AVC: These records are the first two in a row that feel somewhat of a piece, not jarringly different. People are used to the pattern, "Oh, he made a quiet record, now he's gonna make a funky record."
B: I think this time, instead of going off and doing an acoustic record, I tried to bring some of the introspection and quietness of those records into songs with beats and synthesizers and all that. It was something I think I've been craving for a lot of years, and it was just an obvious evolution. It was really obvious on the Sea Change tour; that's why this was the first thing I started working on after that, this gaping void, this gap between the two aspects of what I'm doing. I think probably the intelligent thing would be to call one thing a band, and then the other thing another band, so there could be some sort of division. But I didn't end up doing that, so it makes it a little confusing. This record is an attempt to bring those two things together.
AVC: Do you sit down and say, "Okay, now I'm going to write a song that's more traditional," or "I'm gonna think of some weird non sequitur rhymes for a different type of song"?
B: It's just what comes out. I wish I had more choice. There's some times where I think, "I wish I could do music more like this." But you're kind of stuck with what you've got, or what comes out of you.
AVC: So they tend to come in batches, writing one type and then the other?
B: I can switch around pretty quick. Sometimes I would go and do a completely different kind of song while we were working on something else, just so I could get away from it and come back to the other thing with a fresh perspective. When I first got into the studio and somebody was allowing me to record music, I think I just wanted to try all the things that I always wanted to try, like, "This is the one chance I'm going to get to do this." I don't think at the time I had any idea that in the next five to 10 years, you'd be able to just get ProTools, and anybody could make their own record in their house.
AVC: Are you able to do that if you have an idea in the middle of the night?
B: No. I wish I could; I think maybe it's good that I don't. I go for long periods without playing any music or singing or doing any of that. I'll go five or six months without picking up a guitar.
AVC: The non-musical elements of your work—the artwork, the videos—always seem to be part of what you do. Was it your idea to do the build-your-own cover with stickers?
B: It was myself and Big Active, the design company. I started telling them about how my son had discovered stickers and was sticking them all over the house, and the idea evolved in about five minutes. The idea of doing stickers for a CD was pretty complicated. And it's interesting: In England and Europe, they said if you put a sticker in the record, it disqualifies it, because it's like you're bribing the listener. You can't be on any charts or anything.
AVC: How about the videos? Those seem a little more off-the-cuff.
B: We did it in two nights in the studio. Someone brought a green piece of paper in, we figured out how to do green-screen with the video camera, then we plugged it into the laptop, put photos in there, invited a bunch of friends and family down, and just filmed for two nights. So it was loose, not necessarily totally directed; everybody was manning something different. A friend would drop by, and then 10 minutes later, she'd be rigging the lights or shaking a big piece of aluminum foil behind somebody's head for effect.
AVC: So who plays on the record, your touring band?
B: I actually recorded this stuff before I had this band. We had a wide range of people; I had Bill Withers' rhythm section for a lot of it, people that I've worked with before. It was literally just calling somebody at 11 at night, "Do you know any cello players? Cool." And somebody would just show up. It was very loosely orchestrated. We did a lot of tracking live, so we recorded everything and immediately put it down to two tracks, so the way all the music sounds is basically from the first week we recorded.
AVC: What's your dynamic with your producers? They seem very involved with how things turn out.
B: When I started out, I was very particular. I didn't ask anything; I just kind of knew what I wanted. But I think you develop trust and a language. Nigel's very particular, but I like that, because it makes me do things that I wouldn't normally think anybody would be interested in. The song that I would just want to throw away, that would be his favorite.
AVC: You trust him enough?
B: You go with what you like, but then you also get a different point of view. I came in on these songs and I'd be rapping a bit more aggressive, kind of like how I rap live, and he would encourage me to almost whisper, almost like I was talking in someone's ear. It's something I would be unsure of, but in the end he was right.
AVC: As someone associated with Scientology, how do you feel about all of the attention it's been getting?
B: It isn't something I really pay attention to. I don't encounter it that much, mostly just journalists. If you have any specific questions on it…
AVC: Do you understand why your fans are interested?
B: If you want to know something about it, I wouldn't go on the Internet. I was raised Jewish, my grandfather was a Presbyterian minister; I've been exposed to a lot of different ideas. I have a lot of good friends in Japan who are Shinto, and I've been to a lot of temples. The idea of tolerance is important. I think that's important, to give people the benefit of the doubt. It's like anything that's kind of new or people don't know about: They'll fill in the void. I think people would be surprised. There's aspects of it that go into areas that are very concrete, community-based grassroots kind of stuff—helping with education, and there's a lot of programs in prisons and stuff, drug rehabilitation, humanitarian kind of stuff that you don't hear about.
AVC: You feel it's done you some good personally?
B: Yeah, definitely. It's a thing that takes longer to discuss.
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