0:01

First thing in the morning, as soon as you

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wake up, the to-do list starts. Does

0:06

the car need gas? Hopefully those leftovers are still

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inner shower. Welcome

0:50

to Switched On Pop. I'm musicologist

0:52

Nate Sloan. When Taylor Swift released

0:54

her song, The Tortured Poets Department,

0:57

it had a line that few saw coming.

1:09

We declared Charlie Puth should be

1:11

a bigger artist. And no

1:14

one was more surprised to hear this than

1:16

Charlie Puth himself. The

1:18

singer, pianist, and songwriter whose

1:20

career has always straddled pop

1:23

stardom and behind-the-scenes anonymity. Even

1:26

his breakout track, 2015's See You Again

1:28

with Wiz Khalifa, wasn't supposed to feature

1:30

his voice. He wrote the song intending

1:33

for someone else to perform it, like

1:35

Sam Smith or Chris Brown. But

1:37

in the end, his vocals were chosen and

1:40

the song landed on the soundtrack to

1:42

Furious 7 and became a worldwide hit. But

2:00

that hit led to his first

2:02

album, Nine Track Mind, and more

2:04

inescapable bops like his duet with

2:06

Selena Gomez, We Don't Talk Anymore.

2:10

We Don't Talk Anymore. We Don't

2:12

Talk Anymore. We Don't

2:14

Talk Anymore. His

2:19

next album, Voice Notes, dug

2:22

into Puth's deeper influences, featuring

2:24

a collaboration with Boys 2

2:26

Men and producing a switched-on

2:29

pop favorite, Attention. You

2:32

just want attention, just don't want

2:35

to hide. Baby,

2:37

you just sit down everywhere

2:39

somewhere now. His

2:42

most recent album, Charlie, dove

2:44

into more maximalist textures on

2:46

driving tracks like Light Switch.

2:49

You just want attention.

3:01

Even while he was making his

3:03

own music, Puth continued writing for

3:05

other artists, crafting bops for the

3:07

likes of Jason Derulo, Katy Perry,

3:09

and the kid, LaRoy. At

3:23

the same time, he created an online

3:25

persona based around his gleeful music nerdery,

3:28

using his perfect pitch and studio

3:30

wizardry to turn random sounds into

3:32

full-fledged compositions in a matter of

3:34

minutes. In 2024, Puth

3:36

has been busier than ever, collaborating

3:39

most recently with the K-pop group

3:41

Stray Kids on the song Lose

3:43

My Breath, but he wasn't planning

3:46

to release his own music until

3:48

Taylor Swift made her unexpected shoutout.

3:51

With Swift's declaration ringing in his ears, Charlie decided

3:53

to drop the first single from his next album,

3:55

a track called Hero, that used to be a

3:57

song that was used for the first time in

3:59

the song. uses acoustic guitars and

4:01

hushed vocals to generate a

4:03

narrative around hard conversations and

4:06

cautious hope. Written

4:08

with veteran hitmakers John Byron, Jay

4:10

Cash, and guitarist Jack Rashawn, the

4:13

song takes Puth in a new direction and

4:15

finds him ready to make good on Swift's

4:17

claim. I sat down with

4:19

Charlie at Conway Studios in Hollywood to discuss

4:21

the new track, and when I got there,

4:23

he was sitting in front of a piano

4:25

and had all the isolated stems of Hero

4:27

pulled up in Pro Tools. And

4:29

the first thing he did was provide us

4:31

with some intro music. Charlie Puth, welcome

4:35

to Swift's John Paul. Thank you for playing

4:37

our traditional opening music. That is your theme

4:39

music, right? Yeah. Or is it an F

4:41

sharp? I know it is. I

4:43

mean, we down pitch it sometimes. I

4:46

appreciate you taking the time to learn it. Can you

4:48

imagine this was your theme song? I think

4:50

we're going to have to start this episode of that. It's

4:53

not like Dracula's lair. And there goes all

4:55

of our musicalogical credibility. That's

4:57

actually pretty hip. I feel like we got

5:00

something there. That's

5:03

like a Roy Ayers. Oh, yeah. We

5:05

live in Brooklyn, baby. Bushwick

5:08

Bill. Charlie Puth, we

5:10

are so happy to have you on Swift's John Paul. I'm

5:12

very, very happy to be here. Thank you

5:14

for having me. This is a long time

5:16

coming. I feel like if we drew up

5:19

a chart of dream guests who we understand

5:21

have a proclivity for musical nerdery, I think

5:23

you'd be somewhere at the top of that.

5:26

You have a new song. It's called

5:28

Hero. Yeah, Hero. Can we listen to

5:30

the chorus? Yeah. Here's

5:32

the hook. Oh, yeah. Oh,

5:34

my. Breath of fresh air. There's

5:47

not a whole lot going on there. Yeah. And

5:50

we're going to get into all. We're going to flog it to death. Yeah,

5:52

perfect. I have my terrible

5:54

CP 70 sound ready to. Pull

6:00

up any musical reference you may need. Well,

6:02

I'd like to just start with the title

6:05

hero I think you hear that title

6:07

and you're like, oh, okay. This is gonna be Like

6:10

Enrique Iglesias, right? I can be your

6:12

hero It's

6:18

actually the opposite

6:20

it really is I guess on

6:22

first listen and First

6:25

watch I guess of the title. Yeah,

6:27

you'd think Oh hero There's gonna definitely

6:29

be an angel pad choir song and

6:32

there somewhere but lyrically it's kind of

6:34

the opposite. It's kind of a about

6:37

Approaching someone who may be in a little

6:40

bit of denial. Yeah, like you might have

6:42

been like very close with and they

6:45

kind of drift away and go

6:47

they're separate ways and you see them kind

6:49

of Deteriorating in a

6:51

way doing you know bad habits being

6:53

around bad people Not

6:55

being real nice to themselves and then when you reach

6:58

out to them, they're like, I don't need your help

7:20

I don't need Which

7:25

was a sentence that was said to me once and

7:27

I always thought oh I'll write a

7:29

song that sounds Angelic

7:32

in a way in its musicality, but

7:34

is kind of deep It's

7:37

deep. Yeah, it's a it's a little

7:39

more dense lyrically. Yeah, there's another I

7:41

totally hear There's a tension between the

7:43

music and the lyrics to a degree.

7:45

There's a lot of tensions in this

7:47

song actually Yeah, well the great thing

7:49

about this is it's simple enough where

7:51

everybody can kind of put their own

7:53

personal experience into Into

7:55

it. It's it's hyper-specific

7:58

lyricism, but it's not so specific

8:00

that people are like, oh, this only

8:03

happened to Charlie and Charlie only. Yeah.

8:06

Let's start at the beginning. What's the

8:08

first thing we hear in this track? Starts

8:11

off with this. Which

8:14

is a guitarist named

8:16

Jack just playing and

8:20

then cutting it off, just taking a little bit

8:23

and putting the Valhalla

8:25

on the, not using a send, just putting

8:28

it right on the insert, making

8:30

the release time about like four or

8:33

five seconds and just letting it kind

8:35

of just dissipate. Like,

8:38

I love that. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't even realize

8:40

that was a guitar. Yeah. It's a, it kind of

8:42

played like in a mandolin kind of way. It

8:46

was a little tremolo. Yeah, a little

8:48

tremolo because I didn't want to use any, I

8:51

felt very wrong in the song to

8:53

use a crash cymbal. Yeah. We

8:55

don't want to have, like a seven

8:57

oh seven just blaring loudly. It just feels

8:59

like crass and, and wrong. So

9:02

I guess the tail end of that is kind of a

9:04

crash cymbal in a way, because when

9:07

the moment you hear the end of

9:09

that, the guitar part comes in. So

9:14

you have that, the guitar, which

9:16

is kind of the driving, the

9:21

driving force of it all. And

9:27

tell me if I'm playing it too, it still sounds good. And

9:29

I'm obsessed with the way things sound. Under

9:31

that is my Rhodes,

9:34

I think it's called 87, 88. And

9:37

it has the Juno specific

9:40

chorus on it. Little

9:45

tapest, front through a neave. Like

9:50

chopped like a little bit of bass, like up to

9:52

50 under it. And it kind of goes well with

9:54

the There's

10:03

a song, do you know what it takes? I

10:15

wanted, I was like I don't want to copy that but I

10:18

want that, I don't want it to be a

10:20

bass player playing this part, I want it

10:22

to be like the mode that they're doing.

10:24

So I just, me

10:26

and Manny made a little bit deeper. So

10:32

it's almost like a 95-2000 kind of

10:34

bass line against these, it's like my

10:37

name is Charlie. It's

10:45

kind of corny sounding like that but then

10:48

when you put the guitar on top of it, now

10:53

it's like this boy genius, Phoebe kind

10:55

of thing which I definitely was like

10:58

kneeling towards when I was

11:01

very inspired by them and always have

11:03

to have fat kicks in my

11:05

songs. But

11:07

this one's a little muffled because I didn't want it

11:10

to be about, I really wanted the lyrics to like

11:12

stand out and we'll definitely get to those but the

11:14

thing about these drums is that they kind of sound

11:16

kind of shooty on their own like

11:20

they sound bad but

11:25

when you put it together

11:27

with everything and the bass and

11:33

the little flutter,

11:35

hi-hats, the

11:39

keys, it

11:42

all starts to sound like oh that might, someone

11:44

actually might have recorded that as a band but

11:46

no, it's on the grid but like when you

11:48

play everything all together it sounds like a cohesive

11:50

kind of band. I've

12:00

lost my mind and

12:03

played cool That's recorded

12:05

in a hotel. And

12:08

all I did was just double it. I've

12:10

lost my mind and played

12:12

cool A little bit of delay.

12:14

It's hard to talk with all

12:16

these people in your room. I

12:19

try to lock eyes and

12:21

give you clues. So

12:24

you can come and follow me

12:26

up by the pool. This

12:28

is the reverb that's happening. It's like a roomy

12:30

kind of thing. I

12:35

wanted it to sound like someone was performing it in their

12:37

living room for 10 close friends. So

12:39

it's a very intimate sounding kind of

12:41

thing. How does that support the lyrical

12:44

message of the song? I wanted it

12:46

to feel like, come here. I

12:50

have to have an uncomfortable conversation

12:52

with you. You're

12:54

messing up and I want to be there for you as

12:56

a friend. And I'm not going

12:59

to say, I want to be there for

13:01

you. Oh,

13:08

it just doesn't like it's going to be a, I

13:10

want to stop by and play a cool. It's hard

13:12

to talk with all these people in your room. I

13:14

try to lock eyes and give you clues. So you

13:16

can come and follow me out to the pool. I

13:19

think one of the reasons why I got like

13:21

really excited when Taylor had

13:24

shouted me out literally wrote my name

13:27

into her song. I

13:34

had made this song like three weeks before

13:36

that had happened and I was

13:38

kind of unsure about this. Like, do people

13:40

want to hear this for me or

13:42

do they want to just like have the straight

13:45

away pop banger that everybody can

13:47

listen to, which is fine. But

13:50

I wanted to get a little more specific

13:52

lyrically and she's definitely like

13:54

one of the best at that, if

13:56

not the best at just

13:59

overly like. Like how is

14:01

she making T Kettle rhyme with

14:03

blah blah blah? Like right now

14:05

it's genius. But I was

14:07

definitely inspired by that when she shouted me

14:09

out. I was like, I should probably put

14:11

the song out. That kind of takes that

14:13

formula a little bit. Well, I feel like

14:15

you can hear that. And especially when we

14:18

take away and isolate these different elements, it's

14:20

like half of the song is this Taylor

14:23

Swiftian singer songwriter, guitar

14:25

driven ballad. And

14:28

the other half are these more digital,

14:31

even funky elements that you might associate

14:33

with a slightly like typical Charlie Puth

14:35

production or something. So here's it if

14:37

it was just, it just the guitar

14:40

and the vocals. Like

14:44

coffee house vibes. Right, right.

14:46

We're in the coffee house. Yeah. But

14:50

when you add all the Okay,

14:54

now it's getting a little Yeah. We're

14:56

entering the club a little bit. But

14:59

I'd say the part that's most

15:01

me is the backgrounds. I

15:03

don't want to be here. I

15:06

don't want to be saved. I

15:08

said I'll be here. Every

15:24

part is like very important,

15:26

but supports each other. Right.

15:30

Usually I record

15:32

the air conditioner and

15:34

boost it into that filter to make sure

15:36

it has the F sharp. And now

15:39

it's a guitar. That

15:42

served a purpose. And I love doing stuff like

15:44

that, especially on the internet. But

15:46

I felt it was really important just to like have the

15:49

most important part of the song shine, which is

15:52

just a I don't need a hero. Again,

15:55

from the hotel, like going into an

15:57

1176. I

16:00

don't want to be here, I

16:02

don't want to be saved, I

16:04

said I'll be here Whoa,

16:12

can we hear those chords? I want that, I want

16:14

more of that crunch There's

16:19

a difference between That's

16:25

the one Well

16:30

those chords have the

16:32

ambiguity that the song demands because

16:35

it's kind of a bittersweet song

16:37

to me It's a

16:39

little sad, it's a little hopeful, it's

16:41

a little bright, it's a little dark I

16:44

feel like those chords capture some of that

16:46

in betweenness Well I gotta give

16:48

it up to the guitarist that you're hearing,

16:50

Jack Originally I thought it was

16:52

gonna And

16:55

then he made the suggestion to It's

17:01

like very clever Yeah, like

17:03

the pojatura Absolutely yeah, whatever

17:05

that French dish means But

17:08

when people bring in interesting

17:10

songwriting starts Instead

17:12

of doing the regular degular, we

17:15

do It

17:19

makes my brain want to, it's

17:21

like playing tennis, it's like oh, that's very

17:24

cool what you just brought on a songwriting

17:26

level Let me now bring

17:28

something simple yet effective Like

17:30

maybe I'll do what you did in the

17:32

guitar but with the vocals I'll do like

17:34

the dissonance And

17:41

it doesn't resolve because he

17:43

wasn't really resolving It's all,

17:45

every instrument plays a vital part

17:47

in my opinion Shh

17:59

Brrr million bad ways to start your

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we talk more about the voice? I think

19:00

this chorus is so not

19:02

only very effective in delivering this

19:04

message, I don't need a hero,

19:06

it's also very hooky. It's very

19:08

catchy. There always has to be

19:10

an element of like Swedishness. Here

19:12

we go, the the Chiron Studios

19:15

mantra. Yeah, absolutely. The way the

19:17

melody works with your voice too, it's like,

19:20

I don't need a... Sorry everyone. Okay,

19:23

let that cover. I

19:28

guess normally I would go, yeah,

19:31

I felt like too like,

19:33

it's full but like I

19:44

wanted to like be almost like I didn't

19:46

know how to sing. Yeah, because it's

19:52

whimsical and it's delivery but the the

19:54

message is like it's like about like

19:56

a really like heavy thing that like

19:58

I experienced and I feel... I

20:00

feel like a lot of people experience that

20:02

too, so why not kind of take the

20:04

piss out of it and make fun of

20:06

it in a whimsical kind of way? Well,

20:08

it feels a little more vulnerable actually, I

20:10

think. In some way, when you're not taking

20:12

yourself so seriously, which

20:17

is fine, but that wouldn't have served a

20:19

purpose for a song like that. And yet

20:21

at the same time, I feel like when

20:23

you pop into that falsetto, it gives us

20:25

that satisfaction of listening to a real hunky

20:27

chorus too, because there's something very, hearing you

20:29

go up and down like that is really

20:31

fun, I think, for a listener. It's fun

20:33

for me to make it too, and I

20:35

appreciate it. And I

20:37

always think about the audience singing it back,

20:39

like when we do eventually play this live,

20:42

I mean, Japan or something,

20:44

and hearing everybody there

20:47

sing that high G will be really,

20:49

like people who miss it and do

20:52

the E flatter hit the G but

20:54

a little sharp. Like I want, you

20:57

ever notice when you go to a Bruce Spring concert,

21:00

not everybody there is a singer. I don't know

21:02

if you knew that, but it doesn't matter if

21:04

like 50,000 people are singing off pitch because they're

21:06

all gonna, all those off pitch notes are gonna

21:08

meld together. And create

21:11

something together and glue together.

21:14

So I feel like we need to go back to

21:16

the guitars a little bit, because if

21:19

people think of a Charlie Puth song,

21:21

I feel like they think of keys. They

21:24

think of like, perhaps some

21:26

of the jazzy extended harmonies

21:28

that you've been playing for us. So

21:32

when this song starts and we have first

21:35

that tremolo guitar playing the

21:37

perfect fifth, and then this like acoustic

21:39

guitar playing that strumming

21:41

pattern, I feel like it

21:44

says something about maybe

21:46

what you want to accomplish with this song, because

21:49

it's not your typical palette.

21:52

I'd like for people not to

21:54

like almost like it immediately. Of

21:57

course I want them to like it, but I'd

21:59

like them to. to be unsure

22:01

of how they feel about it.

22:04

Because it's not anything

22:06

I've ever done before. And

22:08

I'm not working with different

22:11

producers. I'm the producer, I take

22:13

pride in that. So I have

22:15

to listen to other things

22:17

and bands and how people are approaching

22:19

music. It's almost like jaunting a little

22:21

bit. Like, ooh, new Charlie song. A

22:24

guitar? I don't even know how to

22:27

play guitar. I would love

22:29

to listen to the pre-chorus of

22:31

Hero with you. My

22:33

love's not sure how to fit. I

22:35

call you over, if you don't want

22:38

to be me. I'm not

22:40

gonna shut up and say, I

22:42

don't know who you really are. And

22:44

you're so comfortable. So

22:47

pre-chorus is introduction

22:49

to the keys that you heard

22:51

briefly in the intro. Double.

23:06

Lead, on top of that. Guitar.

23:21

So that's pre-chorus one. Then when you

23:23

go to pre-chorus two. There

23:27

should be another element that you

23:29

didn't hear. Oh,

23:35

we got that little dune. So

23:38

you don't hear that in the first pre. This

23:42

is stuff that like only we care about,

23:44

but... But it

23:46

creates an upward arc across the song.

23:48

It rewards the listener for sticking around,

23:50

really. I agree. It's like a roller

23:52

coaster ride that you're just, you know,

23:54

the guy's on his last shift and

23:56

it's like, sure, ride it again. Yeah.

23:59

Like I'm really... looking forward to going

24:01

through the dinosaurs ass

24:03

or something. Like, I don't know. Now.

24:08

Oh, and the ooze. Even

24:14

Tide Harmonizer. The

24:16

effects channel. That's

24:20

the first ad lib you hear. That's

24:36

just like little

24:38

subtlety thing. I

24:46

did that in Attention 2 where the

24:49

chorus has just one ad lib going

24:51

in. You just want attention.

24:53

You don't want my heart, my heart. Whatever I

24:55

did at the time. What

25:03

about that line, your so-called friends quotation

25:05

marks? I really responded

25:08

to that. It's kind of

25:10

like the non-grammatic. It's not

25:12

super grammatically correct. It just rhymed.

25:14

So we were rolling with it.

25:16

Cash and I and John Byron,

25:19

who I also wrote it with. What

25:21

it really means is like those are

25:23

your friends. I wanted to like visually

25:25

like. No, it's very, it sounds like

25:28

the transcript of a conversation. Your so-called

25:30

quotation marks. I think because it's not

25:32

exactly grammatically correct, it kind of sticks

25:34

in your brain. Yeah, you remember it

25:37

better. This song is loose. That's that

25:39

me espresso. That's that me espresso. Exactly.

25:42

How many times have you heard a song be like, oh,

25:44

I know what they mean. It's like

25:46

it's how slang was invented. But

25:49

this song is literally a song about a

25:51

conversation by a hot tub. Like

25:54

the only place where we could get

25:56

away from all the goofball friends they

25:58

were hanging out with. where I

26:00

could just be like, just 10 minutes

26:02

of real, like this is not you.

26:04

I think Avril Lavigne wrote a song

26:06

about that once, like it's complicated. ["Till

26:08

Me Down"] I'm

26:19

familiar, yeah. And it borders

26:22

on like romantic sounding, but

26:24

it's really kind of like a heart to

26:26

heart with like someone who I cared a

26:28

lot about. Well, I feel like the bridge deepens

26:31

that feeling because you

26:33

might expect a bridge to sort of

26:35

be more, even more maximal than everything

26:38

you've heard, but this bridge does the

26:40

opposite. And even I'm looking at the sound file now and

26:42

all of a sudden it's just two

26:45

wave files or something. This doesn't even count. This

26:47

is just the effects file. One, two. ["Till

26:49

Me Down"] ["Till

26:52

Me Down"] Permanis.

26:58

["Till Me Down"] So

27:05

the bridge breaks

27:07

everything down. Final

27:09

chorus builds everything up. Yeah. Can

27:12

we listen to the very end of the song? So the very end. ["Till

27:15

Me Down"]

27:23

["Till Me Down"] Kind

27:25

of abrupt at the end. It

27:28

is because the conversation didn't really

27:30

go as planned. So

27:32

I want to kind of convey that

27:34

emotion in the music a little bit.

27:36

Well, I found myself wondering when I

27:39

was listening, I was like, what's gonna

27:41

happen here? You know, it's sort of

27:43

unfinished in a way. Unfinished business. Well,

27:45

the real answer is that an album

27:47

will happen. You'll hear it more. It's

27:49

good to know. Like actual, like the

27:52

be part of things and like

27:54

recalls and stuff that Taylor does really, really,

27:56

really well. And again, I was already working on,

27:59

you know, like this. But again, when she made

28:01

that shout out, I was like, I have to go

28:04

that route. And that shout out from

28:07

Tortured Poets Department was, we

28:09

declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.

28:12

Charlie Puth, do you agree with that

28:14

assessment? If me being a bigger artist means

28:16

I get to have even

28:19

further reach than I already do to tell

28:21

people to pick up an instrument and make

28:23

a song and not be discouraged if someone

28:25

in their life is telling them that they

28:27

can't make any art. If that

28:29

means I can reach 10 more people

28:31

than that, than I would like to

28:33

be a bigger artist. I don't want

28:35

to be a bigger artist to inflate

28:37

my own ego. That's fine

28:39

where it's at. Like I really actually don't

28:41

do this for that day. I do this

28:44

to inspire people going to college,

28:46

just getting started in music and

28:48

wanting to make their own music or any, even

28:50

if it's not music, just to do something artistic

28:53

with the right side of their brain, because I

28:55

think it's kind of frowned

28:57

upon, especially in America.

29:00

I don't know why. It's just there,

29:02

there are some great art schools, but

29:05

there's it for whatever reason. It's not

29:07

the important subject matter to be

29:09

talked about. Like what you do is a

29:11

really important thing. You bring

29:13

inspiration to your students and color the

29:15

rest of their day and they'll succeed

29:18

more in their less artistic

29:20

kind of, you know, class like math. If do

29:22

people still do math? Presumably.

29:24

Yeah. If

29:26

me being a bigger artist can

29:28

inspire more kids and adults and

29:30

whoever, then I should be a

29:32

bigger artist. Well, I asked that

29:35

perhaps somewhat cheekily, but I do sense that

29:37

you're someone who doesn't

29:40

crave the same exposure.

29:42

And I feel like I have some evidence

29:44

for that because so much of the

29:46

work you do is behind the scenes and

29:48

you do a lot of collaborations and

29:50

songwriting for other artists where

29:53

you have to be sort of comfortable

29:55

not being the focus and sort of

29:57

receding into the background. Yeah. Again, I

29:59

don't. I don't strive to be

30:01

a bigger artist, to look like a

30:04

cooler guy. I of

30:06

course wanna play, you know, but

30:08

I don't even know if that's true. I don't know if

30:11

I wanna play stadiums. I just

30:13

want to inspire 80,000 people, maybe

30:15

not have them see me in a stadium, but

30:17

I'm sure, do stadiums

30:20

sound good when you play in them? The

30:22

acoustics are all over the place,

30:24

but I mean, I

30:26

wouldn't be opposed. But I

30:29

know it sounds like I'm making it up,

30:31

but I really just do care about the

30:33

listener and the person on the other side.

30:35

How does that desire to reach people manifest

30:37

in some of the collaborations

30:40

you've done, a few of

30:42

which recently have been with prominent K-pop

30:44

artists, Stray Kids, Chung Kook

30:46

from BTS. Like,

30:48

is that part of that same philosophy,

30:50

trying to work across genre,

30:53

across like borders even?

30:55

Yeah, I'm working on a country record right

30:57

now, not an album, but like a song

31:00

and more on that soon. But

31:02

I just- Cowboy Charlie. Yeah,

31:04

maybe. I don't know if, I wouldn't be

31:07

Cowboy Charlie, but I've had country

31:09

songs out before. I just

31:11

think it's all, I think music is kind

31:13

of genre-less in a way. Well, take us

31:15

to one of those collaborations, Stray Kids, Chung

31:18

Kook. Like, what is it that you're working

31:20

maybe across even language at that point? So

31:22

like, how does that go down? Specifically

31:25

for the Stray Kids record that you

31:27

just put on there, it's just nice

31:29

boys. They had never done a song

31:32

entirely in English before. And

31:44

Johnny Goldstein, who I've produced the

31:46

record with, came in with these

31:48

kind of tribal-ish drums. And

31:51

on the ride over, I was listening to

31:53

their discography and they have a lot

31:55

to those tribal-ish kind of drums because they

31:57

dance way better than me. And they-

32:00

move on stage like they're they put on

32:02

a show but I was thinking like what

32:05

could there could there be like something like uh

32:08

like R&B ish and like

32:10

almost like Juel Santana like

32:13

in slow motion for me then and then

32:16

with like diminished chord there we

32:18

go against those yeah and

32:21

then when I heard he brought those drums in

32:24

and then I just played that on like a

32:26

kind of like a chord sounding guitar and

32:30

then we switch at the very last minute we

32:33

switched the hi-hat pattern from going we

32:38

did it like a ghost town kind

32:40

of thing and

32:43

it brought me like to like the first

32:45

time I like performed in Atlanta and how

32:47

like different the audience was there like how

32:50

they were receiving the music there and then

32:52

going out afterwards and then

32:55

hearing that night I think

32:57

of you and it's like jazz which

33:02

is like a giant step

33:08

two five one it's all music

33:11

is all the same so

33:13

that's why I don't mind doing a k-pop

33:15

song then doing this uh

33:17

kind of Taylor inspired song and

33:19

then making a song like light

33:21

switch and which is kind of

33:23

hyper-popping away and collaborating with the

33:25

stray kids and I just

33:28

I don't mind because it's music and I'm just happy

33:30

to be there kind of thing do you

33:32

do you feel like you have to sort

33:34

of modulate your own

33:36

desire for more

33:39

complexity in music sometimes this is

33:41

something I think about just in

33:43

a larger sense when in pop

33:45

music how do you take your

33:47

desire to to play giant steps

33:49

and do you do you feel like you have

33:51

to sometimes leave that at the door to create a

33:54

pop hit do you know what I mean I think

33:56

it's just all depends on what kind of record okay

33:58

kind trying to make if you're if you We

34:00

want to make, what do they call it? Smooth

34:02

jazz music. Which I actually,

34:05

I like that channel on SiriusXM.

34:07

That's like the first time I heard

34:09

like jazz with, there's this song, I

34:11

think called The City by Paul, this

34:14

guitarist Paul Brown. It's

34:17

got kind of corny, like kind

34:19

of vibey, and a very Windows

34:22

XP sounding. But that's like

34:24

the kind of record they were trying to make. I

34:27

didn't mean to call that record corny. Don't come for me, Paul Brown.

34:30

When I'm making my music, I want to

34:32

try and sneak it in, but

34:34

I don't even have to really

34:36

think about it anymore because it's just kind of

34:39

like in my DNA. And

34:41

I know when to, I've practiced long enough

34:43

to know when there's too much

34:45

icing on the cake. You

34:48

don't want to just eat all the icing.

34:50

You want to actually enjoy the moist center.

34:53

That is the creamy nougat. Yeah, the creamy

34:55

nougat crunch. You don't want to just have

34:57

all, what would you rather have, like

34:59

a bunch of sprinkles? Or do you want to like actually like

35:01

have like the lemon

35:04

meringue tart in the middle? I

35:07

mean, that's fascinating. There's like a horrible way to

35:09

answer that question. Just like don't go over it.

35:11

No, actually that's a

35:13

very satisfying answer because I do sometimes think of

35:15

you as our man on the inside. And by

35:17

our, I mean the nerds, the music geeks, the

35:19

people who can't get enough of this stuff. But

35:22

you're in there, you're in the mix. I think

35:24

everybody's a nerd, man. If you're not a nerd

35:26

about music, you're a nerd about motors

35:30

and cars. And like someone

35:32

told me what a car starter was the other day. I

35:34

just thought you just put your key in the car

35:36

and start. So apparently there's a whole mechanism

35:38

that like, yeah, they're nerds. Everyone's a nerd.

35:40

Everyone's past, because I think nerd has a

35:42

negative connotation to it. I think it's just

35:45

another way of saying that you're passionate about something.

35:48

We're very clearly passionate about music,

35:50

which is why we're here on

35:53

a Thursday afternoon talking about stems

35:55

and kick drums. So

35:58

is there a difference between worth on

36:00

your own music and writing for

36:02

another artist in that sense too, do

36:04

you feel like you bring a

36:09

different set of skills to the table when

36:11

you're writing for someone else, working

36:13

with someone else? Writing for someone

36:15

else for me is very fun because I get to

36:17

maybe pull out a couple more

36:19

bag of tricks. Just

36:24

like a... Go to your bag.

36:26

Yeah, they maybe haven't used on

36:28

their song, but it's vice versa

36:30

too. Sam Smith and I wrote

36:32

a song one time.

36:35

No, it hasn't come out. But we

36:37

wrote a song a very long time ago and

36:40

they came with nothing

36:43

prepared and I was very nervous because I was

36:45

like, oh, I gotta

36:47

make a good impression. And they were like,

36:49

let's just play some chords and let's just

36:52

see what happens. I learned from that because

36:54

I was so neurotic before going into every

36:56

session, especially with a

36:58

superstar like Sam. And

37:01

it was the first time where I was completely unprepared

37:04

but just relaxed and then ended up

37:06

making a better song. So that's a

37:08

really significant thing that they in particular

37:10

brought to me. And maybe

37:13

I brought to them

37:16

some more jazzy chords. So it kind

37:18

of goes both ways. There's an exchange.

37:20

That's collaboration. So

37:23

we've gotten to go deep

37:25

under the hood to continue your

37:27

interest in Card Starters. I

37:30

love cars now. Of Hero and

37:32

it's sweated my appetite for the rest

37:34

of the album. It makes me excited.

37:37

And thanks Taylor for the most

37:40

in confidence. It's great. Charlie,

37:43

thank you so much for taking us through the song.

37:46

Brick by brick, that was really fun. Absolutely,

37:48

anytime you wanna do this. We'll do 12

37:50

songs for the next week for the next

37:53

song. The

37:55

next song next week, it's gonna be five

37:57

and a half hours. Hope you don't have.

38:00

plans. You're not leaving,

38:02

right? Stay with us. Friday night. This

38:04

has been a blast. Thank you, Charlie.

38:06

Thank you. Switch Don Pop is brought

38:09

to you by Vox

38:11

Media podcast network. We're

38:14

a production of Vulture. Rihanna

38:16

Cruz is our producer. I'm

38:19

Nate Sloan. I host the show with Charlie Harding. Irish

38:22

Golly makes our illustrations. Evy Barz our

38:24

community manager. Brandon McFarland engineers the show

38:26

and Art Chung is the editor. Everyone's

38:28

coming out on stage and high-fiving each

38:30

other. You can find more episodes anywhere

38:32

you get podcasts. Our in-house pianist is

38:36

Charles Puth and we'll

38:38

see you next week with a brand

38:40

new episode. As

38:42

always, thanks for

38:45

listening. Copyright

38:47

2024. First thing in the morning, as

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