Always Getting Better – A Conversation with BABBADNOTGOOD

When did you guys start and finish the album?

ALEX: We technically started at the beginning of last year. In February we started writing ideas and we actually went back to the studio where we recorded III, called Revolution Recording. We scrapped all those songs because we weren’t sure that was the direction we wanted to go in. What we recorded there was an experimental stage. By the new year we booked sessions with musicians and singers we hadn’t worked with before like Colin Stetson and Mick Jenkins. We finished it in March 2016. The real rundown process took about 6 months; it was a hustled effort.

What was your favorite record on the album?

ALEX: It changes all the time because as I listen to things I remember different memories– the fun moments, the struggle moments… I really like “In Your Eyes” with Charlotte Day Wilson. I went to school with her and didn’t know she could sing. When we re-connected post-high school I was so blown away by how amazing of a singer/songwriter she was. I would say that and “Lavender” with Kaytranada. I have some great memories working on those songs.

How did you determine who featured on your album?

ALEX: We had no idea. All the features were awesome and we were stoked on it but at one point we weren’t sure if it would make any sense and that we should just do an instrumental record but in the final stages we began to accept that these features made sense, these people were friends we really love to work with.

Do you guys think you’ll do a collaborative album again, similar to what happened with Ghostface Killah?

LELAND: We haven’t thought about doing something to that extent right now. The only thing that’s in the books is working with Kaytranada, we have a lot of plans to keep working with him. I think we have 30-40 songs together and we want to do a full length album that may be instrumental or may have collaborations. Aside from that we don’t have set plans.

Did you just say you have 30-40 songs with Kaytranada?

LELAND: Yeah, unreleased things. We have another session with him in July.

Do those have features on them?

LELAND: Everything in the vault is instrumental. We’ve done a lot of stuff with him that’s been put out by different artists. There’s a song with him that Mick Jenkins ended up rapping on called “The Artful Dodger” that just came out recently.

What was your mindset before recording this new album? Was there a concept or sound that you wanted to incorporate?

LELAND: The album was a growing process for me. I’m an instrumentalist but I haven’t been able to use a lot of the instruments I play in this context until I started playing with BBNG, which helped me produce my ideas. Matt’s an amazing engineer and helped create sounds that I didn’t know I could achieve. A lot of the arrangements we came up with on the album were very unique; we didn’t know how they were going to sound beforehand. I didn’t necessarily have a distinct goal or intention before writing or recording.

You guys have talked about the Toronto music scene in previous interviews. There’s a lot of recording studios that are starting to pop up. On the flipside of that, there are a lot of bands that migrate to L.A. to jumpstart their careers. How is it different to come up as an artist in Toronto compared to L.A.?

LELAND: L.A. is one of the biggest cities for the music industry. From that you get a broader spectrum of quality. Since there are so many people, there’s a lot of awful music coming out of there but also a lot of amazing music. Toronto is obviously a lot smaller. We happen to be a band in this phase of Toronto music scene’s growth, which feels really cool, even when there are so many distinctive things going on that I don’t know if I can say that what we’re doing is a Toronto sound.

What would you say is the Toronto sound?

LELAND: I mean Drake has obviously put Toronto on, as well as the Weeknd. What we’re doing is not related to that sound at all. We’re trying to do our own thing but through those artists putting Toronto on the map, they’re shedding light on what we do as an artist, which is nice.

Have you explored working with more Toronto artists?

LELAND: Chester co-produced “0 to 100” by Drake. Aside from that we actually have worked with a bunch of Toronto artists. Charlotte Day Wilson is from Toronto. We’ve worked a lot with Frank Dukes on Sour Soul, amongst other things. We’ve worked with Daniel Caesar, River Tiber, Jordan Evans and a whole list of other singers, songwriters and producers from Toronto.

What else is in store for BBNG in 2016?

LELAND: We’re gonna book more sessions with Kaytranada. We really like doing production and studio work; that’s where our heads are at. We’ve been touring on and off for the past five to six months, so it’s been insane. It would be nice to settle down in Toronto to write music.

If you guys were to work with anyone right now, who would you pick?

LELAND: Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean. BBNG was Frank Ocean’s backing band at Coachella 2012; I just met him at Coachella backstage this year, briefly. Nobody knows what’s going on with his album but he’s one of the greatest songwriters of all time. We’ve been really into Brazilian music and we got in contact with the amazing guitarist-composer Arthur Verocai. It would be cool to do a full album with Charlotte Day Wilson and to keep working with Daniel Caesar.

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