Evan Frankfort - Songwriter, Sound Designer, Film and TV Composer - Music Production Podcast #374

Evan Frankfort is a Songwriter, Sound Designer, and TV and Film Composer. His TV and film credits include Wild Kingdom: Protecting the Wild, The Harlem Globetrotters: Pay it Forward, 90210, and The 100. He writes music and plays in the indie rock band The Spiritual Machines. He has collaborated with diverse artists including Warren Zevon, The Bangles, Rancid, and Liz Phair.

Evan and I spoke about his passion for creating music and his ongoing search for the creative lightning strike. He shares insights from his process and workflow that can help any music maker. Evan's passion and excitement for music production is inspiring and infectious.

This episode is sponsored by Baby Audio, makers of incredible music software. Use the code MPP15 to save 15%! https://babyaud.io 

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:01.337)

So thanks for being here, Evan. It's great to talk to you already before we hit record, just so people know we've been talking. We jumped right into it. So I always like when we have to stop the preamble to be like, wait a minute, we're going to do a whole podcast if we don't stop this and record. So welcome. Your studio is beautiful.

EVAN FRANKFORT (00:10.255)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (00:18.542)

Yeah, I mean you're the professional. thank you, man. I appreciate it. Likewise, I'm loving what you got going there. I feel like I want a close -up of everything.

Brian Funk (00:30.105)

Yeah, you gave me a quick tour there and you've got like some different rooms and it looks really cozy. It looks like we were saying just a second ago, a place you can really get lost in and have some fun.

EVAN FRANKFORT (00:43.63)

Yeah, yeah man. I mean, if you don't feel like you want to play with your toys in the sandbox, then why are we doing this?

Brian Funk (00:50.713)

Yeah. You know, that's something that I've really picked up from you already is this idea of like playing and having fun with stuff. It seems to be kind of your approach, I'm guessing. Like you like to play with toys and have a good time with them.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:09.869)

Yeah, I feel like you can always rely on process. You can always do the nuts and bolts of things. And that's gonna generate something. But we're looking for lightning in a bottle. We're looking to be surprised and inspired. And I think those moments, they can drop into your lap, but many of them are just earned.

you know, hard fought. And I mean, it is fun, but sometimes you'll go through 10 hours of searching and then, you know, at that moment, something arrives. It'll be, you know, sometimes weeks or months. And when it does arrive, you know, you rethink everything and you say, okay, I have all of this. Let's go back and, you know, sort of make this new idea, the centerpiece idea and start over.

Just that, you know, the idea of not knowing when lightning is gonna strike. You just keep trying things, you know? You keep, you know, going into unchartered waters and you learn to swim at every moment, you know? So otherwise you're retreading, you're rehashing something. And I don't know about you, but I'm old enough.

to come from the days where there were no presets. And I was staunch against them. I didn't take notes and I didn't want to recreate any processes. I just wanted to listen my way through every moment and say, you know, no, let's move the microphone an inch, let's switch pres or whatever. And I think, you know, it was a good way to learn because everything was unfolding.

differently every time, you know, the element of chaos was in play and there were, you know, amazing producers and engineers that I worked with that they did take copious notes and they could almost recreate anything they'd ever done. And in the beginning, I sort of viewed it as, I don't know, just not exciting.

But in the end, I realized the value of it. If you have to recall a mix, or if somebody says, hey, I love what you did for this record or this thing, whatever, you could use that as a jumping off point. And so when presets kinda came into being, it was something I fought for a while, but then when I did embrace them, I realized, okay, I've been swimming upstream my whole life.

You know, fighting the tide. You know, we can just float and have the stream carry us. And things happened a lot quicker. They happened with less frustration. And frankly, they were better, you know? Because if you can jump off from where you left off and build on it every time, then you just keep refining and improving. And I think that's obviously the goal. But I...

Brian Funk (04:52.535)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (04:56.983)

Hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (05:21.319)

I think that they're, okay, so you know how you can't zoom in and out at the same time, right? Like if you're working on something and the creative juices are flowing, you don't judge, you don't stand back and say, this should go like this and that, you know, you don't lead yourself, you just let the process lead you. And then you can zoom out and see, you know, where you are and how it affects the big picture. But it's the same way with that chaos element, you know, if you.

Brian Funk (05:26.231)

Mm -hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (05:50.983)

If you allow chaos to guide you and you look at it as your friend, then you're gonna get to a place you don't recognize. And that's really the only place I wanna be. If I say I've been here before, then I move on.

Brian Funk (06:07.736)

It's well put, you can't zoom in and out at the same time. That's something I think causes me to get stuck. Causes me to, you know, in this creative mode, I'm doing this, having fun, maybe working on something really intricate and then you switch that perspective. It's hard to do that. You lose that moment.

EVAN FRANKFORT (06:30.405)

Yeah, I mean, you can't do it until you're out of gas. You know, because you really just think of it two ways, right? Like you're generating ideas or you're assembling and judging and, you know, producing really. And you can't be the producer and the generator at once. So how quickly you can switch, you know, apertures on it is really kind of what

Brian Funk (06:35.256)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (06:59.653)

defines the speed of your process. Some people, you know, they'll go through weeks of being creative and then, you know, they'll take a break so that they can listen to some music and refresh and change the angle and then they'll have clarity on what they did. You know, now I can, you know, be an impartial observer and judge this thing. Because, you know, you get in love with your ideas and you're like, no one's gonna touch this.

Brian Funk (07:24.407)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (07:29.463)

Right, this is your like special trick.

EVAN FRANKFORT (07:32.868)

Yeah, so for me, like, you know, I try to get divorced from my ideas instantly. You know, you fall in love, you get married, it's a love affair, and then I let go. I just say, okay, you're not mine. This is just a thing. And then it gets a lot easier to say, I have seven competing ideas here. That's the one. Sorry, other six. I know we were in love and we had a great thing while it lasted, but you gotta go.

Brian Funk (08:03.064)

Well, it's like you're that guitar player in the band that wants to turn up to 11 and you're also the drummer and you're also the keyboard player and you're also so everyone of these things inside of you, these like kind of multiple personalities you have when you're making music like that, they are all trying to turn it up to 11 and it just, you can't do it that way.

EVAN FRANKFORT (08:19.139)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (08:24.163)

Right, it has to be everything matters when you're in the trench and then nothing matters when you're out of it. You know, everything is precious when you're generating ideas because, you know, if you didn't feel like what you were doing was important, you wouldn't do it. You need to feel like this is going to be the greatest thing that I ever did. You know, this is what I was born to do. You know, this moment is what everything I did before in my life prepared me for.

Brian Funk (08:53.239)

Right. Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (08:53.634)

And can you believe it's happening? Here we are. It's me and me or me and you or the band or whatever it is. You get to have that moment in full glory and then you rob yourself of it. Then you say, okay, it's out in the universe, it's not mine. It never was yours, but we allow ourselves to be under the illusion that it's yours. We're pulling ideas out of the ether and we're just hoping that something sticks.

And when it does, we want to feel the glory of that. But I think the glory is really what gets you into trouble, because you can no longer be impartial once you say, I'm going to keep this no matter what. Then you're, yeah.

Brian Funk (09:38.04)

You have to sort of respect it, respect the magic of it, but not get enamored by it and be able to let go of it.

EVAN FRANKFORT (09:45.28)

Yeah, you just have to see it as a widget at some point. Like this is a thing that's a part of another thing. And sometimes that thing isn't useful and sometimes, you know, it actually is the problem.

Brian Funk (09:48.535)

Hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (10:02.017)

So, tough.

Brian Funk (10:02.488)

It's a, yeah, it is. And it's really important when you're in situations where you're collaborating, you're playing with band members. I like, you said everything's precious and something I tell myself a lot is nothing's precious. This little guitar part I have is, it's just a guitar part. It's not more important than my relationship with the rest of the band where I'm going to fight to the death and ruin it. And then I can have my guitar part, but I've no one to play it with.

EVAN FRANKFORT (10:23.679)

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you know, it took me a long time to lose my ego. And I think the thing that did it was, you know, realizing that we're all in service to the same thing, which is the idea, you know? And the idea isn't, you know, what you're playing. It's what you're trying to make collectively. And so, you know, when you have an idea, you know,

I need to objectively say, holy hell, that's the best idea that anyone in the room has had. You know, that's where we're going right now. And I think that, you know, you do have enough experience at some point to say, I trust that I'm going to find my way through every situation. You know, I know that I've been in enough places where I didn't think I could get a roadmap home.

and I just built roads until I got home. And so you do start trusting yourself and then you're doing the exact opposite where you're saying, I don't have to trust myself. All I have to trust is what I hear and you kind of disappear at that point. So you do all this work on yourself and then you become not even a musician anymore, not even a creator anymore.

Brian Funk (11:32.119)

Mm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (11:57.918)

You're really just a witness, you know, who's leaning things into the right direction whenever you're able to. But yeah, you have to respect that everyone's a creator and everybody is talented and everybody has great ideas. It's a weird thing, right? Because you build credibility in the process, right? Like if a drummer says, you know, something stupid, like, hey, you know, I don't...

like how you're playing this because it feels too basic or whatever. Like, let's make it a measure of 13 and a measure of seven and a measure of nine. And now it'll be interesting for you, maybe. So unfortunately, now you look at them as like, watch out for that guy. Like every time he opens his mouth, it's gonna be, you know, derailing the train. And so you have to have this trust, right? And people will...

Brian Funk (12:38.52)

Yeah, all right.

EVAN FRANKFORT (12:53.692)

you know, sort of fill that well and enable you to trust them. But it's also on you to say, look, the last four ideas you came up with weren't the one, but I know that you're talented and you're here for a reason. And so I'm going to stay wide open for when that right idea comes along. And I'm always going to consider it with the same, you know, level of possible.

you know, genius that everybody else is getting, you know?

Brian Funk (13:27.351)

Right. Don't let the...

EVAN FRANKFORT (13:28.603)

So it's hard, man. It's a lot of psychology. And it's mostly on you against you, you know?

Brian Funk (13:31.543)

It is.

Brian Funk (13:35.32)

I, you know, at this point, I think it'd be kind of fun to hear about some of your experience and some of the work you do because, and this is maybe especially for some of the students I have. I just finished a semester. I teach a sampling class at Berkeley online and, it is awesome. It's a lot of fun and people of all different levels come in and it's so much sound design and creativity and experiment, but.

EVAN FRANKFORT (13:53.947)

awesome.

Brian Funk (14:04.408)

I always tell people like nobody ever says it's easy. You know, even people that have been doing it forever, even people that have tons of accolades and awards and experience. And it's something I've learned on the podcast is no one ever says it's easy. And, you are a person that's very prolific does a lot of different kinds of work and you just said the same thing. It's hard. It's a lot of psychological stuff. So maybe like almost in a way to sort of back up what I'm telling people, if you don't mind, you know, just.

EVAN FRANKFORT (14:31.802)

Yeah, I say that almost as, you know, my routine when I'm working on a record and with others and, you know, we get to a point where we're out of gas and I just say, look, music is hard. It just is. It doesn't have to be, but if you're going to feel like you got someplace that is yours, and I use that kind of loosely because, you know, like I said, we're just...

Brian Funk (14:34.007)

What?

EVAN FRANKFORT (15:00.569)

we're borrowing ideas from the ether and each other. And it's this, you know, circle of energy that, you know, we're just inhabiting and trying to create from. And so it...

Sometimes the simplest idea wins and it's great and there it is. But you know, sometimes you gotta go around the world to get across the street. And I've done records where I've left people in tears, you know, where they just said, I don't recognize this and you know, this isn't what I expected it to be and I don't understand what just happened and I spent, you know, months and months of my life and I have this thing now and I don't get it. And then they'll call me a year later and say, yeah, it took me...

a long time to assimilate it and I had to have a lot of my friends that I trust tell me this is, you know, the best thing I ever did before I, you know, could come to that place where I'm grateful that we had this painful process. Because all steamroll, you know, while you're like over on the couch crying, I'm just plugging away over here, like I can't hear that. Like all I can hear is what's coming out of the speakers and I know.

that's gonna guide me to the end of the process. And so I'll tune out, you know, the human noise and tune in what matters to me at all costs, you know. Like I said, we're here in service of the music. And so if I can't get there, then I need you to go on without me. And I would expect you would want me to do the same. And having been through it enough times, you get to that point where...

It's like you're the Malcolm X of recording, you know, by any means necessary. We're doing this, whether anyone wants to do it or not. But yeah, man, it's definitely one of those things where it can, you know, be a million different approaches and any one of those can be the gold. I mean, you know, you might have almost all of them be the gold. Now you have tough decisions to make. Like,

Brian Funk (16:47.255)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (17:12.15)

These are all great ideas.

Brian Funk (17:15.384)

Yeah, I mean, that's a good problem to have, but it's a problem nonetheless. I mean, we see it in our tools, all the crazy things we can use that are all excellent and just the ideas we take. Sometimes you have lots of good choices and it's really tough. It's nice when you get the one thing that's obvious, like, that's the way, that's the answer, play that, cool.

EVAN FRANKFORT (17:20.918)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (17:27.158)

Right.

EVAN FRANKFORT (17:35.094)

Yeah!

EVAN FRANKFORT (17:38.645)

I don't want to hear anymore ideas. I just love this one. Yeah. Right, right. And so that's, you know, hopefully what you get. But, you know, that's definitely the curse of being surrounded by talent, you know, making those tough decisions. But I mean, sound design, that's kind of the core for me too. I feel like I can't even write music until I hear a sound that tells me what to write.

Brian Funk (17:39.799)

Yeah, we don't need it. We don't need to dig any deeper.

EVAN FRANKFORT (18:09.045)

I did a lot of sound design for movies and trailers and TV shows. It became one of the primary tools that I wrote music with. Everything inspires something else, right? So you hear something in a drone, something in a whoosh, something in a rise, something in a hit, and it makes you...

feel what comes next, right? You're setting things up, you're leading yourself to ideas, and you know, when you start turning knobs on a synth, it suggests things, you know? It suggests parts and movements and, you know, melodies and everything else. And so, you know, I was just listening to Vangelis's Blade Runner score.

And I feel like that's just a perfect example of that. He has his synth arsenal. He has this aesthetic of how music comes out of him and you get it when you hear that score. But most of it feels very timeless to me. There are a couple things where like, yeah, he used sax for the sexy cue. You're like, okay.

definitely dated itself, but you know, if we didn't have all of the, you know, silly memes to attach to it, it probably would sound fresh and, you know, new to us. But yeah, like those sounds dictate the writing. Mark Snow, you know, X -Files, like that was written, a lot of it in real time, where he'd just watch picture and play and turn knobs and...

Like, what a fun process, right? I mean, it's one process, but like, it can generate. It can be the final and it can be a component.

Brian Funk (20:08.023)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (20:18.583)

That's pretty cool, just as it goes along. Fill it in. Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (20:22.29)

Yeah, yeah, you got an hour long show or 42 minutes or whatever. Let's see if we can score this thing in 42 minutes. Hit record.

Brian Funk (20:28.64)

Yeah, I bet that's not what you do on the first day of the job, but once you've been at it for a while, and I guess like with a show like that too, there's a certain sound palette that lends itself and that's kind of the character of the show leading you with this mysterious thing. So yeah, a lot of I'm picturing like veramini kind of sometimes and...

EVAN FRANKFORT (20:48.402)

Yeah.

Yeah, synthy ambient washes, they, yeah. I mean, you always have to ask yourself, what's gonna do the work here, right? So I have a great lyric, that's gonna do the work. I have a great vocal performance, that's gonna do the work. I have a great sound, it's a signature sonic earworm and everybody get out of its way, that's the thing, right? So this is one of the things that guides us is looking for whatever's gonna do the heavy lifting.

And once you determine what that is, you know, your mission becomes pretty clear. But, you know, sometimes it's just the sound. You know, sometimes you just have this thing that you love so much that you wouldn't want to do anything else. It would just sort of get in the way and ruin it for you. You know, everywhere around the world, there's a drum.

Brian Funk (21:48.951)

Mm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (21:52.528)

Every region, every area has like their specific drum. And some of them, you know, you don't care about. Some of them, when you hear it, you go, yeah, okay. But others, it resonates something, whether it's a chakra or your soul or whatever it is, it just touches you in a way where you just go, dude, I have to hear that drum all day, every day. And, you know, for me, it was pulling sounds out of records where like,

I need to hear that snare. That kick is just the perfect thing or whatever it was. There's something that triggers you, like psychoacoustically. And you hear a baby cry and you gotta go deal with that. Or the MGM Lion Roar in the theater, where it roars. You know that story, right? Where the first time 100 years ago when they played it in the theater, people saw the lion on the screen. They're like, it's a lion.

And then they heard the roar and they ran out of the theater because they thought there was a lion in the theater. They're like, no, this isn't a movie, this is real. And so, yeah, like it just triggers us. There's something in everything that triggers us and to know how it triggers you is to be powerful and to use it as a tool and to say, all right, I can make people cry with these two notes against this movement, right?

Brian Funk (23:01.368)

That's wild.

Brian Funk (23:05.495)

Hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (23:21.102)

or this sound has emotion in it or whatever it is, like we're seeking that thing that we can sort of utilize as an emotional call and response tool, right? So, sound design is where it's at. If you're hearing the part and you're like, I love this part, how does it make me feel? Well, that's not the feeling I'm going for. Then you have to examine why. Is it in how?

Brian Funk (23:36.631)

Hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (23:50.189)

playing it or is it in the tone? Should it be another instrument? You ask all the questions then.

Brian Funk (23:57.4)

Right? Yeah. And if I'm thinking to like a lot of films, sometimes certain films or TV shows have certain styles of sound. Maybe it's like a lot of electric guitar rock, but there's always parts where like the symphony comes in, the orchestra comes in for like the emotional part, the strings come in. There's just these sounds that are so important for the emotional impact where it kind of

EVAN FRANKFORT (24:26.221)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (24:26.775)

deviates from maybe what the palette is.

EVAN FRANKFORT (24:30.7)

Yeah, I mean, for me, that's the fun, right? Is figuring out what articulation in the strings or brass or whatever is going to motivate that feeling. And that's the sound design element. Like in most cases, it's a hybrid, right? We're going to use some sort of synth texture to augment our organic sounds. And it can sometimes be an effect. Sometimes you just...

douse it in the right amount of room, the right kind of room. And other times it's more complicated, you know, where you have to really orchestrate this. You break it out into components and you say, look, it's the violists right here. That's where the emotional component is. So we're gonna beef them up with something. You know, let's find the right, you know, synth component or double it with guitar, you know.

put the brass under it or whatever, something is going to make it speak in that way that's gonna make it better than just the thing that you intended, right? I always think of it as like,

EVAN FRANKFORT (25:49.418)

something that is good and something that is just beyond, superhuman. Like, how do we go extra, extra on this? How do we push it to a point where it's now something we haven't heard before, right? Like sound design was always that goal, right? Every movie that they started creating sound design for, whether we're talking about way back in B3 days and electro organs where...

you know, Star Trek and old soap operas and using whatever single voice synthesizers where like they would just get something that no one had heard before. it's weird. Like, okay, I don't know how to feel about this, right? Now we have this whole history of these sounds where we've attached feelings to them. And so we can recall those feelings instantly.

You know, all we have to do is play a theremin and we're in, you know, spooky 60s sci -fi zone. And it's just that easy because we know what to do with that now emotionally. But we're still looking for that space where, you know, we haven't hit it yet. This is so weird. I don't know. Like dubstep. I remember I was doing a Spider -Man trailer. I want to say like.

Brian Funk (26:58.711)

Hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (27:13.8)

15 years ago, something like that. And dubstep sound effects had just come into a thing. And they were so weird and intense, right? So it was on the heels of Skrillex, like Sonny. He did some really cool stuff with Massive. And anyway, that became like a new paradigm.

where everybody wanted that sound. And so what I was doing was trying to create that sort of intensity with other instruments, guitars and organic stuff. And just running through, you know, distortion pedals direct and amp heads with no cabinets and just trying to find ways to, you know, bring things forward. Like, so they jumped out of the speakers.

And so I hit it with this one piece I was doing with my partner, who's my brother, and I'm not, he's a brother from another mother, but Jeff Pfeiffer is his name, and he's just like, you know, he's the brother that I wish that I always had. And so, you know, we would discover these things together, and you know, the amount of high -fiving we did back then, because we knew no one had done this yet.

And like we had a lock on these trailers, right? So every year they'd come back to us, they'd be like, okay, we want this piece of music that you did with all these sound effects and we'd like to update it and we'd like to do this. I'm like, sure, no problem. So we would do it. And then the next time they would say, okay, we want it like something new. We don't know what. And they would send a cattle call to like, you know, a thousand different people and we'd be in the list. Be like, hey, wait a minute.

Brian Funk (29:07.639)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (29:07.91)

This is what we do, you know? So for a while, we could head them off, you know? I think there was like three years where they couldn't crack our code, right? And then eventually they did. And so it was like that for Jeff, where they would go to, you know, Abbey Road and record all these lecky Taiko drums and things like that and all these strange...

Brian Funk (29:21.399)

Hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (29:37.254)

articulations that just felt like they were just bizarre. And those were getting used to sound effects all the time. And now you go buy a library and all that stuff is included in it. And so the playing field is more level, but you can still operate in that space and do something that they haven't cracked the code on yet. Like you can still find sound that...

You know, it's just yours until it isn't, you know? Reactor is amazing for that. I can't tell you how much mileage I've got out of Reactor. Did you ever play with that one? it's so deep. I mean, it's almost too much for me, you know? I'm like, give me one knob, all right? That's, you know, I love outboard gear and I love tweaking, but you know, pedals and everything, but it is so deep. What's that?

Brian Funk (30:11.543)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (30:17.079)

I haven't played with it, no. No, not reactor. Yeah.

Brian Funk (30:26.903)

Okay.

Brian Funk (30:30.583)

And heads up to people listening, you've got a what? I just want people to know before we start, you've got a wild modular setup. It's not a EuroRack. Maybe, was that a Moog? I mean, it's.

EVAN FRANKFORT (30:45.06)

Yeah, so it's synthesizers .com. I mean, I can show you around if you want to see. It's...

Brian Funk (30:50.423)

Well, for you to say, reactor's complicated, you know, I just want some sort of perspective on who this is coming from and what you consider complicated. So that means a lot.

EVAN FRANKFORT (31:02.499)

Yeah, I mean, CV is something to get used to, you know, when you're working with control voltage, you really need to think differently. And I'm still, you know, just plugging things in to find out what, you know, I can do with it. But, you know, that's the fun of it is a surprise of it, you know, that's supposed to be audio, but I put it in CV and it sounds like something I haven't heard before. So those are the moments of surprise where.

You know, you get excited and I think with Reactor, it's the same kind of thing where you can be totally surprised and in just unchartered waters instantly, but you have this ability to recall presets and mix up all these other things. I mean, it's like, you know, imagine this is just one color of paint.

Right now, reactors are rainbow. Like it's everything that's possible.

Brian Funk (32:07.511)

That's wild.

EVAN FRANKFORT (32:09.121)

It really is like, I would love to have, you know, this prophet or this Jupiter. Yeah, you can do that, you know, no problem. But you can have a profiter, a Jupiterphrit. And everything in between, you know, everything that you can imagine. It's pretty cool. Like if, it's worth getting into. I mean, just because.

Brian Funk (32:22.671)

Right?

Brian Funk (32:28.919)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (32:37.111)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (32:38.017)

I consider it the ultimate sound design tool, you know? And again, if you're using that one synth as a component to other synths that you're saying, okay, this is the main feature here. This is like your, whatever you wanna turn to, right? You can make that just sound a way that you've never.

imagined before. I can't really describe it other than like, here, let's play, you know, let's make something and then we'll both go, I don't know how this happened.

Brian Funk (33:19.031)

That sounds like a big part of your process, just playing, experimenting, and you don't sound like the kind of person that's sitting around waiting for the inspiration, the strike. You're showing up, trying things out, and when it happens, it happens, and you're there for it. You're ready to grab it.

EVAN FRANKFORT (33:45.28)

Yeah, you know, I mean, it's funny how you are in all these different kinds of places where inspiration can strike. You know, every morning I'll show up and I'll sit down at a piano and I'll have my little recorder ready, just the memo section on the phone, and I'll find something that I haven't done before and I'll record it, even if it's 20 seconds. So I have about a thousand of those. I'll go over to the guitar.

dial in a tone, what does the tone want me to play? Start playing something, record it. So nuggets starts, right? Like if it suggests something more like, I can get a melody out of this or it feels like this kind of a subject or this kind of an emotion, like I'll make my little notes, but.

You know, I read a lot, I read a lot of theoretical physics and so a lot of ideas for songs come from that, you know? So it'll be a topic of, you know, it could be anything from consciousness creates the universe rather than the other way around, which is a term, biocentrism, this guy, Dr. Robert Lanza created.

Brian Funk (34:47.255)

yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (35:12.926)

And it's very interesting to just read something you don't understand because you're gonna come away with some meaning and that is going to translate to what you wanna talk about. I mean, for me, I write mainly about how technology influences humanity and we'll continue to do that. But, you know,

I don't really know any science. If you ask me to explain something mathematically, sorry, I can't do that. It's science fiction to me, you know? It's fodder for storytelling. And so I keep these ideas in my head. I'll write down little key phrases that I'll sort of paraphrase. I'll say it my way once I hear something that I think is sort of extraordinarily deep and too much for my little tiny brain. But...

Brian Funk (35:50.039)

Mm -hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (36:11.548)

I'll get some sort of meaning out of it and then I'll carry that to an instrument and say, all right, you know, how do we reconcile, you know, this thing that I want to talk about and this feeling that I'm, you know, trying to convey. And then, you know, what does that sound like, right? What are those instruments and how does it move? And so that's a long conversation for me to have with myself. Like sometimes a song takes a year, sometimes it takes much longer, many years.

Brian Funk (36:40.343)

Hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (36:42.139)

But it's just like anything, you're looking for that match that just ignites and then you can light a forest fire from it. So sometimes I'll ignite a match and it'll just stay a match for a year and then I'll come back and hear, I know what to do with that and boom, I'll complete it in a couple days. So yeah, you never know where inspiration's gonna come from.

It's a conversation, it's a movie, it's a book, another record.

Brian Funk (37:11.735)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (37:16.855)

Right. I like, you never know. And it's a matter of almost just keeping like the antenna going and paying attention. And I try to keep track of it when it happens. I've got like little lists that I keep, like some of it's just song titles and that might be something like a character in a movie says, or like your friend says in a conversation or.

EVAN FRANKFORT (37:18.394)

I mean, where do your ideas come from?

EVAN FRANKFORT (37:29.242)

Right.

Brian Funk (37:45.24)

Sometimes it's like scenarios for a song could be either about or that you would want to put this song on for. I'm floating in a tube in a river. Like, okay, that's a song scenario. And the song might not be about that, but I want to hear that when I'm in the tube on the river. This would be a cool song to listen to.

EVAN FRANKFORT (38:01.754)

Yeah, safe but not safe.

EVAN FRANKFORT (38:10.874)

cool. Cool. I like that.

Brian Funk (38:14.519)

But it is a matter of just kind of always thinking about it and keeping like the door open. And what you said about the theoretical physics is kind of interesting because sometimes it comes from stuff I don't understand and I'll take what I think I get out of it and then sort of run with it. And sometimes even that manifests in songs with like characters. I often like to think of whoever's singing the song, it's like this character.

And they might have these like misunderstandings and holes in their logic that you can kind of read if you go through it. And it's playful in that way that you're, you've set up this person that's kind of a little off about things, but they're constructing the world around that. But it's anything.

EVAN FRANKFORT (39:03.8)

I mean, there it is right there. It's in the misunderstandings that we find our humanity. I think, you know, we love things that aren't perfect because they remind us of our humanity. You know, when you get digital perfection, you don't really feel anything. I don't know if you, it's funny, I was just talking about this yesterday. When the DX7 came around,

Brian Funk (39:23.095)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (39:31.256)

That was like the first digital synth that we all went, my God, what just happened? Like there's this new wave of technology and there were sounds in it that were cool, but.

Let's just say there was an element of linearity to it that didn't feel like it had any reckless abandon to it. The spirit of what we've come to love about rock music is something dangerous. We don't know what's gonna happen when we turn this thing on. Is it gonna sound like it did last time? If the knob got moved when we...

moved it from where it was to the gig or wherever, it's going to be different. And we're going to find our way through this. This little element of chaos is, I think, what we call mojo. We don't know how tape is going to react. We don't know if the console has been tuned perfectly. We'd probably prefer that it hasn't been, that this channel is a little different than that channel. And so all of the things that make it unpredictable,

are the things that we appreciate most about it. And so...

I don't know if you know, I have a band called the Spiritual Machines and I feel like the Spiritual Machines are more, it's more of a conversation than a band really. You know, cause the idea that these machines are either spiritual or they're not. Like sometimes it's just, you know, your whatever, your phone. But maybe some people feel that it's a spiritual machine cause it has everything in their world, you know. Kids don't want cars anymore, they want phones.

Brian Funk (40:51.319)

Yeah, but listen, it's cool stuff.

EVAN FRANKFORT (41:16.47)

Because when we want freedom, we can go anywhere we want on our phone, right? We can create a new life and we can expand our life. And I get that. But there's something about driving a car when you hit the gas and you take off, it's purely visceral, right? You get this reaction from an instrument that you're playing because you don't really know how it's gonna go. I don't know how I'm gonna react. I don't know how it's gonna react.

And now we have this element of chaos that we have to wrestle with. And I think that's the only place we find art. And it kind of died a little bit when the DX7 came in. As great a synth as it was, we didn't really know what to do with it. And I think we made it our main thing and we gave up all the other stuff. And I remember, like before Craigslist, there was a newspaper called The Recycler. And it's where you buy and sell gear.

And you know, Fairchilds and Pultex were free. Like they would just say, look, it's like a boat anchor to me. It's sitting on the curb, come get it. You know, if you paid 50 bucks, you got ripped off. you bought a Fairchild for 50 bucks? Dude, you're insane. What happened? Why didn't you get it for free? Because nobody wanted the tube gear. Nobody wanted this huge box that did one thing until they realized they couldn't make that happen with anything else.

And so, you know.

I think throwing things out because there's something new and shiny and technologically better is what we're realizing is a bad play. And I guess that's why vinyl came back. People love vinyl. But why not tapes? Why not 8 -tracks? Why not cassettes or reel -to -reels? Why not the laserdisc? These are all media that were dumped for better mediums.

Brian Funk (43:08.951)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (43:23.378)

I don't know. Something in record speaks to people. I know it's the art, you know, the big album artwork. There's something pretty rad about putting a needle on a record. I still love doing it.

Brian Funk (43:30.103)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (43:36.504)

Mm. Yeah. It's right there. It's physical. Visceral is a good word, like you said.

EVAN FRANKFORT (43:40.753)

Yeah, I mean, yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (43:45.649)

And then you have this thing that's a record cover that's art, you know? And you go through your albums and you see, this is like your art collection. You see everything that means that record, right? And so you get this attachment to it. I mean, we still get it in the computer. Why is it different? Because we're not holding it? I don't know.

Brian Funk (43:49.303)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (44:08.919)

It's weird because, well, think about like some of the instruments I have compared to like the plugins. The plugins don't take up any space. And if you don't know where to look for them, you don't, you won't find them. I mean, if you looked around where I am right now, you'll come across the stuff that I have, whether you know what it is or not. there's a presence to it. It takes up space. It's.

yeah, you know, the flick. Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (44:41.489)

It's like a member of your band, right? It's like a, they're like little humans.

Brian Funk (44:46.744)

I can actually remember the first time I saw Minimoog, which wasn't when they came out or anything. And it was probably like 30, 43 now. And it was at like a, just in a studio that I went to. And I was like, whoa, there it is. And it was like this piece of furniture. It was taking up space and attention and.

If you want one of those in your room, it's a sacrifice of space, of, you know, all that. And it was just very impressive to see it compared to the graphic I was used to on my computer. That if it's not out, it's gone. It doesn't take anything up. There's something about it. There's something kind of weird that happened very recently. I teach high school English during the day and it...

EVAN FRANKFORT (45:32.847)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (45:38.575)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (45:45.623)

We just finished up the school year and you know, kids are going around feeling the stuff. Ninth grade is what I've had the last few years, but nine through 12. nice. What an age, right? Yeah. Ninth grade is like an age when you're starting to understand who you are a little bit. I see that in a lot of them. They start to, they come in and have no idea. And sometimes by the end they're starting to be like, okay.

EVAN FRANKFORT (45:45.999)

All right on.

EVAN FRANKFORT (45:50.767)

What grade?

right on. I have two that just finished ninth grade.

EVAN FRANKFORT (46:00.207)

It's amazing.

EVAN FRANKFORT (46:07.663)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (46:13.975)

I'm seeing myself a little for the first time.

EVAN FRANKFORT (46:17.167)

Isn't that great, watching awakenings?

Brian Funk (46:19.96)

Yeah. I mean, it's about the age when it happened for me too, where that was when I started playing guitar. I really got into playing music. I wasn't in band or anything. And I started to say, like, here's something. Everything else was like a Halloween costume I was trying on, you know, where I was trying different identities. And this was one that just sort of felt like maybe I'd finally taken the costumes off a little bit.

EVAN FRANKFORT (46:39.183)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (46:48.236)

That's really cool.

Brian Funk (46:49.143)

But they were doing a funny thing. They're walking around with early 2000s digital cameras taking pictures of each other. And I'm like, what? They're doing that now? I was like, what are you guys doing with that thing? Why would you want that? You have your phone. And they were like, it's just like, it's got a look. It's got this thing. And it's here. It's on this thing.

EVAN FRANKFORT (46:59.884)

Yeah. Mine do it too. Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (47:08.716)

Right.

Brian Funk (47:18.711)

And even though it's digital and it's not an actual photo, there was something to them that was cool that it was this one device that does one thing. And it does it in its own personality, which was really like, it's like low megapixels and your phone is 20 times better than it. But something about that. Yeah. And personality.

EVAN FRANKFORT (47:19.116)

There it is.

EVAN FRANKFORT (47:28.492)

Yeah. I mean...

EVAN FRANKFORT (47:40.652)

Pushing a button, yeah. Okay, so I just have recently made the discovery of Leica cameras. So I have a friend who works for them. And he mentioned it, I don't know, maybe like a year ago. But it wasn't on my radar, because I'm not a photographer. And somehow I stumbled, I'm a watch guy, I love watches. In fact, I'm.

I'm making a watch. I'm starting spiritual machines time pieces. So just so I can design things and, you know, yeah, the it's fun. I mean, I got to say, I've been so energized about it because, you know, like, I'll get into like in a second, but the watch thing is even more interesting to me because, you know, when the phone came along, you didn't need a watch anymore. And I thought watches would be dead.

Brian Funk (48:11.255)

So yeah.

Brian Funk (48:14.744)

That's what a great name. The band and the watch company is cool.

EVAN FRANKFORT (48:39.69)

And it only made them more powerful. And everybody wanted to wear watches for the aesthetic. And now, you know, the Apple watch has all the faces of the classic watches that you can, you know, put on. But there is something about an automatic watch where this resurgence of industry has gone crazy. And people just love the fact that you have to wear it for it to keep time. The fact that...

It's really a specialized, you know, mechanical skill that you need to work on these things. And it's a lost art, but it's gaining so much momentum, so much steam that like, what is it? Like it's an aesthetic. It's something that is an extension of you. It identifies you, it brands you, it makes you feel like, you know, you're inseparable.

It's a spiritual machine to me. As a kid, it was the one coveted thing that I never got. And so, I was able to start a collection. I inherited my great grandfather's watch, my grandfather's watch, my dad's watch, my wife got me watches. And one day we were robbed and they were all gone. And for 20 years, I didn't wear a watch. And somehow,

when I made this connection where that like these things, they're necessary. I wear broken watches. I don't care that they don't tell time because I don't use them to look at the time. I look at my phone like everyone else, but I just love them. I don't know why, but they, I feel like that's the identity that only a watch can give. And so I've been into these little watch sites and the people that are.

tastemakers and stuff. And sometimes I'll notice like hashtag Leica. And then I'll note, I'll look at the Leica pictures and I'll say, there's something going on there. Like they don't look like other pictures. And so my friend is telling me about like all the greatest pictures in history are taken with Leica cameras from, you know, hundreds of years ago. The Leica glass is apparently what's about.

Brian Funk (50:57.559)

Is that a brand name? Is like a... Okay, I never heard of it.

EVAN FRANKFORT (51:00.104)

Yeah, L -E -I -C -A. So they're very expensive and in most cases you have to be a real photographer to use them. But they have a couple models, you know, for guys like me who know nothing. They could just point and shoot and have it look like legit. And, you know, I've never really been on social media, but I kind of, I'm starting to think maybe that's a good idea. Like, you know.

How would I do this? How would I frame this up? What would it make it look like? And so there are all of these little, I mean, I think that Leica is a spiritual machine. If you attach to whatever it is, like some people it's Canon, some people it's Nikon, I guess you can still use Leica lenses with those cameras. There's an aesthetic there where you just go, it's not a plugin. It's not a post -process. It's happening in real time.

we're in this together, you know, we are partners. I'm more powerful with you. I'm more alive with you. And so whether it's a car or anything else, like you just think like.

We're one thing. I see myself in you, you know, and I see the greatness that I want to be. Machines, you know, they live longer than humans, but they still die. And so I think we see them as the best of us. You know, we see them as what we would like to be if we could be, you know, more perfect, closer to perfect. And so, yeah, this is a conversation that I feel like all of us have.

Brian Funk (52:26.999)

Mm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (52:46.245)

You know, we're just maybe framing it up differently. But I love these conversations. Like, what are the spiritual machines for everybody? So I'm sure for some people it's a gun, you know? I'm sure for some people it's, I mean, I have a friend who's an artist. He draws like photorealism and he uses a mechanical pencil. And without that mechanical pencil, he can't do what he does. And...

And so, yeah, this $30 pencil is his spiritual machine, for lack of another term for it, you know?

Brian Funk (53:23.159)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because maybe even like I might pick up that pencil and it's cool. Maybe it's heavy or something, but I won't really see the difference between my like number two, you know.

EVAN FRANKFORT (53:40.995)

Okay, but now imagine this, right? You have somebody come over and play your keyboard and they play something you've never played before and they dial in a sound you've never actually dialed in before. And you now feel like you're better. You didn't do anything. You witnessed your world grow. And now you're gonna think differently. Now you're gonna approach that differently. And...

I feel like that's what happens. We want to expand, we want to build on what we have. And some things allow for that. And those are the things that we hold dear. I can't live without this piece of gear. I have this compressor, I always use it. I have this pedal, this piece, right? And no production would be complete if I didn't at least go through the motions with that thing.

Brian Funk (54:37.495)

Hmm. Yeah, it's a very deliberate act. I think maybe that's what it was with the camera too, with the students of mine. I mean, they have their phone, they can do a million things on it and they can snap pictures real quick. A couple of thumb movements and they've got it. But to take out that camera, this is a deliberate thing and we're going to do this with more intention than maybe we normally do.

EVAN FRANKFORT (55:04.514)

And maybe it does look different and they like that because it looks different. I mean, Polaroid had a huge comeback and, you know, my kids were all about them. And when it's a dollar a photo, what's that?

Brian Funk (55:10.359)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (55:13.848)

Well, they said it's like a filter. They said it's kind of, it's like got its own filter. And I think what they're referring to is that just that the way that machine does what it does, it's got its own way.

EVAN FRANKFORT (55:20.257)

It has -

EVAN FRANKFORT (55:28.961)

Well, it makes you think, be more selective, right? You know, when you're spending a buck a photo, you're not gonna shoot wildly the way you do with a phone. Or with a SIM card, yeah. You're gonna be more economical about how you think, you're gonna compose your shots a little bit more, you know, you're gonna be more selective about what a worthy photograph is. And I don't know, I mean, I...

Brian Funk (55:34.935)

yeah. Right. Well, even a memory card. Yeah.

Brian Funk (55:54.519)

Mm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (55:58.017)

I guess like all of it matters, these cycles of how we think and, you know, coming from never taking notes to now always saving presets, I can tell you that I wouldn't be who I am if I didn't have that era where I didn't take notes, where I relied on chaos to sort of, you know, be my partner. And now,

Brian Funk (56:23.191)

Mm -hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (56:27.391)

I can sort of recall what measures I have to take to throw myself into unchartered waters if I feel like something's safe, if I feel like I'm just doing the motions, the nuts and bolts, the process. I need some danger in this. How do I mess myself up? And so, yeah, these are artistic tools, right? And...

Brian Funk (56:49.623)

Mm -hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (56:55.454)

I never went to art school, but I envy people who did because they already know this stuff. They learned it. I can reverse it. I can flip it upside down. I can use negative space. I can, you know, whatever the principles are that guide all artists, to have them laid out for you in class is kind of amazing. Like, I wish I had that. Learned everything by failing.

Brian Funk (57:18.904)

Yeah. It's a safe way to learn too. But some of this stuff too, really does take a long time to settle in. You know, I don't know if you get it in a semester, you kind of have to really spend some time with it and go through it a bunch. Then you start to realize, yeah, to just kind of almost like congeal.

EVAN FRANKFORT (57:30.334)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (57:40.318)

Myelinate. Do you use that expression, that word myelinate?

EVAN FRANKFORT (57:49.054)

Yeah. Do you use that word myelinate?

Brian Funk (57:49.687)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (57:53.527)

Not on a day -to -day basis, no.

EVAN FRANKFORT (57:56.254)

Yeah, I mean, I love it because it just, you know, it makes clear what we go through, right? We're learning when we're not trying to learn. Like when we're sleeping, it's still, you know, the myelin in our brains is still processing what we're learning. And it can happen for years. And, you know, that's why they say don't practice more than X amount of hours a day, whatever it is, because you're really not

learning anything past a point. The only way you do learn is by going for a run or whatever else you would do where your brain would still think about that and process it and your hands actually learn dexterity and fluidity when they're not doing the task. It's just part of learning, right? You have in the trench learning and then you have the everything else time where it sinks in.

Brian Funk (58:56.664)

I read an article recently about that kind of thing with, I think it was piano players or some kind of musician where they had them practice for, you know, straight long breaks of time. And then they had another group practice for like a minute or two and take a little break. Then a minute or two, take a break, like always take a couple minutes off every few minutes. And those people moved along faster than the people that were just.

Because I guess what, after a while, you're just doing it so much that you're almost not processing. You're not giving yourself a chance to kind of reflect on it and step back and soak in.

EVAN FRANKFORT (59:38.586)

Yeah, I mean, obviously, the goal is to make it automatic, right? To not think about it, your body just knows what to do, muscle memory. And yeah, there has to be a technical, you know, sort of format for efficiency, right? Like, this is what you do if you want to have maximum, and I'm sure everybody's different. But there's a guy that I know,

really well who is one of those.

You know, he's a machine. This guy will learn how to play an instrument really, really well. Like, in months. It'll be like, I'm just learning how to play guitar. Doot, doot, doot, doot, doot. And he'll come back months later and he's shredding. And it'll be anything from piano to wind instruments and brass. Like, it's just nuts, this guy. And now he's having a problem with carpal tunnel. He's a young guy. But...

He loves music and he immerses himself entirely. He never has a minute of the day that he's not listening to something, analyzing something, practicing something, writing something. And in my mind, that's the goal. He's the example that we should all follow. But I think that there's danger in that example. Like burnout for one, frustration.

you know, that muscle damage, that tendon damage. And then there's something else, like, you know, we love this. It brings us joy. When we put on a record and we go, my, it's magic. How did they do this? Right? Or you get to a point where you go, how did this happen? This is magic. It's so far beyond me to just do what happened. I don't know how it happened. It was a gift from God. Whatever it is, however you wanna.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:01:43.672)

you know, describe it. It's just, what a lucky moment we're in right here. Let's savor it, right? And so, that was the reason we got into it, because we're living from that moment to the next one. And if you're really just doing the work, then you're missing out on some of those moments. And to me, the goal is to have as many of them as possible.

Brian Funk (01:02:15.831)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:02:15.927)

You know, I mean, it used to be just to have a stack of records in the corner that I got to be a part of. You know, that's the legacy, right? When we're dead, that will be the thing that we did with our life. It's a snapshot in time, right? It's a photo album, but it's record albums. This is where I was at this moment, right? This is the photo album of your life told in terms of records.

But now I realize, no, it's really just about that feeling. You know, that's the drug that we get addicted to.

Brian Funk (01:02:55.927)

There's nothing quite like that feeling when you can listen back to it, maybe like you with your band, right? I'm sure you guys finished some music and you, if you ever sit down and listen to it together and just be like, wow, you know, we made that out of nothing. It didn't exist. And here it is.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:03:13.303)

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:03:18.776)

I love the act of it, but I also love the sitting back and enjoying it part two. Just, yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:03:28.597)

The celebration, yeah. When I was a kid, I would go down to a studio in LA called Paramount where they had a room, an overdub room for 25 bucks an hour. And the guys who own the place were really cool. They just said, look, you know, we have this great gear locker, got Neumann's, everything else you could imagine in there. You're welcome to just...

take what you want and go record from midnight to 8 a And so I'd save my paper route money. I was a little kid. I'd get a ride down to the studio and I'd borrow gear from friends like, hey man, you got a cool amp. Can I borrow that tonight? I'll bring it back in the morning. And whatever it was, I would go and set up 20 mics. I'd listen to everything, EQ everything. And...

check the phase on everything and like mic the back and get everything I could going because it was a race against time, right? And I would write something, I'd record it, I'd learn how to engineer as best as I could. And then I'd make a cassette and, you know, 8 a would roll along and I'd get a ride home and I would listen in the car to that cassette and...

If that's not magic, I don't know what is because while the world was asleep, I made something. And I knew like, this is the only thing that I really care about. I want to make something. And I felt so lucky to be able to do that. I felt like, you know, I'd been given a lot of opportunities and I wasn't going to take it for granted. You know, I was going to use every...

every second of it, you know? But yeah, I mean, it's just turning over stones, man. There's a lot of them out there. Let's see what's underneath.

Brian Funk (01:05:34.359)

Yeah, that's true. There's no end to it. You just keep turning them.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:05:38.931)

No, and there's no end to great ideas, right? And so you might think you got a lock on it and maybe you do for that idea. But if somebody comes to you and says, yeah, we'll do it this way, which is maybe total opposite of your idea. We've got this now. Now you go, God, I want to do that too, right? And I want to do the other. It just, it never gets old.

Brian Funk (01:05:43.351)

Hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:06:08.531)

I mean, especially working with film, right? You might have a million ways to score a scene and they're all gonna be diametrically opposed and amazing. So there's no right answer to the question. It's just a creative approach and difference that sets it apart. And so, that you could ever get over it, that you could ever say, yeah, I've done enough of that. It's impossible. You'll see something, you know.

where I did it with an orchestra. Now this person's using cartoon sounds and it's better.

Like, it's just something about it, you know, appeals. Like you might score what's on screen and someone else scored what's not on screen and then brand new. Like it's just, like the, okay, say, okay, so sound is different than picture because picture you can only see what you can see when you can see it. But with sound you can pre -lap, right? You can show, you can telegraph something.

Brian Funk (01:06:54.519)

What do you mean by that? Off screen, not on screen and on screen.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:07:11.984)

right, before it happens. Do -do -do -do. Or, you know what I mean? Like, anything can be telegraphed. Danger or excitement or whatever. Love, right? If you just play something beautiful, that could be your love theme. Nobody knows it until they fall in love. Now you recall it later. And you've told the audience when you recall it after they've broken up that they're gonna get back together if you play that love theme.

Brian Funk (01:07:16.599)

Yeah, yeah, gotcha.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:07:41.392)

So you can score that moment, that idea, that feeling at a moment where someone else is scoring what's happening on screen. You're like, no, I'm setting up the next scene already. And there's something that you're recalling, there's something that you're suggesting, right? Or, you know, for instance, you're in the love scene and he's gonna leave her for...

somebody else or she's gonna leave, you know, or whatever it is, like, you're playing that also. Like, there's a love theme, but there's also something amiss about it. Like, there's something that you're suggesting is more than what's going on right here. And so in many cases, like, you're just heightening the emotion that's on screen. And in other cases, you're, you know, you're storytelling. Like, you're saying,

Brian Funk (01:08:25.815)

Right.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:08:40.174)

Here's the whole picture, and if you really pay attention, you'll realize I was giving it away the whole time. But maybe on the third or fourth.

Brian Funk (01:08:50.071)

Hmm. Yeah, sometimes you you hear a little dissonance in that happy love theme and you kind of know Something's coming Yeah

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:09:00.014)

Yeah, yeah. Or, yeah, I mean, you know, let's just say you fade to black and something trails off, right? What trails off is what you're gonna think about. It could just be the ring out of the chord or an echo trail or whatever, but it can also be movement, it can also be sound design. It can be whatever you wanna leave them with.

you know, optimism, defeat. There's an opportunity that sound has that picture doesn't. I mean, sound came first and God said, let there be light. The sound of his voice came before the light. So yeah, I mean, it just depends on how you...

you know, how you frame things that makes it.

A thing. It's hard to describe really, but you just have leeway. I mean, there are colors that will trigger emotions. There are sounds that trigger emotions. But you don't really know what an emotion is until it's realized. And so to suggest it, to tease it, is kind of, you know, you're like the puppet master, you know?

controlling your audience on strings, you know. You don't even know why your arms are going like this.

Brian Funk (01:10:38.519)

Right.

Yeah, well that's kind of the magic when you're really absorbed. All of these things are happening to you. And I guess I'm sure from your perspective, when you're setting it up, you're kind of like, you know exactly what's going on, but we just fall into that trance.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:10:47.179)

Yeah!

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:10:58.859)

You don't. I mean, you always start out conventional ways. You know, you'll have a conversation and that, you know, the director for a movie or, you know, the showrunner for a TV show will tell you what they're thinking. And usually that's the job, right, is to help them realize their vision of things. But, you know, if you want to...

introduce a new idea as an option or open their eyes to something that they might not have seen or, you know, just if you think they're wrong, like give them what you think is right. If there's time to do that, then yeah, you might get into your head before you even begin what you want to do. But I think so much of it is just an instant reaction. Like you just.

you know, pull something up and when you find a good match, you go. So yeah, usually it's after the fact that I go, you know what would be wild is hearing what I've done if I did it again like this, you know, and so you get iterations going.

But that's the real fun, right? It's because you don't, I don't even get creative until I think I've been creative, you know?

Brian Funk (01:12:13.495)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:12:20.311)

Okay. So you kind of have something there that you can then play with. That's so true. It's like you can't think this stuff up in songwriting. Like you can just like think it up. You have to get your hands dirty. And then once you do that, something else happens. And then that causes another chain reaction.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:12:26.217)

to react to, right? To react to.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:12:42.921)

That's it, right? I mean, it's electricity. You feel like you're just pulled to it. You know, it's magnetism. It's something where I don't know that there's even like a thought process as much as it is just like this sort of trigger in us where we've become machines and we just go, you know? I have this theory about

raising kids, you know, is you don't really have to do a lot of work if you just put them where they belong. Put everything where it goes. Put this kid on the right track and it'll know what to do. Like, you like to analyze things. Okay, you belong over here in science or math. Like, you like to ponder things. Okay, you're more of a philosopher, aren't you? Like, let's get you in humanities and...

English and reading and I mean, you're a dancer. Like my kids are dancers and you know, the other one's an entrepreneur and like all I need to do is say, I wonder what a good idea to make money would be. Like he'll come up with ideas and like I have no doubt he's gonna be successful and I have no doubt that one of my daughters is going to make stuff and the other is gonna be about excellence. Like.

technical proficiency. And their personalities are written. Like all you need to do is just say, these are your people, this is your group. Like when they got into dance, they learned how to model, you know, the high school seniors when they were in kindergarten. And they're good people, those seniors. They take the kindergartners under their wings and, you know, they treat them like humans and they embrace them. And, you know,

Like I said, my twins were in ninth grade this year. I mean, the seniors are driving them around and saying, hey, you want to go to In -N -Out and look at a burger? Like, did that happen for you? That wasn't a thing for me. Like, you ended up in a dumpster if you were a freshman.

Brian Funk (01:14:50.967)

Thank you.

Brian Funk (01:14:54.679)

Yeah, right. That's a cool advantage.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:14:59.398)

So, yeah, there's a world where, like, if you find the right senior...

Brian Funk (01:15:05.495)

but they got their crowd that they connect with. Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:15:08.325)

That's it. You put them in the right lane and they just go off to the races. So yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot to just finding that lane. That's the hard part. And it really isn't that hard. There's just a certain amount of personality profiles, right? Everybody fits into some lane.

Brian Funk (01:15:12.375)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:15:22.359)

Mm.

Right. Yeah, for all of us, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:15:31.543)

Right. Yeah, you kind of have to just pay attention to where things kind of fit together for you.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:15:44.389)

Yeah, it's your context, right? Like, so some kid likes to cook. Well, you're going to learn math by cooking. you like engines. All right, well, let's learn math that way. You know, cubic inches. Let's let's talk about that for a minute. So whatever it is, like, I know there's a way to put everybody where they belong. You just have to have the resources.

Brian Funk (01:15:54.327)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (01:16:10.935)

Yeah. Yeah, that would be great if school was a little more focused on figuring that out instead of just putting them jamming all the square pegs into the triangle pegs and the, you know, just trying to make it all work for everybody.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:16:19.781)

cracking the code on the individual.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:16:29.765)

Yeah, yeah. Utopia. We'll get there.

Brian Funk (01:16:33.431)

Yeah, right. So you got some new music coming out with the band, right? The Spiritual Machines.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:16:40.037)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Spiritual Machines just finished a record.

Brian Funk (01:16:43.831)

Got to hear a little, that's got to be satisfying and exciting for you guys, right?

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:16:49.922)

Yeah, it is. I mean, you know, I've known these guys forever and I haven't really played music with humans in decades. And this is really what made me want to play again with humans. I mean, I'm so used to staying in a room like this and doing what I do alone. But, you know, I love these guys and they're all creative powerhouses. And so this record was really sort of even though it's the

third full record, it's sort of a new direction and it's a new concept where I want it to be a band where we're all doing what we talked about. Everybody's generating ideas, we're all producing, we're all grabbing microphones and engineering, but we're also jamming and sort of organically finding material. And so...

you know, I want to build this and that's what, you know, getting all this hybrid type of gear is about is trying to have the record appear in our in -ear monitors as close to the record as we can make it sound. And so I don't want to play the tracks. I want it to be just us. But, you know, there's always that frustration of being at a venue and, you know.

What's it going to sound like? Are we going to be able to overcome the sound guy, the horrible sound system, the weird room, etc. etc. And so it takes the power back. You know?

Brian Funk (01:18:26.823)

That chaos. Yeah. That's fun.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:18:35.232)

So yeah, I'm excited. I mean, it's kind of a great time to be alive with all the tools that we've got.

Brian Funk (01:18:43.608)

Yeah, there's no better time to be making music. I mean, just all of the possibilities and that sounds like a fun way to approach it. It reminds me of myself and my current band actually too, because I grew up playing in bands and then got more into production and then even like live performance as a solo, hybrid, electronic kind of thing and playing with people again.

It's like, if we're going to play together, we might as well collaborate, right? Cause we can do it all by ourselves, you know, and we've, I've had the chance, maybe when I was younger and you know, you'd write a song, I know how the drums need to go. I know what I want the bass to do. And you're like the dictator, but now I've got to be, you know, the only voice in the song for so long working alone.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:19:21.728)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:19:43.511)

that when I get together with people, it's like, I really want that. I want you to come up with this. I might have ideas for what I would think the part should do, but it's so much more fun now to let it be whatever it's gonna be. And I think on the whole, it comes out better, or at least more interesting and exciting.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:20:00.096)

So.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:20:04.51)

Yeah, less homogenized, right?

Brian Funk (01:20:07.063)

Yeah, like I wouldn't have thought to play that on the bass.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:20:11.069)

So the thing that I want to do with this band is once we have a song and we have a treatment, like we've been jamming it out and everybody's happy, I want us all to start over in our own studios. And I want us to build out our own productions. And I don't want anybody to hear anybody else's until we're all done. And then we're going to all sit together and just say, my God, like,

what you did here and what you did there and what you did, like we make this, you know, sort of hybrid amalgamation of things. And then we redo everything according to that best foot forward from all sides, you know. I just feel like there's no other complete way to do it. You know, you might get the record the way that you're happy and it might be cool.

Brian Funk (01:20:56.855)

That's cool.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:21:10.173)

But let's just say you can make it 10 % better. I mean, we work in this lane all the time. We spend 95 % of our money on the last 3 % of the sound. We do it with everything. I mean, yeah, it's diminishing returns, but it's still worth it. Because better is better.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:21:34.076)

If we can make it better, then yeah, man, I want to. I'll work another year on it. Like, I don't care. That's what we do. Like this is the pet project, right? It's not a job. And so for the pet project, there's no rules, there's no timeline, and there's no limitations. And so, you know, I mean, you know, you'll never get to perfect and you'll never get to good enough and you'll never get to a place where you feel like...

Brian Funk (01:21:41.911)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:22:03.611)

you know, you hit a home run, it's always gonna be unfinished. It's always gonna feel like, you know, I couldn't really solve the equation entirely. But that's what experimenting is, you know? It's just, we're gonna fail, but we're gonna fail fun, you know? We're gonna have a lot of high fives in that failure.

Brian Funk (01:22:29.335)

Yeah. Well, that failure brings a lot of energy to the next project, too. Yeah, that's when things get finished, it makes me excited for the next thing. Well, that was cool. But let's do something else. Let's try this. Let's see what happens when this goes that way instead of the way we did it. And.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:22:37.499)

Yeah, we're going to fail uphill.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:22:46.427)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:22:57.431)

That can be enough to keep the projects going, to keep the next thing fresh and exciting.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:23:02.01)

Well, there it is, right? The word is project. Like, we're not making an album here. We're making a project. And it never ends until we say it's over. And so, yeah, like it might be a song, it might be an album, it might be a volume, and it might be a lifetime career. But hopefully you get the opportunity to just keep going and keep growing. I mean, I feel like that's the difference between the era now.

and the way it used to be. You know, you had six weeks, the label gave you a budget, you made a record, six weeks, then it was three weeks. And then if nothing happened or not enough happened to justify the next step, then it was over. You know, you needed permission from the guy with the gavel. Bonk, you get to make a record. Now you just make that record. I mean, the stuff my kids play me, it's all over the place.

Brian Funk (01:23:54.391)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:24:01.977)

It's literally, I can't even get my head around it. You know, my son will listen to Pavement and Radiohead and Kendrick Lamar and, you know, J. Cole and the Dreamville guys. And then he'll listen to guys like Anderson Paak and, you know, it's just, who's this other guy he loves? Like, there's so much stuff that I don't even know. Like, what is your taste? Like, what do you stand for? Well, I stand for stuff that's cool.

That's good enough. It used to be if you stood against, stood for something, you stood against something too. And so there's a new world where like, there's no like musical prejudice, you know? When they sit down and listen to something, it's with open ears and they'll tell you what they like about it and they'll react viscerally and they'll let it wash over themselves in a wave and they'll feel it.

Brian Funk (01:24:36.407)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:25:00.279)

or they won't and they'll tell you, you know, feels contrived, feels like a construct, feels whatever. To me, like, I wish I could have grown up like that. You know, back then it was like, you know, we thought of rock as this kind of music that was off the rails and it was...

you know, something that you loved because it had teeth and your parents hated it. And, you know, it made sense to us that this was our music. And then it became a caricature of itself, right? Where it was all made on grids and Pro Tools using samples and the same tones, the same mixers, the same, you know, cookie cutter footprint of everything. And it became more pop than pop.

And I'll never forget, I don't know if you're too young for this, but this song, Hello Good from No Doubt came out and it was their dance song. And I just thought, this might be the most punk rock thing I've heard all decade because this rock band was doing a dance song and it had guts. Like it was bold and it was cool. And I just thought, well, this is the new punk rock is the thing that you don't expect, right? The thing that...

Brian Funk (01:25:59.319)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:26:07.063)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:26:12.215)

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:26:28.053)

is probably the least cool idea that you can do. And so now, like you don't have to act for or against anything. The kids just, they feel something or they don't. And that's cool, man. Like I really wish it could have been like that, you know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago.

Brian Funk (01:26:31.575)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:26:46.495)

Yeah, a lot of that stuff, a lot of the rock, the punk especially, it was, I think looking back, it wasn't so much about the sound. It was the chance you were taking. Because something like punk rock should have never been able to be commercialized and packaged up into this formula. It doesn't make any sense. So it's...

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:27:12.116)

Right. Right. It doesn't make any sense. It became more corporate than anything else, you know?

Brian Funk (01:27:17.687)

Yeah, like how is this now so polished and predictable? But it was more about just going in a direction that was a little dangerous, a little off the beaten path.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:27:34.548)

It had a sound. I mean, for better or worse, like, you know, that corporate era of punk rock, like, it had a sound, and if that's something that appeals to you, then that's great. But, I think that...

You know, what really is cool is that all of the surrounding circumstances sort of don't matter anymore. You know, it's so funny. We were listening to Radiohead, The Bends, which is one of my all time faves. And my son was...

Brian Funk (01:28:08.824)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:28:12.851)

commenting on how he liked the guitar. I was like, you know what's funny is this guitar actually kind of sounds like it might've been inspired by Fly By Night by Rush. And you'll probably laugh when you hear that, but let me play it for you. And he said, you wanna know something? I think I like this even more. I was like, really? You like Rush? Okay, well let's go down this rabbit hole for a while. So we played a dozen Rush songs and he's like, I love this band. I love what they're doing. I love what they sound like. I love how it feels and on and on.

And I was like, how do you love Rush? Like you've never even listened to Prog Rock. But there's something about it where it triggered him. I was like, what else do you need to say? I'm glad you love it. Like finding something you love is the goal. Doesn't matter what it is. But it never would have dawned on me. Never would have expected it. I mean, he listened to nothing but rap for years. And then he's listening to Indie Rock.

and stuff that's really weird and wild and fun. But yeah, how does that happen? Where something just feels like there's no way, it's disparate, it's not gonna fit into the equation, and then it fits perfectly. You think you know something, you think you understand how things work. You don't know anything. Because you have these conventional set of, you know.

Brian Funk (01:29:31.767)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:29:43.346)

tools that you use to understand the universe. And then you just go, okay, I have no tools anymore. Like, let's start over. You know, help me see what you see.

Brian Funk (01:29:57.143)

Hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:30:00.21)

That's the rebirth, you know? Let it go.

Brian Funk (01:30:03.863)

Right. Well, that's not taking notes or making presets, right? That's just part of that.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:30:10.863)

Yeah, it is, the chaos of it. It's your friend.

Brian Funk (01:30:18.231)

Yeah, that's a lot of magic comes out of that. That's when you have to solve problems. That's when you have to make decisions when you're in the midst of that.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:30:18.255)

your partner.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:30:25.967)

Yeah, it used to be the weirder idea, the better, right? Like I would just say, all right, so here's what we're doing. The living room is an L shape. We're gonna record the drums over in the small part, the L, and we're gonna put a mic up in the chimney over here around the bend. We're gonna walk up the stairs, walk around the corner, go into the bathroom, put a mic in the tub, but we're going to run a tube from the kick drum.

Brian Funk (01:30:44.155)

Thank you.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:30:55.183)

all the way up into the bathtub, right? And it's gonna be right here, but we're gonna use the curvature where your back goes, and we're gonna put the tube at the top, it's gonna go down here, it's gonna collect, and then over here, pointed down is gonna be the microphone, we're gonna hear that tube, and it's gonna be in the mix at 3%, we're gonna pitch down an octave and, you know, run distortion pedal on it, whatever you're gonna do. But like, all of these ideas, just for no reason other than curiosity.

I mean, those were what drove everything. Just like, what else can we do? What else can we do?

Brian Funk (01:31:32.599)

Yeah.

Hmm. What?

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:31:35.663)

The fridge. What does the fridge sound like? Leave it open. Put a mic in it. Let the ice melt. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:31:39.608)

What happens if...

What happens if? I love that part of it, actually. It's one of my favorite parts is that what if? Let's see. The exploration, you know, almost like you're in the 1400s getting in that boat and just let's see what's out there.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:31:46.894)

Yeah, exactly it.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:31:53.773)

Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:32:03.885)

There's a new world in that tube. Let's move the tube to the trick. That's it. That's it. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:32:05.879)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:32:10.007)

That's awesome, man. So we want to send people to your work, thespiritualmachines .com. That should be easy enough to find. Where else do you like to send people? Any projects or even TV shows or things you want people to check out knowing that you worked on them?

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:32:21.773)

Thank you, yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:32:31.981)

yeah, I mean, I, so I use these bands to tell stories and, everything is a subject and it's just sort of a platform to tell that story through and through. so I have other bands, one is called Less Friction, one is called The Highest of Lows, and, there's several others, but, they, you know, these projects,

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:33:04.076)

They just are an opportunity to have an outlet for whatever the topic is. So I chip away at them. Every few years I'll make a record. Every few years I'll call the peeps and say, all right, we're doing it, let's do it. And so it's really the kind of thing that I'll always do and look forward to doing. But I'm making a...

graphic novel for Less Friction, which is about sort of interdimensional traveling. And, you know, I don't even want to open the can of worms about what it's about because it's too big. It'll just take up too much time. But, you know, that's a project that's very near and dear. And I do that with my friend Jeff Pfeiffer, who I...

told you about and then my friend, Paint, who is also on the Spiritual Machine stuff this record. So I'm sort of joining worlds a little bit. But, you know, in terms of shows, I was up for an Emmy this year for a show called Wildlife Kingdom, which is the oldest running animal show.

in history, really cool. It was on before I was born and they brought it back and I've been scoring that for a year with my friends and we're having a great time on it. And so I recommend that and I recommend the Harlem Globetrotters, pay it forward and the Globetrotters are awesome. Craig Robinson from The Office is hosting the show and he's amazing.

one of the funniest guys alive. His band's incredible. I don't know if you know his band.

Brian Funk (01:35:07.064)

What character was he on the office? Darryl, yeah, okay. Nice.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:35:09.576)

He was Daryl. Daryl from The Office. Yeah, yeah. So he's super talented and super funny. And the show's great. It's basically them doing good deeds all over the place. Just showing up and getting stuff done. But, you know, so between those shows, I mean, there's a lot of shows that I do that are just...

Brian Funk (01:35:16.407)

Cool, cool.

Brian Funk (01:35:24.919)

Hmm.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:35:38.024)

real feel -good shows, things that I'm proud to share with my kids. I did a lot of stuff that was very, very dark. After a lot of that, it just feels good knowing, we're not murdering people in this episode. That's great. I really enjoy it. There's a lot of just...

Brian Funk (01:36:00.119)

Right.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:36:06.408)

wide shot landscapes, opportunity to go big with music and that's cool. So yeah, that's kind of what I'm up to. The record comes out August 16th for the Spiritual Machines. It's called Lock Hearted and it's essentially like an 80s oriented or inspired record. There's a lot of synth wave and things that, truly amazing music today.

But this is probably more rooted in the nature of songwriting from the 80s than the sound of 80s records. I mean, there are things where you go, yeah, no, I know that sound. But it's, I feel like there was an era of songwriting back then that, you know, that's my era and so it's under my skin. And so I relate to it. And that's kind of where I pushed this record to be.

And, you know, it's... The subject is basically about being a love letter to my family. Like, if I was gonna die today, like, these are the conversations I wanna have, these are the things I don't wanna leave unsaid. And so it's very personal. And it's definitely one of those records where, you know...

I wish I could have made it as a kid, you know? And so that's the mission now is to reconnect with why I love music and why I got into it, you know? And so there's a lot of that search in this record. There's a lot of like, you know, muted parts where I spent months and just, no, that's not it. So it was a lot of fun doing it, you know, getting to stay in that lane for years, really.

Brian Funk (01:38:09.175)

That's cool. Great concept. Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:38:09.189)

I guess it's just an indulgence. It's an indulgence, you know, to be able to work with those sounds and feel connected to the era and, you know, design sounds that sort of, you know, compliment it and feel like, we can evolve this palette, you know? We can turn it into something that maybe people haven't heard before.

Brian Funk (01:38:29.879)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:38:35.576)

It's a great palette and sometimes it's brought back to really trigger the time period. But there's a lot of depth and a lot more that can be done with it. I tell you what, in the songs I heard, that didn't strike me that it was an 80s type of, because it sounds pretty modern. It sounds...

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:38:51.396)

Yeah, I mean...

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:38:56.708)

Really?

Brian Funk (01:39:02.327)

It has a lot of that other stuff like in a rock band would have that, that wasn't what jumped out at me. So that's cool to hear. I hate my not hear all the synth work and there's a lot of that in there, but it's, you know, I guess like what I'm saying is not like the gimmick of like, we're going like retro with this. And you know, that's not how it comes across, which is cool.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:39:10.692)

Interesting. I mean, I guess...

You do hear it, okay.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:39:23.716)

Okay.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:39:28.964)

Thank you. I mean, it's one of those things where you do it because you want to do it. You don't expect anybody to connect with it. And you hope that they do. But in the end, you're going to do it anyway. So I guess I have no idea what the read will be. I sort of assumed that people that liked the epic stuff will think this is not for them.

but maybe there's a chance they will like it and somebody new might like it. And so, we'll see.

Brian Funk (01:40:10.839)

That's not your job, right? That's not your job. Your job is to make it. And you can't tell what's going to happen. Yeah, right. Right.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:40:11.073)

So thank you, I appreciate you listening. Sorry.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:40:17.217)

Yeah, I mean, you just can't control anything beyond that, right? So why try? But it is, you know, I don't know, it's, it's, it's like a sustainable engine, right? It just gets you right back to work. And, you know, you, you just gonna keep going no matter what. So I appreciate you having a listen. Thank you.

Brian Funk (01:40:44.343)

Yeah, I enjoyed it. And, and, you know, talking to you, I really pick up on your passion and your desire to find new things and keep staying inspired. It's, it's inspiring, you know, funny enough that that's like, yeah, cool.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:41:02.209)

Well, thank you. Yeah, likewise, you know, I think, you know, the fact that you're doing this is because you're hungry and curious. And I think that's, you know, what Bob Dylan was saying. He was not busy being born, he's busy dying.

Brian Funk (01:41:17.067)

Yeah, this has been a great way to stay inspired and learn and just expand the options in a way. So thanks for being part of that. Yeah, my pleasure.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:41:26.305)

Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:41:32.951)

Cool, well we'll keep up, we'll keep in touch. Let me know if anything ever comes up again and we can always do another.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:41:40.321)

Thanks, man. Yeah, I'm going to start my own podcast about the spiritual machine. So you're going to be my guest next.

Brian Funk (01:41:44.727)

you should. Seriously, this has been one of the biggest learning experiences of my life, just doing these conversations. It's crazy. Yeah.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:41:54.559)

I'll bet, I'll bet, yeah. For me, it's just that element of curiosity. You have no idea what people are gonna find important, what they're afraid of, what they're inspired by. And you kinda just have to let them go, let them talk. So yeah, there's no other way to get there. I mean, that's kind of what it all is. It's a conversation.

Brian Funk (01:42:19.063)

Right.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:42:23.711)

We're making a record and then people react to it. And then that, you know, should influence what you do on the next record. Don't do that again.

Brian Funk (01:42:34.679)

Yeah, yeah. Well, so much of the record itself, it's a conversation between members, instruments, melodies, you know, all that stuff. So.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:42:44.735)

Yeah. Countermelodies.

Brian Funk (01:42:46.263)

It's no wonder people like Socrates had his like Socratic circle. It's just talk. So yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yep.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:42:54.815)

Yeah, that's a good method, yeah. We should stick with it. He was good at method that guy. He had a lock on it.

Brian Funk (01:43:05.527)

So listen, I'll put all this stuff in the show notes. Thank you again and thank you to everyone listening.

EVAN FRANKFORT (01:43:11.839)

Thank you. Really appreciate it, Brian.

podcastBrian Funkmusic production podcast, Evan frankfort