Best of The Couch Sessions: Interview – Raphael Saadiq

Since the Couch Sessions crew will be busy this week in Austin for SXSW–with little time to blog–we decided that this was the perfect time to highlight some of the best interviews, posts and podcasts that we’ve ever dropped on the site in our 5 years of existence. We’ve dug through the archives to find some of the very best content imaginable, showcasing some posts that you have grown to love, as well as some that you might have missed.

We will be back on Monday, March 22nd with a full roundup of the SXSW madness, including our showcase which takes place Wednesday, March 17th.

Originally Posted: November 2008

From the chart topping debut single Lil Walter (with Tony, Toni, Tone’) in 1988, through the party vibe of Lucy Pearl’s “Dance Tonight”, to the immediately classic “Instant Vintage” album, one voice has been a gleaming jewel in the tapestry of R&B music. Raphael Saadiq has done it again! The Way I See It is an album that renders the best modern R&B has to offer…a clear view of the past.  In an age of designer vintage clothing, this authentic reminder of the very soul and sound of classic Motown without covering the original records is the new fitted, double-vented, narrow lapel blazer music that has been waiting to make a comeback.  It’s too stylish to be dated, too raw to be fake, and too timeless to go another second without checking out.  I caught up with Raphael to talk about the motivation and execution of this album.

One of the general themes of your career has been that you’re the guy who clearly sees what could come next, and as such knows how to invite the past to the party today is throwing. Have you always seen this as a project that you would eventually do? Or did something recently happen that made you want to strip away some of the elements of modern music and keep it super clean?

I didn’t really give it that much thought, I just got up one morning and kinda thought…I just want to go for it. I saw what I wanted to do and after that I didn’t look back, ya know? It was a new way of doing things for me and my career. I couldn’t do that by just planning on it, and this is one of the ways I wanted to elevate myself so I just do it. And I’m always looking for ways to recreate myself without damaging my career, and this was the right way to do it. I always do that. I don’t even think about it you know? It’s something I just like to do.

It’s interesting that this is the quality of material you can come up with without having planned it …dude, that’s scary man!

Yep, you just change direction and keep running, ya know?

Absolutely.

Everyone always says that the Motown sound is the most elusive. It’s a popular belief by myself and many other musicians that it is impossible without recording in the room in Detroit, with those original musicians…  So I think I speak for most when I ask… How did you do this and what steps did you and the sound engineers go through to guarantee the sound that you were looking for?

Well, first of all I found the drum set that I wanted to use for the complete record. There’s a place where I eat every day and right across the street is a store called Drum City. They sell new drum sets, but they have this one old Ludwig drum kit, and I jumped on it and started playing it and I thought, “This is it!” From that point on, we just started messing with the drums, the sounds, and from there it took off. You gotta have the chops too, to make it work, but that was the beginning of it, you know?

Which sacrifices or embellishments in arrangements did you have to make in contrast to your normal way of working?

Well, the first thing we had to do was to make all the songs very short, and by making them short–you can’t play around, you gotta make an impact by the 2:30 mark [in the song]. The first few bars have gotta be catchy, ya know? The first few notes have to get you right into it.

I remember that you pulled out the tuba for “Still Ray” so you’re definitely comfortable using any instrument for any occasion as long as its necessary. Did you get a chance to use anything out of the ordinary this time?

Yeah, Stevie Wonder. (laughs)

Everybody knows you as this signature vocalist, I know you as this monstrous bassist and guitarist… What were the jam sessions like for this record? Is there anything floating around out there, that you wished made the record?

I started doing one type of record, then started doing a different type of record, then I ended up doing this record. Some of the other things almost went in, but it would have never fit the style of record that I was doing. There are a couple songs that could’ve  gone on this record that I didn’t complete. I just didn’t feel like they should be on the record, but I’ll probably end up putting them out for my next record. I’m gonna stay along these lines for my next record but it will just be a little different. I kinda like this Stax/Motown thing, it’s a global thing, and I want to live this out how they lived it out. They lived it out for a couple years, so I just want to definitely want to fuck with this for a minute.

Given a lot of stuff that’s going on socially and culturally in this country; and considering how timely this album is, dropping on the eve of Barack Obama getting elected…then of course, there’s this understanding of what those 60’s records meant to Black America at the time, then to throw in what it means to have a soundtrack tying together those emotions from the past with today’s awareness …..did any of that cross your mind when you were making this record?

No, not at all, man, not all it all. I can feel things without looking into it so politically. I’ve always been a fan of those type of songs though, like a Stevie song or a Curtis Mayfield song. Sometimes I drive through my neighborhood now and put on a Curtis Mayfield song and watch little kids walk around…little teenage kids, and be like, “Wow, this is so relevant to what’s going on in their lives but they don’t know it,” because they’re not looking at Curtis. I play it like a soundtrack when I’m driving in the car, and you’re listening to a song like “Keep on Pushin,” and it looks like it was it was recorded that very second when you see people walking down the street. So, I’ve always felt like his music was relevant, but I didn’t think that nobody was old enough to do it, you know? And the people who are old enough to do it probably won’t have a record deal (laugh). I’m not thinking I’m the only person who can do what I’m doing. There are a lot of people who can do it but they don’t have record deals. So I feel like, as a person with a deal, I should step up.

When it’s all said and done, what would you want said about you and your contribution to this art called music and how do you want this album to add to that narrative?

I probably want people to say that he was very consistent, and very true to the art, that he was a triple threat: from producing, to writing, to performing. I just want to be a true testament to others who want to do what I’m doing, you know? I have a lot of people that I look on and say, “This is what I need to be doing,” and I want other kids to have that person they can look up to and say “I want to do it better than he did.” We have those people in sports, but we don’t have them that much in music.

The sad thing is, we have them but we’re all looking at the same people we’ve had for almost 30 years.

I gotta a side question that I want to ask you…how did that Prince thing come up when you played bass [with him] back in the day?

There was a guy with a neighborhood studio and someone called over there looking for players and I just happened to be at the house. Everybody knows that I sing and dance so, they were having an audition in mind [for me]. From there I went to the audition in San Francisco the next day and I got the gig. Next thing you know I’m opening up for Prince. It wasn’t a lot of gigs, just a lot of side gigs at the clubs, but I got to watch the whole management of Purple Rain, and I was able to watch him. It was great for my career because it was one of the biggest rock and roll tours ever. Then I was able to come back home and start the Tony’s [Tony! Toni! Toné!] and kind of build from there, and its still building from there.

I feel like this record is a pinnacle time for me where it’s a record that seems like its a soul record, but it’s also an urban rock record. It’s bluesy but it lets the whole world enjoy. And that’s probably from being around people like Carlos Santana, watching all the Grateful Dead people left over the day after a show and they’ve been there for a week–I grew up by the Colosseum so you would see hippies hanging out there for a week, and you didn’t know what was going on, and then you find out that its the Grateful Dead, and realizing that their fans hang around and follow them for weeks. Knowing all of that, and touring like that, you get a mass of so many different experiences. So when you get a record like where I’ve been you kinda know where it can go. You can go to Europe, you can go anywhere. You know, ’cause a lot of Europeans are coming over here to see how Muddy Waters recorded his records. And knowing that history–Howlin’ Wolf and all those cats–I wanted to be a part of that sound.

Sample Tracks (Windows Media Streaming)

Raphael Saadiq -100 Yard Dash
Raphael Saadiq – Staying In Love
Raphael Saadiq – Big Easy

Raphael Saadiq is currently on tour supporting his album The Way I See It, which is in stores now.

Best of The Couch Sessions: The Revolution Will Be Gentrified

Ed. Note – Marcus Dowlings’ posts do not reflect the thoughts of Winston (aka Stone) or The Couch Sessions

Pithy auteurs of blue eyed soul with a desire to create guitar driven 60s- flavored rock and roll? This is the future of urban music? Harvard educated intellectuals that routinely bump DJ Quik in their rides and inspired one of the most heated and lucrative independent artist signing battles in recent major label history, even in a declining and struggling recording market? Calling fans VIPs and infusing their upcoming debut record release with a faux veneer of Ivy League aristocratic flair is hot in the streets?

With their release of their heavily rap inspired “Jacques Jams Vol. 1: Endurance” mixtape last week, DA Wallach and Maxwell Drumney, collectively known as the rock duo Chester French, sounded the final (and what will ultimately be the loudest) clarion call that rap music is more accessible than ever, and is no longer JUST an avenue of expression for white artists, but ultimately a shared and raceless expression that is REAL for both races. By the end of 2009, what will be the biggest story and industry trend? Nerdy and unassuming white folks are the future! You may think I’m crazy, but keep reading…

Outside of Drake’s masterful “So Far Gone” mixtape, which is easily hip hop’s best album, and the most significant addition to hip hop in the first four months of the year, hip hop’s freshest looks have come from young Caucasian men who at one time would’ve been stereotypically limited to Abercrombie backgrounds and Dockers modeling. These kids are now at the forefront of the bubbling to the surface, soon to be VERY visible underground of hip hop genre. Be it the SNL comic triumvirate represented in The Lonely Island jabbing fun in the hottest way possible, with guest looks by T-Pain and E-40 and surprisingly blowaway hooks done by The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas or Norah Jones, or Asher Roth breathing life by simply having fun, and now Chester French’s Hah-vuhd Yahd Swah-guh, white kids have the need, desire and ability to keep it real.

The most telling truism of the rise to fame of this Caucasian collection is the sheer willingness of African-American artists to co-sign their brilliance. Jim Jones ambles in a cloud of purple haze through verses of Asher’s “I Love College,” mirthfully switching it to “I Love Harlem.” Chester French has a veritable who’s who of hip hop and African Americans who record music on the mixtape, from Common to Talib to Janelle to Wale, as if rappers and singers would seem to be tripping over themselves to align themselves with the duo. Hell, if you follow Twitter with any regularity, you’ll know that @iamdiddy, “Locked In” as ever, has spent probably 140,000 characters verbally fellating them, likely still bitter that they’re on The Neptunes’ Star Trak imprint, instead of Bad Boy. Did the forgettable Fuzzbubble get that kind of love after doing the Benjamins remix? Exactly.

How did we get here and will this last? Well, first Billboard started using Soundscan, which immediately showed rap to be a big seller, so rap became pop accessible and hot on Main Street in Des Moines. Then, Eminem had an overabundance of talent and a a very real tale of urban blight and personal decay that belied race, and couldn’t be denied for nearly a decade. Then, suburban punk kids met suburban rap kids, and chilled with the rock and rollers next door, got swagger and infiltrated the universe, and everybody became some sort of hipster. From there, we ALL elected Barack. If you still think there’s no reason for this, and that it’s all terrible, well, you’re either misinformed or secretly harboring racism. I’m hoping for the former. If you suffer with the latter, music really isn’t your forte these days.

Chester French and Asher Roth drop debut albums next week. Hip hop, meet your future. At a rapidly expanding table, some new friends have arrived. Scrubbed and clean white guys with a filthy and funny interior. Just like the movie, let’s call them angels with dirty souls. Gil Scott, in 2009, the revolution will not just be televised, it will be gentrified. Wow.

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