The Watt from Pedro show, 25th January 2009
John Frusciante: Yeah, that’s especially why making demos of the things wouldn’t have worked, because we really used the studio as the compositional tool and as the arrangement tool. We’d fill up all the tracks with all kinds of ideas and then, gradually figure out, ok, cuz we would edit each section, we would mix each song in sections, like, and do tape edit so it’d be, like, ok, for the first section we’re just gonna use, uh, strings and bass and, uh, the electric piano and the vocal and the next section will have drums and no, and you know, no, like, you know, whatever it is, like, we’ll have this guitar melody here and we’ll use these reverb effects. Each section was mixed like it was its own song, you know, so it would be a different combination.
Josh Klinghoffer: You should probably play Central.
John Frusciante: HUH?
Josh Klinghoffer: You should play Central next.
John Frusciante: Yeah, Central’s the peak of that cuz we really got, we started to realise we could really get away with these crazy edits that you wouldn’t think would work.
Mike Watt: When Brother Matt asked you about touring it’d be a little intense.
John Frusciante: Yeah, no, cuz it was, it’s all made of edits. It would be very different.
Josh Klinghoffer: It’d be an interesting thing to try and do but…
John Frusciante: Yeah, it would be the songs, but in a different form. There’s no way we could reproduce what we did on the record, you know. But, but we could do something interesting, but yeah, yeah it was, like, yeah, we gradually started to realise that you could get away with really drastic edits as long as there’s one element that stays the same everything else can change. And we didn’t figure that out till late and up till then we were like, “Make sure nothing moves off any of the tracks,†and eventually we were like, “Move everything, but one thing.†You know, and uh, it worked, you know, as long as that keyboard part doesn’t sound like it’s changing, leave it but everything else changes place you know, so, we, if we would’ve made demos we would’ve had no idea where it was going and we would’ve probably fallen in love with them in some form that we would’ve felt like we had to adhere to.
Josh Klinghoffer: We did even. There was a couple of times where we made rough mixes in, say, January and then when we started working again on it in July and we were going back to those old rough mixes and we started killing ourselves trying to recreate it and we would move on from that but…
John Frusciante: Yeah.
Mike Watt: That’s the end of the first hour of the January 25, 2009 edition of The Watt From Pedro Show. Hold tight for hour two. We got a jam coming.
Part II
Mike Watt: Watt From Pedro Show. Umm, started off the second hour with “The Sea†by Daughters Of Fission. Arizona band. And then, “I’m Gonna Marry You†by Connect 9. Then something from Brother Dale, “Uno For Dosâ€. What he called a tribute to “One Bass For Twoâ€. And then something new from John Frusciante’s solo album The Empyrean called “Godâ€. And now we’ve come to that point of the show for Brother Matt’s spin cycle and, uh, special edition because we get to jam with Josh and John. And Watt’s even gonna play bass, which I don’t do much. I did on the (???) right? Did I do it another time? I can’t remember another time. At least once or twice, but this is rare.
John Frusciante: I didn’t know that.
Mike Watt: Well cuz I’m always talking so much, like they gotta hear me play bass too. So usually it’s for my guests, but I consider it an honour and privilege to jam with you folks so…and Brother Matt, so, without further ado we’re hittin’ the mic. Here we go with our jam.
