Rishikesh Hirway

Or what if I do get it right, but somebody else messes up?

He said, if the thing that we're gonna focus on is your singing.

So we won't use a take that doesn't feel good in terms of your singing.

And if somebody messes up or whatever, it's fine.

He was like, no.

You know, we're not going to play with headphones.

We're not going to use a click track.

So I can't even like listen to myself as I'm singing.

He said, no, I want everybody to hear what everybody's actually doing.

I want you to all be tuned into each other.

He said, if you think about your favorite records, I bet if you went back and you listened, you'd realize how many moments where the singer is not singing perfectly in tune.

And not only do you love them despite that, I think you might love them because of that.

All those little moments make it feel like real people are making music in a room together.

And so that's what we should go for.

That's what you should aim for.

And just trust me.

So anyway, so I think that Stray Dogs is just as good of an example as all of these on all of these songs I'm singing with that method.

My favorite part of that recording is one thing that was overdubbed, which is my friend Uwade's voice.

I do have to recognize that Song Exploder itself was born out of this idea of how I'd made music myself.

I'd always done things in this layer by layer way, this half electronic, half folk bedroom recording style.