An Interview with Benjamin Lazar Davis

0:19 Luke F. Walton welcome to love music more i am joined with benjamin davis i am Scoobert Doobert what's up benjamin how you doing man so

0:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis I'm doing good. It's early morning. I'm just going for my normal morning walk.

0:34 Luke F. Walton do people walk in la that's what the people want to know there's that song you're proving it

0:40 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yes, you know, people... LA is like a bunch of little villages and within the villages people walk around and then if you need to go to another village that's when you have to drive but or a motorcycle that's for me because

1:02 Luke F. Walton cool sweet hey

1:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis I don't have a car

1:04 Luke F. Walton motorcycle works better gas mileage and all that stuff too

1:09 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah, it's not so bad,

1:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

1:10 Benjamin Lazar Davis but it's a little scary sometimes.

1:12 Luke F. Walton for sure. So you're in Hollywood right now. And yeah, I would love to love to kind of hear what what brought what brought you to Hollywood. You know, you're you're a multi instrumental singer, songwriter, arranger, composer, record producer makes sense to be in Hollywood. But what brought you here?

1:30 Benjamin Lazar Davis Well, so... I like have been in New York since 2009 in Bushwick and

1:41 Luke F. Walton Cool. I love Bushwick.

1:42 Benjamin Lazar Davis um and have a special situation there um in a loft that I still have the apartment um

1:50 Luke F. Walton Cool.

1:50 Benjamin Lazar Davis and so it's it's kind of like an easy flow to transition here a lot of people have to be like i'm moving to another city

2:01 Luke F. Walton yeah

2:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis like

2:02 Luke F. Walton right like

2:02 Benjamin Lazar Davis like and then they're like i gotta take

2:04 Luke F. Walton everything

2:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis all my stuff and be like for

2:07 Luke F. Walton drive across

2:07 Benjamin Lazar Davis me

2:07 Luke F. Walton the

2:07 Benjamin Lazar Davis it's

2:07 Luke F. Walton country

2:07 Benjamin Lazar Davis like yeah

2:08 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

2:09 Benjamin Lazar Davis well i did that eventually we'll get there but

2:10 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

2:11 Benjamin Lazar Davis um but like um for me it was a little more like you know i kind of lived in new york and then i felt more bi-coastal

2:21 Luke F. Walton cool

2:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis and

2:22 Luke F. Walton love it

2:22 Benjamin Lazar Davis then and then And now I'm definitely LA and like, I just have this little, like, you know, rehearsal space pad,

2:31 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

2:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis like crash pad in New York that kind of is like, it's still kind of, it's like, it's like a time capsule from when I was like 23 and like moved. It's like still exactly. It's like a, when I go there, it's like my old life is like still there.

2:49 Luke F. Walton that's nuts so it's like just waiting for you i love it do you feel like

2:53 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah

2:53 Luke F. Walton that inspires different things creatively to like like have the bicostal thing go and you have got the time capsule do you think like do you create differently in the two two spaces now yeah

3:03 Benjamin Lazar Davis um i mean i like just you know for the record i live here now

3:07 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah cool

3:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah yeah so it's like that i was bi-coastal for a little bit in between now

3:13 Luke F. Walton cool cool cool nice

3:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis when i'm there i'm visiting very much

3:16 Luke F. Walton got you got you yeah

3:18 Benjamin Lazar Davis Um, so I don't know, just the distinction,

3:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

3:22 Benjamin Lazar Davis but,

3:23 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

3:23 Benjamin Lazar Davis um, but

3:23 Luke F. Walton that's important.

3:24 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah, I mean, I guess anywhere you go, you're kind of influenced by the surroundings and, you know, you'll be, there's, uh, in Bushwick, there's a purple piano, a Baldwin.

3:36 Luke F. Walton Cool.

3:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis Um, and, you know, that's very different from like the Yamaha.

3:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

3:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis you one that's at my studio

3:45 Luke F. Walton Right.

3:45 Benjamin Lazar Davis um so you know that like for me it's like when you pick up an instrument at least like when you're writing I feel like all the instruments even like computer instruments have like a soul and like they each like want you to write like a different Like they each like are trying to make you write a different song

4:15 Luke F. Walton Yes.

4:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis So in that way when I'm over there, I'm like exposed to different instruments except

4:20 Luke F. Walton That's

4:20 Benjamin Lazar Davis for the instruments

4:21 Luke F. Walton cool.

4:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis that I bring

4:21 Luke F. Walton Right. That's cool. Do you feel like that energy is static in the instrument? I always kind of gravitate towards this when I'm working with this instrument, or does that instrument's kind of soul evolve over time too?

4:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis Um, I think, I think, I think, yeah, probably evolved. I mean, maybe it's more like we evolved.

4:47 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

4:47 Benjamin Lazar Davis And, but,

4:48 Luke F. Walton yes

4:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis but yeah, I mean, of course, there's like setups. And

4:53 Luke F. Walton of course yeah exactly yeah you can switch

4:55 Benjamin Lazar Davis like,

4:55 Luke F. Walton out pickups or you can do these things that you actually are changing the nature of the instrument yeah

4:59 Benjamin Lazar Davis right, right, right. And then Yeah, it's a good question. I don't have like

5:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis a, I mean, you know, I guess if we're changing and the instrument's staying the same, or if the instrument's changing, yeah, I mean, wherever you're in a different place and you never step in the same river twice.

5:18 Luke F. Walton Yes. Yes.

5:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis So it's always different, but I just mean like in the moment that you pick up an instrument, I feel like it's... it's energy is like telling you to write something or play something on on it

5:34 Luke F. Walton Yep.

5:34 Benjamin Lazar Davis and like i feel like it's like billy madison like um like when the golf like uh you know like play it play it as it lies

5:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:48 Benjamin Lazar Davis like like when you like hit the golf like if you if you hit the golf ball in the woods and you and it's like you gotta like play it there or something

5:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:59 Benjamin Lazar Davis i don't even i don't play golf so i

6:00 Luke F. Walton I don't

6:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis know

6:01 Luke F. Walton either.

6:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis if that's a real thing or just in billy madison but like i feel like sometimes an instrument have and every instrument has like a strength and a weakness um

6:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I agree.

6:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis and so at least when you're like recording you might have like some guitars that are good at this thing some guitars that are good at that some guitars that are like out of tune in certain places

6:28 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

6:29 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know and that doesn't that doesn't necessarily mean it's like a bad instrument

6:33 Luke F. Walton Yes.

6:33 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know i also believe like you know as far as like the instruments having soul like i don't like to talk shit about instruments in their presence

6:41 Luke F. Walton Yes. I like that. I like that.

6:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis because i think they're i think they're listening

6:44 Luke F. Walton Yes.

6:46 Benjamin Lazar Davis in some ways I don't

6:47 Luke F. Walton no

6:47 Benjamin Lazar Davis know but

6:48 Luke F. Walton i i think there's a lot of value in that kind of thinking um even if people are like oh whatever this is so esoteric or whatever but i think that there's a lot of value because you're showing these instruments respect you're you're opening up that line of communication between you and the thing that you're playing rather than just looking at it as a thing an inanimate object that you're just doing everything i think it's like almost more humble

7:11 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah totally yeah yeah and just like Yeah, like I have this one like Supro guitar from

7:16 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

7:17 Benjamin Lazar Davis the 50s

7:17 Luke F. Walton Sweet.

7:17 Benjamin Lazar Davis in my studio

7:18 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

7:18 Benjamin Lazar Davis and and it's like so low-end II that

7:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

7:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis like like just the like the bottom strings will like Just like make the amp right like you can't play it through an amp, but you can if you're playing like The upper register.

7:38 Luke F. Walton ah cool okay okay

7:40 Benjamin Lazar Davis It's just like the, so

7:41 Luke F. Walton it's a great example yes

7:42 Benjamin Lazar Davis it's like, that's an example of like, like an instrument that you play the high end and it works out and you play like the low end and you're like, you know, you're cool for something but right now I can't play you otherwise it won't work.

7:58 Luke F. Walton yes but yeah that's that's so true because you're like kind of almost like taking away a a creative choice that it opens up another one it's like close the door open a window kind of thing yeah

8:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis And sometimes like, you know, I get people in there that are like, you know, they're just like kind of play whatever they're like, they're like, this is guitar and they play it and they're like, oh, this is bad because I can't play like my normal part. And I'm like. cool but like that instrument wants you to play something else

8:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

8:30 Benjamin Lazar Davis like that instrument doesn't like you're not allowed to play the low stuff with this like through this amp or you know Yep. what i mean um um you know i don't know

8:40 Luke F. Walton No,

8:40 Benjamin Lazar Davis not

8:41 Luke F. Walton totally.

8:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis not like you know not that those people are bad people they're just you know that that it's a and you know maybe for those people you just switch guitars and

8:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

8:52 Benjamin Lazar Davis Everything was great.

8:53 Luke F. Walton yeah you roll with it but but like yeah some people like i think a really good example too is with drummers like how different drummers play depending on how big of a drum kit you give them like the more toys or less toys you know that really changes their mentality

9:11 Benjamin Lazar Davis Totally. Yeah. When I like first moved to New York. I was playing a lot of, like, gigs on

9:21 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

9:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis electric and upright bass.

9:24 Luke F. Walton Cool.

9:27 Benjamin Lazar Davis And I somehow came up with, like, I feel like a lot of people that I respect, like, say these really, like, drastic things,

9:35 Luke F. Walton Okay.

9:36 Benjamin Lazar Davis especially young people, that they don't necessarily, like, or some older people, but, like.

9:45 Benjamin Lazar Davis they're kind of like blanket statements um that aren't really maybe even true to them but they're just like say it to like represent something and

9:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah.

9:55 Benjamin Lazar Davis i was like i was like not into symbols um so i would you know i would say stuff like i'm not into any music that has ride symbol in it um and one time i was playing a gig at barbez And I like,

10:13 Benjamin Lazar Davis in the middle of a song, the drummer was playing ride cymbal. I took the cymbal off and put it on the floor. Anyway, forgive me. It's okay.

10:28 Luke F. Walton That's so extreme. I love it.

10:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis But, you know, I think ride cymbal has its place, but sometimes it's like... I've been doing some of these recording sessions with

10:39 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

10:39 Benjamin Lazar Davis drummers where it's not like I'm getting them to play over a specific song.

10:46 Luke F. Walton Okay.

10:48 Benjamin Lazar Davis Like I'm just having them in to like be them and play

10:54 Luke F. Walton Cool.

10:54 Benjamin Lazar Davis random

10:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

10:55 Benjamin Lazar Davis shit and

10:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

10:57 Benjamin Lazar Davis then I'll like take it and stretch it out

10:59 Luke F. Walton Cool.

10:59 Benjamin Lazar Davis and put it on whatever I want

11:01 Luke F. Walton Hell

11:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis or use

11:01 Luke F. Walton yeah.

11:02 Benjamin Lazar Davis it to write or whatever. definitely like you know I usually don't want them to play the cymbals partly because it's like much easier to like edit

11:13 Luke F. Walton yes totally totally i

11:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis if everything's like short

11:20 Luke F. Walton agree and i also think that with symbols you can like you can do that thing with other instruments you can add that top end energy and that excitement in a lot of different ways

11:29 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah,

11:30 Luke F. Walton and if you just play a cymbal now it's kind of taking up that whole space and it's cut off that access to like be like let's use a synth or a guitar or like an electronic cymbal or whatever some noise filter stuff to to fill that same role

11:45 Benjamin Lazar Davis totally. And sometimes, you know, I'll be like, oh, fuck, this song needs. You know someone playing

11:52 Luke F. Walton yeah

11:52 Benjamin Lazar Davis rag

11:52 Luke F. Walton totally

11:53 Benjamin Lazar Davis cymbals

11:53 Luke F. Walton for sure

11:53 Benjamin Lazar Davis and then and then I'll be like my old stuff my 23 year old self is like like rolling over in his grave I don't know how do you say that about an old stuff like you know I guess people say people say that about dead people but yeah

12:11 Luke F. Walton yeah well have you heard of the ship of theseus the idea of like okay so if if you have this big ship and then over time you replace every single part of that ship but it's over time is it still the same ship yeah

12:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis Right, right, right, right. Yeah, that's interesting. That's like, that's funny because, you know, back to the instruments thing,

12:35 Luke F. Walton yes

12:36 Benjamin Lazar Davis sorry if it's loud, I'm crossing a road.

12:37 Luke F. Walton you're good

12:40 Benjamin Lazar Davis Back to the instrument thing, like... i i uh i just had a baby and

12:47 Luke F. Walton Oh, congratulations.

12:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis um kind of at the same time got the studio and baby she likes it when i play music for her um and so you know but that the house is pretty small so like you know all my instruments are at the studio so i usually just keep one of them at the house at a time and

13:12 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

13:13 Benjamin Lazar Davis um and i'm you know commuting with my motorcycle so i don't it's not as fun to bring them back and forth a lot um

13:21 Luke F. Walton Makes sense. Yeah.

13:22 Benjamin Lazar Davis so you know i i'll like find like i'm like oh the baby doesn't need like the nicest instrument so um and it's like you know i want to have my a game at the studio um And so I guess I kind of like I bring like the least good instrument home, but then I'm like, oh, this isn't fun. I'm going to get it set up and

13:49 Luke F. Walton Cool.

13:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis then I get it set up and then I end up playing it a lot because it's at home and then I'm like, oh, fuck, it's got to go to the studio.

13:56 Luke F. Walton The cycle.

13:57 Benjamin Lazar Davis So so it's like, you know, I don't know.

14:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

14:03 Benjamin Lazar Davis it's like you know once i get once you get it set up you're kind of like you can see what the instrument can actually You.

14:11 Luke F. Walton yes and also that familiarity i i feel like i don't know if this is just me but i sometimes i feel like my instruments get cranky with me if i don't play them for a while like if there's like one guitar and it's in the back of the closet and i break it out it's all stiff and weird and it takes like another like few days for it to reacquaint itself with me um like

14:28 Benjamin Lazar Davis Right, right,

14:29 Luke F. Walton a

14:29 Benjamin Lazar Davis right.

14:29 Luke F. Walton cat Or or something

14:30 Benjamin Lazar Davis maybe, yeah, it's you.

14:31 Luke F. Walton yeah maybe it's me man yeah totally maybe it's a metaphor like dusting myself off

14:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis Right, right, right. Well, your relation, yeah, I guess it's like your relationship with

14:41 Luke F. Walton yeah

14:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis that instrument.

14:41 Luke F. Walton right exactly

14:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis Should I turn

14:42 Luke F. Walton oh

14:42 Benjamin Lazar Davis this way? I

14:43 Luke F. Walton that's

14:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis guess

14:43 Luke F. Walton better

14:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis that's

14:43 Luke F. Walton i

14:44 Benjamin Lazar Davis like,

14:44 Luke F. Walton like that yeah yeah nice

14:45 Benjamin Lazar Davis that's kind of cool.

14:45 Luke F. Walton yeah i got some some

14:46 Benjamin Lazar Davis See what's going

14:47 Luke F. Walton more background exactly see what's good with la yeah

14:51 Benjamin Lazar Davis Oh yeah, cool. Well, thanks for having me on. Oh, one question is like, how? how long is this thing supposed to go

15:01 Luke F. Walton it's pretty much it's flexible anywhere between you know half hour to an hour is usually where where we hit these episodes

15:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis okay

15:08 Luke F. Walton so

15:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis okay um

15:08 Luke F. Walton yeah it's really it's really how however

15:10 Benjamin Lazar Davis where

15:10 Luke F. Walton long

15:10 Benjamin Lazar Davis we got so far i'm not in a rush

15:12 Luke F. Walton your shoulder feels go

15:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis i'm more like i'm more concerned with going over than going under and i want there's like there's like a at least one thing I want to make sure to talk about.

15:24 Luke F. Walton absolutely absolutely well there's no there's no reason to hold back i would love to talk about the the single that you've got coming up i feel like this this is as good a time

15:32 Benjamin Lazar Davis Do

15:32 Luke F. Walton as any

15:33 Benjamin Lazar Davis you edit these or is it

15:34 Luke F. Walton it's usually just just

15:35 Benjamin Lazar Davis just

15:35 Luke F. Walton free

15:35 Benjamin Lazar Davis straight flowing up?

15:36 Luke F. Walton it's just like you know being a fly on the wall of a conversation between two musicians is kind of the path exactly

15:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis Unless you're like, don't cut that out.

15:45 Luke F. Walton exactly

15:46 Benjamin Lazar Davis I didn't want people to know I said that about... About that, about that, but the Supra won't like it if

15:53 Luke F. Walton you're

15:53 Benjamin Lazar Davis it

15:53 Luke F. Walton right

15:53 Benjamin Lazar Davis hears

15:53 Luke F. Walton right yeah

15:54 Benjamin Lazar Davis about the low end. Oh yeah, oh yeah, the single.

16:00 Luke F. Walton I'd love to hear Monica Martin's awesome also by the way I remember like Fox what was it 2014 2015 like being super into that band and be like this vocalist is insane so super cool that you were working with her as a feature as well

16:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah, so it's interesting because, you know, I think it's coming out on Friday. You know, I'm pretty sure it is. We'll find out. But I guess that's a week from today.

16:29 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah week from today and then this this podcast is gonna come out on tuesday so the week of the podcast being released yeah

16:36 Benjamin Lazar Davis Happy Tuesday,

16:36 Luke F. Walton happy

16:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis everybody.

16:37 Luke F. Walton tuesday everybody

16:39 Benjamin Lazar Davis So it's actually like kind of a collaboration. with two old friends

16:45 Luke F. Walton Cool.

16:45 Benjamin Lazar Davis um because you talk about monica and she um i have this band called cuddle magic that

16:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah.

16:53 Benjamin Lazar Davis is like an east coast situation we actually just finished mixing a new record that we recorded

17:00 Luke F. Walton Awesome, man.

17:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis in a in a bathroom but we don't we're we're

17:03 Luke F. Walton In a bathroom?

17:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis still like uh we don't know when it's when it's

17:06 Luke F. Walton I can't let that just go by.

17:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis going

17:08 Luke F. Walton I can't just let that go by. What do you mean by in a bathroom?

17:11 Benjamin Lazar Davis Well, it's the second record we've recorded in a bathroom,

17:13 Luke F. Walton Oh,

17:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis but it's like six musicians doing everything live in a bathroom with

17:18 Luke F. Walton awesome, awesome,

17:19 Benjamin Lazar Davis like 24 mics or so and

17:21 Luke F. Walton cool,

17:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis live vocals and everything, you know, there's four singers,

17:25 Luke F. Walton yes.

17:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis bass clarinet, trumpet. The quietest trumpet player, Cole

17:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right?

17:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis came in green.

17:33 Luke F. Walton That is so cool. What a challenge.

17:35 Benjamin Lazar Davis But, yeah,

17:36 Luke F. Walton Not to blow everybody's ears out.

17:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis no, yeah, yeah, like, it's like the bass clarinet's too loud, you got to, like, put a mute in it.

17:42 Luke F. Walton Cool.

17:42 Benjamin Lazar Davis But,

17:43 Luke F. Walton Yes.

17:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know, it's like the quietest band.

17:46 Luke F. Walton I love it.

17:47 Benjamin Lazar Davis But we actually have a show in L

17:49 Luke F. Walton .A. Great.

17:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis on February 22nd.

17:52 Luke F. Walton February 22nd. Love to come.

17:54 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah, but. But, yeah, so when I cuddle magic like a long time, I don't know exactly when it was, but Fox used to live together in Wisconsin and

18:04 Luke F. Walton Cool.

18:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis they were cuddle magic fans

18:07 Luke F. Walton Cool.

18:07 Benjamin Lazar Davis and, you know, we're doing very DIY touring.

18:11 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:11 Benjamin Lazar Davis I don't actually remember like how long it was like. Cuddle Magic's been a band for like 15 years

18:17 Luke F. Walton Wow.

18:17 Benjamin Lazar Davis so sometime in the last 15

18:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:19 Benjamin Lazar Davis years um and they all used to live together and they actually had like a video blog that they did that they like if they shot in the house that like they had bands crash there and then they'd like wake up in the morning before the band had to go to the next place and like fit on like you know video vlog

18:42 Luke F. Walton Love it.

18:42 Benjamin Lazar Davis of the band playing a song um so um so i met monica back then when she was in fox and yeah and then the other old friend that worked on the song is meg duffy of hand habits and um i met them when um because i'm from saratoga springs new york Which I know you know Luke moment,

19:09 Luke F. Walton I

19:10 Benjamin Lazar Davis right?

19:10 Luke F. Walton do. Yeah, he's the man.

19:11 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah, he

19:11 Luke F. Walton He's great.

19:12 Benjamin Lazar Davis mixed the track.

19:13 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

19:13 Benjamin Lazar Davis But Meg, Cuddle Magic played a show in Albany because they were living in the 518 area code and it's from there and so we somehow realized that we both lived in LA.

19:35 Benjamin Lazar Davis You know, I've only been here for like three or four years, so sometime in that. I'm bad with exact dates,

19:42 Luke F. Walton That's

19:42 Benjamin Lazar Davis but they

19:43 Luke F. Walton okay.

19:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis came over and we wrote the song and they kind of had the verse, the first verse and then we kind of created the rest of the song from there. And then it just wasn't sitting well. It was going to maybe be Meg singing and

20:09 Luke F. Walton Okay.

20:09 Benjamin Lazar Davis something about it like just wasn't working right. And then Monica came over.

20:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:20 Benjamin Lazar Davis This is when my studio was just in my house in Hollywood.

20:22 Luke F. Walton Cool.

20:23 Benjamin Lazar Davis I mean, it was just in the living room.

20:25 Luke F. Walton Yes.

20:26 Benjamin Lazar Davis uh before the baby and um yeah um i just was pulling random shit up for monica to sing over um

20:37 Luke F. Walton Cool.

20:38 Benjamin Lazar Davis like mostly harmony vocals and then i was like oh let's try this song um and me and meg both agreed that um Monica was the right

20:55 Luke F. Walton Cool.

20:55 Benjamin Lazar Davis choice for the song.

20:57 Luke F. Walton Yes.

20:57 Benjamin Lazar Davis She really like sold it.

20:59 Luke F. Walton Love it.

21:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis And Meg said she really did the song justice,

21:06 Luke F. Walton Cool.

21:06 Benjamin Lazar Davis says

21:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

21:09 Benjamin Lazar Davis Monica. And yeah, and so that's, I'm releasing it as a BLD track, but it's very much a collaboration, which I think just represents. You know, I mean, well, to be releasing stuff as me, but it might be kind of written with

21:32 Luke F. Walton Yes,

21:33 Benjamin Lazar Davis other

21:33 Luke F. Walton exactly.

21:33 Benjamin Lazar Davis people and sung by other people and whatever. I feel like, I don't know, people are doing that these days.

21:39 Luke F. Walton I agree. And I love it. It feels more like community records, like you're tapped into a scene or you're tapped into a friend group when you're hearing these things. I feel like you feel that energy as a listener.

21:52 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I'm excited to share that.

21:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I can't wait.

21:56 Benjamin Lazar Davis And do you have like links under

21:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yep.

21:59 Benjamin Lazar Davis the

21:59 Luke F. Walton I'll put some links in here.

22:00 Benjamin Lazar Davis thing?

22:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah, we'll

22:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis Okay,

22:01 Luke F. Walton put the

22:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis so let's

22:01 Luke F. Walton pre-save link.

22:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis look at there's a pre-save link up on there. Everyone check that

22:05 Luke F. Walton I did

22:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis out.

22:05 Luke F. Walton it. I did it.

22:07 Benjamin Lazar Davis I'm so excited about both those humans. And there's Eric Lane played Prophet on it. Oh, yeah. And then Elise Levy sang backgrounds on the second verse.

22:24 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

22:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis Me and Meg sing on the choruses. And who else plays on it? I think that's it.

22:36 Luke F. Walton Great.

22:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis Something like that.

22:38 Luke F. Walton i love

22:38 Benjamin Lazar Davis Oh,

22:38 Luke F. Walton it awesome

22:39 Benjamin Lazar Davis and Joe Lambert, Luke Mullman mixed it and Joe Lambert mastered it. But yeah, check it out, everybody.

22:48 Luke F. Walton i'm curious where i always like asking producers arrangers especially when it's like your own project um when do you feel like it's done like do you have like a moment of like revelation like don't touch it anymore we're good send it to mix or is it is it more of like a fluid process like how do you cross through that threshold

23:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis Well, I guess every situation is different.

23:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:11 Benjamin Lazar Davis Like, I mean, you mentioned like your own project, but that's kind of in some ways the hardest because

23:20 Luke F. Walton I agree. Yep.

23:20 Benjamin Lazar Davis you're like you're fully in control when it's for someone else it's like a little bit more kind of. You can get help

23:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:35 Benjamin Lazar Davis from somebody, you know, you can kind of decide that, you know, their opinion is more important than yours or, you know, you know,

23:49 Luke F. Walton You

23:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis I mean, have or like

23:50 Luke F. Walton that committee.

23:50 Benjamin Lazar Davis if you're dealing with like a really decisive person, that's easy.

23:56 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:57 Benjamin Lazar Davis And if you're dealing with a really indecisive person. And sometimes you have to kind of like, like the act of like having to convince them that it's done, Mm not

24:09 Luke F. Walton hmm.

24:09 Benjamin Lazar Davis like for their own, for their own good.

24:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:12 Benjamin Lazar Davis Like, also somehow makes it easier because you're like, you have to like put on your, your confident face

24:20 Luke F. Walton Yes.

24:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis and,

24:21 Luke F. Walton Yes.

24:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis and be like, this is great. It's done.

24:24 Luke F. Walton Yep.

24:24 Benjamin Lazar Davis You know, but in some ways I think. You know, especially like, I haven't done too much like mixing where I'm like, this is done, you know, where I'm like, this is done in some ways,

24:40 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:40 Benjamin Lazar Davis if you're dealing with like a mixer like Luke, or, or, you know, John Lowe, who's like someone else I've been working with.

24:52 Benjamin Lazar Davis Those two both of those people are also like producers and yeah, I remember I sent some like songs over to John to mix and one of the songs I was like I don't remember that last verse having a Nashville guitar on it.

25:13 Luke F. Walton No way.

25:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis You know, and like, you know, he must have been like going through the song was like this last verse needs something in this frequency. And then instead of like trying to find that with instruments that was there,

25:28 Luke F. Walton Yep.

25:28 Benjamin Lazar Davis he he like added something new and it was great.

25:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:32 Benjamin Lazar Davis It

25:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:33 Benjamin Lazar Davis was just like funny to get like a version back and be like. Did we do that? And, you know, that actually kind of opened up a kind of can, not necessarily of worms,

25:48 Luke F. Walton something

25:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis but

25:49 Luke F. Walton better

25:50 Benjamin Lazar Davis I

25:50 Luke F. Walton than worms like Pringles

25:51 Benjamin Lazar Davis something better than... yeah like i don't know maybe better than pringles um

25:56 Luke F. Walton what's

25:56 Benjamin Lazar Davis i

25:57 Luke F. Walton better than Pringles

25:58 Benjamin Lazar Davis guess the people like what's what's the best thing in a can i

26:01 Luke F. Walton best thing in a can whoop

26:03 Benjamin Lazar Davis don't know okay

26:03 Luke F. Walton ass

26:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah a can of whoop ass exactly like like like when john did that you know and knowing like all the different hats that luke has because i work with luke probably the

26:14 Luke F. Walton Cool.

26:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis most um you

26:15 Luke F. Walton Good choice. He's great.

26:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis know and he he does lots of producing yeah we went to ninth grade uh jazz band together

26:21 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

26:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis um

26:21 Luke F. Walton How cool.

26:22 Benjamin Lazar Davis so like um you know instead of thinking of like producing mixing you know mastering even like as like these kind of you know songwriting whatever as these like drastically separate roles I started thinking about kind of at least with like you know I don't know my process and

26:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

26:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis sometimes sometimes not but like instead of using those words like I started thinking like starters middlers finishers

26:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah.

26:59 Benjamin Lazar Davis um and you know like Like, so I don't know. Okay.

27:04 Luke F. Walton I

27:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis I feel like like in talking about it, I realize the answers to the questions.

27:08 Luke F. Walton Good.

27:10 Benjamin Lazar Davis I feel like I'm back to the answer.

27:12 Luke F. Walton Perfect.

27:13 Benjamin Lazar Davis The original question. So, so I feel like it's like when you're working with people like that, you can kind of just like take it as far as you can.

27:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

27:24 Benjamin Lazar Davis and then

27:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

27:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis you're like okay i

27:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

27:27 Benjamin Lazar Davis trust this guy you know i i you know maybe i've wrapped my you know maybe it doesn't need very much or maybe it needs a lot but this this guy might like add like replace the bass with like prop you

27:40 Luke F. Walton Right.

27:40 Benjamin Lazar Davis know loops or like you know like like you know put a you know put sam replace the kick drum or you know like all this stuff and to give them the freedom to do that i think

28:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis i'm done working with this thing and

28:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

28:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis you can you know like i i you could you could stop like early like like um you know like how what my and in some ways it's like you know if you get really into like the mixing part of it at the end of the thing like that can be good because like you get more of your stank on it like you know if you if your rough mix sounds amazing but in in other ways like

28:42 Benjamin Lazar Davis If you, if you know, if you can kind of, like, I remember when I recorded my first like solo record, nothing matters. It was, it was like the second record that I worked on with Luke and mixing and, you know, I recorded it on GarageBand.

29:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

29:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis I had some nice equipment, but it was like,

29:03 Luke F. Walton uh you-huh.

29:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis know, GarageBand's great. So like. You know, I don't remember exactly what my shit sounded like,

29:13 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

29:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis but like compared to the stuff I deliver to mixers now,

29:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

29:18 Benjamin Lazar Davis it

29:18 Luke F. Walton Yes.

29:19 Benjamin Lazar Davis was like super raw

29:20 Luke F. Walton Totally.

29:20 Benjamin Lazar Davis and like in some ways that can be, you know, if you're working with a finish with a good finisher, the question is, it's kind of like, should you actually be like, should your job actually be done? sooner than you

29:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

29:34 Benjamin Lazar Davis think like like should be leaving even more fucked up like you know like Should you be like done earlier?

29:42 Luke F. Walton mm-hmm yeah well it's it i think it's very similar to like hiring a musician like you're talking adding a drummer or something like that or adding a trumpet player or a featured vocalist whatever you try to leave some room for them because you don't want to deliver them this like super dense arrangement and be like no just like uh sprinkle some stuff on it's like no i like i want to give you space to create and then all then maybe i'll finish it then i'll add some extra synths or whatever

30:07 Luke F. Walton whatever but it's like almost that

30:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis Right,

30:08 Luke F. Walton same

30:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis right.

30:09 Luke F. Walton mentality for the mixer whatever the people along that relay race yeah

30:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis Totally. Yeah, yeah. So I guess that's, yeah, that like, yeah, in talking to you, I'm like, realizing maybe you're like,

30:27 Benjamin Lazar Davis you want to leave more room for the, if you're dealing with someone that can do it well, like. You know, maybe I deliver stuff to finish and

30:36 Luke F. Walton Uh

30:36 Benjamin Lazar Davis then

30:36 Luke F. Walton -huh. Yeah.

30:36 Benjamin Lazar Davis like

30:37 Luke F. Walton That's interesting.

30:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis they don't have as much space to feel like they can You know

30:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

30:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis Work like be creative in

30:45 Luke F. Walton there's a there's another side of that though that like i felt on some mixing client stuff where people deliver me things that i just have to like clean up like it's not creative work it's like there's gnarly breaths and noise and things that just like shouldn't be in the tune they don't add vibe so then i feel like i'm like doing assistant engineer stuff and then it ends up hurting my time to be like creative and free and listen to the song fresh so i feel like there is like a

31:11 Luke F. Walton uh equilibrium between those two kind of poles yeah

31:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah but you're thinking about like a like an you know if you're trying to always do like the ideal thing if the producer doesn't want to do that either then

31:24 Luke F. Walton yeah

31:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis we got a third party you

31:27 Luke F. Walton right yeah

31:28 Benjamin Lazar Davis know like like if it if it's if uh you know that's some maybe some intern stuff

31:34 Luke F. Walton exactly exactly

31:35 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know so like you know because we're kind of me and you are discussing like What's the best processor,

31:41 Luke F. Walton Yes.

31:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis you

31:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

31:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis know, like, or like

31:42 Luke F. Walton What's

31:42 Benjamin Lazar Davis trying

31:42 Luke F. Walton the ideal?

31:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis to hone that Right. in, you know, maybe there's a third,

31:45 Luke F. Walton I

31:45 Benjamin Lazar Davis like if, you

31:46 Luke F. Walton agree.

31:46 Benjamin Lazar Davis know, the producer doesn't want to do

31:47 Luke F. Walton Yep.

31:47 Benjamin Lazar Davis that and the mixer doesn't want to do Yep. that, then let's find someone else. Calling all the podcast listeners, anybody that wants to take the S's and just

32:03 Luke F. Walton Yep.

32:03 Benjamin Lazar Davis manually

32:04 Luke F. Walton Clip, clip,

32:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis turn

32:05 Luke F. Walton gating them down.

32:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis them down.

32:06 Luke F. Walton I know. Exactly.

32:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis They cross

32:08 Luke F. Walton there's so much work like that exactly them. exactly there's so much work that's my dream man to have somebody like that

32:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis Who

32:14 Luke F. Walton i yeah

32:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis wants to make some money?

32:15 Luke F. Walton right pay them and and also i feel like you learn a lot just just like being in a bunch of different material and and doing the little stuff the like the really the dues that like i you know i still have to do but that's not a bad gig it sounds like a bad gig but it actually is a good gig

32:33 Benjamin Lazar Davis Well, let's say you don't have that person.

32:34 Luke F. Walton yeah i

32:35 Benjamin Lazar Davis What, like, do you feel like that's the mixer or the producer's job,

32:40 Luke F. Walton think

32:40 Benjamin Lazar Davis in

32:40 Luke F. Walton it's a producer's

32:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis your opinion?

32:41 Luke F. Walton job i think it's a producer's job but i do it a lot as a mixer producer which is fine i just what i do is i just put on different hats so like i'll sit down with the thing i'll listen to it catch like an overall vibe and then i'll like take a break grab some tea or coffee or beer or whatever go in do the all the assistant engineer stuff

33:00 Luke F. Walton leave again and then come back and mix like i kind of like three tier it when i have to do something like that so it doesn't

33:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis okay

33:05 Luke F. Walton like glue

33:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis okay

33:05 Luke F. Walton me because i don't i can't just jump right into like cleaning stuff because i don't want to break it you know sometimes you clean and you like sterilize you know yeah

33:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis right well i mean you know i like it's funny that you're like it's the producers like but

33:21 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

33:22 Benjamin Lazar Davis like you know part of it's just like

33:23 Luke F. Walton engineer it's like an assistant engineer job really it's like Yeah.

33:28 Benjamin Lazar Davis Right. Like if you're if you're dealing with.

33:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

33:34 Benjamin Lazar Davis like i guess the question is

33:35 Luke F. Walton yeah

33:36 Benjamin Lazar Davis it's like in in the end at least for the art like

33:38 Luke F. Walton uh-huh yeah

33:39 Benjamin Lazar Davis the question really should be like who's better at it because

33:42 Luke F. Walton that's fair i agree i agree

33:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis because

33:43 Luke F. Walton with that i

33:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis there's there's

33:43 Luke F. Walton agree with that

33:44 Benjamin Lazar Davis some

33:44 Luke F. Walton totally

33:44 Benjamin Lazar Davis subtlety

33:44 Luke F. Walton totally

33:44 Benjamin Lazar Davis to that like you might be better like even though you're like don't want to do that is that because it'll make a better track or is it just because like

33:52 Luke F. Walton yeah that's a good point that's a good point right

33:55 Benjamin Lazar Davis like you know you resent having to spend the time doing something boring you know because because

34:00 Luke F. Walton It's totally.

34:00 Benjamin Lazar Davis In general, like maybe some of that stuff, I mean, I guess the best situation would be like. you do it and then you also you know give them the clean track

34:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis and then they're like then the mixer could be like like this one you Yes, did good this one you

34:18 Luke F. Walton that's

34:18 Benjamin Lazar Davis did good this ideal. one you did good That that

34:20 Luke F. Walton would be huge.

34:20 Benjamin Lazar Davis that that that

34:21 Luke F. Walton That would be ideal.

34:22 Benjamin Lazar Davis assets like

34:23 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:23 Benjamin Lazar Davis like that needs some some work

34:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis and then you and then you you know you go in

34:26 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

34:26 Benjamin Lazar Davis and do it but in general I might think that the mixer would be better

34:31 Luke F. Walton I

34:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis at it

34:32 Luke F. Walton get you. And I also I like

34:33 Benjamin Lazar Davis do you agree

34:34 Luke F. Walton I because I I'm pretty good at it and I get some stuff. Stuff that yeah, you're right like it's a little

34:39 Luke F. Walton like one of my favorite things to do is identify where in the vocal i want to mute so like sometimes there's my kiss that's going and i don't want that my kiss in some like very critical intimate sections even with a really low noise floor mic i'll be compressing i'll be doing all these things i'll be bringing it out um sometimes producers will just hard chop or do like a strip silence in pro tools and it

35:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah.

35:04 Luke F. Walton just doesn't have that like hand of of intentionality it's just kind of the computer is just choosing where to mute and unmute things strip silence um and so like i'll go

35:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis right

35:15 Luke F. Walton in super

35:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis right right yeah

35:15 Luke F. Walton super specific and yeah so i i have been in situations where i have to copy over like hiss from other other parts so that it doesn't sound so

35:22 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah

35:23 Luke F. Walton brutal you know so yeah i agree it

35:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis actually

35:25 Luke F. Walton might be a different mentality so go for it

35:27 Benjamin Lazar Davis well yeah oh I was just saying that like for me I just did my very first remix,

35:33 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

35:33 Benjamin Lazar Davis which

35:35 Luke F. Walton Cool.

35:35 Benjamin Lazar Davis I actually like I took. Oh, the other thing is I've got a show on a week from Sunday. So Dang, this

35:45 Luke F. Walton you're playing a lot.

35:46 Benjamin Lazar Davis is Tuesday. It's next Sunday.

35:48 Luke F. Walton Cool.

35:48 Benjamin Lazar Davis I'll be a Benjamin Lazar Davis show at Altamira Studios. So if you want, you can go to my Instagram and DM me if you want to see me play. But I just.

36:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis did my first remix and I did it in this way where I don't think I can tell you who it's for yet but

36:06 Luke F. Walton Cool.

36:06 Benjamin Lazar Davis um but

36:06 Luke F. Walton No worries.

36:07 Benjamin Lazar Davis I I got just the vocals like I didn't they didn't send me any other stems but for the whole record

36:14 Luke F. Walton Okay.

36:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis And I took like the verse from one song

36:17 Luke F. Walton Oh,

36:17 Benjamin Lazar Davis and the chorus

36:18 Luke F. Walton sweet.

36:18 Benjamin Lazar Davis from another song and like the response vocals from another like, you know, from another song and then like

36:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:26 Benjamin Lazar Davis made a verse, a couple lines from the verse, the bridge.

36:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:29 Benjamin Lazar Davis And it was interesting like how cohesive it was because the album's lyrics were so like

36:35 Luke F. Walton Cool.

36:35 Benjamin Lazar Davis all about the same like kind of all about the same like

36:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:39 Benjamin Lazar Davis breakup.

36:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis But, um, but the song that I chose for the verse was like the one where she sang like the quietest.

36:51 Luke F. Walton Okay.

36:52 Benjamin Lazar Davis Um, and it was very noisy.

36:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:55 Benjamin Lazar Davis Um, and, but like I was putting, there were things that where I needed to cut it off sometimes. Um, and so I ended up like. going on freesounds.com

37:11 Luke F. Walton Mm

37:11 Benjamin Lazar Davis and

37:12 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

37:12 Benjamin Lazar Davis like getting these like leaves sounds um

37:16 Luke F. Walton Cool.

37:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis that like uh and and then like side chaining it so it was like when it cut out there was like this other like vaguely similar noise

37:25 Luke F. Walton Cool.

37:26 Benjamin Lazar Davis floor

37:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

37:27 Benjamin Lazar Davis that felt intentional like that kind of like popped in like but it still wasn't in the whole time um but it was like

37:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis there was like oh it's coming it's out oh it's in like oh now it's like intentionally like rhythmically coming in and

37:43 Luke F. Walton right

37:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis out you know like kind of like from so so it was like yeah it

37:47 Luke F. Walton was i

37:47 Benjamin Lazar Davis very much playing with that same

37:48 Luke F. Walton love it no

37:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis thing you're talking about with the hiss anyway um

37:51 Luke F. Walton that's good that that ties

37:52 Benjamin Lazar Davis how

37:52 Luke F. Walton into

37:52 Benjamin Lazar Davis long

37:52 Luke F. Walton the

37:52 Benjamin Lazar Davis have other you been gone

37:52 Luke F. Walton that ties into the other stuff i think we've been going for about

37:57 Benjamin Lazar Davis 40 minutes or so um that ties in with the other stuff that you were talking about though

38:01 Benjamin Lazar Davis I'm down for longer. yeah let's let's keep going let's keep going um like like with the with the symbols and and the you know like like that conversation i i think that like i've heard it on records too with like rain uh there are all these little tricks that uh people can do when you have a really noisy microphone or you're using the demo microphone that you weren't intending to use you're like the demo

38:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah, tape but yeah. it has so much more emotion you're like we gotta use this is this one it's crappier but like we'll make it work and then you can build an arrangement around something like you're saying side chaining in and out leaves like that's perfect it's a brilliant idea to keep that same frequency kind of dancing throughout it's nice

38:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah exactly exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah i guess it all kind of affect yeah i guess that ended up being like a changing the way that i did it but cool and it was funny because all the other vocals on the whole album were like very pristine um

38:51 Benjamin Lazar Davis Cool. I love that. and I love that. i just like but like i just chose that one i

38:57 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yes. don't know something about it um and i was like ah first i was like oh why did i why do i why do i just know why do i just know that this is the one i'm using for like all the verses um you know like like like why did i have to choose this one but like it definitely chose me you know what i mean um but then yeah yeah it always just affects everything but it seems to work out right

39:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis totally i mean i've done the same thing with like a remix where it's like oh i want to remix this song and they're like great it's not to tempo it's like all right here

39:34 Benjamin Lazar Davis right we go right yeah you snap it around and build a feel but uh it called to you you know called to you so you do it I'd love

39:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis What to talk about else? kind of your relationship and your study in Africa and kind of how you're studying drumming and drum ensemble music. I find that really fascinating and I would love to hear some more about your experience, how that's influenced your musicality.

40:03 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah, well, I guess like my dad lived in, my dad's a musician. and he lived in Malawi from 1969 to 1972 um

40:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis Awesome. and so he had a bunch of like field recordings growing up and also like in the um on the radio there he was listening to um Franco and okay jazz um which is that which is like a Congolese guitar music I feel like I mean I don't I don't know that much about shit but like You know, I'm not like an expert on this, but like, you know, he's from like the 50s, 60s, like kind of guitar music.

40:46 Benjamin Lazar Davis And I'm just going to say this, it's not true, but like, I think he invented the interval of the sixth.

40:51 Benjamin Lazar Davis Cool, cool. Like, it was like everything he played was Yeah. six, like harmonized with six,

41:02 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah. you know, with himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. uh the entire you know everything i've heard him play he did that um

41:10 Benjamin Lazar Davis Cool. but uh so i kind of grew up with um some of that music just like playing around the house and and some of the music that my dad played um like in bands was like a like fusion between like fiddle music and like african music like he put foam under the guitar this is when i was like You know,

41:34 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah. before I was born, but like, you know, kind of doing some African-y stuff.

41:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis And then I went to music school in Boston and during the observatory and there was all these rhythm classes like there would be like, you know, North Indian. stuff where you'd be like you know or

42:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah. and then there'd be like you know african music stuff where you'd like learn um and you know and some of these guys like the main two guys that i

42:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis really at first it was jamie haddad who's a teacher there he taught at a bunch of different schools over there and um so like yeah it was like a frame drumming class where you'd kind of do polyrhythms i think yeah and and then eventually jerry leak who i studied with for two years and he was like he he went to this place called dog bay cultural center and wrote like a whole book about um which is like on the uh

42:45 Benjamin Lazar Davis southeastern corner

42:46 Luke F. Walton Okay.

42:46 Benjamin Lazar Davis kind of like right near Togo which

42:51 Luke F. Walton Okay.

42:51 Benjamin Lazar Davis is an neighboring country and he when I graduated I decided to like follow in his footsteps because at NEC you didn't have to study with like your private lessons with like someone from your instrument

43:12 Luke F. Walton Oh, that's cool. That's

43:13 Benjamin Lazar Davis so

43:13 Luke F. Walton really

43:13 Benjamin Lazar Davis i

43:13 Luke F. Walton cool.

43:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis ended up like my last two years

43:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

43:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis it's cool if you're like it's cool if like you end up not necessarily identifying as like a bass player

43:21 Luke F. Walton Totally.

43:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis or like you

43:22 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

43:22 Benjamin Lazar Davis know like that you're you're you know it's helpful that they're not like no you bass Right. do bass um so shout out to

43:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah, that's good.

43:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis whoever was in charge pen shoppers um of the department but um so i was kind of like this is cool stuff and my friend danilo and i decided to go together um

43:49 Luke F. Walton Cool.

43:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis for my first trip in 2009 right before i moved to new york um and right after college and yeah we went to molly first and then

44:03 Benjamin Lazar Davis to the festival in the desert which was one of the last years that it happened was uh literally in Timbuktu

44:10 Luke F. Walton Wow.

44:10 Benjamin Lazar Davis um or north of Timbuktu but but like uh in the desert and then eventually we went to Dagbe which was the one of the like those were the only two like official things we had planned and we went to Dagbe for like I think two weeks or something you can like stay there and study Awa music

44:30 Luke F. Walton Anyway,

44:30 Benjamin Lazar Davis and

44:31 Luke F. Walton music.

44:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis that was kind of like you know like i had already learned some awa stuff from

44:38 Luke F. Walton Cool. Cool.

44:39 Benjamin Lazar Davis jerry leek like because he had yeah he stayed there for like a year and wrote a whole book

44:43 Luke F. Walton Wrote the whole book.

44:44 Benjamin Lazar Davis about it but it was cool to like um do it in person

44:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

44:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis like

44:49 Luke F. Walton of course.

44:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis learn

44:50 Luke F. Walton Or

44:51 Benjamin Lazar Davis it in

44:51 Luke F. Walton soak

44:51 Benjamin Lazar Davis the way that yeah

44:51 Luke F. Walton it in. Yes, learn it in that way. Yeah, that makes sense.

44:54 Benjamin Lazar Davis like

44:55 Luke F. Walton Great.

44:55 Benjamin Lazar Davis I say like they they conceive of it like Yes. very differently

44:58 Luke F. Walton Right.

44:58 Benjamin Lazar Davis from Jerry Lee who had it like written out

45:03 Luke F. Walton Yes, exactly.

45:03 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know um

45:04 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

45:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis and sometimes you know at least for someone that grew up here like in some ways it was a struggle to like learn it in their way

45:12 Luke F. Walton Of course. Yeah,

45:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis because

45:14 Luke F. Walton of course.

45:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis like you know i remember sometimes people would come in with the cowbell part so i was learning like these these like um these uh pieces that were for a percussion ensemble um that like they had some different instruments but mostly it was like a bet like a cowbell thing um they call it something else i forget like a shaker

45:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis um and then like this little drum called a kagan and then a bigger drum and a bigger drum and then like the biggest drum was usually like the lead instrument like

45:46 Luke F. Walton Okay.

45:46 Benjamin Lazar Davis the most bassist one and and uh but i remember like when i was there there was like the cowbell player would like sometimes not come in on the first what i thought of as the first beat

46:00 Luke F. Walton Okay.

46:00 Benjamin Lazar Davis and not always the same one like it was just like the cowbell was like going in

46:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

46:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis the universe and

46:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

46:06 Benjamin Lazar Davis they were just like like chiming in

46:08 Luke F. Walton Cool.

46:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis like um couldn't have like the same concept of like down beats and up beats

46:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah.

46:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis it was just more just like a psych like a equal cycle

46:18 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

46:19 Benjamin Lazar Davis of

46:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

46:20 Benjamin Lazar Davis all the of like the whole rhythm so

46:23 Luke F. Walton Cool.

46:24 Benjamin Lazar Davis they'd come in and be like whoa like we're like

46:26 Luke F. Walton Where are we now?

46:28 Benjamin Lazar Davis right

46:29 Luke F. Walton Right.

46:30 Benjamin Lazar Davis you'd hear the whole thing upside down

46:33 Luke F. Walton yeah

46:33 Benjamin Lazar Davis or

46:33 Luke F. Walton exactly turns

46:34 Benjamin Lazar Davis whatever

46:34 Luke F. Walton around

46:34 Benjamin Lazar Davis and

46:34 Luke F. Walton the whole then phrase

46:34 Benjamin Lazar Davis just be like this

46:35 Luke F. Walton because then yeah

46:36 Benjamin Lazar Davis is yeah

46:36 Luke F. Walton because you're like you're thinking in the you know like here's the repeat is here and this is this long of a phrase and yeah we're playing over the bar line here and it's like no no no yeah yeah

46:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis and I think like you know what was like different about me from someone like Jerry Leak is um you know he was very like i'm going to learn this stuff and

47:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

47:00 Benjamin Lazar Davis i mean it's amazing without him you know it would have been different but like for me like i was always trying to like internalize it more in my own way and not necessarily as worried about like getting like you know like basically my impression of it being like as important as what they're trying to teach me

47:29 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm. Mm

47:29 Benjamin Lazar Davis so it's a little like maybe disrespectful um but but also maybe more respectful because it's more of like a collaboration um and a melding of stuff than just being like a western person trying to like

47:43 Luke F. Walton yeah notate it all and like yeah yeah

47:45 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah or just like trying to like learn exactly what they mean you know um and you know not not to knock that i mean that's so cool to like learn the tradition but but i was less interested in that and so what ended up happening was i just started like writing songs with the rhythms kind of at first as like a way to learn them

48:07 Luke F. Walton Right.

48:07 Benjamin Lazar Davis because um

48:08 Luke F. Walton Totally. Work with them.

48:09 Benjamin Lazar Davis exactly

48:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:10 Benjamin Lazar Davis um so uh then I ended up going back and meeting this guy named Holter Harper who is a Guy from Pittsburgh.

48:23 Luke F. Walton Okay.

48:23 Benjamin Lazar Davis He used to play with a great guitar player and man, he used to play with Rusted Root, but

48:30 Luke F. Walton Rest in root.

48:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis was doing all kinds of like Fulbright stuff and he was getting like grants to go to Ghana to...

48:40 Benjamin Lazar Davis Prince to go to Ghana to like make a recording studio and then when he was there like these like rich Ghanaians would like hire him to also like make recording studios in their base

48:50 Luke F. Walton Oh,

48:50 Benjamin Lazar Davis like he basically went to Ghana and like set up a bunch of recording studios

48:54 Luke F. Walton yeah.

48:54 Benjamin Lazar Davis um and we met him over there and um Yeah, it was with Bridget the second time, Bridget Carney, who's also playing on Sunday. I'm like opening for her.

49:07 Luke F. Walton Cool.

49:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis What will be next Sunday? Well, the immediate Sunday previous.

49:12 Luke F. Walton For you listeners.

49:13 Benjamin Lazar Davis And so and then he introduced us to some other people, including this guy Steve-O at Dembire, which was like, you know, very drastically different. stuff than AOA music because there's so many different cultures in

49:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

49:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis such a small area

49:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

49:32 Benjamin Lazar Davis um and his he was from the northeast which was like very remote and um he it was more like a like desert feel stuff where it's like in between the cracks of the field where it's like there's something about the AOA stuff that was like you know some of it was not

49:57 Luke F. Walton yeah

49:58 Benjamin Lazar Davis some of it was in the cracks but like most of it felt like you could write it out in standard

50:03 Luke F. Walton like

50:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis like notation

50:04 Luke F. Walton there was there

50:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis because

50:05 Luke F. Walton was

50:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis it more was

50:05 Luke F. Walton of a grid to exactly which yeah cool

50:09 Benjamin Lazar Davis um whereas this other stuff is like the farther north you get the more like kind of moroccan to not to

50:17 Luke F. Walton that makes

50:18 Benjamin Lazar Davis nari

50:18 Luke F. Walton sense uh

50:18 Benjamin Lazar Davis when like

50:18 Luke F. Walton -huh

50:19 Benjamin Lazar Davis kind of like you get and so in the northern part of Ghana that was like that's like it kind of became that and also the more Muslim like the more the southern part of Ghana is like very Christian

50:34 Luke F. Walton Okay. Yeah.

50:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis and you know a lot of the kind of more traditional religions and stuff kind of happen alongside like they meld them together this is all like bastardization of all this stuff i don't really know what i'm talking about but a little a little bit i do um but then when you get to the north it's like the music changes and also the religion kind of changed like there's more and more mosques

51:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

51:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis um

51:05 Luke F. Walton makes sense.

51:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis uh and then eventually changes to french um

51:11 Luke F. Walton Yes.

51:11 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know i mean they're speaking their own languages which there's like lots of different kinds but um yeah steve-o is this amazing musician that plays this like two string instrument called the kaloga um and it's like everything is just five notes or whatever like total and it's kind of like a banjo but with two strings Um, and yeah, then I went back a few other times too, but, um, yeah,

51:46 Luke F. Walton So cool.

51:47 Benjamin Lazar Davis I, I, I, and that, and I always feel like working with these kind of rhythms and people that are really different from me,

51:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

51:59 Benjamin Lazar Davis like brings out like really cool. creativeness for me

52:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

52:06 Benjamin Lazar Davis because it's like it's like uh usually you know sometimes you work with an american person and you're like and they're like it's too 80 like we want seven like it's like you kind of get caught in this thing where you're like where like i don't like it when people like like it's almost like i like when the music tells you what it wants to

52:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

52:32 Benjamin Lazar Davis be as opposed to us like telling the music what to be like you're like i want i want it to be like 70s but like with the guitar part from 90s

52:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

52:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know like

52:41 Luke F. Walton exactly.

52:42 Benjamin Lazar Davis like

52:42 Luke F. Walton We get kind so locked

52:42 Benjamin Lazar Davis of piecing

52:43 Luke F. Walton into this,

52:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis the stuff

52:43 Luke F. Walton yet

52:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis together or

52:44 Luke F. Walton time warp.

52:44 Benjamin Lazar Davis you're like yeah or you're like oh you write a song and like oh the melody is like too much like something else or like you know like but like when it's me collaborating with these

52:59 Benjamin Lazar Davis different cultures it's like immediately what I bring to the table and what they bring to the table are so like

53:06 Luke F. Walton Yes.

53:06 Benjamin Lazar Davis different and

53:07 Luke F. Walton Right.

53:07 Benjamin Lazar Davis it's like you're like I've never heard anything like this before and suddenly you're free to like just do whatever the fuck you

53:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:12 Benjamin Lazar Davis want which is what I want to do always

53:15 Luke F. Walton Exactly. Yes.

53:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis like I don't want to come into a session really with like an idea of what it should be

53:22 Luke F. Walton Right. Right. Yeah.

53:24 Benjamin Lazar Davis like as much like

53:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

53:26 Benjamin Lazar Davis i want the instruments to tell us like

53:28 Luke F. Walton cool. I love that.

53:29 Benjamin Lazar Davis you

53:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:30 Benjamin Lazar Davis know like like uh i want the part on the on the supra to be the high part because not because you're like i i'm thinking of a high guitar part but more because you pick up that instrument like this is the register that fits in the song or something like that but it's okay it's not it's not like i i get it you know i mean especially like people

53:52 Benjamin Lazar Davis if they're collaborating with me and it's their record like you know it's okay everybody you can you can um you can want it to be something you know and also they want it to be themselves you know um

54:04 Luke F. Walton For sure. For sure.

54:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis but it's just there's when you get you get free when you're collaborating with like these like things that are so different from what I'm used to

54:18 Luke F. Walton Mm

54:18 Benjamin Lazar Davis like

54:18 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

54:19 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know I've been working with this Pakistani singer and

54:22 Luke F. Walton Cool.

54:22 Benjamin Lazar Davis the melodies are just so crazy

54:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

54:24 Benjamin Lazar Davis and then also like like I harmonize them in a way that I think is like you know more from like the American folk

54:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

54:35 Benjamin Lazar Davis tradition or something you

54:36 Luke F. Walton Uh

54:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis know

54:37 Luke F. Walton -huh.

54:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis it's

54:37 Luke F. Walton Totally.

54:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis like or whatever you know I'm doing feels like Their music is like a lot of the melodies are like interesting enough to work without any chords.

54:50 Luke F. Walton Cool. Love that. Yeah.

54:52 Benjamin Lazar Davis So when I put like even some simple chord changes on there,

54:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

54:55 Benjamin Lazar Davis even if the melody like goes out of the chord or something like that,

55:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

55:00 Benjamin Lazar Davis it's just like, I guess it's just easy to like coming from the folk tradition, it's like.

55:10 Benjamin Lazar Davis like growing up it's like people don't care very much about originality in fact you know in some ways it's frowned upon like

55:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah, totally. That's why it's

55:19 Benjamin Lazar Davis you

55:19 Luke F. Walton a tradition.

55:19 Benjamin Lazar Davis want it's like you know so people are just like you know if it's unique it's like feels more accidental and so I don't know I like I feel like I I like push back against sometimes when people are too focused on being original

55:38 Benjamin Lazar Davis and they don't want to just make something good um but at the same time it's like when it happens naturally like I like it

55:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

55:51 Benjamin Lazar Davis it's like I like I like being original but I don't like to like try to be original like

55:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

55:59 Benjamin Lazar Davis I like when it just is like you're this is you know what

56:04 Luke F. Walton Yep.

56:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis happened

56:05 Luke F. Walton Yep.

56:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis I've

56:05 Luke F. Walton Exactly. New combinations.

56:07 Benjamin Lazar Davis never heard anything like

56:08 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

56:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis And that helps when you're kind of working with people that it's not their fault, but they're like, you know, totally.

56:18 Benjamin Lazar Davis different as opposed to like it's not their fault but we're coming from the same you

56:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

56:22 Benjamin Lazar Davis know I like doing a lot of different stuff, so I'm not saying I don't want

56:26 Luke F. Walton no no i

56:27 Benjamin Lazar Davis to do certain

56:28 Luke F. Walton know what you're saying

56:28 Benjamin Lazar Davis things.

56:28 Luke F. Walton i know what you're saying but like i mean there's so many like a good example is i've i've had a lot of records that have only recorded on an sm7b and when you add a bunch of sm7b's on top of each other now you're adding the same frequency spectrum the same resonances the same thing it just kind of stacks it has a certain sound but it's like not you don't always just want a bunch of that same sound that's why it's good to

56:51 Luke F. Walton it'd get some other microphones and be able to like reach for different toolkits same thing with like collaboration we have these resonances we have these things these histories the great american songbook at writ large or whatever and those things can resonate and add on to each other but sometimes you don't want that sometimes like i've got enough of that in me let's see let's see what else we can bring and see what other new territory we can chart through the unique combination so i'm with you i i feel that deeply

57:17 Benjamin Lazar Davis And also, like, when you do, like, you know, I did two records with this Pakistani singer named Zeb. She's going to release it, I think, as a double record.

57:28 Luke F. Walton Cool.

57:29 Benjamin Lazar Davis It's her first release.

57:31 Luke F. Walton That's

57:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis She

57:31 Luke F. Walton ambitious.

57:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis lives

57:32 Luke F. Walton First

57:32 Benjamin Lazar Davis in

57:32 Luke F. Walton release double

57:32 Benjamin Lazar Davis Lahore

57:33 Luke F. Walton record.

57:33 Benjamin Lazar Davis in Pakistan.

57:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah.

57:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis And, you know, I think when you do that also, it's like... Then you come back to working with someone,

57:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

57:45 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know, from here and you have a fresh approach,

57:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

57:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know, like it's

57:50 Luke F. Walton Right.

57:50 Benjamin Lazar Davis like if I did too much of Pakistani music, then maybe it would that would start to, you know, like be less inspiring. But at least for now, like she sings with these like the craziest melodies that. Just every time she opens her mouth, it's like,

58:07 Luke F. Walton Cool.

58:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis what the fuck?

58:09 Luke F. Walton I love it. I love it, man. That's awesome. That's awesome. I'd love to talk about your recent work producing Maya Hawke. Love to hear a little bit about that.

58:20 Benjamin Lazar Davis Yeah, so I don't know. It's been a cool ride to kind of work with like this amazing. um person and lyricist and singer

58:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

58:36 Benjamin Lazar Davis and just like she's so inspiring just in terms of her like um you know work ethic like

58:45 Luke F. Walton Yes.

58:45 Benjamin Lazar Davis I think people from the film industry like they think that all musicians are like lazy fuck because I think like they're like they work like 16 hour days

58:56 Luke F. Walton Right.

58:56 Benjamin Lazar Davis like 20 days in a row

58:58 Luke F. Walton Yep.

58:58 Benjamin Lazar Davis and like and they're like what like you only want to work for six hours um you know and I think I have a also like a I can I can like have a focus that I can turn on where sometimes like if I'm alone on a computer like I'll look up from the screen and it'll be eight hours later

59:16 Luke F. Walton Yes,

59:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis and

59:16 Luke F. Walton totally.

59:17 Benjamin Lazar Davis I'll be like oh shit I didn't eat today or whatever um and yeah i mean so it was cool to have someone that like kind of matched that intensity

59:27 Luke F. Walton Yes, yes.

59:28 Benjamin Lazar Davis of me and um yeah i also kind of um put together like introduced like um i mean people knew each other some people knew each other some people didn't but i feel like i kind of planned out this this thing and

59:48 Benjamin Lazar Davis it kind of like i feel like you know when you when you set out to work with people on a record and you're like the producer or whatever like there's kind of like you know sometimes you get someone comes in and they're like they don't care that much or whatever and that can be fine like they're great musicians they can come in and like do something great without like you know but maybe they leave earlier what you

60:13 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

60:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis know or whatever Excuse

60:17 Luke F. Walton Bless

60:17 Benjamin Lazar Davis me.

60:17 Luke F. Walton you.

60:17 Benjamin Lazar Davis Um, so in this case, it was like everyone involved kind of became so excited and like, it was like, I didn't, it was like putting pop rocks into a, into like a, you know, can of Pepsi or whatever, like where.

60:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis I kind of like set this thing up that exploded in a way I could have never imagined. And, you know, a lot of what happened, I think, you know, was because of these other people, Christian Lee Hudson and

60:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

60:58 Benjamin Lazar Davis Will Grave.

60:58 Luke F. Walton yeah.

61:02 Benjamin Lazar Davis And, you know, my own Christian hadn't met. So I kind of introduced them and had them write together and then. um you know Will and Maya already knew each other that we knew each other kind of at the same time

61:15 Luke F. Walton Cool.

61:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis um and we kind of like put and Will went to NEC with me and um I guess yeah it was just a crazy ride where everyone was like so excited and it's almost like I set up this situation and then it kind of like started

61:36 Luke F. Walton doing Love it.

61:37 Benjamin Lazar Davis its own own thing and i was like okay like you know sometimes i had to like leave the

61:43 Luke F. Walton Yeah?

61:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis studio to like let everything happen without being

61:47 Luke F. Walton Totally.

61:48 Benjamin Lazar Davis being like you know without being like frustrated that I didn't have anything to do.

61:54 Luke F. Walton yeah dude i mean

61:56 Benjamin Lazar Davis that But,

61:56 Luke F. Walton that's such a powerful like that's the ideal place to be as a producer is like if you could build the situation that it like creates its own inertia and you're not having to like push this thing up the mountain and it starts to build and then you can shape it like that's that's some high-level stuff right there man

62:13 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah, and I had to like, you know, I had to like. you know check some preconceived notions

62:20 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

62:21 Benjamin Lazar Davis of what role I was going to play in the in the thing because you know and it's very emotional um and uh yeah but um but it was cool ride and I wrote one of the first two songs me and her wrote before we even like thought um you know about making a record or anything um was a tarasque

62:46 Luke F. Walton Cool.

62:46 Benjamin Lazar Davis and um yeah it's been a wild ride with that song we played it on jimmy fallon um

62:53 Luke F. Walton Amazing.

62:53 Benjamin Lazar Davis this year and um it's got like 20 million streams or something um and yeah it's been it's been cool to been just lucky and also she's just like an incredible person to hang out with

63:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

63:46 Benjamin Lazar Davis and talk with and make music and yeah and she's like she's really inspiring to me like I feel like I'm my best self around her

63:59 Luke F. Walton I love that. That's really special.

64:04 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah but yeah it's been it's been it's been a new thing for me to work with someone with you know as many you know fans as

64:15 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

64:15 Benjamin Lazar Davis she has

64:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

64:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis coming

64:16 Luke F. Walton yeah, of course.

64:16 Benjamin Lazar Davis into it and it's fun it's fun to like work on something that you kind of know people are going to listen to

64:24 Luke F. Walton Yes, exactly right. I already have

64:26 Benjamin Lazar Davis whereas

64:26 Luke F. Walton scope.

64:26 Benjamin Lazar Davis you know there's certain projects where you're like Are people going to listen to this? Are people not going to listen

64:31 Luke F. Walton Who

64:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis to this?

64:32 Luke F. Walton knows?

64:32 Benjamin Lazar Davis I don't know.

64:32 Luke F. Walton That's my own music. I never know.

64:34 Benjamin Lazar Davis But I'm still going, but you know, you're still going 100% the whole time,

64:38 Luke F. Walton Of

64:38 Benjamin Lazar Davis but,

64:38 Luke F. Walton course.

64:39 Benjamin Lazar Davis um,

64:39 Luke F. Walton It's just different.

64:40 Benjamin Lazar Davis but you know.

64:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah. I've got one last question for you. um this is one of my favorite ways to kind of like wrap up um so the the podcast is called love music more and the section is called love music why and basically i just want to give you a moment to just speak poetically about why you love music why did you choose this why do you continue to choose this why do you have those eight hour days where you're like oh crap i didn't eat today like what compels you to do that could you speak just on

65:11 Luke F. Walton From the highest level, your love for this thing.

65:14 Benjamin Lazar Davis Right. I mean, it's like kind of, I wish I had like a better answer for you, but I guess like I kind of grew up around a lot of instruments and like just have all, you know, I had a four track when I was little and would be recording like. stop writing and recording songs like at a very young age um

65:43 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

65:44 Benjamin Lazar Davis and I don't know it didn't really feel like there was any like choice about it ever um

65:53 Luke F. Walton Cool.

65:53 Benjamin Lazar Davis it just kind of like continued doing the same thing and it's so rewarding um but also sometimes I feel like I'm like

66:06 Benjamin Lazar Davis indentured servant to like doing it because it's like I can't stop and it's my job and I love it so much but it doesn't feel like you know I don't know it doesn't it doesn't feel like I have that much of a choice on the matter but it's you know I feel really lucky to

66:31 Benjamin Lazar Davis what it's done for me and and that I get to like wake up in the morning and go to the studio and feel like this passion um

66:40 Luke F. Walton Yeah, mm

66:41 Benjamin Lazar Davis uh you know because I know not everyone is able to experience that in this life like just such a deep passion for anything um and I don't know you

66:58 Benjamin Lazar Davis mr question is why do i love it it's like i don't know i just do it and then some you know it brings me joy but i don't know like what other people answer right

67:11 Luke F. Walton yeah it's all over the map that's part of the reason why i like asking it because i feel like it's just a it's like asking somebody like what is freedom i always get wild answers when i ask people that i'm fun at parties

67:25 Benjamin Lazar Davis Well, but yeah, I guess I'm just like, I'm just, it's just more like breathing or

67:33 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

67:34 Benjamin Lazar Davis something like, you know, like, why do you like,

67:37 Luke F. Walton Why do you love breathing?

67:38 Benjamin Lazar Davis why

67:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

67:38 Benjamin Lazar Davis do you? Yeah, why do you love breathing?

67:43 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

67:43 Benjamin Lazar Davis And you're kind of just like, because You can't

67:47 Luke F. Walton You cannot.

67:47 Benjamin Lazar Davis not create it.

67:49 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

67:49 Benjamin Lazar Davis You can't

67:50 Luke F. Walton That's

67:50 Benjamin Lazar Davis like it

67:50 Luke F. Walton a good, yeah.

67:51 Benjamin Lazar Davis does feel good, you know, take a deep breath

67:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

67:53 Benjamin Lazar Davis or whatever, you know, but It's interesting. I feel like I'm walking behind this family and there's like weed smoke and I feel like everyone's like, where's it coming from?

68:08 Luke F. Walton like

68:08 Benjamin Lazar Davis Or

68:08 Luke F. Walton it's funny

68:09 Benjamin Lazar Davis maybe not. Maybe it's them. I don't know. But basically, but yeah, yeah. Why do you love breathing? And you're kind of like, I guess I love breathing. I can't not breathe. And sometimes. It's hard to remember to breathe.

68:32 Luke F. Walton like

68:32 Benjamin Lazar Davis I guess that's different from the music.

68:35 Luke F. Walton well i i mean i i resonate with the idea of like when you stop making music for a while it does kind of feel like you're holding your breath it doesn't feel like you're like at least from where i'm at it it hurts me yeah

68:48 Benjamin Lazar Davis Right. Yeah. Well, man, it was a pleasure talking

68:52 Luke F. Walton it's fun loved

68:53 Benjamin Lazar Davis with you.

68:53 Luke F. Walton it

68:54 Benjamin Lazar Davis Again, the 12th, Friday,

68:56 Luke F. Walton Yes.

68:57 Benjamin Lazar Davis new song called No Need to Reply, link in the bottom of

69:04 Luke F. Walton Yes, in the bottom.

69:05 Benjamin Lazar Davis the thing, and Sunday, Altamira Studios, kind of like a house concert in a recording studio,

69:12 Luke F. Walton Right.

69:12 Benjamin Lazar Davis so the

69:12 Luke F. Walton Love it.

69:13 Benjamin Lazar Davis address, you need to get the address via You know, or whatever.

69:23 Luke F. Walton Should they reach out to you on IG or something or what's Yeah, the cool.

69:26 Benjamin Lazar Davis yeah, DM me on IG, Benjamin Lazar Davis. And yeah, I don't know. February 22nd at the same place, my band Cuddle Magic is playing. Yeah. Thank you. I feel like we've been trying to make this happen for a long time and I really enjoyed

69:49 Luke F. Walton I really enjoyed it too so thank you thank you man and I'm really excited for the song I got a pre-saved so it'll be it'll be hitting my playlist so yeah really appreciate it all right have a great rest of your day take care