Albert Hammond Jr

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Albert Hammond Junior first rose to prominence as the lead guitarist of The Strokes, a band at the forefront of New York City's indie rock renaissance and the early odds. The Strokes released their debut album Is This It in two thousand and one to huge commercial success. Two decades, five albums and a Grammy later, the Strokes have become a modern successor to the bands that influenced them, The Cars, The Stooges, the Velvet Underground. In two thousand and seven, Albert Hammon Junior launched his solo career, putting his songwriting and abilities as a frontman to the test. He's now released five albums of his own, including his latest Melodies on Hiatus, which came out just a couple of months ago. It's a double album that he co wrote with Canadian singer Simon Wilcox and feature sure his collaborations with Goldlink and Matt Helders from The Arctic Monkeys. On today's episode, Albert Hammond Junior and I discussed his parents' recent divorce and how despite the fact that he's in his early forties, he was still dramatically impacted by it. Albert also reminisces about his past life as a champion rollerskater who was once scouted by Christy Yamaguchi's Olympic ice skating coach, and he also explains why he's never been a fan of everyone else's favorite bands Radiohead and led Zeppelin. This is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Ritchman. Here's my conversation with Albert Hammond Jr. When did you record the new solo record, Melodies on Hiatus Man.

00:01:58
Speaker 2: I thought it was going to come out a lot sooner. I started in twenty nineteen, right at the end of touring my last record, Francis Trouble. I had no idea of making a double album. It wasn't like I want to make two records. And all I thought was, I can start now. And because I knew, I wanted to deconstruct the band and I wanted to keep it meaning like the record before that was a live band in a room in a studio like this, a studio head upstate.

00:02:28
Speaker 1: It was very like.

00:02:30
Speaker 2: Studio live takes band and this upstate New York. Yeah, sorry, you live in New York long enough, you just call it up So I wanted to just like I usually I love plugging my guitar and direct, even if it's just to like an apollo.

00:02:45
Speaker 1: I mean, I would plug it into a board. I love that too, or just like a neve like that over there. But I was like, let's just do it all like we do the demos.

00:02:56
Speaker 2: Drum machines kind of play all the different parts with instruments, and we're just trying to create a vibe for each song to then play for people to be like, this is where I wanted to go. Help me get it there. Yeah, So I started in twenty nineteen. My parents were getting divorced, and my mom was in this rental right by the Beverly Center, very cool rental. Yeah, just started there with my laptop. But your parents just got divorced. But when we were recording in twenty seventeen here they just started.

00:03:26
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:03:27
Speaker 2: But it was still happening in twenty nineteen.

00:03:28
Speaker 1: I think it ended. I think it took like four or five years. It was kind of ridiculous. Wow. I was gonna ask you cause I guess you know, Old Man seemed like an obvious jumping off point.

00:03:38
Speaker 2: It's so funny because some songs come you know, they just kind of like lay themselves out. I remember I was, I was at this whole time twenty sixteen seventeen eighteen. I was staying a lot in my parents' apartment here. They weren't here, and my life was a lot here. The Strokes were doing stuff. I had my solo manager and my label here working with people, so it was just easy to come here.

00:04:03
Speaker 1: And I was just playing.

00:04:06
Speaker 2: The guitar and it kind of just like it kind of came. I said, my old.

00:04:10
Speaker 1: Man blah blah blah, and I kind of just had it.

00:04:15
Speaker 2: It wasn't intended to be a dig at him or anything. And then by the time I got to doing lyrics, and Simon actually Samon Wilcox did lyrics because well, by the time I got to twenty songs, I looked at all twenty and I was like, there's no way I'm going to finish these. This is just too much work. I'd rather start from scratch. But you knew you liked all twenty, Yeah, I knew well by then it was like the album's a double album. But like I song titles, little lines here and there, lyrics from me are last, so I'll do I sang all the songs parts I knew I had melodies for and ones that I was searching, or if I wanted to change it a little bit, you know, it'd still punched me. And I'd be like, oh, that's that's fine for them to be similar. This one should be a little different. Let me just kind of find it. But you're just making shit up, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. What was cool was that Simon kept phrasing of mine that had I written lyrics, I wouldn't even have kept because these were just like little rambling things I did, Like I was making stuff up on the spot. Maybe it's a mistake or you don't fit the words you want, but she was able to keep them in And so there's something really magical in that. But yeah, Old Man is not about It's not like a dig going back to that, it's not a dig on my dad.

00:05:32
Speaker 1: It was quite the opposite. It's kind of like you just.

00:05:35
Speaker 2: Realize in life how your perspective changes over time. Yeah, you know, and like so you see your parents and you're like a kid, and you have all these feelings and thoughts and you know, teenager twenty, and all of a sudden you end up being their age that you remember looking up at them and then you're kind of like, oh, this is so strange. How did I get here and how you're viewing stuff? But now they're older so you can't see. So it's just this cycle of, you know, maybe we just have to be more gentle with everyone, just because we're all, you know, human beings and we make mistakes, and like, I feel like the more you judge, the more you end up doing the same things later on. Yeah, And so it was that kind of idea in there. And that's the other thing I would do assimon is that when I was doing it, she would be like, you want to keep the world old man? Or maybe she even said like I really like it, let's let's keep it, and I was like, no, I wanted to keep it. It was very natural, is the first thing that I sang when I was trying to find the melody. So yeah, it's kind of hard to change those words.

00:06:44
Speaker 1: So how much of that did she write versus I would say she wrote the lyrics just because I said old man, or like if she kept a line or two of mine that I said that worked, everything is there, Yeah, by her hand, you know, like I wouldn't. I wouldn't take that away from her.

00:07:02
Speaker 2: But the conversations that we had dictated sometimes where songs would go. And it was definite point where I was like, it's not about fuck you, it's not.

00:07:14
Speaker 1: It's not like that all.

00:07:15
Speaker 2: If anything, it's like, oh man, like all the times I said that, and now I'm in your shoes when I would say that to you, and I'm like, I kind of get it, and you you know, you did a lot, like you know, I appreciate it.

00:07:30
Speaker 1: Well, your parents getting divorced at.

00:07:32
Speaker 2: That time, yeah, they were still Yeah, but it wasn't a dig at the But did.

00:07:36
Speaker 1: It must have spurred it, right, I mean I just don't imagine. Sure.

00:07:39
Speaker 2: It was definitely not. You know, divorce is it's funny, divorce is not. I was thirty six when they started. It wasn't any easier. It wasn't like I'm thirty six, Like I didn't feel it.

00:07:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, felt it just as hard. Very weird. It's always weird.

00:07:55
Speaker 2: When it's the idea like never call the cops, never get as soon as you get other people involved in your stuff, you can't just talk it out, Yeah, you can't. You can never go back Yeah, it's you know, and that's what it was. I would get a lot of the weirdest things I got is just we were like a tripod.

00:08:14
Speaker 1: Of a family. My mom's Argentina and my dad's from Gibraltar, which is the craziest place to be from. I like Gibraltar. Where the hell is that the rock?

00:08:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, Living Daylights James Bond, the opening scene is in Gibraltar. If you want to know what it. What it looks like is just a giant rock off the coast of Spain. That it's British and they're angry about that, but yes, so far away. And they met in Argentina and they moved to La and I grew up here. So I didn't grow up with like a family every couple of years when they'd come visit for three months, not like cousins or aunts who live in the same city. So we were like a tripod. So that interaction still existed even in the divorce. So that was like the hard part was like, even though I was not getting involved or I was just trying to help out where I could, it's.

00:09:04
Speaker 1: Going to affect me.

00:09:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, and anger will come out from different people and it's gonna you know, I'm in the middle. Regardless of if they don'tics or not. I imagine some things came from it. But that's like it a god. Writing songs are so so funny. There's so many different spots, and you might even have one line that means something to someone, but the whole song it's a different meaning meaning like it's not just not so like I'm going to write about how much I like or dislike this person. Yea, even if you do that, you might venture off and have a whole story or line works. I mean, it's a combination of music and words. Sometimes stuff that's really simple is more powerful. The music, to me is what I want to have move you. And then though the words on top are like a cherry. But these conversations I had with Simon were like amazing. We would have hour long conversations about what I felt, where I wanted to go, or what she thought, or we would disagree or agree or like it would be amazing. But like remember an old man, the second verse just wasn't right. And then she came up with the bullet wounds and self defense. Even like it never stopped. She had this story. It didn't feel like that to me, but she had this story about this older person who just like never this character like who never stops even though you know he hasn't made it, he doesn't care.

00:10:30
Speaker 1: I was like, sure, I guess try writing that, and I didn't connect with me.

00:10:36
Speaker 2: And then she sent me the lyrics and I was just like, this is so great, but this is not what I would have thought it would have been.

00:10:44
Speaker 1: Did it ever connect with you at any point?

00:10:47
Speaker 2: I mean, the lyrics connected with me when I sang them. For sure, I wouldn't have sang them. This is the first time I wrote with someone else. I didn't do anything that didn't fully.

00:10:58
Speaker 1: Connect feeling authentic, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

00:11:00
Speaker 2: It wasn't like I just mean sometimes the way the way someone tells the story about where they're gonna go, you're kind of like, yeah, okay, I don't I don't know what in your head, but it's yeah, it's funny to not get it and then get something back and being like, well, whatever.

00:11:14
Speaker 1: Was in your head it was.

00:11:15
Speaker 2: It's not what I thought it was going to be, and this is amazing. But yeah, no, it wasn't like just write lyrics. I had thought I was gonna like try to get a bunch of friends to help me write lyrics. But it's a lot harder to get people to help you out than you might think.

00:11:31
Speaker 1: What kind of trouble did you come across with that? No? Nothing, Just people say.

00:11:35
Speaker 2: Any of what kind of trouble? Oh I got in a lot of trouble. I get in a lot of trouble. But it's not from asking people to write songs. Such a trouble maker.

00:11:49
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just this was just like an idea.

00:11:51
Speaker 2: I thought, like I would ask certain bands that I'm friends with, if they people who I like they write lyrics, if they wanted to give it a go.

00:12:01
Speaker 1: But it's hard. People I did. I did.

00:12:05
Speaker 2: Everyone was really nice, but I think they were all like in the middle of records or sometimes people wanted to do it, but they I think maybe they wanted to change the malady of it, which I wouldn't have minded, but have been like, Okay, well now we're working on the song very differently, you know what I mean. I think it was just the timing of it because I was just recording, right, it's recording I could have I could still be recording. I was in such a finding voicemail wasn't just like creating songs. It was I was in such a little heaven.

00:12:36
Speaker 1: And you were sort of doing the strokes with the new abnormal was yeah, at least stating too right. We've done a little bit.

00:12:43
Speaker 2: And then we started the promo tour, and then the pandemic happened, and then Gus would just fly over. Gus Ober, he's my best friend. He just front housed with the strokes. I was pretty loose during the pandemic. I'll be honest.

00:12:57
Speaker 1: No, no precautions for me.

00:12:58
Speaker 2: Well no, I was just thought, no, no, I mean there was precautions. I mean he flew on the plane and I guess you have to wear a mask, but he.

00:13:06
Speaker 1: Just came over. Precautions because you he just came over. And then we just started working and my wife was pregnant. I don't know. We would still exercise and stuff like.

00:13:14
Speaker 2: I always feel like I find it hard to believe what happened there was they tell you what's happening, but no one ever tells you how to build your own immune system.

00:13:24
Speaker 1: It was a weird thing to navigate. It was. It was very weird. Did work in on music though, I mean, how your wife was pregnant, so it was a lot. I mean, well, she got pregnant.

00:13:33
Speaker 2: In June, and this was we started in March. Right and first kid, right, first, first and only kid, first kid, No more kid war scene, no more.

00:13:44
Speaker 1: Kids.

00:13:44
Speaker 2: One is I'm grateful for her changed my life. I love her dearly, but I don't have the capacity for It's a lot for.

00:13:53
Speaker 1: It requires a lot of bandwidth. I have two, you have two. Yeah. My eldest really liked your solo record. Check me at it. The playlist is it? How old are they? Seven and four? Just turned seven and four?

00:14:07
Speaker 2: Mine just a little over during a different, different spot. I was terrifying at first. Oh my god. You know some people come they come out and they're like I was born to be a parent.

00:14:20
Speaker 1: I was like a PTSD, Like I was like, what happened? My life's completely changed? Yeah, I love you, but it's just everything's really different.

00:14:34
Speaker 2: Do you feel like it's balanced out? It's balancing out for sure. I mean anything, it makes sense, any creation in the universe is through destruction, you know what I mean? Like here and how we're here, it was through things banging into each other and blowing up. So it makes sense that to create something like.

00:14:54
Speaker 1: New life.

00:14:54
Speaker 2: I mean, it's amazing to have seen it. You know, it must be something that it you know, just.

00:15:02
Speaker 1: Just an extreme thing. Your kid destroys your life, Yeah, I mean it's it's it just it just needs.

00:15:10
Speaker 2: It destroys it in the sense that it's meant to and you're meant to build up deeper and better and your your heart's richer for and it's like, so you can't be the same person. It would be ridiculous. And just to see life take shape. I started to think that maybe personality traits and little things you do or just are all in there. It's got nothing to do with what I was saying or doing, just from generations passed on and who knows which part she has some different people, but it's.

00:15:42
Speaker 1: And that's it's sometimes that's scary. Sure, when I think about it, I'm like, damn, does she have some of my uncle in there? I mean, I'm.

00:15:49
Speaker 2: Sure she's just like I'm sure they have different How are you even ancestors you didn't even meet, like you have like your friends or friends brothers, And you're like, yeah, it doesn't even seem like the part of the family or like their personality was just so different than the rest of the family.

00:16:09
Speaker 1: Friends who were twins, and you just couldn't believe.

00:16:12
Speaker 2: Dude, I was a twin. It passed away at five months, but I was I was so curious that, not not to bring a down. Wow, you're like, oh, but yeah, I always feel like there was something. I'm always so curious about what that would have what my life would have been like had I had a twin.

00:16:33
Speaker 1: Were you able to glean from your parents, how similar not you were in the five months, Like we talked.

00:16:40
Speaker 2: About five months in like, my mom didn't know she had twins, and it was five months, but it still looked like a little human. Supposedly when it came out my dad. This might be a little graphic, but my dad took it out of the toilet and they brought it to the hospital and they said it.

00:16:53
Speaker 1: Looked like a little kid.

00:16:55
Speaker 2: I always questioned this, but the doctor was like, yeah, you lost the baby. Those are just phantom feelings. And like a few weeks later she found out she was still pregnant with me. And I remember knowing that as a kid, but as a kid, you don't like really think what that must feel like for your parents. It wasn't until I was thirty six, and I was like, man, that must have been weird to have I think, is it called stillborn to like have a kid come out like that, and like that's heavy, that's not a light thing. And then I didn't realize how close she worked so much so that the nail and part of the other placenta was on mine when it came out like one of the things, and so like it made me like.

00:17:35
Speaker 1: And actually it made me.

00:17:36
Speaker 2: Cry because I was just like imagining just being that close to someone. There must be some kind of energy in there, you know, when you're like being made.

00:17:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. I know at the time you weren't thinking about how your parents felt, but it's probably because it was super overwhelming for you too. Or did you really not eat when I was a kid and when you were a kid. I mean it's hard to remember, or yeah, maybe it was it was too much. I was just I always thought it was just like a it was just a story. I heard it so much when I was since I was little, so it just became like it's part of my story and it wasn't.

00:18:15
Speaker 2: I was older, I was like, man, this story is like a superhero story and that's when I did on the record before, I was like, what a cool way to create an alter ego through that story. And then this album is like the deconstruction of accepting. I made a record where I accepted being the front person, because all the records beforehand were just like, I really just want to be in a band. I just like writing songs. Yeah, they're just exercises, so I could try to write more songs in the band or just be a better songwriter in general. And on the fourth one, I was like, Okay, I just have to accept that it's just my name, so.

00:18:57
Speaker 1: Before you thought about it as exercise for the Strokes.

00:19:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first album was just like when I made my first album, You're to keep. I was like, if I don't finish something and it's just done, I got anything I was to tour it or anything. If I don't like finish it, I'll.

00:19:11
Speaker 1: Never grow because I'll always be like, well, it's just kind of a demo. I can change it. You know.

00:19:15
Speaker 2: Everyone always like, you know, that's just a rough mix. I'm changing everything.

00:19:21
Speaker 1: So it felt good to commit to I just felt like I needed it.

00:19:25
Speaker 2: I felt like I had stuff that i'd been nurturing since my late teenage years, mixed with stuff that I'd done after I joined a band. So I needed to get rid of it to move on.

00:19:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I wouldn't.

00:19:40
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be the songwriter today unless I had done that. But I just mean, I didn't want to be like I didn't want to release a solo record and be like, I'm Albert Hamman Jr. Look at me like I just always wanted to be in a band.

00:19:53
Speaker 1: That's all. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with more from Albert Hammond Junior. We're back with more from Albert Hammond Junr. So you feel like a guitar player like that feels like I just like writing songs.

00:20:10
Speaker 2: I didn't even feel like I feel like my guitar player now because that's where the role like.

00:20:14
Speaker 1: When I fell in love with.

00:20:15
Speaker 2: Music and guitar, I never it wasn't like, oh I like Jimmy Hendricks, I want to play lead. I was just like I like Buddy Holly, I like Roy Orbison. I just wanted to sing and write songs. It wasn't until I was in a band that I I don't know why I didn't click with me like guitar parts it should have maybe or I didn't understand it. I just I guess I fell in love more with the song than like the instrument. And it wasn't untill like I felt like I had to when I was in a band, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna have to. Even when I was first playing some leads at early stroke stuff, I was like like I'm doing this like wow, like it was so it was so strange. When I first started writing songs. It wasn't till like make an album. It was just to like be a contribute in what we were doing. You know, It's always been a struggle.

00:21:14
Speaker 1: I love performing.

00:21:15
Speaker 2: I've been I used to roller skate when I was a kid, so I feel like I've been performing since before in nine, ten, eleven, twelve, I would, you know, skate in front of a lot.

00:21:23
Speaker 1: Of skating's back Are you are you diving back in? Are you getting back into Well? No, I did.

00:21:28
Speaker 2: Like my skating that I did was you know, like figure skating and ice skating. Yeah, I did that alone with a partner.

00:21:37
Speaker 1: On ice skates. Store, No, on roller skates. They wanted me to do. It's so funny.

00:21:41
Speaker 2: The what was their name, Kristin Yamagucci, the coach wanted to coach me for the Olympics because his thing was like he was like, I can teach how you can do everything you need to do to learn skates and stuff like that. What I can't teach is like what you have. I had like posture or like grace, and I could like move. I think my dad wanted me to ice skate too, because there's money in ice skating. There's no money in roller skating.

00:22:09
Speaker 1: Incredible.

00:22:11
Speaker 2: I was like, what, I don't love ice skating like I love real skating. I mean it was fun, it's very competitive. I liked winning. I just remember that. I remember not being nervous and I liked winning. I was like practicing every day three four hours a day, seven days a week, and then one day at twelve, I like the hairline fracture on my ankle and then I was like, yeah.

00:22:35
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that anymore. Was it like your parents being like you have to go to definitely know you want it to or not. You can't.

00:22:44
Speaker 2: I don't think you could push someone into wanting to do that if the person didn't want to do it. You might, you know, every day falling down, getting up, falling down like you just hours and hours. It's the same thing with an instrument, right, I mean people ask for advice on guitar, and it's just like you're gonna have many moments where you're gonna want to quit. And it's the people that push through those moments that get better.

00:23:09
Speaker 1: That's all. That's all it is. Do you still have those moments where you want to quick guitar? Oh my god? Yeah?

00:23:14
Speaker 2: Tell you kidding? Like I love tennis and I was watching tennis and I was I was, I was angry. I was like, the number one tennis player has a coach teaching him more stuff, even though he's number one.

00:23:26
Speaker 1: I would love a.

00:23:27
Speaker 2: Guitar teacher to get me over hurdles. I have weaknesses on guitar. I'm very slow musician. I'm not a studio musician. My ear is slow picking stuff up. I get like stage fright in playing music with the band or other people, and like stuff I won't know or just not doing stuff well.

00:23:46
Speaker 1: I'll rehearse shit out of.

00:23:49
Speaker 2: Something so that I can perform it on stage where it looks like you can't imagine the person not belonging there, and I love that. I love that part of entertaining, but the unknown like scares me so like I'd love to strengthen.

00:24:04
Speaker 1: That ability.

00:24:06
Speaker 2: I mean, to come up with stuff for me, even like guitar parts I do on this album. I mean, I have to play so much bad stuff to find the good stuff, like embarrassingly, so you know, like for like hours and then sometimes it's quicker and sometimes it's not.

00:24:20
Speaker 1: But it's like.

00:24:22
Speaker 2: It's hard for me to have that confidence to do it in other settings.

00:24:26
Speaker 1: Do you have days then where it's like really working, like it almost comes scarily easy, like ever, nothing ever feels easy.

00:24:37
Speaker 2: But I definitely have days where I get enough confidence where I feel like maybe I'm not a mediocre piece of shit, like.

00:24:52
Speaker 1: Maybe I actually am.

00:24:53
Speaker 2: I remember turning I think it is to my wife and I was like after recording this, and I was like, maybe maybe I can I know how to write a song or something like that. I kept saying, like I've done it this many times, like I got it. There's got to be something there, right, Yeah, it's hard to the creative world can be hard. You set your own boundaries and disciplines, and there's a lot of time to be just destructive. And there's a lot of times for my my that inner voice I've been working on for a long time. It's just we all everyone has their inner voice.

00:25:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a rough voice. Your invoice, Yeah, yeah.

00:25:43
Speaker 2: So it's it can be it can be hard sometimes sometimes. I mean, honestly, I do want to find someone to like help me get over some some hurdles.

00:25:51
Speaker 1: I'm not.

00:25:52
Speaker 2: I'm really good at being told what to do and I'll go do it, yeah, and and do it. But if I have to like figure out I reads, like reading the instructions and like you tell me, if I do A B and C, I'll get to D.

00:26:06
Speaker 1: Then I'll do a B and C. But if I have to guess that AB and C gets to D and two months of gone by and I haven't one to D, Yeah, am I doing it wrong? Yeah? I don't.

00:26:17
Speaker 2: It's the same thing with food and working out. When someone told me what I had to do to achieve certain things that I wanted to and why it works, it's great. Yeah, I'll just follow what you're saying and I'll get to But if I had did like guess, I'd probably give up because I wouldn't see the results. I would feel like I was doing it wrong.

00:26:36
Speaker 1: Well, how did you early when you first picked up guitar, Like, how did you get through that? I don't know. It's a good question.

00:26:46
Speaker 2: Maybe early on was different because you're well, it's different in the same so there was I was still pretty private about it. I wasn't like I had friends or people in my school who were like, I play music or write songs, and they'd play you their songs like.

00:26:59
Speaker 1: I never did that. I wouldn't sit down and like play someone a bunch of my songs. You aren't at like lunch playing.

00:27:06
Speaker 2: People with those people who were like, oh I wrote this, I do it like the what's it called?

00:27:12
Speaker 1: We remember? You'd have like class squads or whatever, yeah.

00:27:16
Speaker 2: School meetings and someone would be like, oh, the assembly and this guy wants to play the song. Like that was not me, like, not that I didn't want to be like that. It wasn't like I was like but I just like, yeah, I didn't feel confident like that.

00:27:30
Speaker 1: I was just like, well, and then and then when you're not confident, the part of you is like fuck that kid, Yeah, of course you know, well you kind of gauge.

00:27:38
Speaker 2: You're like, does everyone It's like it's good too because you're just like, what don't people like about it? Because he has confidence and able to do it? So what is rubbing the wrong way? And so you learned something from that?

00:27:52
Speaker 1: I don't know. I started playing. It takes a while to get barchoards. I stuck with it.

00:27:58
Speaker 2: I really learned a lot when I joined the band. I became like, I feel like I've discovered myself amongst the other four.

00:28:09
Speaker 1: They're all very.

00:28:10
Speaker 2: Talented and quick and intense. I really like discovered what I liked and who I was in playing with them and even in whatever songs that Julian Road or parts that people had, or you know, learning to how you fit in.

00:28:31
Speaker 1: You know, you can play a a a barchoord and there's like, you know, three or four other solid positions to play it in that are more exciting than.

00:28:43
Speaker 2: That a bar choord. A barchoord works really well for a certain thing riff is happening. But then I found like different inversions and I realized, like inversions change everything.

00:28:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, just opens up a whole new door.

00:28:58
Speaker 2: At first, it was just like a third over, like you know, like three, five one, and then piano inversions started coming in, and then that's like where I am now. I feel like those different versions allow me to they all come from me a little lazy.

00:29:13
Speaker 1: You don't have to move so much. Yeah you can, you.

00:29:16
Speaker 2: Like, oh I look this minor here, and then there's this. The progressions of guitar are all are all right there, so it's like I mean, not always, but it just it can lean itself to new sounds and stuff like that. So like I think when I started, I didn't know what I was doing, not that anyone else in.

00:29:35
Speaker 1: The band knew.

00:29:36
Speaker 2: We all kind of like discovered knowing that together. I remember early on though in La and first hearing god By Voices and I was sixteen, and maybe it was like hearing that band that was like the you said, how did you keep going? So I probably, you know, thirteen fourteen, maybe as young as twelve, learning stuff, but like not really committed. Fourteen fifteen you're more committed. You know, it's like ninth grade, you know, first getting stone and life just changes and you hear music and you become a different person.

00:30:08
Speaker 1: Feels like overnight, you watch movies and you're like these people are incredible movie. What am I doing?

00:30:15
Speaker 2: And I went to like a private school, and you just like everyone's so boring. At no offense to people in my school, it was just like they're all so nice. I just mean, like the conversation was always just like college, married, make money, and so it just felt like there had to.

00:30:31
Speaker 1: Be more.

00:30:33
Speaker 2: To it than that, and it all felt like so planned out. I just remember, like I at sixteen and then I got my voices were like some a band where I heard and I know everyone talks about their low fidelity. I didn't listen to them like, oh this is low fidelity. I just heard amazing melodies and songs and like words and it hit me. It was like visceral music that hit my gut, that made me feel different as a person, like I walked down the street with a different attitude. And I think it's when you find stuff like that you feel like they're just game changers. You're like I was just like, I will find a way. It doesn't matter I need to be the kid at the assembly. I don't need to I'll find my way.

00:31:21
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. Once you found guided by Voices, did similar sounds continue to excite you or did you sort of go like, you know, some people have an evolution where they discover something. They're like like guided by voices, and it's like, oh, like, well they liked you know, I don't know Susie and in the banshees or whatever, they will just keep going.

00:31:42
Speaker 2: Forward or I don't, Oh no, I find I definitely found people like that. I had a close friend named Matt Rivetto who was like my slightly older and he was like my style and music like icon, you know, he was like eighteen, I was sixteen. I just like looked up to him at the coolest hair, dressed like these weird thrift suits, and I was just like, this guy is amazing, and yeah, he would show me stuff and it was amazing to see, like like.

00:32:14
Speaker 1: The modern Lovers.

00:32:17
Speaker 2: That band had the guitars and keyboard and talking heads and the drummer in the cars, you know, and.

00:32:25
Speaker 1: So it's like and you just start you start going to that. You say Elvis.

00:32:29
Speaker 2: Costello and then like Nick Lowe because he produced it, and you hear his songs and you're just like, oh wow, he was like such an interesting songwriter. And then those songs are similar to like Squeeze, but those early time with like guy to have voices was probably like in that same world would be like built to spill. They were very moving for me. They covered Someday at Irving Plaza in like two thousand and one or two. We came to see them and they scribbled it from the set list. I mean, we didn't see it, and we're like, oh, it's so weird that they were scribbling. I know they get stoned and maybe they got weird. But but and then they covered it and it was like the best. You know, normally when someone covers a song, you're just like, thanks for ruining it. They did such an amazing job. It was like I was like anything. Jill and I were like crying at the show. It was so good.

00:33:24
Speaker 1: It was great, man.

00:33:26
Speaker 2: But yeah, just an amazing band right with like songs. Yeah, who else was in there? I mean so many people, you know, the The Cure of the Cars, the Beatles, Stones. But I also grew up with like Phil Collins and Elton John when I was like nine ten. I love those songs, So I bet part of me still has those like big eighties songs deep inside me.

00:33:52
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, man.

00:33:54
Speaker 2: Like I don't find it cheesy. I think they're just like really good songs. Whitney Houston, Like I just I'm just like.

00:33:59
Speaker 1: Man, are you Whitney fan? Yeah? I love Whitney Houston. Man. Yeah, amazing voice, I mean, my god, amazing voice. And also like could go really big and like do like the I have an incredible voice thing. It could also just be sing a song straight and just fucked you're so good.

00:34:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, just an incredible This was around that time. I mean, you slowly build. I have like an encyclopedia of music. What's funny is that I got into music at different stages, right, Like I remember being like my early thirties and I got into the Misfits, and I feel like that's a band you find when you're like fifteen. Yeah, but like I feel like my fifteen was like thirty one. Like I was like late to the late to Honestly, it was late to the game. Like in my early thirties, I was like, oh, I need something like this in my set list when I play, I need some like aggression like that.

00:34:52
Speaker 1: And I spent like a whole.

00:34:54
Speaker 2: Record trying to find my own versions of it. It's so I didn't want to sound like the misfits, But I just I liked the vibe that it was. It was coming off right, and I so, I mean, it's it's funny to have that delay, because I did feel like that's something when you have like a teenage anks usually and I had that like.

00:35:15
Speaker 1: An angst in my early thirties. Sometimes I rediscover my teenage angst. I don't know why I was. I mean, I was listening to a lot of your solo records and a lot of Stroke stuff in the last few days, and then for some reason on the way here, I don't know if it was because of listening to you got your music or what, but I just was compelled to put on Black Sabbath, which is so cool. You know. Oftentimes it just comes on and it's like cool, but actually put it on this time, and uh, I was like fuck. I feel like yeah, I feel like fuck, fuck.

00:35:42
Speaker 2: The world, you know, like there's such a there's such a cool, interesting band. I feel like sometimes they're they're like logo or what people think they are because time has passed and people have been inspired by them. But they're very melodic band. Yeah, and like this stuff is like not that distorted or dirty. It's like a very it's very straightforward. It's not theatrical. Maybe that's why it lasted the test of time a little more, because it's like and he has a very he discovered early on his voice right away, so as soon as you hear it, you're just like, yeah, it's a hook in itself. Yes, you know, even on a solo, stuff was crazy train crazy, yeah, solo, Yeah.

00:36:26
Speaker 1: It was that. Randy Rhodes play guitars. Yeah, such a guitar player. Such a guitar player.

00:36:31
Speaker 2: I don't forget the leads so because sometimes when it's like so much fire, it's like cool, I know, you play very fast.

00:36:36
Speaker 1: But just like the.

00:36:38
Speaker 2: Verse licks that he's doing in there are like I mean, like I could just listen to that and that'd be enough. You'd like, yeah, you have an amazing song. You don't need to play anything else. But yeah, no, he really got it. He knows his vocal sound.

00:36:53
Speaker 1: It's funny. No one tried a lot of people copy Black Sabbath, but doesn't seem like anyone really tried to copy. They did not. But no, like that heavy guitar stuff with like Azzi's sometimes sounds like you could be I know, yeah, yeah, it doesn't.

00:37:11
Speaker 2: Like that's where I feel like people got influenced by it, but then they they took a part of it that I don't hear when I listen when I when I listen to and.

00:37:21
Speaker 1: Even the drums, like the drums are really loose, like they're cool that there's a lot of parts, but like it feels also loose and I don't know jazz like jazzy, I guess, you know, very cool.

00:37:30
Speaker 2: They're a very cool fan I also got into later in life. Yeah, just that happens. Like I also like this never a fan of led Zeppelin to this day just doesn't move me. Wow, just like.

00:37:46
Speaker 1: No part of it. I mean, they're all amazing musicians. I'm not crazy.

00:37:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm It's just not something that I put on and I'm just like.

00:37:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't give meaning to me.

00:37:59
Speaker 2: I know people are they're like wow, really, I'm like, I know, I've tried.

00:38:03
Speaker 1: I almost feel they're a part of it that you don't like when you hear it is you're like, oh fuck that annoys me or this.

00:38:08
Speaker 2: I'm not a huge fan of the of the vocals. I mean I think that all bands, even ones I don't they got some great songs and I listen to parts and like they have it, but as a whole, like I don't like put it. There's a few bands that are like that. People are like blown away. I never really got into Pink Floyd. I love some of the guitar playing those with the solos. I would totally the Benz the literal bends that sounded like the radio Head out but like the way they would bend or do something like I would like, Ooh, I like that, you know what I mean? Like because I'm definitely one that just because I don't like something wouldn't mean I wouldn't reference a drum pattern from led Zeppelin and be like, oh that's cool, let's do something like that. Yeah, I just they're just what I mean is don't like is like I never They never moved me like I was describing God to my voices, where I like it gave me attitude to walk around.

00:39:00
Speaker 1: I didn't.

00:39:00
Speaker 2: I never felt that I'm waiting. I'm still waiting for the day. The Smiths never got into them. Everyone's like, wow, really, who's another one that everyone's kind of radiohead?

00:39:12
Speaker 1: Fuck? Great radio as amazing song.

00:39:18
Speaker 2: That I would listen to for sure, but I've never like put on one of their records and.

00:39:22
Speaker 1: Like luxuriated in the Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely songs where I'm like, is it the feeling? I honestly have no. I have no clue you think I want to be outside of it. I want to be on the inside. It's to be super clear.

00:39:37
Speaker 2: I don't dislike all these bands are incredible.

00:39:41
Speaker 1: It's just your takes.

00:39:42
Speaker 2: I would be honored to be in any of these bands or even come close as a musician.

00:39:47
Speaker 1: Nothing to do with that. You don't think you're better. I like parts and songs of theirs, all of it. It's just these are just it's funny that they are bands that have created something for other people that I didn't get that didn't happen to me yet. That's all. That's the only thing I'm saying. Like, did you hate the Misfits until you heard them? I didn't.

00:40:10
Speaker 2: Wait, I didn't say I hated anyone. I hadn't heard of the Misfits. No, when I was a teenager, I didn't know the mis I literally discovered them, Like, who is this band?

00:40:20
Speaker 1: This is amazing? You remember what song was? Uh? Last Caress? And I was just like how did I not know this? And then I proceeded to write like three or four demos that it was like trying to be I even covered that song live for a little bit.

00:40:36
Speaker 2: But you know, I don't hate any of those bands that I said. I think they're amazing. It's just like it doesn't resonate. Yeah, And that doesn't like mean there's probably even other bands. There's bands I like, uh song from songs from them are amazing that I I might have had moments with them. You can't have a moment with everything. And sometimes it's just like how That's why reviewing a record's kind of funny, because you know, like how many times have you listened to your favorite songs? And some days you're kind of like hu, and other days you're like you could be crying or like it's connected. You're in the matrix and you're like stopping the bullets.

00:41:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then there's there's there's there's groups that I dislike and songs that I songs at least that I intensely hate. But then once while I hear that song coming through the window or something random, and I'm like, fuck, this sounds really good. It happened recently and I can't remember wish I could remember what song it was, And I was like, fuck, do I like maybe I kind of like.

00:41:32
Speaker 2: I like this, That's what I'm waiting for. That's what I'm I'm it's it's come. It's definitely come close on some of on some of those, they've all turned around a little bit, except for led Zepp.

00:41:46
Speaker 1: Are people tempted to try to turn you like.

00:41:48
Speaker 2: They're always blown away. They that's the last thing they would think that I would, I would say, And then some people are like, you know what, I get it.

00:42:01
Speaker 1: I get it. But still I want to make it super clear that I think they're amazing musicians.

00:42:07
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm going to get I'm just waiting for the hate I'm going to get on this.

00:42:13
Speaker 1: They're amazing musicians. Some amazing I just mean.

00:42:17
Speaker 2: Like the three hour show, some of the long jams, some of like the vibe they went for.

00:42:25
Speaker 1: Just it's not like what I'd want to play, you know what I mean?

00:42:30
Speaker 2: Like I'd rather like, I mean, look at my top songs over here, what do you got to song? Like I'd rather put on Philip Glass String Quartet number three, Like I'd rather hear.

00:42:45
Speaker 1: That we have to pause for another quick break, and then we'll come back with the rest of my conversation with Albert Hammond Jr. We're back with Albert Hammon Jr. Do you think your critical voice makes you better, like if you were being honest with yourself. I don't. It's the same way. I don't think so people think.

00:43:10
Speaker 2: I mean, it's fun to do drugs, but people do drugs and creating because it's like I need to be like dark, right. I think you do need your shadow and your dark side to create, but you don't need to do drugs or be angry or have that stuff to enter the shadow. I mean, the shadow is there all the time, you know what I mean. I think it's just embracing the shadow and like nurturing it and like sucking that creative.

00:43:41
Speaker 1: That's where like creation really is in there. You know.

00:43:45
Speaker 2: Sometimes I actually feel I can I feel like two different people, like how I live my life and then how I am when I create. It takes a second to get in. Like the guy who pays the bills or drives or you know, I like put stuff in my calendar. I'm organized. That guy is not the guy creating. You know, the guy creating is like more of a more of a mess.

00:44:09
Speaker 1: Does one feel more like you?

00:44:13
Speaker 2: They both feel like me, but in fact that you used always tell my therapist like I want to be like Indiana Jones, but part of me feels like Indiana Jones who's in the plastic box and the toy store, Like I'm doing it, but I'm not actually living it. That makes sense, Like I used to be worse and now I'm a little looser. But like I was like, like I need to somehow enjoy the process more than the end result. I noticed it in like getting something ready in my in my house from moving. It's like you just want to get it done, but then when it's done, something else you have to do.

00:44:48
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.

00:44:49
Speaker 2: If you don't enjoy getting there, that's all you have is the getting there.

00:44:53
Speaker 1: That's all. That's all we're all doing always. And so when you think about the creative, like there's these two people. The person who pays bills and drives and puts stuff on your calendar, and then there's the creative person. The creative person or the person who's creating. Is that the same person that goes like on tour, when you tour.

00:45:11
Speaker 2: No, no, the person on Maybe sometimes on stage you can get lost in it, but being on stage isn't like you know people like, oh just got flow and I just got caught into it. At least for me, stage is like the way someone describes playing a tennis match, fucking nailing it, gonna beat this guy. To just breathe just because you didn't do something right. You don't fall apart while looking like you belong there, never ever showing that. But so it's like this inner thing that's just like the amount of times I've had an amazing show has gone from like starts strong, I feel like I'm falling apart, and I come back, and then something happens and you get lost, and then where you want to push the crowd away, they go, and then you're able to bring them back, and at the end you have more of that than when you started, So you feel like you did something right in there. That's usually like it's a show is like a whole experience. That's why you're so trained afterwards.

00:46:21
Speaker 1: It's like it's never just like I went out there and did my thing.

00:46:25
Speaker 2: I wish that sounds amazing if doing your thing is a ninety minute movie then yes, that's what happens with ups and downs and curveballs, and like your show is like your whole mix and so like, and sometimes you're not. This is more of when I'm doing solo stuff. But you're not at one hundred percent because you can't be. You're on tour.

00:46:45
Speaker 1: You're never going to be.

00:46:47
Speaker 2: It's about learning how to be at like seventy percent, but doing the show like you were at one hundred. It really is like and that's kind of like the secret to playing live music because it's never like you're at home. I meditated for three weeks, took the perfect shower, my hair is sitting just right. Let's just go do a show. It's like that, except the next day you have to do another.

00:47:06
Speaker 1: One, and you have to somehow get to the next.

00:47:08
Speaker 2: You're just like yeah, especially on the soul stuff, You're just you're tired. Nothing that you wanted to do is come out totally right.

00:47:18
Speaker 1: Has a relationship between changed over timely? Does it evolve? Is it like at first it was really fun and then it became a drag and then it's.

00:47:25
Speaker 2: Never I'm not jaded enough to not enjoy my life. I felt like I was built to be a part of a traveling circus cool, Like I do love it. In many ways, you are going to not like things that you love at some point inevitable. Still has been moments where like, I love music and I would write songs and record them even if I didn't play music anymore, because I just can't. It's just I just do it. I don't like I'm gonna sit and write. They just like come out right. I don't think I could stop that. But it's been moments where I've been like, man, imagine if I like didn't play music or something else. So, but I don't like dislike tour, and I've learned that the longer you do it, it's different solo. In the strokes of the luxury is that we have a big fan base, and so like it's more comfortable to tour.

00:48:23
Speaker 1: It's cool to reach new.

00:48:24
Speaker 2: Areas you haven't even though you've been doing it for twenty years. And it also when you've been doing it that much. The high isn't so much from playing a new song and having no one know it. The high is like watching how people are absorbing stuff that you know well and that they know, and then feeding off of that energy. Playing a song that is clearly making a crowd all feel nostalgic.

00:48:52
Speaker 1: How could that? If that's jading you, then I don't know.

00:48:55
Speaker 2: You gotta go do something because that's like, that's a magical thing.

00:49:00
Speaker 1: I feel lucky.

00:49:01
Speaker 2: I wanted to be part of that fabric when I was a teenager and I fell in love with music, and now to even have glimpses of being part of that fat is.

00:49:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's unreal. It's really cool that you can have that perspective on it while doing It's like you still maintain the fan perspective in a way.

00:49:20
Speaker 2: I feel like you have to, though I was saying that it's like your innocence from it is going to get beaten out pretty fast, just by the game you have to play. All business is a game, right, and when you fall in love with music, you have no idea what that game is. But it's not what you think it is, and it's not for the love of it.

00:49:42
Speaker 1: You know, there's you know, this.

00:49:43
Speaker 2: Stuff that you have to this stuff you have to do, but that's that's okay if you get to like create and do other things. Basically everything has a price, Yeah, some at some point, small, big, very rarely is that I create something so magical that there isn't there's still even when you do that, there's still some price somewhere. Yeah, you know, yeah, maybe you get tired of doing it, so you have to rediscover how to not feel tired from it.

00:50:12
Speaker 1: Yeah. How much input do you have on planning a tour? Like do you get to like say like I don't really want to go there, or do like a festival like in my in my Soul stuff or the Stroke stuff. I guess both both. Yeah, I mean.

00:50:26
Speaker 2: Touring wise, I would say Julian has the most say. I would say most singers have the most say about it. Unfortunately that's kind of like or fortunately whatever that's like make sense, That's that's part of it. I mean I like festivals as like a cherry, you know. To me, they're like they're fun when you're doing your own thing, and then then then you get to do them because they're like this crazy thing. When you just do them, it can get dark because it's how you.

00:50:58
Speaker 1: Have to look at it.

00:50:58
Speaker 2: Like a festival crowd, you're gonna play a certain kind of set list, you get seventy five minutes, you're gonna play a set list that appeals more to a mass. You're not really gonna take them too far. It's it's too big. That's not the point of it. That's not the vibe of the party. It's not like a Andy Warhol party and there's a bunch of weird people invited. It's like a very you know, it just it is what it is. And then at your own show you could have a little run of two or three songs that you're almost purposely pushing people away to then bring them back, or like this is where it's going to dip down, and then we can wrap it back up at the end and you can do something that you can play some weirder songs for you, or do something and can go, you can do a jam. You can just have more fun with it. So I think when you're doing that, eventually, like I said, with anything becomes boring. And so the playing the straight ahead thing for the giant audience, you're like, wow, I just played for the sixty thousand people.

00:51:58
Speaker 1: It's what a rush. So that variety it's helpful.

00:52:03
Speaker 2: So I always just trying to say everything touring, I always try to like want to have that balanced. But between management and you know they figure it out. Well, my stuff is different. It's like I'd like to tour places, but it's unfortunately. This is what I tried to do on this record was to have less of a band and have more stuff on tracks and create Since I'm not a band, I can create a weird world of like a three piece band with tracks and just have it be like weird or weirder than less straightforward than just having like I've always had just players play everything.

00:52:40
Speaker 1: I was just trying to be able to afford to go on tour. It's very hard as.

00:52:46
Speaker 2: Less people are like why don't you come here or come there? It's like I always debate how to talk about this because it's not like it's not a complaint, it's more just like realities of reality, like the band never feels stable enough.

00:53:02
Speaker 1: To just sit there and enjoy.

00:53:04
Speaker 2: Okay, Like I never feel like I never saw it's always like older brother. That's not negative positive, it's just like my personalities reaction to this thing I exist in the business, right you can't like you realize that touring in some ways is a luxury, which is great. You're a band that has an audience, like be grateful because that's like, and you can if you can then make money from that, that's an amazing gift. This other bands that would want to do that and just just like can't.

00:53:42
Speaker 1: I mean, i'd imagine people cold understand because even if you work a regular job and you have to take a business trip, you know, if the money's.

00:53:48
Speaker 2: Not right, it's like it's always someone else paying musicians like actors have businesses like we are the business even at the highest level, Like who's the biggest They gross crazy amounts of stones right right, they're still paying themselves company.

00:54:07
Speaker 1: They might get an advance from a big company and stuff.

00:54:09
Speaker 2: I got to advance it, but they're still at a loss YouTube for like six eight months of that touring, even though they're like the biggest band. There's no like but when you make a movie, the actor is a director is they're not at a loss. It's just the big company paying for it. So it feels a little a little different in that in that way, I mean, maybe that's what makes.

00:54:31
Speaker 1: Musicians a little cooler than actors.

00:54:33
Speaker 2: Sorry, guys, it's gonna get outside here and just have a line of actors. I heard what you said, and I'm mildly offended. I can take my mildly offended. The Albert or story. A lot of people mad at you, thanks for nothing. The Albert Hammond Junior story.

00:54:56
Speaker 1: Oh that was fun, man. I appreciate it, and I appreciate you. Thank you for the years of music in the in the new solo record. Can't wait to hear the second half.

00:55:05
Speaker 2: Oh man, I can't wait to just have it out.

00:55:13
Speaker 1: Thanks to Alberham and Jr. For chatting about his new double album, Melodies on Hiatus. You can hear it along with all of our favorite songs from him and the Strokes on a playlist at Broken Record podcast dot com. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Ben Holliday, Nisha Venkatt, Jordan McMillan, and Eric Sanda. Our editor is Sophie Crane. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription service that offers bonus content and uninterrupted ad free listening for only four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts, subscriptions, and if you like the show, remember to share ra and review us on your podcast staff. Our theme music expect canny beats. I'm Justin Richard H.