Black Pumas

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hi, i am Norah Jones, and today I'm playing along with Black Pumas.

00:00:04
Speaker 2: I'm just playing long Wey, I'm just playing in lone Wey.

00:00:17
Speaker 3: Hi.

00:00:18
Speaker 1: I'm Norah Jones, and with me as always is Sarah Oda.

00:00:21
Speaker 4: Hello, Hello, welcome back.

00:00:24
Speaker 5: This is our first show, our first showback. We've taken a very long break.

00:00:28
Speaker 6: We have taken a long break.

00:00:29
Speaker 4: We're back and we're in full effect.

00:00:31
Speaker 6: We have a lot coming up.

00:00:33
Speaker 4: We are very excited.

00:00:34
Speaker 6: The pipe she loaded. Wait.

00:00:39
Speaker 1: We have so many incredible guests coming up, and we are going to be releasing episodes weekly with some holiday exceptions, but so we're coming in hot.

00:00:50
Speaker 4: Yes, we're very excited.

00:00:52
Speaker 5: We have guests from every corner of this music world, each nook and every of the grocery store. Our guests today are Eric Burton and Adrian Causada of Black Pumas.

00:01:06
Speaker 4: Yes, so excited to have them. They're an incredible duo.

00:01:09
Speaker 7: They are.

00:01:10
Speaker 4: Eric is the soulful, powerful singer.

00:01:13
Speaker 5: He's got this incredible voice, and then Adrian is a producer and guitar player, and he kind of has all those unforgettable musical grooves.

00:01:21
Speaker 4: That stick with you forever.

00:01:23
Speaker 5: They met in twenty seventeen and had instant chemistry. They're the kind of people who walk into a room and are just very uplifting and it's really fun to be around them. They have great energy, so we had an incredible session with them.

00:01:36
Speaker 1: It really was the the kids they call it?

00:01:40
Speaker 6: Do they call it our farming?

00:01:43
Speaker 1: I think I'm a kid. I think I'm mis using that. Let me go back on that. But yeah, I feel like the energy was really special for this and we actually recorded this hot second ago.

00:01:56
Speaker 6: Like it's been a while.

00:01:57
Speaker 1: We kind of didn't have a release plan for a while, so we're excited that this is finally getting it out into the world because we had so much fun hanging out. Eric's voice is so incredibly powerful live It's it's insane. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Black Pumas. You played at Radio City Music Hall last night?

00:02:34
Speaker 6: How was it? I'm sorry I couldn't come.

00:02:36
Speaker 8: It's pretty cool, pretty cool, sold out.

00:02:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, first, incredible.

00:02:40
Speaker 6: I'm so proud of you.

00:02:42
Speaker 9: It was exceedingly dupe, right, Like I mean, we had digbal planets.

00:02:46
Speaker 1: Yeah that also I saw on that made me really bummed.

00:02:49
Speaker 6: I couldn't go.

00:02:49
Speaker 3: Still hard to believe that they're like opening for us.

00:02:52
Speaker 10: You know, we were so cool and they were so gracious and cool. Yeah, the place was like twice as big as I imagined it.

00:02:59
Speaker 6: It's so big.

00:03:00
Speaker 1: I took my kids to see the Rockets in December and I walked in and I was like, oh my gosh, this is giant.

00:03:09
Speaker 8: Yeah. So our first time there, we sold it out.

00:03:12
Speaker 9: They gave us these like little Tiffany like all access little badges like Sterling Silver.

00:03:19
Speaker 11: Yeah.

00:03:20
Speaker 8: Yeah, Like it was an interesting little, you know, piece of you know, jewelry. I guess.

00:03:29
Speaker 9: The audience were super reciprocative of just great energy, you know, from the for the from the top tier to the bottom. It was crazy. It was just like so epic, like from the start to the finish. We start the show not realizing, you know, what kind of energy you're gonna get in a in a theater like setting where it's a little bit more like like a Sunday service almost it doesn't feel like rock and Roll at face value for for what we know it to be today, and like more intimate venues where it's like all standing and people are like, you know, going crazy. But I think we've had some friends reciprocate the fact that like people were like crying, and you know it was it was very beautiful. It felt very cool.

00:04:14
Speaker 6: That's great.

00:04:15
Speaker 8: Yeah.

00:04:16
Speaker 6: Do you warm up your voice before a show, like for real?

00:04:19
Speaker 7: Uh?

00:04:19
Speaker 6: Yeah, you vocal warm ups? Yeah.

00:04:21
Speaker 9: I got some lip trills, some tongue trills that I do on you know, various scales for tenor like a tenor voice. Yeah, it's just to kind of like help remind the soft palate to relax a little bit.

00:04:38
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:04:40
Speaker 6: Yeah, and sound check never hurts, right.

00:04:42
Speaker 9: Yeah, soundcheck is Yeah, never hurts, for sure. We're always working through different ideas as well. I feel like the songs always take on like a different like a new life sometimes.

00:04:52
Speaker 6: Yeah, in a sound check, you know, that's the fun part.

00:04:54
Speaker 8: Yeah, it is, it is.

00:04:56
Speaker 6: Yeah, not staying too exact. How big is the band?

00:05:01
Speaker 3: We are at eight pieces now, we were at seven and we.

00:05:04
Speaker 10: Just added an auxiliary guy who's covering like percussion, guitar, keys.

00:05:09
Speaker 3: Vocal.

00:05:10
Speaker 1: Is a big band, it is, yeah, But the record is are very full sounding.

00:05:14
Speaker 10: So this one in particular is even more I wouldn't say dense, but it just has a wider palette. The first one was a really specific palette, so it was like a little easier to recreate, and this one it was just like whatever worked and whatever sounded best, and then stepping back and figuring out, like, now how do we play this?

00:05:31
Speaker 5: Yeah?

00:05:32
Speaker 1: You know, well, I mean the song's standing on their own, so you can take them out of the arrangement. But the arrangements are just so cool on the record you don't really want to lose them.

00:05:40
Speaker 10: Well, that's what's amazing with this band and Eric's songwriting is that at the song you could play every one of these songs in this format and not rely on the production, you know, on the but then the production is like nice icing on the cake to bring the record to life. But ultimately, you know, he could play them by himself. We can play them in this format. We did some taping earlier this week that was just me and him and it sounded super cool.

00:06:03
Speaker 9: So yeah, yeah, it's so funny. Everyone's got their own like little ritual. Sometimes we'll walk in on Steve like doing push ups.

00:06:11
Speaker 8: Steve's our drummer.

00:06:12
Speaker 6: Yeah that's the drummer thing.

00:06:14
Speaker 8: Yeah, push ups and hand stretches. What do you do?

00:06:19
Speaker 3: Just mess around on instag I tried to keep trying.

00:06:21
Speaker 8: To get it.

00:06:21
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was gonna say, do you have a pre drink?

00:06:23
Speaker 3: I always do a little bit.

00:06:25
Speaker 10: Yeah, you know, trying to not use it as a crutch anymore, but it is. It is nice to I don't know if it's a ceremonial thing, just to have like a little mescal and know, like yeah, pushing me up into the spirit world. Been trying to keep a guitar in the green room and just do exercises like little. I feel like with the muscle memory, if I practice guitar, I play like the same thing always. So I've been trying to just like learn new exercises and just while instead of picking up my phone and doom scrolling, like yeah, just getting my fingers moving around.

00:06:56
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:06:56
Speaker 1: I feel like there should be like a no phone zone backstage just to get you out of that.

00:07:02
Speaker 6: But that would be also kind of.

00:07:04
Speaker 8: Mean, it's so crazy.

00:07:06
Speaker 9: We'll need it, you know, yeah, because like right before the show, like I feel like that's like the busiest time, like we'll get everyone, you know, our team wants to come in every five minutes with posters for us to sign and people to meet. I'm like, what is it like it's so crazy.

00:07:21
Speaker 10: So you know, actually, what's been really cool and it was something Eric could kind of prompted a while back and we've just stuck to it. Is we've been doing a pre show like little band ten minute quiet like meditation, Like we actually all get in the green room and dim the lights and Brendan, our bass player, always has these like YouTube meditations.

00:07:40
Speaker 3: Oh cool, well kick everybody out or we try to.

00:07:42
Speaker 10: That's great, and just like really just connect and have like a quiet moment before.

00:07:46
Speaker 6: That's really smart. I like that.

00:07:49
Speaker 1: I was hanging out with Susan Tedesky and Derek Trucks and they have a whole band room set up before the shows and they practice, they like jam before the show. It's a huge setup. It's crazy. I was like, wow, I never thought to do. Yeah, I noticed the theme in your lyrics. Are you the one who is the meditator?

00:08:11
Speaker 12: Eric?

00:08:12
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'll meditate. Yeah.

00:08:13
Speaker 9: I was introduced to the technique of pasna through an ex girlfriend and I've been kind of using it ever since. It was like really interesting. It was just like a really interesting introduction to meditation and super accessible as well. I think it happens annually different centers will put it on for free, you know, from lodging to eating and you know you'll have like one hundred students every time that happens, and yeah, just really cool.

00:08:46
Speaker 8: It's just you know, briefly, you know, I feel like.

00:08:52
Speaker 9: We all have a way of holding on to past traumas and our tissues and our bodies, and it's important to kind of be able to you know, work some of that stuff out and following your your sensations to you know, the points of where you triggered. And so yes, it's just amazing what to presence and awareness will due to your presentation to the rest of the world as you as we react to our thoughts biochemically on a day to day basis, which is why I like it's so cool that as a band will do the meditation. Someone said, I think the lead guy at at O our label, they was saying, yeah, you guys had had a really comfortable way on stage together, and I think it's mostly due to being able to take those fifteen minutes right before the show to just get in touch with ourselves.

00:09:50
Speaker 8: Like just you know, super easy to do.

00:09:52
Speaker 9: We forget to you know, have some presents sometimes, so everybody does yea.

00:09:56
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:09:57
Speaker 9: Yeah, so I'm just happy that like people are like super down about it. You know, I don't have to remind anyone. You're like, okay, well what about this. You know, it's it's become like a really nice thing that we do as a band.

00:10:08
Speaker 10: Even when it ends up with us bursting out and laughter like two days ago, oh, it still.

00:10:12
Speaker 3: Brings you together.

00:10:13
Speaker 10: They were playing like the house music was coming through the green room. We forgot to turn it down and where like we have this like meditation exercise and she's like breathe and feel and focus on the task at hand, and we're all quiet and they're playing hip hop and all of a sudden, it's like, yeah.

00:10:29
Speaker 3: It's just like that. Even that was just like a moment you know, of connection.

00:10:33
Speaker 8: Yeah.

00:10:33
Speaker 9: So yeah, it's been It's nice, man. Yeah, so cool to be a part. You know, the camaraderie and the strength that comes from being in a room full of creatives and passionate people like this. This job is like it's it's a paradoxically like super chill and very easy, but then like really hard and demanding.

00:10:56
Speaker 8: You know, It's it's not for the faint of heart. I feel it.

00:11:00
Speaker 9: It really takes all of you to really put something you know, engaging across and honest.

00:11:07
Speaker 1: Well you have to be engaged and honest for it to really connect. I think m h because people don't know technically maybe, but they know in their hearts.

00:11:16
Speaker 3: If it's not that's right.

00:11:19
Speaker 6: Maybe not all people, but it seems like they do.

00:11:22
Speaker 8: But that's interesting. That's interesting.

00:11:24
Speaker 9: You know, you you've gone to school to do this, and I've I've had conversations with some of your peers from school, like R. C.

00:11:33
Speaker 8: Williams is one of my good friends and so crazy.

00:11:36
Speaker 9: We have an interesting way of collaborating as well, where you just kind of understand, regardless of the knowledge in the you know, whatever technique you're you're meeting whoever you're collaborating with at that table, there's just that thing, that universal quality that is felt in the music that's just from your soul that we all kind of have a way of understanding that kind of like brings us and elevates everyone together as a unit.

00:12:04
Speaker 8: So, yeah, man, what a cool conversation.

00:12:07
Speaker 6: This is cool, it's cool, You're you're cool.

00:12:10
Speaker 4: Let's place on.

00:12:11
Speaker 9: Yeah, this place is so cool by the way, downtown. Yeah, I feel like my sneakers are.

00:12:16
Speaker 6: Impressed their quark.

00:12:19
Speaker 3: This is cork. It's good for the environment.

00:12:22
Speaker 6: I guess I don't know.

00:12:24
Speaker 3: What do you want to play?

00:12:25
Speaker 1: I was singing, we could start with more than a love song, but that's just cause up how I've been listening to it.

00:12:32
Speaker 8: I'll put this down.

00:12:33
Speaker 3: Let's do it. You want me to start it?

00:12:36
Speaker 13: Yeah?

00:12:51
Speaker 8: Right on, baby, right on?

00:12:54
Speaker 7: No.

00:12:58
Speaker 14: See the two black birds fine final to beat together.

00:13:09
Speaker 15: When we face the meal music, I'd help them get to the other side of the great divide.

00:13:15
Speaker 14: Let's fly together. I'm asked the grandmaster war I've asked one. I feel so hardome time.

00:13:29
Speaker 11: It's such a huge the music, sweet soul music and sweet shown music.

00:13:35
Speaker 12: To reignite your soul, divine, to reignite yourself.

00:13:39
Speaker 15: Because learn hims more more than a love song. It's small everything to see more.

00:13:46
Speaker 16: Than it's learning, miss more along and ene young.

00:13:53
Speaker 14: It's more than anything, to.

00:13:55
Speaker 17: See more than a little thing. It's it's a time. Let me re lined and fly.

00:14:08
Speaker 14: We are a fly.

00:14:10
Speaker 7: Let's laugh together.

00:14:17
Speaker 14: I hear the two blues persons sing a song.

00:14:19
Speaker 7: Do do do do? Do you hear me?

00:14:26
Speaker 14: My respects to the Grandmaster.

00:14:30
Speaker 15: For the line, such a pretty thing, have a melody bat.

00:14:36
Speaker 14: Slamp is small. It small than a love song. It's small thing to see.

00:14:43
Speaker 4: More than a little bit.

00:14:46
Speaker 14: Yes, lamp is more chuging young.

00:14:51
Speaker 15: It's smaller than a thing to see more than a little.

00:14:57
Speaker 14: Yes, lamp is more a lot.

00:15:00
Speaker 15: So it's small and a fair to see a little bit.

00:15:07
Speaker 12: I'm through the door now I see the sun shine in a way.

00:15:13
Speaker 14: More beads small, vail a little bit.

00:15:19
Speaker 15: So let's hold hands and why the door fe lay the sun small?

00:15:25
Speaker 14: More painted bands a thing and letting bees?

00:15:29
Speaker 16: Why is fall?

00:15:32
Speaker 6: Why?

00:15:34
Speaker 14: Why you are behind? Why?

00:15:44
Speaker 12: When the thunder sounds, you see the lightning almost touch the ground.

00:15:52
Speaker 14: I hear my aint a voice sing. Sometimes it's flying together.

00:15:58
Speaker 18: Tie together.

00:16:06
Speaker 12: Sometime to lose your mind, you swear your sister's hand and got the fly.

00:16:13
Speaker 14: Fly together? Okay, nor repeat after me?

00:16:19
Speaker 19: Bluels, minds blues, fly together, fly together and slide together.

00:16:25
Speaker 2: Day, die together and slide together, Fly together.

00:16:29
Speaker 18: And fly together, fly all out along together, fly together.

00:16:34
Speaker 2: And slid together, Fly together and slide together, base lie together.

00:16:39
Speaker 3: They s fla.

00:16:40
Speaker 6: Together, fly together, they fly together.

00:16:43
Speaker 14: Fly together, they fly together.

00:16:45
Speaker 13: Now lie together they slide.

00:16:47
Speaker 18: Together, fly well, hide together, fly together, fly together.

00:16:53
Speaker 6: Fly together, lie agether, fide together.

00:16:57
Speaker 3: At a nod.

00:16:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, my god, m hm, your voice is so powerful, thank you.

00:17:07
Speaker 6: Holy crap was beautiful.

00:17:11
Speaker 3: It's amazing.

00:17:12
Speaker 10: I forgot to turn off down the tremblough so it was like particularly warbly.

00:17:16
Speaker 7: Uh.

00:17:16
Speaker 6: I liked it.

00:17:17
Speaker 3: We sounded like we were underwater.

00:17:18
Speaker 1: But yeah, I liked it.

00:17:20
Speaker 8: This song like I gotta give you your flowers too. This is super proud.

00:17:26
Speaker 6: I was cheating my lyrics.

00:17:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:17:29
Speaker 9: And then I think like in a studio setting where the sound is dead as well, like not having the headphones to like really hear each other. Like, I've got to commend you on that too. I'm like trying to hear you so I can dance with you.

00:17:43
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's tricky, but it's I like not having headphones, Okay, Yeah, god, your voice is power.

00:17:50
Speaker 6: It's amazing.

00:17:52
Speaker 9: I think i'd have to give I gotta give this guy flowers because before before doing this, I was singing folk music.

00:18:01
Speaker 8: It was like a Neil soul. I was listening to people like Bob.

00:18:05
Speaker 9: Dylan and Neil Young and Al Green a little bit, and I was coming up with an amalgamation within that kind of like way of inflection to kind of sing. So this like singing from my black Moon Rising and fire, like I had to really figure out, okay, had I had to find my inner Wilson Pickett. Yeah, there was my inner otis Redding.

00:18:27
Speaker 8: I'm like, man, how do I do that razor sharp thing?

00:18:30
Speaker 6: So you found it?

00:18:31
Speaker 8: Yeah? Man, Yeah, thank you, Adrian, you know you're welcome.

00:18:34
Speaker 6: It's funny how you change.

00:18:35
Speaker 1: I mean as a musician you change, also as an instrumentalist, but as a singer, it's it's just part of you and it's just you. But there is something about letting go as you get older and stumbling into different things that maybe you couldn't do before, or you didn't know how to reach that far before. Yeah, I feel like that too, totally.

00:18:56
Speaker 9: Even when you're on tour, like the last you know, after the last show, you're probably at your most sharp.

00:19:02
Speaker 6: Yeah, like that's when you want to record an album.

00:19:05
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, exactly.

00:19:07
Speaker 6: You too, tired totally.

00:19:08
Speaker 9: We concluded a couple of songs at the towards the end of a tour, and I realized that I started at the end of a tour. The next time we had a session. I noticed just a certain level of freedom to like try things, yeah, you know, and I couldn't. I you know, I never I had never like I was never like a screamer. But I remember it just kind of happening on a track I was freestyling through for like melodic lines to remember, and I was like, whoa. I kind of surprised myself in the studio, was cool, let's do it again.

00:19:39
Speaker 7: You know.

00:19:40
Speaker 1: Well, it's so great when you can capture that that thing in the studio. It's harder in the studio to capture that fire. Then it is live, you know. I mean it doesn't have to be, but sometimes it can be.

00:19:52
Speaker 9: I think, yeah, well, when you're raised in the theater, like for me, I feel so moved to take on a character, and I think I've accepted, you know, performing within the context of okay, we're pressing record and action.

00:20:10
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's kind of like.

00:20:11
Speaker 9: Been a dream of mine to be a part of the theater for a long Really, I love the studios.

00:20:16
Speaker 6: Have you ever done any theater.

00:20:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit.

00:20:19
Speaker 8: Yeah.

00:20:19
Speaker 9: I just produced my first film and I just acted in like a you know, professional short.

00:20:27
Speaker 6: Oh that's amazing.

00:20:28
Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, shooting music videos. Yeah, we have been like really fun.

00:20:32
Speaker 6: It can be really fun. Yeah, that's great.

00:20:35
Speaker 1: Well, so where are you guys from, because I know you live in Austin. So are you both from Texas or where are you from?

00:20:43
Speaker 3: Eric?

00:20:44
Speaker 9: I'm from Los Angeles, Okay, Fifornia. I was born in the San Fernando Valley.

00:20:48
Speaker 6: Okay, cool. And how did you get to Texas?

00:20:51
Speaker 9: I was busking, I was playing music on the street, made a couple of friends on the Santa Monica Pier and we did well enough that we had the idea to take it on the road. We ended up in Austin, Texas, where I decided to send them on their way and stay and wow, just make a you know, make way for something new and fresh. Within a year and a half, I met Adrian and we were, you know, just go to the races.

00:21:15
Speaker 6: That's amazing.

00:21:15
Speaker 8: Pretty quickly.

00:21:16
Speaker 6: And are you from Austin.

00:21:18
Speaker 10: I'm from Laredo, Texas, from the border, from like three and a half hours south of I'm from South Texas. I moved to Austin to go to school and because of the music scene.

00:21:27
Speaker 3: Really so yeah.

00:21:28
Speaker 10: I went there studied art, but I knew I was like there for the music and just never left, you know. And I met Eric in twenty seventeen via a mutual friend and we started this. So nobody, you know, very few people are from Austin. My wife is actually from Austin, like a rare yeah thing. But I've now been there most of my life, you know. Yeah, it's a great city.

00:21:50
Speaker 6: I'm from Dallas.

00:21:51
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's right.

00:21:53
Speaker 6: That's how I know. We went to high school together.

00:21:55
Speaker 9: That's so cool, I know. Yeah, they were saying that they were so surprised. We're like, wow, sings you did, like the A Talent Show. No one knew you sang till like the end of like your your scholastic career there.

00:22:07
Speaker 6: Yeah I was a piano major.

00:22:09
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, I was shy, but there was a yeah we all have a so somebody I knew somebody who dated a girl who was one of your roommates in.

00:22:16
Speaker 6: College, Linda Lindsay, Yeah, she lives in Austin.

00:22:19
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, I've seen.

00:22:22
Speaker 6: Either.

00:22:23
Speaker 3: So yeah, your name always came up back then.

00:22:26
Speaker 1: I was singing about her the other day and her peanut butter sandwiches on Saturday.

00:22:31
Speaker 8: I love your voice, by the way, Nora, thank you.

00:22:34
Speaker 6: I love your voice.

00:22:34
Speaker 9: It's so nice and warm. You just want to hear that voice talk all day.

00:22:41
Speaker 6: Or tell my talking voice tell you a story.

00:22:44
Speaker 1: I hate my talking voice. Usually when you hear it, you know, on a recording at the end of the take. Oh, I don't know, but about that one, then it's.

00:22:50
Speaker 6: Like shut up.

00:22:51
Speaker 9: Sometimes it's like sometimes you can tell that someone has like a really might have a really nice singing voice.

00:22:57
Speaker 8: By the way that they speak.

00:22:59
Speaker 3: Really, I can. Hell, sometimes do you think I sound like a singer?

00:23:02
Speaker 1: I wonder if my singing voice sounds like my speaking voice, because sometimes people it doesn't, you know, it sounds totally different, like two different voices.

00:23:10
Speaker 8: I can it's it's very similar, it is, I would yeah, I'm not. Yeah, So this it's perfect.

00:23:16
Speaker 9: I mean obviously you know that you've you've got an okay speaking voice. Otherwise you wouldn't be doing a podcast.

00:23:22
Speaker 6: You're right, I wouldn't be able to stomach it. But yeah, it's been so fun meeting people and playing music with them like this. It's like a dream. You guys have been in New York all week doing like promotion for the new album, right, that's right.

00:23:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, you did.

00:23:38
Speaker 1: You did Kelly Clarkson show. Did you sing together?

00:23:42
Speaker 8: We did not.

00:23:43
Speaker 6: That's too bad. That would have been cool.

00:23:45
Speaker 8: Yeah, does that happen?

00:23:46
Speaker 6: I don't know. I don't really know.

00:23:48
Speaker 1: I haven't watched much of her show, but I feel like I see clips of her singing with people sometimes. Yeah, you did something else cool this week?

00:23:55
Speaker 6: I can't remember.

00:23:55
Speaker 3: Seth Meyers, Oh yeah, nice, that was fun.

00:23:58
Speaker 9: I've noticed in doing the TV shows everyone's always so just so nice. Yeah, and I'm finding that we're we're getting to be more and more comfortable and confident in a setting like that. That's a hard, right, Like it's studio, it's all right now, you know, it's TV.

00:24:19
Speaker 1: Is I feel very hard because it's like all right now. But before they say now, they're playing some loud in between music and it's completely different vibe, different tempo, and it's you have to just switch really fast.

00:24:34
Speaker 8: Yeah.

00:24:34
Speaker 10: Seth Myers was in the same building as Jimmy Fallon, and we've done Fallin a couple of times, and that one is particularly daunting to me because, first of all, there's always a lot the studios are so.

00:24:43
Speaker 3: Much smaller than they look on TV.

00:24:45
Speaker 10: Yes, so you're like with Fallon, you're going up there and you have like the Roots, one of the best bands in the business in quest Low, one of the best mds, and you know kind of and they're all just like right there, yeah, and they're just literally you're like, what are they like?

00:25:02
Speaker 8: What is going on here?

00:25:03
Speaker 7: Is great?

00:25:03
Speaker 3: They like me?

00:25:04
Speaker 10: I know, Yeah, that one that one to me to the second time we went back, I was more comfortable.

00:25:09
Speaker 8: The first time.

00:25:10
Speaker 3: I couldn't even I couldn't even look over it. I was like, this is crazy.

00:25:12
Speaker 9: But the first time was like my favorite performance to look back on as far as like his show going.

00:25:18
Speaker 10: They were cool, It's super cool, but it's just it's just a weird feeling.

00:25:21
Speaker 9: I remember Black thought like coming up to us at the end of the first performance. It's like one of my favorite moments. He just like walks up. She like b lines it for me at the end of Colors and he like DAPs me. It's like, yo, bro, you're killing it, bro, killing it.

00:25:37
Speaker 8: Bro?

00:25:38
Speaker 3: You know so cool?

00:25:39
Speaker 6: That must feel so good.

00:25:41
Speaker 8: Yeah, it feels amazing.

00:25:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good validation.

00:25:45
Speaker 6: It does feel good to be validated. Yeah, it's not nothing. Yeah, it matters.

00:25:50
Speaker 10: I feel like that peer to peer, like face to face validation is so much more impactful.

00:25:57
Speaker 3: You know, to actually have a musician, like one person come.

00:25:59
Speaker 10: To you, then it is you know, they ask us a lot about the impact of the Grammys and things like that, which are all amazing opportunities, but the personal like somebody actually telling you in your face, hey, I really enjoy what you're doing. Then that just means like I go to bed thinking about that stuff.

00:26:13
Speaker 1: I know, it's nice, it's funny. I feel like in the beginning of my career, I was like, oh no, it's okay, I'm good.

00:26:20
Speaker 6: I don't need that no more.

00:26:22
Speaker 1: You know, like because I had such a crazy coming out with my first album was crazy and it was kind of overwhelming. But with like high success comes also a lot of criticism. So I feel like it kind of evened oubt for a minute, you know, but it does feel.

00:26:37
Speaker 6: It feels good. It's like a lucky place to be. Let's try to do another song. You want to do another song?

00:26:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, how you're feeling well?

00:26:46
Speaker 6: Chronicles of a Diamond from the new album. That could be fun. Okay, you said you play the piano part on this right, It's like.

00:26:58
Speaker 9: Perfect yeah, that's it is I love how you play it? Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Can I can I get this microphone raised a little bit?

00:27:15
Speaker 7: Yeah?

00:27:28
Speaker 14: Look you have the waves sea crash, I.

00:27:33
Speaker 16: Young jug how like seeagulls spy?

00:27:37
Speaker 14: I look you have the pretty girls walk by.

00:27:41
Speaker 16: Dren and im love for the first time, doll and if you look, you have my hall of bulls boom bap.

00:27:50
Speaker 11: I'm leaning on the music, majesty, summing like a doll and childish because in a different and bold in patterns.

00:28:02
Speaker 14: If you want to win.

00:28:06
Speaker 20: Better, is you wanna breathe out.

00:28:11
Speaker 14: Of these walls made.

00:28:21
Speaker 7: In the time for.

00:28:22
Speaker 16: Say out of becashious?

00:28:27
Speaker 14: He before you soul the spade?

00:28:40
Speaker 7: Say?

00:28:40
Speaker 21: Look you have the.

00:28:41
Speaker 14: World keep spinning. I yearned to.

00:28:45
Speaker 18: Get around on the nav I'm the voice of the tame and trailing on seven.

00:28:55
Speaker 22: Decet and Cadillac Profound when catling, dreaming, chiefing on some hole.

00:29:05
Speaker 14: Like ghost Starve five. So look, get how the flame keeps flaming.

00:29:11
Speaker 16: I feel I'm in love for the first time.

00:29:16
Speaker 20: If you wanna win, where is you wanna.

00:29:22
Speaker 15: Breathe out in these walls?

00:29:27
Speaker 7: Baby?

00:29:30
Speaker 3: I don't know?

00:29:35
Speaker 14: Then the tide will see. I have the cash skiin before you soul this badie.

00:29:50
Speaker 8: To the bridge.

00:29:51
Speaker 14: Now you know it's hard to get yourself together. The baby left satching it.

00:30:00
Speaker 11: I'm cruising on the right now and I'm running on e and I'm tired.

00:30:07
Speaker 14: I got to Madite shower.

00:30:12
Speaker 11: But now I'm calling up the crew and I'm sorry, but.

00:30:16
Speaker 14: I'm gonna selebrate. Now, let's tell around the block, the.

00:30:25
Speaker 20: Block twenty five years dreaming like the Diamond and the Battle.

00:30:31
Speaker 14: I wanna water bad is you water breathe?

00:30:38
Speaker 15: It's the cheese out in these waters, babies, and the.

00:30:50
Speaker 14: Time will sing.

00:30:53
Speaker 7: I douve the cash.

00:30:58
Speaker 14: Before you souls faded.

00:31:08
Speaker 20: If you want to wear it, where as you wanna breathe hold.

00:31:17
Speaker 14: In these water has faded.

00:31:27
Speaker 11: In the time, We'll say, I doubly cashious key.

00:31:36
Speaker 14: Before you souls faded. Oh all right, take us out there to the b.

00:31:58
Speaker 23: This has been good times, right, yeah, yeah, that was so fun.

00:32:14
Speaker 1: That was fun to play. I feel the time with your body moving.

00:32:18
Speaker 10: You just it's like so in two we do these duo things and he and he doesn't play guitar, and I have to play on some of them, like I already I can catch his just his foot or his fingers.

00:32:29
Speaker 3: And I'm just like it's like a little metro.

00:32:33
Speaker 1: That's so cool. When you guys first played together, what was the scenario. How was the first meeting? Was it with any expectations?

00:32:41
Speaker 6: What happened there?

00:32:42
Speaker 8: The first meeting was in the studio.

00:32:43
Speaker 9: The first time we played together was when we had the album finished.

00:32:47
Speaker 6: Oh wow, yeah wow.

00:32:49
Speaker 1: So it was more of a studio production kind of playing around in the studio kind of thing.

00:32:55
Speaker 3: Right, wow.

00:32:56
Speaker 10: We weren't really we didn't really have a plan to be a band, and we were just getting together and making songs, and all of a sudden, it was like you know, I mean I was I was super excited the first day that we did two, but I just played it cool and was like, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, well, you know, we'll look up and we just like texted. But I just couldn't stop listening to it. And we had four and we had five, and all of a sudden, I was like, this is kind of crazy. And I even took a while to tell him, but I remember specifically he was like leaving and I was like, Hey, wouldn't it be kind of cool to play this stuff? Like yeah, And I was like just for like a month, We'll just do it for like I was like, we'll just do like four shows.

00:33:29
Speaker 3: And he was like down. He's like I'm down. Yeah, that was it.

00:33:33
Speaker 6: That's great.

00:33:34
Speaker 8: Yeah.

00:33:35
Speaker 9: And so the first time we played like live, we played the songs live. I mean, I feel like this guy knows just as well as anyone that in Austin, Texas. Like in a club like SA Boys, we have some of the coolest kids come out and it's like this the entire night. You know, they're in the back room. They're in the back of the room. It's a shotgun club, you know. You know they're not really but it kind of cut on like right away. I mean the first night we you know, we had we had rehearsed one time before the show, which is crazy because we don't really we don't rehearse that much. And that blows my mind. Yeah, we rehearsed one night, like I think the night before the show.

00:34:15
Speaker 5: Wow.

00:34:16
Speaker 8: And so we did that. We did the show.

00:34:18
Speaker 9: You know, it was fun, it was excitable, and then we did the second the second night and people were really there. There weren't any you know, arms folded, you know, people started coming out.

00:34:28
Speaker 8: I think the third night, third or fourth night.

00:34:31
Speaker 9: I think the third night, because we had a weekly residence, we had people lining up around the block. We started getting calls from like like just weird places, so it felt like it caught wind really fast. And to conclude that, the difference in the sonic quality of the actual album in conjunction with our first playing together in a live setting is from like smooth and kind of sharp to rock and roll, very gritty. So it was like a really excitable, passionate meeting as far as playing with an actual band, like on like no rehearsals.

00:35:09
Speaker 1: It's like everything starts to fly, right, Yeah, it's the best.

00:35:13
Speaker 10: I actually didn't even know that until that point that I had only seen Eric play solo before and it was always you know, with him accompanying himself playing guitar. And then we took off your guitar and like all of a sudden was like this these frontman skills where I was like, oh wow, that's like another level of.

00:35:32
Speaker 8: Actually last time I knew too, I was just like I thought.

00:35:35
Speaker 10: He was going to stand there with a guitar the whole time, which would have been awesome, but like all of a sudden it was like, oh no, this is a whole other level.

00:35:40
Speaker 6: So that's great because sometimes when you take off the instrument, you don't know what to do with yourself. But if you have the.

00:35:47
Speaker 1: Energy and then right you just feel in it, you're not scared without your instrument, then it works.

00:35:53
Speaker 8: Yeah, the theater. I love the theater.

00:35:55
Speaker 6: That's so cool.

00:35:56
Speaker 8: That was cool.

00:35:56
Speaker 9: I was like, okay, cool, Now I get to be I get to come up with a character here.

00:36:01
Speaker 6: That's fine, it's nice. Can we please to angel?

00:36:04
Speaker 8: Yes?

00:36:05
Speaker 6: I love this song so much.

00:36:41
Speaker 14: Come along.

00:36:58
Speaker 3: To this dream game.

00:37:00
Speaker 14: We're all living.

00:37:08
Speaker 8: In the sun.

00:37:11
Speaker 7: To day.

00:37:15
Speaker 24: And leaving alone lonly late tail.

00:37:34
Speaker 14: In the sea, lovely keeping.

00:37:42
Speaker 24: In this dream in good Lad?

00:37:55
Speaker 14: Is she really real?

00:38:01
Speaker 7: Found my tree?

00:38:03
Speaker 14: She's a lover.

00:38:10
Speaker 16: In my heart? Isn't made a seal? Oh listen made Steve's.

00:38:19
Speaker 14: Got the flight to the lover? Make you show.

00:39:04
Speaker 7: Lane Ji.

00:39:19
Speaker 16: In the scene of It comes to Pin.

00:39:36
Speaker 14: Take it time.

00:39:39
Speaker 7: Long.

00:39:40
Speaker 16: J Stapling say, it's to the paint.

00:40:03
Speaker 14: Vacup see.

00:40:07
Speaker 13: I say?

00:40:14
Speaker 3: And Goodlow?

00:40:16
Speaker 14: Is she really real? Found that dream?

00:40:25
Speaker 16: She's her lover? My isn't Vada steel is invade? Got the flame to the ebb Rubber sling.

00:40:49
Speaker 7: You know.

00:41:44
Speaker 3: How you feeling it's beautiful?

00:41:46
Speaker 8: Sweet?

00:41:47
Speaker 6: How do you feel?

00:41:48
Speaker 8: Oh? Good?

00:41:49
Speaker 3: Good?

00:41:50
Speaker 1: It's funny the way you're saying it's like you go for it. So if you're not feeling good about something, do you say it?

00:42:00
Speaker 7: Like?

00:42:00
Speaker 1: How do you how do you deal with that if something is kind of not quiet? Or do you just go for it until you make it the thing? Because that's the thing.

00:42:08
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I just don't do it at all.

00:42:10
Speaker 6: Yeah, if it's not a thing, like you don't come in.

00:42:13
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, we'll just we'll just reschedule.

00:42:16
Speaker 6: Yeah, totally. I like that.

00:42:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, But I mean if you were in a situation where you're playing music with someone it's not quite there yet, you just wait.

00:42:27
Speaker 8: See.

00:42:28
Speaker 9: I I'll get on people's nerves like that because because uh, because I'll keep doing it and we'll just we'll just keep we'll keep on and take joy in the meditation. That is the process of muscle memory and chemistry. And for me, there's little moments that you work for, Like Michael Jordan said, Man, I give you know, two hundred and ten percent practice of that. When the game comes it's super easy and I play what would he do? He would come up with games within the game, right, And so for me in reflection to that, it's about finding little moments throughout the day to be to take observation in the presence of the most high, you know, and so you know, and there's there's so many ways to see that and think of that and meditate on that and feel good in that. And so it's just kind of a wave that gets built up over time. I think in a in a situation that's like that kind of like completely takes my mind off of the overarching song or disposition towards inflecting on this part or whatever.

00:43:40
Speaker 8: It's just about trying to be aligned.

00:43:43
Speaker 9: Yeah, and so some people, like you know, some people don't really have the patience for that, Like I'll be in the studio all day, yeah I can, I can. I can kick it in here all day. Yeah, just be moved, you know.

00:43:55
Speaker 6: Yeah, And how do you work, Adrian, do you like do?

00:44:00
Speaker 10: I mean, it's just NonStop for me, Like I feel like I'm always I have a studio and I'm just in there all day, every day. And you know, I, like Eric said, with the like finding the game within the game, I actually find that lately I've had to give myself exercises to not repeat the same things, you know, when you're kind of in there like a lot.

00:44:18
Speaker 3: I kind of work by myself a lot.

00:44:20
Speaker 10: There is a muscle memory where like I feel like I just write that like the same thing, like.

00:44:24
Speaker 3: Forty times in a row.

00:44:25
Speaker 6: It's hard not to do that.

00:44:26
Speaker 10: I give myself exercises and I feel like it breaks me out of a rut. I read there's an artist in Austin who's from Austin who's really famous now. Her name is Deva Roberts, and she said that when she would try a new technique in art school, and she had a professor that was like, you have.

00:44:40
Speaker 3: To make forty.

00:44:41
Speaker 10: It was a twenty or forty of that, like to break out to really really get going, Like you can't just make say like I'm going to try this new technique today.

00:44:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, one is not enough. You have to make twenty or forty.

00:44:51
Speaker 10: So I have like folders of like I'm going to try writing on a synth and I'm going to write twenty, and I feel like sometimes it takes twenty before when it comes out where I'm like, oh, finally something. So I kind of have to give myself, like I have to be more disciplined like that.

00:45:06
Speaker 3: And that's a recent thing. I didn't think. I didn't used to be like that.

00:45:09
Speaker 10: I was just kind of always doing stuff, and lately I've been like, I have to I have to set some boundaries or I think I'm starting to repeat myself.

00:45:17
Speaker 6: It's hard to especially when you're working all the time. It's hard not to for Suah.

00:45:22
Speaker 9: And then also, you know, it's it really just comes down to the material in the song, like are you moved by the material? Doesn't make you want to laugh? Does it make you want to cry?

00:45:35
Speaker 8: You know what?

00:45:36
Speaker 9: You know, how how sincere is your prayer right, and so if if you're not moved from the very beginning, then it's for me, it's it's harder to do that. And that's that was like, that was like the biggest thing I think going into this this record that we just released as well, was you know that I just had a little bit more space and room to be a part of the initiation of that prayer, that our aesthetic was really a little bit more compatible with who I am, I feel, and so in that it's really easy to you know, get something locked in on a voice memo and be like, oh my god, like this is such a wave. And so you just you just never forsake the that highest thing, that feeling that you know, you know it's good and and uh, you know, and when you have that confidence going into something, and then it doesn't really matter what what someone else is thinking or how the public might perceive you, because at the end of the day, this is like we are voyagers, you know, satellite voyagers, of of of of an artist that you know, you have to be okay with kind of traversing the unknown from other people's perspectives.

00:46:49
Speaker 6: So yeah, for sure you're on your own wave.

00:46:53
Speaker 9: Yeah you know, you know, but you know what but but but no, we're on the same wave.

00:46:58
Speaker 8: We're just different expressions of what that is.

00:47:01
Speaker 9: And so I think that the task at hand is finding common ground and doing that. And so I think that's where we've gotten to be like really lucky. It's because like, I'm in a collaboration with people who are exceedingly generous, and so as we're generous with each other, we're able to kind of find new new places that actually fit our disposition towards expression of that of writing.

00:47:25
Speaker 8: The same way.

00:47:26
Speaker 1: It's the funnest thing when you find those things together. I think, too, well, it's beautiful. I love what you guys do together.

00:47:34
Speaker 6: Yeah, you are doing more, all right, take us out on colors from your going for the.

00:47:43
Speaker 8: Ban After all that, I'm like, oh man, this is funny.

00:47:48
Speaker 6: You should do it.

00:47:49
Speaker 8: Okay, let's let's do it.

00:47:51
Speaker 6: I like the banjo.

00:47:52
Speaker 1: It's a it's gotten a love for a long time, so it's happy, such a.

00:48:00
Speaker 3: Wild instrument that.

00:48:04
Speaker 6: It's a get Joe really okay, it's a six sture.

00:48:07
Speaker 10: I was gonna say yeah because it was too Like I heard got picked one up at Fallon show and tried to play to make everybody laugh. I was like, oh, I don't even know how to be funny because.

00:48:14
Speaker 6: I don't know it's different tuning.

00:48:16
Speaker 3: Yea, yeah, I didn't even think about that.

00:48:18
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like a cheater. Every studio you should have one. Your studio in Austin, is it like is it in your house? Is it separate?

00:48:30
Speaker 3: You used to be in my house. That's actually where we made the first record. It was connected to my house during the pandemic.

00:48:35
Speaker 10: Kind of just outgrew it and it was perfect timing out a friend moving out of like a big not big but you know big for East Austin property facility and moving back to his house and downsizing, and I had to like I was bursting at the scenes.

00:48:51
Speaker 3: Yeah. It was basically one huge room. I mean we made it.

00:48:53
Speaker 10: It was like the first album was one huge room like this with Eric singing like right behind me, and.

00:48:57
Speaker 6: It's so cool.

00:48:58
Speaker 3: Yeah now I have three three nice.

00:49:01
Speaker 8: This is awesome because I just I would never do this.

00:49:04
Speaker 6: I know it's fun.

00:49:05
Speaker 3: Do you want to like improvise solo over.

00:49:08
Speaker 6: The I can or you can?

00:49:10
Speaker 3: You can? You should?

00:49:11
Speaker 8: Okay, wait, where's after the second chorus?

00:49:14
Speaker 6: Okay?

00:49:14
Speaker 3: Cool?

00:49:15
Speaker 6: Yeah, no I remember that? Now who's that playing on there? The piano?

00:49:20
Speaker 10: That was Spencer our first la Okay cool Spencer Garland cool?

00:49:24
Speaker 8: All right.

00:49:45
Speaker 14: I woke up to the mornings, got first baby blues, like when I get up off this ground, I should eat the least but down to the brown, brown, brown, brown, till I'm clean.

00:50:06
Speaker 7: Bath.

00:50:12
Speaker 14: I walked out the shaded by the trees, not the middle me.

00:50:19
Speaker 17: For about a mile.

00:50:22
Speaker 3: I'm married to townetowntown.

00:50:26
Speaker 8: And style.

00:50:30
Speaker 14: With all my faceite wos.

00:50:36
Speaker 16: All my favorite cousins, my sisters and my brobles see him like.

00:50:47
Speaker 7: All my fee.

00:50:53
Speaker 14: Showing me. I'm got a bath for me.

00:50:57
Speaker 25: I'm gonna barny sealf me cor sumers, my sister said, brothers see you light no live of course.

00:51:15
Speaker 16: I take me to the other side.

00:51:22
Speaker 12: If the baby blues birds fly, see him flying in gray clouds, a lad walls, a blue sky, be gonna fly feel old ray.

00:51:35
Speaker 8: We feel a ray when you feel all ray.

00:51:39
Speaker 7: No, we gonna boot boom boom.

00:51:44
Speaker 14: They seem lick woot boom boom.

00:51:51
Speaker 15: The least I can tell, I canticipate or come come pard.

00:51:55
Speaker 14: It's weird minute gain morning dollar see morning.

00:52:01
Speaker 16: With all my favorite clod, all my favorite colors, my sisters and my bread seem like love all my favorite come stay.

00:52:24
Speaker 14: She bathed me, I.

00:52:27
Speaker 16: Then bath me, I then bake seal favorite cars.

00:52:33
Speaker 7: Colost and my sisters in.

00:52:37
Speaker 16: La brothers seal lagnum love our favorite cords.

00:52:47
Speaker 21: All right, God, all my favorite colors, all my faily colss, said God.

00:53:46
Speaker 15: My sisters and my brothers see a line.

00:53:51
Speaker 16: Lever are my favorite colders.

00:53:58
Speaker 19: So get there be good day. I didn't they seem my favorite callers.

00:54:07
Speaker 16: Hellows my sisters la brothers see them Lackner.

00:54:22
Speaker 6: Oh my favorite car Los Banjo version.

00:54:52
Speaker 8: Wow version, Oh my god, in the building.

00:55:00
Speaker 3: Man, are so honored. Yeah, I'm so honored.

00:55:03
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for coming me, Thanks for having us.

00:55:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll catch you out there on the road, please do Yeah, I'll come find you.

00:55:11
Speaker 6: Thanks for doing this.

00:55:12
Speaker 3: Thank you.

00:55:12
Speaker 4: Yay, oh yay, that is so great. Wow, goose bumps. Yeah, voice, it's crazy.

00:55:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, he gave me crazy crazy feels. Yes, that was such a fun episode. They're great and I hope we get to see them again soon.

00:55:29
Speaker 3: We too.

00:55:31
Speaker 1: The songs we played today in this episode are more than a love song from the album Chronicles of a Diamond from twenty twenty three, also the title track Chronicles of a Diamond. We also did Angel from Chronicles of a Diamond, and we did the song Colors from Black Puma's release in twenty nineteen. Special thanks to Black Pumas for joining us today. Check out our episode with Marco Price also at Today. We'll be back next week with Jason isbel.

00:56:00
Speaker 6: Find us on social media as Nora Jones is playing Along or just Norah Jones for more. Nora Jones is playing.

00:56:05
Speaker 1: Along as a production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm Your host Nora Jones, and this episode was recorded by Matt Marinelli, mixed by Jamie Landry, edited by Sarah Oda. Additional editing and mixing by Matthew Vesquez. Additional recording by Jamie Landry. Audio post production by Greg Tobler, artwork by Eliza Frye, Photography by Shervin Linez. Produced by Nora Jones and Sarah Oda. Executive producers Aaron Wang Kaufman and Jordan Rundag.

00:56:34
Speaker 6: Marketing Lead Queen A Nike have a Great One.