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  • 8 months ago
Addison Rae, along with her producers Luka Kloser and ELVIRA, take us behind their viral hit 'Headphones On' and detail the making of Addison's debut album.

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Transcript
00:00I'm a very like sensual and sexual person and I'm very intimate with myself and my body
00:05and everything kind of reflects that in a lot of ways.
00:08Everything feels very personal.
00:09Hi, I'm Addison.
00:10Hi, I'm Luca.
00:11I'm Elvira.
00:12And we're going to take you behind the song, Headphones On.
00:16Honestly, I don't remember how we first started this.
00:27I definitely don't remember.
00:28Through the drum machines.
00:30That week was a little chaotic.
00:32We were all pretty sick.
00:33Oh my god, I had pneumonia.
00:35Yeah.
00:35Without like knowing.
00:36Yeah.
00:37It was really scary actually.
00:39It must have been just amidst like the chaos.
00:42I think I remember it starting with playing like the chords in the chorus and then you guys started
00:49sketching that chorus melody and then we kind of chased it from there.
00:54I think yeah, it was a chaotic week and that was our second time working in Sweden.
00:58Yeah.
00:59I made this song in Stockholm, which was not helpful that I was sick in Stockholm with no help.
01:05You got so sick.
01:05Yeah.
01:06Addison sings the entire song sounding like an angel and then like essentially gets hospitalized the next day.
01:11But actually, I had to fly home like a few days after that.
01:14It was really scary.
01:15But if you listen to the song compared to the rest of the music, it definitely gives this.
01:20Yeah.
01:20Like it sounds like a whole thing.
01:22But it does add something.
01:22It does.
01:23It's a little bit more like on the verge of tears.
01:25Adds the pain.
01:25Yeah.
01:27Right?
01:27We were like getting along, having fun.
01:29Addison came in like six inch pink stilettos and we were like, oh, okay, let's go.
01:37So we put on our pink stilettos.
01:39Of course.
01:40No, that was a good day.
01:41And it feels really beautiful and magical that it is just all females.
01:45I never set out for it to be that way.
01:48I think because it's not very common.
01:50And you almost don't get that opportunity very much to work with just females in a room.
01:54And it's funny because we actually at one point attempted to send someone a song that we were
02:00doing.
02:01And I'm not going to go into too much detail, but it was a guy and we are a big fan of this guy's music.
02:06He ended up trying something and we were like, actually, we got it.
02:11Bummer.
02:12It's so good, but he's a man.
02:13Right. Like, no, not going to cut it.
02:16And then, yeah, it just kind of went from there.
02:19Yeah. Right.
02:19When I moved to LA, I met my managers who are still my managers now.
02:22And I was like, I need to start acting and I need to start singing and I need to start
02:26songwriting like ASAP because I never really thought it was a real thing that I could pursue.
02:32You know, when I lived in Louisiana, it's a very small town.
02:34I think a lot of people, even people that grow up in bigger towns, there's always this kind of weird
02:40thing around becoming an artist or pursuing that dream and it feeling too big or, you know,
02:45like, why would it happen to me or why would it happen for me to have that opportunity?
02:49And I kind of felt like that up until I moved to LA.
02:52Then I was kind of like, this is my shot.
02:53Like, I got to go, go big, you know?
03:04So that vocal you hear in the beginning of the song
03:08Is not a sample.
03:08Is not a sample.
03:10It's from a synth called the Orbit 3 and it sounds like this.
03:14Yeah. So that's what you hear in the beginning of the song.
03:16And it's kind of funny.
03:20It's not really, have you noticed it's not really timed?
03:22It kind of shouldn't work and it's kind of like random to have.
03:26But I think we really like to find like weird contrasts in like production and like just like.
03:32It's such a like rave 90s vocal.
03:34Like you expect the song to go into like 200 BPM tech house or something.
03:40And instead you land into just like vibes.
03:43Oh, it's so good.
03:46But yeah, that plays almost the entire song and it's like tucked away.
03:51But yeah, I've seen lots of ideas of what that is.
03:54Like that we like sampled Black Eyed Peas or something.
03:57I know, I've seen so many random things.
03:59Maybe soloing all the green and blue is fun.
04:01Yeah, this is fun.
04:03Kind of the synth world.
04:05Like this is chorus.
04:09I mean, I'm way.
04:10It makes me so emotional.
04:13And look at this brilliant organ line.
04:16And that's what I had.
04:17We had that in the video.
04:18It was really sweet whenever she found that.
04:20I actually have another part of the video like this that we were filming on my Mac.
04:25Where I'm like literally just like.
04:26I was just like spinning out about it because it was just so beautiful when you played it.
04:32Even the first time like hearing that in the room, we were all just like, oh, that's really special.
04:38This is me playing an M1 which is also a very, very famous dance synth from the 90s.
04:47Which we use a lot.
04:48A lot on the album.
04:49Which kind of gets bullied in the music world.
04:51It's kind of known as like the cheesy synth.
04:54Which I think is also adorable that we have adopted it.
04:57We tend to like lean towards those synths.
05:00Like all the like bullying synths.
05:02I mean the bass sounds a little silly too, out of context.
05:07But I love it.
05:09And then we also have four minutes of rainfall in the background.
05:14It's just constant throughout the entire song.
05:17If you were to go listen again, then you would notice because it does so much.
05:22Yeah.
05:23It actually does.
05:24It's not too quiet either.
05:25Yeah.
05:25Speaking of silly sounds.
05:32Why?
05:32It's not lightning crash.
05:36You're in this like little watery world.
05:40Plus the rain.
05:41A very major part of it that makes it feel very like organic and like heartfelt.
05:55Is that it's a lot of live cello.
06:00Played by me.
06:02Played by yours truly.
06:03Yours truly.
06:04Starts on like the pre.
06:06Yeah, on the pre here.
06:11I love those ad libs.
06:37I have the BTS video.
06:38I sent you part of it.
06:39I think Addison has the hottest talking voice.
06:44For sure.
06:44And should win an award on an award.
06:46Like when we discovered that we were like, let's just have you talk in every song.
06:50It's like, like all of those.
06:53I don't, if I, if anyone else did that I'd be like, mm-mm.
06:56Come and put your headphones on.
06:58Yeah, they're immediately on.
07:02Headphones on.
07:03It's so fun.
07:07So I put my headphones on.
07:12Yeah.
07:14Yeah.
07:14Here you can tell that you're sick.
07:19Yeah, here you can really tell I'm sick.
07:22I love this little ad.
07:25So many people, you know, feel the same feelings they had listening to certain other records that
07:32are older that I've always loved actually.
07:34That are like, oh my god, it makes me feel like when I listened to bedtime stories.
07:39Which is so complimentary and really funny because I definitely didn't reference really anything
07:43making this album.
07:44Necessarily it was always me trying to, you know, provoke a feeling from a song or from
07:51music that I felt maybe listening to some other genre or artist.
07:55There's a lot of inspiration drawn from like dance and the way that I dance to music and
08:02feel very sensual and sexual.
08:04And I think I'm a very like sensual and sexual person and I'm very intimate with myself and my body
08:10and everything kind of reflects that in a lot of ways.
08:12Everything feels very personal.
08:14You know, all of the instruments that are used, the vocals, even the layering and the, you know,
08:20talky parts that you like of me being like and all those little parts like it comes from a place of
08:25trying to get somebody's visceral response to those moments and those little sounds are super intimate.
08:31And I think that's why we love layering vocals because it feels like, you know,
08:35somebody's either really up close to your face or like whispering in your ear, you hear it very subtly
08:40and you can hear little tiny moments that you kind of have to listen for.
08:44Or maybe you don't even really know they're there, but you feel them there, you know?
08:49Yeah.
08:49It's been so fun because like all of us three are kind of obsessed with like vocal arranging
08:54and like come from like choir or like, you know, like do like all of those things.
08:59And I think it's like such a gift to like being able to do that together.
09:03Also sessions are kind of like vocal lessons in a lot of ways because I feel like, you know,
09:08y'all say this all the time, but like my pitch has gotten so much better.
09:12And my timing or just my ear.
09:14No, your timing has always been good.
09:16Addison's timing is insane.
09:18Yeah, thank you.
09:19An example, verse two, when she does that little talk.
09:32Both of you have such incredible voices and different ranges than I do even.
09:36So then like pushing me to get to, you know, certain places of my voice that I
09:41maybe didn't know were possible for me or I didn't try to do because it was a little
09:44uncomfortable.
09:45I can feel completely safe in a room with you to test out, you know, the vocal instrument,
09:52which is nice.
09:53We can keep talking for 30 hours.
09:55We lead them out with the outro.
09:57Thanks for listening.
10:02Thanks for listening.
10:02Thanks for listening.
10:03Bye.
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