Controlled Danger

Have you thought about covering a Crowded House song ? I think When you Come or Better Be Home Soon would be amazing !

Chappelle loves "Don't Dream it's Over" and we perform it together at our shows.

BB: By the way, you and Chappelle do that. You do it in San Francisco.

JM: We did that in San Francisco, Atlanta, we did Red Rocks in Colorado.

BB: What do you do though?

JM: So I go on stage and I play for like 25-30 minutes. He comes out—and he’s working on his new hour, he’s almost done with his new hour which is phenomenal. And then he calls me out and I’m sort of a DJ. It’s like two guys at a party who found a guitar, and I’m the DJ, like a joke DJ. So he loves music—Dave loves to joke about songs and he’s almost like this savant where he’s a musical MC as well, it’s really strange. He’s performing music but he’s not singing. It’s really hard to explain. He’s a genius—obviously—and so we throw ideas back and forth, and I can kind of play anything if I’ve heard it before. So he can throw a song to me and I just kind of know it. So it’s a little bit like, he throws a song idea to me, I do it, and he works it into this brilliant—like basically it’s like watching the Chappelle Show.

BB: So it’s like jazz with jokes?

JM: Yeah, that’s right. And we’re starting to develop things that we know work, so it’s like two people thinking with the same brain now. Like the way you build a file cabinet of jokes in your head, we’re building a file cabinet of jokes based on songs. Like there’s a Footloose joke that’s just super funny because I’m playing the Footloose lick [sings guitar riff], and with his mind he takes it into, you know, how out of place that would be in the, you know, quote-on-quote hood.

JM: But I got to tell you something that hit me the other night, you're gonna appreciate this. So I've been doing these shows with Dave Chappelle.

Jeffrey Wright: John brought up being a part of Dave Chappelle's current tour. If you haven't seen Chappelle's show, John makes frequent appearances during the comedian's trek across the US where he plays guitar and chats with Chappelle. You never know what will happen when the two of them are on stage together.

JM: I've seen his hour that he's been working up and it's tremendous. It's tremendous and he's crafting it and it's got to a point where it's really really, really good. Not that it ever wasn't, but then I saw him at the Comedy Cellar about three nights ago and he went up and he off the top of his head did at least 90 minutes. And I say at least because I had to leave, I had to go to, we had a show in Syracuse the next day.So I had to be good to myself for the next day. 90 minutes top of his head. Glorious. Was it better than the hour? Less restrained, less contained, less crafted and therefore glorious by comparison in some ways.

And I sat there watching him and I went, oh my god I get it. What I've been doing is buffing, shining, cutting. This precision crafting. And if I do anything like what Dave did for 90 minutes off the top of his head it is a completely different beast and in a lot of ways touches on a whole different element of art than what we think we're doing when we sit and spit-shine. And I thought to myself, I've got to make a record like his set is right now.

SJ: Mm-hmm.

JM:And I don't give myself the opportunity to do that because I'm so exacting, but there is something you lose when you're exacting. Obviously there's something you gain.

SJ: You do that with the Trio.

JM: You do it with the Trio, but you do with a record where you go in and you go, don't be precious. People do want to see sparks fly.

SJ: Right.

JM: And that means you might have a song on a record that's not great. But I think my next record is going to borrow very heavily from that moment that I had where I went, well we are not our best judges. We're not our best judges of our own ideas. 

And so what's falling through the cracks? Because it just doesn't please me at that one moment. But like if I really just let it happen it could be great. So I remember sitting there going, I've got to do a three-month album. Just three months. All right do it in three months which is still long by album making standards, and find out what's there at the top of your head. There's beautiful stuff at the top of your head. But for me—I don't know if most people know this, I don't know if you know it, but it certainly wouldn't be a surprise—as I'm singing live I'm producing my vocals. I'm in front of me as my own gymnastics coach.

So, Chappelle, what do you guys do together?

JM: So I gotta say I've always wanted to be a stand-up, and it didn't work very well for me. Don't worry, I have a good thing going otherwise. Advice to anybody who's struggling as a stand-up comic, one of the best things you can do is just stand next to Dave Chappelle on stage.

JK: That's a good thing to do.

JM: If you get the opportunity, yeah. He's such a great guy to set up for jokes. You know, he goes up and he's better at what he does then anybody is at anything they do. That's why you go and see Dave. He is a great comic but you're also watching someone just nail something.

JK: Yeah, right. I know what you mean.

JM: I don't love sports but I'll watch Tom Brady play because I just like greatness. You know?

And I watched Dave and I listen to the comedy and I laugh but I also clap because I go “how does someone's brain do that?” And then all I have to do is say like two funny things and people walk out and go “those guys were hilarious.”

JK: You play guitar while he’s—

JM: Yeah, yeah.

JK: Is there a whole band set? Or is it you and him?

JM: No it’s me and him, but like—as much as I want to be a comic I get a couple of jokes in. And then he wants to be a singer and he sings a couple songs.

JK: What songs does he sing?

JM: He'll sing "Creep." And I bet you think it's the TLC "Creep," but it's the Radiohead "Creep." Oh, I’ve seen Dave go up on stage and he goes [sings 1999 by Prince]. And at first people are going, “What's going on?” And ultimately everybody's going [sings melody as if sung by audience]. He's one of the greatest leaders of a room I've ever seen.

JK: Wow that's so funny. How did you guys get together in the first place?

JM: I was on his show years ago, he asked me to be on his show.

JK: Oh, right. Yes.

JM: And then we would just see each other in hotel lobbies from place to place, and cities and just like grew a friendship over like 10-15 years.

JK: And now you guys are performing together.

JM: We do shows together. We do arenas and stuff.