Jeremiah Fraites and Wesley Schultz of The Lumineers sat down with host Brad Steiner for an Audacy Check In from the Hard Rock New York Rockstar Suite, providing some insight into their now 20-year career together, the brand new album 'Automatic,' and more.
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00:00All right, so before we get started to congratulate you on the new album, we got you a little present here
00:06Open this thing up here lumineers on. Oh, yeah
00:13Congratulations on the new album guys, that's amazing
00:17You can watch Hill Street Blues on the show
00:20For the first time. Yes, beautiful. Thank you so much. Yeah, that is sick
00:26for the small trophy case
00:31I've been to another Odyssey check-in at the Hard Rock, New York rock star suite with the lumineers
00:37Hi guys. Hello. What's happening? Not much going on with you guys these days
00:42Just just drinking a nice tea in the rock star suite. Yeah
00:46I think about this a lot because you guys can cross generations and you can cross so many different
00:53Lifestyles and in human beings. I wonder what the best place
00:57What you guys would say is the best place to receive a lumineer song coffee shop
01:04MMA fight. I always feel like we're just so quiet in the coffee shop
01:08probably
01:09Two teenagers making out in a car. Yeah. Oh, I one of the coolest thing a dentist off
01:14That too, though. Um, I remember watching the five-hour Eagles documentary
01:19and it just made me love the Eagles and just love them so much more than I already had and
01:25I think Don Henley said the Eagles
01:27Was music that was listened to by people in life important life moments were happening a cross-country trip
01:34First make out maybe the the death of a family, you know consoling you through something difficult
01:39And I thought that would be the coolest sort of compliment to our music is that it's the backdrop to people's lives
01:45You know driving. I mean, I think for us Wes and I we used to drive the 15 passenger van
01:50I mean quite literally sometimes 9 10 12 hours to the next gig
01:54from Colorado to Nebraska to Idaho wherever we were going and
01:58Throwing on records like bright eyes or just discovering listening even to not music like radio labs and these podcasts
02:06Books on tape we listened to I remember we listened to the hunt for red October
02:09But uh, which was awesome by the way, because after like 10 hours music, how long is that book fatiguing? It was long
02:16But it was it was you know, we were in there for a while
02:19Yeah, and I think you you fall in love with music when it's sort of in the background ironically
02:24But it seeps into your your blood and in that way
02:28I love the idea of putting it around big moments of your life because it just reinforces it
02:34No matter how old you get no matter whatever happens, you know exactly where you were when you felt that
02:39When it comes to the new album, congratulations automatic Valentine's Day very apropos
02:45A certain reason for a Valentine's Day. I wonder yeah, Ben Queller
02:50Musician friend. He said like Lumineers is for lovers and I like that
02:54So we're we're trying to put out a shirt that doesn't get us sued by the state of Virginia. Yeah
03:00But no, it was not intentional. It was like pure
03:04Happenstance, but it does feel like weirdly appropriate
03:09Feel like it's the most personal album the authenticity still is there for sure the
03:17Driving force behind Lumineers songs. It feels like the authenticity is the thing that I feel the most from you guys
03:24Take that as a compliment
03:26Yeah, I feel like part of it is trying to
03:31Say the most with the least, you know
03:34so some of it is like trying to figure out minimal ways to do something and then the other part of it is
03:39It's not always about like if I'm writing a lyric it's not about my life necessarily or it's it's trying to tell a story
03:47And tell that
03:50You know as like unflinchingly or as honestly as you can and
03:55so I I would like to believe that they that that that has a resonance that if you're just writing to sound clever that has
04:02a different feeling to it and
04:05it's also something that I got from like something early on like listening to
04:09Tom Petty's free-falling where he's like, she's a good girl loves her mother loves Jesus and America and it's these
04:16It's like smattering of imagery that like only he could come up with it's just perfect though
04:23Any and he kind of takes you to the scene and he sets it in the way that feels so personal
04:28I think that that as an example was like wow, no one's writing like that. I love that, you know, well answer
04:35Clarify something for me because I feel like I've heard a couple of different answers to this
04:38Did this how quickly did this come about from start to finish the the writing process to feeling like oh
04:46This is pretty good. I think it was like seven days of
04:50Writing. Yeah, which is very quick for us. I would imagine it'd be quick for any band, but
04:55Six months of writing Cleopatra about three months of writing album three
05:00About half that for bright side and you see a trend
05:03Happening I live in Italy full-time and I moved back to Denver. I went back to my old house
05:08It's still there in Denver where West still lives. We met in my basement. I think in four days we had
05:14Ironically, no one lives in your house in Denver anymore. We still go in the basement
05:18We have like the run of the house. It's like let's go where there's like garden level
05:22It's like where are you guys?
05:26Dark dealings I moved up firewood up to the the main we're living now
05:34It'll just sound too happy, yeah, we'll have to go back down to the basement
05:37but it was it was really fast and I think that it was odd that Wes and I both looked at each other and was
05:42Like I think Wes was like, I think you can fly home and I was like
05:46There's still got to be more toys. There's gotta be a shred of doubt that comes in
05:49Should have been this easy a little bit of doubt
05:51I think in the past, you know
05:53We we tended to maybe strangle our music metaphorically to the point that we knew
05:58And I think that was I think it had to be done that way
06:01I think if we did it any other way
06:03But I think from that sort of you can call it OCD you can call it
06:07I mean, I'm even proud of our obsessiveness with our with our songwriting format together over the last two decades
06:13I think that it developed a series of creatively shorthand with each other
06:18Whereas when I'm playing piano typically Wes is playing guitar and he's singing we start to kind of
06:24Fill these grooves in where I don't feel like it's copy and paste from previous songs
06:29We've written together, but it's sort of like there's a there's an incredible hive mind
06:33Or synergy that we have creatively that can only be obtained through so much work together
06:38I think how much though but when you're coming in though
06:41How many notes have you shared before you walk in and just plop down and say let's do it
06:45I think you had like eight batches and notes. I had less it's
06:49it's usually like I
06:51We used to live when we lived together early on because out of necessity, you know
06:56you end up like sharing a house or an apartment with roommates and all this and we used to just
07:02Be around each other a lot, but not really be like rehearsing or writing
07:06it would just be like he'd be noodling around or one of us would be doing something and
07:11That was a really great way to like find good ideas and so to sort of recreate that
07:18That feeling I'm like send me everything
07:20Like anything that you think is even remotely decent and I'm happy to like listen through it because it's kind of like I'm eavesdropping
07:27On someone in the living room. So it's kind of a little bit like that
07:33Yeah, it's a good way to describe it and there's like a lot of notes that end up piling up
07:38But then it quickly comes down to like a small batch
07:41Sure, and then you sort of almost like a collider where you're like taking two ideas and smashing them together
07:48Often I think the best songs are sort of written separately and then they somehow have this relationship that they can they can work
07:55Yeah
07:56But it all comes down to the familiarity that you two have and the comfort that you have with each other that you kind of
08:02Cut through some of the noise that doesn't need to be there, right? Yeah, I think yes
08:07Certainly, I think a big part of why you know
08:10this marks chair kind of mentioned in passing like it'll be 20 years in August of me and him writing music together and
08:18I
08:19Think the reason that it's so lasting is because there's not like much of an ego attached to any of our ideas per se
08:28It's like an excitement around finding good idea
08:31Whoever has the idea just getting to that thing and I think maybe that's what hands hamstrings a lot of bands is
08:39you know, you have a guitar player saying well, where's my solo where you have a singer saying like
08:45I got to mention this or you know
08:47I think it's it's I hope it's about something bigger than that and maybe a little less
08:53Egotistical and the end result is like you can get a better song because no one's there like the other feelings hurt
08:59I remember there were things like there are different instances where one of us
09:04I remember spending three four hours on these backing vocals early on
09:08Jarrett was at work and I was like in the studio recordings a vocalist and then I showed him and he was like
09:15I don't know. Yeah, I don't either and we just muted it
09:18But I think there is there's this propensity in music to be like well worked really hard on it
09:23So like it we got to use it or it's got to be good
09:27Moment in our like history this like positive long-lasting precedent was sent was set and I think that
09:35It works both ways mutually. I think that you know
09:40If Wes is considered the singer and the lyricist
09:44I sent him lyrics all the time that stink and sometimes he's like actually see something in this and even on a song first album
09:49submarines, I wouldn't consider Wes a drummer, but he had these really great drum ideas to
09:55To delete to subtract from what started out as a very like drummery
10:01Idea and he had these really like great insightful ways to like
10:05Pair things back and I was like, I wouldn't have thought but it's like you're you know
10:10Also, you're you're curiosity around the idea because I think some people go. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's this and they like
10:15I can explain it back as the resident expert and I don't think that that has any place
10:21When you're making something it's like it's just showing the room that you know something that they don't or so
10:26It's like very I mean, it's the same thing with
10:29one of my favorite songs
10:31Off the new record. You're all I got it's like
10:35It's in where we are in the last record where there's like these examples Jer will send a lot of notes
10:41but there are like there are sort of jewels and gems in there and it's like I
10:47Think there's a trust now to where he's not like he's trying to write and I'm trying to come up with everything
10:52But like there's not I think he knows like if I find something that I'm like, that's amazing. I really believe it
10:59I mean it and so song like you're all I got that hook
11:02Jer wrote the lyrics and the melody and then I was like, wow, that's like
11:07It's so simple, but it's so to the point. You know what I mean? Like we have kids now
11:11Yeah
11:13right right around the ages six seven and and four and
11:17Good there. Yeah, it's really
11:19amazing time, but they're they ask a lot of questions that
11:23Everyone should be asking but you forget to ask as you get older. It's just kind of like you accept it and
11:31Why you say grandma's in heaven, what is that, you know, like oh it's
11:36Hold on and then my wife might feel a certain way about the afterlife and I'm and it gets really complicated
11:41It's in our song same old song
11:43I'm like referencing my kid saying something that is actually kind of profound that we just overlook
11:50don't worry grandma's in heaven or da da da and
11:53The very Don Draper way of becoming a dad like I don't think about that
11:58Yeah, or or exploring it and then your wife going why are you getting into this dark subject?
12:04Or sitting down at a Disney movie and every one of them opens with like a parent dying and you're like, wow
12:10It's actually it's actually amazing of Disney that they do that
12:14Like you would never think they would tread in that zone, but I sat down to watch Lion King. I was like
12:21You know or you've seen Ferdinand. Yeah. Yeah, like first five minutes the bull gets smoked and my daughter three and a half years old
12:29She's like daddy. Where'd he go? I'm like I went to
12:31farm
12:34We said they became a star like when when somebody passes and I think it's vague enough that they're like, that's beautiful
12:40Like you thought you talk about ideas that come into the come into the conversation whose idea was it and correct me if I'm wrong
12:47The theory of this being what's real what's what's not real, you know, what's real in life?
12:51And I'm guessing there's some AI implications here. But with that's the theory
12:57How can you tell the difference between what's real and what's not real then?
13:00Well on Instagram I look for the an Instagram look for the AI
13:04Yeah
13:06But we're gonna reach a point where the comment section on any post is gonna say is this AI this is a like there will
13:13Be even more it'll get so it could get so good the irony though
13:18Just to rewind for a second is some of the special effects
13:21From like just a few years back make ten years back is sort of better than some of the special effects now
13:27And I think it's because it's they've gotten sort of cheaper trying to use AI for us with same old song
13:34it was like this idea of
13:35We wanted to do one take for the music video where it was like us in a room and a guy with a camera
13:42Like on a harness, I forget what they call it. It's like do you know the name?
13:47Stabilizer and he's it's a very heavy camera
13:50The guy's just moving around and he's kind of rotating his camera as we're moving around and we can when he's not honest
13:56We can do different things and reset and but behind us is this is these very real screens
14:02but on them is AI generated content and
14:06and sort of the idea of
14:09You know, we're real you think you know, we're real in that video behind us is very surreal and not real
14:15it's AI clearly and
14:18And you know, you see people
14:21They're like, oh
14:22My god, no more. Yeah, it's like AI is here to stay just got yeah
14:27We just now it's kind of just got here
14:29but it's also here to stay and there will be a way to use it maybe to cure cancer who know like there would be
14:34Great benefits to this and then there will be eye rolling things that companies and people do but I think we were found I was finding
14:42you take like a
14:45event like I
14:47Don't know the outcome of a game an election. It could be anything
14:51There's gonna be a I've seen all these weird AI of like a shark or an alligator and it's not but it's almost
14:59fooling me where I'm like
15:00There's gonna be a time when the deep fake AI will completely fool us and we it's a scare
15:05It's a scary idea and then it also brings to light like in our own life
15:11We are so attached at the hip to our phone sometimes literally
15:16that
15:17What separates?
15:18you know
15:20like what you're discussing that's real versus like
15:24Like if you're around someone who gossips all the time about people, they don't even know what's what's different from that for me talking about
15:31Showing you my phone all the time and a clip I do which I can do and I get so
15:35Looking back like annoyed it like the things I choose to
15:38Discuss there's gonna be a day when we look back. It's probably like next week
15:42We're like man. Remember the time when AI couldn't get fingers, right? Yeah, totally
15:46Oh those quaint days where hands weren't good. Yeah now it's you know spiders swallowing sharks. Yeah, it's ridiculous
15:53It's they had said that AI prompts are unable to do a certain
15:57Rendering of a watch I forget the time but the most
16:02Like ninety nine point nine percent of the watches that you'll see on Google Images and the whole world
16:07Maybe it's
16:08like
16:10What would it be 6 p.m. There's some like that watch companies will always have the same exact dials the minute hand
16:17Oh really because it looks the best
16:21So like yeah, maybe like kind of spread like that so if you said like render me a watch it, you know 6 13 p.m
16:27It will always they said there's a phenomenon right now where it can't get little things like that, right?
16:32Yeah, because it's not really also artificial intelligence if we're gonna get into it's really just prompts. Yeah
16:38Intelligence it's like it tried to make me Harry Styles once and I think it emptied a river
16:47So after 20 years with you guys and in the comfort that you have with each other any surprises
16:54He's still surprising you you still surprising him with us. Yeah for sure
16:57I mean, I think that I've heard artists say that they are some artists are mutually either a good initiator
17:04Like a creative or just like they like to react to what the other band members are giving them
17:10And I think that Wes and I I think we're good at both. Yeah, if I can toot our own horn
17:15I think that I'm still getting voice memos from him where I'm like, oh, this is great. I never honestly
17:22I never get something. I'm like man. He wants to do this again. We just did this for two albums
17:27Like truly it's like the best part is that when you're weak weaknesses become your strengths from his weaknesses, right?
17:33And I think too I'll listen to some ideas and I'm like, this is a stretch, but I'll just send it to Wes like it's
17:38so far from
17:40Anything that's good, but I just want him to know that like I was into this like July 7th
17:462019 I want to send him this just so like he'll hate it
17:49But then like it'll be like it was really cool
17:52Then it's kind of cool that I'll get surprised by maybe his surprise that so I think that that's really like exciting
17:59Last thing for you guys because I have always been very jealous of people who can wear hats
18:04I can't put anything on the money. Maybe you got great hair. I can't I can't like should I cover it?
18:09But I if you guys are my hat, you know, you're my hat
18:14Buddhas gurus. Yeah, so if I'm getting a hat, where are you sending me? What hat store am I going to I?
18:21Mean, he's like give a sponsorship or is it just like a relationship? It's kind of like a little yeah, like gonna get some cash
18:28Those euros there's this Italian hat company this one called Borsalino. I went to their factory in
18:35Alessandra called Jeremy Lino. Yeah, really cool though
18:38Each hat takes 52 steps all handmade and every hat takes seven weeks to be made
18:43Okay, I was thinking like if this if it was like an American company
18:46They would find a way to like just churn them out and it's I mean it takes forever to get these hats
18:51But there's something cool about that and sort of you know, the opposite of AI and all of a sudden look like a medic
18:57I don't know if you could handle it though. I cannot I mean too small the head
19:01You like you came back from your studies abroad when we were that's a band and you've never taken the hat off
19:10Or not or the suspenders. I have the original one
19:13It was a fedora from Brighton Beach, which little lumineers trivia
19:17I mean West tried to move to London slash this Brighton Beach before Denver, but it was too difficult visas and no mountains
19:24Yeah, but I had this fedora and it's still it's actually in my house in Denver and it's like it looks like it's about to
19:28Just be like a strong or a light gust of wind would disintegrate it. It's so gross and like Sun, you know, whatever
19:36Yeah, yeah, I used to have hair just like yours and I doubt that I were a bigger fedora
19:41Yes, come on. You've always had long hair. No, it's true
19:45really
19:46But it would it would get in my face and get like really annoying on stage
19:51So I started wearing it. Okay, this brown kind of like longer brim. It wasn't like a food door
19:57it was like what it was a fedora I guess you but it was like much longer and
20:03It would fall off like the whole show like all the time and
20:08Sounds like someone needs the urban sombrero
20:11But now you could be a sombrero guy. Yeah, maybe you want like a classic trucker cap or so
20:16oh, man, I wouldn't go to lids or something I found this hat at like a
20:20Shoe store one of those like one of those shoe head like what do they call it? Hype something?
20:28Like some money in this one. He's got in the town. No, no, no money in this one
20:33No, everything's I'm wearing like a Subaru hat
20:35But it says all-wheel dead because I think it's really just a dead stock like shoes that they don't make any more got a more
20:42valuable
20:43But I I would say like for every ten hats you buy you'll probably only like one but you won't know it
20:49and so you've worn like five times and
20:52Then your wife goes that hat sucks
20:55So you kind of have to like you have to really like she's not paying that much attention to play around
21:00This is your way to peacock a little bit
21:02But you have to play around with it because you don't know what you like until you've kind of worn it out and you catch
21:08your own reflection you're like
21:10Like either like damn, that's pretty good. Or what was I thinking?
21:13So I would encourage you to like yeah
21:15Buy a few if you can and then and then you'll figure it out. I had advice from lumineers. Thanks guys