Sturgill Simpson Shares the Story Behind His Netflix Anime Film

It's such a unique country. When you think about the history and their contributions to the martial arts in particular, the warrior ethic of the samurai, like that book Miyamoto Masashi's The Book of Five Rings, that's a great book for your life. Just to think about excellence in your life and pursuit in your life and how all things balance out all other aspects of your life. His idea of being a great samurai, you had to also be great at calligraphy. You had to be a great artist. You had to be able to write poetry. You had to be a balanced human being in order to fight correctly. This fucking guy was like 60 and 0 in one-on-one sword fights. And became a pacifist in his later life. And that Book of Five Rings is... fuck man, it's an amazing book. We got a Masashi quote at the end of the anime film. That's him. That's him on my arm. Yeah, just that whole culture, their contributions to martial arts, what they've been able to do with design. It's an interesting place. Even their automobiles. They make bulletproof cars that last forever. They were the first people to figure it out. Just make cars that don't break. And go really fast. Yeah. It's a fascinating culture. What connection did they have to the anime thing? Who was making all that animation for you? Well, I had the idea for the record first. Then we played Fuji Rock in 2017. I have a very good friend, a Japanese friend who grew up in Kentucky on an exchange program with my wife. He later moved back to Tokyo for college. Became a radio DJ. His name is Shunsuke Ochi. And he did the radio thing for a while. Then he got into voice narration for Marvel over there. He's just a good dude. I went over for a couple weeks before we played Fuji Rock to hang out with him and my buddies and get some time on the ground. And the record was recorded the month before. I was like, man, it'd be really cool to do some animated videos for this album. Maybe it's like one or two. And we were sitting around his place watching a lot of old animation and anime films and the textures and the color and everything. It's just stuff you don't really see anymore. I was just thinking about some of my favorite cartoons from that, especially the older stuff, the 70s and 80s that came from that world. So we decided to start taking meetings with producers just to get an idea of what would this cost? How long will it take? Is it even possible? Would they do it? And it was kind of trial and error for a while. We finally had a meeting with a guy named Hiroki who was very understated in the meeting, sold himself short. You know, it was just like a mid-50s guy in a tracksuit. But when we come to find out a week later, he's the fucking man. And all his buddies are the man too. And those guys are also used to working under not under certain restrictions, but if they take a project on it, it's from a big studio. The story's already dictated. The parameters are dictated. Basically they have to stay within someone else's lane with their vision. And so one of the first – he asked me this, what kind of animation I was interested in. So I named off some of the references of the things that I loved and was looking to sort of get in terms of aesthetic and texture. And he just went straight to the guys that made those things because they were drinking buddies with all of them. And Junpei Mizusaki, especially, was the one director who I think – Shun translated all the lyrics for them because I wanted them to know, one, what the record was about so they could gauge interest. And he just sort of said at dinner one night, he's like, you're talking about the same things that I deal with as an artist. He's like, you know, I feel like this could be me talking. We deal with the same things in terms of dealing with business and commerce versus art. So he just sort of reacted passionately to the music and he just said, I want to do the whole record. He's like, this is kind of a dream project for me. And I said, okay. And then, then it was like, well, how are you going to do the whole record in a year? Because we've already been sitting on this thing for a year and a half now. And they assembled four other directors who were running teams or project teams at the same time simultaneously and breaking the songs up into chapters. So even though there's somewhat of a linear narrative told out of chronological order and then two little side vignettes, which are sort of same universe, different world, just to give a different perspective on some of those songs, because some directors were doing one song, other teams had two, and he was overseeing the entire thing, but had them all working simultaneously on it so we could finish on time. So I went over six times in the last year and I realized about the second trip, those visits were very beneficial because those guys don't do half ass, you know what I mean? And they definitely pride themselves on their work and they all wanted me to be impressed. So every time I would come back, they knew I was coming. I could tell it was really motivating them to go outside the box and everybody wanted to be the guy that blew my mind the most, you know what I mean? And they did every fucking time. It was just like, some of that stuff, I know how they did it and I don't know how they did it. Where can anybody see the whole thing? Netflix. Oh, it's all on Netflix. It's on Netflix right now. But you put some of it on YouTube? Well, yeah, I didn't want to. The label has to have a single because they got the relationship with Spotify and all that shit, which is also frustrating because we make cohesive concept records that are meant to be consumed as a whole. And then if I'm not going to radio, why do I need a single? You know what I mean? Just put the fucking record out. Skip the lead up, the whole traditional set up because we don't fit that model. Just by making records, we're antiquated. But they put a single out, so they put one section of the movie up on YouTube, which I think will take down now that the whole film's out. Yeah, for people, they'd be like, what is going on here? Yeah. Yeah. We basically made a heavy metal or the wall, but with Japanese animators. I love it. I wouldn't compare it to the wall, but same idea. Just a visual. It's a visual age. It's beautiful too. The animation that they did for us, it's incredible. Was it weird seeing their vision connected to your music? No. I wrote the initial story, the main byline screenplay, and then told Junpei. We were trying to do an homage of specifically Yo Jimbo and then a couple other famous samurai films like Takeshi Katano's Zu Tehichi and a lot of Kurosawa things, very reoccurring storylines. We were watching Kurosawa films in the studio making the record on silent in the control room just to keep our mood right, keep everything dark and ominous and no second guessing. It's like a futuristic dystopian Yo Jimbo, which is also a fistful of dollars. We got one town of people being oppressed by a couple rival factions or gang leaders. And sort of using them for their own building. In the future now, Junpei and I talked about it. Sex, drugs and weapons and war are really the main drivers of the economy. Let's just say that those are the only economy. Those are the only things that have value anymore at that point. And it got weird. I gave him a rough script. I said, but I want you guys to do what you do, so feel free to add or take things in any direction you want at any time. So then you get 30 women with their tits out dancing. Which was Junpei's idea. I told him there was a very old famous samurai film called Zu Tehichi and at the end of it, this blind swordsman conquers this evil force and the townspeople celebrate. There's this very famous scene in the end of it with this traditional dance and they're doing this dance. I said, can we sneak this in as a dance sequence slash homage? And anybody that has to be like a film buff geek like me would get it. Anybody else just be like, this is fucking cool. So they decided to take the gimps and the sex trafficked slaves, so to speak, and then just make a big chorus line. But then they had a woman, a traditional Japanese dancer come in and they put her on motion capture and green screen and she did the actual dance from the film and they animated everyone to that. I was like, that's pretty sweet. I wouldn't have thought of that. But he did what I wanted. He just gave me what he wanted to do with it. Now how long is the whole thing? Same length as the audio is the album. It's 42 minutes. Wow. It's a fucking brilliant idea, man. It's really cool. I just love the idea that you're experimenting with something like that. Just trying it out. But it had to be a long stretch. That was the hardest part was sitting on it so long and then hyper focusing on mixed the record, I think three times and mastered it twice and then we had to do a surround sound mix for the movie. So I'm pretty fucking burn out on it, I'll be honest. I'm ready to go play live, but I don't ever want to hear that shit again. Does that contribute to the way you get creative with the sound when you're performing live and you change up? Absolutely. Yeah. Do you think you're going to do this in the future again? Like this kind of animation thing? This? Or is this a one off? Oh, no. There's already talk of doing. I wouldn't do the music again. I would certainly, I might, if they want to run with the story, I'd be all about it, either prequel or sequel action. But I wouldn't want to make this sonic signature. I would probably use like traditional Japanese musicians and then contemporary production methods and they actually have dialogue and sound effects and make a story. Are you going to get into the cartoon business? I got three kids. That would be fucking awesome. It looks awesome. I got to watch the whole thing. I got to check it out. It's really fucking weird, man. It's super trippy. Like that big Mike Tyson blunt when you get home at midnight and your kids are asleep and watch that shit. And then think about what a weird motherfucker I am. All right. Now when you think about like doing another storyline like that, like following that storyline. I haven't thought about it. I haven't thought about it. It'd be pretty easy though. I mean, she rides off with the two robots and there's like an AI monster on left dealt with or you could go back in time to the origins of the two slick and slim feud with her dad while they show up to the dojo and kill everybody. I don't know. There's all kinds of, just right and making up shit. Pretty straightforward. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.