Cold open / what they've been watching [00:00:00]

Brian Pritchard: We Came From Celluloid, and we're turning it into music and podcast for you.

Nicky P: Welcome everyone to another episode of We Came From Celluloid. I am Nicky P, here as always with the illustrious Mr. Brian Pritchard. How are we doing today, buddy?

Brian Pritchard: I'm good, Nick. I'm good. Good. It's gonna be a great day today.

Nicky P: If it wasn't evidenced by the cat who's running behind your head right now, doing laps.

Brian Pritchard: I know. How could it not be, right? How could it not be a great day when you got a little cat biting your arm?

Nicky P: He's just running around in the background. So, haven't thought much about what today's episode is gonna be about, but I'm sure we will have some fun with it. I'll ask the question, since you've been very busy with your new career change. I haven't had a chance to talk to you much about what you've been watching, buddy.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, yeah. No, I hear ya. It's been a jarring reduction, right, in the amount of screen time that I've had available to me since taking on this new, you know, job. And so, I watched The Grifters again recently, and I've gotten the Criterion Collection, and so my habit is always to, whether I get something new like that, or even when I bring it down from the upstairs shelf to down here, I like to watch all the bonus features and stuff like that.

And so, I was just especially struck by, like, I've been considering going, like, gee, like, I feel so compelled to do this because, you know, habit can be a strong compulsion. But I'm also going, like, if my time is so precious, should I watch, you know, a second movie, rather than, you know, two hours of behind-the-scenes stuff? But anyway, I watched The Grifters recently. I've been revisiting the Harry Potter movies. I'm trying to remember what... "I'm back again tomorrow, kid, and I'll do it again." I watched and really enjoyed The Odyssey. I don't remember if we talked about that after I had seen it, but that led me to re-watch Tenet and bring down some other Chris Nolan movies. That happens a lot, of course, with music and film. Something new comes out.

Tenet and Nolan's spy-movie blueprint [00:02:42]

Nicky P: What are your opinions on Tenet? That seems to be the one movie that really catalyzes even Nolan fans.

Brian Pritchard: Sure. And my immediate response is that I've watched it probably five or six times and it does not work as a story all that well for me. I find a lot of it to be people's motivations and what's going on plot-wise. The plot mechanics of that movie I find very confusing. I've had viewings before where there seemed to be, like, a key moment or speech or bit of dialogue.

Like, there's a monologue that Kenneth Branagh has in the last, like, 20 minutes of the movie that I remember, like, one of the last times I watched it going, oh, got it. The secret to everything that's going on here really lives inside this monologue of his. But then when I watched it again more recently, I was listening to the monologue going, I'm not even sure what epiphany I had about these words last time, but it's not hitting me, you know what I mean? So, yeah, there's a lot of great set pieces that I like and, oddly enough, in the bonus features, a simple phrase that he made did make a lot of sense to me where he was like, well, you know, we were just trying to do our version of, like, the classic spy movie.

And I'm going, like, got it, fair enough, not that that had never occurred to me in some way, but that just seemed like a simple way to relax and enjoy it is going, I love the James Bond movies. I love the formula, such as it is, of a spy movie, and essentially that's what they're trying to do here is they're trying to take that blueprint of a spy movie and heighten it in a Chris Nolan way with some heady stuff going on and the whole backwards stuff. And I was always a big fan.

Nicky P: Have you ever seen the movie The Orphanage?

Brian Pritchard: Um, I don't know that I did. I mean, I can sort of picture that.

The Orphanage as Peter Pan from the parents' side [00:05:05]

Nicky P: It might, honestly, it might be difficult for you because you, like my wife, have the bad-things-happening-to-people aversion. It was, I believe, either produced or, like, you know, featured by Guillermo del Toro. But one of the things I found interesting about it is when you're doing the commentary track on it, the directors say their goal was to do Peter Pan from the parents' perspective. Which was, all of a sudden, as a parent, your child just disappears, like, either you're at home and they're gone all of a sudden.

And it's like, I would have never in a million years pieced together that that's what you were trying to do with this ostensibly a horror movie. But when you go back and you watch it from that perspective, you're just like, oh, wow. Like, I get what you were doing. Now, in that particular case, the movie was fantastic, even without that little bit. Like, there's a lot of moving pieces going on. It's creepy. A lot of imagery that's just very, you know, del Toro-y. So, but it always just fascinated me. It's like, how the lens through which the director approaches a movie can alter or enhance the enjoyment in a lot of ways.

Brian Pritchard: No doubt. And it also — well, number one, that's a very Puma Thurman-esque concept, right? And I'm sitting there kicking myself going like, damn, that would have been a good one. You know what I mean? To identify on our own as a way in. You know, I should revisit some Disney films or something and try to find a weird angle. But shouldn't be too hard to do.

Nicky P: It shouldn't be too hard to do. You ever want a really weird, sad movie? Watch The Orphanage.

Director's intent, David Lynch, and dancing about architecture [00:07:06]

Brian Pritchard: But, you know, there's this idea of director's intent. There's this idea of looking for answers. There's, like, when — I'm sure, you know, over the years — I was an early internet adopter in the '90s. And some of the earliest internet stuff that you did was, you know, discussion forums. Not that it doesn't exist now. Reddit is certainly very much, you know, a living version of that. You know what I mean? But movie discussion.

Nicky P: Reddit is a very interesting place in that 10 years ago, I'd have agreed with you. But Reddit also let internal politics destroy it. And so—

Brian Pritchard: High level. Let's keep it simple for the moment. And just say that, from a film discussion perspective, where I was going is just that I remember having David Lynch being my favorite filmmaker, but also quickly getting kind of feeling over it in terms of wanting to overly intellectualize things. Like, there's a point that I can hit sometimes where, if I haven't used the phrase here before, it feels like dancing about architecture. Right? Where you're like, this isn't the reason why we like this thing. You know what I mean? Like, the reason we like it is how it makes us feel and letting it wash over you.

And I say we — I shouldn't. I say that's why I like it. You know? I know that different people certainly — that was very much the appeal of David Lynch or anybody else was going, no, I'm going to crack the code. I'm going to be the one to definitively understand how all these secrets and clues, you know, how this trail of breadcrumbs was left behind for me to puzzle together and piece it together. Number one, if a director has legitimately done that, you're kind of an asshole. You know what I mean? Like, don't make any of us work that fucking hard to piece together your precious fucking vision. Right?

Brown Coat Man and meaning after the fact [00:09:21]

Nicky P: Well, and I've been an artist, quote-unquote, too long to know that, like, yeah, a lot of the art that happens in art is after-the-fact abstraction. Whenever we play, you know, Brown Coat Man, like that song was never intended to be what I tell people it's about right now, but it fits our motif as a band much better if I tell people, oh, it's about this. And what's funny is that now I'm in certain ways kind of discovering parallels in the song with the, you know, de facto added-on mythos of the song at this point.

Like I was driving back from the gym last night going, wow, you know what? I'm talking a lot about the demon behind him. And that is such a great analogy for the Alliance, you know, no matter how far away he tries to get from the central planets, you know, it's definitely always at his heels, his death that's waiting for him. And so even as the artist, there's a certain discovery element of the art that I'm even going through myself. Like, the way I chose this word in this one song, and it only gathers more meaning or less meaning as time goes on. Why did I choose that particular word? Because, you know, maybe I should have ran with this.

And then sometimes the live performance will even take on the characters of, oh, well, that'll be a fun little Easter egg that we kind of pop in when we play live, that we use this new word, and then maybe people will notice, will speculate why that new word crept into the live version versus the studio version, that kind of stuff. So it's like, in the world of luck versus creation and intention, it's like, yeah, it's always kind of a mixed bag. I think unless maybe you're Kubrick.

"Emilio, he's no Sheen at all" [00:11:19]

Brian Pritchard: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. That level. And Nolan certainly belongs in that conversation, a Kubrick-esque, you know, meticulous puzzle-box kind of filmmaker, right? But no, you reminded me too, if I hadn't shared this story with you, that Dome song "Two Faces" that we played at a lot of these shows. Brian — like you, like a lot of singers, you know what I mean? It's like there are times where we go out and perform material where the lyrics aren't fully written. Sometimes they're almost nothing written, right? But like the earliest versions of that song—

Nicky P: I've had entire years of our career that are just me mumbling shit on stage that sounds like words.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, exactly. But that particular song, the mumble lyrics that Noel was doing, the chorus always — I'm like, it sounds like you're saying Emilio, right? And so I was like, so say Emilio. It sounds like you're saying Emilio, so say Emilio. And the chorus ended up becoming "Emilio, he's no Sheen at all." And we used that concept of going, like, in a world where Martin Sheen was a famous actor, right? And Charlie Sheen, you know what I mean, is trying to break into the scene. Why does Emilio go with Emilio Estevez instead of Emilio Sheen, right? And you sit there and you go like, yeah, just the idea. And so we used that as part of this, like, to me, hilarious way of — that album and that band Dome tended to be more political in our lyrics. And the two faces of America, you know what I mean? A concept being articulated as the differences between Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen and like, you know. But all of that did come out of just something so stupid and throwaway as just like the bullshit sounds that he was making, not even words, but just, you know, and you're going, Emilio, that's perfect, you know? Like, there it is. Yeah.

Nicky P: No, that is actually very funny. It's chicken-and-egg stuff, you know? Well, and to me, it's like the uncooked nature sometimes of so much — it's 'cause like, oh yeah, it's here, it's done. But it's never really done, 'cause there's always things that you'll notice as you go over your own creations and kind of, huh, you know, maybe a little more here, maybe a little dusting something there, add a little spice to it. But, you know, I'm definitely one of those — I've never really done with anything I create and just kind of always trying to tweak it, make it a little bit better.

Live Easter eggs: Ween, 1212, and Nights in White Satin [00:14:18]

Brian Pritchard: I'm thinking of examples where bands during live performances have threaded another melody into theirs, right? I've heard Ween during the live performance of "Japanese Cowboy" — they suddenly hit the Chariots of Fire theme, right? Like a Japanese cowboy, like a brother on skates. And then you hear at the end, [hums the theme], and you're going, oh my God, of course it was there all the time. But I'm thinking it probably is not something they realized when they wrote it. It was like at a certain point in fucking with it, you go, oh, got it. Like, I've had that happen to me. There's a—

Nicky P: So you say that, but then I have to question. It can go either way. It could go either way. You know, we started playing 1212 live during our tour. We had a couple rounds of it. And I assume that you remember, like, the initial inspiration for — and to the point of like, I really just want to drop the sample in the chorus of that song — is that it's just that Moody Blues riff from "Nights in White Satin." Like, and does the song actually end up with that there, or am I end up gonna do something that kind of flirts around with the idea? Maybe push that melody in the background somewhere for like 30 people to notice. Maybe it just does end up getting taken out, you know, when it's all said and done. But it's like, I know the number of years has been like a lot of performances and stuff. Like for me, one of my favorite things to do with songs is always kind of like find that pop song as a way to take the song out. When I used to play with Uptight Sugar back in the day, we had one of our songs — we always ended with "Sowing the Seeds of Love" as the outro to the song. And it's just 'cause, you know, as we were — I'm pretty sure the lead singer ripped the song off for like elements of that track.

But it was always a fun way to take the song out. Like we're playing our song and then all of a sudden, you know, for the last kind of chorus we go through, we start just singing the track, bringing in all the vocal melodies. And so to me, it's always a nice little wink and a nod to the audience. Like, hey, we're fans. We come from the same place as you do. Which is another one of those things that like you were talking about with Lynch — it's like at a certain point, I don't want to know. I always want to guess and want to know more, but I don't ever want to lose sight of the fact that no, I'm a fan. Like a certain amount of mystery — without that, would I lose my desire to, you know, know more.

I always joke that like my favorite band in the world is from Cleveland. And I know for a fact that I have to know people that know guys from this band, but I've never come across them. I've never met any of the dudes in this band, and they haven't performed in probably two decades at this point. But there's like this idea that someday I might stumble across these guys from like my favorite band of all time. It's a local Cleveland band. It's part of that mystery and that fandom that I get to appreciate myself.

Dome medleys and Tool dropping Suspicious Minds [00:17:55]

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, no, it's — we've done it. And so far with Puma, I don't think of an example necessarily that we have, but I was remembering that the "Blood on the Borderline" song of Dome. We had this section of the song where it sort of like drops back down to the beginning and builds back up again. And we would drop stuff into that section. We dropped the Game of Thrones theme song into that section. We dropped the Terminator 2 theme song into that section. And we dropped Dayman from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia into that section.

I remember hearing Tool do "Stinkfist" on tour and they would drop "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis into the mix. And it was like, again, this cool layer where it's like, oh, it's not even entirely about the melody. It's about the combination of the melody and the thematic concepts and how those are intersecting, you know, suddenly at that moment. The Mars Volta is a band that that'll do that. I mean, they obviously have that sort of jam-band vibe anyway, but inside there he'll start doing other people's songs and stuff like that too. So, you know—

Cover songs as a handshake with the audience [00:19:19]

Nicky P: The big thing to me always was — and it's the one thing that I know that you, you're so in love with your own material that you, you know, share with people. But it's like, to me as a performer, there's always these moments with cover songs, especially if you remake them your own, where you're really kind of having a handshake with the audience and saying, yeah, we all start out as fans. Like we're always from the same place and that's why we can be communal about all this. Like we can be a part of this experience together because, you know, I'm one of you. And to me, that's such a powerful moment and a powerful place to be with an audience. I think it's a tremendous opportunity. And I know that you understand it academically.

Brian Pritchard: I do. I do. Yeah, and it's one of those things where I end up being in love enough with our own material that the narrowing down of a set list is already a really joyful process to me, but one that comes with tough decisions around songs that we can't play. And because there's always too much great material.

Nicky P: You think that? Let me tell you about the conversations I had with our bass player on tour. What I heard the entire tour was his desire to strangle you for making his set list shorter and shorter. So you think you're precious about our material.

Brian Pritchard: Fair enough. But yeah, that's a slightly different—

Nicky P: I'm joking to illustrate the point. Like, our band as a whole loves our material, Brian. And so like—

Brian Pritchard: Well, but so even to that point, if I'd sat there at a moment where I was trimming the set list for time and I sat there and said, and let's get rid of one of our songs so we can play a cover song — that to me is ridiculous. You know what I'm saying? Like, even though I do understand academically how it can form.

Weezer's Africa vs Between the Buried and Me [00:21:26]

Nicky P: But that's also a framing thing. Like, you know, that's why I like bands that really go out of their way to make songs their own. It's funny. I was listening to this dude yesterday who was going through Weezer's catalog post-2000. And I wanted to see kind of like if his experience lined up with my own and my thoughts about the albums. And he was, as a guy who happened to be the same age as I am, it was pretty spot on. Like we appreciated the same things about the same albums and whatnot. But it's like, at a certain point you have the Teal Album by Weezer.

And I'm sure you remember they did that cover of "Africa" a couple years ago. And the worst part about that album and that song and whatnot is that they did it with no personality. They did a one-for-one performance, tried to ape all of the sound effects and like the keyboard patches to sound exactly like Toto did. And it sounded freaking boring to me. It's like, had you made "Africa" a Weezer song, that would have been so much more interesting as an artist.

So it's like, you have to bring your own character to it. Otherwise it kind of loses the luster. And they made an entire album, not just that "Africa" song, doing the exact same thing. It was like, they just tried to do one-for-one covers of bands. And it's like, they were all the same thing. It was all very much, oh, you know, let's just try and do it as perfect as we can. And maybe from like a recording-artist standpoint, there's an interesting element of how close can we get. But from a listener and a fan standpoint, it's like, I don't want an album of '80s hits. If I wanted that, I can get on Spotify any day and listen to it. I want Weezer to sound like Weezer in certain ways.

Brian Pritchard: Do you know, by contrast, did you ever hear the Between the Buried and Me cover album?

Nicky P: Which is amazing. Like their versions are so good.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah. Like even if you don't like the band, that album is incredible, you know?

Nicky P: Well, and moreover, it's like even the song selections that they chose for it. Dude, "Bicycle Race" by Queen. And then you turn around and they're doing Counting Crows, you know what I mean? Yeah, like they were just all over the map. And like, when it was all said and done, they all sounded unassailably like Between the Buried and Me songs. There was no question that's what you listen to. Like, there was no, like, we're trying to make this sound like the original record. There's like certain types or maybe parts where they try it a little bit more. But it was never to make the song sound perfect. It was to try and like encapsulate a feeling that that particular recording technique perhaps gave you when you heard it the first time.

You know, for me, "Bicycle Race," noticing some of the vocal layering they did in that was — and it was uncharacteristic of them. But it was fun to listen to them go out and try this very different thing for them. And, you know, to me, like, the one that always really shines on there is the Soundgarden cover. "The Day I Tried to Live"? "The Day I Tried to Live." They do the most — and what's funny is that one is probably one of the more faithful representations, I think, on the record. Slightly heavier, but yeah. Well, that's the thing. It pushes boundaries in ways you want it to push boundaries. It's like, you know, you took that song, it was a pretty heavy song, and you made it heavier. And like, the vocal — their approach to the vocals was so interesting.

Colorblind, Chad Kroeger, and making a cover your own [00:25:43]

Brian Pritchard: They made "Colorblind" a song that I love. You know, I didn't ever find — the version of "Colorblind" that was prominently showcased in Cruel Intentions was a real eye-roll for me. The version that they have, they do this amazing harmonized acoustic intro that is not, of course, on the original. And then his voice. It is a very pretty song. But his voice doesn't have quite that same, like, forgive me, Nick, emo whininess to it, you know, that the original has. It's where you just want to kind of shake him and go, snap out of it, you know, like The Godfather. You can act like a man.

Nicky P: I mean, the performer makes so much a difference. As I think, like, if you want to know the truth, Brian, one of my favorite songs in the world, Chad Kroeger actually sings.

Brian Pritchard: I see. Okay. It's a bold conviction.

Nicky P: The song originally, it's a Carlos Santana song. And the version that got famous is actually the dude from Lifehouse singing it. Because Chad Kroeger's management wouldn't let them release it on the Santana album with him on it. Because it was too close to the release date of a new Chad Kroeger album. Which, by the way, I would have never bought a Chad Kroeger album. Like, it's nothing that I have any interest in. Like, it was a situation of where his voice on that particular song just fucking hit me good. It worked. It wasn't his song. It was Carlos Santana's song. So I can kind of backdoor my way into being okay with it.

Lyrics to the song are fantastic. But his voice sounds so much better on that song than the dude from Lifehouse did. And there's just so much more personality in it. But where I was going with that is, it's like, when you think back to, like, the 1950s, and I think also about this because Jamie Cullum is one of my favorite artists. And a lot of his catalog is cover songs. So he's playing jazz versions of a lot of stuff. But when you think back to the 1950s and '60s, everybody was playing and cannibalizing the same stuff. Like, Sinatra was doing the same things Bing was doing. Bing was doing the same things, you know.

Sinatra, Louis Prima, and teaching phrasing [00:28:12]

Nicky P: Frickin', what do you call it, Louis Prima. Everybody's doing the same songs. But every orchestra had a very different way of performing those songs. Louis Prima did not perform the way Sinatra performs. You know, those songs all had their own character, their own interpretation. And so, for me, it gets so much into it. It's like, yeah, even if you didn't write the song, there's an artistry to be found in how you make that song your own and how you make it its own thing. Like, Louis Prima's. Do you know Louis Prima at all? Pennies from Heaven, that kind of thing. You know, Just a Gigolo.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, yeah, yeah, a little bit.

Nicky P: I mean, King Louie from the, what do you call it, the Jungle Book, the animated version, was literally designed and mimed after Louis Prima. Like, down to, like, all the monkeys when they're doing their little train thing at the end. That is how he — Louis Prima — ended every show in Tahoe where he played. And, you know, winding through the crowd, him playing trumpet in the front, Sam Butera back there. So, the show he puts on is going to be very different than Sinatra. Who, you know, can perform the same song, but his version's going to be, you know, kind of slow and languid and very, very, you know, ooh, sexy.

Or he'll have the version of, you know, where he's just feeling real upbeat and swinging. And like, his swinging version is going to be, like, he's playing with all of the meter and timing of all the vocals. And like, it's one of the things, you know, working with younger artists I have in the past, you know, some of the bands I've been in, trying to facilitate young guys getting to make art, is teaching them phrasing. And so, you want to learn phrasing, just go listen to Sinatra. Because Sinatra is so very much, like, that's what made him great. Now, this is going to be a very abrupt ending, because we've got our next thing going on here. Me and Brian have another podcast to record. But you think about that, folks. You think about versions. And maybe come back and tell us what your favorite version is.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, and I haven't been inspired to write a cover in a while. But we'll see. Maybe I'll give it some more thought. Take it easy, folks.

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