Tal Wilkenfeld: Music, Guitar, Bass, Jeff Beck, Prince, and Leonard Cohen | Lex Fridman Podcast #408
- I am standing on the edge
of the cliff the entire night, and if I mess something up, mess it up, like, what even is a mistake? But if I do like a little clunker or whatever it is, it's like, so what? Like, I wouldn't have played
half the stuff that I'm playing if I wasn't constantly standing on the edge of the cliff, like wild. - Why you stand on the edge of the cliff? - Because at the edge of the
cliff is all possibilities. (air whooshing) - The following is a
conversation with Tal Wilkenfeld, a singer-songwriter, bassist, guitarist, and a true musician who has recorded and performed with many legendary artists, including Jeff Beck, Prince,
Eric Clapton, Incubus, Herbie Hancock, Mick Jagger,
Jackson Browne, Rod Stewart, David Gilmour, Pharrell, Hans
Zimmer, and many, many more. This was a fun and
fascinating conversation. This is the "Lex Fridman Podcast." To support it, please
check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends,
here's Tal Wilkenfeld. There's a legendary video of
you playing with Jeff Beck. We're actually watching
it in the background now. So for people who don't know, Jeff is one of the
greatest guitarists ever. So you're playing with him at
the 2007 Crossroads Festival, and people should
definitely watch that video. You were killing it on
the bass (chuckles). Look at that face (laughs). Were you scared? What was that experience like? Were you nervous? You don't look nervous. - Yeah.
- You look confident. - Yeah, I wasn't nervous. I think that you can
get an adrenaline rush before a stage, which is natural, but I think as soon as you
bring fear to a bandstand, you're like limiting yourself. You're kind of like walling yourself off from everyone else. If you're afraid, like what
is there to be afraid of? That you must be afraid
of making a mistake and therefore you're coming at it as like a perfectionist and you can't come at music that way, or it's not gonna be as expansive
and vulnerable and true. So, no, I was excited and passionate and having the best time. And also, the fact that
he gave me this solo, the context of this performance is that this was a guitar festival. It's one of the biggest
guitar festivals in the world 'cause it's Eric Clapton's festival, and there's like 400 guitarists that are all playing like solos all night. And we were like, towards
the end of the night, and I could tell like Jeff,
like got like a kick out of, "I'm not gonna solo on like one of my most well-known songs." "'Cause We've Ended As Lovers." Well, Stevie Wonder wrote it, but people know Jeff for
that song and his solo on it. It's like, "I'm gonna give
it to my bass player." And like, and he did and like- - He took it.
- The fact that he's like bowing. Like, that... Like, he didn't have to do that, so- - But you really stepped up there. - It just shows what a
generous musician he is and that's evident in his
playing across the board is he is a generous,
loving, open musician. He's not there for himself. He's there for the music. And he thought, "Well, this would be the
perfect musical thing to do." And it kind of all started, like, when I went to audition for him, which was an interesting experience because I got food poisoning on the plane. And so like, literally
when the plane landed, I went straight into an ambulance
into a hospital overnight. The manager picked me up and I showed up at Jeff's door, which is like a three hour drive, like through windy country roads. And he answered the door and he's like, "Okay, you ready to play (laughs)?" So we went upstairs and started
like rattling off the set. And when it came to this song, "'Cause We've Ended as Lovers," he just said solo and he loved
it and kept the solo in it. So that's kind of how, 'cause
that there was no bass solo before I was playing in his band. So, this whole thing was kind of new. - So even with food poisoning,
like you could step up? - Yeah (laughs). - That's just like what, instinct? - It's just being able to differentiate from like the body and from
like expression, music. - All right.
- Yeah. - It's interesting, you said fear walls you off from the other musicians. And what are you afraid of? You're afraid of making a mistake? Beethoven said, "To play a
wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable." - [Tal] Yeah. - Do you think the old man had a point? - Yeah. Different styles of music
invite varying degrees of, I would say uncertainty or unsafety in the way that people might perceive it. So for instance, like the
tour that I was just on, like playing Allman Brothers songs, like I am standing on
the edge of the cliff the entire night and
if I mess something up, mess it up, like, what even is a mistake? But if I do like a little clunker or whatever it is, it's like, so what? Like, I wouldn't have
played half the stuff that I'm playing if I
wasn't constantly standing on the edge of the cliff, like wild. And so, I don't care about
those few little things. I care about the overall expression. And then there's other
gigs that for instance, if I got called for like a pop or a country session or a show that in those environments
they may want you to play safe. Like just play the part and play it with a great groove and
time and great dynamics and don't really veer away
from the part and stuff and I've done plenty of those gigs too. It's just, it's just a
different, like hat you put on. - What do you get from the veering? From the veering off the beaten path? You just love it? Or is that gonna make
the performance better? Like why you stand at
the edge of the cliff? - Because at the edge of the cliff is all possibilities and unknown. You don't know what's coming. And I love being there in the unknown. Otherwise it's just like,
well, why are we doing this? Am I just like a clown on stage, like showing you my skills or what I've studied in my bedroom? It's like, no. Like, I wanna be like pure expression happening right now and
responding in real time to everything that's happening. And anytime I'm not doing that, it's like, it's a waste of everybody's time. - Have you ever messed it up real bad? - Mess what up? - (chuckles) I mean,
you know comedians bomb. You're a big fan of comedy.
- Yeah. - Have you ever bombed on stage? - Probably. I think it's all about recovery, and the more times that
you fall off the cliff the quicker you know how to recover and the the varying ways that you can recover to the point in which it's concealed so much that maybe a listener might not even know that you're recovering. - And eventually you learn to fly if we take that metaphor all the way off the cliff, you learn. All right. - I remember one time
when I was really young, well, not really young, but like when I was 21 or 22.
- What is 18? - Yeah, exactly. But when I was first
playing with Jeff Beck and we played at what I consider the best, the coolest jazz festival. It's Montreux Jazz, and
like Miles played there, everyone played there and they have the best speaker system ever. I was excited for months and the drummer Vinny was like practicing for like eight hours in
the bus on the way there. And everyone was like on fire on stage. And I remember playing a note, just one note that I really didn't like and I let it go in the moment on stage, but as soon as I got off
stage, I was really sad. And so I sat like on this road case, everyone was out celebrating, I like sat this road case
with a sad face like boo-hoo. And then Claude Nobs, like the owner of the whole
festival came out to me. He's like, "Tal, what's wrong?" And I'm like, "I played
a bad note (laughs)." I was such a child. And like, he said all this wise stuff that Miles Davis had imparted to him and like it fully cheered me up. He's like, is there anything that would make you feel better? And I was like, caviar. (both laughing) The dude came back 10 minutes
later with this huge thing. - Oh wow.
- It was a joke, it was a joke but he actually
brought me caviar, the guy. But anyway, that's the one time that I remember being
sad about a performance. Now I'm just like, okay, whatever. Like, it's done. - Was it a physical slip of
like the fingers or was it, did you intend to play that note? - That I can't remember. I can't remember if it
was just a bad choice that sounded like a
clanger or why it happened. It was so long ago. But I don't get depressed
about that anymore. - That'd be funny if that
was like your biggest and only regret in life is that note and that haunted you in your dreams. - And then like I'm on
my deathbed and just, everyone's just bringing me caviar because of the one (laughs)... - Joke went way too far. You talked about confidence somewhere. I don't remember where. So I want to ask you about how much confidence it
takes to be up there. You said something that
Anthony Jackson told you as encouragement. A line that I really like that quote, "On your worst day, you're
still a bad mother fucker." - That's actually a Steve Gadd quote and Steve used to tell that to Anthony 'cause Anthony used to get real depressed if he did a wrong thing
or not perfect thing. And Steve Gadd used to say
this to Anthony Jackson, and then Anthony was my first bass mentor, or just mentor in general. - For people who don't know
he's a legendary bassist. - He's a legendary bassist. And I started playing
the bass when I was 17 and I moved to New York and I met Anthony and he started mentoring me
bit in a very not typical way. Like, he like would just sit in his car with me for hours and talk music, and- - You guys just listen
to music and analyze it? - Exactly. And that was the best
form of learning, I think. Just like, "Well, what
do you perceive here?" And "Well, I heard this,"
and just discussing that. - Jazz usually, or?
- No, all styles of music. And yeah, he told me that story
about "On your worst day," because like, yeah, even then, like when I was like 18, 19, I'd get sad sometimes about performances. Like, I could have done this. It's like, I don't do
that anymore, thankfully, or I'd be miserable. - So you still, you always
kind of feel pretty good. - Yeah. Yeah, now I do. Now, it's just I sense
the body feeling fatigued. Especially if it's a very long show. Like the ones I just did
were three hour shows and we did one to three hour sound checks. So that's a lot of physical
activity every day. So I just feel the body being tired, like fatigued, the ears are fatigued. That's about it. I don't really reflect on the show much. - You're almost like from
a third person perspective, feel the body get tired
and just accept it. - Yeah. I don't wanna identify with it 'cause then I'm like, then
I'm tired, but I'm not tired. - It's very zen.
- I'm usually like energized. - It's like with the food poisoning, the mind is still capable
of creative genius even if the body is gone.
- Yeah (laughs). - Something like that? - [Tal] Yeah. - So no self-critical component to the way you see your performances anymore? - There is critique, but not in the way that it
would diminish my sense of self. It's different.
- Sure. - I can just kind of look
at something and be like, "Okay, well actually next time I'll do this choice and this choice maybe, maybe this would serve the song better. Maybe this would help the
groove feel more like this." But it's not like, "I
suck because I did this and I'm a loser," and like- - Do you think that's bad? Because even when I asked that question, I had a self-critical thought that "Why'd you ask that question? That's the wrong question." I always have the
self-critical engine running. Is it necessarily a bad thing? - It depends if it's
affecting you negatively. - What is negative anyway? - Well, if it brings your frequency down and you feel less joyful inside and less you don't feel like complete, you feel less than, less
worthy of something, than you could call that bad if you aspire to not feel that way. - Yeah, I aspire to not feel
that way in the big picture. But in the little picture, like there's, a little pain is good. - That's fair. - So confidence, you seem
like in this performance you seem confident. You seem to be truly walking the bad mother fucker way of life. - (chuckles) I kind of,
a word that I prefer over confidence is trust. Because I think with
confidence is almost like there's a belief assigned
to it that I am this thing that you believe in.
- Yeah, ego. - Whereas trust is just simply knowing that you can get up there and handle whatever is
gonna come your way. And it's more of an open feeling where it's like, yeah,
I could do this, sure. But not like, "I'm a bad mother fucker." Like, you know what I mean? There's a huge difference
'cause I've shared the stage with people who
have a lot of confidence and it can be like a brick wall, just like fear is a brick wall. - So, the brick wall is a bad thing? Like the thing you have
with Jeff here on stage- - Is not a brick wall.
- There's no wall. - No.
- There's chemistry. - [Tal] Yeah. - How can you explain that
chemistry the two of you had? - Trust and lack of fear, yeah. And also I will say that each individual has developed likes and
dislikes over their lifetime. And that can be like, in this case we're just talking aesthetic likes and dislikes. So, in this particular case, obviously our likes and dislikes are very much aligned such that the things I do to compliment him,
he enjoys and vice versa. But it could be two very
trusting open musicians on stage that don't have walls up, but their choices are very different and one person likes heavy metal and the other person likes classical. - Yeah.
- So, it's gotta be both. - So you guys were good at like yes anding each other musically like- - Definitely. - Is that where you're most at peace in a meditative way is on stage? - It used to be that it
would only be on stage. It started with that. That was almost like
my way in to flow state and meditation was playing music. And then back in the day when
I'd kind of crash after shows, I wanted to change that. I wanted to always feel
like I'm in flow state. So-
- Have you succeeded? - I've gotten a lot better. I'm still obviously on
the journey, but yes. - So you meditate, I
think you said somewhere that you meditate before
shows or just in general? - I meditate every day. When I'm on tour with my band, I ask that we all meditate
together for at least 20 minutes. And I don't dictate
which type of meditation, I don't put on a guided meditation 'cause everyone has their
own thing they wanna do. Maybe someone might be
praying in their head, it doesn't matter. It's just the idea that
we all put our phones down and we all are in one room
connecting energetically, spiritually, and just letting our lives go for a second and then we
walk straight on the stage and it's always really connected. And there were a couple gigs where we ran out of time for that. And I could tell. There was a major difference
in the performance. - So, it both connects
you and centers you, all of those things? - Yeah, but then when I'm home, like I love to meditate and I've tried various
styles of meditation and studied various types of things. So, I don't do just one thing. I kind of customize it depending
on where I'm at in my life. - You and the world lost
Jeff Beck a year ago. You told me you really miss him. How's the pain of losing Jeff change you? Maybe deepen your sense of the world? - Hm. It's hard to accept that we won't create something musically
again in this lifetime. But in terms of the grief, grief was easier for me because I went through
a major grief period in 2016 and 17, and that was the first
time I'd really gone through the process of grief in a, like in a non-family situation. Like with friends and mentors and people that I'd created
with, which is different. It's a different kind of connection. When my grandparents died, it's like there was nothing left unsaid and I was at peace with
what was happening. With this when Prince died
out of the blue in mid 2016, and then Leonard Cohen died in November, that just tore me to shreds because Leonard Cohen was not just someone that profoundly inspired
me musically and lyrically, but spiritually we had
a very deep connection. And that was the basis of a lot of our conversation
was spirituality. And so, at that time I felt
like a piece of me went missing. And that was a very long process where I just stayed in my place and didn't wanna play a note of music. I kind of wanted to just
get rid of all my stuff. So, I had a friend come
over and he's like, "You should just, why don't
you come to The Comedy Store?" I'm like, "Comedy store? Like, what am I gonna go to some store and buy clown suits? Like, what are you talking about? What's a comedy store?"
- Yeah. - He's like, "No, no, no. Like, The Comedy Store. The place where like comedians go." I'm like, okay, well,
I've never seen standup. I don't, I've seen "Seinfeld" on TV. That's like the extent
of my standup experience. So he took me to The Comedy Store and every single one of those comedians like embraced me like I was family. It didn't even take a day. I was like part of the family and I made like 25 best friends. And I ended up throwing
all my stuff in storage and like finding a little room to stay in where I rented my gear out. And that was me, my rent
paying was me loaning the gear 'cause I didn't want any
responsibilities, financial, I just wanted to be completely free so that I could like just process it and not feel like I had to commit to anything work-wise or creatively. I just wanted to unplug. And so this was like a fun and
very different way to unplug because previously I may have just gone to a monastery and spent weeks
at a monastery or months. But in this case I was
like, you know what? This is a different kind of experience. I'm gonna just hang out with comedians and stay in this room and- - [Lex] With no responsibility really. - Yeah, other than to
really deeply connect with this grief that I'm experiencing. I'm not going to negate it. I'm gonna really fully connect to it, and I did and it was tough. And then more people in 2017 were leaving, Greg Armand, Tom Petty. I mean, it was like, these
are people that I worked with all these people and
like had great connections with them and they were all going and the world was mourning the loss of these people because of everything that they'd given to the world. Like they'd changed the world's lives, not just mine 'cause
I knew 'em personally. And so, that was also complicated. And why, for me it was interesting to be grieving the loss of
these musicians with comedians. And I learned a lot. It changed my life 'cause I just learned to laugh at absolutely anything. Everything. I mean, my grandpa had a really
great sense of humor too. My grandpa as a Holocaust survivor, and like he could just kinda
like, laugh at anything. And like, so I already
kind of have that in me. But being around all these comedians just kinda like exaggerated that for me, and that really changed
things for me for the better. So then when Jeff Beck
died, it was like, okay, I've got these tools, I know what this is and I'm gonna go through it again and I'm gonna be on tour
with Incubus in two days. - [Lex] Yeah. - And so Mike Dirnt from Green Day, he called me up and he said, "Hey, like I know you're
going through a lot." And I said, "Yeah, I don't
even know what I'm gonna play. Like, I really wanna
vintage jazz bass for this and I only have a 70s one that I don't really think is appropriate. I really need a 60s one." Blah, blah, blah. And Mike's like, "I'm gonna hook you up." He showed up to my place the next day with a truckload of old
p basses and jazz bases and brought them all into my
studio and I'm playing them. And then I pull one out of the case and it's an Olympic White, just like Jeff Beck, and I play it. And not only did I get
goosebumps and started crying, but I looked over at Mike and same thing was happening and he's like, "Uh, I guess Jeff might
might be happy about this." And he's like, "Well, I
didn't wanna let this one go. I was just trying to cheer you up a bit and maybe loan it to you for the tour, but if you really want it, it's yours." And I was like, "Oh my God. This is like, like Mike Dirnt
is the nicest guy ever." So, that happened. So that bass's name is
Jeff and it's a white Jeff and I played it on the Incubus tour. But yeah, I do feel like I'm more equipped to handle grief now. - Tell me about The Comedy
Store a little bit more. Do you think comedians and musicians in some deep fundamental way
are made from the same cloth? Like, are they spiritually
connected somehow? - I think everyone's connected spiritually in the same way.
- Yes. - So, I think personality wise, comedians and musicians are
quite different actually. - In what way? - Well, you'd have to subdivide even musicians into
different categories too, because the thing that I
appreciate about comedians is that you go to a restaurant with them and like all the
observational humor of like, they'll just, they'll notice everything and make you laugh about it. Which a really great songwriter
does the same thing too. And my favorite lyricists,
like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Warren Zevon, they add comedy into their lyric. And like, so those types
of people I would liken to hanging out with a comedian. It's very different from like, say somebody that is an
instrumental guitarist or something like that
they're more focused on whether it's like a kinesthetic thing or like a physical
thing or whatever it is. They're not quite doing the observational thing in the same way. So, I just appreciate, like, my favorite thing to
do is go out and laugh. Especially 'cause like, I can tend to be pretty
analytical and be in my head. And so, anything that
just kind of lets me be in my heart and just enjoy life is great. - I think there's a photo of you with Dave Chappelle on stage. What was that about? - So, right after Leonard
Cohen passed away, The Comedy Store threw
me a birthday party. It was this crazy lineup and like, it was like, I'd play a song with my band and then Jackson Browne
sat in and like sung a song and then like Dave Chappelle
came up and said some jokes. It was like one of my
favorite nights ever. Yeah, it was cool.
- Yeah. - It was a very healing birthday party. - Yeah, there's something
magical about that place. - Yeah.
- It's really special. - Yeah, well The Mothership
has some magic to it, too. - Yeah.
- It's really cool. It's different, totally different vibe, but like, super awesome. - You said that Leonard Cohen is a songwriting inspiration of yours. I saw you perform the song
"Chelsea Hotel" brilliantly on the internet. It's about, for people who don't know, his love affair with Janet Joplin. How's that song make you feel? - [Tal] Great. I love that song. - Which aspect? Musically, the melancholy feeling, the hopeful feeling, the cocky feeling? All of it. Like every single line has a different feeling to it, really. - Yeah, but as a whole piece,
I appreciate it so much. I actually lived at the Chelsea Hotel and when Leonard and I first met, that was one of the first
things we talked about was that I lived there
where all that stuff went down before they tore it apart. And yeah, it's just a beautiful song. - It makes me sad the way it ends. "I don't mean to suggest
that I loved you the best. I can't keep track of each fallen robin. I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel. That's all. I don't even think of you that often." You know that line, "I don't
even think of you that often," always like breaks my
heart for some reason. - Hm.
- Like how ephemeral, how short lasting like
certain love affairs can be. Just kinda like, huh. - Yeah.
- Do you think he meant it? I always think he's trying
to convince himself of it. - It could be both or either. I mean, that's the
beautiful thing about poetry and lyric is that it's
supposed to be open. - Yeah. I wonder if it's also open to him depending on the day, you know? - Definitely. I mean, the thing that he taught me or his advice to me was
when you're writing a song, look at it the next morning, like just first thing and
read it and then take a walk, smoke a joint, read it again. Go have a fight with your daughter, come back, read it again. Get drunk, read it again. Wait a week, read it again. Just so that you know from every state and every position that you, the wider the lens is gonna be
from an audience perspective. You want things to mean multiple things. - So, there's one line I read somewhere that he regrets putting in the song, so I gotta ask you about it. It's pretty edgy. It's about, "Giving me
head on the unmade bed." - [Tal] Yeah. - You think that's a
good line or bad line? - I think it's an amazing line. It's one of the best lines in the song. - Yeah, right? - When he put that song out, obviously he didn't regret it or he wouldn't have put
that lyric in the song. I think what happened was that eventually word
got out either from him or from somebody else, that the song was about Janice Joplin. - [Lex] Yes. - And so at that point he
regretted the indiscretion. So it wasn't that he regretted
how great the line was, it was just the privacy factor. But then again, Leonard's
known for rewriting his lyrics. In his live shows you'll
see a bunch of songs where it's like new lyrics and he didn't do it 'cause he
didn't like the old lyrics. He just did it because he could, 'cause he's Leonard and it's like, why not have fun with words the way musicians have fun improvising solos on stage? And he could have changed that line in "Chelsea Hotel" after in
retrospect, and he never did. - "I remember you well
in the Chelsea Hotel. You were talking so brave and so sweet, giving me head on the unmade bed while the limousines wait in the street." - It's so powerful. - That's a powerful line. It just kind of shocks you. - Well, that's what's so great about it. Yeah.
- Mm hm. But also heartbreaking
'cause it doesn't last, especially actually to me it adds more meaning once you
know it's Janice Joplin. It's like, okay, these two
stars kinda collided for a time. - Yeah. But but why is it heartbreaking? It could also be just beautiful that they had a little fling. - Yeah, everything is beautiful. - Thank you. - Even the dark stuff. What's not beautiful? Everything is beautiful if you look long enough and deeply enough. What were we saying?
(Tal laughs) Oh, what do you think about "Hallelujah?" Like, what do you think about the different songs of his and what why'd you choose
"Chelsea Hotel" to perform? - Because I lived there and it was like, it meant something to
me to sing that song, and actually when I put
that song out on YouTube, that's when he sent me an email. He's like, "Hey, do you
wanna come over and-" - Nice. So, this is how you guys connected? - No, we met in a rehearsal studio. I ended up watching their whole rehearsal and sitting there next to Roshi, his like 105 year old monk,
which was really great. I remember when I was
like shaking his hand, like, so I like, it was just me and Roshi on the couch watching
Leonard with this band. And we're shaking hands and he grips my hand like this,
so like doesn't let it go. And he said, he looked at my
eyes, he said, "Where are you?" And I said, "In the handshake?" - He's like, "Yes." (both laughing) - Wow, you passed the test. - Passed the Roshi test. And then what's funny
was that the next thing that happened about five
minutes later was Leonard Cohen got down on his knees and opened up a jar, I'm not kidding you of caviar. This is not a callback. - Well it is in a way.
- I know, I know. - In a deep, fundamental way. - He started feeding the monk caviar. - Yeah.
- And that healed my Montreux Jazz Festival sadness forever. The end. See you later.
- Do you think there's a kind of like weird, like there's a sense of
humor to it all somehow? Like, why does that happen? Why does that happen? Why, like, why stuff like that happens or that the Jeff bass speaks to you. - Why do we need to know? - You believe in that stuff? - In what stuff? - That there's a rhyme to
the whole thing somehow. Like, there's a frequency to which magical things
of that nature can happen? - I'm divided about that answer because I think just things are flowing. I don't necessarily, I
don't think anything's kind of like planned out. - Like through time it's
like an orchestra playing of different experiences and circumstances that
are somehow connected. - I think everything's connected. So, yes. - [Lex] But predetermined means like- - I don't believe in the
predetermined stuff necessarily, which is different from
whatever your previous karma is and karma as a whole other
kind of conversation. I don't mean karma as in
like good karma, bad karma, just karma meaning the collection of things you've acquired over this lifetime or other lifetimes. Just whatever that whatever that is, is going to influence your future. - Uh huh.
- So- - Well, you had a really interesting trajectory through life. - Mm. - Maybe I just read it that way because I've had a lot of stuff happen to me that's like lucky. Feels lucky. And sometimes I wonder like, huh? Like, this is weird. It does feel like the universe just kinda throws stuff
at you with a chuckle. I don't know. Not you, the proverbial you.
- One, one. Yeah. - You said you sometimes
watch classic movies to inspire your songwriting and you mentioned watching "Taxi Driver." I love that movie. And I think you mentioned that you wrote a love
song based on that movie. So, Travis Bickle for
people who don't know is a taxi driver and he's deeply lonely. What do you think about
that kind of loneliness? - I think that loneliness is a product of feeling separate from the
world and separate from others. And that the less you
experience that separation, the less you'll feel lonely. - How often have you
felt lonely in this way? Separated from the rest of the world? - It's less and less every single year 'cause I work very hard at it. - Feeling what, a part of the world? - Yeah, just meditating and
studying scriptures and- - Don't you think that, I mean, isn't there a
fundamental loneliness to the human experience? Just-
- In what sense? - That all the struggles, all the suffering you experience is really experienced by you alone? - Is it? - Maybe at the very bottom it's not. - It's kind of all the same stuff. - You didn't feel alone in 2016, 2017? - I felt like I lost a piece of myself that I had given to somebody else. And I feel like people feel that in romantic exchanges, whether
it's long term, short term, you give a piece of yourself
and then if that person dies or you break up with that person, you feel like you've lost
that piece of yourself. Which I feel like is
very different experience than if you just are opening yourself rather than giving a piece of yourself. You're just opening yourself
to somebody or something. - So, opening is fundamentally
not a lonely experience? - Mm mm, no it's a loving experience. - And then losing a
piece of yourself can be? - Yeah, 'cause you can't really, you can't lose a piece of yourself if you are the same self
as every other self. - Right, right. So if you see yourself as
together with everybody, then there's no losing. - Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful way to look at it. You said that there's something healing about being in an empty hotel room with no attachments except your suitcase. A lot of people will talk
about hotel rooms being a fundamentally lonely experience. But you're saying it's healing. - It's healing, yeah. 'cause I just get to sit there and not worry about all this stuff that like this, these
meaningless attachments. I got my suitcase with my necessities or my three suitcases sometimes (laughs), and I can just sit there and meditate and just be with myself,
and it's so awesome. And usually like you plan
your touring for like, you kind of get the business aspect of things taken care of
in advance so you can kind of just really be flowing
day to day on a tour. And it's a great feeling. It's funny because this
last tour that I did, we didn't have hotels every night. We had hotels maybe like once a week. And I hadn't done that before usually. I'm frequently in hotels, so I didn't get that space that
I'm really used to getting. - [Lex] You missed them? - I very much missed it and
had to be very creative. And I ended up like,
going into the back lounge when everyone was asleep and like meditating back there, or like before everyone woke up. And I actually like joined, there was like an online
meditation retreat that was happening. It was like 12 hours a
day of silent meditations that happens once a year. And I love this particular
group of people, and they knew I was on
tour so they were like, "Just join when you can." And so I was on the tour doing the meditation retreat at the same time. It was so fun. It was so fun because I was
like, in the back lounge, the bus is like moving around like this. My laptop, the Zoom is like
(imitates laptop whirring), and I'm just like sitting like meditating. It was, it's like, yeah, this is the shit. - It's silence. So, they're all connected to Zoom and just doing silent 12 hours a day? - Yeah, yeah.
- That's cool. - These particular retreats
that I started doing, it's not straight silent. There are silent sits
every hour for 50 minutes and then there's some talks, and like these people
that I've been working with are really cool because they're integrating
Spiral Dynamics into zen and it's like the coolest combination. - [Lex] What's Spiral Dynamics? - Like Ken Wilber, do you know Ken Wilber? Integral Theory? - Yes, can you explain a little bit? So, I vaguely know of him because of kind of this
notion that everything is one, like everything is integrated, that every field has truths and falsehoods and we should integrate the truths. - Yeah. It's hard to explain how it applies to this type of meditation because it's in the guided
parts of the meditation that this whole like holonic theory is like brought in about like transcending and including every aspect of your being because he talks about
like levels of development and like in consciousness and how like this applies to like every single religion or non-religion that there are these levels of development and that go all the
way up to enlightenment no matter what you start off with. It could be Christianity,
Buddhism, Vedanta, it doesn't matter, like anything. Then I just like, I
like it when everything and everyone is taken into account. It doesn't matter where
you're coming from, that there is a way to be
self-realized, self-actualized. There are self-actualized beings from all walks of life with
very, very different paths. There's no one path. I mean, in this particular retreat I do, there's like a lot of silence sits and then there's some guided meditations. But this, I've tried a
lot of different avenues and they're all great. So I wouldn't just say,
just try this one thing. Like I've studied like the Upanishads like with Vedanta teachers and like gone through those texts for months and months and
stayed at monasteries. And like how they break
it down makes total sense to my mind and heart and like my, more importantly than my
mind, like my inner knowing. Like it resonates and-
- Inner knowing. - Yeah, because like your mind
is like the thinking tool. Like it's not you, you're not your mind. You're not your thoughts,
you're not your body, you know? So it's like just the you. Like, that knowing that you have, that's kind of when
something resonates there, that's usually when you go with something. - What's living in a monastery like? - It's the best. - [Lex] What are we talking about? Like what- - It's just in an empty room
with like a tiny single bed and a sheet and a pillow and that's it. - That's it? - You have to eat the
same thing as everyone. - What's the food like? What is it? - Very plain, cheap, basic food, which is funny for someone like me because I'm pretty
particular about my diet. - Yeah, you brought over like
20 different ingredients. - (laughs) Yeah. - So what was the like day in the life of Tal at a monastery? - You wake up at five a.m. to the bell and you go and meditate like constantly. - So the-
- Till bedtime, other than two meals. - Well, how are you sitting? Are you in a group? Is there other people there?
- Mm hm. - And you're just sitting there? - Well, yeah, if you're talking
about the zen monastery, because I stayed in zen monastery and I did a thing with the
guy I was telling you about that kind of the integral zen thing where he uses Ken Wilber's
work in combination with zen. That's a little bit different 'cause he does talks,
we talk about things, and that's very separate
from the monastery, like the Vedanta
monasteries I've stayed at, which there's very little meditation in terms of sitting silently. Instead we are meditating
on the scriptures, like the Upanishads. And we're like, diving into that. - What were the differences, the takeaways from the experiences? The two different, the integral one and the meditating on the scriptures? - They're both have been
incredibly helpful to me because the Vedanta, anytime I go into my head about something, the answer is there
based on this knowledge. And with the zen monastery, it's like you just gotta
put your butt in the seat and sit and wait, and maybe something will
happen, maybe it won't, but just keep sitting
and it's very disciplined and you go through a lot. Your body's purging a lot. There's a lot. And you don't necessarily have the answers as to what is happening. And so I think for somebody
like me, I need both. I need to be in a place where
there's complete uncertainty, but complete discipline and just doing the regimented thing. And then there's the me
that feels very satisfied from an analytical standpoint, understanding what's happening. Like, what is the gross and
the subtle body and the, like I wanna understand these things about what it is to be a human. So, I like 'em both. - "Understand what it
means to be a human." So that like, having that patience and just sitting with
yourself helps you do that? - Yes. More so like the analysis part helps. - Oh, so the analysis,
the actual, okay, got it. - But sitting with yourself,
there's no better education. - Yeah.
- Of like facing every demon and it's all gonna come out
and it's not gonna be pretty. But then there's things that happen on the other side of it
that are so profound. - Have you met most of your demons? - I've met the demons that
have come out (laughs). - Oh, there may be more? - Who knows? Yeah.
- Okay. Well, to be continued. (chuckles) What, since
I think I heard you say that you wrote a love
song after "Taxi Driver." What kind of love songs
do you write more of? Broken... So you're a songwriter first
for people who don't know. They might think you're
primarily a bassist, but you're-
- But they're wrong. - So, do you write (laughs)
mostly broken heart ones or like hopeful love songs? In love songs, about to be in love songs, soon to fall in love songs? - Well, the last album I put out, that is pretty self-explanatory
as to what that is. - A lot of pain that one? - There was, yeah. Some of it was storytelling and some of it was real experience. And it's always like a
combination of things. Like, I serve the song. So, sometimes you use
your own life experience to tell a song and sometimes
you may watch a movie and part of that script merges
with your own experience and that tells the right story for the point you're
trying to make in the song. So, it varies from song to song. Like, in terms of how like
autobiographical it is. - Yeah. I always think at the
end of the "Taxi Driver" when what's her name, Betsy, because Travis becomes a hero. She tries to get with
him and he rejects her. That was so, that's powerful. - My favorite love songs are the ones where you're not sure
it's about romantic love or love of God or love of
life or just pure just love. Like, I was thinking like George Harrison
writes songs like that. Like, "What Is Life?" Or like Bob Dylan song that
George Harrison covered, "If Not for You." - [Lex] Yeah, I was just
grateful for his love, yeah. - Right, right. That's kind of like where, well, what I'm experiencing now. And so, who knows what will
end up coming out, but- - So, you've been writing this kinda- - Yeah, I've been writing.
- A little bit? - I don't have like an intention of like putting something out in any particular timeframe, but I'm just writing
and letting things flow and yeah, there's like a bunch of like Leonard Cohen
songs to where you're like, there's so many ways
to interpret this song. And there's so many ways... I just love songs that don't, aren't like, so like specifically about one thing. - Mm hm. I really love the song to play it, to listen to "Wonderful
Tonight" by Eric Clapton and I thought it was
pretty straightforward. - Yeah.
- And then I had a conversation with Eric Weinstein who's a mutual friend of ours. - Yeah.
- And he told me it's not about what I thought it's about. - Oh yeah, what did he say? - It's a more complicated story. It's actually a man. So, "Wonderful Tonight" is
a story about a man being, just finding his wife beautiful and appreciating it throughout. But he said it was actually
a man missing his wife, that he's imagining that she's lost because of the decisions
he's made in his life, so it's pain.
- Hm. - And he had a long
beautiful Eric Weinstein like explanation of why. - I love those. - Have you and Eric played music? - No, we've just hung out and had very long
conversations about everything. - He's a bit of a musician, you know? - Yeah.
- Okay. You picked up the guitar when you were 14. Let's go back. And one interesting thing that just jumped out at
me is you said you learned how to practice in your head because you only had 30 minutes. - Yeah.
- Your parents would only let you practice for 30 minutes. - Yeah. - I read somewhere the
Coltrane did the same. He was not the practice part, but he was able to play
instruments in his head as a way to like think
through different lines, different musical thoughts,
that kind of stuff. - Yeah.
- And just maybe can you tell the story of that? - Yeah, I just grew up in a environment that was focused on academia. - Yeah.
- And I fell in love with guitar and really just
wanted the focus to be that. So, my limit was 30 minutes a day for, I don't even remember
how many times a week. Might've been every day or
five days a week, whatever. - So your parents didn't want
you to play more than that? - No. And so I just learned how to visualize the fret board in my head and I'd practice all day in my head. It was kind of like, you
know "The Queen's Gambit," the TV show with Anya
Taylor-Joy and she just like sees it on the ceiling.
- On the ceiling. - I used to do that with the front board. Yeah, and just practice.
(Lex laughs) And I actually recommend
it to every musician because if you're just practicing here, you don't know what is
more dominant necessarily. Is it this or is it your motor skills? If you just take that away and do it here, you know you've got it. So, I'm glad that that happened and that I learned how to do that. And in terms of like learning fast, 'cause like I had to like learn how to, well, I had to try to
absorb a lot of information in a short amount of time when
I did have the instrument. I kind of would like do things in bursts. Like even in that half
an hour I would just go, like play for a couple minutes and then I'd stop for like a minute and then I'd do it again. And I noticed there was
like a huge difference between the first time and the second time whereas if I just kept repeating stuff, it would be like much slower. - Well, what did you do
in the, when that minute- - Just hang out. - Just integrate, like-
- Yeah, just like my brain. It's like my brain was telling me like, just chill out for a sec. That's enough information. Let me take a second to integrate that. That's what at least
what it felt like to me. And the most hilarious thing
happened a couple months ago. I know you're friends
with Andrew Huberman. So he put out some clip,
which was a part of one of his podcasts about learning. And he said that there
was some research done on learning fast and that
if you practice something for a minute or so and then you let your brain rest for 30
seconds or a minute, that in that 30 seconds or a minute your brain does the repetition 20 to 30 times faster and in reverse. And I was like, whoa, that's so cool 'cause that's what I used
to do when I was a kid. Like, now there's science that proves that which is really cool for musicians to know that that's a good way
to practice efficiently because you know, like some musicians, they're like practicing for
six, seven, eight hours a day. I've never done that. I've never practiced more
than an hour a day even now. Like, I've just, that's
my technique and it works. - Are you also practicing
in your head sometimes? - Now I'm not practicing as much. I'm more always writing songs in my head. So that's why I like silence. That's why I love being
in the empty hotel room and being alone or songs come
to me while I'm showering or walking around doing the dishes, or occasionally when I'm
hanging out with friends or like comedians and people
will just like say shit and I'll be like, that's a cool line. Just like jot it down on my phone. - So it's not always musical,
it's sometimes lyrical. - It's more lyrical than musical now because it's like, for me it's like, well, there's so much music in the world. If I'm going to write a song, I want the song to be about
something interesting. And so yeah, the words matter to me. - Yeah, and the right word
can, has so much power. It's crazy.
- Yeah. - Like we said with Leonard Cohen and then they're often simple. The really powerful ones are simple. - And like you, when you
mentioned "Hallelujah," he wrote like 80 verses to "Hallelujah" before he narrowed it down to like four and it took him like 15, 20
years to write that song. So, some writers will do that, like, and then other writers just vomit it out and it's beautiful. Like, I've heard that Bob
Dylan or Joni Mitchell, they're like, they're fast writers. They just kinda, it just kinda comes out. - That makes me feel so good
to know Leonard Cohen wrote so me verses of that, like that that was so
deliberately crafted. Extensively, rigorously crafted. - He just would spend months and years and constantly refining and refining. - Do you have songs like that for yourself where you've refined for many years? - Yeah, it's song dependent. Some just flow out and
it's like, oh there it is. Everything's there. And then other songs, it's like, you might have
started it with music and there's some words that come out and then trying to fill
in the rest of the word. Sometimes it can be like a
square peg in a round hole and other times it's
like, "Oh no, I can..." It depends. Sometimes it becomes like a math problem and hopefully it doesn't 'cause you just wanna say what's right for the song. And usually when you write it all together like the lyric and the melody and the chords and everything's kind of developing at once, at least for the first draft, that's very, very helpful. Like Sondheim used to write like that. Just like he wouldn't move on until like, he would just go this way. Whereas for me it's just like,
I'll just go with what seems to be coming naturally and
I'll just let it be what it is and then you come back and you say, okay, well, what do I
have to do to this now? Well, what's needed? - Just to linger on the learning process, what would you recommend
for young musicians on how to get good? What are the different
paths a person can take to understand it deeply enough
to create something special? - I think first and foremost understanding why you are playing music. If it's 'cause you have something that you're trying to express or that you're just in love
with expression itself, with art itself, those are great reasons to start this journey. - The why should be- - I think the why is really important 'cause it's a jagged lifestyle
and there's a lot in it. And so, if you don't have your purpose, if you're not centered in your purpose, then all that jagged lifestyle
is probably gonna get to you. - Jagged? That's an interesting word.
- Jagged. Yeah, it's jagged. It's all over the place, it's uncertain. It's one thing one moment and a completely different
thing another moment. You never know what's gonna happen. And if you thrive on variety,
which I love variety, then it's perfect but also every human being needs a certain amount of certainty and structure. And so it's, the certainty can
come from your inner knowing, knowing that you're doing exactly what you want to be doing and knowing what your purpose is in doing it, in this expression. Otherwise you're just kinda
like a leaf blowing in the wind. - Like in the early days touring, just playing clubs seems like tough. - Yeah.
- It's a lot. - Yeah, it's a lot of like, the physical labor aspect
of it is really hard. Playing on stage to two
people or 2,000 or 20,000, that doesn't make a difference. I mean, it makes a difference
to the ticket sales, which informs what level of luxury you might
have on the road or not. But other than that it's just people there listening to music. The music doesn't change. - Does it make it tougher when
it's two people versus 200? - No. - So even if nobody recognizes whatever the thing you're doing. - No, because the idea is to be doing, like, having a great
conversation on stage. - The audience can come and go. - Yeah. I mean, I always like... At like, there's certain points in shows where I'm just like, I consciously am like, oh yes, there's an audience over there because I'm so like wrapped up in whatever's happening on stage. - You forget yourself. - Well, maybe I'm remembering myself. - [Lex and Tal] Oh! - Damn.
(Tal laughs) Call back somehow, feels like one. Okay. You think every instrument
is its own journey as you play guitar, you
play bass, you sing. Just the mastery of an instrument, or let's avoid the word mastery, the understanding of an
instrument is its own thing or are they somehow like
physical manifestations of the same thing? - It's both, like every instrument has its strengths, beauty,
limitations, range, like possible range that can be extended to some degree or another
depending on who you are. Like trumpet or something, like certain people can hit
higher notes than others, blah, blah, blah. But that being said, we're
all playing the same 12 or 24 or however you divide the octave, that many notes, we're all
playing the same notes. So, in that sense it's all the same thing. It's just music or better yet it's just art or expression. But yeah, every instrument has, you gotta go through the
physical aspects of it, the motor skills and all of that. And hopefully you get
through that really quickly so you can get to the expression quickly 'cause if you get stuck
in just that first phase, that's be really boring. - Yeah, but that's a pretty long phase. The technical skill required
to really play an instrument. - For some people it's a long thing and some people it's short. It very much varies. It might have to do
with like how you learn and getting to know like,
your strengths in learning, like more oral or more
like, is it more like... Like what's your strength and playing off of those strengths. So, for me, like it was,
like I was saying earlier, it was just an intuitive
thing that I knew, I can feel when my brain is full, like that it needs processing time. And so, I listen to that. I don't push past it, even
if it's like one minute and I do something, I'm like, okay. Silence. And then I come back and it's in and I trust that it's gonna
be there and is there. So, just trusting yourself
I think is really important. Trusting that you know you better than anybody else is gonna know you. So, that's the kind of thing with teachers that can be either really,
really helpful and great or really not great. Like, I'm primarily self-taught. I've had amazing mentors
of all walks of life and I think I'm unbelievably blessed that my mentors are some of
my favorite musicians on earth whether it's Leonard Cohen or
Jeff Beck or Wayne Shorter, whoever these people are, like, they are my favorite musicians. So, not everyone has that opportunity, but what the opportunity that we have now that I didn't have when I was starting is that everything's on YouTube. Like every interview with every genius, like you don't need to necessarily have these people in person now. I mean it, and then I'll
say to that, yes and no. I agree with myself and then
I don't agree with myself. And the reason is, I do
believe that there is something that happens when you're
in person with a master in some cases that there
is something transferred that is not intellectual, it's not spoken, it's something else that happens, that can happen that I've experienced and I really value that. - And I think that applies to specific disciplines
and also generally. Like, I've been around
Olympic gold medalists just to hang out with
them for several days. And there's something about greatness. There's a way about them that kind of permeates
the space around them. You kind of learn something from it. - Yeah.
- Even if you don't practice that particular discipline. - Yeah.
- There's something to it. If you're able to see it. I also like what you said about the playing stuff in your head, that it forces you to not be lost in the physical learning
of the instrument. I think that's one of the things I probably regret a little bit. So, I play both piano and guitar and I've have become quite over the years technically proficient at the instruments.
- I've seen. - But I think my mind is
underdeveloped because of that. Meaning like, I can't really, like, I can feel the
music when it's created, but I can't create out of the feeling. I haven't practiced the projecting the feeling onto the music,
- Oh, yeah? - you know what I mean? - [Tal] Hm. - And I'm not like a musician, but I'm just, it's a different muscle that I think is, if you really want to create beautiful things, you have to, the creation happens here, not with your hands.
- I think it's more here. - Or whichever. It's some part of the body, but it's not with your fingers. - Yeah, 'cause I think
the fingers is more this. - [Lex] Sure. - And then-
- Yes. Yeah, it is here.
- Yeah. - Right. And it's just nice that you said that 'cause it's probably really, it's really good advice
if you wanna create. - Yeah, slowing down is really great too. - [Lex] What do you mean slowing down? - Slowing everything down. It could be, I can play
something really fast, but I may wanna like practice it. Let's see. Like... (slow bass music playing) - [Lex] Go as slow as possible. - Because there's all
these micro movements that are happening that if you just go... (fast bass music playing) Like, you can't pay as close attention to the exact tone that you're
pulling from each note. And there's a lot to pay attention to, to how my fingers are
touching the string here. Like, I can change my tone a million ways just by the direction of this finger. And same with how this lands and how hard I'm attacking the string and with what intention
am I hitting the string? Emotionally, physically. And so, even if you can go
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, play that so slow. See how locked into a pocket you can be. See how you... Like, feel every aspect of that 'cause then when it gets sped
up, it's still there with you. Yeah.
- Mm hm, that's brilliant. - It's kind of like the transcended and included thing that
Ken Wilber talks about. Like, it's like- - And I guess that's what
meditation can do for you is to like really listen to your, like, observe every aspect of your body, the breath and all this. Here you're observing every element, like every super detailed
element of playing a single note. - [Tal] Yeah. - That's cool that if you speed it up, it's still there with you. - It is. Yeah, it is because I hear
there are certain people, it's like they play really fast, but I don't hear the
fullness of tone always. And it's like, well, it's probably 'cause maybe they didn't, maybe it's 'cause they didn't slow it down and really sit with each note and let it like, resonate
through their whole being. It's spiritual, it's like
a spiritual expression. It's not just like, it's not a sport. A lot of people treat music like a sport. - Yeah. Since starting to learn
more like Stevie Ray Vaughan versus Jimi Hendrix, I would spend a quite a long time on single notes of just bending. Just like, just listening
to what you can do with bends, spending. Just thinking like, people like B.B. King and all these blues musicians, like spend a career just
making a single note cry. - [Tal] Yeah. - There's like an art form to that. - [Tal] Yeah. - And I think you putting it, like taking it really slow, which I never really thought
of is really good idea. Like, really slow it down. - It's the same with like
sitting with your own emotions. It's like when emotions
are overwhelming to us, we get real busy or we move real fast 'cause it's like we don't
wanna feel our feelings. And those are the moments
to slow yourself down. - And observe it. Anger, jealousy, loneliness.
- And just be with it. Yeah, just be with it. Be like, be cool with it. Like love it, love the anger and- - It's all beautiful. (Tal laughs) Can you educate me on the
difference between bass? - Base and bass? Okay, well, one is a fish. - (laughs) At least I
pronounced it correctly. That's good. It's all about the piece. - Can you pronounce my name? - Tal.
- Wow. Most people say Tal, or Tal.
- Tal. - You said Tal.
- Who says Tal? - Like, so many people. - In the south maybe Tal.
- I don't know, but the fact that you said my name right, you get extra points.
- Oh, honey Tal. I didn't know it was a game. Am I winning?
- Yep. - I like winning. (Tal laughs) - How do you play the bass? What's the difference between
finger style and slap? - Slap is like this,
finger style is like this. - You ever ever played bass with a pick? - Yeah, sometimes. - I'm not accusing you of anything. - No accusation taken. - I don't know if these are
sensitive topics, like if- - That would be pretty hilarious if I was sensitive about bass techniques, but like, not about like love. - It just looks so cool to like slap it and I don't understand what that's about. Like that thumb thing that- - Yeah. I slap less, a lot less. Almost never actually. It has a very distinctive sound and does a very
distinctive thing to a song that is not something I hear needed very often in music today. - Yeah. - But in certain styles like funk it sounds awesome and it makes sense. It was something that was a
bit overused at one point. For instance, like my
mentor Anthony Jackson, he refused to slap. Like, he actually said,
if you want me to slap, I'll leave this gig. So, I'm not like that. - See, that's why I said sensitive. See I was like reading into it. - Because he's sensitive about it. - I was feeling the spiritual energy of the sensitivity
- Yeah, of Anthony Jackson? - of Anthony Jackson. - And then, I mean, I'm
playing electric bass, so generally speaking,
you don't particularly wanna hear electric bass on
straight ahead jazz anyway. You wanna hear an upright bass. But if I was to play
jazz on an electric bass, I might even kind of like palm mute. Like, instead of going like
(mellow bass music playing), I might go (light bass
music playing) to there. Anything to kind of make the notes shorter and less resonant and like
kind of fade away quick 'cause the upright does that naturally. And I have like a different bass, like a hollow body harmony that sounds closer to an upright that I'll use in certain, like on my song "Under
the Sun" that I put out, that was on a harmony bass. And it has like kind
of an upright acoustic kind of tone to it, but with more sustain. - [Lex] And is jazz fusion the style where you have like an electric base? Can you educate me with the jazz fusion? - Again, you can have both. You can have both on... You can have either on anything. There's no like real rules. - Now, I've heard you say
something interesting, which is, well, a lot of
things you say is interesting, but-
- Just one thing. - Just one that- - [Tal] And it's what time you're leaving. - What time was that again? - (laughs) Three minutes. - That it's maybe easier sometimes to define a musical genre
by the don'ts than the dos, the don'ts than the dos. What are the don'ts of jazz and rock? What are the don'ts of jazz usually? What are the don'ts
and any domain of life? What are the don'ts? - The don'ts is just to please
leave your fear at the door. And your dos is to be open to anything and open your ears. Like, respond to what's happening now. I think that quote you're talking about might have been more about an individual
musician's unique sound because everyone has their sound. If they've developed their voice and they've listened to their
own aesthetic preferences, of which everyone is slightly different, everyone has slightly
different likes and dislikes, then you'll have a unique
sound on your instrument. And your unique sound is defined more by the choices you make rather than, I mean it's equally as defined by the choices you make and
the choices you don't make. I mean, it's the flip side
of the same coin really. - Yeah, there's certain musicians you can just tell it's them just, you hear a few notes and you're
like, oh, okay, it's them. Tone, sometimes it's tone. Sometimes it's the way they play rhythm. - Yeah. It might, that quote you're talking about might have even had to do with someone's like real limitations on an instrument that
then that would define their sound is the things that they can't, like actually can't do versus like what you're choosing to do
versus not choosing to do, which is that like flip
side of the same coin thing. - How many fingers you play with? It seems like a lot of
the greatest musicians aren't technically like perfect. The imperfections is the
thing that makes them unique and where a lot of the
creativity comes from. I mean, Hendrix, Hendrix
had a lot of those things, the way he put like a thumb over the top. - Well, his hands were huge.
- Yeah. - There was no other
place for the thumb to go. And it was great that he could reach the E string and that was an advantage. - And he was a lefty playing
a right handed guitar. - [Tal] Yeah, yeah. - Flipped, I guess.
- Yeah. - That's weird. That probably doesn't
have much of an effect. Maybe a spiritual one, I don't know. - Actually flipping a guitar is different. It does bring out
something different in you 'cause I've done it, like
flipped it and it's like, oh wow. Yeah, really, it's really different. I remember talking to my
like osteopath about like, 'cause there's so much
weight on this shoulder while I'm playing all the time and they were saying like, "Well, just after shows, just literally just turn it upside down and do the exact same
thing in the opposite way. It'll like even out your body." And I was like, "Oh, that's good advice." - Have you actually tried it? - Mm hm.
- Okay. All right. I'll write that down. (both chuckling) All right, well, do you
know a guy named Davie504? - [Tal] I've heard of him. - I've recently learned of him. He's a YouTuber and a bass player. He's amazing.
- Cool. - He combines memes and also just these brilliant bass compositions
and says slap like a lot. He's big into slapping. - Yeah.
- That's how, he's the one that kind of made
me realize this is a thing. Okay. And he also said that
you're one of the best, if not the best bassists in the world. There was a bunch of his fans that rode in and he analyzed the Jeff Beck thing that
we watched at Crossroads is one of the greatest
solos ever, bass solos ever. So, shout out to him. What does that make you feel like? You're the greatest of all time? - Chocolate cookies. - Chocolate, is that your favorite? - I like macadamia nut. Like, if you really wanna get into it with like white chocolate. - Yeah. That's a rare one for people
to say is the favorite. - Chocolate chip is just like easy. You can kinda get them anywhere. - Yeah. Last thing you wanna be
is easy in this world. You don't wanna be easy. You said that, "I love
rock and roll," quote. "I love folk, I love jazz, I love Indian, classical music. I really love all kinds of music as long as it's authentic
and from the heart." So when you play rock versus jazz, you play all kinds of music. What's the difference technically, musically, spiritually for you? - Well, there's no spiritual difference. - [Lex] Okay, all right. Cross that off the list. - But well, musically,
yeah, it's kind of like what was saying earlier. It's like each genre has its language of what makes it that genre. And that would be a good thing to say, it's defined by the do's and don'ts because yeah, it's like,
I'm trying to think. Basically I put the song first and I think of the song as the melody, the lyrics and then the harmony
and obviously the groove. - So, the song goes before
the genre in a sense, each song is like its own thing. - They're both things
that are held in my mind. It's like, okay, genre and then song, which is comprised of
those basic elements. And I tend to kind of prioritize lyric because somebody is trying to
express something over music. And so that the lyric
is very, very important. And so, then the choices come from there. It's like, okay, within the genre of X, this is the typical language. And then how do I best serve this lyric? And then where else can I pull from that might not be in these two bags that would put a little twist on it? So, those are all the kinds of things I might be thinking about but I don't like twists for
the sake of twists either. I like twists because I wanna hear something that might be fresh. But when someone does
something just to be hip, it's annoying to me. I think you can hear the difference. It's like when people, like they write in odd time signatures or like they write all these riffs just because they can, just 'cause they have the chops to do it or they know how to play
an 1116 and whatever. Just like, but if it's
not actually creating a piece of music that's
going to move somebody, then why are you doing it? And so, I think a lot of the questions I'm asking myself when I'm approaching a song are mainly
philosophical and aesthetic. - So, you like to stand
on the edge of the cliff, not for the thrill of it, but 'cause that's where
you find something new? - Yeah, yeah.
- Potentially? - And it's thrilling. - But you're not doing
it just for the thrill. - I'm not doing it for the thrill. It just happens to be thrilling. - All right. - Because you can always reel it back in. - Can you, though?
- Yeah, you can. - No.
- You can like, do a totally like disciplined, like I can go into a session and okay, my favorite thing about
going into a session with musicians that I adore
is that we don't hear the demo 'cause if you hear a demo, you're hearing what the producer or songwriter have already imagined that every instrument is playing. And then it's like, well, I've
already heard what you want. Now my mind is, part of my mind is focused on what I already know you want and what the destination's gonna be. Why did you bring me in here? I wanna not hear it. I just want you to sit at a piano and sing the song with the, I wanna hear the chords and the lyric or sit
in an acoustic guitar, play it and then let's all go
in the room and then take one, I would say 80% of the time
take one has the most gold. And there might be like a mistake or two or someone forgot to go to the B section and you might wanna like punch that in so that you're hitting the right chord. But all the magic is in that take. And then sometimes it happens
where it's like you go, it's like we're rehearsing and take one, two, three, four, five. And then you're like
thinking about it too much and then you go and you have a dinner and you come back and the next take one after dinner is the one. Like, it's usually after
there's some sort of a break, but obviously there's
exceptions to that rule. Sometimes it's take two and three. - Yeah, you said that this is something that surprised you about recording with Prince is that he would just, so much of it would be take one, it would just move so quickly. - Yeah, well, with that particular album that we made together, it's
called "Welcome to America," he called me up and asked me, he said, "I wanna make a band with you. I'm like really inspired by what you are doing with Jeff Beck. I wanna make a trio. Do you like the drum
rolls of Jack DeJohnette," was like his first question to me. I'm like, "Well, yeah, who doesn't? Who doesn't like Jack DeJohnette?" Like one of the greatest of all time. And he's like, "Well, sounds like," 'cause we had a discussion about drumming, "Sounds like you're kind of
particular about drummers, so why don't you find us the drummer and I'll trust you to find the drummer. You can audition some people, send me some recordings and
maybe your two favorites and I'll pick out of
the two or something." So I did that. Went on a journey, found a couple guys. He picked the one, we
went in and he basically just would be like, "Okay, so the A section's
gonna go like this and then the B section, I think we're gonna go to G, and duh duh. And then the bridge,
I might go to be flat, but maybe I'll hold off and dah, dah, dah. Okay, let's go. One, two, three, four."
- Wow. - And then we recorded it, two tape. There was no punch. He did not want me to punch anything. Like it was like, and
there was one song called "Same Page, Different Book." And he like, talked through
it just like he did. And then he had me soloing between each phrase, like little fills. It's like, I didn't know that that was gonna come up and he loved that. He loved to have me on
the edge of my seat, like falling off the cliff. That was my first like real, like falling off a cliff
moment from somebody else holding me at the edge of the cliff. You know what I mean? Now I just do it on my own 'cause it's so, it's so fun and it makes sense. It's the best thing for the music. - When you say punch the tape, is that when you actually record it? - Like, if you record the tape and there's like say
like you hit a bum note, like to punch in means
to like fix that note, like re-record over that one little area and punch that note in. He didn't want that. He like, he's like,
"Well, my favorite record is just like, whatever happened happened. That's that moment in time. Let's make a new moment in time." It's great. Nobody makes records like that anymore. Everyone wants to like edit and edit and re-record and this and that. And unfortunately with a lot of music, and I'm not saying all music 'cause there's plenty of
great music coming out, but there's the danger of it being flat because every little imperfection
is digitally removed. - Well, that's one of the promising things about AI is because it can be so perfect that the thing will actually come back to and value about music is the imperfections
that humans can create. - [Tal] Yeah. - There'll be a greater
valuation of imperfections. - Yeah. - I mean, you can kind of
program imperfections too. - Yeah, sure. That's also very sad. But then you get closer and closer to what it means to be human. And maybe there'll be AI's among us, they'll be human flawed
like the rest of us. Mortal and silly at times (sighs). - (laughs) Another big sigh. - (chuckles) Is it fair to say that you're very melodic on bass? Like you, you make the bass sing more than people normally do? - Is that a compliment? - Yes, I think so. - Thank you. - Moving on to the next
question (chuckles). As by way of understanding, it's just there's something about the way you play bass that just kind of pulls you in the way, when you listen to somebody play a guitar, like a guitar solo. - The thing I love about Jeff Beck is that he played the
guitar like a singer. And I think that the way that Wayne Shorter played his
saxophone, it's like a singer. And I think everyone, every musician aspires to
just sound like a singer. - So you make it sing. Let me ask you about,
just come back to Hendrix 'cause you said that you had three CDs, Jimi Hendrix, Herbie Hancock,
and Rage Against the Machine. First of all, a great combination. I'm a big Rage fan. - It's so funny 'cause
like when I listen to some of the music that I
create, like my solo music, I'm like, I could see
how this is a combination of Herbie Hancock, Rage
Against the Machine and Jimi Hendrix (laughs). Like, I hear the influence, it's funny. - Just from your musician perspective, what's interesting to you about, what really stands out
to you about Hendrix? I just would love to hear like a real professional
musician's opinion of Hendrix. - I love that he is two voices
combined into one voice. So it's like, there is
his voice on the guitar and there is his singing voice, and there is the combination
of the two that make one voice. And of course, the third
element is his songwriting and all of this have
this beautiful chemistry and all work geniously perfectly together, and there's nothing like it. And he always beat himself
up about being a singer and like, he didn't like his voice. But it's like, my favorite
singers are the singers that don't sound like singers. - Bob Dylan. You said you like Bob Dylan.
- Bob Dylan. I love Bob Dylan. - You love his voice too.
- I love his voice. - Can you explain your love affair with Bob Dylan's voice? - He's expressing his lyrics. It's just pure expression. Exactly what he means. I feel everything that he's saying with 100% authenticity. - Yeah.
- That's what I wanna hear from a singer. I don't care how many runs you
can do and blah, blah, blah. Like, I wanna believe what you're saying. - Leonard Cohen is that.
- Mm hm. There's countless, like Neil Young. I mean there, there's so many musicians. I love Elliot Smith for that reason. - Let me ask you about mentorship. You said teachers and mentors. You had mentors. What's a good mentor for you? Harsh or supportive? - Supportive. - Supportive. You seen "Whiplash" the movie? So that guy, somebody screaming at you, like kicking you off the cliff. - Not necessary. I feel like anybody
that's truly passionate about something that
they wanna be great at or a master of or this and that, they've already got that
person inside their own head. You don't need somebody
else to do that for you. I think you need love, acceptance,
guidance, support, time, advice if you ask for it. Just a space, just a nice open space. All my mentors were just that for me, they didn't tell me to do anything. They don't care. Like, because they're not, why do they need to be
invested in where I'm going? Only I know where I'm going. So, for some mentor to come and be like, this is what you need to
be doing and practice it. It's like, but why? What if that's not my path? That might be your path. So I'm not really, again,
otherwise it feels like a sport. Like, who can run the fastest race? And it's like, well, okay, well, I get that for that, for sport. Maybe it makes sense to have someone a bit more hardcore. But still, like I would say athletes have the same mentality. They've got that in them already, too. Like, so I think more like of a strategic approach to
mentorship works really well. And mainly just having an open space and just being available to someone. - And kind of show that
they see the special in you. - Yeah, yeah.
- And they give you the room to develop
that special whatever. - Exactly, because if you do have that harsh critic inside you, it's like, it is nice to have somebody that isn't like your family or someone that's not obligated any way that just sees your
talent and they're like, "Yeah, I dig what you're doing. Keep doin' it." - Yeah, it's funny that that's
not always easy to come by. - Do you have any mentors? - Yeah, I've had a few recently, but for most of my life
people didn't really, I'm very much like that too. Like somebody to pat me
on the back and say like, like see something in you of value. Yeah, I didn't really have that. So. - Do you wish you did? - Yeah, yeah, but maybe
the wishing that I did is the thing that made me who I am, not having it, the longing for that, maybe that's the thing
that helped me develop a constant sense of longing, which I think is a way of, because I have that engine in me, it really allows me to deeply appreciate every single moment, every single, everything that's given to me. So like, just a eternal gratitude. So, you never know which are the bad parts and the good parts. So, if you remove one thing, it might be, the whole thing might collapse. I suppose I'm grateful
for the whole thing. That one note you screwed
up so many years ago, that might've been essential. - What about because you do jiu-jitsu? - Yes. So like-
- Do you? Are you-
- I don't, my dad does. - Oh, yeah? - My dad's super into it. I love my dad. He's the coolest. But no, I don't do it. He's a blue belt right now. - Nice, nice.
- Great. - You ever been on the mat with him, like- - Not yet, but I plan on it. - You should do it.
- What belt are you? - Black belt.
- Sick. Do you wanna go on that? - Yeah, right. You got the shit talking
part of jujitsu down. You have to do the technique. - But like for that, like for instance, like do you need a harsh
mentor or teacher or- - Yeah, but you like, you
said it really beautifully. Like, to me, I agree, there's a difference
between sport and art. - Yeah.
- They overlap. There's, for sure, but there's something about sport where like perfection is actually like perfection, perfection is really the thing you really wanna get to, the technical perfection. With art it feels like
technical perfection is almost a way to get lost on the path to wherever something unique. So, but yeah, with sport, I definitely, and one of the kind of athletes that loves to have like
a dictatorial coach. - Yeah.
- Somebody that like helps me really push myself to the limit. - But you are the one
that's kind of dictating how hard you're getting pushed in a way. Like you're choosing your mentor. Like that "Whiplash" video is like, he didn't ask for that. - In a way he might've. - Well, maybe, maybe subconsciously. - I mean there is-
- Or it's a movie, so... (both laughing) - Next you're gonna tell
me they're just actors. I mean, and but yeah,
how do we choose things? You don't always choose, but you're kind of maybe
subconsciously choose. And some of it, like some of
the great Olympic athletes I've interacted with their parents for many years would force
'em to go to practice until they discovered
the beauty of the thing that they were doing
and then they loved it. So like, at which point does something that looks like abuse become like a gift? It's weird (laughs). It's all very weird. But for you, support and
space to discover the thing, the voice, the music within you. - Yeah, it's my personal choice because I'm very familiar
with the inner critic and I can bring her out at any point. I don't need help with that. - Oh, so you do have-
- Yeah. - She's on call.
- She was on overdrive. That's why now I had to
work on that so much. - Yeah, you have a really
happy way about you right now. - Thanks. - You're very zen. Can I ask you about Bruce Springsteen? - Yeah, sure. - A lot of songs of his I listen to make me feel this melancholy feeling. It's not just Bruce Springsteen,
but Bruce does a lot. What is that about songs that arouse a kind of sad feeling or a
longing feeling, or a feeling? What is that? What is that about us humans on the receiving end of the music? - Each frequency does
elicit a different kind of emotional response. That is real, scientific. - [Lex] You mean like on
the physics aspect of it? - Yeah, yeah, the physical level. So, there is that combined with the right kind of lyric and the right kind of
melody of the right kind of chord will elicit the very
particular kind of emotion. And it is scientific, it can be analyzed. I don't particularly want to analyze it because I don't want to approach things with that in advance. I don't want it to inform where I'm going. I like the feeling to lead me naturally to where I'm writing. But yeah, there's a real
chemical element to that. And then also, like I was
saying, like the lyric, what it means to you, which poetry is supposed to mean something to everybody, like different. It's not supposed to mean one thing. Like you can't analyze and be like, this is what this poet meant. And like we were talking
about with Leonard earlier, it's like the broader
you can leave a lyric, the better you can appeal to people in so many different ways. And even to the songwriter, like I'll sing some of my
songs from five years ago and I'll be like, oh, I didn't even think that it could have meant
that, but I guess it does. That's funny. I like just giggle on stage suddenly 'cause a lyric will hit me differently from a different new
experience or something. - Have you ever cried listening to a song? - Of course. Weep like a baby in a bathtub. - Which (laughs)? Who's the regular go-to then? Leonard?
- Leonard. - Leonard, yeah. "Hallelujah" is is a
song that consistently makes me feel somethin'. - It's holy, his work is holy. And if you were in his presence, I guess there was a lot to that being. - What advice would
you give to young folks on how to have a life
they can be proud of? - Hm. Just tackle the demons
as early as possible, whether it's through your
art or through meditation or through whatever it means, diaries, whatever it is. Just walk towards the
things that are scary. - Hm. - Because if you don't,
they'll just expand. They become bigger. If you avoid the demons,
they become bigger. - What does that mean for you today? Are you still missing Jeff? - I'll always miss Jeff, but I don't feel like a
piece of me is missing. And same with Leonard. It's that I did give
them a piece of myself and maybe they gave me a piece of them that I hold with me and I cherish, but it doesn't feel like I'm less than or they're less than, or anything's less than. Just, you learn to
appreciate the impermanence of everything in life. Impermanence of everything except for, consciousness I guess you could say is the only thing that is permanent. So, everything else
you learn to appreciate that impermanence because
the limited amount of time it like in this
particular body is, it's enticing. Kind of gives you like a
time limit, which is cool. I like that. - [Lex] So you've come to accept your own? - Yeah. Like it's cool that I'm like, okay, I got maybe this amount
of time, who knows? But if I was-
- It could end today. - Yeah, if I died today, I'd be really happy with my life. - Okay.
- It's not like I'm like, oh, I missed out on this and that. - So you really wanna
make sure that every day could be your last day and
you're happy with that. - I've always lived that way, yeah. I felt this way since I
was in my early twenties. I'd be like, yeah, I
could die today, sure. I don't wanna die, I
have no reason to die. But if I did, I know
that I put my everything, all my effort and all my passion and all my love into
whatever I've already done. So if my time's up then my time's up. - What role does love
play in this whole thing, in the human condition? - Well, love is everything. I mean, if you define love,
if you're talking about love as in romantic love or
paternal or maternal love, or if you're talking about love as in an eastern tradition
like Vedanta for instance, love is consciousness, love is everything. - That's the only permanent thing. - Yeah. Or if you were to go come from a zen or like a Buddhist perspective,
they would say nothingness. Like emptiness is versus fullness. - Well, those guys are really obsessed with the whole suffering
thing, and letting go of it. - [Tal] Yeah. - Well, I was wondering if you would do me the honor of playing a song? - Do you want a suffering
song or a suffering song? - I think I would love a suffering song. - Okay, cool. (Lex chuckles)
(Tal chuckles) - Do you want a sound check
and make sure I'm not... - Sound check. One, two. Yeah, sounds really good. - [Tal] This one too, right? All right, count me off. - Yeah. I don't know how to count somebody off. Where do I start? At nine or three? Two, one. - Yeah, you got it. One, two. - [Lex] One, two. (gentle guitar music) ♪ I call out to the ocean ♪ ♪ My tears fall into the sea ♪ ♪ For the vows that have been broken ♪ ♪ Across the dunes of time repeatedly ♪ ♪ Like a knight in battered armor ♪ ♪ I lay my sword upon the ground ♪ ♪ 'Cause I can't keep
fighting these same battles ♪ ♪ More has been lost than has been found ♪ ♪ It's hard to feel things changing ♪ ♪ After all's been said and done ♪ ♪ We spend our lives rearranging ♪ ♪ Everything under the sun ♪ ♪ I walk the same road
to work each Monday ♪ ♪ Every step tears at my heel ♪ ♪ I sleep not to dream
but to forget on Sunday ♪ ♪ We spoke, just turning with the wheel ♪ ♪ It's hard to feel things changing ♪ ♪ After all's been said and done ♪ ♪ We spend our lives rearranging ♪ ♪ Everything under the sun ♪ ♪ Reaching for the sky ♪ ♪ Feet buried in the ground ♪ ♪ Looking for some way out of
the circle spinning 'round ♪ ♪ My eyes on the horizon ♪ ♪ Seeking out the light ♪ ♪ But don't let me be lost
forever in the night ♪ ♪ 'Cause it is hard to
feel things changing ♪ ♪ After all's been said and done ♪ ♪ We spend our lives rearranging ♪ ♪ Everything under the sun ♪ ♪ Under the sun ♪ (guitar music fades) - You're amazing. That was amazing, Tal. Thank you so much. (Tal chuckles)
(Lex applauding) - [Tal] Let's try that. - Try turning it to 11. - It's quite loud. Can you see it from the headphones? It's like distorting. - Can you play something?
- No, no. (mellow bass music) You're such a professional. - I should produce your next record. - Please. (mellow bass music playing) ♪ Love, don't rescue me ♪ ♪ I've got nowhere better I wanna be ♪ ♪ I wanna be held but not beholden ♪ ♪ Standin' my ground with one eye open ♪ ♪ This fight doesn't quite add up ♪ ♪ Love, I thought you were free ♪ ♪ But now I'm on the hook
for all you've given me ♪ ♪ Does it matter what
I say or think or do ♪ ♪ You see what you see ♪ ♪ With the lens you're lookin' through ♪ ♪ This fight keeps me
tied to the worst in me ♪ ♪ And it's killin' me ♪ ♪ Killin' me ♪ ♪ Love, I'm losing my voice ♪ ♪ You led me to believe I had a choice ♪ ♪ But let's pause ♪ ♪ Retract our claws ♪ ♪ You could take my side
while I take yours ♪ ♪ This fight keeps me
tied to the worst in me ♪ ♪ And it's killin' me ♪ ♪ Killin' me ♪ ♪ Love, come rescue me ♪ ♪ I've got nowhere better I wanna be ♪ ♪ This fight keeps me
tied to the worst in me ♪ ♪ And it's killin' me ♪ ♪ Killin' me ♪ ♪ Killin' me ♪ ♪ Killin' me ♪ (Tal chuckles) (Lex applauding) - (sighs) Well, there's nowhere else I'd rather be right now. (Tal laughs) Tal, thank you for this. Thank you for the private concert. You're amazing. You really are amazing. And it was a pleasure to meet you and really a pleasure
to talk to you today. - Do I get a private concert now of you playing chess with yourself? - Yeah (chuckles). We are out of time, so we gotta go. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Tall Wilkenfeld. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with
some words from Maya Angelou. "Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the
spaces between the notes and curl my back to loneliness." Thank you for listening and
I hope to see you next time.