This is How Sturgill Simpson Writes a Song

So when you're touring with this music now and you're fucking with it and you're switching things up, when will you decide that it's time to write some new shit? Will you just tour and then stop touring and then... Well I'm always writing poetry. Do you want... I used to sit down with a guitar and I'm going to write this song and you get a part and words and you find a meter and phrase. I've discovered I'm really just a poet. It's easier to write the words out and craft the meter and phrase to those words musically in the studio. I would say both... All the other three records I probably wrote half of them while you go in to make the record. You think you have the songs and you realize that those songs are not supposed to be a part of this record and I would go home at night and write songs that fit that record. Or I would come in with parts, like Sailor's Got to have a lot of parts of music that get pieced together in the studio. These guys probably all thought I was fucking insane. They scared Ferg to death because he's like, I want to hear the songs. I got some notes, you know. But really the music happens. You lock yourself in that room with the right people for matter of days and you just keep going until it's done. You have ideas in the moment. But now I don't even pick a guitar up to write. I just write what I want to say, what I'm feeling. And then these guys, you know, push and encourage and motivate me to try to do the other thing as well as I'm able. So are you writing longhand? Are you writing on a computer? No, I always write it. You always write it with your hand? I have notepads. And I'll go through and just scribble out sections or pick this can fit with this. This record was very deconstructed, I guess. We did some loops and we would record riffs on a certain key and then record that same riff on every other key so I could take it and chop it to a loop and make it super precise like a hip hop album. And then some stuff was just live as fuck, you know. And you're just having fun. We had a lot of fun. The improvisational part of it sounds terrifying. But awesome. That's what you want. Yeah, I mean, sometimes you get something if it's a melodic hook or something, the first take, it's usually the one you keep, you know. Yeah. You go back and try to make it perfect. It sounds cool. And we knew that having done this before. So with these sessions, that was the only rule. There was no second guessing or indecision, hence the samurai films on the wall. Because in a sword fight, you got one fucking move. You know what I mean? That was the MO for these sessions. The first thing is, doesn't matter if it's the right thing, it's the thing. So when you're doing that and you're recording things, do you pause and go listen to it and play it again? How do you guys do it? Sometimes. Sometimes. It depends. If it sounds cool, like Bobby said, then you probably just keep it. And if you're like, and it didn't really work, try something else. Most of his solos on the record were like, first, second, take. I mean, Chuck, I don't think I've ever fucking punched a single thing in Chuck's life. Chuck's perfect. He just kills it. He's the man. But Bob, I've got a bunch of videos somewhere on my computer. I made him record all of his solos with a joint in his mouth. Well, like the intro thing, they're like, we need a thing for this. And I was like, well, I need a doobie. And I smoked it and I just played that. I have some of those videos too. So from that point on, every time he played, he had a joint in his mouth. So he was like, not just thinking about the music. It was like, you know, anything to just settle. And it was. It was pretty fun. I mean, we were kind of just. We were fucking wasted. You know, just kind of like doing the Arsenio. Yeah. Can you get too high and play music? Only if you have to remember. I'm still trying. He's always. What did you say? So you said you want to get so high, you don't even know what's chord you're playing. I don't even know what song we're playing. I was like, yeah. No, the problem is like we get so high when we record that and then we have to remember that live or relearn it. And then if you get high live, you can't remember what you played high when you record. That is an issue. So then do you go back and listen to recordings and go, what? Yeah, what was that? What were we doing? I mean, we had to I had to go back after. Before rehearsals, this was a really weird thing has never happened. I went from mixing and like processing, looking at this film for the past year to now we have to like learn these songs. So you're fine. You're actually like paying attention to what you did there or play these chords. I'm just like, wow, fuck did I do that? You know, just so weird that we did it so relatively quick, quicker than the other stuff that we did shit. Yeah, we had to learn it all over again because we didn't remember doing it. It was just so creative and quick like that. They hadn't heard any of the songs since we recorded them until I sent them the record three weeks ago. Yeah. Is it surreal going and listening to all of it after it's all pieced together? A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. For me it was, yeah. Yeah, it's like riding a bike though, really, especially not playing in a year. We know each other. Just jump back on. Yeah. I'm still catching things in the recordings that I have don't play live. I'll hear little bits and things still. Wow. I got a question. When you're in the studio with them, are you in producer mode because you've produced other artists or are they kind of producers with you and you guys are finding it together? Oh man, I couldn't tell these guys to do what they do. Why would I? I mean, I don't want to work with people. I want to work with the guys that just do shit that amazes me. But no, I'm not like, I have a rough structure in my head of what it sounds like. You know, I guess, I don't know, maybe you guys should answer that question. Yeah, I mean, you said it, but you have an idea of what you want, but you kind of give us the reins. Yeah. If it sucks, I tell them. You'll tell us. You know, I give them an opportunity to not fuck up. You'll say like, you know, a Wu Tang vibe or something. And then, you know. Wu Tang vibe. So there's definitely, I have like the idea of the sound I'm chasing and it's hard to articulate. But with this, it was just, I realized like maybe by the end of the second day, we were doing something I know I hadn't really heard before. Or maybe I was hearing like 15 of my favorite records all at the same time. I was just like, okay, this is what this is going to be. And it's probably going to destroy my career. And that's okay, because this is fuck. I like it. I like it.