like everyone is by her voice and just kept playing with her and was still living in nashville and was coming out here a lot to play with her and then was coming out here even more when we were making her first record which is when i met tony like speaking to what you were saying about tony's you know sort of natural mentorship inclinations you know i'd been playing guitar for a long time but i felt like i met tony and this like sort of other door of an approach to the instrument really opened up to me tony how did you meet phoebe uh i was very lucky an old friend named andy oliphant called me one day about nine years ago and he said i've met this young artist i think she's great i think he would like her could i bring her by so she came to the house to my old studio and um i was very struck by this combination of shyness and confidence that usually signals a great artist to me that's what her voice sounds like it is who she is yeah and uh we sat down and she played me a couple of songs and i thought they were very good and then she played me a third song that was better than very good and i what was that song killer and um as she played it for me i had a couple of guitar ideas i thought she might like i said can i show you something i think you might want to utilize so i did it and she just stared at me while i was playing and then she said here give me the guitar and she played it and i thought okay i'm in and we've worked together non-stop ever since so how lucky was i i'm i'm curious about you met phoebe and then she had this band she already knew marshall wasn't quite a band but it was it was the beginning of a band yeah it was at that time i was playing with her and marshall was playing with her and marshall yeah maybe what i responded to with phoebe and what constituted a kindred spirit was i could see she liked a community around her she liked to have people whom she trusts likes and who excite her musically so harry and marshall were the first two and there have been subsequent people on board like christian lee hudson and emily her bassist and and it's developed into a team and if you look historically you know bowie had a team around yeah and he relied upon that that's so true all these i mean so many of these people that we think of as great solo artists like elton and billy joel like they they all had bands and producers and people like great bands and great pieces of art so often come together because of special accidents from a variety of places and people like phoebe and all these other great solo artists are so often like you're talking about a community a band and i think every artist benefits by that let's listen to our next song this is uh this is kyoto i love this song so much tim tell us about kyoto this was the second single from punisher it was nominated at the 2021 grammy awards for best rock performance and best rock song it was written while phoebe went to japan for the first time in 2019 and is about imposter syndrome it was produced by the trilemma tony berg ethan gruska and phoebe bridgers this is phoebe bridger's kyoto [Music] at the time [Music] [Applause] [Music] tell me letter [Music] skies [Music] [Music] what a beautiful recording so beautiful it's so intricate what is that thing on her vocals it sounds like it sounds like it's running through paper or something like it's this flippy do you know what i'm talking about yeah but it's probably not on her voice i mean we use so many things that modulate yes whether it's a pocket piano with a wiggle in its waveform or a plug-in that just you know distresses a sound or a stompbox that monkeys with the tone we love the idea of the tangibility that is lent by those things i wonder if what you're talking about it's just the double and the rub on on some of the there's that there's that yeah there's a but there is it's it sounds it sounds like with tony's talking about it sounds like there's a modulation on her vocal that's like everything yeah there's very little that you put modulation on on vocals often sure yeah just like like a tape like it could be any kind of modulation in in the kind of figure changes yeah yeah i want to talk about the line that starts the song and happens over and over again yeah it it evolves in a way that you wouldn't expect this this melody play the very top of the song [Music] what is playing it was that a melodrama no that's like a voice memo of ethan's on a pocket piano and phoebe's playing acoustic and marshall's kind of playing on a snare or a guitar that was us running through the song yeah and phoebe or ethan i can't remember who had the idea well let's start it with that yeah and and imply the the process i love that it happens once at the top of the song so the vocal comes in kind of sooner a melody like that you expect to repeat but it doesn't but then the vocal comes in but then it does it repeats underneath her vocal i feel like the the normal impulse would be to mute that melody happening at least for the first half of the verse but it keeps happening behind the vocal and then kind of just goes away and then later the trumpet picks up and then later the trumpet picks it up yeah it's just it's it's a beautiful touch point to uh to the melody and the lyric and that's good construction you pressage a line that is going to take a larger role later yeah but with just a little hint of it right yeah if you played it twice it'd be too much and in the case of a phoebe record i feel like something that melodically feels pretty joyful isn't is it contradicts like a sometimes super heavy i mean lyrical content lyric is wrong the chorus is super heavy so it's so you know i love that the the main hook for me is that is that chorus note uh so she's yes [Music] that's what we all love oh i love that yeah innate lydian sensibility that's right i love that no it's such a good so much attention yeah it definitely it feels like the major seven but you're right because it's over the four it has that sharp four lydian kind of thing and it just it is so much tension to start the chorus on that tension people love what that does to them physically yeah it does i love it absolutely it's my favorite note yeah all of ours but you know uh like so many of her things she'll present it to us and it will go through this metamorphosis this is probably the most different from the song she played us to the record it ultimately became yeah of anything we've done yeah it was how did it start it was a ballad yeah it was very mellow ballad because i'm like half time or slower okay just like slower but also yeah like the the the feeling of how she played it was more like it was gonna be you know three things happening that actually makes so much sense with that chorus motion yeah you'd hear that in a ballad it's rare i think that you hear it in a rock song yeah it's tough yeah um i want to talk about the moment at the end of the first chorus after the first chorus end of the first chorus [Music] how how did that moment come about i'm pretty sure i comp this one i knew when she did the pass with that in it that i was going to keep that in the final vocal because it's so funny and it's so likeable yeah yeah and now she does it live too yes she does and so does the audience it's like a part of the song it's such gentle enthusiasm yeah i know it's the opposite of what i would do yeah yeah you said you were comping a vocal um some producers i i at least it seems to me some producers take themselves further and further out of the process and would not do things like comp vocals um and there are some producers who are i can't imagine if you're not going to get your hands dirty and dig in comping a vocal is is kind of the song you know what i mean like it's it's you're you're mining which emotion you're bringing out of of the singer and of the lyric this is a big topic because there are some who would say that's fakery in the bakery you know a performance should be a performance and sometimes it is you know phoebe is a great singer not a good singer so often her vocals will be one take maybe we'll repair a word here or there but sometimes the idea of creating something from several passes allows you to really swing for the fences and create something for the ages and uh and there's often i mean look at this moment if if you had assigned you know if you had an engineer or something okay just comp the vocal and if there's a mistake in this take just fine they would have you wouldn't have never even you would have forgotten about that ethan and i love doing that yeah love that part and this touches on one other aspect of production that i've never heard discussed but is important to me when you listen to a record that you've produced if you are counting your contributions to the record as they go by you're an idiot who cares what you care about as a producer is how does this sound how does this make me feel how do i think people are going to feel when they hear it not listen to that thing i did this yeah that's ego it's pure yeah and it has nothing to do with the song nothing the point of music yeah yeah i've never heard harry say check out this thing i played honestly that's great okay but i've said it to him about his own playing i i'd like to say it right now um i think we should check out this stuff that harry played on this song and i want i want to just hear how you guys cause you're both two of my favorite uh just complete masters of tone and parts uh and there's a there's a lot of guitar happening in this track can we can we just break down the evolution of you know maybe a few of these parts or your approach harry to playing guitar on a song like this my favorite two parts i think that happened were there's the 12 string acoustic part that happens sort of halfway through the second verse the kind of johnny marish you know originally these kinds of voicings tony introduced me to which to me are very like pianistic sounding because they use like open triangles so it's just those voicing oh inversions those bass movements are so nice cry yeah yeah and why it's so effective in this record in my opinion aside from how great a player harry is is that it contradicts the first lyric that it appears on because it's a rather angry lyric and this sentimental piece of music comes on yeah so you're left conflicted and then her next line is less angry you called you said you called on his birthday you were off by 10 days but you get points for trying or something yeah yeah okay that's just very feminine and the essence of her is so racist i feel like the the the music production to cooking analogy is salient to me a lot of times and the fact that like when you isolate that flavor and it has such strong emotional content you put that in the track and do you feel that even if your brain or your ear isn't picking it out totally that's a consequence of what tony was talking about too when like everything like the genesis of an idea is that it should serve a purpose in the song is that all those things come together in a way where it has some kind of emotional impact totally something funny happened on this and on a few phoebe songs uh when we were building the rhythm guitar track just the basic eighth note chug three of us were playing it um ethan played it i played it harry played it and then we just took the best sections that each of us had played and created one track and then harry did all the the more specific line-oriented plane on top of that but it it addresses the lack of ego in the room yeah nobody cares much less remembers uh how it was put together but there it is there's one other like part i just want to talk about really quickly too that was another idea you had the outro is like you know phoebe's doing like a one chord and a two major and a four chord and tony had this idea for an acoustic that's just doing this yeah but i just that like illustrates to me another like perfect sort of you-ism of just like things play something that where it's just essentially voice-leading but i again like the the i think one of my favorite things about making phoebe records is finding guitar parts that we are so much fun yeah just just things that i don't know are are not necessarily inherently guitaristic that flat five in that yeah chromatic run implies the two major exactly exactly so you don't have to play the two major chords the two major with the dominant seven yeah yeah so sometimes to be sparse and and and hidden with your motives is really effective so is she playing is there another guitar part where she is playing the two chord yeah and then you're just doing this on top of it which is beautiful that's like one of my favorite things in sessions is when is when musicians don't know what the chords are and two musicians think the changes are different things and they play different chords and there's this lush beautiful crunchy thing that happens you don't want to correct those moments not to dwell on something that isn't on topic right now but on phoebe's first album at the very end of the process she walked in with what i considered her first truly great song called smoke signals and she played i don't think ethan was in the room the first time she played it for me but i remember saying to her i think this is the song that tells us where you're going ethan then came in heard it and misheard one of the chords and that's what we went with his mistake it again it addresses the accidental nature of recording that you want to be attentive to because great things happen thank you guys so much for doing this what a treat i want to do this for every song on the on all of phoebe's records now just so much to talk about yeah so fun hanging with you guys thank you for thank you bro yeah and thank you for watching at home don't forget to uh subscribe we come out with new videos every week on the professional musicians react channel leave us a comment tell us what you think we should listen to next and we will see you in future episodes see you next week bye everybody

Channel: Dead Wax

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Keywords: jack conte, ryan lerman, ryan lerman guitar, scary pockets, pomplamoose, jack conte ceo, patreon, reaction, react to, react, conte, ceo of patreon, patreon ceo, phoebe bridgers, phoebe bridgers production, phoebe bridgers guitar, tony berg, tony berg producer, harrison whitford, harrison whitford guitar, phoebe bridgers kyoto, phoebe bridgers garden song reaction, phoebe bridgers garden song guitar, phoebe bridgers kyoto guitar, phoebe bridgers songwriting, phoebe bridgers songs

Id: FzR3rEsXxeg

Length: 32min 13sec (1933 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 13 2022