Full Transcript:

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John Kennedy: Hello, welcome to Tape Notes.

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John Kennedy: We’ve got an exciting new episode for you this week that includes a former guest of the show.

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John Kennedy: When we heard that Finneas had teamed up with Ashe to form a new band, The Favors, we thought it would be a great idea to meet up again and find out all about it.

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John Kennedy: Instead of recording in a studio on a boat, as we did in Tape Notes 100, this time we went to the very much landlocked and very plush Platoon, where we’ve recorded a few episodes recently.

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John Kennedy: And it was brilliant to catch up with Finneas and get to know Ashe and see their clear creative chemistry.

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John Kennedy: The Favors for them is about people making music and writing songs together and reveling in the results.

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John Kennedy: To watch the full video of the podcast, head to the Tape Notes Patreon page.

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John Kennedy: That’s patreon.com/tapenotes.

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John Kennedy: By joining as a patron, you’ll get access not only to the full video episodes, which often feature bonus conversations and behind the scenes looks, but also loads of extra content like episode previews, exclusive photos, gear lists.

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John Kennedy: And as you’ll hear on the show, we try and include as many questions from patrons as we can.

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John Kennedy: So if you have any burning questions for any upcoming guests, head over to Patreon.

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John Kennedy: And if you’re already supporting Tape Notes on Patreon, a huge thank you.

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John Kennedy: We’ve got some exciting things in the works for you, and we really, really appreciate your support.

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John Kennedy: Thank you so much.

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John Kennedy: And thank you also to our partners at Tape It, the iPhone recording app for musicians, more on them and their brand new layering feature later in the show.

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John Kennedy: But if you’d like to try it out now, then just head to tape.it forward slash Tape Notes, search Tape It on the App Store or click the link in the show notes.

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John Kennedy: But now without further ado, let’s get started.

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John Kennedy: Hello and welcome to Tape Notes, the podcast that looks behind the scenes at the magic of recording and producing music.

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John Kennedy: Every episode, we’ll be reuniting an artist and producer and talking through some of the highlights from their collaboration in the studio.

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John Kennedy: So join us as we lift the lid on the creative process and the inner workings of music production to see what lies beneath.

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John Kennedy: Hello, I’m John Kennedy, and joining me for this episode of Tape Notes are The Favors, to talk about how they wrote, recorded and produced the album The Dream.

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John Kennedy: The Favors are a duo formed by singer-songwriter and producer Finneas and fellow singer-songwriter Ashe.

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John Kennedy: Finneas rose to fame after co-writing and producing his sister, Billie Eilish’s breakout hit Ocean Eyes in 2015, leading to a decade long collaboration that earned him 10 Grammy Awards.

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John Kennedy: Alongside his work with Billie, he’s released acclaimed solo projects, including the albums Optimist in 2021 and For Crying Out Loud in 2024, which were praised for their emotive songwriting and minimalist yet impactful production.

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John Kennedy: Ashe began her career in Nashville, recording and writing various demos before featuring on Ben Phipps’ Sleep Alone in 2015.

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John Kennedy: Her breakthrough came with the viral hit Moral of the Story, featuring in Netflix’s To All the Boys, PS.

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John Kennedy: I Still Love You.

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John Kennedy: Known for blending genres and writing deeply personal lyrics, she’s released multiple EPs, three studio albums, toured with Lauv, Kelsey Ballerini and Gracie Abrams, and written for artists, including Demi Lovato.

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John Kennedy: After years of collaborating, Finneas and Ashe formed The Favors, capturing hearts with their debut single, The Little Mess You Made.

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John Kennedy: Their debut album, The Dream, arrived in September 2025 and sees the duo blend their intricate songwriting and production talents with the warmth and groove of 70s pop.

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John Kennedy: Today, I’m at Platoon Studios and I’m joined by The Favors, Finneas and Ashe.

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John Kennedy: And what better way to start than by hearing something from the album.

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John Kennedy: This is Restless Little Heart.

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John Kennedy: It is Restless Little Heart by The Favors, the opening track to the album, The Dream.

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John Kennedy: And I’m very pleased to say that I have The Favors sat with me here in front of me.

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John Kennedy: We’ve got Finneas and Ashe.

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John Kennedy: Welcome to Tape Notes.

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Ashe: Hello.

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John Kennedy: It’s great to have you here.

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John Kennedy: It’s great to see you again, Finneas.

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John Kennedy: So you’ve been on before.

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John Kennedy: You know what happens.

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John Kennedy: Ashe, welcome.

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Ashe: Newbie.

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John Kennedy: Who are and why is The Favors?

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Ashe: Who are and why is?

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Ashe: Well, we are The Favors and we are two friends who love each other and wanted to make an album together and thought, well, this feels like a life cheat code to just do something with your friend and that you love.

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Ashe: And so, yeah, we started, we kicked it off and I don’t know, who are we?

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John Kennedy: Because I mean, you worked before together back in 2019, you produced a couple of VPs with Ashe.

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John Kennedy: So do you think the seeds were sown back then, or was this more recent when you were hanging out and said, you know what I want to do?

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John Kennedy: I want to start a band.

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FINNEAS: Well, it was always really fun to work with Ashe.

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FINNEAS: I loved writing with her on the occasions that I did.

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FINNEAS: And I loved producing her music.

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FINNEAS: And then when she asked me to sing on Till Forever Falls Apart, that was a real treat also.

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FINNEAS: And so I think, you know, I just always thought like, oh, I’d do more stuff with Ashe in a heartbeat, however that looks.

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FINNEAS: And then in spring of 2023, she sent me this text that was like, what if we made a band?

00:06:01.643 –> 00:06:04.183
FINNEAS: And then, and it could just be this whole one-off.

00:06:04.183 –> 00:06:13.183
FINNEAS: Like maybe it’s, you know, maybe it’s lifespan is just one album and maybe we barely play shows, whatever, but we get an excuse to make an album in an old school way.

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FINNEAS: And I was just like, so elated by the idea.

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FINNEAS: And I kind of, you know, you can never tell how the music is going to be in the end, but I thought, oh, I hope, I hope the music sounds how I think it’ll sound, because that would be great, you know?

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FINNEAS: And then it really has, like, I feel like all three writing trips of writing these songs, I was like, this is totally the album I hoped we’d make.

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John Kennedy: Yeah, that’s great.

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John Kennedy: It’s interesting listening to the album because it sounds like there are a lot of live takes and there’s little bits of studio chatter and the band are really tight and it all sounds like you’re playing in the room together.

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John Kennedy: So you mentioned writing trips, so you had a few spells away getting the songs together and then you went in the studio?

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FINNEAS: Yes, I mean, I think the short answer was we sort of knew that it would be an in-person thing.

00:07:00.703 –> 00:07:06.063
FINNEAS: It was far enough removed from, like, COVID, that there was no sort of, like, let’s do this remotely.

00:07:06.063 –> 00:07:10.443
Ashe: We always knew it was going to be a super live album.

00:07:10.723 –> 00:07:19.703
Ashe: I think your dream of it was that we’d play everything to tape, like, and we would record it together, you know.

00:07:19.903 –> 00:07:24.183
Ashe: And we did, like, the reason why, I mean, I’m glad you think we’re tight.

00:07:24.183 –> 00:07:25.683
Ashe: We always probably think we could be tighter.

00:07:25.683 –> 00:07:31.483
Ashe: But we played take after take after take together and really got locked in in a fun way.

00:07:31.483 –> 00:07:35.123
Ashe: But we always, we said there was sort of a palette that we were going to work with.

00:07:35.283 –> 00:07:41.863
Ashe: And it was like CP80, keys, guitar, bass, piano, drums.

00:07:41.863 –> 00:07:46.023
Ashe: And that was like, those are sort of the meat and potatoes of the record.

00:07:46.023 –> 00:07:53.323
Ashe: And we were like, if anything else happens, it’ll be like a little mellotron here or things that really suit those instruments.

00:07:53.323 –> 00:08:01.443
Ashe: But we went into it sort of boxing ourselves in, in a way that was going to be helpful to the creative, you know.

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John Kennedy: Yeah, I like the idea that you used a palette of sound.

00:08:05.283 –> 00:08:07.523
John Kennedy: Rather than think in terms of genre and stuff like that.

00:08:07.523 –> 00:08:11.083
John Kennedy: Because it’s hard to pinpoint a genre for The Dream in a way.

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John Kennedy: And in a way, Restless at Heart is an example of that.

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John Kennedy: It kind of sends us in one direction and then you follow it up with the title track of the album that takes us in another direction.

00:08:20.603 –> 00:08:24.523
John Kennedy: And as we dig into the songs here today, we’ll find out how broad it is.

00:08:24.523 –> 00:08:29.363
John Kennedy: But the palette has been established with those choices of instrument, which is very interesting.

00:08:29.363 –> 00:08:31.823
John Kennedy: I think we should get started and start digging in straight away.

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John Kennedy: The first song we’re going to look at is The Little Mess You Made.

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John Kennedy: So if you could play us a Blast of the Master, Finneas, that would be great.

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FINNEAS: Just the first two.

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FINNEAS: You can have mine too.

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John Kennedy: It is The Favors with The Little Mess You Made from The Dream, the first song we’re going to look at today.

00:09:54.929 –> 00:09:58.789
John Kennedy: So does that mean it was one of the first songs you wrote together?

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FINNEAS: It was a song written between writing trip one and two, or started between one and two by me.

00:10:06.549 –> 00:10:10.069
FINNEAS: And it was a very somber piano ballad.

00:10:10.069 –> 00:10:24.329
FINNEAS: And I think again, in the sort of palette, color palette structure of the album way, one of the fun parts of that was I had this kind of somber ballad and I was like, I like the lyrics of this and I like the melodies.

00:10:24.329 –> 00:10:28.909
FINNEAS: And then we had these great, we already had the Hudson, which is another song on this record.

00:10:28.909 –> 00:10:31.049
FINNEAS: We had a song called Necessary Evils.

00:10:32.249 –> 00:10:33.869
FINNEAS: It was getting ballad-y.

00:10:33.869 –> 00:10:37.209
Ashe: And so ordinary people, that’s right, very slow.

00:10:37.209 –> 00:10:47.069
FINNEAS: And so I credit the arrangement of this largely to Ricky, who plays guitar and bass on a lot of this record and then David on drums, for really pumping this song up.

00:10:47.069 –> 00:10:47.289
Ashe: Yeah.

00:10:47.689 –> 00:10:51.049
FINNEAS: Yeah, this song got really fun and lively and punchy.

00:10:51.049 –> 00:10:56.409
FINNEAS: But the lyrics and melody were largely sort of written for a softer, more somber thing.

00:10:56.409 –> 00:10:58.669
FINNEAS: And again, like that’s part of that color palette thing.

00:10:58.669 –> 00:11:00.249
FINNEAS: You’re like, oh, let’s put some CP80 on.

00:11:00.249 –> 00:11:02.489
FINNEAS: Let’s put these live drums and this tambourine on it.

00:11:02.489 –> 00:11:03.529
FINNEAS: Sounds really different.

00:11:03.529 –> 00:11:04.189
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:11:04.189 –> 00:11:05.249
John Kennedy: Yeah, totally.

00:11:05.249 –> 00:11:19.349
John Kennedy: It’s interesting because when you listen to all of the songs and you listen to the two of you singing together, there’s almost like a TV sitcom or a film or something being played out, a relationship being played out that we’re guessing at across the whole of the album.

00:11:19.349 –> 00:11:20.049
John Kennedy: We’re trying to work it out.

00:11:20.049 –> 00:11:21.509
John Kennedy: That’s almost in each song.

00:11:21.509 –> 00:11:24.989
John Kennedy: There’s a tug and pull between the two protagonists.

00:11:24.989 –> 00:11:26.349
FINNEAS: It’s such a rock opera, right?

00:11:26.349 –> 00:11:27.069
John Kennedy: Yeah, totally.

00:11:27.349 –> 00:11:35.889
FINNEAS: We’ve talked a lot about the whole thing had this real character driven, persona driven, non-autobiographical thing.

00:11:35.889 –> 00:11:36.629
Ashe: Like a script.

00:11:36.629 –> 00:11:37.109
FINNEAS: Yeah.

00:11:37.109 –> 00:11:37.669
Ashe: Yeah.

00:11:37.669 –> 00:11:51.269
Ashe: We got to play with these two characters that, sure, we could pull from our own personalities and experiences, but we got to write in a way that I don’t think either of us have ever written as solo artists.

00:11:51.269 –> 00:11:55.089
FINNEAS: Also, none of the songs are about our relationship.

00:11:55.089 –> 00:12:01.289
FINNEAS: It’s all like the Hudson is about a bunch of these things that happened to Ashe in her life, in her past.

00:12:01.289 –> 00:12:03.729
Ashe: They’re not about our relationships either.

00:12:03.729 –> 00:12:04.209
Ashe: That’s true too.

00:12:04.209 –> 00:12:09.809
Ashe: They’re not about our relationship and it’s not about my relationship with my fiancee or yours with Claudia.

00:12:09.809 –> 00:12:10.109
FINNEAS: Right.

00:12:10.109 –> 00:12:10.769
FINNEAS: It’s true.

00:12:10.769 –> 00:12:10.949
FINNEAS: Yeah.

00:12:10.949 –> 00:12:12.789
FINNEAS: There’s a lot of ghosts.

00:12:14.049 –> 00:12:15.409
Ashe: Yeah, a lot of trauma.

00:12:15.409 –> 00:12:15.909
Ashe: Yeah.

00:12:15.909 –> 00:12:17.649
John Kennedy: So it’s almost like you get to play act as well.

00:12:17.649 –> 00:12:23.889
John Kennedy: Because I think we, as the listeners, believe in these characters and the interplay between the two of them.

00:12:23.889 –> 00:12:25.489
John Kennedy: We’re trying to work it out.

00:12:25.489 –> 00:12:26.189
John Kennedy: What’s going on?

00:12:26.189 –> 00:12:27.069
John Kennedy: It’s up and down.

00:12:27.069 –> 00:12:27.809
Ashe: As you should.

00:12:27.809 –> 00:12:28.069
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:12:28.589 –> 00:12:34.209
John Kennedy: I mean, The Little Mess You Made is a great example because you keep twisting it and turning it upside down in what you’re saying.

00:12:34.209 –> 00:12:34.449
FINNEAS: Yeah.

00:12:34.449 –> 00:12:42.529
FINNEAS: I love to let, there’s a kernel of something and I always love to let that thing roll down a hill and become its own separate thing.

00:12:42.869 –> 00:12:46.629
FINNEAS: So like, Little Mess You Made is filling up our rooms.

00:12:46.629 –> 00:12:51.449
FINNEAS: The metaphor there to me, hopefully, is just sort of like this thing that started as this mistake or this accident.

00:12:51.449 –> 00:12:53.289
FINNEAS: It’s like it’s kind of taken over our life.

00:12:53.349 –> 00:12:59.709
FINNEAS: It’s filling up the house and there’s some rain and it’s filling up our shoes and it’s making us mad at each other, whatever.

00:12:59.709 –> 00:13:08.169
FINNEAS: And then by the time we get the second verse, it’s like, Little Mess You Made is all over the news, which is like, to me, that’s like, oh my God, it’s a whole.

00:13:08.169 –> 00:13:09.929
FINNEAS: Yeah, it’s a whole whatever you did.

00:13:10.909 –> 00:13:14.889
FINNEAS: Maybe you stole from your job or something and it’s gotten you guys into it.

00:13:14.889 –> 00:13:23.529
FINNEAS: To me at all, Conjure is a sort of a like Dick and Jane thing, where you’re like, oh my God, you’ve embezzled money and now the cops are out.

00:13:23.529 –> 00:13:25.989
FINNEAS: It’s all kind of like just escalating and escalating.

00:13:26.309 –> 00:13:34.389
FINNEAS: And again, it’s like to me, you’d be cutting off your sort of like oxygen supply to be like, no, no, no, we have to be totally honest about everything.

00:13:34.389 –> 00:13:37.729
FINNEAS: It’s like, no, let the song dictate where the song wants to go.

00:13:38.769 –> 00:13:39.149
FINNEAS: Yeah.

00:13:39.149 –> 00:13:40.209
Ashe: More fun for us that way.

00:13:40.769 –> 00:13:44.449
John Kennedy: And in terms of the music, let’s hear how you put it together.

00:13:44.449 –> 00:13:57.549
FINNEAS: So step one on this was, so the room that we record everything in, which you can find little clips of on Instagram or whatever, is a living room with a bunch of rugs and old Ludwig.

00:13:57.549 –> 00:14:02.029
FINNEAS: I think it’s a Superbeat from like the 70s with a Revelle Snare.

00:14:02.029 –> 00:14:04.549
FINNEAS: And then it’s a Yamaha CP80.

00:14:05.369 –> 00:14:14.129
FINNEAS: And then Ricky and I are sort of dueling on like guitar and bass depending on whether Ashe or I are playing CP80.

00:14:14.129 –> 00:14:16.129
Ashe: Which you played CP80 on this one.

00:14:16.129 –> 00:14:16.869
FINNEAS: On this one, yeah.

00:14:16.869 –> 00:14:20.769
FINNEAS: Which I think is fun for, Ashe played most of the CP80 on most of the album.

00:14:20.769 –> 00:14:25.669
FINNEAS: And so it’s like fun for her to get to stand up and not have to be just sort of bound to the keys.

00:14:25.669 –> 00:14:27.069
FINNEAS: Yeah.

00:14:27.069 –> 00:14:30.989
FINNEAS: So part one is the actual CP80 itself.

00:14:31.649 –> 00:14:40.409
FINNEAS: And I forget whose idea it was to do this kind of like wham Paul McCartney thing with the CP80.

00:14:40.409 –> 00:14:42.069
Ashe: I think you were messing with the delay.

00:14:42.069 –> 00:14:44.729
Ashe: Because the CP80 is so fun, you can kind of like mess with all the labs.

00:14:44.729 –> 00:14:51.169
FINNEAS: We ran a pedal, we ran an Earthquaker devices delay pedal through the send of the CP80.

00:14:51.169 –> 00:14:52.329
FINNEAS: So it’s printed there.

00:14:52.329 –> 00:14:58.149
FINNEAS: There’s no kind of controlling, you know, that’s not a software plugin that I can turn off.

00:14:58.209 –> 00:14:59.549
FINNEAS: It was there.

00:14:59.549 –> 00:15:04.729
FINNEAS: And also you have to, you know, actually press it in time with the tempo you want the song to be.

00:15:04.729 –> 00:15:12.129
FINNEAS: We played this to click, but the actual delay pedal is still like, kind of have to smack it at the right time to get it to be right.

00:15:12.129 –> 00:15:16.569
FINNEAS: And the CP80 is three tracks, DI stereo, probably very quiet.

00:15:18.769 –> 00:15:21.409
FINNEAS: Oh, that’s like a room, that’s a room mic.

00:15:21.549 –> 00:15:24.329
FINNEAS: You can hear it over here.

00:15:24.329 –> 00:15:25.529
Ashe: Is that the one in the hallway?

00:15:25.529 –> 00:15:27.029
Ashe: There’s a hallway to the bathroom.

00:15:27.289 –> 00:15:31.689
Ashe: And we had a mic recording the whole time, just getting the ambiance.

00:15:31.689 –> 00:15:32.689
FINNEAS: Which is like became kind of my…

00:15:32.689 –> 00:15:33.349
John Kennedy: That could be dangerous.

00:15:33.369 –> 00:15:34.429
FINNEAS: Became kind of my…

00:15:34.489 –> 00:15:36.749
Ashe: Yeah, good, we had a lot of fights on that.

00:15:36.749 –> 00:15:38.649
FINNEAS: Became kind of my favorite.

00:15:44.949 –> 00:15:46.209
FINNEAS: Yeah, so that’s direct.

00:15:46.209 –> 00:15:53.949
FINNEAS: And then this is a mic’d up Vox amp that I bought on Reverb from, I think, like a guy in Sum 41.

00:15:53.949 –> 00:15:54.449
John Kennedy: Oh, wow.

00:15:54.449 –> 00:15:54.889
FINNEAS: I think so.

00:15:55.709 –> 00:15:57.829
FINNEAS: Which I didn’t know until I was like buying it.

00:15:57.829 –> 00:15:59.229
FINNEAS: And they’re like, I used to be in Sum 41.

00:15:59.229 –> 00:16:01.269
FINNEAS: I was like, oh, cool, dude.

00:16:01.269 –> 00:16:01.889
FINNEAS: But yeah, this is…

00:16:08.913 –> 00:16:20.113
FINNEAS: And again, they’re all pretty similar in terms of like their tone, but together, they have a big ol sound, and then I put some plugins on the actual kind of like, you know, buss of those.

00:16:20.113 –> 00:16:27.313
FINNEAS: There’s Valhalla Room, Pro-Q 4, and also this will be a theme of all three things we talk about today.

00:16:27.313 –> 00:16:35.993
FINNEAS: The sessions that I have open are the Logic sessions that I recorded everything into, and then these sessions were used to mix also.

00:16:36.033 –> 00:16:37.893
FINNEAS: So like, this plugin is…

00:16:37.893 –> 00:16:39.813
Ashe: You really went to town on the mix on this one.

00:16:39.813 –> 00:16:45.373
FINNEAS: We had a great time on the mix, but this is an Aaron Forbes special plugin.

00:16:45.613 –> 00:16:55.293
FINNEAS: This Scheps Omni channel was thrown on by him, so I can’t take credit for that, because we’re really looking at production session plus mixing session.

00:16:55.293 –> 00:16:56.633
FINNEAS: But yeah, CP80 alone.

00:17:07.053 –> 00:17:12.713
FINNEAS: But everything, including that super wide trim, is coming straight from the CP80.

00:17:13.773 –> 00:17:20.053
FINNEAS: I could do all that stuff with a couple of plug-ins, obviously, but cool to have it just kind of be live in the room sounding like that.

00:17:20.053 –> 00:17:20.793
John Kennedy: Yeah, totally.

00:17:20.953 –> 00:17:24.273
John Kennedy: And keeps you on top of your game, because you’re gonna be on top of it.

00:17:24.293 –> 00:17:26.813
Ashe: I was just gonna ask, did you comp much?

00:17:26.813 –> 00:17:29.833
Ashe: I feel like that was a pretty consistent take of yours.

00:17:29.833 –> 00:17:31.573
FINNEAS: This is pretty straightforward.

00:17:31.573 –> 00:17:35.293
FINNEAS: It seems like it was a take and then a comp on the second verse, probably.

00:17:35.373 –> 00:17:36.333
Ashe: Pretty good.

00:17:36.333 –> 00:17:37.893
FINNEAS: Play it higher.

00:17:37.973 –> 00:17:40.733
Ashe: This is a very talented keys player.

00:17:43.293 –> 00:17:47.933
FINNEAS: And then end of second verse, I do a big like, like a SNL intro.

00:17:50.093 –> 00:17:50.753
Ashe: You hear it right here.

00:18:02.007 –> 00:18:03.507
FINNEAS: Show off.

00:18:03.507 –> 00:18:04.987
John Kennedy: So silly, yeah.

00:18:04.987 –> 00:18:05.867
FINNEAS: You’re overkill.

00:18:05.867 –> 00:18:08.207
Ashe: I have so many videos of you doing that.

00:18:08.207 –> 00:18:09.387
FINNEAS: I was like, this is the moment.

00:18:09.387 –> 00:18:11.587
John Kennedy: He’s like, you.

00:18:11.587 –> 00:18:13.747
John Kennedy: So did he do it a lot?

00:18:13.747 –> 00:18:20.087
Ashe: Well, I mean, we played this song 12 billion times in the room, because it was so fun for us.

00:18:20.107 –> 00:18:38.847
Ashe: But we really were getting locked in, and I think we had a funny dream of like, what if we did it the Black Diamond route way where we all record, like our final take has to be all of us playing in at the same time recording it, which we maybe have some songs where we did pull from that.

00:18:38.847 –> 00:18:44.007
Ashe: But yeah, I have like 10 videos of him going.

00:18:44.007 –> 00:18:55.067
FINNEAS: Andrew Watt, the producer, who’s done Rolling Stones albums and Ozzy Osbourne albums and Pearl Jam albums, is much more experienced doing band stuff than I did.

00:18:55.067 –> 00:19:02.947
FINNEAS: I remember before we had even started to, we’d written a bunch of these songs and we’d done some live demos, but we hadn’t recorded them.

00:19:02.947 –> 00:19:08.947
FINNEAS: And I remember kind of bragging to him like, yeah, we’re going to do it all to tape, and it’s going to be, you know, no click track, whatever.

00:19:08.947 –> 00:19:11.747
FINNEAS: And I remember him being like, dude, why?

00:19:11.747 –> 00:19:12.987
FINNEAS: And I was like, what do you mean why?

00:19:12.987 –> 00:19:13.747
FINNEAS: It’s going to be awesome.

00:19:13.747 –> 00:19:17.447
FINNEAS: He was like, dude, he was like, it’s such a pain in the ass.

00:19:17.447 –> 00:19:18.687
FINNEAS: And he was like, I do it.

00:19:18.687 –> 00:19:22.807
FINNEAS: But he was like, if it’s your first time, and he was like, who’s engineering?

00:19:22.807 –> 00:19:23.687
FINNEAS: I was like, I’m an engineer.

00:19:23.687 –> 00:19:27.147
FINNEAS: And he was like, dude, like, just try to make a good album.

00:19:27.947 –> 00:19:35.407
FINNEAS: And again, from a person who actually has experience doing it, it was good of him to give me permission to not do it to Tape.

00:19:35.407 –> 00:19:39.947
FINNEAS: I felt like if he’d been like, oh, you gotta do it to Tape, I probably would have made myself do it to Tape.

00:19:39.947 –> 00:19:52.247
Ashe: Well, originally we were talking about, when we first came up with the conception of the band idea, we thought, well, I want this to feel really shared in the weight of the thing.

00:19:52.247 –> 00:19:58.747
Ashe: So we were like, we’ll hire an engineer, and we’ll kind of produce it in the old fashion way together.

00:19:58.747 –> 00:20:03.287
Ashe: And then I got there for the first writing trip in October, and there was no engineer.

00:20:03.287 –> 00:20:05.227
Ashe: And I was like, are you engineering it?

00:20:05.227 –> 00:20:06.687
Ashe: And he’s like, yeah.

00:20:06.687 –> 00:20:13.747
Ashe: Like, you were so excited to do it yourself that they were like, oh, all right, this is gonna be fun for him.

00:20:13.747 –> 00:20:16.627
Ashe: And you’re like, you’re so talented at it that it made sense.

00:20:16.627 –> 00:20:19.607
FINNEAS: I think I also like a lot of the references.

00:20:19.607 –> 00:20:23.407
FINNEAS: And again, you can cut these into any use of any of these three songs too.

00:20:23.547 –> 00:20:25.947
FINNEAS: I think it’s, you know, pretty applicable across.

00:20:25.947 –> 00:20:40.207
FINNEAS: But a lot of the sonic references for these were, lo-fi is not necessarily the word I’m looking for, but like recordings that have a really unique sort of untraditional quality to them.

00:20:40.207 –> 00:20:47.607
FINNEAS: I pinpoint the artist Feist a lot because so many of her recordings are very sort of like unusual and atypical.

00:20:47.607 –> 00:21:00.847
FINNEAS: And I was going for that more than I was going for like Chris Lord Algy at Westlake Studios or something like that, which is like a goaded engineer at a goaded recording studio.

00:21:00.847 –> 00:21:05.807
FINNEAS: I was like, if I make the drum sound weird, that’ll be cool.

00:21:05.807 –> 00:21:08.707
FINNEAS: Maybe that’s kind of what I’m shooting for anyway.

00:21:08.707 –> 00:21:09.247
FINNEAS: Exactly.

00:21:09.247 –> 00:21:20.487
FINNEAS: So I was sort of like, whatever my shortcomings are, I’ll just kind of live with them as opposed to like, let me hire somebody who’s going to be much better than I am, but maybe sacrifice some of the weirdness.

00:21:20.527 –> 00:21:21.527
John Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, totally.

00:21:21.527 –> 00:21:28.907
John Kennedy: We have a question that came through by a Patreon from Paul Parncutt who says, how fast is production for you when you’re collaborating?

00:21:28.907 –> 00:21:34.467
John Kennedy: Do you sit with a piece for extended periods to allow for new ideas or lock in sounds early doors?

00:21:34.467 –> 00:21:40.887
John Kennedy: So I think some of that you decided on a sound palette, so that was kind of locked in to what you were going to do, but you went for multiple takes.

00:21:40.887 –> 00:21:43.927
John Kennedy: So you were chasing the take, I guess.

00:21:43.927 –> 00:21:52.747
FINNEAS: Chasing tightness, chasing, and also like parts, the kind of old fashioned thing about like, you know, Ashe and I have done so much of this in our songwriting careers.

00:21:52.867 –> 00:22:00.607
FINNEAS: Like, Ashe is a, she always says she’s a less, less fast songwriter than I am, but in the scheme of most people, she’s very fast.

00:22:00.607 –> 00:22:05.467
FINNEAS: And so Ashe goes into a studio with Noah Conrad or any number of people.

00:22:05.467 –> 00:22:09.567
FINNEAS: And she, I reference Noah because he produced Moral of the Story.

00:22:09.567 –> 00:22:16.147
FINNEAS: And, you know, she either has most of a song written, or she’s writing some of it in the room.

00:22:17.467 –> 00:22:19.487
FINNEAS: And then you kind of craft it around her.

00:22:19.487 –> 00:22:27.067
FINNEAS: And there’s a kind of an experimentation process of like, let’s get some textures, let’s get some synths, let’s get some drum sounds, let’s get some BBs.

00:22:27.067 –> 00:22:37.907
FINNEAS: And I think again, to the color palette thing, it’s like part of what happened here was like the first of the three writing trips, Ashe comes over, she plays me most of the song, The Hudson.

00:22:37.907 –> 00:22:41.067
FINNEAS: We wrote the song, Moonshine together.

00:22:41.067 –> 00:22:43.447
FINNEAS: We wrote the song, Ordinary People together.

00:22:44.467 –> 00:22:55.007
FINNEAS: And then I was like, we gotta have like my cronies over so we can all be in a room and we can hear how these songs sound with like a bass and guitar and drums and whatever.

00:22:55.007 –> 00:23:02.807
FINNEAS: I could do that over the course of two days, I could program it all in, but I was like, oh, it’s gonna be so fun if we all just are in a room, you know, hollering.

00:23:02.807 –> 00:23:05.887
FINNEAS: And so that really became the kind of foundation of it.

00:23:05.887 –> 00:23:15.647
FINNEAS: So I would say like, in terms of like how fast is it to produce, it’s like, we know the parts, we know the sort of elements, and then what is gonna adorn that?

00:23:15.647 –> 00:23:16.167
FINNEAS: You know what I mean?

00:23:16.167 –> 00:23:23.367
FINNEAS: Like, do we want a little bit of, you know, Melitron, or do we want some tambourine, or do we want some, like, what are the vocal arrangements?

00:23:23.367 –> 00:23:27.267
FINNEAS: We had a really fun time doing vocal arrangements for this album together.

00:23:27.267 –> 00:23:28.307
FINNEAS: That was really fun.

00:23:28.307 –> 00:23:28.987
John Kennedy: Yeah, yeah.

00:23:28.987 –> 00:23:31.867
John Kennedy: It sounds like you’re having a lot of fun on the road.

00:23:31.867 –> 00:23:36.107
John Kennedy: What else should we hear from This Little Mess You Made?

00:23:36.107 –> 00:23:39.147
Ashe: Ricky’s guitar part that he came up with is so good.

00:23:39.467 –> 00:23:43.867
FINNEAS: So that’s a good example, too, of like, I can go through and play this pretty easy.

00:23:43.867 –> 00:23:54.227
FINNEAS: So in the room while we’re recording our CP80, we’ve got drums and then let me find the bass.

00:23:54.227 –> 00:23:56.527
Ashe: Which you played later?

00:23:56.527 –> 00:23:56.927
Ashe: The bass?

00:23:56.947 –> 00:23:58.927
Ashe: No, Ricky originally played it.

00:23:58.927 –> 00:23:59.487
Ashe: Right.

00:23:59.487 –> 00:24:01.427
FINNEAS: He played it.

00:24:01.427 –> 00:24:01.687
FINNEAS: Okay.

00:24:01.687 –> 00:24:04.647
FINNEAS: So this is fun and interesting to me.

00:24:04.647 –> 00:24:05.047
FINNEAS: Let’s see.

00:24:18.966 –> 00:24:24.146
FINNEAS: So that starts off the song with Ashe’s vocal and my vocal too.

00:24:24.146 –> 00:24:25.706
FINNEAS: Yeah, here, let me pop these on.

00:24:39.277 –> 00:24:49.537
FINNEAS: So those are like me at CP80, David playing drums, Ricky playing bass, and then Ashe and I singing, and then we re-dubbed our vocals like two hours later.

00:24:49.537 –> 00:24:52.537
FINNEAS: But that’s kinda it, that’s all the personnel in the room.

00:24:52.537 –> 00:24:58.297
FINNEAS: So then once we have that, we’re like, I think it’s like maybe two days later, I’m like, should we get a guitar pass on this?

00:25:00.637 –> 00:25:06.297
FINNEAS: And again, in our kind of high concept of all of it, you’re like, I don’t know, maybe there’s no guitar on this song.

00:25:06.297 –> 00:25:11.137
FINNEAS: But Ratt’s such a great, we call him Ratt, but Ricky is sort of his moniker.

00:25:11.137 –> 00:25:12.257
John Kennedy: So Ricky Gourmet.

00:25:12.257 –> 00:25:21.817
FINNEAS: Ricky Gourmet, but he’s such a really talented guitar part writer and player that anytime he does something, I’m really pretty excited about it.

00:25:21.817 –> 00:25:22.597
FINNEAS: So he played this.

00:25:42.017 –> 00:25:43.437
FINNEAS: I just love his guitar part on that.

00:25:43.437 –> 00:25:45.417
FINNEAS: I think it’s so cool.

00:25:45.417 –> 00:25:49.097
FINNEAS: He’s running into, yeah, he’s running into Guitar Rig.

00:25:49.097 –> 00:25:58.617
FINNEAS: We mic’d up an old Vox Ac30 for most of this album, but because this guitar part was an afterthought, we’d taken most of the mics down by the time we got to it.

00:25:58.617 –> 00:26:00.517
FINNEAS: And so I was like, here, just plug in DI.

00:26:00.517 –> 00:26:02.157
FINNEAS: We can always reamp it.

00:26:02.157 –> 00:26:04.877
FINNEAS: And found a great chorusy patch on Guitar Rig.

00:26:04.877 –> 00:26:09.117
FINNEAS: But a lot of this record was mics on amps, which has such a cool sound.

00:26:09.157 –> 00:26:12.997
FINNEAS: And then exactly like Ashe is talking about, mics in the hallway and stuff.

00:26:12.997 –> 00:26:16.137
Ashe: Yeah, he was futzing with tone for a long time.

00:26:16.137 –> 00:26:17.057
FINNEAS: The whole two weeks.

00:26:17.057 –> 00:26:19.577
Ashe: Yeah, you’re like, it sounds good.

00:26:19.577 –> 00:26:21.217
Ashe: Let’s go.

00:26:21.217 –> 00:26:23.437
John Kennedy: So what should we look at next?

00:26:23.437 –> 00:26:26.997
FINNEAS: So the drums, just to go through them, because I think they’re kind of fun.

00:26:27.037 –> 00:26:30.277
John Kennedy: So in terms of the drum kit, I mean, you mentioned engineering.

00:26:30.277 –> 00:26:33.597
John Kennedy: Are you setting up all the microphones and doing all that kind of stuff?

00:26:33.597 –> 00:26:40.457
FINNEAS: Yeah, me and my assistant, Brian Hiers, we’re setting them all up.

00:26:40.457 –> 00:26:42.937
FINNEAS: And then Aaron Forbes is like my music director.

00:26:42.937 –> 00:26:51.797
FINNEAS: And I had him come over like the day before we started actually recording everything and kind of like check my work, basically, like move this mic a little bit further into the kick.

00:26:51.797 –> 00:26:57.437
FINNEAS: And like, we ran these drums through an analog console, like a sphere console from the 70s that I have.

00:26:57.437 –> 00:27:03.337
FINNEAS: And he was like actually on the console, like tweaking some console EQ, some analog EQ.

00:27:03.337 –> 00:27:04.037
FINNEAS: So that was really fun.

00:27:04.317 –> 00:27:15.957
FINNEAS: And then because it was in a room and it just felt like it was doing a little bit of a lift, there’s a couple like, not sample replacement, but like samples added to the drums.

00:27:22.141 –> 00:27:31.281
FINNEAS: Which sound really fake on their own, but in the context of the actual overheads and rooms and other mics, felt really right for it to work.

00:27:31.281 –> 00:27:35.061
Ashe: He pretty much wrote, David wrote his drum part.

00:27:35.061 –> 00:27:35.821
FINNEAS: Always, yeah.

00:27:35.821 –> 00:27:37.761
Ashe: Yeah, we didn’t really.

00:27:37.761 –> 00:27:59.741
FINNEAS: Yeah, David, so in some ways, I joke that it’s a super group, because Maranelli, who plays all the drums on the record, also has an artist project and also puts out music for the artist Wallace and the artist Spiltab, and he’s done some new stuff with Laundry Day, and then Ricky does all of Audrey Hobart’s music and has his own artist project.

00:27:59.741 –> 00:28:08.941
FINNEAS: So it’s all kind of like everybody coming together to do smaller roles on a shared thing than maybe they all do separately.

00:28:08.941 –> 00:28:24.121
FINNEAS: But David and I have this whole history where David played drums in my band growing up, and so I have this like oh my god, I’m back in the saddle looking at the guy on drums that I looked at when I was 15, which is so fun.

00:28:24.121 –> 00:28:35.041
FINNEAS: But he really, I think, he was always a great drummer, but I think years of producing music and maybe doing electronic drums, whatever made him an even better drum part writer.

00:28:35.041 –> 00:28:44.281
FINNEAS: There’s so many fills on this album that are so kind of like Airdrum, Phil Collins fills, which is always what I’m looking for.

00:28:44.281 –> 00:28:46.881
FINNEAS: So I love his drum parts on this record.

00:28:46.881 –> 00:28:51.741
John Kennedy: Do you put any processing on the drum kit or would it be afterwards?

00:28:51.741 –> 00:28:54.041
FINNEAS: Yeah, we put some stuff on the way in.

00:28:54.041 –> 00:28:56.961
FINNEAS: Anything that doesn’t have too much latency, I can go through.

00:28:56.961 –> 00:29:01.581
FINNEAS: There’s a lot of Pro-Q, a little bit of clipping.

00:29:01.701 –> 00:29:03.321
John Kennedy: I guess we should also hear some of these fills.

00:29:03.461 –> 00:29:04.241
FINNEAS: Compression, yeah.

00:29:04.241 –> 00:29:07.081
FINNEAS: I feel like, let me play a little, let’s play a good fill.

00:29:07.081 –> 00:29:07.841
FINNEAS: Here we go.

00:29:07.841 –> 00:29:08.821
FINNEAS: Let’s see.

00:29:08.821 –> 00:29:12.161
Ashe: My favorites are just, and that’s it.

00:29:12.161 –> 00:29:14.021
Ashe: One hit.

00:29:14.021 –> 00:29:14.501
FINNEAS: Like that.

00:29:14.501 –> 00:29:16.021
FINNEAS: It’s so awesome.

00:29:16.021 –> 00:29:19.621
FINNEAS: Here’s this fill into verse or chorus too.

00:29:22.881 –> 00:29:24.541
Ashe: It’s almost a joke.

00:29:24.541 –> 00:29:28.701
FINNEAS: It’s almost so simple, but it’s so in the context of it.

00:29:28.701 –> 00:29:32.701
FINNEAS: You hear that on its own and you’re like, it almost sounds like he’s mic checking, but then you hear it with everything.

00:29:41.732 –> 00:29:44.552
FINNEAS: That’s so much better than if he was like, do-do-do-do-do, you know what I mean?

00:29:44.552 –> 00:29:46.272
FINNEAS: And it’s like, the simpler, the better.

00:29:46.272 –> 00:29:49.332
FINNEAS: It’s so musical, so I loved that.

00:29:49.332 –> 00:29:56.352
John Kennedy: And it’s also interesting, because that’s the part of the song where you saw, you both start to saw, it really takes off.

00:29:56.352 –> 00:29:56.732
John Kennedy: Yeah, I agree.

00:29:56.732 –> 00:29:59.952
John Kennedy: And so if he went with you, then it would be just too much.

00:29:59.952 –> 00:30:09.472
FINNEAS: Yeah, so in conjunction with the drums, the other thing that is a big part of the song to me is just tambourine, which I played a little bit later.

00:30:09.472 –> 00:30:15.552
FINNEAS: But part of the approach on this record was like listening to old records and hearing how things sounded on old records.

00:30:15.552 –> 00:30:17.592
FINNEAS: So like this tambourine just dry.

00:30:24.188 –> 00:30:25.408
FINNEAS: And you know, that sounds nice.

00:30:25.408 –> 00:30:27.228
FINNEAS: You can pop that with the drums.

00:30:32.948 –> 00:30:46.948
FINNEAS: But I found that like when I listened to old songs in sort of like whatever alternative rock genre that we were trying to emulate, there was a lot of spring on tambourines back then, and they often were kind of high cut.

00:30:46.948 –> 00:30:49.308
FINNEAS: And I just thought that was a great sound.

00:30:49.308 –> 00:30:57.728
FINNEAS: And so I just literally stock logic, spring box plug-in, stock logic, EQ, just like cutting some of the highs out.

00:30:57.728 –> 00:31:03.988
FINNEAS: And so then it has this real old school sound, that super springy slap.

00:31:05.288 –> 00:31:07.968
Ashe: That springy verb is like such a Beach Boys-esque.

00:31:07.968 –> 00:31:10.248
FINNEAS: It’s such a Beach Boys thing.

00:31:10.248 –> 00:31:14.928
FINNEAS: Probably, you know, again, I’m copying a thing that they were probably doing by total necessity.

00:31:14.928 –> 00:31:17.108
FINNEAS: They probably were like, this is the only reverb we have.

00:31:17.148 –> 00:31:17.728
FINNEAS: Let’s use it.

00:31:17.728 –> 00:31:27.288
FINNEAS: But again, sometimes it’s like fun and creative to use something that in your ear, you’re like, if you’re not a musician, you’re like, I don’t know what that is, but it reminds me of this album by, you know, whoever.

00:31:27.288 –> 00:31:28.668
John Kennedy: It connects things together, doesn’t it?

00:31:28.668 –> 00:31:31.748
John Kennedy: We recognize them instantly without even knowing that we’ve recognized them.

00:31:31.748 –> 00:31:33.428
FINNEAS: Yeah, exactly.

00:31:33.428 –> 00:31:34.408
FINNEAS: So those are cool.

00:31:34.408 –> 00:31:46.528
FINNEAS: And then there’s a little bit of sub on the chorus, but an old sub, this old synth called an Ace Tone Top Six that I have that has an amazing sub.

00:31:46.528 –> 00:31:47.468
FINNEAS: And really quiet.

00:31:50.968 –> 00:31:55.628
FINNEAS: But not, you know, a big modern 808 sub, just like a sub sub energy.

00:31:55.628 –> 00:31:59.528
FINNEAS: There’s some claps on the chorus that I, I don’t remember how they sound.

00:31:59.528 –> 00:32:01.028
FINNEAS: Let’s hear them.

00:32:01.028 –> 00:32:02.348
FINNEAS: Oh, very dry.

00:32:02.348 –> 00:32:04.148
FINNEAS: Just to widen the drums a little, I guess.

00:32:10.703 –> 00:32:19.763
FINNEAS: Just to add a little bit of width, and then some acoustic guitars come in with, with Ratt’s Awesome Guitars to accompany him.

00:32:34.423 –> 00:32:35.843
FINNEAS: Which I think has a nice sound.

00:32:35.843 –> 00:32:38.043
Ashe: We could put out an acoustic version.

00:32:38.043 –> 00:32:38.783
Ashe: Just that.

00:32:38.803 –> 00:32:40.443
Ashe: Yeah, so pretty.

00:32:40.443 –> 00:32:41.923
FINNEAS: I love how it sounds.

00:32:41.923 –> 00:33:07.163
FINNEAS: There’s some, so the CP80, which was a really fun component of this record, and we leaned on heavily, we found when we were mixing, really primarily when we were mixing, not producing, that the CP80’s shortcoming or drawback is just kind of like the hammer, because it really plays much more like an electric piano in the way that like a Rhodes plays or something, where I missed that kind of like, like that thing.

00:33:07.163 –> 00:33:07.703
Ashe: Attack.

00:33:07.703 –> 00:33:12.063
FINNEAS: Yeah, that kind of like percussiveness of a piano.

00:33:12.063 –> 00:33:16.903
FINNEAS: And so I added an upright piano that I have in my room.

00:33:16.903 –> 00:33:19.743
FINNEAS: And then this is what that sounds like, pretty dry.

00:33:25.544 –> 00:33:34.824
FINNEAS: And I found that this one, because the CP80 is doing that whole tremmy thing, and it’s got delay, that like I was, it wasn’t about like, I’m gonna play the exact same part that I played on the CP80.

00:33:34.824 –> 00:33:39.084
FINNEAS: It was like, I’m gonna have these two things co-exist and sort of compliment each other.

00:33:39.084 –> 00:33:40.384
FINNEAS: So together, they sound like this.

00:33:48.302 –> 00:34:02.562
FINNEAS: And then the other thing I did, just because I felt like it made it feel cool, was I put a lot of Valhalla Room on the piano, like almost 50%, and then some saturation, probably gained it down, so then it had this floaty thing.

00:34:12.541 –> 00:34:15.721
FINNEAS: So that’s happening all kind of at the same time, which I thought had a really nice feel.

00:34:23.780 –> 00:34:26.580
FINNEAS: So that’s already like, we’re getting thick there.

00:34:26.580 –> 00:34:31.100
John Kennedy: Yeah, there’s a question from another one of our Patreons, which kind of relates to this in a way.

00:34:31.100 –> 00:34:34.740
John Kennedy: Matt Peze says, how do you achieve depth in your production?

00:34:34.740 –> 00:34:39.960
John Kennedy: How do you create a coherent foreground, middle ground and background to shape an interesting mix?

00:34:39.960 –> 00:34:51.620
John Kennedy: So it seems with this, as you’re talking about it, now you make a start, obviously, but then you start to think about it after you’ve made that start, and then you add these different things and adjust them accordingly.

00:34:52.720 –> 00:35:11.640
FINNEAS: Well, I think in some ways, this album made, although it was still very DIY, it was us in a living room, just the amount of microphones we had up helped with depth in a way that I was like, man, I should set up more microphones in my home studio, or I should think of things in this way.

00:35:11.920 –> 00:35:24.040
FINNEAS: The way I’d reference that is, if I’m programming drums for you, I’m just finding a great couple of snare samples, and a great couple of kick samples, and some hi-hat, and I’m making a beat.

00:35:24.040 –> 00:35:30.660
FINNEAS: And so in this case, it’s like, that’s all true, except that I have 16 channels of different things.

00:35:30.660 –> 00:35:36.060
FINNEAS: I have sub and kick in and snare top and snare bottom, and the toms and the overheads.

00:35:36.060 –> 00:35:46.320
FINNEAS: And what really happened was the hall and the room, I started to just be like, these are all things that people in these comments are gonna be like, yeah, duh, dude.

00:35:46.320 –> 00:35:50.560
FINNEAS: But it was such a luxury to be like, I have a mic that’s farther away.

00:35:50.560 –> 00:35:59.200
FINNEAS: So if I want the drums to sound bigger and more sort of epic, I can just boost the hall mic and they’ll just sound like they’re, they have a bigger presence in the room.

00:35:59.200 –> 00:36:03.300
FINNEAS: And if I just do like the snare top and the hi-hat, it’s like very tight and small.

00:36:03.300 –> 00:36:06.580
FINNEAS: It sounds like something out of like in rainbows.

00:36:06.580 –> 00:36:12.440
FINNEAS: But yeah, so like drum hall, which is very quiet in the mix, but it sounds huge if you boost it, you know.

00:36:15.940 –> 00:36:18.640
FINNEAS: That’s the bathroom hall, yeah.

00:36:18.640 –> 00:36:21.800
FINNEAS: And that’s kind of how the drums sound if you’re in that house, right?

00:36:21.800 –> 00:36:23.640
FINNEAS: You know, which I think is important.

00:36:23.640 –> 00:36:26.260
FINNEAS: And then the room is like, mics across the room.

00:36:32.160 –> 00:36:33.980
FINNEAS: That’s pretty slammed too.

00:36:33.980 –> 00:36:37.580
FINNEAS: But that was also a good sort of, let’s see.

00:36:37.580 –> 00:36:42.320
FINNEAS: Oh yeah, this has a release automation drawn in because that’s right where the fill is.

00:36:42.320 –> 00:36:46.560
FINNEAS: Because if that wasn’t happening, then it was kind of swallowing the fill.

00:36:49.920 –> 00:36:52.880
FINNEAS: So that all ducks down, you can hear it go away.

00:36:57.000 –> 00:37:16.660
FINNEAS: Just a little, like again, these are like little moments, like I know that Aaron drew that one in when we were in the mix, like just a little kind of, I think that one of the things that happens when you’re like mixing a song specifically is you’re like, if I do a perfect job of compressing and EQing this track, I won’t have to do any automations and it’s like, that’s not true.

00:37:16.660 –> 00:37:25.380
FINNEAS: Like there’s so many areas that you can make better by, you know, either boosting a little bit of a fill or ducking a little bit of a fill or, you know, any number of things.

00:37:25.380 –> 00:37:31.180
FINNEAS: Like I remember one of the things on the Hudson was like just a crazy loud S at one point on-

00:37:31.180 –> 00:37:32.700
Ashe: Oh yeah, that was bugging me.

00:37:32.700 –> 00:37:37.080
FINNEAS: Forget what word, but we were just like, oh, that S is driving us crazy.

00:37:37.080 –> 00:37:40.060
FINNEAS: Gotta, you know, make it way quieter, whatever.

00:37:40.200 –> 00:37:43.120
FINNEAS: You know, these are all the things that your ear notices.

00:37:43.120 –> 00:37:45.420
FINNEAS: You know, this isn’t just us talking in a room.

00:37:45.420 –> 00:37:49.960
FINNEAS: It’s us into a microphone, into a compressor, into an EQ, into a de-esser.

00:37:49.960 –> 00:37:52.140
FINNEAS: It’s like, you know, it’s getting really fucked with.

00:37:52.140 –> 00:37:57.040
FINNEAS: So it’s only natural that you got to kind of like go through and comb it.

00:37:57.040 –> 00:37:57.480
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:37:57.480 –> 00:37:57.860
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:37:57.860 –> 00:38:00.200
John Kennedy: And it’s great that you had that facility to do that.

00:38:00.200 –> 00:38:08.940
John Kennedy: No, all these extra options because you go from kind of in a way trying to create a live record, but you know, you have these options so you can use them.

00:38:09.560 –> 00:38:19.240
John Kennedy: And because you didn’t just try and do everything in one single take, after Andrew’s advice, then you were able to mess with it a bit more than you would have been.

00:38:20.020 –> 00:38:21.080
John Kennedy: I’m caught to the time.

00:38:21.160 –> 00:38:23.920
John Kennedy: So is there anything else we should hear from The Little Mess You Made?

00:38:23.920 –> 00:38:30.180
FINNEAS: I was just going to play the vocal arrangement on chorus two because I think it’s so pretty.

00:38:30.180 –> 00:38:32.800
Ashe: Pretend, pretend, pretend.

00:38:32.800 –> 00:38:33.540
FINNEAS: Here’s chorus two.

00:39:17.440 –> 00:39:28.260
FINNEAS: Also the way we did vocals on 10 of 12 of these songs, which I had so much fun doing, was like we’d do the band pass, we’d do like a pass with everything, and then we’d do guide vocals.

00:39:28.260 –> 00:39:32.920
FINNEAS: We’d do a pass with guide vocals, and then we’d kind of get like ISO passes of everybody.

00:39:32.920 –> 00:39:41.020
FINNEAS: And then still on the same like handheld mics, these mics by Earthworks that I love that look really old, but I just love the way they sound.

00:39:41.020 –> 00:39:46.360
FINNEAS: We’d sit across the room from each other that we didn’t have too much bleed, although we had plenty.

00:39:46.360 –> 00:39:48.660
FINNEAS: And we’d just sing leads.

00:39:48.660 –> 00:39:50.600
FINNEAS: We’d do like three passes comp.

00:39:50.600 –> 00:39:53.080
FINNEAS: I remember doing like three and then comping.

00:39:53.080 –> 00:39:55.640
FINNEAS: And then we did all the BVs like, what about this part?

00:39:55.640 –> 00:39:56.740
FINNEAS: And we’d both sing it.

00:39:56.740 –> 00:39:57.360
FINNEAS: What about this part?

00:39:57.400 –> 00:39:58.420
FINNEAS: We’d both sing it.

00:39:58.420 –> 00:40:04.520
FINNEAS: So we would like slam through a whole vocal arrangement in like 45 minutes.

00:40:04.520 –> 00:40:05.880
FINNEAS: It was really fast.

00:40:05.880 –> 00:40:12.860
Ashe: It was the first time that I’ve ever gotten to work with Finneas on like harmony arrangement.

00:40:12.860 –> 00:40:26.600
Ashe: And he was so like, you just kept pulling out all these ideas like the pretend, pretend, pretend, friend, friend, friend, like all of these, like I’m, I’m your classic like raised in a church singing the third above or below.

00:40:26.600 –> 00:40:30.580
Ashe: And I’m, that’s like, you know, the glue to adding the harmonies.

00:40:30.580 –> 00:40:32.220
Ashe: And he’s like, what if we do this crazy thing?

00:40:32.220 –> 00:40:33.300
Ashe: And it was really fun.

00:40:33.300 –> 00:40:37.220
Ashe: And we just sort of were across the room sort of screaming at each other.

00:40:37.220 –> 00:40:37.600
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:40:37.600 –> 00:40:38.700
Ashe: It’s really, really cool.

00:40:38.700 –> 00:40:40.200
John Kennedy: It sounds fantastic.

00:40:41.900 –> 00:40:44.040
FINNEAS: All the shalala.

00:40:44.040 –> 00:40:45.260
Ashe: And like, why did you think of that?

00:40:45.260 –> 00:40:47.840
Ashe: You’re like, what if we just go shalala right now?

00:40:47.920 –> 00:40:50.580
Ashe: Like, okay.

00:40:51.660 –> 00:40:57.020
FINNEAS: I feel like also like, you never get an excuse to say shalala in a song, throw a bunch of phaser on.

00:40:57.020 –> 00:40:58.080
FINNEAS: And it was really fun.

00:40:58.080 –> 00:41:09.580
FINNEAS: I think a lot of it too is like just being, we weren’t trying to make a tribute record or something, but again, it’s like there’s these old things that are so great and have stood the test of time.

00:41:09.580 –> 00:41:17.860
FINNEAS: And if we, I remember somebody saying this about like, well, when you make a record that sounds old, like 50 years later, like they won’t think of it that way.

00:41:17.860 –> 00:41:19.780
FINNEAS: They’ll just be like, oh, it sounds like those other records.

00:41:19.780 –> 00:41:20.220
FINNEAS: You know what I mean?

00:41:20.220 –> 00:41:23.160
FINNEAS: They won’t even separate it by 60 years or whatever it is.

00:41:23.160 –> 00:41:24.860
FINNEAS: So that’s fine by me.

00:41:24.860 –> 00:41:25.560
John Kennedy: Yeah, yeah.

00:41:25.560 –> 00:41:26.280
John Kennedy: No, it sounds great.

00:41:26.280 –> 00:41:30.600
John Kennedy: And it sounds like you’re having a lot of fun, but also there’s quite a methodical approach to it as well.

00:41:30.860 –> 00:41:43.720
John Kennedy: You carved out the time, you put yourselves in front of each other, and then you did the lead, and then there’s a method to this, but it’s cleverly done so that you can actually relax in it as well.

00:41:43.720 –> 00:41:50.540
Ashe: Yeah, it was playful, but we’re also professionals who want to make a really good sounding record.

00:41:50.540 –> 00:41:51.840
Ashe: So yeah, it was fun.

00:41:51.840 –> 00:41:53.640
Ashe: We started to get into a rhythm.

00:41:53.640 –> 00:41:54.480
Ashe: I came out to LA.

00:41:54.740 –> 00:42:01.240
Ashe: The second trip was in April of 2024, and it was for two full weeks.

00:42:01.240 –> 00:42:10.760
Ashe: And I stayed at his place, and we just slowly got into this rhythm or a flow of like, all right, we start our day.

00:42:10.760 –> 00:42:12.240
Ashe: We’re going to start with this song.

00:42:12.240 –> 00:42:15.520
Ashe: We’ll do the full band passes, then we’ll do the BGVs and we’ll comp.

00:42:15.520 –> 00:42:17.340
Ashe: And yeah, it was cool.

00:42:17.340 –> 00:42:19.660
Ashe: We got into a good rhythm.

00:42:19.660 –> 00:42:20.640
FINNEAS: It was really fun.

00:42:20.680 –> 00:42:21.220
John Kennedy: It sounds great.

00:42:21.220 –> 00:42:26.440
John Kennedy: I’m keen to look at the vocal chain, but I don’t think we necessarily need to do it with this song because I’m sure it applies to the others.

00:42:26.440 –> 00:42:28.380
FINNEAS: Yeah, we’ll do it on the next one.

00:42:28.380 –> 00:42:32.300
John Kennedy: The next song, we’re going to take a break, and the next song we’re going to look at is David’s brother.

00:42:32.300 –> 00:42:33.660
FINNEAS: Let’s do it.

00:42:35.540 –> 00:42:42.620
John Kennedy: Our partners at Tape It, the iPhone recording app for musicians, have just added one of their most requested features, layering.

00:42:42.620 –> 00:42:46.200
John Kennedy: We ask every artist who comes on the podcast to try out Tape It.

00:42:46.200 –> 00:42:54.560
John Kennedy: One guest in particular had this very specific request to be able to record over voice notes, stack parts and build on an idea.

00:42:54.560 –> 00:42:58.700
John Kennedy: Well, the team at Tape It listened and now layering is here.

00:42:58.700 –> 00:43:07.740
John Kennedy: You can record over your voice notes, which means trying out top lines, building up instruments, jamming with yourself and stacking as many vocal harmonies as you can.

00:43:07.740 –> 00:43:13.820
John Kennedy: It’s honestly one of the most exciting features Tape It’s added so far and it still keeps all the things we love about it.

00:43:13.820 –> 00:43:22.140
John Kennedy: Multiple recording options, automatic instrument detection, the ability to add markers, notes and photos to your recordings and shared mixtapes for collaborating.

00:43:22.140 –> 00:43:31.920
John Kennedy: Whether you’re in a writing session at rehearsal or just singing into your phone at midnight because something just popped into your head, Tape It helps you capture and organize it all without the usual chaos.

00:43:31.920 –> 00:43:38.320
John Kennedy: To find out more and try layering for yourself, head to tape.it forward slash tape notes and download Tape It now.

00:43:38.320 –> 00:43:43.060
John Kennedy: And for even more, use the code tape notes for 20% off Tape It Pro.

00:43:43.060 –> 00:43:45.580
John Kennedy: That’s tape.it forward slash tape notes.

00:43:46.200 –> 00:43:50.660
John Kennedy: The next song we’re going to look at from The Dream by The Favors is David’s Brother.

00:43:50.660 –> 00:43:52.620
John Kennedy: So if you could play us the master, that would be great, Finneas.

00:44:53.480 –> 00:44:58.560
John Kennedy: It is David’s brother by The Favors from The Dream, and I’m glad we got that hay in there.

00:44:58.560 –> 00:44:59.820
John Kennedy: That’s one of my favorite bits.

00:44:59.820 –> 00:45:00.480
FINNEAS: Me too.

00:45:00.680 –> 00:45:01.840
John Kennedy: Is that you, Finneas?

00:45:01.840 –> 00:45:02.900
FINNEAS: It is.

00:45:02.900 –> 00:45:03.460
FINNEAS: Yeah.

00:45:03.740 –> 00:45:07.060
FINNEAS: I’m a big hay shouter in takes.

00:45:07.060 –> 00:45:08.460
John Kennedy: Yeah, I love it.

00:45:08.460 –> 00:45:12.720
FINNEAS: I always loved it whenever I saw any band do that growing up, and I’m happy to do it.

00:45:13.220 –> 00:45:15.000
John Kennedy: Yeah, I’m a big fan as well.

00:45:15.080 –> 00:45:15.800
John Kennedy: It sounds great.

00:45:15.800 –> 00:45:28.280
John Kennedy: So I was just realizing when I was listening to that, that in a way, this duet album, even though it’s not a duet album, but the male-female singers together, it’s not that prevalent at the moment.

00:45:28.280 –> 00:45:29.460
John Kennedy: It doesn’t seem to happen.

00:45:30.900 –> 00:45:34.300
John Kennedy: It’s a shame, I think, because listening to it, it sounds so great.

00:45:34.320 –> 00:45:34.920
John Kennedy: I agree.

00:45:34.920 –> 00:45:36.360
Ashe: Modern day right now.

00:45:36.360 –> 00:45:37.200
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:45:37.880 –> 00:45:40.720
John Kennedy: I can think of lots of examples from the 70s.

00:45:40.720 –> 00:45:49.980
John Kennedy: Then there are those singles that were big hits, maybe in the 70s and 80s, but we’ll say Elton John and Kiki Dee, or Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.

00:45:51.100 –> 00:45:53.320
John Kennedy: Those are timeless classics.

00:45:53.320 –> 00:45:56.720
John Kennedy: To have this across a whole album is a real treat.

00:45:56.720 –> 00:45:58.120
FINNEAS: Yeah, you’re totally right.

00:45:58.960 –> 00:46:02.360
FINNEAS: I think still in modern times, there’s lots of duets.

00:46:02.360 –> 00:46:08.500
FINNEAS: There’s lots of guy artists sings a verse, girl artists sings verse, maybe they sing a chorus.

00:46:08.500 –> 00:46:09.280
FINNEAS: But yeah, you’re right.

00:46:09.520 –> 00:46:17.280
FINNEAS: There’s not a sort of, I think like a lot of our references on this record, where like Simon and Garfunkel like both singing lead at the same time.

00:46:17.280 –> 00:46:19.000
FINNEAS: Even this intro.

00:46:25.380 –> 00:46:30.660
FINNEAS: Like that thing of like both of us singing, one of us isn’t singing in harmony, we’re just singing octaves.

00:46:30.660 –> 00:46:33.580
FINNEAS: That was a really fun way to sing the song.

00:46:33.580 –> 00:46:34.380
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:46:34.380 –> 00:46:34.800
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:46:34.800 –> 00:46:40.380
John Kennedy: And so when you were writing these songs, you had that in mind, I guess that was part of the novelty of it.

00:46:40.500 –> 00:46:41.160
John Kennedy: All in a way.

00:46:41.160 –> 00:46:41.320
Ashe: Yeah.

00:46:41.320 –> 00:46:47.600
Ashe: I remember early on Finneas saying like, I don’t want to just trade verses.

00:46:47.600 –> 00:46:50.640
Ashe: I think it’s so predictable.

00:46:50.640 –> 00:47:00.120
Ashe: And not that we were trying to do something out crazy out of the box, but it’s already, you know, people have heard us on Till Forever Falls Apart, and we had already done kind of that.

00:47:00.120 –> 00:47:03.460
Ashe: And you know, there are songs on this record where we’re trading verses.

00:47:03.460 –> 00:47:06.980
Ashe: You’re not going to make an entire album together where that doesn’t happen.

00:47:07.020 –> 00:47:17.880
Ashe: But we were really intentional, and I think you set the tone, like song one, like I want to be sort of like, who is singing the lead right now?

00:47:17.880 –> 00:47:22.840
Ashe: I don’t know that I want people to know that it kind of could be him or it could be me.

00:47:22.840 –> 00:47:25.040
Ashe: And I think that’s really special.

00:47:25.040 –> 00:47:28.520
Ashe: And yeah, you had bands back in the day, like the mamas and the papas.

00:47:28.520 –> 00:47:30.980
Ashe: And it was so much more common.

00:47:30.980 –> 00:47:34.120
Ashe: And I think we said this to each other like a month ago.

00:47:34.200 –> 00:47:39.300
Ashe: We were like, it’s so weird that there’s not more of this happening.

00:47:39.300 –> 00:47:42.520
Ashe: And we thought, well, that’s kind of lucky.

00:47:42.520 –> 00:47:44.260
FINNEAS: Yeah, there’s so much music being made.

00:47:44.260 –> 00:47:47.100
FINNEAS: And there’s good music being made all the time, of course.

00:47:47.100 –> 00:47:55.080
FINNEAS: But I was sort of remarking, like, that is crazy that there’s not like, like every comment referencing anybody references Fleetwood Mac.

00:47:55.100 –> 00:47:57.740
FINNEAS: Yeah, and you’re like, well, I mean, Civil Wars, too.

00:47:57.740 –> 00:48:01.300
FINNEAS: But like, there’s such a Fleetwood Mac reference point for people.

00:48:01.300 –> 00:48:02.420
FINNEAS: And you’re like, sure, obviously.

00:48:02.540 –> 00:48:11.600
FINNEAS: But also part of the reason you’re doing that is like, that’s how few bands there are with a guy and a girl singing at the same time that you’re like, Fleetwood Mac, you know what I mean?

00:48:11.600 –> 00:48:12.920
FINNEAS: Like, Civil War is amazing.

00:48:12.920 –> 00:48:18.120
FINNEAS: Although Civil Wars, I think, to some degree, people thought of as like a duet because there wasn’t.

00:48:18.120 –> 00:48:19.080
Ashe: They were a duo.

00:48:19.240 –> 00:48:21.460
Ashe: Fleetwood Mac was the band.

00:48:21.620 –> 00:48:22.320
FINNEAS: Yeah, totally.

00:48:22.320 –> 00:48:24.980
Ashe: We really set out to like, we want this to sound like a band.

00:48:24.980 –> 00:48:25.840
FINNEAS: Totally.

00:48:25.880 –> 00:48:26.880
FINNEAS: Yeah.

00:48:26.880 –> 00:48:31.220
FINNEAS: Yeah, this was the last song written on the first trip.

00:48:31.220 –> 00:48:34.200
FINNEAS: So this was like song number four or five or something.

00:48:34.200 –> 00:48:35.760
Ashe: In the room with all four of us.

00:48:35.760 –> 00:48:42.520
FINNEAS: In the room with all four of us, Ashe playing those chords, and then we got that kind of groove going, and then we started to write atop it.

00:48:42.520 –> 00:48:45.820
FINNEAS: But yeah, this was all written in the span of like four hours or something.

00:48:46.140 –> 00:48:46.900
Ashe: It’s quick.

00:48:46.960 –> 00:48:49.660
John Kennedy: So this is, yeah, a group experience.

00:48:49.660 –> 00:48:55.940
John Kennedy: So not flying from separate places with some words or a little melody in mind.

00:48:55.940 –> 00:49:05.420
FINNEAS: Yeah, this was like zero idea of this song before walking into the room together, and then basically totally done by the time we left that day.

00:49:05.420 –> 00:49:06.460
FINNEAS: It was really fast.

00:49:06.460 –> 00:49:06.800
John Kennedy: Wow.

00:49:06.800 –> 00:49:07.820
John Kennedy: And the lyrics as well then.

00:49:08.240 –> 00:49:09.500
John Kennedy: Because there’s quite a story going on.

00:49:09.500 –> 00:49:10.120
FINNEAS: That’s right.

00:49:10.380 –> 00:49:12.440
John Kennedy: How did you come up with the story so quickly?

00:49:12.440 –> 00:49:13.560
Ashe: That was you.

00:49:13.840 –> 00:49:18.500
Ashe: When there’s that many people in the room, I’m like, I choke a little bit.

00:49:18.500 –> 00:49:22.220
Ashe: You started with that, the first verse, I think you kicked it off.

00:49:22.220 –> 00:49:23.320
Ashe: Do you remember?

00:49:23.320 –> 00:49:24.480
FINNEAS: You know what?

00:49:24.480 –> 00:49:29.060
FINNEAS: I think the kernel of this became that, like, I should have stayed home.

00:49:29.060 –> 00:49:32.760
FINNEAS: But the first thing I remember doing was one of the pre-choruses.

00:49:32.760 –> 00:49:35.460
FINNEAS: Like, all the lyrics changed the whole time in this song.

00:49:35.460 –> 00:49:38.760
FINNEAS: But the pre-chorus, I could probably pull it up.

00:49:58.787 –> 00:50:04.867
FINNEAS: I remember very vividly saying, hold my breath and count to 30, which is really a high number.

00:50:05.247 –> 00:50:07.227
FINNEAS: It’s a high number to count to.

00:50:07.227 –> 00:50:12.407
FINNEAS: And I think that was kind of a joke, but also kind of like, that’s how long you need to calm down.

00:50:12.407 –> 00:50:12.987
FINNEAS: You know what I mean?

00:50:12.987 –> 00:50:17.947
FINNEAS: Like, I’m not gonna count to 10, I’m gonna count to 30 and sit there.

00:50:17.947 –> 00:50:27.227
FINNEAS: And then ever since you left, I don’t feel worthy, and under house arrest, and my dishes, like I’m not taking, I’m falling apart, I’m not taking care of myself.

00:50:27.227 –> 00:50:34.367
FINNEAS: And so I think that had enough of a seed of a story that then everything was like, oh, I should have stayed home, could have stayed home.

00:50:34.367 –> 00:50:36.927
FINNEAS: Reverse engineered, verse one.

00:50:36.927 –> 00:50:39.487
FINNEAS: Found your note in my pocket.

00:50:39.487 –> 00:50:41.807
FINNEAS: That’s like, that’s the whole verse, right?

00:50:41.807 –> 00:50:47.347
FINNEAS: Like that, found your note in my pocket to me is like, I know everything that, like I know where that all goes.

00:50:47.347 –> 00:50:49.027
FINNEAS: What are the other examples of that?

00:50:49.027 –> 00:50:50.747
FINNEAS: Like, where did the note come from?

00:50:50.747 –> 00:50:53.027
FINNEAS: Oh, you wrote it on the train, you know?

00:50:53.027 –> 00:50:54.347
FINNEAS: And we’re, and I’m still in it.

00:50:54.447 –> 00:50:56.847
FINNEAS: That was the razor still in the socket.

00:50:56.887 –> 00:50:58.367
Ashe: Your hair, my drain.

00:51:00.747 –> 00:51:01.787
John Kennedy: It’s really visual.

00:51:01.787 –> 00:51:04.107
John Kennedy: You know, we can really picture all these things.

00:51:06.887 –> 00:51:12.027
Ashe: That’s the cool thing we did where it’s like, I’m saying my hair and he’s saying your hair’s in the drain.

00:51:12.027 –> 00:51:13.867
Ashe: We have that on a couple of the songs.

00:51:13.867 –> 00:51:15.727
Ashe: That was like a lot of theatrical.

00:51:15.727 –> 00:51:25.787
FINNEAS: If we’re both singing in second person, a lot of he, she, you, my, which is like, I remember hearing that in like Phantom of the Opera and being like, I love that they’re doing that.

00:51:25.787 –> 00:51:27.827
FINNEAS: And so that was a fun thing to include.

00:51:27.827 –> 00:51:30.827
FINNEAS: But yeah, we had those lyrics, feeling pretty good.

00:51:30.827 –> 00:51:31.447
FINNEAS: And then-

00:51:31.447 –> 00:51:35.807
Ashe: You were really excited about 4100, the bar in LA.

00:51:35.807 –> 00:51:39.087
Ashe: And I was like, guys, we can’t say 4100.

00:51:39.087 –> 00:51:41.247
Ashe: It was too niche.

00:51:41.247 –> 00:51:47.047
Ashe: But our drummer David, his brother goes to 4100 bar a lot.

00:51:47.047 –> 00:51:51.067
Ashe: So suddenly it took on this life of like the bar that David’s brother’s always at.

00:51:52.127 –> 00:51:53.107
FINNEAS: Well, the whole thing was funny.

00:51:53.107 –> 00:52:00.507
FINNEAS: Well, so like we had at this point, 4 songs in, Ashe had brought in 99.9% of the Hudson.

00:52:00.507 –> 00:52:04.207
FINNEAS: And so we had this like the Hudson in New York, and that was like a place.

00:52:04.207 –> 00:52:15.887
FINNEAS: And then we had already written The Dream, which is the sort of main first song on the record, which is very much like about coming to LA to follow your dreams and like crashing out and failing.

00:52:15.927 –> 00:52:22.267
FINNEAS: And so suddenly it was kind of like a geo-tagging album process.

00:52:22.267 –> 00:52:26.387
FINNEAS: But Ashe has this good perspective of like Ashe lives out in Nashville.

00:52:26.387 –> 00:52:34.727
FINNEAS: And I think like the people watching Tape Notes today, like 4100, if you live in LA has a real bell, you know, really rings a bell.

00:52:34.727 –> 00:52:37.707
FINNEAS: You’re like, oh, 4100, I see, whether you love it or hate it.

00:52:37.707 –> 00:52:42.827
FINNEAS: I’m not entirely sure how I feel about 4100, but I’ve been for people’s birthdays and stuff.

00:52:42.827 –> 00:52:43.207
FINNEAS: Anyway, but-

00:52:43.207 –> 00:52:44.187
John Kennedy: Is it a big place?

00:52:44.187 –> 00:52:44.967
FINNEAS: A small place?

00:52:45.167 –> 00:52:46.587
FINNEAS: Yeah, it’s pretty big.

00:52:46.587 –> 00:52:48.427
FINNEAS: And yeah, it’s pretty classic.

00:52:48.427 –> 00:52:50.267
FINNEAS: There’s like pool tables and photo booths.

00:52:50.267 –> 00:52:52.067
Ashe: The place David’s brother would love.

00:52:52.067 –> 00:52:58.007
FINNEAS: Yeah, well, so, but here’s the irony here is like 4100, Ashe is like, that doesn’t sing well.

00:52:58.007 –> 00:52:59.747
FINNEAS: True, can’t deny that.

00:52:59.747 –> 00:53:01.607
FINNEAS: So then we’re like, huh, what other bars?

00:53:01.607 –> 00:53:03.927
FINNEAS: And we’re rattling off other bars with names.

00:53:03.927 –> 00:53:06.427
FINNEAS: We don’t want to say this one, or we don’t want to say that one, whatever.

00:53:06.427 –> 00:53:08.427
FINNEAS: And then we’re like, David’s brother goes to 4100.

00:53:08.427 –> 00:53:12.287
FINNEAS: And they’re like, maybe that’s like the, I saw you at the bar with David’s brother.

00:53:12.427 –> 00:53:19.287
FINNEAS: Like we’re looking for specificity without necessarily like, you know, boxing ourselves in.

00:53:19.287 –> 00:53:29.807
FINNEAS: And so then you’re like, we were talking about this earlier, like David is the person playing drums in this band, but who’s David’s brother in the context of this made up story that we’re telling?

00:53:29.807 –> 00:53:34.087
FINNEAS: Because we don’t even name, David’s brother in real life is a guy named Vincent, and is a real sweetheart.

00:53:34.087 –> 00:53:35.267
FINNEAS: But like, who’s the character?

00:53:35.267 –> 00:53:35.867
FINNEAS: Who are you?

00:53:35.867 –> 00:53:38.507
FINNEAS: If you run into David’s brother at the bar, what’s going on?

00:53:38.507 –> 00:53:40.047
FINNEAS: Why are you at the bar?

00:53:40.047 –> 00:53:41.087
FINNEAS: What’s going on with him?

00:53:41.087 –> 00:53:43.507
FINNEAS: So then it’s like, okay, we’re going to add this whole layer.

00:53:43.507 –> 00:53:51.667
FINNEAS: David’s brother is a character who’s on a date with the girl that you used to take out on dates, and you see him, and you’re like, oh my God, why did I even come tonight?

00:53:51.667 –> 00:53:53.207
FINNEAS: This is a disaster.

00:53:53.207 –> 00:53:59.487
FINNEAS: So then it’s like, again, it’s all kind of a perfect illustration of what I’m talking about with something rolling downhill, right?

00:53:59.487 –> 00:54:05.107
FINNEAS: You’re like, started with some kernel of like, I’m not taking care of myself.

00:54:05.107 –> 00:54:11.047
FINNEAS: And then you craft the story, and then by the time you get to the chorus, you’re like, it’s very specific and it’s a disaster.

00:54:11.387 –> 00:54:16.527
Ashe: There’s an eighth in my purse in the second verse, you know, it definitely escalates.

00:54:16.527 –> 00:54:23.207
Ashe: But the boys and something I love about them is, their real currency is humor.

00:54:23.207 –> 00:54:28.507
Ashe: And so when we’re writing in a room together, they’re cracking jokes the entire time.

00:54:28.507 –> 00:54:31.247
Ashe: And I’m racking my brain for the lyrics.

00:54:31.247 –> 00:54:34.007
Ashe: I’m like, well, how do we make this song amazing?

00:54:34.007 –> 00:54:38.287
Ashe: Meanwhile, the chances of it actually being 4,100, like-

00:54:38.287 –> 00:54:38.747
FINNEAS: Not zero.

00:54:39.147 –> 00:54:43.007
Ashe: Not zero, because they thought it was so funny.

00:54:43.007 –> 00:54:45.727
Ashe: And I was like, this is so stupid, guys.

00:54:45.727 –> 00:54:46.747
Ashe: It cannot be this.

00:54:46.747 –> 00:54:48.007
Ashe: But that was just like a test.

00:54:48.007 –> 00:54:53.107
FINNEAS: Well, what we’re really trying to do is rhyme acupuncture, which is the line before it.

00:54:53.107 –> 00:54:53.787
Ashe: Wow.

00:54:53.787 –> 00:54:56.887
FINNEAS: Doing therapy in acupuncture, which felt really good.

00:54:56.887 –> 00:54:59.347
FINNEAS: That was like, I’m trying to recover.

00:54:59.347 –> 00:55:01.287
FINNEAS: I’m going to therapy, I’m doing my acupuncture.

00:55:01.287 –> 00:55:02.047
Ashe: That’s right.

00:55:02.047 –> 00:55:03.687
FINNEAS: What rhymes with acupuncture?

00:55:03.687 –> 00:55:06.627
FINNEAS: Well, 4,100 kind of, it’s got the same-

00:55:07.367 –> 00:55:07.907
FINNEAS: M&M would do it.

00:55:07.907 –> 00:55:09.447
FINNEAS: Same vowels.

00:55:09.447 –> 00:55:12.907
FINNEAS: So then, but then David’s brother rhymes with acupuncture even better.

00:55:12.907 –> 00:55:13.267
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:55:13.267 –> 00:55:14.247
FINNEAS: So problem solved.

00:55:14.247 –> 00:55:19.847
FINNEAS: But the real thing we were trying to do was say acupuncture because you get so few opportunities to sing about acupuncture.

00:55:19.847 –> 00:55:20.967
John Kennedy: Yeah, it’s true.

00:55:20.967 –> 00:55:21.587
John Kennedy: Fantastic.

00:55:21.587 –> 00:55:23.207
John Kennedy: We must talk about the vocal chain, I think.

00:55:23.207 –> 00:55:23.607
FINNEAS: Okay, let’s do it.

00:55:23.607 –> 00:55:25.407
John Kennedy: So we’ve got both vocals going on.

00:55:25.407 –> 00:55:31.087
FINNEAS: Both of us singing at the same time, looking at each other’s mouths so that our timing is all the same.

00:55:31.087 –> 00:55:34.307
FINNEAS: Yeah, very, very tight.

00:55:34.307 –> 00:55:35.727
FINNEAS: Yeah, vocal chain is-

00:55:36.507 –> 00:55:37.407
Ashe: Such a fun way.

00:55:37.407 –> 00:55:40.667
FINNEAS: Yeah, so let me dry it up just so you have the reference.

00:55:40.667 –> 00:55:44.527
FINNEAS: Here’s Ashe and we’ll see how much bleed you can hear in her vocal because you might be able to hear me.

00:55:44.527 –> 00:55:45.007
John Kennedy: Right.

00:55:45.007 –> 00:55:47.667
FINNEAS: Found your note in my pocket.

00:55:47.667 –> 00:55:48.687
FINNEAS: You can totally hear me.

00:55:48.687 –> 00:55:48.907
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:55:58.267 –> 00:56:03.447
FINNEAS: A lot of these vocals are running into summing buses and then the summing buses have the reverb send.

00:56:03.447 –> 00:56:06.567
FINNEAS: So I’ll just go through the actual like on the vocal chain.

00:56:06.567 –> 00:56:08.587
FINNEAS: I can turn off the reverb real quick.

00:56:08.587 –> 00:56:14.887
FINNEAS: Found your note in my pocket that you wrote on the train.

00:56:14.887 –> 00:56:15.327
FINNEAS: So cool.

00:56:15.327 –> 00:56:17.687
Ashe: I can like see you across the room.

00:56:17.687 –> 00:56:18.247
Ashe: Wow.

00:56:18.247 –> 00:56:18.627
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:56:18.627 –> 00:56:19.687
FINNEAS: It’s very like…

00:56:19.687 –> 00:56:20.467
Ashe: That’s so dreamy.

00:56:20.467 –> 00:56:21.247
FINNEAS: It’s right there.

00:56:21.247 –> 00:56:21.767
Ashe: Yeah.

00:56:21.767 –> 00:56:24.767
FINNEAS: But I’ve never felt worse.

00:56:24.767 –> 00:56:27.287
FINNEAS: A rare moment where I’m not singing at the same time.

00:56:27.327 –> 00:56:29.607
FINNEAS: What a way to learn your lesson.

00:56:29.607 –> 00:56:30.587
FINNEAS: So there she is.

00:56:30.587 –> 00:56:30.867
FINNEAS: Okay.

00:56:30.867 –> 00:56:39.647
FINNEAS: So on her actual vocal proper is some channel EQ, very simple, decapitator, which…

00:56:39.667 –> 00:56:40.407
FINNEAS: Little dry.

00:56:40.407 –> 00:56:44.187
FINNEAS: Pretty low mic, like, you know, pretty dry.

00:56:44.187 –> 00:56:46.227
FINNEAS: Found your note in my pocket.

00:56:46.227 –> 00:56:50.827
FINNEAS: Certainly not like distorting it, just kind of heating it up, is the way I would put it.

00:56:50.827 –> 00:56:52.307
FINNEAS: Some compression.

00:56:52.307 –> 00:56:54.907
FINNEAS: It’s going into an analog compressor in the room.

00:56:54.987 –> 00:56:58.427
FINNEAS: I’m not exactly sure which brand.

00:56:58.427 –> 00:57:05.107
FINNEAS: And then DSR, too early in the chain, but this is where you know that this is a good illustration of then we’re going to mix.

00:57:05.107 –> 00:57:06.827
FINNEAS: That’s probably everything on there.

00:57:06.827 –> 00:57:09.927
FINNEAS: And then now we’re into Aaron actually mixing.

00:57:09.927 –> 00:57:11.127
FINNEAS: So we’ve got…

00:57:11.367 –> 00:57:13.787
FINNEAS: Here’s me opening these plugins for the first time in months.

00:57:13.787 –> 00:57:17.127
Ashe: And is your chain different from mine?

00:57:17.127 –> 00:57:18.087
FINNEAS: Let’s find that out.

00:57:18.087 –> 00:57:18.867
FINNEAS: Great.

00:57:18.927 –> 00:57:19.687
FINNEAS: All right.

00:57:19.687 –> 00:57:21.267
John Kennedy: Good question, Ashe.

00:57:21.267 –> 00:57:23.307
Ashe: Thanks, everybody.

00:57:23.307 –> 00:57:24.907
Ashe: I can nerd out too.

00:57:24.907 –> 00:57:29.387
Ashe: I just think that’s really interesting because you have such a different timbre.

00:57:29.387 –> 00:57:31.787
John Kennedy: And in terms of microphone, I mean, you’re using the same mics.

00:57:31.787 –> 00:57:32.847
FINNEAS: Same mics.

00:57:32.847 –> 00:57:34.187
FINNEAS: Same mics.

00:57:34.187 –> 00:57:35.387
John Kennedy: What mic would that be?

00:57:35.387 –> 00:57:37.947
FINNEAS: It’s an Earthworks microphone.

00:57:37.947 –> 00:57:39.847
Ashe: That we were just holding.

00:57:39.847 –> 00:57:41.387
FINNEAS: Here, I’ll find the exact brand.

00:57:41.387 –> 00:57:43.127
Ashe: And we didn’t have pop filters.

00:57:43.127 –> 00:57:47.967
FINNEAS: It’s called the SR314, and it looks very cool.

00:57:48.327 –> 00:57:52.367
FINNEAS: I have since realized that Alex Turner sometimes uses it live.

00:57:52.427 –> 00:57:54.467
FINNEAS: I don’t know what he uses in the studio.

00:57:54.467 –> 00:58:00.147
FINNEAS: I basically started using it because I was doing all these, like we were writing these songs with a full band.

00:58:00.147 –> 00:58:03.367
FINNEAS: So if we were using condenser mics, it would sound insane because of the drums.

00:58:03.367 –> 00:58:04.747
FINNEAS: So they sounded good.

00:58:04.747 –> 00:58:10.267
FINNEAS: But then they’re just a great mic, and they sounded really old school, and so I used them.

00:58:10.267 –> 00:58:11.267
FINNEAS: No is the short answer.

00:58:11.267 –> 00:58:13.007
FINNEAS: It seems like it’s very similar.

00:58:13.007 –> 00:58:18.347
FINNEAS: Let me open my, there’s my decapitator, and then let’s open the Ashe decapitator.

00:58:18.347 –> 00:58:25.387
Ashe: Which by the way, I don’t know if you do that often on vocals, but I’ve never put decapitator on my voice.

00:58:25.387 –> 00:58:27.367
FINNEAS: It’s not a thing I normally put on vocals.

00:58:27.367 –> 00:58:29.207
FINNEAS: I wanted it to sound kind of old and worn out.

00:58:29.207 –> 00:58:34.687
FINNEAS: So yeah, you can see that on mine, the mix is a little bit lower than it is on yours.

00:58:34.687 –> 00:58:35.447
FINNEAS: So there you go.

00:58:35.447 –> 00:58:37.727
FINNEAS: Why?

00:58:38.207 –> 00:58:39.067
FINNEAS: Just listening.

00:58:39.067 –> 00:58:40.887
Ashe: What was wrong with mine?

00:58:40.887 –> 00:58:46.787
FINNEAS: I think what was probably going on was that I probably was, I have a loud ass voice.

00:58:46.787 –> 00:58:50.067
FINNEAS: I just have a really loud voice and I sing right into a mic.

00:58:50.187 –> 00:58:55.627
FINNEAS: So my guess is that what I was making up for on yours with a couple with a little added decapitator was just how hot.

00:58:56.227 –> 00:59:00.427
FINNEAS: If I was doing that to your nicer mic technique.

00:59:00.427 –> 00:59:05.887
Ashe: I also remember, well, or lack of technique because you had to teach me how to hold that mic.

00:59:05.887 –> 00:59:11.167
Ashe: Because if you sang directly on top of it, it would pop and we didn’t have pop filters.

00:59:11.267 –> 00:59:18.327
Ashe: So you had to sing over like you’d be singing across the top of the mic.

00:59:18.327 –> 00:59:19.687
Ashe: I had to learn how to do it.

00:59:19.687 –> 00:59:20.827
John Kennedy: It’s interesting, isn’t it though?

00:59:20.827 –> 00:59:24.287
John Kennedy: Because each mic demands a different technique to a certain extent.

00:59:24.287 –> 00:59:28.007
John Kennedy: You need to know what mic that is and what it’s going to do.

00:59:28.027 –> 00:59:34.607
John Kennedy: Because I work in radio, so I get this a lot with they come into the studio and it’s a different kind of mic than they used to.

00:59:34.607 –> 00:59:37.527
John Kennedy: So they’re trying to sing or talking to the top of it.

00:59:37.527 –> 00:59:40.087
John Kennedy: But it’s flat, so they should talk straight into it.

00:59:40.387 –> 00:59:42.467
John Kennedy: But how would they to know that unless they use that?

00:59:42.467 –> 00:59:43.087
John Kennedy: You’re right.

00:59:43.087 –> 00:59:43.867
FINNEAS: Yeah.

00:59:43.867 –> 00:59:57.767
FINNEAS: Then the other things on, I think both vocals may be different degrees of wetness, was parallel to the spring reverb on the tambourines was like, I felt like the vocals would really benefit from plate reverb.

00:59:57.967 –> 01:00:01.567
FINNEAS: So it’s a plug-in called Lustrous Plates.

01:00:01.587 –> 01:00:05.727
FINNEAS: This is like the big kind of, Found your note in my pocket.

01:00:05.727 –> 01:00:09.527
Ashe: Which is a very vintage verb, I feel, plate.

01:00:16.607 –> 01:00:19.287
FINNEAS: Just sounds super old school, which I really liked.

01:00:19.287 –> 01:00:22.147
FINNEAS: There’s also like an Echo Boy.

01:00:29.167 –> 01:00:31.447
FINNEAS: Again, like really trying to have an old school sound.

01:00:31.447 –> 01:00:35.307
FINNEAS: Also the vocal worth mentioning, super loud noise floor.

01:00:35.307 –> 01:00:42.687
FINNEAS: I don’t know if that was because I had done a bad job of like balancing the compressor or not, but I was sort of unfussed.

01:00:42.687 –> 01:00:44.527
FINNEAS: I just thought it sounded really nice.

01:00:44.527 –> 01:00:47.027
FINNEAS: Found your note in my pocket.

01:00:48.427 –> 01:00:51.047
FINNEAS: That you rode on the train.

01:00:51.047 –> 01:01:04.507
FINNEAS: Doesn’t sound as noticeable until you chunk on like what the decapitator and the compressor and the EQs and the gain are doing because I wanted to get some highness out of the vocal and then you really hear the hiss.

01:01:04.507 –> 01:01:07.007
FINNEAS: Found your note in my pocket.

01:01:08.387 –> 01:01:11.167
FINNEAS: That you rode on the train.

01:01:11.167 –> 01:01:13.127
FINNEAS: So it gets kind of hissy.

01:01:13.127 –> 01:01:17.687
Ashe: And what you didn’t do was like clip gain out all of the spaces.

01:01:17.687 –> 01:01:19.047
Ashe: Well, you left it.

01:01:19.527 –> 01:01:36.767
FINNEAS: I didn’t and then I have a guy named Connor Gilmore who like I’ve just I brought on partially I brought on because of this album because while we were making it I was like man it would be nice to have somebody doing some of the kind of editing management of this stuff for me.

01:01:36.767 –> 01:02:45.447
FINNEAS: So when we were doing like the post production of this album and the mixing and the mix prep I had him come in and I probably one day said to him like you know cut out all of the like clip gain all these things and on some songs it worked great I think he did it on the Hudson it worked great a couple others and on this song he did it and I was like okay but again part of that like old school ethos it’s weird now right you cut out you cut out the loud silence and you hear like the vocal and it goes like and I was like oh I don’t like how that sits so I kind of had to like go put it all back which was not hard at all I didn’t know that that’s interesting but it was an interesting thing to like sometimes in your head you’re like obviously you should do that thing and then you do it you’re like oh well that doesn’t that sounds worse you know yeah yeah but you got to try things out totally but at the time when you’re singing you’re not hearing any of that you’re just singing to each other oh yeah just thinking about what you’re saying singing trying to work out the expression so going back to the song and how it develops and what else should we hear so outside of vocals and same thing applies like had so much fun working on vocal arrangement I have a call and response section right here so like Chorus 2.

01:03:03.598 –> 01:03:05.158
FINNEAS: I just thought that was super fun.

01:03:05.158 –> 01:03:08.298
FINNEAS: And that actually coming up with that for chorus too.

01:03:31.338 –> 01:03:36.798
FINNEAS: So once we’d written that part, we were still working on the final lead vocals.

01:03:36.798 –> 01:03:49.598
FINNEAS: What I like to do is do a guide lead and then do a harmony arrangement, and then you get to sing your guide lead with a big energetic chorus of harmonies and doubles and b-b’s.

01:03:49.598 –> 01:03:57.738
FINNEAS: And so then when we went to do the actual leads, the outro of the song, which I love, is actually just us singing that, right?

01:03:57.738 –> 01:04:00.358
FINNEAS: It’s me singing the call and response to her.

01:04:14.925 –> 01:04:17.645
Ashe: The Falsettos, what a treat.

01:04:17.645 –> 01:04:23.185
FINNEAS: Which was all just sort of us in the room singing to each other, but all kind of inspired by like, oh, that was a cool little BV part.

01:04:23.185 –> 01:04:31.085
FINNEAS: So it was like necessary for me to come up with the BV part before finishing the lead vocal to have the idea to be like, oh, we can do that.

01:04:31.085 –> 01:04:34.345
FINNEAS: So vocal-wise, that kind of finished covers us.

01:04:34.345 –> 01:04:39.245
Ashe: So fun fact, we’re saying keeping me down like the bends.

01:04:39.245 –> 01:04:42.505
Ashe: Like you get the bends if you go scuba diving, you come up too quickly.

01:04:43.125 –> 01:04:46.045
Ashe: And I just feel like people are not gonna know what we’re saying.

01:04:46.045 –> 01:04:51.385
Ashe: Because it kind of sounds keeping me down like the band, which is also sick and like a totally other metaphor.

01:04:51.385 –> 01:04:58.465
Ashe: But like you’re keeping me down like in order to fight the bends, you have to stay down underwater for longer.

01:04:58.465 –> 01:05:04.165
Ashe: So it was like a cool, heady thing that we did, but no one can tell that that’s what we’re saying.

01:05:04.165 –> 01:05:08.005
Ashe: So I was like, I really want people to know that we’re saying keeping me down like the bends.

01:05:08.205 –> 01:05:15.245
FINNEAS: And you can’t, in a post-Radiohead album, The Bends World, I was like, we’re not calling the song The Bends.

01:05:15.245 –> 01:05:15.805
FINNEAS: You know what I mean?

01:05:15.805 –> 01:05:16.765
Ashe: Right, yeah.

01:05:16.765 –> 01:05:19.665
FINNEAS: So it’s, yeah, who cares?

01:05:19.665 –> 01:05:20.345
Ashe: David’s Brothers.

01:05:20.345 –> 01:05:23.565
John Kennedy: Yeah, it sounds like it had to be David’s Brother, because he’s so funny.

01:05:23.565 –> 01:05:25.045
FINNEAS: Well, we say it later in the song too.

01:05:25.045 –> 01:05:25.265
John Kennedy: Right.

01:05:25.265 –> 01:05:26.925
Ashe: It could have been 4100.

01:05:28.825 –> 01:05:34.125
FINNEAS: Which is, it’s so much, it’s so great to have you there to be like, guys, you can beat that.

01:05:34.125 –> 01:05:37.785
Ashe: I’m the editor in the room on days that it’s the four of us writing.

01:05:37.805 –> 01:05:38.905
Ashe: It’s great.

01:05:38.905 –> 01:05:40.745
Ashe: My skill is the editing.

01:05:40.745 –> 01:05:47.725
FINNEAS: So this is common with Little Mess in that I played CP80 on this one too.

01:05:47.725 –> 01:05:53.325
FINNEAS: These are the two songs I played CP80 on were this and Little Mess, which meant that Ricky played bass.

01:05:53.325 –> 01:06:00.225
FINNEAS: Because normally it would be like Ashe on CP80, me on bass, Ricky on guitar, which he’s the best at, and then David on drums.

01:06:00.225 –> 01:06:04.825
FINNEAS: But same principle, Dave, Rat, Ricky, Jesus Christ, is playing the bass.

01:06:04.825 –> 01:06:05.645
Ashe: Matthew.

01:06:05.645 –> 01:06:09.145
FINNEAS: Matthew, also his government name.

01:06:09.145 –> 01:06:15.285
FINNEAS: So we got drums, bass, and then CP80, same deal.

01:06:20.165 –> 01:06:23.585
FINNEAS: This is like in the room, that’s how it sounds.

01:06:23.585 –> 01:06:25.225
FINNEAS: There’s the three of us.

01:06:26.345 –> 01:06:27.605
FINNEAS: Same principle as before.

01:06:28.445 –> 01:06:31.005
FINNEAS: I’m like, ah, what the hell?

01:06:31.005 –> 01:06:32.705
FINNEAS: You wanna do an electric guitar pass?

01:06:32.705 –> 01:06:35.625
FINNEAS: And he did like, I love this electric guitar pass.

01:06:35.625 –> 01:06:41.285
FINNEAS: It’s so crazy to me in retrospect that these were afterthoughts because I love them so much.

01:06:55.593 –> 01:06:59.653
FINNEAS: And then, I think, me overdubbing some acoustic guitar, probably.

01:07:13.359 –> 01:07:19.559
Ashe: It’s so fun, because it’s so not an electronic way of producing.

01:07:19.559 –> 01:07:20.239
FINNEAS: Yeah, totally.

01:07:20.239 –> 01:07:27.999
Ashe: It’s really like arranging and getting the parts right, and Ricky sitting there and playing over and over until we’re like…

01:07:27.999 –> 01:07:28.819
FINNEAS: To get the part right.

01:07:28.819 –> 01:07:33.939
Ashe: And then, David, Finneas and I, in the room when he plays something and going, Oh my God!

01:07:33.939 –> 01:07:34.959
Ashe: Like, that’s it.

01:07:34.959 –> 01:07:36.599
FINNEAS: And singing, singing alts.

01:07:36.599 –> 01:07:41.839
FINNEAS: I remember us doing a lot of that, of he’s playing a cool part, and we’re like, what if it went, da, da, da, da, da, da?

01:07:41.839 –> 01:07:42.799
FINNEAS: Like, there’s a lot of that kind of…

01:07:42.799 –> 01:07:44.199
Ashe: Which I’m sure he loves.

01:07:46.499 –> 01:07:56.059
John Kennedy: But at contrast to your normal work, you know, as solo artists, where maybe you get into certain patterns of working and kind of stick to them because they work.

01:07:56.059 –> 01:08:10.679
FINNEAS: I also remember seeing somebody, I wish I could remember which great producer said this so I could give them credit, but somebody basically was like, you know, if you’re gonna play every instrument on something, you better be careful to not just have the same idea five times.

01:08:10.679 –> 01:08:25.819
FINNEAS: And sometimes that can be okay, but I really was like, that really hit me of like, when I am the person playing a bunch of different parts, I really try my best to not sort of do like, I’m gonna do the same rhythm on these three instruments, I’m gonna try to do counterpoints.

01:08:25.819 –> 01:08:28.719
FINNEAS: And that is just happening automatically.

01:08:28.719 –> 01:08:38.179
FINNEAS: If it’s like my brain playing the CP80 and then Ricky playing the bass and David playing the drums, like those are three really different ideas all forming the same thing.

01:08:38.179 –> 01:09:05.779
FINNEAS: You know, it’s really the best part about writing songs with Ashe, is like both of our sensibilities colliding and making a new thing that neither one of us would have made without the other person, which I think this song particularly is like a good example of like, you know, we’ve talked a lot about the lyrical component of it, but like would never have gotten to this place and that place and then the third place without the sort of conversation of it, which was really fun.

01:09:05.779 –> 01:09:09.699
FINNEAS: And then the other production elements to just snap through them.

01:09:09.699 –> 01:09:11.219
FINNEAS: Some Melitrons.

01:09:15.379 –> 01:09:16.779
FINNEAS: Felt really fun.

01:09:20.579 –> 01:09:25.719
FINNEAS: It’s a funny vibe when you solo these things, but they really add a lot.

01:09:25.719 –> 01:09:31.039
Ashe: I’m just picturing you when you did it in the room playing Melitron, because you were like…

01:09:32.299 –> 01:09:33.459
FINNEAS: Was that how I looked?

01:09:33.459 –> 01:09:40.059
Ashe: Yeah, you always had this really cool stink face on while you were playing, like, weee-oo-wee.

01:09:40.059 –> 01:09:41.219
Ashe: I’m just so into it.

01:09:41.219 –> 01:09:42.319
Ashe: I have so many good videos.

01:09:42.319 –> 01:09:43.499
Ashe: That’s so funny.

01:09:43.499 –> 01:09:45.459
FINNEAS: That’s so funny.

01:09:45.459 –> 01:09:46.859
FINNEAS: But yeah, this is a pretty…

01:09:46.859 –> 01:09:49.079
FINNEAS: Oh, and then I guess some Shakers and some Tambourine.

01:09:49.079 –> 01:09:52.419
FINNEAS: I really love auxiliary percussion.

01:09:52.419 –> 01:09:54.119
FINNEAS: I’m a big fan.

01:09:54.119 –> 01:09:56.619
FINNEAS: So like, here’s just Shakers and Tambourine.

01:10:01.079 –> 01:10:01.799
John Kennedy: And who is doing that?

01:10:01.799 –> 01:10:02.379
John Kennedy: Is that you?

01:10:02.379 –> 01:10:04.219
FINNEAS: That’s all me.

01:10:04.219 –> 01:10:09.559
Ashe: This was like, I went home to Nashville and he sat alone doing it, I think.

01:10:09.559 –> 01:10:13.759
FINNEAS: To me, they just added so much to the drums.

01:10:24.157 –> 01:10:25.497
FINNEAS: If I turn them off.

01:10:32.117 –> 01:10:36.017
FINNEAS: Same principle probably, I bet these shakers have like nothing on them.

01:10:36.017 –> 01:10:43.197
FINNEAS: Oh yeah, they’re called banana and egg because it’s a shaker shaped like a banana, and a shaker shaped like an egg.

01:10:43.197 –> 01:10:45.537
FINNEAS: And they’ve just got like an EQ cut.

01:10:45.537 –> 01:10:46.937
FINNEAS: And then here’s a little mix plugin.

01:10:46.937 –> 01:10:48.897
FINNEAS: Let’s see what this is.

01:10:48.897 –> 01:10:50.437
FINNEAS: Yeah, there you go.

01:10:50.497 –> 01:10:51.757
FINNEAS: Lindell, 80 Channel.

01:10:51.757 –> 01:10:56.757
FINNEAS: I have never used it before, but Aaron thought it sounded good, so he used it.

01:10:56.757 –> 01:11:03.237
FINNEAS: But this is, yeah, I mean, that’s a pretty, I’m looking through to see if there’s like some big element I’m missing.

01:11:03.237 –> 01:11:06.957
Ashe: It’s like purest way of making it.

01:11:06.957 –> 01:11:09.957
FINNEAS: Yeah, I’m not seeing an element I’m not seeing.

01:11:09.957 –> 01:11:16.417
FINNEAS: It’s very, very sort of, it’s a big sounding song, but it’s not that many elements making a big sounding song.

01:11:56.577 –> 01:11:57.597
John Kennedy: So, that’s David’s brother.

01:11:57.652 –> 01:11:58.432
John Kennedy: So, that’s David’s brother.

01:11:58.432 –> 01:12:04.352
John Kennedy: And one of the great things about looking at that in depth is that in some ways, that epitomizes what you wanted to do as The Favors.

01:12:04.352 –> 01:12:06.452
John Kennedy: You know, this is a band creation.

01:12:06.452 –> 01:12:17.252
John Kennedy: You know, the two minds coming together, but then with the crew as well, bouncing off each other, having a lot of fun and creating something unique there in the moment, which is fantastic.

01:12:17.252 –> 01:12:20.592
John Kennedy: We’re going to take a quick break, and the next song we’re going to look at is Moonshine.

01:12:23.732 –> 01:12:29.272
John Kennedy: This episode is supported by Museversal, an amazing new service for working with session musicians remotely.

01:12:29.272 –> 01:12:35.012
John Kennedy: If you use session musicians or would like to, but it’s been too expensive or hard to organise, this is for you.

01:12:35.012 –> 01:12:38.432
John Kennedy: And we have an exclusive offer for any Tape Notes listeners.

01:12:38.432 –> 01:12:40.992
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01:12:40.992 –> 01:12:44.112
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01:12:44.112 –> 01:12:47.372
John Kennedy: I’ve got David from Museversal here to tell us more about it.

01:12:47.372 –> 01:12:48.792
John Kennedy: Hi David, great to have you on.

01:12:49.192 –> 01:12:50.952
John Kennedy: What is Museversal?

01:12:50.952 –> 01:12:53.892
David: Hey, thanks for having me here, John, I really appreciate it.

01:12:53.892 –> 01:13:00.512
David: Museversal is a platform to book unlimited remote recording sessions with world-class session musicians.

01:13:00.512 –> 01:13:07.492
David: We’re all too familiar with just how cumbersome, expensive, time-consuming it can be to record great musicians on your music.

01:13:07.492 –> 01:13:12.852
David: So essentially what we did was we went and hired world-class recording talent, drummers, cellists, guitarists, etc.

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01:13:16.852 –> 01:13:21.952
David: So it takes that complexity away and allows you to focus just on making great music with great people.

01:13:21.952 –> 01:13:26.492
John Kennedy: So we’ve had lots of great feedback from Tape Notes listeners already using Musiversal.

01:13:26.492 –> 01:13:29.212
John Kennedy: Can you tell us more about the musicians that they’ve been working with?

01:13:29.212 –> 01:13:29.992
David: Yeah, absolutely.

01:13:29.992 –> 01:13:34.112
David: So we have a super selective hiring process to make sure we’re only hiring the best.

01:13:34.112 –> 01:13:42.012
David: And the result of that is that we have musicians who’ve worked for the likes of Elton John, The Killers, Jay-Z, multi-time Grammy winners, you know, you name it.

01:13:42.012 –> 01:13:42.792
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01:13:44.732 –> 01:13:50.012
David: And the benefit for you as a member is that you get a roster that you can depend on around the clock.

01:13:50.012 –> 01:13:51.092
John Kennedy: Very impressive.

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John Kennedy: How does it work?

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David: Yeah, so it’s designed to be extremely easy.

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01:13:59.552 –> 01:14:04.932
David: You can send sheet music, a chord chart, audio files, and then tell the musician what you’d like them to do.

01:14:04.932 –> 01:14:07.672
David: You know, they can either play as is or improvise, right?

01:14:07.672 –> 01:14:12.032
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01:14:12.332 –> 01:14:18.552
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01:14:18.552 –> 01:14:21.852
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01:14:21.852 –> 01:14:25.092
John Kennedy: And David, can you remind us of the offer for Tape Notes listeners?

01:14:25.092 –> 01:14:25.372
David: Yes.

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01:14:50.312 –> 01:14:54.952
John Kennedy: To get the offer, find the link in any of our recent episode show notes.

01:14:54.952 –> 01:14:56.892
John Kennedy: The next song we’re going to look at is Moonshine.

01:14:56.892 –> 01:14:59.072
John Kennedy: So if you give us a blast of the master, that would be great.

01:16:00.629 –> 01:16:02.789
John Kennedy: Someone is swimming in a pool of rain clouds tonight.

01:16:02.789 –> 01:16:03.629
John Kennedy: It’s very visual.

01:16:03.629 –> 01:16:08.689
John Kennedy: There’s a lot of great visual images on this album, and Moonshine is a fine example.

01:16:08.689 –> 01:16:10.329
John Kennedy: So, how did this one start?

01:16:10.329 –> 01:16:12.789
John Kennedy: This is one I think you brought to the table, Ashe.

01:16:12.789 –> 01:16:15.629
Ashe: I brought in the start of the idea.

01:16:15.629 –> 01:16:16.289
Ashe: A lot of it, though.

01:16:18.709 –> 01:16:20.829
FINNEAS: We had up through the chorus and stuff.

01:16:20.869 –> 01:16:21.449
Ashe: Did I?

01:16:21.449 –> 01:16:22.109
FINNEAS: Yeah.

01:16:22.109 –> 01:16:30.749
Ashe: I think my great contribution to this band is me waking up god-awfully early, well, well before Finneas.

01:16:30.749 –> 01:16:33.969
Ashe: And I’m the smartest in the morning.

01:16:33.969 –> 01:16:37.649
Ashe: I’m the only morning person in the music industry that I know.

01:16:37.649 –> 01:16:40.449
Ashe: And so, I’m up and on a walk at 7 a.m.

01:16:40.449 –> 01:16:48.889
Ashe: and either listening to Simon and Garfunkel or I think this day I was listening to like, maybe Led Zeppelin and Radiohead.

01:16:48.889 –> 01:16:53.949
Ashe: And I came in and I started with like these pretty funky chords.

01:16:53.949 –> 01:16:56.549
Ashe: I think it’s a five minor.

01:16:56.549 –> 01:16:57.809
Ashe: That’s going to really bother me.

01:16:57.809 –> 01:16:59.929
Ashe: If it’s not, check me.

01:17:01.289 –> 01:17:05.529
Ashe: But it was like one of our first days.

01:17:05.529 –> 01:17:09.229
Ashe: You and me, we’re going to sit in a room together and write for The Favors.

01:17:09.229 –> 01:17:11.429
Ashe: And so I wanted to have some ammunition.

01:17:11.429 –> 01:17:14.369
Ashe: And I brought in these chords and some funky lyrics.

01:17:15.309 –> 01:17:21.049
Ashe: And it morphed into what it is now because I showed it to you.

01:17:21.049 –> 01:17:28.349
Ashe: And then you were like, it felt like an old couple that like was aging in an elderly home.

01:17:28.349 –> 01:17:28.869
Ashe: And they were like-

01:17:28.869 –> 01:17:31.869
FINNEAS: Well, you had a hair, you had, what is it?

01:17:31.869 –> 01:17:35.189
FINNEAS: Hairlines recede, you lose all your teeth, forget everyone’s name.

01:17:35.189 –> 01:17:36.989
FINNEAS: You had the hairlines recede thing.

01:17:36.989 –> 01:17:38.769
FINNEAS: I was like, whoa, like-

01:17:38.769 –> 01:17:46.049
Ashe: You had beds wrapped in plastic from there though, that it like kind of developed into this like, oh, maybe they’re like-

01:17:46.049 –> 01:17:47.229
FINNEAS: Passage of time.

01:17:47.229 –> 01:17:52.369
Ashe: Falling in love with the, or they fell in love, but just like how time is so cruel.

01:17:52.369 –> 01:17:55.309
Ashe: We’re so, we tend to be a little bit morbid with our writing, I think.

01:17:55.309 –> 01:18:10.149
Ashe: But yeah, it just needed some sort of like sweet angle of like these two elderly people that are probably like losing their minds and forgetting each other.

01:18:10.169 –> 01:18:29.409
FINNEAS: Well, did you have, because again, like to me, I think that it ended up contextualizing the abstract first verse into insanity, like into like, wow, maybe you are kind of like sort of losing your bearings and maybe, you know, having dementia or Alzheimer’s or something.

01:18:29.409 –> 01:18:35.909
FINNEAS: Did you, before we kind of contextualized it, like did you have, they’re such good images.

01:18:35.909 –> 01:18:37.609
FINNEAS: Were they just great images to you?

01:18:37.609 –> 01:18:38.389
FINNEAS: They’re such good images.

01:18:38.469 –> 01:18:43.009
Ashe: Yeah, it wasn’t, it was, I was having a senile moment.

01:18:43.009 –> 01:19:01.969
Ashe: I was like, these just sound, also I, this is probably like poor songwriting to some pretentious person, but sometimes it’s cool to be abstract and vague and create a world that like just makes you feel something.

01:19:01.969 –> 01:19:03.589
Ashe: And I think that’s what it did.

01:19:03.589 –> 01:19:06.069
Ashe: And I played it for Finneas and you loved it.

01:19:06.349 –> 01:19:07.589
Ashe: And I was like, I’m a great songwriter.

01:19:07.589 –> 01:19:12.109
FINNEAS: When you didn’t write it, you don’t question its legitimacy.

01:19:12.109 –> 01:19:13.069
FINNEAS: It is legitimate.

01:19:13.069 –> 01:19:13.669
FINNEAS: You know what I mean?

01:19:13.669 –> 01:19:15.709
FINNEAS: You’re just like, oh, I love them, great image.

01:19:15.709 –> 01:19:17.729
FINNEAS: I don’t know what that means to them, but I love it.

01:19:17.729 –> 01:19:25.789
FINNEAS: And by the way, you go watch those clips of John Lennon talking to the guy that shows up at his house and the guy’s like, boy, you better carry that weight.

01:19:25.789 –> 01:19:27.649
FINNEAS: And John’s like, I don’t know what that’s about, dude.

01:19:27.649 –> 01:19:30.709
FINNEAS: And the guy’s like, I’ve changed my whole life because of it.

01:19:30.709 –> 01:19:32.569
FINNEAS: He’s like, that sounded good, whatever.

01:19:32.569 –> 01:19:42.249
FINNEAS: So I never put any pressure on it, but it did kind of like, it evoked in me this kind of like, as soon as she said the hairline’s recede thing, I was like, oh, that’s cool.

01:19:42.249 –> 01:19:44.409
FINNEAS: Like it’s about age and then moonshine.

01:19:44.409 –> 01:19:52.229
FINNEAS: And like the chorus then became like the lines on your face mean nothing to me, which I thought was so romantic and sweet.

01:19:52.229 –> 01:19:56.469
John Kennedy: At the same time, are you playing the chords when you’re talking to Finneas about these words?

01:19:56.469 –> 01:19:57.349
FINNEAS: Yeah, you were, yeah.

01:19:57.349 –> 01:19:59.669
FINNEAS: Ashe was all on the keys.

01:19:59.669 –> 01:20:01.269
John Kennedy: So can we hear the chords then?

01:20:01.749 –> 01:20:02.929
John Kennedy: And that would be great.

01:20:02.929 –> 01:20:06.869
FINNEAS: So this is CP80 played by Ashe, which is great.

01:20:15.147 –> 01:20:25.167
John Kennedy: So I’m picturing you now in the studio, you’re playing this, and you’re saying some of the words to Finneas, and like, I’m thinking this, and blah, blah, blah, you know.

01:20:25.167 –> 01:20:27.247
John Kennedy: And this was all after the morning walk.

01:20:27.247 –> 01:20:27.527
Ashe: Yeah.

01:20:27.527 –> 01:20:29.767
John Kennedy: Listening to Led Zepp and Radiohead.

01:20:29.767 –> 01:20:30.407
Ashe: Pretty much.

01:20:30.407 –> 01:20:31.007
John Kennedy: Right.

01:20:31.007 –> 01:20:33.567
FINNEAS: Yeah.

01:20:33.567 –> 01:20:42.227
Ashe: And the chorus, I don’t know that I, maybe I did play that intro for you, but I knew that the verse chorus chords were gonna be really sweet like this.

01:20:42.227 –> 01:20:47.647
Ashe: And then it was gonna, the chords, the chorus chords were always gonna go to this like sort of weird.

01:20:47.647 –> 01:20:50.927
Ashe: I think it’s a flat three major, not a five minor.

01:20:50.927 –> 01:20:57.527
John Kennedy: Our music knowledge experts, correspondent to the show, says it’s six minor to three major.

01:20:57.527 –> 01:20:58.727
FINNEAS: Three major.

01:21:00.627 –> 01:21:03.887
Ashe: You have no idea how like geeked out.

01:21:03.887 –> 01:21:06.127
John Kennedy: But you’ve got amazing music educational background.

01:21:06.167 –> 01:21:07.627
John Kennedy: I knew you went to Berkeley.

01:21:07.927 –> 01:21:08.607
John Kennedy: So many people.

01:21:08.607 –> 01:21:11.387
Ashe: Yeah, but it counts for basically nothing these days.

01:21:11.387 –> 01:21:13.667
FINNEAS: I also don’t know my numbers.

01:21:13.667 –> 01:21:15.547
FINNEAS: So that’s a shortcoming on my part.

01:21:15.547 –> 01:21:19.667
FINNEAS: Like Ashe could, if she were teaching me the song, I would, that would be no use to me.

01:21:19.667 –> 01:21:21.587
FINNEAS: I’d have to be like, what’s the court?

01:21:21.587 –> 01:21:22.067
FINNEAS: Yeah.

01:21:22.727 –> 01:21:24.267
Ashe: I write in numbers.

01:21:24.767 –> 01:21:25.847
Ashe: I find that that helps me.

01:21:26.667 –> 01:21:27.507
FINNEAS: I think it’s very helpful.

01:21:27.507 –> 01:21:30.567
FINNEAS: I think if I knew how to do it, I would, I’d be better at it.

01:21:30.567 –> 01:21:32.387
Ashe: I think you’re doing just fine.

01:21:32.387 –> 01:21:33.467
John Kennedy: Yeah, you seem to be doing all right.

01:21:36.107 –> 01:21:41.447
FINNEAS: The outlier elements on this, other than the amazing songwriting, which I really felt lucky.

01:21:41.447 –> 01:21:55.107
FINNEAS: This is also one of those things too, where I don’t know, I hear you say the Led Zeppelin thing or the Radiohead thing, but when I listen to this, this has a real thumbprint in a way that, yeah, if you listen to Little Mess or The Huds, or whatever, you could pull references.

01:21:55.107 –> 01:21:59.327
FINNEAS: But this one, I’m like, this came to a place that’s very unique to me.

01:21:59.327 –> 01:22:01.647
FINNEAS: If I pop you into the chorus or whatever.

01:22:26.287 –> 01:22:28.247
FINNEAS: I also think this is gonna go ham live.

01:22:28.247 –> 01:22:30.287
FINNEAS: I think this is gonna be a really awesome live.

01:22:30.567 –> 01:22:43.927
Ashe: I don’t know if we’ll ever be lucky enough to shoot a music video for this song, but if we do, I’m picturing like Ferris Bueller on the float, like us as a band playing in like a parade.

01:22:43.927 –> 01:22:49.187
FINNEAS: Which we have that line in the second one that’s like all kind of like your room at the old folks home, right?

01:22:49.187 –> 01:22:56.647
FINNEAS: You got bed wraps, beds wrapped in plastic, in slippers and suppers at noon, and cards and balloons fill up your room like floats on parade, right?

01:22:56.647 –> 01:23:00.927
FINNEAS: Of like, maybe it’s your 98th birthday, and you’re like, wearing them.

01:23:01.947 –> 01:23:06.947
FINNEAS: But, so the elements on this that are not on the others, which are, you know, why I’m…

01:23:06.947 –> 01:23:08.627
John Kennedy: So you mentioned the brass.

01:23:08.627 –> 01:23:15.427
FINNEAS: So there’s Jesse McGinty, the string player, or sorry, the horn player, Jesse McGinty playing sax, crushing.

01:23:29.642 –> 01:23:31.002
FINNEAS: It’s so awesome.

01:23:31.002 –> 01:23:32.342
FINNEAS: There’s…

01:23:32.342 –> 01:23:35.922
Ashe: I feel like you really told him to just do whatever you wanted.

01:23:35.922 –> 01:23:36.322
Ashe: To wail.

01:23:36.322 –> 01:23:38.182
Ashe: Yeah, and he’s like, okay.

01:23:38.182 –> 01:23:40.762
FINNEAS: I love it, yeah, it sounds awesome.

01:23:40.762 –> 01:23:54.282
FINNEAS: And then the other thing that’s unusual is there is a Keyscape plugin, Rhodes Piano Bass Drive 2 on top of the actual played bass, which dirties it up.

01:24:02.283 –> 01:24:04.523
FINNEAS: Which felt nice and gnarly.

01:24:04.523 –> 01:24:15.563
FINNEAS: And then the other thing, which I did a lot on this album, although not on the two songs we’ve broken down today, was I love the sound of a harmonica and can’t play a harmonica.

01:24:15.563 –> 01:24:18.943
FINNEAS: And I think the way you get really close is you play a melodica.

01:24:18.943 –> 01:24:19.463
John Kennedy: Right.

01:24:19.463 –> 01:24:24.343
FINNEAS: And you know, that’s not gonna pass if there’s a big harmonica solo, but in its tone.

01:24:27.683 –> 01:24:30.323
FINNEAS: Like you can’t tell me that doesn’t kind of sound like a harmonica.

01:24:31.303 –> 01:24:33.943
John Kennedy: I’m totally hearing what you’re saying.

01:24:35.183 –> 01:24:39.823
Ashe: You were so excited to show me a melodica.

01:24:40.283 –> 01:24:41.823
Ashe: He, this was an overdub.

01:24:41.823 –> 01:24:42.763
John Kennedy: Look, look, look, look.

01:24:42.763 –> 01:24:44.283
Ashe: I had gone home.

01:24:44.303 –> 01:24:46.123
Ashe: He was so excited.

01:24:46.123 –> 01:24:48.303
Ashe: And I, you know, I liked it.

01:24:48.303 –> 01:24:54.263
Ashe: I liked it a lot, but I knew, I knew I had to be like really enthusiastic about it because he was so excited.

01:24:54.263 –> 01:24:56.043
FINNEAS: Great job, Finneas.

01:24:56.123 –> 01:24:56.663
John Kennedy: I really love that.

01:24:56.663 –> 01:24:57.423
Ashe: Look at you.

01:24:57.423 –> 01:24:58.623
FINNEAS: It’s also like it’s so quiet.

01:24:58.623 –> 01:25:00.503
FINNEAS: Like you actually literally don’t hear it.

01:25:00.743 –> 01:25:01.663
John Kennedy: Can we hear it in the mix?

01:25:01.663 –> 01:25:02.063
John Kennedy: Let’s hear it.

01:25:02.063 –> 01:25:02.363
John Kennedy: Sure.

01:25:02.363 –> 01:25:04.763
FINNEAS: I mean, you won’t, but yeah.

01:25:04.863 –> 01:25:05.263
Ashe: It’s there.

01:25:21.783 –> 01:25:22.823
FINNEAS: You can’t hear us.

01:25:23.143 –> 01:25:23.743
Ashe: Pretty.

01:25:23.743 –> 01:25:24.243
Ashe: Yeah.

01:25:24.243 –> 01:25:33.903
FINNEAS: And then the other thing is we had PJ Cartwright, an amazing string player and arranger do a bunch of arrangements for songs on this album.

01:25:33.903 –> 01:25:36.703
FINNEAS: But he also did some solo.

01:25:36.703 –> 01:25:39.463
FINNEAS: So like on this song, he was just doing a solo.

01:25:39.463 –> 01:25:41.403
FINNEAS: Here’s his fiddle work.

01:26:01.793 –> 01:26:05.213
FINNEAS: He’s probably doing an overdub or two on there.

01:26:05.213 –> 01:26:08.533
FINNEAS: And that was, I made a little reference for him.

01:26:08.533 –> 01:26:14.573
FINNEAS: I found this contact plugin called Fiddle that really slaps, it’s really good.

01:26:14.573 –> 01:26:18.173
FINNEAS: And so I did a reference to send him to be like, this is what I’m hearing.

01:26:18.173 –> 01:26:19.553
FINNEAS: Yeah, it’s called The Fiddle.

01:26:19.553 –> 01:26:20.893
Ashe: Very Nashville of you.

01:26:20.893 –> 01:26:22.393
FINNEAS: Well, it’s really good.

01:26:22.393 –> 01:26:23.993
FINNEAS: Listen to this plugin, it’s awesome.

01:26:30.413 –> 01:26:31.313
FINNEAS: I think that’s so nice.

01:26:40.100 –> 01:26:41.560
John Kennedy: So that’s you playing keyboard.

01:26:41.560 –> 01:26:43.240
FINNEAS: You playing the keyboard, using a plugin.

01:26:43.240 –> 01:26:51.820
FINNEAS: And so, I sent it to him, and I probably left it in quiet, like you probably hear like a little bit of that with his thing.

01:26:55.440 –> 01:27:01.220
Ashe: Which, by the way, no producer programming strings sounds that good.

01:27:01.220 –> 01:27:01.760
FINNEAS: Oh, thanks, Ashe.

01:27:01.760 –> 01:27:04.420
Ashe: That’s such a testament to your score writing.

01:27:04.420 –> 01:27:05.880
FINNEAS: My stringiness, thank you.

01:27:05.880 –> 01:27:06.940
Ashe: It means a lot.

01:27:06.940 –> 01:27:08.680
Ashe: It’s really hard to program strings.

01:27:08.680 –> 01:27:09.880
FINNEAS: Thanks, very sweet of you.

01:27:09.880 –> 01:27:11.080
Ashe: You did a really good job.

01:27:11.080 –> 01:27:15.020
FINNEAS: But even still, I mean, if I program strings, I really want a string player to come in and play them.

01:27:15.020 –> 01:27:18.580
FINNEAS: So it was a fun way to balance both.

01:27:18.580 –> 01:27:21.620
FINNEAS: Those are kind of the standout elements.

01:27:21.620 –> 01:27:32.380
FINNEAS: The other thing that was fun, which we did when we were first arranging the song with the guys was Ricky, the guitarist, had this vision of us slowing down on the choruses.

01:27:32.380 –> 01:27:36.440
FINNEAS: And so initially we were doing that on each chorus and that felt insane.

01:27:38.260 –> 01:27:42.040
FINNEAS: But cool at some point, it just felt insane to do it three times.

01:27:42.040 –> 01:27:45.620
FINNEAS: And so we did it on the final chorus, which I think sounds great.

01:28:12.127 –> 01:28:15.167
FINNEAS: And again, that’s a pretty subtle retard there.

01:28:15.167 –> 01:28:21.967
FINNEAS: It just, you know, it slows down like 10 beats over the course of whatever it is, like two bars.

01:28:21.967 –> 01:28:23.007
FINNEAS: But it’s a nice effect.

01:28:23.007 –> 01:28:34.167
FINNEAS: And that, again, like there’s a couple of recordings on this record where we did it with no tempo, and then like the ones where we had tempo, we still were like, okay, but when we used to be rehearsing this, there are parts where we speed up and parts where we slow down.

01:28:34.167 –> 01:28:41.167
FINNEAS: So let’s build that into the tempo map, because that to me feels like the energy of a bunch of people in the room, which I love.

01:28:41.367 –> 01:28:43.787
John Kennedy: Totally, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.

01:28:43.787 –> 01:28:47.207
John Kennedy: I’m conscious of the time and you have other places to be.

01:28:47.207 –> 01:28:49.767
John Kennedy: There are a couple of questions we ask everybody who comes on Tape Notes.

01:28:49.767 –> 01:28:53.707
John Kennedy: But before that, I’ve got a few more questions that came via Patreon.

01:28:53.707 –> 01:29:00.767
John Kennedy: One from Nick Webb who says, what’s something in music writing or production that you find interesting that hardly anyone talks about?

01:29:00.767 –> 01:29:01.487
FINNEAS: Great question.

01:29:01.487 –> 01:29:02.727
FINNEAS: Do you have an answer to that?

01:29:02.727 –> 01:29:06.107
Ashe: I mean, chemistry with songwriting.

01:29:06.107 –> 01:29:06.847
Ashe: That’s a good one.

01:29:06.847 –> 01:29:07.387
Ashe: I go there.

01:29:07.447 –> 01:29:10.487
Ashe: I feel like people don’t put enough emphasis on that.

01:29:10.487 –> 01:29:16.927
Ashe: Like, this would have been a bad album if we didn’t all have the chemistry that we have.

01:29:16.927 –> 01:29:24.027
Ashe: I think there’s such the LA songwriting thing of you just throw a bunch of people in the room and you do speed dating.

01:29:24.027 –> 01:29:30.827
Ashe: And oftentimes you’re writing with people that might be great, but you just don’t vibe with.

01:29:30.827 –> 01:29:37.087
FINNEAS: Not only that, but then I brought in a couple dudes that I work with who play drums and bass on this.

01:29:37.087 –> 01:29:39.467
FINNEAS: And Ashe had good chemistry with them.

01:29:39.467 –> 01:29:45.067
FINNEAS: And then on the second trip, Ashe brought in a photographer who Ashe works with a lot named Muriel.

01:29:45.067 –> 01:29:47.187
FINNEAS: And we all had great chemistry with Muriel.

01:29:47.187 –> 01:29:49.547
FINNEAS: And so that made it a really fun room.

01:29:49.547 –> 01:29:52.667
FINNEAS: Like, it was like, we just kept adding the right people.

01:29:52.667 –> 01:29:53.687
FINNEAS: You know what I mean?

01:29:53.687 –> 01:29:54.867
FINNEAS: It’s really important.

01:29:54.867 –> 01:30:05.827
FINNEAS: That was like, oh, this person doesn’t, not only are they useful because they’re here doing a role, but they’re making us make a better piece of material because of their presence in it.

01:30:05.827 –> 01:30:07.447
FINNEAS: So yeah, that’s a really good point.

01:30:07.447 –> 01:30:08.307
FINNEAS: I like chemistry.

01:30:08.307 –> 01:30:08.827
FINNEAS: That’s a good answer.

01:30:08.827 –> 01:30:10.527
John Kennedy: Yeah, the right people really help.

01:30:10.527 –> 01:30:16.647
John Kennedy: Bryce Engel wants to know, what is the best way to improve my music production in an efficient manner?

01:30:16.647 –> 01:30:21.607
FINNEAS: Which is kind of an AI vibe of a question.

01:30:21.607 –> 01:30:23.867
FINNEAS: Sorry, Bryce.

01:30:23.867 –> 01:30:27.747
John Kennedy: He just wants to make the most of his time and not mess around.

01:30:27.747 –> 01:30:31.967
FINNEAS: Hey, listen, I am very, very precious about my time too.

01:30:32.327 –> 01:30:37.947
FINNEAS: And if I am doing something and I think maybe I am doing it the slow way, that does drive me crazy.

01:30:37.947 –> 01:30:41.347
FINNEAS: And when somebody, I would say two things.

01:30:41.347 –> 01:30:44.687
FINNEAS: One is Bryce, if you go work with other people, you will pick up tricks.

01:30:44.687 –> 01:30:46.887
FINNEAS: You will be like, what button did you just press?

01:30:46.887 –> 01:30:47.427
FINNEAS: What did you do?

01:30:47.427 –> 01:30:49.507
FINNEAS: I have been doing that a harder way.

01:30:49.507 –> 01:30:54.387
FINNEAS: So, go work with people enough to see if, to go absorb some tricks.

01:30:54.387 –> 01:31:04.567
FINNEAS: And then the other one, which is the thing I have to remind myself all the time, is like trying to find a short cut usually will take more time than just doing the thing.

01:31:04.567 –> 01:31:11.307
FINNEAS: There is a Confucius proverb, which is, the fastest way to sweep the floor is to sweep the floor.

01:31:11.307 –> 01:31:14.747
FINNEAS: And I think about that all the time.

01:31:14.747 –> 01:31:21.147
FINNEAS: Ashe and I just had to sign 5,000 vinyls, and it’s like, ooh, I could optimize this.

01:31:21.147 –> 01:31:22.367
FINNEAS: I could, you know what I mean?

01:31:22.367 –> 01:31:28.667
FINNEAS: I could have somebody would it like, you start to kind of, and I’m like, you know what’s the fastest way is if I’m signing it, and here I am, and I’m signing, you know what I mean?

01:31:28.667 –> 01:31:32.567
FINNEAS: There is a kind of like, just doing the task and being done with it.

01:31:32.567 –> 01:31:33.947
Ashe: Just do it.

01:31:33.947 –> 01:31:36.447
FINNEAS: But again, I think those go hand in hand.

01:31:36.447 –> 01:31:39.927
FINNEAS: Go work with some other people, see their tricks, learn.

01:31:39.927 –> 01:31:51.607
FINNEAS: But then if you’re sitting somewhere and you’re trying to do something, like I did a lot of drum comping on this record, and I fell right into that trap of like, I can open this up and show you how many edits there are in the drums.

01:31:51.607 –> 01:31:52.387
FINNEAS: Oh my God.

01:31:52.427 –> 01:31:54.387
Ashe: Well, Mary Nellie was just filling it.

01:31:54.387 –> 01:31:55.247
FINNEAS: He was loving it.

01:31:55.567 –> 01:32:00.387
FINNEAS: But it was like just kind of chopping it up and like, look at all these edits.

01:32:00.387 –> 01:32:03.907
FINNEAS: But again, that was one where it was like, what’s the shortcut?

01:32:03.907 –> 01:32:04.867
FINNEAS: How do I do this fast?

01:32:05.267 –> 01:32:07.427
FINNEAS: How do I press a button and it quantizes it?

01:32:07.427 –> 01:32:11.447
FINNEAS: And it’s like, you can press a button and it’ll do it, but it’ll sound crappy.

01:32:11.447 –> 01:32:14.567
FINNEAS: And if you just go in with your hands and you do it, it’ll sound amazing.

01:32:14.567 –> 01:32:17.547
FINNEAS: So did it take a couple hours for each song?

01:32:17.547 –> 01:32:19.707
FINNEAS: Like, yeah, but it made it way better.

01:32:19.707 –> 01:32:21.267
FINNEAS: So just worth doing.

01:32:21.667 –> 01:32:22.747
John Kennedy: Yeah, totally.

01:32:22.747 –> 01:32:28.747
John Kennedy: We always ask people about gear and their favorite gear that they can’t live or work without.

01:32:28.747 –> 01:32:30.327
John Kennedy: Finneas, current favorite gear?

01:32:30.327 –> 01:32:37.247
FINNEAS: I’ll give a shout out to this Earthworks microphone because Ashe’s vocals sound so great on it and I felt happy about mine.

01:32:37.247 –> 01:32:38.527
FINNEAS: I bring that mic on tour.

01:32:38.527 –> 01:32:39.767
FINNEAS: I sing on tour with it.

01:32:39.767 –> 01:32:40.967
FINNEAS: I think it’s great.

01:32:40.967 –> 01:32:50.787
FINNEAS: I would also give the CP80 a big shout out on this record because there’s stuff that sounds cool, and I think the CP80 sounds cool, but I think it was a great writing tool.

01:32:51.087 –> 01:32:54.487
FINNEAS: And I think that that is what I’m looking for from everything.

01:32:54.487 –> 01:32:57.327
FINNEAS: I’m looking for a great tool to create.

01:32:57.327 –> 01:33:04.047
FINNEAS: If I pick up a guitar and it makes me want to write a song, that’s a great guitar, even if it’s 90 bucks.

01:33:04.047 –> 01:33:07.007
FINNEAS: So that you would sit at the CP80 and write cool stuff.

01:33:07.007 –> 01:33:08.087
FINNEAS: That’s how we wrote The Dream.

01:33:08.087 –> 01:33:09.287
FINNEAS: That’s how we wrote David’s Brother.

01:33:09.287 –> 01:33:11.427
FINNEAS: It’s how we wrote Home Sweet Home.

01:33:11.427 –> 01:33:12.907
FINNEAS: And I think that that’s awesome.

01:33:12.907 –> 01:33:15.007
FINNEAS: So shout out those two things.

01:33:15.067 –> 01:33:24.247
John Kennedy: Yeah, and advice, do you have advice that you would pass on, Ashe, to buddy musicians, to people who are already working and doing stuff?

01:33:24.247 –> 01:33:39.147
Ashe: Yeah, I mean, I think a good rule of thumb for everyone is I think that when you ask questions, people are more likely to want to help you and to advise you and give you wisdom and impart something on you.

01:33:39.147 –> 01:33:45.447
Ashe: When you ask for favors, people kind of get a little on the defense.

01:33:45.447 –> 01:33:49.367
Ashe: They’re like, you know, they get a little uncomfortable.

01:33:49.367 –> 01:33:56.167
Ashe: And I think that the pitfall of maybe some amateurs is like, can you get me in a room with somebody?

01:33:56.167 –> 01:33:58.727
Ashe: Can you like give me this hookup?

01:33:58.727 –> 01:34:03.787
Ashe: And like kind of life hack, you’re more likely to get those hookups.

01:34:03.787 –> 01:34:12.827
Ashe: And if you ask genuine questions, because people are like, oh, you’re showing me a humility right now that I’m responding to and how can I help you?

01:34:12.827 –> 01:34:14.207
Ashe: How can I?

01:34:14.207 –> 01:34:18.847
Ashe: It’s just a, it’s like a human psychological thing, but.

01:34:18.847 –> 01:34:25.867
FINNEAS: Yeah, I would piggyback on to the asking questions thing, like pretending to know something you don’t, gets you in so much trouble down the road.

01:34:25.867 –> 01:34:33.787
FINNEAS: I mean, even like, I’ve tried to be very clear of like, hey, here’s some plugins that Erin, who mixed this record put on, I don’t know what this is doing.

01:34:33.827 –> 01:34:36.807
FINNEAS: Like, imagine if I was like, yes, well, this plug, you know what I mean?

01:34:36.807 –> 01:34:46.247
FINNEAS: Like, I don’t know, I could sit there and turn knobs for 20 minutes and I could figure something out, but also I can just be transparent and be like, I don’t know, he thought it sounded good.

01:34:46.627 –> 01:34:47.007
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:34:47.007 –> 01:34:47.707
FINNEAS: I trust him.

01:34:47.707 –> 01:34:49.487
John Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, totally.

01:34:49.487 –> 01:34:56.307
John Kennedy: I think I need to let you go, but we need to play one more song, something to wrap up our conversation, an outro track, what should we go for?

01:34:56.987 –> 01:34:58.967
John Kennedy: Yeah, you’ve mentioned it quite a few times.

01:34:58.967 –> 01:35:00.207
John Kennedy: I love The Hudson.

01:35:00.207 –> 01:35:02.187
John Kennedy: Anything we should know before we hear The Hudson?

01:35:02.187 –> 01:35:09.867
FINNEAS: The Hudson was the first song Ashe brought to me on this journey of this album, and I just love it.

01:35:09.867 –> 01:35:11.047
FINNEAS: I think it’s a great song.

01:35:11.047 –> 01:35:14.407
Ashe: It’s a real love note to New York, too.

01:35:14.407 –> 01:35:15.267
John Kennedy: I think it’s so good.

01:35:15.267 –> 01:35:17.807
John Kennedy: And The Favors, why did you go with The Favors?

01:35:17.807 –> 01:35:34.647
Ashe: I really feel like Finneas and I are both people that have a very small circle of friends, and there are favors we will only do for those people, and we’re in each other’s small circles, and I just think that I thought that was really sweet.

01:35:34.647 –> 01:35:35.867
John Kennedy: Yeah, I like it.

01:35:35.867 –> 01:35:40.007
John Kennedy: Let’s hope there’s more favors to be done.

01:35:40.007 –> 01:35:40.627
John Kennedy: Fantastic.

01:35:40.627 –> 01:35:42.927
John Kennedy: Thank you again for being here, for talking to us.

01:35:42.927 –> 01:35:47.127
John Kennedy: It’s been absolutely fascinating, and we’re going to play one last song then from The Dream.

01:35:47.127 –> 01:35:49.647
John Kennedy: This is The Hudson by The Favors.

01:36:00.667 –> 01:36:05.967
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01:36:05.967 –> 01:36:10.487
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01:36:30.947 –> 01:36:32.487
John Kennedy: Once again, thank you for listening.

01:36:32.487 –> 01:36:33.787
John Kennedy: Until next time, goodbye.