880. - Oneohtrix Point Never

All right, uh, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian, and they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world, and they do it three times a week. Jason, does that sound familiar to you?

We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place.

All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. [upbeat music] Oh, How Long Gone. Uh, it is Chris Black. It's, uh, day three of How Long Gone recording. Jason, hold on. Jason looks to be drinking a smoothie or an iced coffee out of what looks like a Steak 'n Shake-style cup from the 1950s.

Mm-hmm.

Did, did, did Carolyn serve you that on roller skates-

[laughs]

... or is that just regular? [laughs]

It, I am drinking a bit of a Sock Hop, uh, Egg Cream-style '50s-

Sock Hop is exact- Sock Hop is exactly what I was looking for

... situation. I don't remember. I, I know that a brand sent us this glass. It's just, like, a generic, like-

Uh-huh

... milkshake that you would, milkshake glass from, you know, a, an ice cream parlor. You can use your imagination, but I got, uh... What do I got? I got coconut milk.

Coconut.

I have coconut-

[laughs]

... creatine. Uh. [laughs] Coconut, creatine, protein powder from True Nutrition.

Throw your C's up, bro. That's creatine and coconut.

As well as chocolate-flavored Cowboy Colostrum. Two C's getting thrown up.

[laughs]

And then Bold Brew straight in there. [laughs]

[laughs] Dude, Bold Brew is a good name for a stro- a strong iced coffee. I know you were trying not to use the C word-

Right

... as, 'cause of your f- affiliations.

Mm-hmm.

But it's nice to, it's n- it's nice that that could work otherwa- Okay, that sounds, I have to say, of all of your little concoctions you're making over there, that one sounds delicious.

It's delicious. It's really good. I mean, the, obviously the flavors of cacao, cocoa, and coffee all, all swim together, don't they?

They m- they mix beautifully. They mix beautifully. Did you use your little, your little influencer mini blender on that, or did you have to throw it in the Vitamix?

I'm glad you asked that.

[laughs]

My, um, my KitchenAid immersion blender, it was, it was in the wash. It was dirty.

Oh.

I made a smoothie yesterday, so I'm like, "What am I gonna do?" This task was too small for my Vitamix. Don't wanna get it out, clean it. Pain in the ass. Perhaps too thick for my, um, my little-

Mm-hmm

... USB-powered whisk.

Mm-hmm.

But I got in there. It was, it was thro- It took a while to get the, get the engine turned over in the mud, but we got there.

Brr, brr. [laughs] It's cold out. Took a while to turn the engine on. That, that looks delicious.

I have a, I have a chopstick stir stick in there, 'cause throughout the course of this interview with our guest today, a lot of the sediment will get to the bottom-

It will settle to the bottom

... like one of, like one of Warheim's Barolos. We're gonna have to maybe s-

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

... we'll have the psalm strain it-

Okay

... in the pass.

That, no, that, that's, that, I don't know. I think the, the, the choosing, choosing to deliver that healthy milkshake in a classic milkshake-

Mm-hmm

... uh, container is a fun game.

And also our, our real blender heads know, as well as our, our physicists know-

[laughs] Of course

... you know, the way that the, the shape of the blending vessel is so important. This conical shape-

Mm-hmm

... allows a tornado-like-

Mm-hmm. 'Cause torna- to- tornado is always the goal when whisking.

100%, brother man.

[laughs]

I mean, that is the goal.

It's actually crazy. I know that. I don't know why I know that, uh, because I've never whisked anything in my fucking life.

Is it a cyclone? Is it a tornado? I don't know. We'll get Alton Brown on the horn, but yeah, once you get that little zzzz going, it, it's, it's not an if it will blend, but when-

[laughs]

... will it be done blending? [laughs]

Great, great. I actually had, I thought of you today, because I, I had, um, I went to Olive's, uh, the restaurant in Soho that's been here forever, but unfortunately moved a little further past West Broadway. But Thursday, uh, their special is a veggie sandwich, and it's the most '90s version I've... And I've had it once before, but it's been years, and it's got sprouts, it's got avocado, it's got cheddar.

Mm-hmm.

But it has a, it has a twist that I wanted to hear your thoughts on, and I usually don't like this, but a, a light dusting of chipotle mayo is, it really works-

[laughs]

... in this instance.

Okay.

I, I was shocked.

Okay.

I was stunned. I was stunned. I didn't confront anyone there. I was gonna talk about it with you.

Okay, I think I w- I, I think I have this sandwich pulled up on my Instagram. Looks like we've got, we got, uh, California avocado, Vermont sharp cheddar, crunchy sprouts, red onion, tomato, and chipotle mole-

Mm-hmm

... mayo on seven grain. It does look pretty interesting. I mean, I'm, I'm, I guess I like chipotle mayo more... I mean, I definitely like it more than sriracha mayo.

It just gives it a little, uh, surprising kick, I will say. Like, just a-

Mm-hmm

... just enough flavor, 'cause it can get a little bland in there with just a bunch of fucking green stuff. You know what I mean?

As long as you choose correct ingredients and season it correctly, I, uh, you don't need that. But, you know, if we're eating New York tomatoes in December, then yeah, get a little chipotle kick in there, 'cause it's, it's not gonna be perfecto.

My only issue is the size, Paul. It's a little, it's a little, it's a little, um-

Is it giving Dinkiana?

[laughs]

Now be honest with me, Chris.

Is it-

Is it giving Dinkiana?

I didn't wanna say Dinkiana, but it-

[laughs]

... it, it is giving... Well, it's just, it feels like a-

The flavor is Georgina, the size is Dinkiana.

It feels like s-

And how many times have we tangled with a fellow like that?

So many times. God, you don't even wanna talk about how many times I've been in the bathroom with a Dinkiana, but it's a, it's a-

[laughs]

It's, it's more-

But-

It's like a child's... It, it feels like it's from-

Right

... a lunchbox size.[laughs] And I also want to say-

So you, you felt that you were able to easily eat the sandwich all by yourself?

Yeah, I chomped it down. No juice box needed. But I was able to, I was able to resist, and I'm proud of myself, uh, a bag of chips. Because there's nothing that pairs-

Mm

... better with a sandwich obviously, than a small bag of potato chips. Uh, vinegar, salt and vinegar, regular, uh, jalapeno, I'm, I'm willing to go.

Yeah. I mean, obviously over there at Olives, I've never been but I've heard and I've seen, but-

Oh, have you never, have you never been? We should go. It's, it's like a new-

Never been

... it's, it's actually good. They have an amazing cookie.

But you could pair it with a beautiful black bean soup, and it can be vegan and gluten-free if we make sure we don't-

Wow

... add a little cream on top. But-

I also-

I had a great sandwich, and I'll let you speak, so I, I had a great sandwich down in Newport Beach over the weekend.

Yeah, I saw that, I saw that on your reel. It did look delicious.

It's a, it's a legendary sandwich spot that Carolyn has been going to for a long time. It's called C'est Si Bon. It kinda reminds me of the, uh, in Miami, they know Le Sandwicherie.

Yeah, of course. I, I usually like my sandwiches a little more white boy, no accent. But it looked like they were delivering... The bread looked white as hell, so.

I mean, I, I, I ask you my brother, who's more of a white boy than the French? You know what I mean?

[laughs]

They're, them motherfucker's clear.

That's honestly a good point.

And speaking of white boys, our friend of the show Adrian Diza, new proud parent and father, shout out to-

Congratulations to him.

Yeah, yeah, shout out to you and Erica. Beautiful, beautiful. But-

What's his team that he likes? Is he Paris Saint Germain?

Yeah, he's PSG.

Okay, b-

Throw your peas out.

Th- throw your peas out [laughs]

Throw your peas out. Throw your peas out.

[laughs]

Mm. But he put me onto Le Sandwicherie, and he's like a, you know, he's a, a French Armenian, you know, Middle Eastern. He's got, he's got blood all over the place. He's an exotic blend of a man, but his sandwich taste at Le Sandwicherie, I r- I don't remember the exact ingredients, but it was a white only sandwich. Not a white only sandwich-

Chill, chill, chill, chill, chill, chill, chill, chill.

But it w- I mean, it was like, it was like w- it was like chicken, mayonnaise, cheese.

Whoa.

Like no... It w- like it was, it was a white sandwich. And he made me order it one time. It was kinda like the white Airhead, where it's a mystery flavor-

Oh

... where you're like-

[laughs]

... this tastes like nothing and everything.

Dude, I s- [laughs] Dude, I saw a white Airhead wrapper on the ground the other day and I was like, "What? Holy shit, I haven't thought about this." Okay, and it, but this sandwich delivered.

Yeah, the sandwich at C'est Si Bon did deliver, but um, Carolyn was like, you know, "You gotta get it with brie as the cheese." I'm n- I'm normally a provolone.

Oh. Oh, hell no. I don't fuck with brie.

So I, I had a twisted blend. I had a twisted blend. But it was, um... I took a picture of the sandwich, uh, order, but it was turkey, baguette, mustard, Dijon, butter instead of mayonnaise-

Nice, nice

... cornichon sprouts and cucumbers with the addition of avocado and brie. Uh, but it was served with a dirty style chip. Dirty chips.

Oh, I know dirty chips.

But the bla- the, the flavor I chose, funky fusion.

[laughs] That's how I describe your personality, so that's good.

Funky fusion.

Oh, wow, n- I'm... So that, that feels more like a garbage disposal, like they just throw the leftover spices.

Well, it's the kitchen sink, Chris.

It's the kitchen sink.

It's the kitchen sink. I, I, I, I asked ChatGPT. I, uh, I, um, I chopped down about seven forests to find out what made up the funky fusion.

[laughs]

And turns out, yeah, it's, it's like if they, if, uh, misc- if barbecue-

Yeah

... ranch, and spicy fucked, you would get funky fusion I guess.

Sounds pretty good. Barbecue chips are a classic, um, dish that makes me wanna shower for some reason.

[laughs]

So I can't really have those and I pu-

I love you calling a KC Masterpiece Lays a dish.

I, I can't have those. But I was gonna tell you-

But yeah, 100% I need to shower after eating barbecue chips.

S- something about it, man.

I'm with you on that.

I went to Babbo last night, the new Babbo.

Mm-hmm.

And let me tell you something boy, that shit was banging.

They didn't cancel the flavors?

They didn't cancel the flavor, boy.

[laughs]

I had some, I had some, I had some crudo. I had some crudo, I had some pasta, but they-

But you didn't, you didn't do beef again though, did you?

No, no, that was the-

You did pasta alone?

No, I, but I had something I'd never had before, which is s- it was a swordfish Milanese.

Mm.

And it was delicious. I loved it. I had never had that before. I had a nice arugula salad. We of course splurged on the polenta.

Were there olives in play on the finish, or no?

No. No.

Okay, okay.

It was r- it was, it was quite good. We had, we had, I, I was just... I didn't know what to expect, and it was very, very good, and very busy.

Sure.

And they didn't fuck up the interior, they just updated it a little bit, so it feels the same.

Mm-hmm.

Um-

So shit looked like, the shit looked like the same, but it just ha- has USB-C chargers on the tables now instead-

Exactly, man

... of the old ones?

No, but when you look in the kitchen, you, and you look under the pass, you don't see any orange Crocs in there.

[laughs]

It's this Croc-free zone. But it was, but I was just like-

Croc check

... oh wow, this re- this restaurant is fucking... It just, it was also, like, a cold night in New York.

Mm-hmm.

It's like that kinda restaurant. It was good, it was busy. It felt nice to be in that environment.

Mm-hmm. You come in, what's, what's the little, the area where, the, the door that you enter before you go in the restaurant-

Oh, uh-

... for the, for the rain? Is it ha- it's like a rain door or a weather door or a-

You could call it a vestibule if you're being generous.

Whoa.

But I, I think. I don't know. There's probably a f-

Just ev- just crowd into the vestibule with you and seven other strangers while you dust the snow off of your North Face SKIMS collab scarf?

Well, I had, I had an [laughs] I had an issue last night where I did the thing. I got a haircut, and I was like, "All right, I'm a Citi Bike. This is the easiest way to get there, no problem." I get to the restaurant on time. Four different Citi Bike locations were full, because no one uses them in the winter at night.

Mm.

So I ended up being late for dinner, which really annoyed me. Um, but I was able to-

So you mean it was so full that you could not dock?

I couldn't find a place to dock, and in London you just leave them on the street.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean? It's like, it's like throwing trash on the ground.

The dark side of Citi Biking. It's all fun and games until you either, you show up to the lo- th- we got one more electric bitch over here. You show up, it's either a guy pulling it out as you're pulling it up, or you go over and it says, uh, you know, it's got one mile left on it. It's about to die on you.

Yes.

Or if you show up to a very important eventAnd the dock is full

Dude, I was circling the block, and I had to have my phone out 'cause I was trying to find the... It was, it, it was not pretty.

I would like to see one day in the future where you pay a person 20 bucks to dock for you.

Great idea. I had somebody do that once on a shoot, and it was really cool. I was like, "Sorry, I can't-"

Keep it running, kid.

"I can't, I can't dock." Um, all right, our guest is here today. He showed up on time. This motherfucker prompt. Okay, big dog.

Stay, stay on mute really quick, Dan. We're just gonna intro you. Okay, we got our... We have our friend Daniel, a Oneohtrix Point Never on the pod. Long time coming. His new record came out, what, a couple weeks ago? Something like that.

Mm-hmm.

And I've been, I've been playing it, um, with and without marijuana. The album's called Tranquilizer. It's on Spotify right now for you.

What's fucked up, Jason, is I've even been listening to it, and I like it, which is, I, you know-

That's crazy.

I'm shocked too. I'm shocked too.

Mm-hmm.

I, yeah, yeah.

We've, we've-

I'm shocked too

... speaking of his album, he's muted. That's, that's good. But, you know-

[laughs]

... Chris has found the dark side of his moon with this album. He's normally not an ambient head, and today I was walking the dog listening to this shit, and I was like, "Oh, damn. Daniel's in his Dark Side of the Moon bag." So let's give him a call. He's transcended vaporwave, and now he's-

[laughs]

It's days until he's playing The Sphere, I predict.

Transcended vaporwave and now I'm classic rock? [computer sound]

This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian, Stateside with Kai and Carter. This is covering a lot of our bases, Jason. It's a, it's trying to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world, and I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions.

A lot of questions, but how often? 'Cause we do this podcast three times a week, and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do?

Three times a week, and I, I, I have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe gonna be covering different stuff than we do. That's just a guess.

The Guardian is not some billionaire-owned platform. They're not afraid to say what they wanna say, brother.

Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in, in what, uh, journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at, at, uh, Stateside.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch on YouTube. It's three times a week, and, and who couldn't use more news? You know, especially, especially when it's, when it's not, you know, from here, let's say.

[laughs]

Give, give it a, give it a listen. Give it a listen. Every time I go to the doctor, I walk out of that bitch feeling dumb. I got no real info. This guy in a white coat just say, "You're fine," you know, "Drink more water."

He knows how to charge my copay.

Exactly, as if-

That's about it

... as if I could drink more water, doctor. I, I, I don't get data. I don't get a game plan. I just get a pat on the ass and get out there and, and make it better. But SuperPower's doing something different. SuperPower sends a licensed professional to your home, or you can visit a nearby lab if you're a little freak. It's a simple blood draw, one simple blood draw with over 100 biomarkers, which is way more than what you usually get, and it unlocks a real understanding of your body. Uh, their app includes detailed information on your heart, liver, thyroid, hormones, metabolism, vitamin and mineral levels, and even environmental toxins. Ooh, ooh. So from disease prevention-

[laughs]

... to treating that annoying brain fog or simple optimizing for your gym game, let's go. SuperPower is more comprehensive and advanced system out there.

Make this year the year we all stop guessing about our health with SuperPower. For a limited time, How Long Gone listeners get $20 off to unlock their new health intelligence. Head over to superpower.com and use the code HOWLONG for $20 off your membership. That is code HOWLONG, and after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about SuperPower. Do us a favor if you could and tell them How Long Gone sent you, and that'll just support us. Thanks. [computer sound]

That's a, that's a pretty good place to be.

No, we c- we can't call Pink Floyd classic rock. There's so much more than that.

[laughs]

I, I don't. I think-

Pioneers of the space

... I think they sort of defi- I think for-

I know. I totally agree

... be- better or worse, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin define cl- like-

They define classic rock

... more to me than, like, Chicago or whatever. You know what I mean?

Uh, yeah.

[laughs]

Well, there's different sides of Floyd, and there's different eras, and we gotta get specific, but we won't.

Mm-hmm.

We shouldn't.

Well, yeah, we're talking Dark Side. I mean, I, I, maybe it's on the brain 'cause I recently saw a video of, uh, of Gilmour with all of his, like, crazy analog synth gear from the '60s or whatever. You know, some-

I saw that

... it's like the godfather of all of this shit, you know? Any type of electronic music. So I don't... I mean, it, it transcends the classic rock. I don't... Do you know what those synths he was using or those analog-

Yeah, I saw that video

... sequencers are?

Yeah, he was, he was demonstrating the really fast arpeggiated-

Mm

... little sequencer line in, in that track from Dark Side of the Moon, I think.

[mimicking music]

[laughs]

[laughs]

Da, la, la, da, la, da, la, da, la, da, la, da, da.

This is the problem, though. This is the problem, though. I don't-

But he started out slow. He started out slow like it was a TikTok video. It was like, "It go like this." Do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

I don't want David Gilmour doing that.

And he turns it up now.

Chris, do you feel like when, when you hear people talk, when you hear people talk like this, Chris, does it, is it just basically the equivalent of, like, air drumming to Rush or something?

[laughs]

It's like corny guy shit?

No, actually, I really like it because I feel like I learn something because my, the way I think about music is simply do I like this or not, kind of.

Yeah.

Like, I don't, I don't, because I don't know how to play an instrument, I don't really get into the minutia of it all.

Yeah.

But Jason has taught, Jason has given me over the years of our friendship a, a class that people would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for in electronic music.

[laughs]

Wow.

And I, I, and he does, he does a great job, and I've said this before. He does a great job of sort of feeding me this stuff.

Synthesizing the information?

No, I wouldn't... No, ChatGPT.

[laughs]

I mean, like, he, he sends me... He'll find something and be like, "I think you'll like this," and I would say 9 times out of 10 he's correct. When it's something that might not have come across my desk otherwise, I'll say.

That's cool. Well, well, can I ask you guys another question?

Sure.

'Cause I'm not, I'm not too familiar with your, with your oeuvre.

[laughs]

But what, other than, other than, you know, uh, Jason being a electronic music head and-Chris, you're more-

Can, can you play... Daniel, Daniel, can you play guitar? B- uh, level with me.

Me?

Yeah.

Uh, um, no. Like, barely. I mean-

[laughs]

... bar chords and, like, a little finger-picking basic stuff.

You can play a little. You can play a little. You can play guitar.

We'll find a, we'll find a way to get through this.

A little bit. I play guitar. Yeah, I play guitar a little bit on, on one of my records, actually, yeah, Magic 106.4. And I, and I play guitar on a very, very early recording. W- on, on a comp- on a old anthology of mine called Riffs. There's a track called I Know It's Taking Pictures From Another Plane Inside Your Son.

[laughs]

That was the name of the song.

Boy, you got a 106.4 Never Ask song title right there. Goddamn.

Is that it? I know. That was one of the best.

That, that sounds like-

That was one of the best-

... it's from a song gen-

You're like, even I have outdone myself on that one. Wow. [laughs]

And I was, I, I really was just trying to copy, like, Ray Davies and, and, and Beck, actually.

Mm.

I was really into, like, Beck, uh, um... What's his record that's like the Os Mutantes kind of-

B-Side.

Well, that record-

Oh, oh, oh

... uh, before that. Um, Mutations. Muta- I loved Mutations.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I loved The Kinks. I loved Rod Cast. I love a lot of guitar music. I love My Bloody Valentine.

Mm-hmm.

I love tons of guitar music.

Mm-hmm.

I'm not surpr- I, I assumed that your taste would be wide-ranging and good. I'm sorry, but what were you, what were you going to ask-

Oh, yeah

... what were you going to ask me, though?

Oh, I was gonna say, well, like, if you guys w- uh, beyond that, beyond that, what, what's the basically, like, the vibe, a dichotomy, the vibe dialectic between you gu- how else are you guys sort of different or contrasting?

Oh-

Just-

... the, all the ways that we yin and yang each other?

Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

I'm glad, I'm glad you asked, Daniel.

Yeah.

Glad you asked.

[laughs]

Yeah, I mean, he's, he, he's a little more country, I'm a little more Aphex. And that's-

Yeah

... that's the first one. But, um, he's sober and I do drugs.

[laughs]

He's vegan and I eat sh-

Oh, cool. Okay

... everything. He's a dick, I'm a prick.

Mm-hmm.

I'm trying to think of all the ones that we've gone over. There is a difference between the two.

But you're, you, you guys are kind of exemplary of, like, if, if, if the US of A, our great nation, actually got our shit together-

Mm-hmm

... we'd be like you guys. Like, if we could all-

That, that's-

... just kind of agree, you know?

Yeah.

Damn, you know what? We're, we're a great example for-

Agree to disagree. [laughs]

We're, we're, we're a, we're at a great example for our friends in Washington, and if any of them are paying att-

Yeah, yeah

... if any of them are paying attention, I think.

[laughs]

This is a long play as we make our way to the-

You know-

... our road to the White House.

Yeah.

It's funny you say that, Daniel, because I've been encouraging Jason, uh, 'cause he lives in Glendale, and it's, it's a fairly small community, you know, near Los Angeles. And I think if he, if we did it right, we could get him into local office, you know, and kind of start his career there.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe he's on the school board. Maybe he's the comptroller. Something light, and then we kind of take it to Washington.

I, I, I j- I, I want a guy that likes Aphex Twin as my mayor or congressman.

Right.

Or whatever. That's cool.

Right, right, right, right.

I bet, I bet Zo- I bet Zoran's heard of Aphex Twin. You know, I bet he's at least heard of it.

Yeah.

He's... I mean, you know, you know what's funny is, like-

His chick definitely listens to it.

Oh, his chick definitely listens to it.

He says, "Turn that racket off."

Are you guys buds with Heems? I bet you-

Yeah, I know Heems. I know Heems.

Oh, good point. No, I, I know Heems.

Well, Heems is like-

He, he put him on.

Yeah, like, I was a... I, I love Heems, and I used to love Das Racist. I'd go to their shows and everything. So I was real happy to hear that Mom Done was part of that milieu.

Mm-hmm.

I love, I love that when he, when he got elected, he, people were, like, stereo gums, like, posting the email he sent them about his music in, like, 2010. [laughs]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It was, it was-

Yeah, where-

... it was so funny

... yeah, he's like in a... I saw a music video. He's, like, in a food cart or something like that. He's we- like, rapping in a... I can't remember what it is, but yeah, he had bars. He-

[laughs]

... he was halfwa- halfway decent.

Yep.

You know?

Mom Done, he got bars.

Halfway decent is better than most rappers if, if we're keeping it 100.

[laughs]

[laughs] If we're keeping, keeping it a whole buck. Where do you... Are you li- do you live in New York or do you live in LA?

I do. Yeah, yeah. Um, I live in Brooklyn. I've lived in a variety of enclaves-

[laughs]

... of Brooklyn, but all pretty much in the same area, like Greenpoint-

Sure

... Bushwick, Williamsburg, all that stuff.

Do you feel like you're settled in your current e- enclave, or do you think you could keep pressing?

No, I'm good. I've, I've always, I've al- I mean, I would love at some point in my life, maybe when I become kind of a, an elder statesman, a man of letters, I could imagine myself in the Upper West Side with my people, but I, I don't really-

[laughs]

Sure. Sure.

But I don't really, like, uh... I, I, I can't. I've thought about Central Brooklyn a few times and, you know, people are always like telling me that it's, Four Greens are really beautiful and happening and stuff like that, but I can't... I just am... I moved to, uh, Greenpoint when I was, like, 26, 27 years old.

Early. So you were an early, you were an early settler.

Yeah, I was... Well, I guess so. Yeah, it was probably around 2006 or something like that.

That's pretty early. That's early.

Yeah, I feel like that's, like, almost Williamsburg prime time.

You had to pitch a tent back then. There ain't no buildings up yet.

And where I moved, where I lived was just specifically, it was, like, it was where the Newtown Creek oil spill was, and I mo- like, they call it Greenwick. It's like, we don't really know what it is. It's a kind of like in Tarkovsky's Stalker. It's like-

[laughs]

... it's the zone. There's a weird energy up there.

Sure, sure, sure. [laughs] Sure, sure, sure.

And then, and I moved into a basement of a, of a, of a, you know, a three-family, uh, residence in the basement unfinished that was split in two by a, by a sort of, like, a weird shelving system that was both my closet and my, my... the, the other person who was being housed in the basement.

Wow. So, like, the, the wall, the wall that separated the room served as a closet for both parties?

Yes, with this kind of, like, shabby curtain that you get at the dollar store.

[laughs]

One, one... She had one curtain, I had another curtain, and she was, like, in real estate, but that's just with kind of like, "Yeah, I'm in real estate." Like, no, you're just an alcoholic. That's-

[laughs]

And, and she had, and she had, like, like, cats and stuff. And sometimes I'd be opening my side in the morning and she'd be opening hers, and it was terrifying.

[laughs]

It was, like, really upsetting. And then somebody was like, "You know, you really shouldn't live in the basement, uh, on this part of town because right under here is the, is the oil spill, and in the summer it heats up, so you're basically, like, radiating."

[laughs]

So a lot of my references in my music, uh, uh, like, early on OPN recordings had to do with, like, [laughs] sort of, like, radiation and stuff. Uh, it's always been, like, a weird theme 'cause I was, like-... completely paranoid that I was, like, getting nuked basically-

Mm-hmm

... by the new Town Creek Oil spill.

[laughs]

And maybe I did.

Sure, you live in fear.

Well, yeah, I, I think some of that radiation shows in, uh, in the final mix downs of those tunes, right?

[laughs]

They're, that, the, the fifth Beatle of OPN is, is mild radiation poisoning, right?

Well, that's right. Or at the very least I really like that cartoon glow, like that green glow.

Ooh.

The atom age.

Yes.

You can't fake that. You can't fake that.

No.

You have to get that the real way.

That's right.

Yeah. The Simpsons had a good radiation glow, I recall, just in terms of cartoon radiation.

Oh, that, that's perfect. That's perfect-

Mm-hmm

... cartoon glow.

That's where it all goes down.

Yeah.

The texture. I know you're a texture guy, right?

[laughs] Yes, I happen to be.

[laughs]

Yes. Yes. I think that's a nice way-

You're like, "Funny you bring that up"

... of saying I'm on the spectrum. Yeah. Thank you.

No, I was not going that way at all. I just-

[laughs]

... obviously the sound, the texture of sound is something that you're able to w- you know, that's a, it's a count- common ambient music thing. But also-

Definitely

... maybe the texture of a ping pong paddle could get your a- autistic ass off right now. Okay.

No, thank you. No, I know.

[laughs]

I was, I'm g- I'm with you. I, you're right. I, I have to-

I'm just trying to walk the bridge to Marty Supreme. I'm just doing a little Marty Supreme-

Oh, yeah

... breadcrumbing. Breadcrumbing. We'll get to it later though. Don't worry.

In the new, but in the new crib you got the stu all set up or do you keep church and state separated?

I keep church and state separated. Um, although I'm becoming, like, kinda more and more... I always envied, like, my buddy Ross. You know Hudson Mohawke?

Mm-hmm.

Love him.

So I, like, I love the, I love this guy so much. But w- one, one, one time... I see him all the time in these, like, kinda, like, secondary, tertiary, weird European electronic festivals-

[laughs]

... that put on guys like us.

I'm in Croatia for three weeks.

[laughs] Straight up. That is where you run into guys like us. And then-

Yeah

... a- and, and I always see Ross. I'm like, "Oh, what, what's going on? Like, how you doing?" And he's always just, like, sitting on a couch, like, completely horizontalized with his laptop, like, making a beat.

Mm-hmm. [laughs]

And I'm like, I always wanted to be like, like, just, like, you don't have to have the perfect conditions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just, like, break out Ableton wherever you are. So I think over the years I've become a little bit better about that and not being so, you know, "Oh, I need to be in the studio, and I need-"

Mm-hmm

... these sort of perfect circumstances.

Right, right, right.

No, I g- I, I get, I think that technology allows that, but it's more of a mindset challenge than anything else.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So you're, you must be extra envious when you see just, you know, Soulja Boy making a million dollar hit on his iPad-

[laughs]

... with the, you know, Fruity Loops.

It's res- yeah, ult- ultimate respect, and one of the great-

Mm-hmm

... he, one of the great geniuses of my time at least.

I, we, that's something we agree on at this podcast.

Yeah.

That is one thing we can come together on, is our love of Soulja Boy.

Oh, he's a gen- he's a genius. He's, he's beyond. He's a, he's like, he's like, you know, James Brown, Einstein.

Okay. So you were saying... Sorry, the, I had a little technical difficulty. My memory card got filled up, so I just, uh-

Oh, does Soulja Boy still... Chris was saying, "Does Soulja Boy still have it?"

Do you think Soulja has any gas in the tank-

I-

... or do you think he's sort-

I think of him as a nonlinear kind of, like a, he's just an entity beyond, like, hey, is this good or bad? It's like, it's this body of work, and it's this du- it's kinda like how I think about, like, like R. City Moore or like-

Mm-hmm

... Three 6 Mafia or like-

Mm-hmm

... like Lil B or like, like Ariel Pink or-

Mm.

It's like, it doesn't matter. Like, it's just flowing. It's like a, uh, either the tap is shut for a while and they disappear, or it's on, and you can just get into the slipstream and you're like-

The stream is hard. The stream is, is-

Yeah.

[laughs] Yeah. I think you, that's a really good way to look at it, and I do think that's true about... Like, I always use Kanye West as an example of someone that if he wa-

Mm-hmm

... if he wants to be good, he just will be, and it's fi- and like, I think those people, you kn- I think it's like a-

Yes

... s- it's a mindset and a choice you-

Being so good for so long gets a little boring though. You gotta shake things up.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that, I think there's probably some truth to that too.

Take it from me.

Yeah, Jason, you've been, you've ac-

[laughs]

After 20 years you had to switch it up finally.

Okay, Dan, you said, uh, it's so nice to have just a normal conversation.

English. Yeah. [laughs]

Um, you, does that mean in a media, press, interviews type of way or just, like, in general in life?

Um, no, in life I have fantastic conversations, uh, with all my-

Okay

... all my dear colleagues and comrades. But I, I, I think it just being on a, on a kind of, like, a class... This is a very kind of traditional press run I'm on here with Marty, you know?

Mm-hmm.

And, but, and, and so it's like-

Mm-hmm

... um, that's great because I have so much pride in the, in the film that it's, it's not, it's not difficult. But you do naturally, you know, you guys know about it, is you talk to so many people, p- you start regurgitating the same shit that, uh, you, you become-

Mm-hmm

... very practiced. People ask you a, a, a panoply of ridiculously unresearched questions. Uh, and so you're like-

[laughs]

... kind of, like, mind-numbing, like, oh my God, like, "What's it like to be a composer?" or something. It's just like, what?

[laughs]

I don't know. What are you talking about?

Did you like working on movie, or did you, was working on movie bad or good? Oh, it was good.

Yes. And, and for, for the most part they're cool. They're, they're cool, but it's just, you know, you get, you get kinda tired.

Yeah.

I think movie stuff is-

For sure

... I think movie stuff is different. I think that industrial complex is very, is much more extreme than any other art form as far as the press-

Yeah

... goes.

It's Hollywood. It's show business. It's this whole thing of, like, I'm also, like, I know, uh, Jason, you're in Glendale, right?

That's right.

Yeah. So you know about it down there. I, I'm, like, an East Coast guy.

I know about the biz.

You know, you're surrounded by it. It's just a vi- it's a frequency. It's a type of-

[laughs]

... kind of way of communicating and stuff.

Yeah.

It's a, it's a different kind of radiation if you really wanna put it-

It's a different... They're sun drunk down there.

[laughs]

And they're also, a lot of them are th- you know, theater, ex-theater kids or whatever. So it's, like, kind of, it's kind of sh-

Yeah

... sh- fucking jazz hands.

Sun drunk. Sun-

Perfect storm

... it's like jazz hands vibes in LA I think. [laughs]

I don't disagree. I don't disagree with you. I think that's-

It's just not-

It is

... New York is different.

Well, I mean, New York, I would say LA and New York are almost tied neck and neck for having the same amount ofOne man or one woman shows, you know, in a small-

Yes

... black box theater. I think-

That's true

... I think we're kind of even with the jazz hands, okay? You guys have Broadway.

That's true, right.

We do. We have plenty of d- we, yeah, we came to define jazz hands, actually. I, uh-

[laughs]

W- w- it's true. You guys are just kinda keeping the spirit alive, but we actually, we, uh-

[laughs]

It's, uh, we're the progenitors.

We invented it. But I, yeah, I don't, I, I s-

We perfected it

... I guess I s- over the years, there's so many videos of actors sort of losing it b- because by the fourth interview, you know, the, the fourth interview-

[laughs]

... in 20 minutes-

Yes

... with, like, a local news crew from Kansas City. They lose their fucking minds, and when you get, when you get old enough to realize, like, "Oh, they've been doing this for two weeks straight on, like, no sleep, and they ha-

Yes

... it's like, yeah, dude, you're gonna fucking lose it, 'cause it becomes mind-numbing. Like, I don't know. I just feel like that method just doesn't work that well, and I can't believe we're still doing it, kind of.

Do you-

You know what I mean?

Do you guys know that, like, I've... So first of all, I can't tell what's real and what's faking, Laura, obviously, 'cause of everything. But, like, yeah I'm, I'm, like, just doing my l- my s- my, my daily scroll, getting my, getting my gruel, getting my slop.

[laughs]

And it's, like, this clip of Don Cheadle and Mark Ruffalo, like, shilling for some fucking Marvel movie or something. And-

Mm-hmm

... Mark just is like, "And wait till you see the n-" I don't even know if this is real, I swear to God. I'm like, is this AI or something? But he's like, "And wait till you see the next one. Everybody dies." And Ch- I love Cheadle so much. He's, like, dressed to the n- nines. He's, like, so impressive, and he's so, such a beautiful man.

Yeah. Swag lord.

And he's just like, he's like, "Dude, just don't. Like, just chill. Like, you already blew it. Don't make it worse." Like-

[laughs] Okay. I think I pulled it up. This was, this was from, uh, I think it was from a Kimmel interview w- uh, from seven years ago, and Ruffalo's like, "Should I do it? Can I say it?" And Cheadle's like, "What the fuck are you talking about, you idiot? No."

Yeah.

Cheadle's wearing a leather jacket-

Yes

... vest, tie.

Yes.

Looking, looking fucking, like he's serving. Ruffalo's in a fucking T-shirt.

[laughs]

And Cheadle is giving him a great look in the face.

That's funny. That's really funny. I mean, I also feel like after you make a movie and you've been with someone every day for, like, a year-

You're sick of them

... you're like, "I've ha- I've had quite enough of your ass, Mark."

[laughs]

You know what I mean? That, that it... But I do think those v- there was one recently that went viral of Jonah Hill from, like, Superbad era.

Yeah.

And him, it was, like, him and Michael Cera, and they kept asking, and he was like, "You know what? No." Like, like, stopped it completely, and it was funny to see young Jonah scolding someone.

[laughs]

With the, like, the little afro and shit. He looked, he looked funny. It was funny.

No, no, to your point, I, I cannot wait for, like, you know, two, three, four weeks from now when we're all, like, you know, the, all the Marty gang that's doing all the press is like, we're, like, feral, and we're tired of the th- you know, we're loose, and we're, we're like, you know, just being oursel- we've just had enough of the-

Yeah

... sort of regurgita- it's that-

I think that's what-

That's the best

... yeah, I think that's what the, the one, you know, saving grace or good byproduct of the media cycle that fucks you up. 'Cause we can tell when we're interviewing somebody for a movie or who's done a lot of press versus, you know, a book or an album or whatever. It takes a lot longer to have the guest realize that we are, in fact, just having a regular conversation, and you can take your guard down, and you can remove the media training, uh, and kind of canned answers.

I wanted to take the A24 media training thing just to, on a anthropological level. I wanted to see what this thing is like.

Yeah, see what flavor. I didn't even know they do that.

I'm too lazy. [laughs]

You should, honestly.

I didn't want to.

You, no, you should. It's... I sat through it, I sat through it once years and years ago when I managed a band, and Sony, like, paid for it for the band to go through.

What do they tell you to do?

Well, at least back then. I'm sure there's maybe more advanced methods now. But it's a lot of, it's a lot of, like, tricks on turning the conversation back to whatever you're trying to sell, obviously. But also-

Mm

... they make you go, like, deposition mode, and, and interview you, and tape it, and then make you watch it.

Oh, Jesus.

And tell you how bad you did, basically.

Fastest way to learn.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's, it's, it's baptism by fire, for sure. But it was, it was pretty, like, I'm like, oh, I see how this would be helpful if you don't know how to talk to another per- like, it's not, I don't know. If I have a point I'm trying to get across, I'll get it across in an hour.

Period.

Like, it's not, I don't know. I don't think it's that hard.

It's harder for me to fake it and do something right-

Yes

... than it is to just have integrity and say what I mean, and I'm not, uh, it's, but I get why it's, could be useful for somebody who has, like, for instance, is very, like, OCD or, like, has-

Yeah, yeah

... like, really wants to understand the assignment or approaches it, like, whatever. There's all kinds of reasons why I might... I, I could not do that.

No. There's, I, no, I, I couldn't either. I think it's a, I think it's just, like, I think also it used to be different because it's, I, I think that the person giving the interview, uh, didn't have social media. Like, p- you didn't, like, you control it now. You really do whatever you want, and that's what people really see. The press stuff is sorta like, if you don't talk about it, nobody sees it is the, is the reality.

Yes.

If you understand what I'm saying. Like, you could do something on Instagram that will have much more impact than doing major press, uh, th- because there's just too much out there, and your audience wants to hear from you directly.

Absolutely. You know who's a G? I just, I, I, I met him in LA briefly, but I loved, I loved him because Josh, Josh O'Connor, is that his name, or Josh Connor?

Mm-hmm.

The actor.

Mm-hmm, the actor.

There's, like, a clip of him. They're, they're asking these guys, I don't know what movie it was for, but they're asking these guys, like, "Okay, so what's your, uh, step and repeat, like, posture? What do you do up there?" Or whatever.

Mm-hmm. How do you pose on the red carpet?

Red carpet, right. I see. I don't even know the, the terminology. This is how fucking out of it-

No, your terminology was actually more in depth and, uh, insidery-

[laughs]

... than, than mine

... yeah, step and repeat.

I've, I've lived in Hollywood my whole life. It took me a while to learn-

Yeah

... to learn that-

Yeah

... step and repeat was literally called that because youStep and repeat. You just take photos and... I thought, I was like, "Why do they call it that? It's just called a red carpet."

I know, it just, it, it always sticks in my head 'cause it's so cool. It sounds like a dance craze or something.

[laughs]

But, uh-

Uh-huh

... Josh O'Connor, like, one, one guy's like, "Yeah, this is what I do," whatever. And then Josh O'Connor's like, "Check it out. I got my shit down." And he just stands up, and he, he's like, "Look at... Sh- show my feet." And then he just adjusts his little sneaker, like a tiny bit. It's just out a little bit, and he's like, "That's it. That's my move."

Man.

And I loved it, man. I was like, "This dude's great."

That's really funny.

"This dude's great."

I think he's, I think he's, he's in the Beatles movie, I think.

Oh, cool. Well, he's great. He was so good in that tennis movie, man.

Challengers.

I love that movie.

I love the way he looks. Like, I really like the way-

Yeah

... he looks great in clothes.

Yes.

He looks cool, like-

He's amazing

... and I think he's-

Yeah, he's good in that, that, um-

I think he's like a real theater geek

... um, grave robbing movie that, uh, um, it, uh-

[laughs]

It's not, like, a euphemism. It's, like, literally about grave robbers.

[laughs]

I don't know what that shit means.

Um.

But well, I, I saw Chris' expression on his face, like, have I said something dreadful?

No, I don't know either. No. No, no. I don't... No, I don't think gra- I don't think grave robbing has another meaning b- beyond the, the-

Okay, thank God

... the clearly obvious.

He was a... Was it, was it God's Own Country?

Um-

I'm trying to see what the-

He plays like an I-

Pope Ga-

It's an Italian film, actually.

No. La, La Chimera.

Yes.

From 2023.

Everyone should see, everyone should see that movie.

La Chimera?

It's fantastic.

Okay.

And he's really, really good in it. He's great.

Great.

Yeah.

Archeologist turned grave robber. What a great idea for a film.

Oh, it's fantastic.

With actors like that, I feel like those guys come out of nowhere, even though they've probably been working for 10 years, and then they're in... They're... I see them every day of my life. Once it, once it starts working, I feel like I just... I see Josh O'Connor every day.

Mm.

And I, I like it overall. I, I just, like, uh-

[laughs]

I, I feel like you-

I know. We should be so lucky to see him

I see him every day, and I tell you what, it just doesn't get old. [laughs]

It just... I mean, honestly, he looks, he looks-

So-

He looks so great in clothes that it really is, like, he's the perfect subject-

Mm

... for most fashion things. Like, I think it's pretty... It, it, it-

Proto sample size

... he's used for a reason.

Yeah.

He's used for a reason.

But, uh, but I think that these w- uh, nowadays in 2025 where everything is about the clip, not the interview, not the, you know, we don't wanna hear the 45-minute convo with Josh O'Connor about the process. We wanna hear him, you know, do-

Stay woke hot take

... here's how I, here's how I pose on it or-

Yeah

... here's my fricking s- favorite spicy-

Here's a pissy little thing or here's a funny thing I said-

Right

... or whatever.

But I think now that people are sort of driven to that level doing the 78th interview on Zoom this week, I think when people start to just say... Like, go almost, like, off the script to, like, anarchy nihilist mode, that's when actual interesting clips come out, you know? And you have these moments, like the Cheadle moment you were talking about versus, like-

The slap

... let's go on, let's go on Fallon and play Twister. Wouldn't that be random?

It's the slapification of-

The slap

... of media.

Bro, the slap i- the slap is so cool.

Yeah, 'cause that's actually interesting.

The slap is so cool.

The slap is the... The slap is like 9/11, man.

It is. [laughs]

It's like before and after. Before and after. Hollywood before the slap and after the slap.

[laughs] Truly. Truly.

I don't think anything... 'Cause I remember watching that in real time because I love award shows. I don't miss an award show. And being, like, truly confused. It's like, is this a bit, or is this real?

That's it.

And it's, it's too powerful.

That's it.

It was too powerful.

Yeah, but also it's-

That's it

... we've all suspected that Will Smith has been scaring the hoes from day one, and that slap confirmed it that-

He's-

'Cause he hasn't-

Yes

... he hasn't done shit since except-

No, that's not true. He's p- he's putting out music. You guys should check it out.

[laughs]

[laughs]

[laughs]

Yeah, he put out a music, and I think th- there was a video of him performing live, and they quickly found out that the crowd was fake.

Yeah.

It was, like, an AI generated crowd.

The AI crowd, man.

The AI crowd.

That was really inspiring to me. That actually... I thought about the AI crowd a lot.

You go from him starring in Hitch to A- AI crowds, and his, his son is the creative director of Red Bottoms. His daughter is doing weird shit. His wife hates him.

It's tough. Being a celebrity is tough.

It's tough.

I think a lot of these celebrities, we've said it before on the show, but I think a lot of these celebrities are particularly, like, not good at being online and should not be online-

Mm-hmm

... to protect their legacy.

Yeah.

Tom Cruise doesn't have a Twitter for a reason.

Yeah.

I- you read my mind, Jason.

Oh, really?

You read m- I was literally about to be like, I, uh, yeah, I was at the ceremony where they honored Tom Cruise recently, and-

Is that where he got his honorary Oscar?

Yes. [beep]

This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by our best friends at BetterHelp. Jason, we're, we're deep into May, which is, uh, Mental Health Awareness Month, and this is just a reminder that whatever you're going through, you don't have to go through it alone. Life is a damn journey. Some days feel good, and others feel overwhelming. Whatever's keeping you up at night, it's easy to feel like you have to figure it all out on your own. But the truth is, no one has all the answers. Well, and no journey should be alone. Having someone with you to listen, to understand, and to support you can really make all the difference.

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He was just so great, and there's something about this dude. It's like he kn- like know thyself. Like, he's like, "I am going to be the last action hero, the great-

Mm-hmm

... the greatest celebrity w- in existence," without doing this sort of like song and dance of being online and having Instagram.

I'm just gonna send my co- I'm just gonna send my coconut cake to everybody I've ever met every Christmas, and that's all, that's the only time you hear from me.

Daniel, I have some literature for you, 'cause if you-

Yes

... if you use the power of Xeno, you, Xenu-

[laughs]

... you too can tap into that wavelength, my friend.

Yeah, you said you like Beck, right? Okay, well, we got something.

[laughs]

Look, I think it's very simple, but it's also the most difficult step of your life. Are you ready for this, Dan?

It's crazy. Just get out your checkbook and we'll figure it out.

[laughs]

If you could just, if you could just get out a checkbook, we c- we can start from there.

Okay, so you, you were there at this event watching him get his honorary Oscar and you're like, "This motherfucker has got it. He's like-

He's got it

... on, o- other worldly."

He just has it.

Yeah, he does.

Yeah. Yeah, he was amazing. He, uh, he just, uh... I, uh, I shook his hand briefly and I was so in a sort of dissociated, hallucinatory state because of his, his, uh, sort of mag- just his, the magnitude of his celebrity even affected me-

Yeah

... and I really don't have... So I just kind of m-

It'd be like, it'd be like meeting RZA or something.

No, I know. I was like, I go, I go, "You changed my life," and I have no idea why I said that.

[laughs]

I cannot tell you what I mean by that. I'm pretty sure it's true, but-

Like a Mexican girl at an Interpol concert.

[laughs]

That's how you were behaving.

I became like a... Yes. I became like a weird, like, 14-year-old. It was so odd. It was so strange.

[laughs]

That's really... I love that you just blacked out. You're like, "I don't know, man. I just-"

I blacked out, and his eyes, he makes like... I, I would assume that it's a lot like meeting like, you know, Obama or something like that-

Mm

... where you're just kinda like-

Yeah

... "Whoa, I'm like hypnotized," or something. Mm-hmm.

I think that there's certain, I think there is a certain gravitas that some people have that it's like the make you feel like the most important in the room type thing, but it, it, it's a level-

Yes, that's right

... it's a level above that intensity-wise, and it can only last so long or you'll, like, melt.

Yeah.

You have to, like, keep... [laughs] You have to keep going.

And that's why he's like a 60-year-old lesbian who's tapping Ana de Armas, you know what I mean?

Yeah, exactly. He's got the power.

[laughs]

He does not deserve that. [laughs]

He, he does not deserve that. But, I mean, it's... I think he, I think he really... I also love the, the, like, I do my own stunts thing.

Mm-hmm.

It is like, dude, you don't have to do that, but if it makes you feel good, like, by all means, risk your life every day.

I know. It's beyo- I can't even comprehend it. As a coward, as a, as a resident coward-

[laughs]

... I, I can't comprehend it.

As a known coward.

No, no, no. Don't do that. I'm al- I'm also a coward. I'm also a coward.

[laughs]

What are you sca- what are you most scared of? Do you get, like, claustrophobic? Heights?

Um-

Like, what are you-

Yeah, like when those weird-

Do you get hit by a car?

... you know, those kind of novelty thing, those weird, th- towers where you, where there's, like, the floor is, like, clear? I don't like that.

No, I ain't doing that.

[laughs]

I ain't doing that either.

Okay, so you don't like a Tower of Terror is what you're saying.

[laughs] I don't like it. I don't-

You're like, "I don't like to go to big buildings in Hong Kong with glass floors on the 100th, 100th story."

One of your early EPs, I think, Tower of Terror, yeah?

[laughs] Yeah.

Lightning Bolts Split.

I don't like, I don't, I don't particularly like, like, uh, uh, what's it called? Um, w- what's it called when you, like, try to do all kinds of, like, crazy stuff? What's-

[laughs]

[laughs] Uh-

Um, like-

... dare, dare, daredevil stuff?

Method acting?

I think you're talking about life. I think you're talking about life.

[laughs]

No, just, you mean, like, being, like, an, like a Johnny Knoxville, Evel Knievel style, like, stuntman-

Yes

... who's like-

Like, all that kinda stuff just kinda gives me the, the heebie-jeebies. Yeah.

Maybe being a mind freak could scare you a little bit.

No. No, that's in his zone.

I don't... No, no, no. That's where I, I... No one can control my mind except for C- Tom Cruise and Obama apparently, apparently.

Well, I'm thinking more Criss Angel mind freak.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean? Or like-

Machine's Got N- I could, I'll, I could take that guy in a second.

You could out-freak the freak?

I could out-freak the freak.

[laughs]

I'm like that. I'm like a Cri- I'm a little bit of a mind freak.

I, I think that's what-

Period

... required in your line of work, you know what I mean? You s-

Yeah. [laughs]

I feel like you sit in a dark room alone all the time, which is very similar to magic in a lot of ways.

On the psychic level, on the un- sort of dudes that try to tap into the unconscious-

[laughs]

... and sort of manipulate your-

Mm-hmm

... uh, your, the mood, y- the, the aura, no. I'm, I'll defeat any of them. I'm like TKO.

You are-

They're not getting me.

[laughs]

TKO.

You're the Pete Hegseth of s-

[laughs]

... of people trying to telepathically steal your energy?

Yes. No, no psychic-

This is war

... vampire can persuade me to join their cult.

[laughs]

None of that shit. No.

That's c- that's cool.

Okay. Have you, have you ever stared at somebody until they left the room?

Me? No, I don't. [laughs] No, I don't see... I don't practice-

[laughs]

... their form of witchcraft.

You're saying-

No, no

... you're saying, "I got my own brand, bro. I don't need to play with their little shit."

Yeah.

You lay down with dogs, you get fleas.

[laughs]

That's smart. Take the high road.

Yeah.

[laughs]

I'm like one of the good wizards, you know?

[laughs]

Do you... Yeah, you're giving good wizard today, for sure.

[laughs]

That's what the Riot bio says.

Yeah, that, yeah, that's... [laughs] Yeah.

[laughs]

I'm a good wizard.

Oh, yeah.

Check out my music on Spotify.

[laughs]

Yeah.

Um, all right. Here's-

I'm not a goody two-shoes, but I'm a good wizard.

Mm.

You know?

No, of course not.

There's a difference.

Yeah, you're, you're no teacher's pet, but you're also not inherently evil. And I think that shines through.

That's right. That's right.

We're, we're getting the hang of that now after talking to you for a little while.

For the, um, for the soundtrack, the Marty Supreme soundtrack-

Mm-hmm

... was this the first time where you're using your real name and not your stripper name?

I d- I did it on the previous soundtrack with-

Okay

... uh, Uncut Gems.

Okay.

Basically, like-

Yeah, you don't want, you don't want Warp, you don't want Warp getting any of this money. You gotta figure it out.

[laughs]

[laughs]

You know what I'm saying? You guys.

Was, was this your idea-

You have to figure it out

... or the, or your team's idea?

This feels like a management.

It was Scott Rudin's idea, actually.

The GOAT. Oh, shit. I-

Rudog

... I didn't know Rudog was coming into play

... he's like, he's like, he's like, "Well, well, what is this Oneohtrix?" He's like, he's like, "Well, who's gonna know how to say it? Who's gonna..." He's like, "You think you're gonna g- gonna win any awards with Oneohtrix?"

[laughs]

And I, I was just like, "All right. You're... apparently you know what you're doing."

Show me the lie, Rudin. Show me the lie.

Dude, that's really, that's-

Ask-

Yeah

... that's really funny for him-

... Oneofuckers, so you listen

... that's really funny for him to say that.

[laughs]

And you just be like, "All right. Sure. Whatever. Fine."

He's like, "Lose your name. It's cleaner."

Yeah. And it was kind of cool, too. I was like, "Oh, this is cool. I can set up this kind of..." 'Cause I was getting a little tired of, of, of the alias and the project. And I was like, "Oh, maybe I should kind of see what-

It's a mouthful

... yeah, it's a lot, and it's confusing. And, uh, I was like, "Well-

I try not to... I gotta be c- I gotta be honest with you, I try not to say it out loud, 'cause I think I'm gonna fuck it up.

Dude, I didn't mean to make it confusing. I literally was just messing around-

[laughs]

... and I didn't think anyone would ever care.

But it looks cool written out, which is very important.

It does look cool.

Which is very important, I think, in the, in the scheme of things.

It looks pretty good. Yeah.

And I also think, I want... So if somebody listening is high up at Google or GoDaddy or whatever, it'd be nice to have a URL suffix to be .never. So your website-

That is pretty cool

... could be sick. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

.never, I think.

Oh, .never.

That'd be sick.

Wow. I wonder if that's a suffix that's available.

Like how you can do .pizza or, or dot whatever-

Shit

... you know what I mean?

I'm stupid, 'cause mine is just, like, pointnever.com. I didn't do it. I should have.

Well, I d- well, I don't... I think you're, you're not allowed to just make any word be the-

Okay. I see

... the URL suffix. I think, like, the-

What's your preferred suffix?

... the gods of the internet have to dispel-

What's your preferred suffix? EDU? [laughs]

EDM probably. No, I mean-

EDU. [laughs]

Remember for the longest time, we really thought that-

.edu

... we really thought that, that .com really meant something. Like, you were a loser if it wasn't .com. You're like, oh, .net. Oh, step your money up. And now I like-

[laughs]

I mean, everything is just .studio or .work or whatever or-

I know. It sounds so classy and cool

I, I, I'm a d- I'm a dot, I'm a, I'm a .org traditionalist. I think that's the-

That's cool. That's cool

... classiest.

I like that. I like that. I'm with you, Chris. That's sick.

If I could get a dot, if I could get a .edu, I would obviously, or a .gov. Those are the only two that rank higher than the classic.

It has an early internet feel to it.

I don't want to steal, steal educational valor. That's the only thing.

I do.

So I think-

I, I really do.

I know. [laughs]

So that's fine. But you can let me do it.

I think org is really on point.

Yeah.

I have a dot... One of my websites is a .org, and I f- it feels... People get really... It's funny, Jason, 'cause you're right. Like, every... You can have, like, chris.dick, and it's fine. But, like, people-

[laughs]

Every time they go-

Yeah

... they're like, "Oh, what kind of org is it?" I'm like, "Bro, I picked it off a sheet. Like, it's not like I had to pay extra for this."

Like, "What does your tattoo mean?" You're like, "Mm, it's not that deep."

Ex- [laughs] exactly. Exactly. It's like-

Yeah

... it's not that serious, dude. Just a-

We're not talking about that. Yeah.

It's a website, bro. It's all good.

But I think if you have an, uh, uh... It's a, it's your civic duty if you have a .org to make your website look a little-

Orgy

... Web 1.0, Wikipedia, you know. Yeah.

There's some truth.

Which-

There's some truth to that

... which, which publicannouncement.org does.

Yeah, like some pillars.

Yeah.

Like some Corel art pillars.

Yeah, a little, just a little bit of GeoCities-

Yeah

... a little bit of all that shit, you know?

Some pil- pillars. [laughs]

[laughs] Some pillars. Yeah, to make it seem legit.

If the pillars could be 8-bit animated GIFs that rotate or something like that.

But you do, you do some... Do you, do you work with somebody different for, like, design stuff? Or do you do it... Do you have, like, a guy you lock in with?

I've, I, um, I go through basically kind of, like, eras with designers. And, um, I really love the current designer with, um... Yeah, I like a kind of a young gun-

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

... designer.

Mm-hmm.

No diddy.

I like a, I like them un- I like them underage, too. As long as that Figma's of age, I'm happy.

[laughs]

[laughs]

As long as the Figma's 18 plus, I'm good to go.

I know. I mean, I used to work with, um, uh, David Rudnick, who actually did, um, the Marty Supreme-

Oh, yeah

... soundtrack, uh, package and artwork, and a bunch of the typography.

I didn't know Da- I didn't know David... Oh, so he... Okay, I thought he was just on Twitter, but he is a designer. That's good to know.

[laughs]

Yeah, I know. He's... I know. He's... Yeah, look.

He took a break from designing techno 10-inch album sleeves.

To have opinions, to have opinions. I know.

No, we love-

But-

... we love Rudnick over here for the show

... Rudnick is amazing.

We do. We do.

He's amazing. And, um, his work on, on the Marty Supreme stuff, it's crazy, 'cause it's, it, it's in the film. It's the awnings. It's, it's the crazy, like, Jewish shtetl.

Oh, that's cool. That's cool.

There's a, a... Basically, I don't want to give a, away too much, but there's a pen company in, in the film called Rockwell Ink, and he designed the Rockwell brand and identity and all.

Oh, that's cool. That's cool.

It's, it's pretty incredible.

I love this. No, no expen- no expense spared in Marty Supreme, I tell you what.

No, it's cool. It'd be like, "What if... We should get... What if David Rudnick designed this pen company?" And they're like, "Yeah."Text him

Well, here's the thing about my guy, Elliot Elder is his name, and he... Basically what I found out was, you know, he was next up. Like Rudnick tried to, to, tried to basically, like hire him or something like that.

Right.

Like, so that he wouldn't-

Mm

... become the next Rudnick.

Yeah.

Classic.

Oldest trick in the book. And that's what, uh, Batali did too.

Didn't work.

Mm-hmm.

Elliot believed, b- believed in himself.

Mm-hmm.

He bet on himself.

He went out there.

He bet on himself.

He bet on himself, which is the great lesson of, uh, Marty Supreme, perhaps.

[laughs] Look at that. It's a full, it's a full circle moment. It's a full circle moment.

Yeah. Everyone, everyone has to, you know, let, let their wings flap and go out there on their own, right?

I just feel like you're in one of those positions too, where, like you can kinda... They're gonna answer the call if you want 'em, so it's up to you to decide sorta who's gonna-

Okay. Sort of, but I don't wanna mi- I'm not gonna... I, I think he'll appreciate me to sort of, uh, uh, making fun a little bit here. But Elliot, like, this is how confident and cool he is as a young, a young man in the world. It's like, yeah, he answered the call, but he didn't really do his research. Like, I don't think he knew what my fan base is like-

[laughs]

... or how they'll, you know, like comb through every detail. So when we made a teaser for the new album, it's called Tranquilizer out on Warp Records right now.

[laughs]

It's, uh, like we do this teaser, and he flashes all this sort of stuff in there that was just, like-

Uh-oh

... random files-

Uh-oh

... from our work, like from our WhatsApp. And it, it's like my entire, like liner notes to my album. It's like fucking everything. And then of course, like right away, the OPN fans are like screenshotting every-

Mm-hmm

... thing.

[laughs]

And they were like, "Oh my God, it was mastered by Stefan Bentke. It was th- this, it was that." And I was like, "Dude, what are you thinking?"

[laughs]

And he's like, "Oh, I didn't really think, like anybody cared like that." I was like, "Okay. Thanks."

[laughs]

Thanks, dude.

He's like, "I don't know, bro."

Thanks. You didn't think anybody cared.

Well, you got, like you got like some fans, bro. I had no idea.

Oh, so it's going pretty well for you with this music stuff.

[laughs]

That's cool, man.

Yeah, like thanks for, like-

I should've charged you more

... Googling me before you decided to work with me, like for two seconds.

I mean, that's pretty, like... I think the f- that kind of fan- that kind of fandom is something we talk about a lot on How Long Gone, because I think we're all of a similar age, where that sort of access to knowledge wasn't available, and it made enjoying things-

Yeah

... much more free and easy, I think. Like, I don't give a fuck.

Yeah.

Yes.

I still don't give a fuck who mastered your record. Like I don't give a... Why would I care about that? Do I... It's, it doesn't make sense for civilians to care about stuff like that.

[laughs]

Like, it's, it's, it's a m-

No

... it's meant to-

It doesn't

... it's crazy. It's cra- it's meant to be enjoyed.

But I like that this young buck was like, "What's the big deal? I don't care."

Yeah, who gives a fuck? Yeah. Yeah, same.

And then it has been proven that it-

Oh, definitely

... it doesn't matter.

I feel like I learned something from him that day, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the whole point. That's the whole point. That's, that is a nice full circle.

Yeah.

This is why we need to surround ourselves with young people in the, in the work environment. Their voice is so important.

100%. I think the, the old heads need to be receptive to learning, not just like, like sc- you know, schooling the youth-

Yeah

... with wisdom, which is what traditionally the role of the old head is, and it's... And, and they should do that.

Yeah.

They have wisdom. But the same can be said the other way around, and then you get... Then you really, you're on like some-

No, totally

... some next level shit.

Totally.

And young people, 'cause y- when you're old, you get more stubborn, and you're like, "I'm never gonna do that."

That's right.

And then a young person's like, "Yeah, I would never do that either. That's stupid. Here's how I do it." And you're like, "Oh, you found a tolerable way of doing something insufferable," you know?

Marriage of the opposites, baby. Put it together.

Well, okay. All right. How much weed did you smoke before this podcast?

[laughs]

[laughs]

Bring it together, bro.

Like, dude, I don't need to anymore. It's like, it's like a-

[laughs]

It's like a-

Anymore

... alsiphed.

Anymore. Are you perma-baked?

You're perma-baked?

Yeah, dude, in some w- on some level, I guess.

I think that's... I feel like in your line of work, that's maybe a positive, you know?

Like, don't you feel like the early experiments you do with hallucinogenic substances, like you don't need to keep doing it? I think there's a journey, and you take something from the journey, and you can kind of move on. Like, you don't have to revisit the f- fucking movie like 800 times if you've seen it a couple times.

That's what I wish-

Mm-hmm

... I wish I would've known that about, like cocaine and stuff.

[laughs]

But it does, yeah. It's a little-

Different, different chemical compound.

That's a little different. That's a little different.

It's a little different, I guess. [laughs]

It's a different class of drug, yeah. That's true.

It is. When you put it that way, when you, when you go legal eagle mode, you're right. It is technically a different class. It is definitely-

You learn different rules on the coke than the ha- the hallucinogenics. You learn just how far you can overdraft-

I've never done... I-

... your account, for example

... see, that's my cowardice. I, I, I don't really... Uh, well, I, I don't think, uh, uppers don't really appeal to me, but my... I've never done cocaine.

Bro, hold on. You're telling me, you're telling me-

[laughs]

... you made all the Uncut Gems music, and you weren't on cocaine? That's crazy.

Cold brew only.

That's crazy.

I, I did. I've never taken it in my life.

I think it's cool. I think it's cool when adults are just like, "Yeah, man, I don't know. That one just missed me."

Yeah, yeah.

"I don't know what, like, I don't know why."

[laughs]

"You know, I don't know why."

No, dude. I know why. I know why.

Why, 'cause you're a pussy? [laughs]

Well, yeah. [laughs] Yes. But because I'm a, because I'm a coward.

[laughs]

But, but I think also because, like, I grew up in Boston, and the sort of the-

Mm

... legend of Len Bias was so-

Mm.

And then maybe-

Wow

... like I don't actually know what, what re- what, what happened with Reggie Lewis later either, but I don't, I can't specula- I ca- I shouldn't say, but Len Bias was-

Mm-hmm

... was really... So, and, and of course, like the Reagan era, like, don't, the fucking, um, this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs. The, um-

Stuck with you

... the omelet.

D.A.R.E program.

The sunny side up egg, and all that stuff. That worked on me, man.

Scramble your brain.

Dude, that propaganda, like, worked on me.

That's f- that's actually fun. You weren't involved in, like, hardcore in Boston or anything, right? Like, you weren't into that scene.

I was, like a little bit in a funny way. Like, my buddy, my, a very good buddy of mine named Ben SistoBasically was responsible. He was like a kind of young, precocious, uh, promoter.

Mm-hmm.

And he managed to get Fugazi to play, to perform in Boston for the first time-

Wow

... in some amazing amount of years, because they wouldn't come there because it was so racist.

Yeah, yeah.

You know? [laughs] They were like, they were like, "We're not fucking with Boston."

[laughs]

And Ben, Ben, Ben, uh, convinced them. So I was always on the... There wasn't a lot of, um, alternative culture in Boston in, like, the early '00s, mid '00s.

Mm.

But what there was was all sort of s- around, around what Ben was doing, and around punk music and, and noise shows, and basement shows.

Mm.

And this message board at the time called Lemming Trail where weird people-

Oh, I thought you were gonna say Bridge Nine. Damn. Okay. What's your, what's your message board called?

Uh, it was called Lemming Trail in Boston. Ben started that with his brother too. Ben was really, like, a instrumental part of, like, culture in, in, in and around New England, like punk and hardcore music around the time when I was getting out of college.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Boston was really-

He's a cool dude

... Boston was really a hotspot for... I don't... Yeah, I always wonder why that stuff happens. Usually it has a lot to do with, like, colleges and the per capita amount of young people in one place.

Mm-hmm.

Which Boston is, is obviously stacked in that department.

And, and if I can say one more cool thing about Ben, because it's actually might be interesting for people. Years later he made a documentary, um, about the song Who Let the Dogs Out. That's fucking amazing.

I, you know, I heard about this. I've heard about this.

Dude, it's-

Dude, that's a great, that's a great lineage there.

This has come up-

Yes

... this has come up on an old podcast episode, I remember.

Ben made this doc about Who Let the Dogs Out, and it's basically, like, like, he traces the entire history of the song and the songwriting. Sort of the, the-

Mm-hmm

... the etymology of who... How did this so- when was this song actually written? And-

Who are the dogs? [laughs]

Yeah. No.

That's funny.

He asked the, he asked the question, who truly did let the dogs out?

[laughs]

And the answer will shock you.

Yeah. You-

[laughs]

I don't wanna spoil it. It's available now on Tubi. I just looked it up. But yeah.

Yeah.

It's like, it's like, you're like, "Oh, maybe the Baha Men didn't write the song. Maybe they took it from this group." And then they're like, "Maybe this group took it from this group, and this..." Like, it goes back to, like-

And it goes weird

... hieroglyphics times.

It goes-

You know?

That's cool. That's cool. That's cool.

It goes weird too. There's some weird-

Yeah

... characters involved in that song, yeah.

Shout out Ben Sischo.

Cool.

Shout out Ben.

He'll love that. [laughs]

So when you're making, so you're wor- when you're making this music for a movie-

Yeah

... that's this fucking long, 'cause this movie's long.

Yeah.

This movie's like three hours long. How much actual music are you delivering? Like, let's get a, let's get the minute.

What, what the runtime?

What is the runtime on-

40, 22 cues, 44 minutes, 45 minutes about.

Oh, okay. I mean, look, when you put it that way-

Yeah

... it's looking like a good-

Yeah

... pay to work ratio.

It wasn't that bad.

Yeah, it's looking pretty good. [laughs]

Yeah.

So you're doing-

It's chill

... you're not doing as much lifting as, as Gwyneth and Timmy, but you're not not working, is what-

No. I'm wo- we're, we, we wor- we work. We work. I mean, it's, it's, it's Josh.

[laughs]

It's Josh Safdie.

We work in a WeWork.

Yeah.

But are you guys-

We work at WeWork

... do you guys get locked in and go psych, and go, like, psycho mode? Like, where you're, like, really locked in-

Yes

... for a couple weeks and get it done?

Yeah. So, so basically what happened was Josh, uh, you know, I finished Tranquilizer and I'm, uh, I'm in research mode on Marty Wanna, working on wrapping up Tranquilizer. My engineer, um, starts sort of prepping, uh, uh, the mix for Tranquilizer. Another producer named Josh Eustis, who's, um, he records under, uh, the name Telephone Tel Aviv. He was in Nine Inch Nails for a while.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

All right. All right.

Yeah, yeah.

He's a g- a great guy. Actually, he's out in LA, um-

LA guy. Yeah.

Yeah. So he's great, and, uh, um, does a lot of orchestration, conducting stuff. I link up with him and, and he starts setting up the projects for all these cues.

Yeah.

There's basically a cue sheet, meaning, uh, you know, a list of demands.

[laughs]

And, um, and Josh is like, "Hey, so how are we gonna do this?" Um, and I'm like, "What do you mean? We're just gonna write some music and, you know, you'll hear it, and then we'll revise it."

[laughs]

And then he's like, "No, no, no. Like, nothing has changed in 10 years. I need to do this with you. This is very spiritually important to me." That's what he said, "Spiritually important-

Mm-hmm

... that I be there with you." And I was like, "Okay, so we're doing it the old fashioned way, then we gotta find a place, uh, set up shop. Maybe somewhere in Brooklyn might be a little cheaper, might be more in the budget."

Yeah.

And he's just like, he's like, "We gotta find a place that's on our budget, like, next to my apartment, and next to the office," 'cause, 'cause Sarah, his wife, is pregnant and he's in the edit.

Yeah.

He's still working on all this stuff. So he, um, it, we found whatever we could afford in Midtown, which was, like, they... I don't even think we could afford it. They basically were just like, "Yeah, we'll, we'll do you one." But it was, like, this facility that's just basically a bunch of B room, like, editing room suites-

Yeah

... in a, in square circle. So we called it the fishbowl, because you're, like, surrounded by other people making, like, fucking podcasts about weed.

[laughs]

And, like-

[laughs]

... fucking, like-

You got the Las Culturizas next door to you and you're trying to...

[laughs]

Okay, so this isn't-

Dude, totally

... this isn't like you go to... Okay, this isn't like, "Hey, we're going to Marfa, and we rented a house, and we're setting this up-

No

... for a couple months.

[laughs]

And, like, we're gonna just feel it out," you know?

We're not like that, those kind of guys. Like, we're like, "Let's stack the odds against us."

[laughs] Let's make this as hard as we can to get this done in time.

Yes. Like, to the point where, like, we're in the fishbowl and there's people walking by. There's sliding doors to our little... I mean, to call it our room is, is bullshit really.

[laughs]

It's just some walls.

It was a hostel-

Yeah

... more than a hotel.

It was a WeWork.

[laughs]

But, and then, like, like, this guy walks by and he kind of does a double take, and then he's like, "Josh?" 'Cause Josh is sitting in there. And, and Josh is like, "Oh, hey, what's up?" And it's some comedian guy he knows. And he's just like, "Dude, no offense, but, like, why are you here?" [laughs]

[laughs]

Like, the guy was just like, "You shouldn't be here."

I thought things were going well for you, bro.

Yeah. But he's like-

I thought this was the kind of guy-

... "Why are you here? This is where we are, not where you..."

[laughs]

And, uh, it was that kind of vibe. But actually, you know, I was, you know, my spoiled ass was complaining about it initially, but it actually mirrored the sort of adverse, adversarial nature of reality for Marty Mouser in the movie in a way that was actually kind of good for us. And we really got into it. We, like, covered the walls with these giant black and white, uh, printouts of, of not the characters from the film, but real people that they were sort of based around visually. And I'll send you the picture, uh, after, but we covered the s- the, the walls of this cubicle with these amazing images. And-Just got into the mindset, and it was really fun. It was really fun.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, if you had all that s- set up, uh, the film takes place in, in the '50s in New York, so are we making some, some swinging-

Yes

... ragtime jazzy tunes for Marty?

Hmm.

You know what's funny about that, all, all, all joking aside? I did, um, in- initially, like, there's a cue where basically Mauser's, like, s- fucking speeding through the Lower East Side, uh, evading a police officer. And, um, it, he looks amazing in it. He's like... Miyako put... Uh, the costume designer, wardrobe, she put-

Mm-hmm

... uh, uh, Timmy in this huge light blue... Uh, I think of it as light blue. She insists that it's not a blue shirt. But, uh, but it, it-

[laughs]

... he looks like Superman flying through the streets.

We'll agree to disagree. [laughs]

He has a cape.

Yeah.

Is he on foot, or is he on an old-timey bicycle?

He's on foot. He's running through the-

Okay

... streets with this giant shirt that... You know, like, if you actually walk through, you know, like, L- Lower East Side today, you'll see a lot of that anyway, so, and that's the brilliant part-

Mm-hmm

... of it. But... And she, Miyako, is a genius. But, but he's soaring through the streets with this fucking cape, and, um, and it's so fast. And so I was like, well, you know, like, Benny Goodman style shit. S- it's like double time. It's like da da da da.

Hmm. Yeah.

So we, in a way, we did sort of sneak in some kind of formal, um, tricks from period stuff very subtly into, like-

Mm-hmm

... but we're talking, like, tempo and sort of, like-

Yeah

... the pattern of, of, of a cymbal in swing music. But never, we never-

Right

... really went there, no.

You didn't go. Okay.

We st- we pretty much stayed away from all that stuff.

So it still sounds like a contemporary score for you.

Yeah. It's a really weird mixture of stuff. It's kind of like there's a lot of, uh, there's, uh, orchestrated elements. There's strings. There's choir. Uh, Lurajie, the new age, uh-

Mm-hmm

... mu- musician i- is, is on it. Uh, Weyes Blood sings a l- a little bit.

Hmm.

Um, there's a lot of digital '80s keyboard stuff, particularly mallet kind of v-

Hmm

... vibraphone sounds. Like, which are really prevalent to, to, you know, new wave music in general. So it's, like, a lot of, a lot of that '80s stuff. But the, the reason we went with the mallets was, uh, 'cause the game itself. Like, I remember during the first spotting session, I, I at some point just, like, closed my eyes and listened to the movie. And it was, like, one of the early edits. It wasn't... But, but there was enough there where I could kinda, like, zero in on the, the, the sound of table tennis itself, you know? And it was like, wow, listen to the... It's this light ball. It's, like, really buoyant and quick. Everything's kind of light and speedy. And I was like, well, how can I really get there? And I was like, wait a second, a paddle is a fucking wooden stick, and the ball's at the end of it. We're talking-

Hmm

... about a mallet, you know? We can, we can g- we can actually get into, like, some vibraphone stuff.

Whatever it takes to get to the vibraphone is what I always say.

[laughs]

I mean, kinda-

You're like, "Look, dude, I really feel like I get you, Chris."

[laughs]

Like, you're like, really like, "All right. Cut to the chase. Like, is this shit kn- does this shit knock or not?" Like, I don't need the-

[laughs]

I don't need the backstory, man.

That, that is one of our yin and yangs. I'm all backstory. He's front and pass.

Scoring, I, I think the, the whole practice of, of doing this is, is... I'm not a big movie guy. Like, I, I do not care really.

Yeah.

But the scoring and how it gets done is really interesting to me, 'cause it's such, like, a puzzle that requires so much effort and sort of, like... It's such small pieces of music.

Yes.

And, like, how those all work together to-

Hmm

... like, get the story acr- It's just an interesting... It's a very interesting process that seems like a, it takes a while to sort of understand and get good at almost.

That's right. No, I mean, and it was, it was, it was so... such a kismet, kinda, like, fun eureka moment really with the, with the vibe sounds because you realize. Like, you're like, wait a second, the, the digital, like, the Fairlight Cuisinart kind of '80s mallet sound is all over pop music from that time.

Mm-hmm.

So I just had so much fun. I was like, hey, if we're doing mallets, like, I pulled, like, 300, maybe 400 sounds I could find, like, samples of those old keyboards from the '80s, and just started messing around with different sort of, like, textured... Like, here's the Depeche Mode mallets.

Oh.

Here's, like, the Tears for Fears mallets.

We got, we got all the mallets. We got mallets for d-

Yeah. It's really malleti. Yeah.

Miami Vice sound.

[laughs]

The Jan Hammer mallets.

For sure. Yeah.

It's really mallet.

Oh, yeah.

It's really malleti.

Well, you, you mentioned really liking, uh, Challengers, the film.

Yes.

Another A24-esque movie involving paddle sports-

[laughs] That's right

... with a very-

Good point

... more, more people would... m- I think more people have admitted that they like the soundtrack than the film arguably. Like-

Oh, yeah. It's so good

... it's, like, a really iconic soundtrack.

Oh, really?

I, I would say as equal as the film itself. Um, have... Is that something that you considered, "I'm making a, a paddle sports film soundtrack? Do I..." Were you trying to not do what Challengers was doing so you don't get lumped in the same category?

No. It didn't occur to me. I, I lo- But I did really, really love that, that score, and I thought it was probably one of, one of Trent's-

Most thumping-

... best-

... things he's done in a minute

... scores during this, like, huge run of scores he's been, he's been-

Yeah, that mother-

... uh, busy with

... that motherfucker's, that motherfucker's eating your lunch, bro. You got some catching up to do.

Tell me about it. Tell me about it. Can he just take a beat? Just give me a second, you know?

[laughs]

Like, like, I'm just like-

Why don't you, why don't you give Trent, you give Trent a new road bike, get him out there.

[laughs]

He'll be too busy. He'll be too busy riding.

He's a workaholic.He loves it. I, I, I, I, uh, I was really lucky to, to open up for Nine Inch Nails on tour, like years ago. And-

Yeah

... he, actually, he was really encouraging me to, to, at the time, to g- be like, "No, dude, you..." 'Cause I'd maybe dabbled a little bit in scores, but-

Mm-hmm

... I think it was right before Good Time. It was actually right before me and Josh link up, is when I'm on tour with Trent. And he... I think he, he could sense it. He was just like, "Dude, you really, you really gotta, you really gotta, like, focus in on scoring. I think this stuff is for you." And I was like, "Okay. Well, tell me everything. How do I do it?" And he's like, "I don't know."

And he showed you his watch. He's like, "You see that bitch?"

[laughs] Yeah, exactly. He's like-

That's movie money right there, huh?

He's like, "You think I know?"

[laughs]

He's like, "I just fucking walked in and did it."

He's saying, "Do you know how to, do you know how to say Richard Mille, Daniel?"

Oh, yeah.

[laughs]

I know.

Well, do you, do you think there was a s- so there was not a situation like you were talking about before with Rudnick and his understudy, where there was a time where Trent was like, "Get down or be down," you know, "Come over to Atticus' crib-

No

... and you can work with us"?

He never abso- he was... No.

Okay.

Trent doesn't need, Trent doesn't need to, to absorb. I mean, Trent is a monster, dude.

He would be happy to go toe-to-toe with you on the soundtrack-

He's good

... battlefield.

Dude, he is like a juggernaut.

But I think that, I th- I think that-

Yeah, yeah, yeah

... that's the encouragement, though. But sometimes when encouragement comes from a place like that, it feels a little more, um, weighty, let's say. You know? It feels like, all right-

It was amazing. That tour taught me, uh, so many crazy things. And I, I... What was funny was I was there to basically be a kinda like a, sort of weird padding. Like, a... I was an act of diplomacy because, uh, Soundgarden was on that tour. It was their 20th anniversary of Superunknown-

Yeah

... and it was, like, some kinda weird Live Nation shit with Trent where he was like, "You gotta-"

How long ago was this?

2000... I'm gonna say 15 or-

Okay. Okay.

Mm.

But, you know, like, they had had some sorta, like, weird, like, grunge, like, Twitter beef or something like that. Like, they weren't totally-

Mm.

So it was a kind of like, uh, like a sort of let's bury the hatchet or whatever. But one of the negotiation sorta, like, uh, tactics was like, "Okay. We'll do this tour, but I get to pick the opener 'cause, you know, I wanna, like, I want my vibe on this thing."

Mm. Mm, mm.

So Trent, Trent got Death Grips. Death Grips couldn't make it, and I, and I subbed it.

Wow.

You know?

I love that Death Grips couldn't make it. I think you kinda figure it out.

[laughs]

You know what I'm saying? That's kinda like something kinda-

No, but I like-

Gotta move some stuff around

... I mean, that's the most Death Grips thing you can ever do, is turn down a-

It is true. It's true

... a stadium tour.

Totally. I was like, "Of course you... they can't make it." Um, 'cause they got that dog in them. But I-

[laughs]

[laughs]

What was weird was, was, like, Zach Hill, the drummer from Death Grips, who's, like, a genius, like a prodigy, years back, like around 2010 or '11, which was a pinnacle moment for me where I was either gonna, you know, w- slot into somebody else's system and be like a, you know, like a sixth man kinda s- thing or do my own thing.

[laughs]

Zach was like, "Hey, do you wanna, like, uh, join my band?" Of course, I don't think at the time it was Death Grips, or maybe it was, like, something like that. But he was like, "Come to Japan and basically be the keyboard player in my band"-

Wow

... something like that. And I was like, "Nah, I gotta make this record." And I was a, I was... uh, I made Replica.

Mm-hmm.

So it's, it is one of those really interesting things. Like, part of me does fantasize about some point in my life where I do just get to do some kinda weird John Mayer shit and be in Grateful Dead.

Mm-hmm.

Like, what would that band be? I always think about that, and for some reason, my mind always goes to Animal Collective. [laughs] Always.

We... Okay, we can... We can... Hey, th- we can aim a little higher than that, Dan. Let's... I mean, like-

I know. I... L- look, um-

Well, I think that's, that's the point, though.

No, I li- I'm not... No shots at Animal Collective. I'm saying you could call them and be in the band right now. You know what I mean? I'm saying, like, I want you-

No

... to have to kick the door down.

No.

I'm, I'm, I'm saying it's a good thing that he chose to go his own way and not be-

Yes, definitely

... the 14th guy in Animal Collective.

[laughs]

Now he's solo-

Yeah

... splitting the money with zero motherfuckers-

That's right

... and selling more ticks than Animal Collective.

That's true. You made the right choice.

Well, on a... You guys are l- in ve- uh, looking at it, and, and to your credit, I'm not j- I'm not, I'm not judging this, but you guys are looking at it kinda like, what's the sm- what's the shrewd move here? What's the-

True. True

... industrious thing to do? But, but I think part of John Mayer joining Grateful Dead is also like, this band meant a lot to me when I was-

Yeah, for sure

... trying to figure out-

I mean, it's amazing from, like, a childhood... Like yeah, it's, like, crazy.

Yeah.

Okay. So in 10 years when OPN-

Yeah

... is kind of winding down, you can join Death Grips on the... and play The Sphere.

[laughs] Yeah.

Yeah, you're... Death Grips at, Death Grips at The Sphere.

Something like that. [laughs]

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Death Grips at, at Wrigley Field.

That, that... [laughs] I hope they're fucking putting out records.

Death Grips at Wrigley Field. [laughs]

But I hope they're putting out, like, their The Wall.

Yeah, they could do that.

Yeah, Death Grips at Wrigley Field.

Um-

That's right

... all right. I gotta go. Uh, Dan, I, also, Dan-

All right

... I wanna thank you for not wearing the Marty Supreme jacket. I know you're saving it for the selfie. 'Cause, uh, Tom Brady, Tom Brady already posted.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So I hope you're gonna-

Of course

... sorta follow suit.

That shit's already on StockX, bro. He ain't gonna wear it.

I thought you [laughs] I thought you were gonna follow suit. If I don't see a selfie of you in that fucking jacket, I'm gonna be upset. So figure it out.

I feel like one of you guys has, probably has better access to-

[laughs]

... to that shit as, like, honorary fuckboys than-

[laughs]

... than, than I do, man.

Thank you so much.

Nobody offered me-

Thank you so much

... but I say that with love.

That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to us on this show.

[laughs]

Um, all right, Dan. Thank you for listening. Uh, Marty Supreme-

Yeah, you got it

... i- is out, uh, th- uh, Christmas Day, correct?

Christmas Day. That's right.

Christmas Day.

Tranquilizer out now. And also we had, um, Haley Gates on last week, and you had-

Oh, she's the best

... a song on her movie as well-

Yes

... which is, which is great.

Yeah, she's great.

Um, thanks for taking the time to chat with us, man. We hope you had fun.

Yeah, of course. Likewise. It was a pleasure.

Overdue, bro. We'll see you soon. Later.

Yeah, definitely. Talk soon. Bye. [upbeat music]

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