I need support to have to be the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan.
I am an editor at therainer.com and doing the other line as always. It's Andy Greenwald, Andy, what's up, man? Happy Monday. Happy Monday, not good, happy.
No, I know. So Andy and I have a sat show today because we are paying tribute and remembering Chattercose. We passed away on Friday after a battle with Colleen Cancer. And just one of those just shots in the heart, man.
This has happened way too often. It feels like where you get sucked into this kind of spiral of morning when somebody really meaningful a public figure like those passes away. Andy, we have a special guest on the show today to talk about Chadwick. Yes, we're really happy and lucky to have Reggie who from the New York Times culture reporter who profiled Chadwick in 2019 and wrote his obituary over the weekend to join us and just to sort of help us contextualize this news and talk about it.
And then after our conversation with Reggie, we'll be back with a few more thoughts. We then we'll get into the rest of the show, which will feature finale talk from I Made a Story You, which ended last week. And then wrapping up a podcast in interview with one of our favorite musicians, Brandon Flowers, lead singer of the killer, Susan Newell, is really amazing. But on our main topic today, let's get into our conversation with Reggie Oguo from the New York Times.
Yeah, let's do it. Chris and I are excited now to be joined by a culture reporter from the New York Times, Reggie Oguo. Reggie, thank you so much for joining us. Under not ideal circumstances, we really appreciate you making the time.
Yeah, no, I wish I was under better circumstances. But it's a delight to be a friend of the pod, actually. Yes, thank you. I know you have been listening for a while, so we really appreciate that as well.
So just to set the scene, in 2019, you profiled Chadwick Bozeman for the times. And then over the weekend, you wrote his obituary. You did a beautiful job at both pieces. And I guess the place you wanted to start with this conversation is kind of where it started for all of us over the weekend.
Where were you when you heard this news? How did you hear this news? And for all of that, were you as surprised as everyone else? Was everyone in the World Call-Out card by this?
Yeah, no, I was just a shock like anyone. And thank you for the kind words. I was out having a socially distanced drink here in Brooklyn, which you can do now before 11 PM. And I got a text from my sister, actually, letting me know.
And I was completely stunned. Yeah, I had no idea that he was struggling with this, that he was so sick. And it was just devastating, just instantly. There's a very sadly familiar thing that has now I've noticed happening in 2020.
I remember where I was when Kobe Bryant died. And I remember where I was when Jack Bozeman died. And so many other stories from this year where there's that moment where everybody just starts looking at their phones. You know what I mean?
And you kind of get, there's just nothing to say. And it's like you just get sucked into the immediate stream of that. Did you find yourself getting immediately looking at all these remembrances? Or did you have to take a step back and kind of have almost like a moment to yourself?
Yeah, I mean, it was kind of like, my leg was kind of done after I got that. That text and the whole room really fell silent. And everyone was just really shocked. And I was suddenly on my phone to see what was going on.
And shortly thereafter, I got a call from my editor. And we started planning the obituary. I do want to steer the conversation into talking about obviously his immense talent and this incredible legacy that he's now left us with. But just to stay with this theme for a moment of just the shock, as someone who spent time with him.
And even in that piece, it reads a little bit differently now when there's a line about how a request to talk to his brother was denied. That there was as much as his talent was what led. He led with his talent. And so maintained this really incredible privacy.
And more than anything else, I'm stunned by that. I mean, and totally in awe and admiration of it. But how could someone be this public and be this private and yet be this private in 2020? Yeah, no, it's really remarkable.
And it was one of the first things that I noticed when I started doing research for the pieces that was just so little about this personal life and his biography that was out there. And yeah, I mean, come on, just to have done the films that he did while dealing with colon cancer, I mean, what was it? It was martial, it was Black Panther, it was Avengers. All these performances that he's become so well known for while he was privately dealing with the sickness.
It's pretty unbelievable to comprehend. And not to harp on this one specific piece of it, but when these remembrances began to flow from his co-workers and co-stars and people who'd also become friends, clearly close friends and they had meaningful relationships with off screen, part of my brain expected them to say, though I knew Chad was dealing with something, although I prayed for his recovery. And it does seem like almost up and down the board, everyone was completely stunned. And again, that just seems so, it seems super human.
It seems super heroic. Right, no, I think that's exactly right. And he has a project coming out for Netflix. And from what I've heard, even his most recent colleagues did not know that he was struggling with this.
I mean, he was obviously a very private person. And he wanted to lead with the work, as you were saying, he wanted to put it on the screen and have that be what people saw. And I think that was in keeping with his entire approach to celebrity, right? I mean, even with his performances, when you think about King T'Challa and Black Panther, when you think about his performance in Marshall or in 42 or in Get On Up, you don't see Chad with Mozeman.
You see the character. He was that kind of actor who wanted to disappear in a role and really inhabit it because I don't think he thought it was about him. I think it was about serving the performance and serving the story. I think it was just one last thing, just because we rarely have legitimate journalism on the show.
It's me, Chris, talking about movies that I haven't seen just to be clear. So there was no, in your knowledge and you're reporting and talking to people. There were no secret NDAs or conversations off the record where people said he can't do this this week or he's not gonna be able to do X or Y movie. It was completely as secret as it appears to have been.
No, yeah, completely secret. I had no inkling of it. Yeah, actually when I met him, he was working so much, right? He was back to back to back.
When I met him, he had just flown in at 6 a.m. It was in, we'll see it was in LA. And I rest around and he flown in 6 a.m. And then that morning he had done, he was from a shoot, he was from 21 bridges.
And that morning he had done a round table with Hollywood Reporter and then he was doing his interview with me for a couple hours and then he was back to the set and he was just like, he told me, he was actually like a zombie right now, which I've been thinking about a lot in the past few days because I can imagine what he was shouldering even in that moment. Well, I was gonna ask Rachael, it seems like one of the more unique things about Chadwick was that he came to fame, came to him rather late in life when compared to a lot of other stars, movie stars that we have. I mean, this would be like Chris Evans, it's like Captain America. Has been pretty much a celebrity since he was in his early 20s of not late teens.
Do you think that that experience of kind of not finding that notoriety until Middle-age essentially, was something that shaped Chadwick? Oh no, I'd say Middle-age. Yeah, well, he was 35 and he was not, so I mean, I was pretty middle-aged myself in that case. I'm definitely a senior citizen in that case.
Yeah, no, no, I think there's something to that for sure. He was very grounded when he became well-known and he spent at that point, over 10 years, I think he was in New York working in theater, where he wrote and directed plays, and he had a big discipline in the New York shows like CSI New York, that kind of thing. So he'd been around working steadily outside of the limelight and I think that helped ground him in a way. And even when he went to Hollywood, he did it in this very kind of intentional, pragmatic, almost workman-like way, where he was just attacking these auditions and building relationships with casting directors and just went about it in a very professional way, where he built up a relationship.
And he was just incredibly talented and hardworking and disciplined. I think of the sense that he was one of these kind of people that would have been successful at anything that he tried or he could have been a car salesman or an investment banker, but he decided that he wanted to be a movie star and became one of the biggest of his generation. Yeah, I love that line in your profile where he says that, says something about if you come to LA with the New York hustle, like now? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. I mean, I really appreciate that we're talking about someone of this much talent, of this much strength, of this much poise. There is one thing that is relatable to me about him and that is he just kind of spent his 20s bombing around Brooklyn. I feel like that just gives me hope.
But speaking of that poise and that strength, I mean, one of the things that I'm taking away from reading even more about him and thinking about him, especially now in this context, and is just how aware he was of what his performances meant to the world and his audiences. And yet what I really appreciated about your profile, especially again, reading it again now, he did seem to take some pleasure in being himself. And there was a slice and a few more that peaked out in that profile. Can you speak to that a little bit about just, obviously he was tired, obviously, doing press is just another part of his day at that point.
But did you get a sense of the man behind the legend? Yeah, it was at the very end of my interview and I've interviewed him, retold this incredible story about being at a concert with his girlfriend. When he turned into James Brown to kind of take care of a guy who was standing in front of them with his butt crack, so he hadn't kind of ruining the mood. And I was, that came at the very end of the interview and I was totally delighted to hear him kind of go there.
But he was talking about, it came from again, his commitment to his performances because he was talking about immersing himself in a role and coming down from the long stretch where he was embodying a character and how he carries some of that with him. But the way that he carries it with him was in that instance was really, really humorous. Reggie, do you have a personal favorite performance by him? Well, you know, get on up.
I feel like it's just a really incredible striking performance because he's doing the dance moves, he's doing the voice. He has this way of just kind of, almost an impressionistic performance where he doesn't necessarily resemble him to a tee, but he kind of conveys the personality or the spirit of James Brown. And I just think that you're not gonna get much more dynamic performance from anyone than in that movie. I think that that's a great performance to mention because to do that is totally unique and incredible.
Almost no one can do that to bring a legend fact to life, right, and embody him with the right spirit and make it feel like alive and not just like cutting and pasting or imitation. But yet he was able to do that and then turn around in a Black Panther, create a legend basically for an entire generation of moviegoers and beyond in future moviegoers. And I can't kind of get over that. And I re-watch Black Panther over the weekend.
And as much as I love the movie, I don't think I appreciated it enough because I don't think I was aware of what it, the audacity of what it accomplished, because now we look back on it and we think, well, yeah, of course, you get this many talented people together, you bring this much representation and fresh thinking and ideas to something that works, the Marvel Universe, it's gonna make a billion dollars. But this was never a sure thing. And the more we read about his performance, the more we realized how much of that came from his commitment to making something that would matter and that would last that whether it was speaking, bringing in an African accent to the character, making sure that his language wasn't colonized to, I think it was his idea we learned this weekend to have the spear holders and the ceremonies be dancing. So they didn't just seem like Roman soldiers.
He was making this movie to last forever. And I just, I don't even have a question, I'm just kind of ill. No, say, I mean, that was really the role that he was born to play. He intersected with his personal interests, even a long time fan of the comic book, since at least college.
And he was very interested in African history, African politics, African spirituality, some of that blood into his plays that he wrote. And you just see those kinds of stories, you have from Ryan Coogler, who shared his remembrance the other day about him being kind of the torch bearer, the standard bearer on set, who really believed in what the project was and could see what it was gonna be, even before Ryan Coogler could see it so early. And it's really, you're right, it's really remarkable to contemplate. And I think it's very hard to do because the character, that they had to take on that weight, to be in a role of such outside, symbolic significance, and to not crumble or to not to be too flashy either, not to make it about him, but to just kind of have the shoulders like a big bear and bring it to life, is what's kind of gets to life.
We've seen so many performers, like the playing superhero just does their head in, in a variety of ways, like whether it's just like they lose a sense of like what they're supposed to be doing as an actor or an actress, or it just kind of takes them on a road of fame that they never really get off of. And you kind of lose maybe some quality roles in the process, but Chadwick definitely, he had this quality where I was like, it feels like he's always been here. Like, you know, he was out of nowhere, but always been here. It was such an interesting trajectory to get to that point where he becomes this iconic figure in just a matter of years.
Yeah, no. And I think Holly would come with it in that way as well, right? Within a few years of his arrival, they're like, okay, now you're, yeah, Jackie Robinson, now you're the Marshall, now you're James Brown, let me just get though, again, these roles in Wesley Moore has talked about that and his remembrance from the other day about how there's something kind of ludicrous to that, to the idea of that, or is it a classically Hollywood, or is it just, oh, just give it to this guy, crank these out, but Chadwick was able to bring humanity and depth to those roles and to kind of make them worthwhile, even though you would never guess that kind of thing should exist or would work. Yeah, I mean, I would leave, for me personally, like I'll leave this to Wesley and to Sean Fennessy to sort of make comparisons, but I don't know if there's ever been a run like this, like any actor ever, like these are the parts that act as way their whole careers for it, and usually they get the trophy off of, and then they get the, or they get the, it happens, but it happens way younger.
It happens like McConaughey, where he does like two roles, and then he's in a time to kill, but he was way younger. But then just knocked out four of them. Yeah, right. It's outrageous.
Reggie, I wanted to make sure our listeners, you know, as they don't already know your work, and I mentioned this to you when we first spoke a year ago, you wrote just this incredible piece in the times last year, called They Set Us Up to Fail about Black Directors of the 90s, who were many of whom were briefly like critical darlings, and then were not given second chances, or in some ways were even given first chances. And that came to mind when I was thinking about Chadwick's legacy in Specifically Black Panther again. Could you speak a little bit about the difference, if you see it this way, of course, between putting a Black actor in a superhero movie, and making it a Black movie, you know, in the differences that that meant for, the difference that makes, and what it says about that movie Black Panther, and how it was received, and what it meant to people? Yeah, no, I think it's an interesting point, because you know, you could kind of see it in Chadwick's career, this transition from an era where it was just default, it was gonna be a white guy who's gonna tell the story, right, because he's directed by Taylor, and then get on up, and Brian Helblin, and what he do, and I kind of wonder, like, if those movies were getting made today, it's hard for me to imagine a white director checking on those projects, but he kind of straddled that shift in the industry.
And I mean, the proof is in the eating of the Black Panther, like, I think the reason why it resonated was because of all those details that Chadwick was able to bring to it, that Coogler and Lupita, an incredible cast was able to bring to it, but they took it very seriously, these were top-level world-class performers and filmmakers who had, in some ways, been underserved, underutilized, and you see what happens when you put them all together. You get just magic. And I think it's significant that, you know, we may never know exactly how he was fairing over the last year of his life, but he definitely, whatever he was going through, made time to work with, with Spike Lee and the Five Bloods and Jersey Wolf for, and Denzel, you know, by proxy in my range, Black Bottom, and that was clearly a priority of his career. Yeah, I was kind of going through his IMDb the other day, and he was just so intentional.
Every single one of the roles that he was doing, you know, was something that you couldn't imagine anyone else getting made. He was trying to leverage his start to get projects made about African figures, about historical Black figures. Every project that he took on had that kind of social, political death, or bailouts to it. So that was something that was really important to him.
He's clearly felt like he was on a mission, and it's a tragedy that we don't get to see where he would have gone. Yeah, and I know that we will get one more movie from him, but that Five Bloods performance now has like a spectral quality. I mean, he was already for anybody who hasn't seen Five Bloods. I mean, it's purely in the film.
But he was already had a ghost-like quality in that film. He's talked about as a ghost by Delra Lindo, who's character Paul. And it's an incredible performance, man. I mean, if you haven't gotten a chance to see it, if you haven't, you know, obviously kids who are into Black Panther are not quite, they're not ready for that movie, but what a performance in Five Bloods, man.
Yeah, no, and he has kind of a halo around him in that story. And it says something about who he was as an actor and who really played in Hollywood that Spike thought of him for that role. And there are so many great actors in that movie, but Chad was this kind of heroic figure. Yeah, there was a quote from Spike Lee, right?
Like, we're going to shoot him like a Jesus and Superman, so go outside and get. It's like just to stand in that light. So as I've been processing this over the weekend and thinking about just how it's unthinkable that he's gone, that the other thought that kept following along with that in my head is I kind of can't believe we had him because it feels like, and forgive the hyperbole here, but in the 90s, they're always these like, John Travolta secretly in Angel movies, you know, these Messianicomies or someone like, isn't of us? And then it's called back having done all this great work.
And it was like Michael or phenomenon or whatever. It almost seems unreal. We knew nothing about his personal life because he kept that shut down. He didn't enter the national stage or conversation until his late 30s.
He made, he delivered basically five masterpiece performances back to back to back to back. And then he's vanished. None of this seems plausible or real. And maybe that's obviously the shock of it is the shock of it.
And the loss of it is the loss of it. It does feel completely all of it feels unbelievable. Yeah, yeah. And you know, if the testament to his character, if the testament to I think, you know, his upbringing as well, and his family, I know he was very close with his family and then he told the brothers that he looked up to and that inspired him.
And we'll see what comes out in the coming days and weeks and months. So I hope we do get to hear more about what he was going through. And yeah, I just hope to hear more. Yeah, that would be really powerful if we got to deal, not to be invasive or invade his privacy.
And obviously he was a very private person. But I think that one of the things that you see occurring throughout these remembrances is just the utter disbelief. You know, cancer has a tendency to, you know, almost erase the person, you know, while it's happening. And the fact that he was able to be so present and be so powerful and while facing this disease is just unbelievable.
And to give so much of himself throughout, you know, we see these footage of him visiting kids in hospitals and giving so much of his time when he knew that was a good question how much he had. Reggie just has someone who met him, who's thought about him, and you know, continues to think about him. What do you think his legacy is? Or will be totally unfair question, obviously.
So it's just an interesting passing. But just, you know, to help contextualize it for people who may be sort of struggling. Yeah, no, I think, you know, he embodied professionalism and resolve and, you know, dignity is the word that a lot of people have been using, including myself in that profile from last year. I mean, to have had that kind of run and to have gone out after Black Panther, I don't know that there will ever be a run like that.
And, you know, Hollywood has changed as I was saying earlier, over the course of his career, and we're now in this era where there are more, like, still not nearly close to parody, but there are more Black stories, so there's more Black stories. And he was right there to usher it in with Black Panther, which completely changed the game in Hollywood. And so I think, you know, childical, the synonymous with this era that we're living through, and we'll always have those films to go back and see, you know, Black excellence that the body. And before you go over, I have to ask you, said at the beginning, and it let off your profile, that he told Amanda to cover his ass crack in a James Brown voice.
Just you have to let us know. Did he do his James Brown voice for you in that moment to recreate it? I think he did a little bit. It wasn't like a vlog, but like a lower voice version of it.
But yeah, a lower decibel. You got a little piece of it. Yeah, no, that was, that really obviously made my day, my year. Well, Reggie, thank you so much for joining us.
And thanks so much for sharing your thoughts about this amazing performer. Thank you guys for having me. Really appreciate talking to you. Thanks, Reggie.
All right, thanks so much to Reggie for joining us. And we'll send out links to his profile of Chadwick, as well as his obituary and the 90s film directors article that Andy mentioned. All three great pieces. Andy, man, I don't know.
Is there other stuff you wanted to talk about with Chadwick? I feel like, I know this is a little bit atypical for me, because Daddington is your turf. But the first thing that I thought about were the children. Like, I did literally think immediately, and you know, our buddy Jason Gallagher, we're the ringer, tweeted something out about his son, his sort of favorite superhero, was Black Panther and that like Chadwick Bozeman did that, you know?
And I immediately, I usually don't think about stuff like this. But the first thing I thought about it was like, God damn, I have to be six to be eight years old to be 10 years old and have this superhero that truly does feel of the moment and truly does feel like something new in the world. And in a lot of ways could have a hand in introducing a lot of people to a lot of ideas that they maybe normally wouldn't have been introduced to. And also giving a lot of other people a symbol of power that they maybe weren't seen before, definitely weren't seen before this.
And I just thought about that. Aside from the obvious personal loss for Chadwick and Chadwick's family and the people who knew him and loved him, I just felt like that was where my mind first went. Absolutely. I think that the power of that performance and the impact is incalculable and astonishing.
But maybe because of that, my perspective was a little bit reversed, which is to say, we can and we could, and maybe we will again, in a different podcast, talk about the loss. But I was floored by what we had and what we got, which is to say, and I mentioned this in our conversation with Reggie, I can sort of just repeat myself, I underrated that movie, black Panther. I watched it again this weekend. Obviously, I think we did a full podcast talking about how incredible it was.
So I don't think we were negative in any way. But the accomplishment and particularly the accomplishment of that performance is just staggering and so complete. You know what I mean? He gave the world not just a superhero, not just a black superhero, but an African king.
And I think the one thing about that movie when I watched it was he seems to be levitating above it in a way. He's almost like his vibranium suit. He's almost bulletproof. It's the point where I was watching it at times.
The first time I kept thinking, I had this like, that probably wasn't the only one. Almost like pet theory that Ryan Coogler has he wrote in his remembrance. When he got the assignment, Chadwick was precast. Like Chadwick was already in the role and they hadn't worked together.
And I remember thinking, oh, I bet he wishes he could have cast Michael B. Jordan because they worked together in fruit station and obviously Michael B. Jordan joined the film. And what a dumb comment by me or dumb thought, because you need a superhero playing the superhero.
You need someone who can embody the eye of the hurricane so that Michael B. Jordan can be 120 mile per hour, Gail Force wins, swirling around him, right? Yeah. It is a as much as it is a revolutionary performance.
It is also like the epitome of a classic Hollywood leading man performance. And it feels, I mean, I'm not really just, it feels blessed, honestly, watching and thinking about what he gave us in that. And so, you know, obviously it would have been incredible to have more movies with him in that role from movies with him period. But that movie is not done teaching things to people and showing things to people.
And unlike a lot of other superhero movies or big, you know, box, global box office successes, it isn't itself like the end point of years of franchise management or building or whatever. It's just this incredibly rich text that can itself supply a generation of movies and ideas. You know what I mean? Like there can be a Killmonger movie or a Shuri movie or a Mbaku movie or a World of Wakanda movie to steal the title from a comic book that was published by Marvel.
You know, it's just a fully realized phenomenon on screen and also and off of it, right? Like the, and that brings it all the way back to the reactions from, from kids, from, well, I mean, people all over the world, but particularly people of color for Black, people of Black Americans, what this movie meant. And God, it's just Titanic. And I personally just regret that I didn't have this perspective or couldn't take it in.
Yeah. When he was alive, you know. It's always, it's like the dependability of that performance and the, the sure handedness of it makes it easy to overlook it. You know, I think that when you when you go back and watch it and it sucks to have this hindsight, you know, it's the same way I felt about watching Five Bloods this weekend and watching some of his other other films, like in clips and stuff, just to refresh my memory over the weekend, you know, everything changes when you look through these lenses of knowing that this person is gone.
But with T'Challa and when you watch, when you watch Black Panther, that's, that's the part that feels like, like I said, to Reggie, where it feels like it was already always there. It just feels like that was a superhero. That was a character who had been with you for 15, 20 years. That this was somebody that was this indelibly, indelibly printed into your consciousness, like a Batman, like a Superman, like a Spider-Man.
It was just like, that's Black Panther. And that's, that's the exact way you play that character. That's the exact way he talks. That's the way he moves.
That's the way he interacts with his sister. That's the way he interacts with his, his significant other. That's the way he interacts with his mother. Like everything about it felt perfectly calibrated.
Absolutely. And also the other thing that I think we underrated in the context of the conversation that we always have when Marvel movies come up is for every Russo brother saying Captain America, Civil War, Captain America, Winter Soldier is the parallax view, right? Um, the director of bullshit we talk about or taking a step further, how every Jurassic World movie is just Callentrevere or whoever trying to, there's making Jurassic Park or every new Star Wars movie. They're just trying to make Star Wars, right?
Black Panther really is a bunch of people coming together and being like, we're going to make Star Wars, but 1977 energy, right? Like we're going to make this one for the next generation of people who make things. And some of my favorite things to read over this weekend were just the little details that mattered so much to those making it, particularly mattered so much to the franchise, to the star who was, as we now learn, battling cancer while making it. And so his understanding, innately, that everything they did mattered and would matter to people, right?
From, from the accent he chose to the dialect they spoke to making sure that he was in. This is the Ryan Coogler piece, I think in the Winston Duke remembrance, that he was in the final callback read through auditions, right? Yeah, he's doing chemistry reads with so many people. Yeah.
So he met Winston Duke and then wrestled with him and was like, yep, this is going to work. And then he read with, he read with LaTisha Wright and she made him laugh immediately. Yeah. And he was like, yep, I need my sister to make me laugh, you know, to be the quarterback on a team that was recruited, like Angela Bassett, forced to win her and Sterling Brown being like, hey guys, we need the, we need the Yankees, right?
We need the All-Star team to pull this off. Man, I just, I said this to Reggie, I'll say to you again, you read about this and you don't believe it's real and maybe it's because it's very 2020 or maybe because we're all cynical or everyone's lives are so extremely online or extremely public. But this feels otherworldly to me. This just doesn't feel real that he just emerged from playing chess and bedside or something played for the most iconic roles in either in history, like IRL history or now in cinematic history.
Yeah. And then now it's gone. It's just what a life. That's unfathomable.
And I think the shock of it still hasn't worn off. Thank you so much again to Reggie for joining us today. We were really big fans of his work. So it was real treat to get to talk to him, even if the circumstances frankly sucked.
Anyone, we didn't get a chance because last Thursday, we didn't ever remember on the show, but which we, I want to hit. I made a story. If you, if we have time here, you send me a text. If you don't mind me pulling the curtain back where you really, you really, like essentially, I don't know if I'm smart enough to even discuss that finale.
Well, that was not very good texting. Oh my God. This is, this is a tough one because I was stressing watching it. And then I just kept sending you pictures of Keith from prodigy.
Yeah. No, it is definitely one of the most at once complete and messy. And I mean messy as 100% unambiguously as a compliment. Finales that I can remember a show pulling off.
I don't know if there's a precedent for a show like this in this era because often when we have been talking about TV at the moment, it falls into broad, you know, roughly speaking, broadly speaking into two camps. There is hyper personal or a tourist ship. And then there's hyper competent. Here are the beats to hit TV and we love both.
And honestly, I think the very best things have enough of from camp A and enough and camp B to work, right? I don't know of any recent show that is so profoundly camp A. I mean, it's just, this is such a personal, such an aesthetic and artistic statement by Michael Cole and coming out party from a major, major talent in front of the camera behind the camera. But I don't know of a show this personal and a tourist that actually kind of tricked us.
Although trick is a pejorative word that actually convinced us also for long swaths of the show that we were watching, not a buddy comedy, but like just a strip of society show. You know what I mean? Like there were episodes where it was about the larger community or about the larger society and for her to grab control of her narrative literally and figuratively in the case of this finale and be like, this was, there's room for all of those things in my show for humor, for sadness, for trauma, for violence, for shock. But ultimately, this is I'm writing my way out of this in the most literal way possible to point where she is no carding her own story, the way that writers do and particularly TV writers do.
And those no cards are smeared with blood. Um, it was, I was floored by it. I mean, it was a challenging finale. It was easier once I began to realize the conceit she was using, which, you know, speaking to the autorism nature of it is not a conceit that had existed in any other episode that we would be seeing different versions of the truth, but it was a bit packed of wallop.
I love the fact, you know, I hate to read what's sometimes you don't hate to. People have already, but one of the things I love so much about once in doubt is the fact that it communicates ideas through style and story, like rather than being on Front Street with characters saying, you know, I don't want to be a bad man, but that's bad television writing. But I, I feel like so much of what once in doubt does is communicate the themes of the story through the actions and the characters rather than through authorial statements. And the way we get a little thread of the needle by being able to have these characters talk about ideas, but talk about them naturally within the day to day going on of their life was so revelatory to see happen.
You know, I think that ultimately what the show did is what the best TV does, which is it creates a world that has its own logic. And that's Twin Peaks, you know, that's Mad Men, that's Fargo, that's, that's Fleabag Fleabag. It's like the logic is that she can turn to you and talk to you. And I may destroy you.
The logic is, is that this person is, like you said, writing through trauma and fashioning, not a resolution per se, but another chapter. And she is finishing one and she is opening another for herself. And yeah, I just thought, you know, there were these little, I think there are these little, like, I imagine this script or this episode as handwritten. And there are little parts of the handwriting that we were like, oh, I wonder, is that intentional?
Is this intentional? This little flick of the pen, the way this, this letter curls, because like, you know, my wife and I were watching it and we were like, that last shot of the bookstore, has that reflective nature of the book, the upside down and it makes you ask all sorts of questions about your own perception of what's happening and her perception of what's happening, what is really happening. But at the end, I wasn't thinking about it in terms of, did you land the plane? Did this all make sense?
Did you answer every question you asked? Because the show transcended all that stuff. Yeah. I think it's probably worth noting just also contextually, like we are at a moment, culturally, societally and critically, where just a, the primalist, primal, Yelp version of this show would be, would receive an enormous positive response and should.
But what I keep coming back to is how it's so, it's that in totally entirely, as you're saying, but it's also, it also backs it up, you know, it has all the goods. It's not just Michaela Cole reclaiming the narrative or claiming the screen. It's these little things like Kwame has not just one arc, but multiple character arcs and relationships and flaws and foibles. And she's planning it.
She's no carding it, perhaps, to the degree where all of where his stories are wrapped up appropriately in time to clear the stage for her. Yeah, that seems like a simple thing, but like, in my experience, the hardest part of TV writing is just pacing and where do you put the stuff? Yeah. And if you have A and B plots, when does the B plot see to the A plot, right?
Without feeling like you were just wasting time with it or that you've pushed it off stage too soon, because there was actually more there. It's just this little like craftsmanship part that she brings to. I mean, she's, she's the total package. And I texted you, I didn't know if I was hard to understand it.
That is how I felt at first, because I was so dazzled. I also, the more I thought about it afterwards, I was really moved by the fact that where she ended up, and this is my interpretation of it, was that there ultimately was no satisfying answer or conclusion to her personal sexual assault. There were just versions of it and processing. And did any of those things happen?
I mean, it's a TV show. That's what I thought about it. No, none of this happened. It's a fictional TV show.
For the purposes of the character of Arabella, did any of those things happen? Maybe bits and pieces. The real issue with the show is really about was the reemergence, or maybe for the first time, the emergence of a fully aware, I guess, fully present Arabella, right? Who has, I mean, this is the side of a great work where you're like, it's so complicated.
It's so rich. It's so difficult to parse. And then you can also say, well, she, she turned her pain into something else. Like, you can almost reduce it down into something simple.
She comes out on the other side of the algorithm too, right? Like the moment of clarity comes at this moment of, of sort of returning to nature, as it were, I mean, in this brick backyard with Ben, who is alive and is not a ghost. And it's not a ghost. Definitely not a ghost.
I'm just a real person. And yeah, I think that that is the piece that she finds on the outside on the other side of this is the really only needing to be comfortable with yourself, which is the hardest thing to do these days. Can we also just say, what the fuck, England, like, why are all the good actors there? It's, we used to say this in the 90s about bands.
Like, there aren't that many people there? And a lot of the people there are in one place, they're in London, right? And you just look at the bench on this show, like, remember Simon from the first two episodes? Yeah, great, great actor.
Couldn't love to see him again. It's something he's just there, the woman who Kwame has his disastrous date with, you know, Google her name. Oh, she went to the Royal Academy of Traumatic Arts too. You know, she's probably just casually crushed Shakespeare on her off days, leading up to this guy who plays her attacker.
Yeah. In the last episode is given the opportunity to play some of the most extreme scenes that any actor could be called on to play and delivers. I mean, it's, it's amazing. And that's also a sign of a good show where like you mentioned, flea bag, but it's like, okay, everyone in the show should be in all the shows now.
And that's how I feel about this one. Yeah. And I just want to also say, because I think when we talk about this show, it can very easily slip into not hyperbolic praise, but a praise about stuff that's happening almost as a result of the show rather than the show itself. And this fucking thing still delivers moments, like the fire starter moment or moments like the several interactions that she has with Terry in the bathroom, you know, where you're just like, here on my arm standing up or they're really going for it.
And I will remember this music drop and this performance in this moment for years to come. And that's, that's what's great. You build off of the foundation of really good fucking show. And then also the added bonuses, it makes you think about a ton of stuff that you were absolutely should be thinking about.
So last two things on, I mean, destroy you. One is, I know the people to know this podcast for just the deep inside or stuff. You know what I mean? Just like reporting live from the, from the lot.
If you are one of those people, I don't know how many of you guys are out there that fit this category, but maybe you're one of those people who listen to us, even though you don't watch the shows odd, particularly since we've done 12 segments on the show. But again, if you are, and for some reason, on the fence, if you care about the industry and where it's going, you should watch the show for that. You should watch it for all the other artistic reasons we're talking about, but every conversation I've had with anyone. And I'm not saying I'm, I'm, I'm Joe Hollywood or even Bob Netflix, but I'm saying casual conversations with friends or work conversations with executives.
This is the Bob Netflix looks at Bob Chip back in Bob Iger and he's like, soon, I will have my day. And this is my day. He's like, who's secretly the biggest Bob? This is the show everyone's talking about.
This is the one. This is, this is the one that that all shows are going to be either compared to or considered next to. And when I say compared to you, you kind of can't compare it because it's very unique and you need to make a whole. But I've already had one conversation about something where someone was like, this, this other thing that's being talked about, are you sure we need it in a world where I may destroy you, did that?
So, you know, it's kind of like, can I make a sports analogy? Cause I don't do it very much. But if there's a team like a Warriors that are shooting threes like that, right? And you come in, let's say you just sign a lot of tall people and, and they don't have to play together.
Like maybe someone's favorite team did. They don't shoot threes, but they're like, no, we're just going to, we're going to do this thing that no one else is doing that doesn't work anymore. It looks foolish. Next to the thing that works, you don't want to be the Sixers in this analogy.
If the Warriors are out there, you don't want to be the Sixers. Last thing, what's next? Do you think Chris, like do you feel we don't know anything? Michael Cole obviously is the toast of the town to do whatever she wants next.
Do you think there's more of this show? Do you think that that is a good plan? Was it with that, with that surprise you? If there was this specific show, I think that in terms of what this story was about, the I made a story you story was about.
I think that she said what she had to say. That's just my guess. I mean, obviously what she's done though is created a place in which these stories can be told. So I would imagine, or I would hope that at some point, maybe nine months from now and maybe nine years from now, she does what great the British television system is somehow figured out how to do, which is, yeah, we'll hit it on the flip side.
We'll come back to it. You know, like in three years, if she wants to make six more, I made a story use that's about where Terry Kwame and Arabella are now. And maybe it's about something else. Maybe it's not about trauma.
Maybe it's about a lot of the other themes that they were talking about. Maybe it's about how these characters feel about getting older. But I don't necessarily feel like I need S to June, 2021. Yeah, it's, it's, this seems to me, I agree.
I would love to see this friend group again. I'd love to see this version of London again, but based on everything she said, and interviews and based on what she's done so far in her career, it does seem like Michael Cole as a creator is the brand and she will regroup or maybe not take much time to regroup. And think about what she wants to do next and she'll do it in whatever box that is meant to be in, whether it's another half hour series, an hour series movie, whatever. That seems likely.
And I think that she's earned, she's, I mean, she earned a few while at Bridge, right? Like maybe they're, they're most, at least up to this point, most popular thing might be over. But whatever they do next, people are going to be checking for it. Yeah, the vibe is what the show is what I want more of.
Like I want more of this London and I want more of these people, but I don't necessarily need a fabricated version of this is why they're all the three of them are together again today. I mean, every episode had that driving force of taking care of Arabella. That's why the three of them kept congregating all the time, even if sometimes they were kind of like, distracted by their phones and by their lives. And let's move on.
So I made a story, a great show with the belt and probably the show of the year. Do you want to do any intro for Brandon here? Just to say, we haven't talked about it on the podcast, but I definitely went out on Front Street on Twitter and I stand by it. I think that the killer's new album imploding the mirage is the best album they've ever made.
I just think it's an incredible record, a total gift in a awful year. And when I say their best record, I'm not trying to be like, needlessly hyperbolic. What I mean is, yeah, like Mr. Brightside when you were young are the types of songs that you don't get to do once in your career, let alone twice.
Those songs are better than new songs. But as a track by track, no skips, statement album, this record is for me. And so this is Brandon's third time on the pod, which is nice. Chasing and Suki's.
That's because the name of Brandon Flowers is memoir is going to be called Chasing Man Suki's. Or what's up, Jakey J? Like he's breathing down his neck. Anyway, all that to say, this is not a my journalistic bias is showing in this interview because I love the record and I love talking to Brandon.
It was great to check in with him. Obviously, he and the band were supposed to be on a chess thumping world tour right now and nobody can do that. So instead he's at home in Utah, beautiful wood ceilings, by the way, and already making plans to record another record. And it's really fun.
Is it solo stuff or is it like you get to bring everything under killers industries now? He's making another killer record. Like it's just it's just it's working right now. He's these great producers that he worked with the guys working with Warren drugs and went half the band Foxigen.
And you know, you mentioned lots of tough ones for two, at least so I will too. Like our brand for no reason that I can think of has definitely become older guys beating the odds. And so saddle up. We have a meeting about that.
That's just true. It just feels right. Saddle up and you know, enjoy this conversation with Brandon Flowers of the band the killers. All right.
Thanks so much. And we'll be into that interview after quick break from our sponsors and we'll talk to you guys on Thursday. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by Blue Moon. Don't you think once in a Blue Moon moments should happen more than once in a Blue Moon?
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You can have Blue Moon delivered by going to get.BlueMoonbeer.com and finding delivery options near you. Blue Moon, reach for the moon, celebrate responsibly. Blue Moon, bring company Golden Carado. I'm so happy to welcome back for the third time, although second as a solo guest, the lead singer of the killer's new album, Phenomenal New Album, including the Marages Available Now in Places, where you can buy in-stream music.
Branded Flowers Live From Home, welcome. How's it going? It's going great. I am so excited to talk to you because I think, and I hope you're ready for the heat on this take, I think imploding the Marages the best album you guys have ever made.
I appreciate that commentary. You know, when you make an album, you always think it's the best thing that you've ever done. I tend to think that about records and I think you know, you got to have a certain amount of excitement and confidence in yourself to other people here. And so it makes sense, you know?
I saw Tonya Tucker. She actually went to same high school as my parents. Anyway, she recently, you know, put out a great record and she said it makes sense, you know, like I've put in a lot of work. I've gotten older and I'm better.
And so I feel like that makes sense, you know, when it comes to us too. I think it absolutely does. And when I said this to people, what I was trying to communicate, and this might not make as much sense to younger people who live in like a streaming music brain economy and culture. But like, when I say that, I'm not trying to be like controversial or try to like win the internet.
I'm not saying that, you know, when you're young isn't like one of the best songs ever. I'm saying that as an album track for track, this feels like such a rich and complete and thrilling statement. And to do that, 19 years into your career, who does that? I don't know.
You know, it's a, well, it's nice that you're picking up on the, on the statement, you know, that was something that we talked about and that we were concerned with, with you really following through. You know, we had this idea and we had this record cover and we wanted to capture what it was saying and make a snapshot of what, you know, I was going through and see this through. Even if that meant cutting songs that were great and we'd never really done that before. It's not easy to do, but yeah, but we're really happy with the outcome.
When we talked before, we talked about, you know, falling in love with bands and falling in love with not just the music, but the aesthetic and, you know, the record covers and pouring over them and what they mean. And so it's, it's really cool to hear how much that played into this because from the minute caution dropped, there's artwork that is communicating something and then each single had artwork that was communicating something and please remind me of the name of the artist. But Thomas Blackshear. Thomas Blackshear is art across all of the singles and in the album.
When you say we had this idea, what was this idea or was it more to just communicate a one consistent statement? I think it was. Yeah. No, it was about two people becoming eternal, two people becoming one, two people persevering and needing each other to get to be complete, I guess.
You know, it's I started to think about what it meant to be an adult and what it meant to be a husband and I came to the conclusion that it's not enough just to be over 21 and have a job or whatever it was and be independent. There was something more to it. And so I wanted to capture that and in my at least in the only reference I have is, you know, my parents and my wife and my life now and my observations, I guess. Well, I want to, I have a bunch of questions about the actual process of making the album.
But I'm going to skip them for now because you brought up this idea of the theme, which really resonated with me as someone who is not a young guy anymore and someone who is married and has kids. And I was thinking back to a hallmark of earlier killer songs. We mentioned one, like when you were young, often you would take on the voice of an older person when you yourself, you were not an older person, you know, when you were young or runaways, narrating the lives of people who maybe were models in your own life or in your own town growing up, looking back on decisions made. And I wonder before we even get into the decisions by this album, have you ever thought about why it was that you were fast forwarding your own youth?
What was it about older people and their stories that you found so compelling when you yourself were, you know, in your 20s? Yeah. Now, I never thought of it like that. I think maybe I'm the youngest of six kids.
I watched it. There's a big age gap. I was a surprise for sure. Yeah.
I remember my friends, my friends lived two houses up, Kenny Kevin, and their mom surely would jokingly call me surprise in their dad would chime in and say, that's a nice way saying you were a mistake. I was like, trying to wrap my head around that. I was like, eight years old. I was sister that 17 years older than me.
So by the time I was, you know, with it enough to observe what was going on, there were people, you know, my sisters were and brother were living, you know, becoming adults and having kids and I was watching these lives unfold and watching decisions that people were making and consequences, good or bad and all that kind of stuff. And I think that that's just always been something there for me to absorb. Did you feel in any way like hemmed in by that by the path that you saw like out before you? Because I'm there's an undercurrent, certainly on this album, but in others too, of kind of old fashioned values.
I don't mean that pejoratively. I think these are old fashioned for a reason, but just ideas of being strong and working hard. You think about the lyrics and dying breed about, you know, not compromising being a diehard being a lifeguard. Yeah.
If those ideals were being modeled for you by these incredibly old siblings, but also other family members, what was your relationship to the relationship to values like that when you were just a kid listening to favorite pop? You know, I mean, it feels like a traditional response to it might be like, no, thank you. I'm going to escape and live like this and set. Yeah, I think it just I was I think having the big component for me that people always talk about and it's the reason is that the religious side and just what comes with that is a lot of those old fashioned values are sort of inextricably linked to that kind of stuff.
So that and with I just think the way that my dad treated my mom and the way that their relationship was, you know, it just had a big impact on me, I think. You mentioned religion, I was going to say, there's a couple of times in this album and you've done it before, but it feels like you're embracing a preacher's cadence a couple of times the chorus of Fire and Bone, my God, almost entirely, that is kind of thrilling. I mean, those are high points on the album and it does feel like it's a it's not that you're taking on a character, but you are claiming something that maybe was part of your history. Yeah, I think, you know, in the early days, I was not sure how that was going to fit in because, you know, I've talked about before we we were getting away from it now, but when we started, it was still full on.
You know, the debauchery and the, you know, the rock and roll lifestyle and all that stuff was in full swing and putting it up on a pedestal and there was nobody naysaying it in 2000 2003 or whatever. And so it's changed a lot. And so I struggled with it in the beginning, just, you know, it seemed like, oh, is that what made you authentic? You know, was it was drug use and taking advantage of people, you know, when it was like that, was that what made artists authentic and and I didn't feel like I fit into that.
And so yeah, so it's become easier as time has changed and it is if I become more comfortable and, you know, in my own skin to kind of fall into that role. I mean, the first time we talked to the joke about this, but the times that like, you know, our old friend Sarah Lewin would like take you guys to miss shapes and those pictures of you guys standing outside in the line looking like, what did we just get into? What is this world and how do we fit into it? Which is how many of us there felt as well.
Luckily, we all survived. But specifically what I found so striking and honestly really moving about this album was the kind of embrace of those those features that have always been part of you clearly. And part of your songwriting. But the theme and some of the great killer's tracks, like I said before, it's often felt like escape, escape from certain responsibilities or the allure of escape.
And there's something that happens, particularly in the last three songs of this record, which to me, you're kind of the heart of it where it really comes together, where there's kind of an ecstatic surrender, but it's a surrender into a kind of commitment. It feels almost like the inverse of escaping to the open road or whatever was lurking just outside of the city lights on previous albums. There are these lyrics like, you know, we say control is overrated in my God. And the theme that's introduced in that last trilogy of the mirage in my God that then gets spoiler alert, it gets imploded in the title back.
Did you feel like your songwriting reached a different place with that kind of acceptance? Yeah. And just the more I work and the more I get in and accept who I am, I think the better the writing has gotten and the easier it's gotten. And so yeah, going back to just that cohesive statement that we kept wanting to make, and it really influenced the lyrics.
And yeah, part of it was me accepting the path. I think a lot of times it's about that fork in the road or whatever. And I'm past that, I think at this point, I've kind of chosen my path. And so that's exciting for me, really.
Well, just purely as a fan and as a psychological observer, it feels like the path he shows was right down the middle of those two forks in a healthy way because there are songs in the killer's catalog that embrace, sometimes they like the goofiness, the fun, the performance of bands that you know you're a fan of and of Vegas that raised you. We were talking about Space Man before. And then there are songs that are incredibly heartfelt. And what I loved about, especially again, these last three songs is that you found a way to synthesize them.
And the fact that you can have this beautiful statement when the dreams run dry and then the album ends with imploding the mirage, which is completely heartfelt and genuine, but fun, not funny, but fun. There's a looseness to it that is really exhilarating. Yeah, I think bands like whoever is, whether it's the Kinks or XTC or that were able to be playful. It's nice to be able to use those influences.
And yeah, and like you said, I think there's a strange marriage of my vulnerability or you know, with the playfulness kind of works nicely after that record. There's also, this is also my just the my own obsessive fandom talking, but you have one of my great heroes, Lindsey Buckingham on the record, just fretting in a way that only he can. But I don't know if you're fandom with his like solo stuff runs as deep as mine does. But the thing about him that I've always found so inspiring is he's still pushing, you know, he's 70 and he's still doing the most gonzo experimental stuff when he's by himself.
And respecting the arenas that he's going to play and the songs that are expected to be heard from him when he plays them. And he seems to have made a career at that. He's never stopped pushing. Yeah, the guys that really give us a lot of hope and that give you something to aspire to.
It's crazy that there are people like that they're alive. I was just driving back from records with my kids. And we played, they love Lyndon Arden's solo highlights from Van Morrison. And I played Joker Man after.
And they're like, you know, asking about Van Morrison and Bob Dylan is like, these guys are like, they're like mythological beings. It's like they're alive. They're still here. And it's pretty wild.
But yeah, Lindsay's on that list for sure. When you can just come in and say, okay, this makes sense to me. You know, it's not like you had to cater the song from what I read about the creation of it. The song was written right.
And then you're like, please come in and play on it. Yeah. And he sort of helped fortify what I was saying in the lyrics. And it's just so his solo just sings, you know, you can sing it.
Like, you know, I was talking about slashes, solos like that. But you know, this is up there with some of that. I really love that solo. And it's only he can play like that.
I did want to talk about this idea of like surviving and what it means to have a longer career because I was thinking about it. And I think I decided that rock bands are the opposite of Batman because if you remember in the movie The Dark Knight, they say you could either die hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I feel like the honest thing is the reverse because you guys have survived and thrived long enough to become heroes. Right?
I mean, one of the, I imagine this is this is ratifying. It's a fan, but I imagine it's even more gratifying as actually the artist to be at a place where the next generation are fans, you know, and have inspired by you. I want to talk to you. I was reading the interview with Phoebe Bridgers, you know, who's 15 years younger than you and grew up with your songs.
And now you can talk like peers. I mean, that has to be gratifying. Yeah, no, it feels good. I mean, it feels good.
I don't think anybody saw that come in when Hot Fuzz came out. You know, it's a hell of a debut. But I think people saw us as coming in on the coattails of, you know, the strokes of Bransford and man and things like that. So it's kind of crazy how it's all played out.
And but yeah, I mean, we're happy to be in the conversation still and it's, you know, I've just taken it as a company, I guess. Did you see it coming? I guess I wonder because for us, when we get out in the review years, or I get the chance to talk to you over a few years, it's easy for us to decide like the demarcations of your career or what things meant. But when you look back, like, was there a specific moment that you can point to where it went from being like, Oh, my God, my dreams are coming true.
What a rush to this is my career now. This is going to be my job as an adult. I guess it would have been, you know, I don't know. Yeah, I never feel really comfortable on stage to like fourth record or something like that.
You know, as much as I wanted to act like I really belonged up there. I was always felt inadequate. And at the same time, you know, when I was, you know, when I was little, like, I felt like I was special too. You know, so it's like, there's all this stuff coming at you all the time.
And you just, I guess it's just how you, you know, we just persevered, kept working. Yeah. But in the last few years, was there a moment because where a moment where you sort of had to figure out what it would mean to be the killers now? And I asked specifically because of two things.
One, you know, you've had a successful, really creatively successful solo career between killer records. You know, I still will go to the mountaintop and use your preacher voice to talk about desired effect, which is a masterpiece. And you know, you've dealt with sort of shifting sands of the band as members have stepped away, come back, stepped away again. Was there a sort of reckoning?
Like, what does it mean to be the killers now? Yeah, you want to, you know, there's a certain, there's something people I think expect from us and we don't have to oblige them. You know, we don't have to, but you know, we are people, and some of the, some of the affect stations I think people have for us are just a part of us. You know, it's not going to, you can't extract it.
And so we're lucky in that regard. And so, so whether someone, you know, is taking a break or is all in or whatever it is, I think there's still, we still have a lot that we, or at least we have a certain bar that we want to, you know, get to when we make a record. And we're not going to, you know, put it out there unless we feel like we've achieved that. How much of the killers experience album by album in your mind is determined by the, the partners and collaborators that you bring in?
Sean Everard and Jonathan Raydow produce this record with you guys. It seems, you know, just as I said, I love this album. It seemed like a really successful collaboration. How much effect does that have just in terms of setting the mood setting the vibe, making the album what it is?
Because I think it can be, it can have a huge impact. Strangely, we've never had the same producer on two records. And that's a weird, and we're going to make the next record with Raydow and Sean. And so it's going to be the first time we've made two consecutive records with the same producers.
But we've gotten, I've learned from every producer, good or bad, but mostly good stuff. You know, you try to learn from them. But they have a definite, they can't help but have an influence on the record, I think. First album was largely, you know, self-produced.
We had an engineer who was a lawyer previously. He was a Green Day's lawyer. And he was just like, his whole thing was just like, that was fine. That was a good thing.
Like, move on. And so we made it fast and it's all were good. And then the second record flood and Mulder, you know, these two iconic names and music heavy hitters, that I think they made us, they were still hungry and they were still willing to go in and climb them out when we made Sam's Town. And that's not something you get out of people that have done what they had done at that point.
A lot of people kind of just kind of, you know, dial it in or whatever. And so that was an awesome experience working with them. And we learned a lot from them. I'm not going to keep going through the list.
But you know, you just try to take what you can from, you know, what worked from these producers and apply it to what you do in the future. Well, I always think about it in terms of you, you as a songwriters and artists, I was talking about this with a friend who's a big fan the other day and I was referring to as a vibe surfer, an elite vibe surfer. Meaning you could pick up these vibes that may be our musical, they may be contextual, they may be nostalgic and communicate them to us through this new song. But that is as vague as it sounds when I'm describing it, I can't imagine how hard that is when you're actually in the studio working, you know, to be able to synthesize the things that you want without taking it too far in one direction or the other.
When we first talked, I was, we spoke about how there's this piano part in your solo record and you got the pre-sorns beat, the pre-sorns beat, the piano part, but in a moderate contemporary song. With this, I wonder how you know you're collaborating on the right level. The example I wanted to use in this question was with dying breed, which is just a great killer song. But also it has a loop from Noya now in the beginning, undergirding the first two and a half minutes of it before it explodes into the song we've been waiting for.
That's tricky. It's always a little bit uncomfortable when Sean stuck that on that sample on. And the song was already good before that, but it was undeniable that it rose a little bit when he brought it in. And we went through all these different emotions.
Do we replay it? Do we just get permission and try to figure that out? And we ended up going with the actual sample and giving them credit and all that. But yeah, no, I mean you just have to rely on these guys.
And Sean is always looking for a little strange edge. It would never be normal edge. It was Sean of an off-kilter edge. And so we love him in the studio for sure.
And then Rato, I always say he's just such a purist. If he could do it, there'd be no Pro Tools. It would be on tape. So you just got these two worlds colliding with those two, but we all get along and it's great.
I just think it's really exciting because you could point to the quality of the songwriting and say like this is a sign of your growth and your confidence. But I think you could also point to the riskiness of the collaborations because if you weren't confident in the songs, you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't allow them to be opened up and fiddled with or we're going to bring in ways of blood or we're going to put a sample on this track, etc. That takes some confidence as well.
I think that's come with experience and just going back to it every day and taking cues from people that are really good at it. Tom Petty, people like that. Tom Petty is someone who I think about and listen to all the time. But I was also trying to think about when he went from being the guy who only made good songs that was on MTV to, oh my god, this is the most unimpeachable catalog of the last 30 years.
It didn't happen in the moment. It was suddenly we looked up and it was nothing but gold. And that's kind of unprecedented. It's weird.
It's like in the 90s. You're still so good at putting out great stuff. And it wasn't until I guess what we just probably about 10 years ago, I think people started to really see it. And all of a sudden it just came into view what he had done and accomplished.
It's like the Beatles. It's like maybe more impressive than the Beatles. It's crazy what he did. Because as you said, he was an MTV fixture well into the late 90s, older than everyone else who was on the network.
And so he's a legacy act for two distinct generations. But I was also thinking about, I know that you were in other interviews, you talked about him and specifically in reference to Blowback, which has a little petty vibe in it. But I was thinking about loving Tom Petty, but never thinking about him the way I thought about artists who was lyrics, I poured over. He was just a great songwriter.
And all of a sudden he just drops wildflowers. And it's like, oh, he can actually also write these incredibly intimate and powerful love songs. And I, though I adore your album, I'm not asking you to say is including the Marajas good as wildflowers. We'll talk again in 20, 30 years.
But I wonder if there was something similar there, just in terms of the level of emotional honesty that you can feel more comfortable with later in your career or later in your life. Yeah, I think it just comes with, I think what I talked about earlier, just being comfortable with who I am and the path that I've chosen and realizing that that's where that honesty and that and being able to put that down onto the record is more gratifying for me. And those are the roads that I want to pursue. And I think it just translates with people who are interested in lyrics and who are interested in that craft.