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Bartees Strange has a question: At what point in history did hip-hop become rock and roll?
Then that totally shifted to hip-hop, and rock got really sad and emotional and became this different creature.
Thats just part of the unique way Strange, born Bartees Cox Jr., sees music.
Genre isnt about rules to follow but qualities and expectations to play with.
Music is fluid and expressive.
Looking back, he sees the project as an experiment.
I was always curious if there was enough space for a record like it, he says.
OnLive Forever, I felt like I was a little hesitant, Strange says.
Im honestly not really good at repeating sections.
Everything leads you to the second verse.
Im into weird sections and kind of doing whatever I want with them.
That felt natural to me.
The way I look at it, theres only one verse in the song.
Youve got this pre-chorus, chorus, verse one.
And you never hear another verse again.
After that, it goes straight to a chorus, big horn bridge, pre-chorus, chorus out.
The songs got, like, four choruses.
Its like a rap song.
Mulholland Dr.
This one also does the verse-chorus and shifts further into rap, but with Auto-Tune on it.
The first two songs, theyre rock songs, but I do the rap thing.
I introduce this pop-hip-hop idea and then I fully flesh it out.
I feel like the twin brother of Mulholland Dr. is Escape This Circus.
You have this big woozy drunk feeling to the music.
Its like a wave.
And thats what Mulholland Dr. is about.
The chorus says, I dont believe in the bullshit of wondering when we die.
Millionaires, you know.
And theyre like,Yeah, whatever, Im good.
Keep pumping the water up to my house.They dont really believe in the bullshit of wondering when they die.
Theyre just in this woozy, drunk, beautiful wonderland.
And the instrumentation really reflects that.
I feel like indie rock is coming more around to Auto-Tune, but still not everyone is.
Hes kind of a slimier person a person with a little more bravado trying to get your attention.
And I thought a cool way to do that would be through how we approach the vocal take.
Where did that come from?I just learned how to make it.
Im excited to do more songs like that.
I have some ideas.
Well try it a million ways until we figure out how to do it.
But I like rolling as a band.
The show is a band theres five people onstage and so were gonna play it.
I dont wanna do backing tracks.
Nobodys like A$AP Rocky every day.
Not even A$AP Rocky is like A$AP Rocky every day.
His whole shit is pretty fucking deep!
So with this record, I wanted to explore that more.
And Bon Iver had just asked what my availability was.
You look across the indie-rock space, and theres a lot of very humble vibes.
But for me, its a little different.
Im a pretty competitive person.
Im grateful to be here, but, also, I feel like I deserve to be here.
That song was me trying to do that.
And the song was fun to write.
I just never knew what to say on it.
How do the people you name-dropped feel about the song?I was glad they understood it.
I wanted to capture an emotion, and I didnt want it to be perfect.
I was living in downtown D.C. at the time.
It was a fucking zoo.
That figuring it out comes through a lot in the guitar part.
Tell me more about that solo.Yeah, my buddy Dan Kleederman played that.
Hes one of my best friends and probably the best guitar player I know.
Even as were figuring it out, we are guided by something.
Thats what I wanted the guitar to mimic, was that feeling.
Theres a shuffle underneath it.
Its not going to be from divine intervention.
I was thinking of, like,Fear and Loathing[in Los Angeles] vibes.
I wanted that David Lynchy feel to the song, like how it is in Mulholland.
A lot of the songs I write start off as country songs and then they turn into other things.
Im from Oklahoma, so it can always go that way.
Where is that coming from?I needed to respond to everything I was saying.
You know, you cant save the world.
Thats the secret to saving the world, is that you cant do it.
Hennessy
This also has this really live feel to it.
I make a lot of shit.
Like,This is who I am.
Like, Black dude with a guitar, its probably gonna sound like Daniel Caesar or Jimi Hendrix.
Or, like, hes gonna be a rapper or whatever.
And its like,No!
I do my thing.
I sound like myself.
And I just want to be loved.They say Black folks drink Hennessy you know, theyre lazy or whatever.
But I want you over me like, I want you to love me.
In the dark, when Im alone, if Im dead, if Im thriving.
I just want you to look at me as a person.
And just be a creative guy.
Thats the point of that song: to humanize myself.
Besides the production and cool guitar moves, this is who I am.
You were saying youre all of the voices on this song?Yeah.
It kind of represents all of the versions of me.
Its kind of a joke with myself.
I remember wanting to be a rapper.
I remember wanting to be a guitar player.
I remember wanting to be a country artist.
I always wanted to be everything, until I realized I am everything.
