to be honest I don't really like
collaborating but you make exceptions
for people who are in possession of some
true key to the zeitgeist like the get
lucky we're up all night to get lucky
all night to get lucky
I mean I can always speak for myself
that I work well when I am in a joyful
challenge I have a feeling that that
Punk enjoys joyful challenge as well to
see the looks on their faces as they
listened back to some of the recordings
they had done when I was in the studio
the raw recordings of some of the
session musicians and and to see that
joy on their face and at the same time
say oh yeah we're at the beginning of a
least two or three year process now
there you have it you have the joy and
you have the challenge so I'm pretty
sure they'd like to put those two ideas
together also
I've always been a tourist in the world
of electronic production and a few times
I've actually been there on a drum
machine doing some things but most of
the time I have someone helping me and
when I made an electronic album called
ivory tower I had boys noise producing
the whole thing for me so I rarely use
those those ways of making music so it
is exotic for me so in a context of
going in and working with a rapper such
as Drake or a singer songwriters just
feist or Daft Punk to name you know
three very high-level musicians each in
their own fields it really comes down to
the fact that I'm always gonna have to
be at the piano if I'm gonna contribute
something
do you generally I'm looking to fulfill
my my specific musical function which
has to do mostly with harmony harmony is
still an underused musical weapon these
days in the pop landscape it has the
most strong emotional reaction despite
the fact that there's so much science
and math involved in it and yet it's
it's largely the thing that will often
make the hairs on the back of your neck
stand up involuntarily despite not
having trained so much harmonically they
clearly realize that harmony has that
power and was very exciting to me I have
a real love for the mathematics of music
I think they knew that about me and that
was their way of trying to use me in a
really appropriate in a really
appropriate way in a way in which I'm
hardly ever used these days are there
any favorites or harmonies of the
deafhood career and anything that you
want to yeah of course I mean there's
it's a classic harmony that kind of
never resolves that's a good example of
taking a piece of a chord progression
that is much much longer in its original
form and they just sample the part that
begs an answer that never comes and so
you you get this wonderful feeling of
suspended harmony that never resolves
one of the main specific things they
asked me to do was to build a musical
bridge between a block of songs that
were in a minor and there was another
block of tracks that are in B flat minor
and or major so there are ways of
negotiating that key change but some of
them are more awkward than others you
literally hear that kind of key change
in lots of power ballads within the song
like a Barry Manilow song we'll have
this kind of you know
this kind of very cheesy ringing out the
emotion kind of key change so this was a
bit more subtle because it's a block of
songs you feel you're in a certain
harmonic landscaping to change it the
first three tracks are all based on the
a minor and this leads through till the
end of the moroder track which basically
we had to end up for the chord
progression of within which is track
number four which is this
so I had to look for a common cord which
can exist safely in the a minor world of
the first three tracks but also has a
function in the B flat minor of the next
batch so that the F chord is what I
chose so coming out of the Moroder
here's the f
still in a minor
it's timely if I stay on it
it leads to
so it's kind of a classic musical
bait-and-switch the fact that they were
asking for this musical bridge to happen
just shows that they have absorbed a lot
of what classical composers were
obsessed with from 1700 through til the
early 20th century which is that musical
key dictates so much of what someone
feels and there are many wonderful
colors in classical music that I hear
that I think could be still very very
touching to modern ears to be directed
by deaf punk is just an extreme version
of what I always try it switch even
every collaborative process I'm not much
of a coach producer what I actually do
I'm pretty much also on the piano just
trying to contribute what I can
contribute
I was playing quite blindly in the end
and was more like a cameo actor than a
lead actor of any kind and it requires a
great film director such as deaf Punk to
use the person properly they're a very
warm familiar group despite their
mysterious image every musician feels an
emotional connection to them and we
always have the feeling that they're
ahead of us
they don't really need any help and so
when they ask for help it's because
there is such a high level and so
advanced and have such a good
self-awareness which you have to have to
operate on that level that you can ask
for help for certain details that are
going to make the work be transcendent
in the lucky Mexican cupcake
Mexican
she's up all night to the Sun I
all night to get some she's up all night
for good fun I'm up all night to get
lucky we're up all night to the Sun
all night to get some we're up all night
to get lucky we're up all night to get
lucky
all night to get lucky we're up all
night to get lucky we're up all night to
get lucky