AJR：揭秘TikTok爆红音乐背后的创作秘诀 | 《我是如何创作的》

本次采访对象是来自乐队HAR的杰克和瑞恩。他们在Spotify上的播放量超过50亿次，每月有超过850万人在该平台收听他们的音乐，其歌曲《World's Smallest Violin》的音乐视频观看量更是突破1.7亿次。这支乐队的成长史堪称互联网时代的缩影——从如何在TikTok爆红，到他们对营销发行、YouTube、社交媒体的见解，当然还包括当下最热门的AI话题。我们聊遍了所有这些内容。

This interview is with Jack and Ryan from the band HAR. They have more than 5,000,000,000 streams on Spotify. More than eight and a half million people are listening to them on the platform every month, and the music video for their song, World's Smallest Violin, has more than a 170,000,000 views. The story of the band is the story of the Internet, from how they blew up on TikTok to how they think about marketing and distribution, YouTube, social media, and, of course, now AI. We talked about all those things.

他们讲述了自身经历，分享了思考见解，你会注意到贯穿整个对话的核心主题是：如何真实地表达与传递真相。这正是本期节目要探讨的内容。好了，欢迎二位。

They told their story, shared their thinking, and you'll notice that the theme that runs through this conversation is how do you actually speak and communicate truth. Well, that's what we talk about in this episode. Alright. Welcome, guys.

谢谢。

Thank you.

音乐是件奇妙的事物，因为有些音乐在现场演出时能获得观众的即时反馈。但有时候，比如现在你们创作音乐时，就只有你们三个人——准确说是你们俩加上你弟弟，

Music is a funny thing because for some music, you have live feedback of the people in the audience when you're playing live. But sometimes, now you're just making music. It's just the three of you the two of you and your brother,

还有

and

就得不到那种即时反馈。

you don't have that feedback.

没错。就像我们刚才讨论喜剧时说的，常有人说如果写笑话时想着'这个肯定能让观众发笑'，那这个笑话注定失败。但如果是你自己写着写着先笑出来的笑话，那上台表演时绝对炸场。我们创作时也常秉持这种理念。

Yeah. I mean, we were just talking about comedy. I've seen said a lot about comedy that if you're writing a joke thinking, oh, this will make people laugh, the joke's gonna die. And if you write a joke and the joke makes you personally laugh, the joke's gonna kill it on stage. I think we think like that a lot.

虽然这么说可能显得自负，但确实有很多歌写着写着就把我们自己唱哭了。那些比较走心的作品，我们当时的反应正是希望乐迷最终能感受到的——要么跟着起舞，要么潸然泪下。这就像是种信号：好了，看来我们和听众的频道对上了。

I know it sounds like, you know, cocky to say, but, like, a lot of the songs do make us cry as we're writing it. Like, a lot of the more emotional ones were having the exact reaction that we want fans to ultimately have. We're dancing or we're crying. And that's kind of our indicator of, okay. I think we're gonna be on the same wavelength as the audience here.

能举个具体例子吗？

Like, what's an example of of that?

要说我们俩谁更擅长写走心歌词，我觉得是瑞恩。这些情感表达主要源自他。

Ryan is the sort of emotional lyric writer, I'd say, between us. So it comes from him.

是的。我想对于更情感化的内容，我现在思考的是，我们目前尝试做的很多事情，尤其是在音乐方面，都是直接从角色出发的。我们经常讨论这一点。我们即将发行的EP中有一首歌叫《狗狗之歌》，这可能是很好的例子。我们早就想写这首歌——我们俩都有深爱的狗狗，它们就像我们生命中的光。

Yeah. I guess for the more emotional stuff, I'm thinking, I think a lot of what we try to do now, especially in the music, is right from character. We talk about that all the time. We have a have a song on our EP that's coming out called The Dog Song. That's probably a good example of this that we we knew we wanted to write we both have dogs that we love, and they're, like, the light of our life.

我们想从狗狗的视角写首歌。当时的第一反应是：这可以做得非常搞笑和傻气，比如'我躺下打个盹'这种噱头式的蠢萌歌词。但必须找到情感切入点来以狗狗视角创作。后来某个瞬间突然就灵感迸发了。

And we knew we wanted to write a song from our dog's perspective. And exactly that reaction is like, this could be really funny and silly and and So I lay it down for a nap. You know, like, gimmicky and stupid. But there's gotta be an emotional way in to write from our dog's perspective. And it just hit us at a certain point.

我试着回忆那个灵感点——对了，是我们狗狗看待生活中事件的纯真方式，它以为自己在保护我们，实际上拉远镜头看，是我们在保护它。这就是我们想写的角色视角：'我保护你们哦'。

I'm trying to remember what it was. It was, oh, he the naivety in which our dog views the things happening in our life, the way our dog thinks he's protecting us in reality. Like, if you zoom out, we're protecting him. That's the character we wanna write from. I got you guys.

比如听到你说'正在经历艰难时刻'，狗狗叼来树枝问：'这有帮助吗？'——情感就出来了。这个设定让我们对创作特别兴奋。

I hear like, you're going through this tough thing. I brought you this stick. Did that help? Like, there's the emotion. I think that got us really excited about that story.

没错。还有看着人类哭泣却不明白原因的懵懂，这种天真里蕴含着强烈的情感张力。

Yeah. And the naivety of watching a human cry and not understanding why. There's something so emotional to that.

是我做错了什么吗？

It's something I did?

对对，就像小孩子那种状态。最动人的地方在于：'完全不明白发生了什么，但我要怎么让你好起来？'

Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like a little kid. Like, what's really emotional about that? Like, I have no idea what's happening, but how can I help make it better?

知道吗？这太有趣了。我超爱你现在的笑声，因为我们的创作过程总是这样。当初给女友听我们的歌，才十秒她就因为某个搞笑歌词笑个不停。

You know? Yeah. That's so funny. I love the laugh that you have because that's always been our process in writing. When I first met my girlfriend, I showed her some of our music, and she like, ten seconds in, there's, like, a funny line, and she's, like, laughing a lot.

接着马上转到'我感到如此孤独想给爸爸打电话'的段落，她就'啊？'——我们当时就想：等等，这可能就是我们的专属风格。

And then it's a portion about how I feel so lonely because and I wanna call my dad. And then she's like, oh, and we're like, wait. Maybe that's the style that we should having.

是哪首歌来着？矮胖子矮胖子...？我知道的！虽然刚才旋律完全唱错了，但我确实在听那首歌。

What's the song? Humpty dumpty humpty dumpty. Know? The I was listen. I definitely got the melody wrong there, but I was listening to that.

而且

And

然后旋律本该就是那样的。

and then That's what the melody should have been.

你只要...好吧，我要加入乐队了。然后你就开始笑。这正是我爱你们的地方——在成功中依然保持着那份傻气。要知道，通常人们会变得拘谨起来，但你们始终是群欢乐的怪胎。

You just Okay. I'm gonna join the band. And then, yeah, you just start laughing. And that's what I love about you guys is you have preserved the goofiness among success. You know, generally, people become a little more buttoned up and whatnot, but you guys are just goofy people.

嗯。这种特质在音乐中熠熠生辉。人们很少会把音乐和滑稽联系在一起。

Mhmm. And that really shines through the music. And you don't often even think of music and goofiness as coming together.

我们超爱皮克斯电影，可能正是因为这点——它们是我们最钟爱的艺术形式。表面是部关于澳大利亚鱼群的搞笑动画，内核却是父亲首次学会信任孩子的成长故事。

Well, I think we love Pixar movies. That's probably our favorite type of art possibly for exactly that reason. It's like, this is gonna be a silly movie about fish in Australia. Oh, it's a movie about a dad learning to trust his kid for the first time.

是啊。

Yeah.

你笑着笑着，结局突然来个急转弯让你泪流满面。我们很多超能力最初都是弱点，就像作家寻找视角的过程——我们永远酷不起来。

You're laughing. Then by the end, it hits you with a left turn and you're crying all of a sudden. I think I think that we are like, so much of what becomes your superpower started out as your weakness. Right? Like, when you're a writer, that's, like, sort of finding your perspective is I we can't be cool.

你说的'傻气'本质是酷的反面。每次我们试图装酷，比如象征性地戴墨镜上台，就像穿了戏服般虚假。观众一眼就能识破。既然不能像Drake那样酷炫地谈论酷炫话题，那我们真正的视角是什么？

Like, you're saying goofy, which is kind of the opposite of cool. Anytime we've tried to pretend we're cool or wear sunglasses on stage in a metaphorical sense, we just look like we're wearing a costume. Like, it just feels fake. You can audiences can smell that from a mile away. And I think we realized if we can't be as cool as Drake and talk about the cool things Drake talks about, What's really our POV?

什么是Drake做不到而我们可以的？或许是共情能力——先让你笑再让你哭，真实展现当狗的窘迫，或是恋爱中毫无性感可言的日常。这大概就是我们找到的声音。

What can we do that maybe Drake can't? And I think it's really empathizing, making you laugh then cry, but just really letting you know what the very uncool experience of being a dog is or the very unsexy experience of being in a relationship could be like. I think we found that that's, like, sort of our voice, I guess.

你们对此有多自觉？这种自觉如何助力创作而不至于过度——当太清楚自己是谁、要做什么时，作品反而可能失去灵魂，变成纯理性的产物？

And how conscious are you of this? And how do you have that consciousness help your work rather than being so conscious of, like, who you are and what you're trying to do that it's like, ah, now we're not really producing stuff from the soul anymore. It's sort of coming from our minds.

是啊是啊，直接套用AJR会怎么做很危险。比如，我们这个角色是什么？他们在这种情况下会说什么？

Yeah. Yeah. It's just a dangerous thing to go down to go, what would AJR do? Like, what's our what's this character? What would they say in the right?

这几乎等于扼杀创造力。创造力。对吧？

That's almost the death of Creativity. Creativity. Yeah. Right?

我觉得我们掌握了一些技巧。

I feel like there's a few tricks that we've learned.

第一条

One

就是避开那种思维——什么是AJR的风格？我能想到关于自己最尴尬的事是什么？我们就往那个方向探索。

being, you know, to get away from that. What's AJR's voice? What's the most embarrassing thing I could think of about me? You know? Let's go down that route.

我认为这基本是创作的万能钥匙，或者说这类...

I think that that's just the key to writing in general or the kind of

大多数创作，

most writing,

我会说。你最不敢对陌生人或挚友启齿的事是什么？那就必须成为我们下首歌的主题。没错。

I would say. What's the thing that embarrass that would embarrass you most to say to a random person on the street or to your best friend? That has to be the next song concept that we write about. Yeah. Yeah.

我觉得有些技巧能避免陷入AJR风格叠加AJR风格的死胡同

I think there are tricks to get away from digging yourself into that hole of AJR's voice on top of AJR's

风格叠加

voice on

AJR的巅峰之作。一份复印件。

top of AJR's. A photocopy.

然后它就变得如此稀释。是啊。

And then it gets so diluted. Yeah.

是啊。让我们跟着这个词走。尴尬。因为关于尴尬的事情是，你会觉得，我不该说那个。你知道，AJR不能说那种话。

Yeah. Let's follow that word. Embarrassing. Because the thing about embarrassing, you're like, I shouldn't say that. You know, AJR can't say that.

嘿。你知道，我们我们我们我们很有名。就像，我们不能说那种话。像是，

Hey. You know, we're we're we're we're famous. Like, we can't say that. Like,

我们

we

不想让人们知道那个。但同时你又觉得，不。那正是我们要追求的东西。所以你该如何把握这个度？

don't want people to know that. But then at the same time, you're like, no. That's the thing that we're going for. So how do you navigate that?

嗯，我只是说，首先，我认为每个作家的职业生涯中都会有这样一个时刻，他们会达到那个临界点。我们我们达到了。那那不是我们一开始创作的主题。我们当时写的更像是派对歌曲，觉得人们可以在宿舍桌子上跟着跳的那种，那就是好作品。然后

Well, I just I mean, to start that, I I think that there's a moment in every writer's kinda career where they do hit that point. We we reached that. That that wasn't what we were writing about from when we started. We were writing more like party songs that we feel people could get on top of a desk in a dorm too, and that's what good writing is. And that

而且而且它确实对我们

and and it did work for

起了一点作用。懂吗？但后来人们不再来看演出，或者根本没人来看演出之类的。人们没有共鸣。他们并不在乎是谁在说那些话，我个人也不在乎是谁在说那些。

us in a little bit. You know? But then people stopped coming to show or people didn't really show up to shows or anything like that. People didn't connect. They didn't really care who was saying that, and I don't really care personally who's saying that.

我本来也不会在乎。然后我们意识到人们和你有同样的感受，这是创作中你会突然领悟到的奇妙发现——如果我把尴尬的经历写出来，很可能听众也会有完全相同的感受，或者真正理解你在说什么。突然间，人们就开始来看演出了，

I wouldn't have. And then we realized that people feel the same things as you, and it's this crazy realization that you come to in writing that, like, if I write about something embarrassing, odds are that that person, the audience is gonna feel the exact same way or or really understand what you're saying. And then all of a sudden, people started showing up to shows as

当我们开始创作时，这种感觉真的会上瘾。那时我们发现，或许第一个让人有点尴尬的点是‘软弱’。比如，如果你愿意称之为尴尬的话，我们有首歌叫《我很软弱》，那又怎样？

as we started writing. And that becomes really addicting. That's where we found, like, the little embarrassing like, maybe the first embarrassing thing was weak. Like, if you even wanna call it embarrassing, we had a song like, I'm weak and what's wrong with that? Yeah.

这有点像向诱惑屈服。对吧？但我甚至不会说这是尴尬，更像是展示了一个脆弱面。

That's sort of giving into temptation. Right? Yeah. But not I wouldn't even say embarrassing. It's more just like, here's a vulnerable thing.

有些话是私密且不够酷的。渐渐地，我们写了首叫《乔》的歌，关于我高中时一个真名叫乔的同学，至今我还会想起他，尽管我们已经不再见面。歌词就像在问：乔，现在你觉得我酷吗？我都在麦迪逊广场开演唱会了，够资格入你眼了吗？

There's an un a personal uncool thing to say. And then just like little by little, we wrote a song called Joe about a a kid I went to high school with whose name was actually Joe, who I still think about to this day even though I don't even, like, see him anymore. But it's like, Joe, do you think I'm cool now? I'm playing MSG. Do you think I'm cool enough for you?

因为高中时我太崇拜他了。承认这事挺尴尬的——如果你听过这首歌的话。但通过展示真实的自己来找到听众的共鸣，这种快感简直像活着的意义。就像此刻我与你们完全相连。所以如果给创作者建议，我会说：拥抱这种感觉，因为它真的让人欲罢不能。

Because I idolized him so much in high school. Pretty embarrassing thing to admit if you, like, listen to the song. But the reward of finding an audience by going, this is the truthful me is, like, so euphoric that it's, like, kind of the reason to be alive. It's, like, I'm just fully connecting to you now. And so that actually if, like, I could give a tip to writers, like, lean into that because it's actually addicting.

你会想越挖越深，直到再也写不出那些愚蠢的派对歌曲，因为那些感觉像是别人写的——不是你真正害怕承认的东西。在我们最后一张专辑里，有首歌叫《成长第三部》，讲的是我整个...它涉及我的亲密关系障碍，以及我对爱的理解就是找到一个能让我坦然承认这些的人。我说得很模糊，但你懂我意思。

You're gonna wanna go deeper and deeper and deeper until you can you can't even write that stupid silly party song anymore because that feels like it would be written by somebody else. That's not something you really are scared to admit. We on our last album, I had a song called Turning Out Part three that was about just like a a whole we it went into, like, sort of intimacy issues that I I had and, like, and my version of love was, like, finding somebody where, like, that was okay to, like, admit. I'm being really vague here. I'm sure you know what I mean.

是的。发布后看到大量回应说‘我也经历过’‘没人写过这种主题’，没有什么比做真实的自己——无论多尴尬——更能让你感到被接纳，与所有人如同一个生命体般相连。

Yeah. And, like, just after putting that out and seeing so much response of, like, I've been through that too. I've been there, and nobody writes songs about this shit. Like like, nothing makes you feel more accepted and connected and, like, one big organism with everybody else to just, like, be yourself no matter how embarrassing you

是啊。我常思考写作或说话时那个瞬间：当你发现‘我不该走这么远’‘不该说这个’，就像突然踩了刹车。

are. Yeah. I'm thinking a lot about the moment in writing or speaking when you kind of find you get to a place where it's like, I'm not supposed to go there. I'm not supposed to say that. Oh, you you know, it's like the breaks show up.

懂吗？我正说着说着，突然触碰到那个边界。而你的观点是可以突破它，那才是触及本质的时刻。因为大众感受与真实表达之间存在巨大鸿沟。但千万别误解成‘只要把什么都诗意化就行’。

You know? I'm talking. I'm talking. Then you find that place that goes, and then what I'm hearing you say is you can actually push beyond that, and then that's really when you get to the deep stuff because what most what everybody feels versus what they actually express, there's a big delta between those things. And the wrong takeaway here is, oh, just like wax poetic about all these sorts of things.

那样反而会显得很做作。

Like, that can be really overbearing.

什么叫‘诗意化’？

What's wax poetic?

用‘创伤倾倒’来形容可能更贴切，对吧？‘创伤倾倒’这个说法更准确。谢谢你的澄清。不过你在谈论亲密关系问题时，其实有另一种表达方式。

Trauma dumping is probably a better way to put it. Right? Trauma dumping is a better way to put it. Thanks for the clarification. And but there's a way of you're talking about intimacy issues.

我要专注于这个非常具体的事情。

I'm gonna focus on this really specific thing.

是啊。

Yeah.

非常具体。我会不断深入挖掘，而不是像‘创伤倾倒’那样，范围往往更宽泛一些。

Really specific. And I'm just gonna go down and down and down and down rather than the trauma dumping, which tends to be a little bit more broad in scope.

完全同意。而且我觉得‘创伤倾倒’常常带着自我中心的意味，比如‘我爸对我的伤害有这么深’。不是要嘲笑这种情况，但我觉得创作者的工作——无论是 songwriter 还是喜剧演员——就是要把这种非常个人的感受，通过直觉发现其实很多人也在默默注意或经历过同样的事，从而引发共鸣。

Totally. Yeah. And trauma dumping, I feel like often comes from a self self centered place of like, my dad messed me up this much. Not making fun of that, but, like, I think a songwriter's job, a comedian's job, like, it's like, I have this thing that's really personal to me, but I just have this instinct that a of lot other people are quietly noticing or observing the same thing or went through it, and it's gonna strike a nerve with them.

就像‘爱’这个词本身对我们来说并不有趣。你懂吗？这有点像你说的‘爱是什么？这是什么？’这种抽象概念不会真正触动我们。

It's like the idea of, like, the word love is not really interesting to us. You know? It's like that is kind of what you're saying of what is love? What is this? That that doesn't really make us feel much.

真正打动人的是谈论亲密关系的具体瞬间。我记得有句名言...

It's the moment of talking about intimacy. I think there was, a quote.

我忘了

I forgot

是谁说的，但大意是：写作时不要直接描写战争的残酷，而要写地上烧焦的儿童袜子。我忘记出处了。

who said it, but, like, when you're writing, it's not about like you don't write about the brutality of war. You write about a a like a child's burnt socks laying on the ground. I forgot who said it.

对，就是

Right. That's

这简直是个完美的例子。

like that's a perfect example.

角色塑造。懂吗？对。这正是我们试图通过角色传达的。因为我们并不总是只写自己经历的具体事情。

Character. You know? Yeah. Which is so much of what we try to do with character. Because we we also like we're not always just writing about, like, the most specific thing that we went through.

比如最近的EP可能更偏向这种风格。我们现在更专注于此。但即便是我们那首叫《惯性》的歌——它成了粉丝最爱——本质上就是一系列我们观察到的惯性现象举例。就像我们那个总说要辞去银行工作却始终没行动的朋友。

Right now, like, this most recent EP is probably more of that. We're more into that. But, like, even when we're, like we have a song called Inertia that is, like, turned into, like, a fan favorite. That's just it's a list of examples basically of, like, inertia just that we've observed. It's like our friend that keeps saying he's gonna quit his bank job and he's he never does.

还有那对总说要分手却在一起二十年的情侣。惯性是个宏大的社会概念，但就像你说的，关键在于聚焦这些微小片段——当你听到时就能立刻心领神会。只要用恰当的十个词串联起来，配上合适的旋律，你就会觉得：我信你，我完全懂你在说什么，我朋友也经历过一模一样的事。这就是对角色特写的魅力。

Or the couple that we know that's keep saying they're gonna break up, but they're together for the next twenty years. Like, the it's a huge concept inertia in society, but it's what you're saying, it's like zooming in on these tiny little vignettes that you just know it when you hear it. If it's phrased in the right way with the right 10 words in a row and the right melody, you're just like, I believe you. I know exactly what you're talking about, and I have a friend that went through that exact same thing, zooming in on that character.

说说音乐剧的影响吧。在你们专辑开场的序曲里很明显能感受到。还有哪些方面借鉴了音乐剧？

Yeah. Tell me about musical theater and pulling from there. You definitely see it in the Overture songs at the beginning of your albums. How else have you pulled from musical theater?

那是我们的初恋。在考虑组乐队之前，我们就觉得自己特老土——但我们会在客厅自编自演百老汇剧目，现编歌词什么的。所以创作中难免会受影响。我们觉得音乐剧毫无限制，事实也确实如此。

That was, like, our first love. I think before we even thought of forming a band, we were like, we're so uncool. But we were we were, like, putting on Broadway shows in our living room and making up the lyrics and everything like that. And so I think we couldn't not pull from it in some way. We feel like there's no limitations in musical theater, and there really aren't.

没错。你可以...

Yeah. You you you can just

你

You

可以尽情地不修边幅。

can be as untool as possible.

就像《波西米亚狂想曲》。变换节奏，突然谈论随机话题，然后新角色登场——始终充满变化。

It it's it's Bohemian Rhapsody. It's change up times, talk about a random thing, and then there's a new character that comes in, and it's just constantly changing.

没错。我们超爱这种纯粹的情感，不受当下音乐潮流或社会文化的稀释。就像我们很多AJR的小样，你一听就会觉得这简直就是百老汇歌曲。然后通常杰克就会出场了。

Yeah. And we love that. And it's also pure emotion undiluted by, like, society where music is at right now or culture is at right now. Like, so many of our AJR demos, you would hear and you go, that's like literally a Broadway song. And then usually it's Jack's job.

他会进来说：我能感觉到我朋友们不会觉得这很酷。加个陷阱军鼓音色，加点那个元素。

He comes in and goes, this is I can tell that my friends are not gonna think this is cool. Add in a trap snare, add in this thing.

这就是其中的反派角色。

The villain in this.

等等，这个过程是怎样的？你们进来后...详细说说看。

Wait. So how does that happen? So you come in. Like, walk me through that.

我...这真的很难解释。现在完全靠直觉了。我在感受什么？我的大脑...我的注意力现在分散了吗？是不是往另一个方向走太远了？

I I it's it's so hard to explain. It's become so much gut feeling at this point. It's what am I feeling? It's is my brain am I is my attention going away now? Is it too far in the other direction?

对。我不确定是不是不够酷，就是感觉不太像音乐。懂吗？如果我们往音乐剧方向走得太远，等等...

Yeah. I I I don't know if it's so much, like, uncool. It's just something that I'm just not quite feeling is music. You know? It's like if we go too far in the musical theater, hold on.

现在甚至要在中间加入对白，就像...

Now we're even gonna start having dialogue in between, like

嗯嗯。

Yeah. Yeah.

这样就过头了。而这个...

Slides that it's too far. And this

正是我们合作关系的精髓所在。通常都是我先开始创作歌曲，就像捏制原始陶土。我们有首《世界微笑的小提琴》，后来成了我们最火的歌。

is where the partnership of us to really, like, is everything and really works because, like, I I think more often than not, I'm starting the songs. Like, I'm making the, like, raw clay. We have a song World's Smiles Violin that, like, turned into probably our biggest hit.

是啊。

Yeah.

我给杰克看的第一个版本就是完美例证，听起来完全是百老汇风格。制作上没有任何808鼓机的元素，歌词也是——歌里有段词是‘天哪，太疯狂了。天哪，真遗憾。’

The first version I showed Jack is a perfect example of this, like, extremely Broadway sounding. There were no sort of eight zero eights in it production wise, but also, like, the lyrics, there's a part in the song that's like, oh my god. That's so insane. Oh my god. That's such a shame.

最初的歌词是‘世事总是如此，从来都是这样’。我写的就是这个版本，不知道你当时听到哪里觉得‘这让我走神了’？就像在愚蠢地说教观众。

The original lyric was like, that's the way it always is, and that's the way it's always been. The more that was the original lyric that I wrote, which is, I don't know, what did you hear in that that you were like, this lost my attention? It's like a stupid, like, teaching the audience.

有种被说教的感觉

Being sort of lectured at

对。整个

Right. All of

突然就很百老汇。像是‘我得看舞台布景才能理解’，没错，‘还得看其他角色’。

a sudden. It feels very Broadway. Like, I need to see set pieces in order to really understand this. Yeah. You know, I need to see other characters.

有时候你只需要感受‘天哪’，就是需要说些简单直白的话。

And sometimes you just need to feel, oh my god. That's so like, just you need to just say something sort of simple.

是啊。

Yeah.

就是那个瞬间。对，我觉得。

That was that moment Right. I think.

没错。这种外部视角就是为什么乔尔和伊桑·科恩这类搭档能成功。就像史蒂夫·马丁说的‘潜意识创作，意识流编辑’。精辟对吧？

Yeah. Having that outside perspective is, like, why there's so many, like Joel and Ethan Coen, why there's so many partnerships that work well. It's like somebody's like Steve Martin says, like, your subconscious rights and your conscious edits. Nice. Right?

我常常觉得我是潜意识，而他是有意识的。只是，我不在乎什么是酷的。我什么都不在乎。就是这些让我感触很深。然后我把你作为外部视角引入，对吧？

I think so often I'm I'm the subconscious and he's the conscious. It's just, I don't care what's cool. I don't care about anything. Just this is making me feel a lot. Then I bring you in as an outs right?

作为一个旁观者的角度，你会说，你甚至没意识到它就摆在眼前，瑞恩。把这个放这里，那个放那里，改改这个那个，然后我们就有了首人们真正能理解的歌。

As an outside perspective and you go, you don't even realize it's right in front of you, Ryan. Put this here and this here and change the the the the the and then we have a song that people actually, like, understand.

说实话，我觉得我比瑞恩更了解大众。哦，是的。

I think I'm more in touch with the public than than Ryan is, honestly. Oh, yeah.

我觉得那是

I think that's

为什么这是个好组合。比如，我真的会观察人们喜欢音乐中的什么，不喜欢什么。我觉得这特别迷人。你怎么研究这个的？哦，在大学时，我就盯着人看。

what makes it a good combination. Like, I really observe what people like in music and what people don't like. I find it so fascinating. How do you study that? Oh, in college, I just stared at people.

真的。我一点都没开玩笑。

Truly. I'm not even kidding.

你为什么想到要这么做

Why did you think to do

呢？我觉得特别有意思。两首听起来几乎一模一样的歌。一首让人站在桌上狂欢，另一首人们却在闲聊。我当时就想，这里面肯定有某种DNA。

that? I thought it was so much fun. Two songs that sound almost exactly the same. One, people are standing on the table, the other people are talking through. And I was like, there's a DNA.

音乐中有某种生命力让人产生这样的反应，这对我来说太有趣了。我就像是爱上了它，它几乎训练我去保持高度共鸣。

There's something living within music that make people do that that's so interesting to me. I kinda just, like, fell in love with it, and it almost, like, trained me to be in very in touch.

有没有某些文化歌曲让你特别着迷，想知道为什么它能引起如此强烈的共鸣？

Were there certain cultural songs where you got fascinated by why it resonates so much?

嗯，你经常在歌曲走红之前就能预判它们会火。

Well, so often you call hits before they become hits.

是啊。不过天啊，那完全是另一种感觉。那真的是一种直觉。就像本尼·布兰科最近采访时说的那样，当你准备亲吻某人时的那种感觉，那种美妙的紧张感，让你不由自主地向前倾。

Yeah. And and oh god. That's that's different, though. That's like a truly a gut feeling. Like, Benny Blanco described it perfectly when like, he did an interview recently, and he was like, it's the feeling when you're about to kiss someone, and it's like that really good nervousness where you're, like, leaning in.

他形容得完全准确。这正是我的感受。那是面对新事物时的兴奋感。《带我去教堂》啊霍齐尔，我简直要惊呼天哪。

And he just absolutely nailed it. That's exactly what I feel. It's the excitement of something new. Take me to church, Hosier. I'm like, oh my god.

等等。我好久没听到这样的作品了。如此新颖，让我体内涌动着新能量。这就是我在寻找热门歌曲时的感受——或者说判断什么是热门时的直觉。我知道这没完全回答问题。

Wait a sec. I I haven't heard something like this in a while. This so new, and I have a new energy in me, and that's kind of what I feel when I'm looking for hit songs or anything like that, or what is a hit. I know it didn't fully answer the question. Yeah.

我觉得这算是

I think that's sort of

另一种境界吧。我想是的。对了，你刚才想问什么来着？

a different kind of world. I guess so. Yeah. What was your question?

有没有哪首歌让你特别想探究——为什么这首歌能如此爆红？

If there was a song that you got really interested in in saying, why did this why did this hit so much?

像《带我去教堂》这样的作品就很有意思。当时我都忘了音乐潮流是什么样了——假设当时流行的是SoundCloud说唱，然后突然出现《带我去教堂》或者《嘿咻嘿咻》

I mean, it is songs like Take Me to Church. Those are the most interesting ones. When I forgot what the climate of music was like, but let's say it was like SoundCloud rap. That was the climate of music. And then Take Me to Church comes out or Hey Hey, Ho

嘿咻嘿咻。

Hey Yeah.

对，就是The Lumineers那首。它是独一无二的。这类作品最让我着迷，因为整个音乐潮流即将转向——到底是什么文化因素让人们现在想拿起吉他，和朋友们在酒吧桌上弹唱，而不是在俱乐部里狂欢？

Yeah. By the Lumineers. That was the only song of its kind. Those are the ones that I've really become fascinated by because the whole tide of music is about to change. What in the culture makes people wanna grab a guitar now and get up on a table in a bar with their friends as opposed to rage in the club?

是啊。你知道吗？那正是我真正喜欢的东西。

Yeah. You know? That's the stuff that I really like

去研究。你所说的我从未真正思考过的是语境的重要性。基本上，文化正处于一个特定的时空节点。是的。而你想做的就是与那个时空对话。

to study. What you're saying that I hadn't really thought about is how much the context matters. That, basically, there is a time and place that the culture is in right now. Yeah. And what you wanna do is you wanna speak to that time and place.

但如果你完全迎合它、屈服于它，那么你就和所有人融为一体了。是的，所有人。而如果你过于特立独行，又会让人觉得我们与当下这个时空脱节。

But if you fully speak to it and give into it, then you're Blending in with everybody else. Yeah. Everybody else. Yeah. Whereas if you're too different, then it's like, we're not in this time and place right now.

没错。我觉得这又回到了你之前说的'世界最小的小提琴'理论——不要走得太远。你必须把它拉回到这个情境中。但同时，'世界最小的小提琴'本身听起来又与众不同，像是首傻里傻气的蓝草舞曲，你知道的。

Yeah. I think that kinda falls back into what you were saying about world's smallest violin about the, like, don't go too far. You gotta put it back in this setting. But, also, still, world's smallest violin doesn't sound like anything else. It's sort of this silly blue grassy dance song, you know, that yeah.

我...我觉得这就是

I I think that's the

同样的世界对吧？就是我们讨论的那种。是的，你说得对，语境很重要。

same Right. Kind of world that we're talking about. Yeah. And you're right. Context.

就像，我不认为民谣在过去几年突然流行是什么疯狂奇迹，因为我们整天都在刷手机，充斥着各种刺激。当你整天刷视频时想要什么？你想要些平静的音乐——这话听起来很刻薄——但你需要能听清博主在音乐背景下的说话声。所以当然音乐要更精简，可能只有吉他和人声，因为如果是交响乐编制，你就听不清你喜欢的博主说话了。

Like, I don't think it's a crazy miracle that folk is has been so in in the last, like, few years because we're all just, like, doing this all day and there's stimulation, stimulation. Like, what do you want if you're doing this all day and see video after video? You want some kind of calming music. You want to this sounds so cynical, but you wanna be able to hear the guy talk over the music. So, like, of course, it's gonna be a little bit more stripped down where it's like maybe just guitar and a voice because if it's a million instruments, you can't hear your favorite influencer talk over that.

而且你现在大多通过手机扬声器听歌，所以只需要三四样乐器就能突出，而不是百人大乐队。事后回想很容易觉得民谣复兴是必然的，但这其实是种与Z世代共鸣的新式民谣。

You're also hearing it through a phone speaker, lot of unfortunately, a lot of music now. So you want just like three or four instruments as opposed to a 100 instruments to shine through. In retrospect, it's so easy to kinda look back and be like, of course, folk was coming, but it's a new kind of folk that speaks to Gen Z a

更进一步说，百分之百是这样。想想EDM的崛起，我认为它的黄金年代是2011到2015年，那是iPhone的巅峰时期。那时候掏出iPhone就像...

little more. A 100%. Because if you think of the rise of EDM, I think of sort of the glory days of that being 2011 to 2015, that was peak iPhone. That was when the iPhone was awesome. You would pull out the iPhone.

掏出了魔法，掏出了通往宇宙的门户。而现在你掏出iPhone，感觉就像在被各种干扰电击。是的，现在它反而像是个敌人。

You pulled out magic. You pulled out a portal to the cosmos and the universe. And now you pull out your iPhone, and it's like this is it's like you're being zapped with distraction. Yeah. And now it's sort of an enemy.

所以现在更多的是怀旧情绪。民谣音乐正在蓬勃发展。因为我曾经对音乐的期望就是这样。让我们接入智能手机电子化的矩阵。

So now what's more in it's the nostalgia. It's the folk. Music is booming. Because that's what I want for music is I used to want, okay. Let's plug in to the matrix of smartphone electronification.

而现在我想抽离，退回到怀旧与简单的黄金时代。不。

And now I wanna tune out and retreat to the golden age of nostalgia and simplicity. No.

这完全是大环境使然。人们要么能预测趋势，要么几乎就是运气好。就像诺亚·卡汉，我们认识的那位，他完美捕捉了人们的感受。我感觉人们可能开始有点远离手机了。扔掉手机，离开家，去俄勒冈之类的地方背包旅行。

It's just totally the climate. And people, like, either can predict it or get lucky almost. Like, it almost like, Noah Khan, who who we know, and he's done such an amazing job at kind of wrapping up what people are feeling. I feel like people are could be a little moving away from the phone. Throw away the phone, leave home, and go backpacking through, you know, Oregon or something like that.

他真正把握住了这种脉动。这些时刻，这些音乐中的预言者确实令人印象深刻

And he's really tapped into that. It's it's these moments, these predictors that are really impressive in music

是啊。我觉得...没错。你觉得大众在我发布这首音乐时会有多少共鸣？或者你认为有多少人是纯粹运气好，刚好表达了他们当下的感受？

Yeah. I think. Yeah. And how often do you feel like people are are judging people are the general population is gonna be here by the time I put this music out? Or how often do you think people are just, getting lucky and it's just how they're feeling about it?

要说运气成分，我觉得有些人就像我们之前说的那样。他感受到的，公众肯定也有同感。这是他想描述的东西。很可能很多人都会有相似感受。就像谈论尴尬事一样，很多人也会感同身受。

Know if it's getting lucky, I think that there's some people who are just like it kinda goes back to what we're saying. Like, he feels that, so the rest of the public must feel it too. This is something that he wants to describe. And odds are a lot of other people are gonna feel the same. Similar to talking about embarrassing things, a lot of people are gonna feel the same as well.

我认为社会的联系远比人们想象的要紧密。

I think society is way more connected than than people think.

确实。我有几个朋友可以说是文化风向标。问题在于，他们比大众超前多少？说到风向标这个词，它几乎就像煤矿里的金丝雀。

Yeah. Well, I have friends who I would say are bellwethers for the rest of culture. And then the question is, how far ahead are they of everybody else? So then term bellwether. A bellwether is it's almost almost like a canary in the coal mine.

风向标能反映趋势。煤矿里的金丝雀，它们的反应就是即将发生之事的先行指标。我有个设计师朋友，他的审美总是比主流文化早几年。我还关注一个叫巴拉吉·斯林瓦桑的技术专家，他现在都快成个梗了，因为他的预言总是对的。关键就在于这些人到底超前多少？

Like, the bellwether sort of reflects what's going on. The canary of the coal mine, what they do is sort of a leading indicator of what's gonna happen. I have friend who's a designer, and his taste is always a few years ahead of the culture. There's a guy who I follow named Balaji Srinvas, and he's a technologist that's, like, sort of become a joke that, biology was right. And it's just how far ahead are these people?

我对音乐圈不太了解，但我敢肯定一定也有在声音、歌词等方面具有这种先知先觉的音乐人。

And I I don't know the music world that well, but I guarantee there's probably musicians who are like that with sound and lyric and whatever else.

是啊。坎耶就是典型代表。没错。

Yeah. Kanye is the shining example. Sure.

里克·鲁宾。绝对是里克·鲁宾。他们就是有这种天赋。有些人天生就

Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin. Absolutely. They just have it. Some of them are just

是天才。先说清楚——虽然坎耶后来疯了且我不同意他的任何言论——但回顾他每张专辑时，你会觉得他总领先时代两三年。之后其他说唱歌手才恍然大悟：'哦，现在嘻哈开始偏向福音风格了'。这就是为什么过去二十年来，所有人听完《My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy》的前作都会问：'这是什么玩意儿？'

geniuses. If you look back at every Kanye like, disclaimer, Kanye has gone crazy and don't agree with anything he said, but that would be stupid to erase how he's the most transformative artist of the last twenty years, right, just because he went crazy after that. Anyway, if you look at every album, he's, like, two or three years ahead, and then you watch every other rapper sort of go, oh, I guess hip hop is leaning in more of, a gospel direction now, like two or three years later. And I think it's why everybody hears, at least for the last twenty years, everybody heard what's the one before Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy? What's that?

哦不，是更早之前那张。

Oh, no. Before.

啊，《808s & Heartbreak》。

Oh, eight zero eights and heartbreaks.

《808s》。

Eight zero eights.

抱歉。所有人初听都觉得是垃圾，结果半年后集体跟风：'现在这才是嘻哈'。突然德雷克的歌就全是《808s》风格了。坚持自我需要勇气，就像甘愿出丑也要表达真实。

Sorry. Everybody hears that and goes, what is this garbage? And then it takes everybody, like, six months to catch up and go, oh, now this is what hip hop is. And then suddenly Drake fully sounds like eight zero eights and heartbreaks. It takes a certain guts to just go it's like a version of just being embarrassing and telling your truth.

这就是我认为音乐该走的方向/这就是我在制作上的真实表达。就算惨败，我也认了。跟风容易多了，所以这种坚持很了不起。

It's just, this is where I think music going slash this is my truth production wise. And if it fails horribly, I'm willing to die on that hill. It's way easier to just sort of follow the trend. So I think that's admirable.

你创作时是什么状态？塑造'湿黏土'的过程该如何形容？是狂热的？兴奋的？还是像缓慢渗透那样？

When you're writing, do you feel how would you describe the process of creating the wet clay? Is it when is it frantic? When is it excitement? When does it come from sort of a slow drip?

我的朋友称之为'工作模式'——'瑞恩进入工作模式了'。他们会发现我社交骤减，整个人像缩进壳里。很多导演拍电影时也这样，大脑根本腾不出空间闲聊。

I've I my friends, like, recognize it and and call it work mode, like Ryan's in work mode. And I think they all notice that I'm way less social. I'm sort of a creature version of myself while I'm, like, in that mode. Cause I and I've I've heard this from other sort of artists like in directors while they're making a movie. It's like, there's no room in your brain to like make small talk with anybody else.

这样并不会让你变成混蛋，只是让你有点像...我不知道怎么说，像个机器人切换到了工作模式。对我来说，我始终像块海绵一样吸收着一切。我赤裸裸的——过去六个月制作这张EP时，我在情感上完全是不设防的状态。

Like, doesn't make you an asshole. It just makes you like sort of, I don't know, you're a robot and you switch into work mode. To me, I'm constantly a sponge taking in things. I'm naked. I feel naked in terms of how vulnerable I am for the while we were making this EP for the last six months.

我发现自己无数次去找杰克或朋友说：你说那句话真的很伤人。或者我开的那个玩笑是不是被误解了？我为此感到非常糟糕。我说的'赤裸'就是这个意思——你把真心完全袒露在外，因为你不断从自己、从生活、从记忆、从心理治疗中挖掘能成为音乐素材的东西。

Like, I found myself so many times, like, going to Jack or going to Friends being like, when you said that, that was, like, really offensive. Or when I said this, was was that joke taken wrong? I feel really bad about that. That's what I mean by like, you're just kind of naked because you're just wearing your heart on your sleeve. Because you're constantly trying to mine from yourself, from your life, from your memories, from your therapy sessions of what's gonna make good fodder for music.

所以当我坐下来创作更情绪化的内容时，总得有个切入点。比如写关于狗狗的歌，我会从'这里有个角色以为在保护我们，其实是我们保护着他'开始构思。然后我写了首关于我们生活的狗狗视角的歌。

And so I guess when I sit down for the more emotional stuff, I have to start from somewhere. I like with a dog song, I have to start with, okay, there's a character here that, right, thinks he's protecting us. We're actually protecting him. What's this story? And I started writing a dog song about our life.

几年前父亲生病去世时，这首歌逐渐成形——通过狗狗的视角看着这一切发生。有段歌词是这样的：'希望别再搬家了/那些蠢搬运工弄丢我一半家当/你爸爸去哪了/他们是不是也把他弄丢了/喏 我给你捡了根木棍'

And our dad got sick and and passed away a few years ago, and the song kind of came about of our dog watching that happen and going there's a verse that's like, I hope we don't move again. They lost half my shit, those dumb moving men. And where did your dad go? Did they also lose him? Well, I brought you this stick.

希望这能帮上忙。对，就是这种——有点好笑又有点...没错。

I hope that it helps. Yeah. Exactly. It's like, oh, a little funny, a little yeah. Exactly.

对，就是这种即时反应，正是我想表达的。效果出来了各位。然后我突然发现自己哭了。

Yeah. Just hit the real time, like, what I wanted to answer. It's working, everybody. Yeah. And I just found myself crying.

当我从狗狗视角看自己时...我和杰克有个暗号，如果我觉得创作出好东西，就会给他发那个斜眼看的表情。我知道——来了，我们抓到灵感了。

I just saw myself from the dog's perspective, and I just I we have a thing where if I know I have something good, I text Jack the the eye emojis that are, like, looking that way. And I know, let's go. We we have something.

该动笔了。

It's time to write.

对，对。只要我哭了，我就知道...如果我们处理得当，这作品会是真实的。

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I know if I'm crying, I know I know it's we're if we get it right, it's gonna be truthful.

所以这种工作模式听起来像是你花几个月时间半自觉进入的状态？不是周二早上八点到十二点那种打卡上班。

So that work mode, it sounds like is a semi conscious transition that you make over the course of months. Work mode isn't Tuesday from 8AM to 12PM.

哦，绝对不是那样的。不，这不是缓慢的转变，而是快速的。对我们来说，一旦决定今年要出一张EP，我知道需要五首歌，只需埋头苦干，大概一天左右就进入状态了。

Oh, it's definitely not that. No. It's not a slow transition. It's it's a fast transition. For us, like, as soon as we decided we're gonna make an EP this year and I knew we needed five songs and I just needed to buckle down, it took a day or so.

然后就像你说的，接下来四个月的我——现在回想起来，大部分事情都记不清了。整个人就处于这种极度不稳定的情绪状态中。非常不稳定。

And it was then what you're saying, four months of me. Like, if I think back, I can't even remember most of the stuff that happened. All I was was just in this kind of really volatile emotional state. Volatile.

这个...这个词用得很有意思。

That's that's an interesting word.

是啊。我觉得必须这样。有些歌需要哭泣的情绪，但你也必须高度觉察自己——如果突然觉得刚做的这个节奏其实更酷，你就得灵活切换：好了，现在我不哭了，我要酷起来。

Yeah. I mean, I think you have to be. I think, like, some songs are criers, but you have to also be, like, hyper attuned to yourself because if you're feeling like this beat I just made is actually, like, more badass, you have to be so malleable that, like, okay. Now I'm not crying anymore. I'm badass now.

这对人类来说很不自然。但你必须抽离自我才能如此敏捷。EP里有首歌叫《盛大告别》就是典型例子——我们有个采样拍卖师声音的曲子放了好久，反复重写。

And that's like such an unnatural thing to for a human to do. But you have to become a shell of yourself in order to be that nimble. We have a song on this EP called The Big Goodbye. That is a perfect example of that where we we had this track for a really long time that samples this, like, auctioneer guy. And we wrote the song over and over again.

最初写成派对狂欢风格，但不对味。后来改成更戏谑的社会观察类型，像我说的那种惯性主题，结果越来越情绪化。

We wrote it as this kind of, like, party bang kinda song. Didn't click. It didn't feel right. We wrote it as, like, a sillier, more like, did you ever notice this kind of thing in society kind of, like, inertia, what I was saying song. It became more emotional.

最后一刻我们决定：情绪化加酷炫。整个创作过程就像精神分裂，你必须随时能转向。

At the last second, we were like, it's emotional plus badass. Like, that whole process is such a mind fuck that you just have to be able to pivot, I suppose.

但就在某个瞬间，歌曲突然从二维变得立体了。对。而且...那个转变是什么？我从没细想过。

But it becomes a moment where a song becomes three-dimensional and it was two dimensional the entire time Yeah. Also. And that's What was that shift? Think it I don't know. I've never thought about it before.

确实，这需要很多情感投入。

I know. It is a lot of feeling.

但我们俩都感受到了，就像'啊，现在我相信这首歌了'——仿佛他们在替我写歌。

But we both felt it. We were both like, oh, this now I believe this song. It's like they're trying to write a song for me.

或者是我平时不会去想的事情，我试着跳出自我，这首歌仿佛在教我些什么。你知道，也许就在那一刻它变得立体起来。是的，我觉得我们之前从未真正思考过这个问题，

Or it's something that I don't normally think about, and I try to put myself outside, and the song is kind of teaching me something. You know, maybe that's when it becomes three-dimensional. Yeah. I don't think we've ever really thought about this before of,

就像你是基于感觉创作的。

like So you got the feeling based.

没错。

Yeah.

确实如此。

It really is.

因为我们尝试写过很多歌。但它们通常都像是AJR歌曲的复印件再复印件。比如我们写过一首关于脆弱也很棒的歌，那再试着写首关于不安全感也很棒的歌之类的。对吧。

Because we have tried to write a bunch of songs. They usually turn out like photocopies of photocopies of AJR songs. Like, we wrote a song about how it's great to be weak. Let's try writing a song about how it's great to be insecure or whatever. Right.

这样感觉只是在重复自己，非常二维化。但当我们找到真实的例子或者转折点时——或者一个转折。对。然后我们就觉得这首歌必须收录进专辑，那时我们就知道我们有了很棒的作品。

And that feels like we're just copying ourselves and that feels very two dimensional. But then the second we either find like a real example or like Or a twist. Or a twist. Right. Then we're like, this has to go on the album, and then we know, like, we have something great.

是的。因为我们希望歌曲有这样的起伏，就像你希望电影有这样的节奏。如果只是长篇大论地讲述某人有多快乐，观众很可能会走神或者

Yeah. Because we want songs to go like this, just like you want a movie to go like this. And if it's too long of a monologue about how happy someone is, you're probably gonna zone out or

直接关掉。当你谈到从二维到三维的转变时，我在想很多写作项目都是这样：开始时是你在主导创作，但到最后作品仿佛有了自己的驱动力和势头，你开始倾听自己创造的东西，实际上是在为它服务。

turn it off. When you were talking about the two dimensional to three-dimensional shift, I was thinking about how in many writing projects, when you start, you go from you or doing the writing, and towards the end, it's as if the piece has a a drive, a momentum, and then you start listening to the thing that you're that you've created, and you are actually in service of that.

完全正确。角色们会逐渐拥有自己的生命，对吧？他们会开始告诉你他们接下来想做什么，而不是由你来指挥他们。是的。

Totally. It's it's it's the characters kind of develop a life of their own. Right? And they start telling you instead of you telling them what to do, they start telling you what they wanna do next. Yeah.

我认为这绝对是我们音乐创作的一部分：我们试图塑造一个好角色，比如《我是只弱小的狗》这首歌。到最后你会感觉，我大概知道接下来会发生什么，下一个场景在哪里。对。对。为角色创造一点故事弧光。

I think that it's definitely a part in our music of we try to develop a good character, and I'm weak in a dog song. And then eventually, it's like, I kinda know what would happen next, what the next location is. Yeah. Yeah. Create a bit of an arc for the character.

我想可能就是这里。我认为这就是三维效果的来源。

I think that might be it. I think that's where the three dimension comes in.

是啊。很多小说家都说，到了创作后期，角色会开始让他们感到惊讶。没错。故事仿佛有了自己的生命，自行发展，而他们只是在顺应故事的走向。

Yeah. A lot of novelists say that towards the end, the the characters start surprising them. Yeah. And the story has taken off a life of its own, taken on a life of its own, and they're responding to the way that it's moving.

那一定是世界上最棒的感觉。

That must be the most fun feeling in the world.

那感觉一定超现实极了。是啊。我简直无法想象。嗯。好吧。

That must be so surreal. Yeah. I can't even imagine that. Yeah. Okay.

我知道你热爱制作现场演出。这个过程是如何成型的呢？

So I know you love making live shows. How does that process come together?

没错。现场演出是我们创作整张专辑时始终在思考的事情。

Yeah. Live shows are something that we think about the entire time we're writing an album.

哦，哇。

Oh, wow.

自始至终。专辑几乎就像是我们要做的现场演出的百老汇原声带。

The entire time. It's almost like the album is the Broadway soundtrack to the live show that that that we're doing.

巡演才是终极的艺术作品。对。没错。你是这个意思。而专辑就是它的配乐。

The tour is the end goal piece of art. Yeah. Right. That's what you're saying. And the album is the soundtrack to that.

是啊。每次我们写出一首好歌时，我们就知道...而当我们写出不太好的歌时，我们自己也很清楚。我们会觉得这首歌走不远了。已经无计可施了。

Yeah. Yeah. Single time we have a good song going, we we know and we're like as soon as we have a song that's, like, not so good, we definitely ourself. And we're like, we know this isn't gonna go any further. There's nothing else we could do.

我们把它扔掉，这种感觉很棒。然后我们重新开始。接着我们就有了一首喜欢的歌。我们立刻开始回应。在舞台上，你会走在跑步机上，配合背景做这些动作。

We throw it away, and it's a great feeling. Then we start over. And then we have a song we like. We immediately start talking back. And on stage, you're gonna be walking on a treadmill and doing this with the background.

对，对。给不了解的人解释一下，我们尝试大量融入百老汇的影响。但对于这些巡演，我们的目标已经演变成：在舞台上呈现前所未见的东西。所以我们从对魔术的热爱中汲取灵感。

Yeah. Yeah. Just for context for anybody that doesn't know, we we try to lean into our Broadway influence a lot. But for these tours, we our our goal has developed to just be like, let's put stuff on stage that has never been done before. So we take influence from, like, our love of magic.

我们有很多这类魔术般的幻觉效果融入歌曲。上次巡演我们做了整套影子木偶戏，后来影子活了过来，杰克在台上和自己对唱，贯穿其中的叙事最终以一段盛大演讲收尾，让你回想时会发现——哦，四十五分钟前那个情节原来是为这个埋伏笔。这就是我们所说的终极艺术品。所以我们在创作歌曲时已经开始逆向构思，知道这张专辑的终曲需要一个小音乐停顿，这样我们就能说‘谢谢你，夏洛特’，鞠躬谢幕，然后随着音乐返场。

We have a lot of, like, these sort of magic kind of illusions that work their way into the songs. Last tour, we had, like, a whole shadow puppet thing where then the shadows came to life and Jack was duetting himself on stage and sort of a narrative throughout that then ends with culminates with this, like, big speech where you think back and you go, oh, that thing that happened forty five minutes ago, that came back. That was an Easter egg to this thing. Like, that's what we mean by, like, that's the end goal piece of art. And so the songs, we have definitely, like, started reverse engineering the songs knowing that the finale for this album, we need a little, musical pause here so that we could go, thank you, Charlotte, and take our bow and then come back in with the music.

我们非常清楚：这是开场方式，这是结束方式，这是完美的中场节点。这次我觉得杰克正在坠落，所以应该让他在舞台上表演跳伞。

Like, we're definitely aware. This is how we start the show. This is how we end the show. This is a great midpoint of the show. For this one, I feel like Jack is, falling, so we should Jack have Jack, like, skydiving on stage.

上次巡演我们做过一个效果：他处在两块3D视频墙中间，吊着威亚，制造出他正在跳伞的幻觉。

We did something last tour where, like, he's, like, has these two three d video walls, and he's in the middle hanging from a wire, there's this illusion where he's, like, skydiving.

两边都有云朵飞速掠过，看起来就像我在坠落。

There's, like, clouds on both sides, like, rushing past me, so it looks like I'm falling.

这已经成了我们筹备巡演时最热衷做的事。

And it's just become our favorite thing to do ever to make the these tours.

你们和编舞合作吗？

And do you work with a choreographer?

不，我们真的...

No. We really.

不，你们就...

No. You guys Just

我们自己动手。是啊。

doing it ourselves. Yeah.

哇。这真是

Wow. It's such

一个充满假设的有趣过程。就像两个穿着内裤在家里的家伙，一个说‘如果他这样呢？’另一个说‘如果我这样做呢？’这就像

a fun process of the what if. It's like two guys in their underwear at home just be like, well, what if he's this? And what if I'm doing this? It's like a

一种奇怪的毒品。是啊是啊。而且这感觉很像我们小时候，那时我们没有任何电子游戏之类的，所以我觉得我们总是很无聊。没错。所以我们经常编造游戏或给父母表演戏剧，我们还经历过迷恋木偶的阶段，迷恋光剑的阶段，还有魔术阶段。而且我们现在还处在光剑阶段。

weird drug Yeah. Yeah. And it also feels a lot like when we were young that we, like we didn't have any video games or anything growing up, so I think we were just bored all the time. Yeah. And so we were constantly just, making up games or putting on plays for our parents, or we went through a puppet phase where we love puppets, and we went through a lightsaber phase and a magic phase, and, like We're still in the lightsaber phase.

但我们只是在挖掘童年时所有酷爱的玩意儿，只不过现在把它们做得规模更大了。

But we're just, like, tapping into all of our cool loves when we were kids, but just making them on a grand scale now.

那么如果你们从现场反馈中学到制作音乐的方法呢？

So what if you learned about making music from that live feedback?

我认为关键是不怕改变拍号，也不怕转向另一个方向。我觉得现在要让人保持 entertained 挺难的。而做一场你都不知道接下来会发生什么的演出，确实是条好路子，这种不确定性也会反映到音乐上。像这样的突然转变会让你不由自主地前倾身子，心想‘等等，我没想到会这样’。

I think that it's to not be afraid to switch up time signature and to not be afraid to go in another direction. I think it's difficult these days to keep people entertained. And I think that doing a show where you don't know what's gonna come afraid next is really a good road to go down, and then that also translates to that that also goes over to the music as well. Switch ups like this have make you kinda lean in and go, wait. I didn't know that was gonna happen.

接下来会往哪里发展？所以我觉得这是个很好的类比。

Where is it gonna go next? So I think that there's a good parallel there.

是啊。最近我们发现，我们对主歌-副歌-主歌-副歌-桥段-副歌这种典型歌曲结构有点厌倦了。当然不是批评这么做的人，但我们这张新EP里的歌都没遵循这个结构。我觉得部分原因就是你刚才说的现场感。就像‘你已经听过两遍副歌了’

Yeah. I think we're finding, like, more recently, we're sort of bored by verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus, which is, like, the typical structure of a song. Every like, no judgment to anybody that does that, but, like, I don't think any of the songs on this new EP adhere to that structure. And I think some of that has to do with what you're saying live. Like, we're like, you've already heard this chorus two times.

不需要再听这段副歌了。不如来个疯狂的结尾，加上我们在采样器上玩的怪东西。而且我看到观众的反应，他们对这个比对第三遍副歌更兴奋。

You don't need to hear this chorus. Again, let's do a crazy outro with this weird thing where we're playing on the sampler. And, like, I'm seeing a human being, and you're reacting better to that than a third chorus.

iPhone铃声混音版。哦，太棒了。就是

The iPhone ringtone remix. Oh, So good. That is

满满的回忆杀。我爱死

a big throwback. I love That

那段太棒了。是啊。没错。

was so good. Yeah. Yeah.

谢谢。

Thank you.

我觉得这正是你们最厉害的地方——我一边大笑一边跟着节奏摇摆。完全没错。而且它

And I think that that was where you guys really nail it, which is I'm laughing and I'm vibing to it at the same time. Totally. And it

就像是舞台上有人电话响了。从困惑感开始。那种困惑也很棒。懂吧？对。

and it's like it's someone's phone ringing on stage too. There's the start with the confusion. Confusion too. You know? Yeah.

是的。我们确实是魔术的狂热粉丝，但我们也超爱Penn和Teller，因为他们会在表演魔术的同时揭秘手法。就像他们一边解构艺术，一边给你提供多巴胺冲击让你感叹『这真是伟大艺术』。我们经常想做的正是这种事——比如现在每场巡演都会有的『制作揭秘』环节，我们会拆解歌曲创作过程。

Yeah. I think we're really we're big fans of magic, but we're big fans of, like, Penn and Teller because they show you how they're doing the trick while they're doing the trick. Like, they're showing they're deconstructing the art for you while giving you the dopamine you need to say that was great art. And I think so often, that's what we wanna do. Like, we have these making ofs that has now become like a staple that we do every tour where, like, we're breaking down how we made this song.

配合各种视觉元素，比如我们突然出现在图书馆场景。这边有个道具书架，一本书掉下来，我们就说『采样这个声音』。基本上是在构建歌曲的同时讲述创作故事。观众的反应总是...

And there's, like, all these visual elements and we're like and then we're in the library. And now there's, a set piece over here and we're in the library and a book falls. And we're like, let's sample that book. And we tell the story basically of how we made a song while we're building out the song. And I just we see people's reactions.

作为观众，那种困惑感其实很有趣——稍微放下理性认知，想着『哦我开始听出这首歌了』『希望是我想的那首』，然后可能突然反转或者直接炸场

It's really fun as an audience to be confused, to suspend your disbelief a little, to be like, oh, I'm starting to recognize that song. I hope it is the song that I think it's gonna be, and then to maybe throw them off or maybe explode

爆发

into

那首歌。

that song.

预测它然后出错，因为观众们暗地里就爱这样。对吧？没人想当预言家。他们以为自己想猜对，但其实更想惊呼‘怎么可能！这完全不是我预想的那样’。

Predict it and be wrong because audiences secretly love that. Right? No one wants to be right. They they wanna they think they wanna be right, and then they wanna be, no way. It wasn't the thing that I predicted.

没错。知道吗？我们就像在透明地展示人体骨架，同时还在说‘这难道不是最酷的人类吗？’

Right. You know? We're, like, transparently showing you the skeleton of the human while being, like, isn't this the coolest human ever?

很明显的一点是，通过观察你们的行事方式，就能揭示我们所在世界的巨大变化，以及文化的变迁。过去粉丝和他们喜爱的音乐人之间存在着巨大隔阂。嗯。而现在我们不仅能对话，甚至在合作中——你们通过访谈、现场演出、更即兴的风格（少了很多精雕细琢）来展现真实的自己。你们说的每句话都印证着现代世界的剧变。

Well, one of the things that is very clear is that by looking at the way you guys have done things, it would just reveal so much about the world that we live in, how the culture has changed. And it used to be that the relationships between fans and the their favorite musicians, there was such a distance between them. Mhmm. And now we're talking, and even coming into this, it's you guys allow yourselves to be known through interviews, through the live shows, through a bit more of an improvisational style, much less much less polished. And everything you're saying speaks to how much the modern world has changed.

你们甚至谈到制作花絮视频。是啊，二十年前这类内容远没有现在这么受重视。

You're even talking about making of videos. Yeah. I don't think those were nearly as big of a deal twenty years ago compared to now.

我觉得你说得对。我们当年就痴迷《指环王》幕后特辑，不知道你看过没，就是那种...

I think you're right. Yeah. No. We were obsessed with the Lord of the Rings behind the scenes. I don't know if you've ever seen those, but, like

看幕后花絮比看正片还多。

watched We that more than actual movies.

对！研究他们怎么做微缩模型，怎么运用透视法。我们当时还想：为啥这玩意儿不火呢？

More than the movie of how they made the miniatures and how they did the force perspective. And we were like Yeah. Why is this not more popular?

后来看完正片反而更爱了——因为知道‘哇这个佛罗多其实是微缩模型...

This is Because then we watched the movie and we liked the movie 10 times more because we're like, oh, that's miniature. That Frodo

后面十英尺外其实站着个巨人’

is like 10 feet behind him actually, you

知道。对。

know. Right.

是啊。是啊。

Yeah. Yeah.

没错。但中间有条界线。就像我们对《指环王》的体验——知道那座城堡实际只有这么高后，我们反而更喜欢它了。但如果现在给我那座城堡模型把玩，然后发现‘这就是电影里的那个’，这种体验就被毁了。

Yeah. But there's a middle line. Like, I think that exactly our experience with Lord of the Rings. We like Lord of the Rings more after knowing that that castle was only this tall. But if I got that castle and I could play with it now, and then I'm like, this is the same thing in the movie, that now that's ruined the experience.

不知道这个比喻是否恰当。不过我懂你的意思。艺术家应该保持某种高度，观众则甘居下方——因为他们本就渴望如此。

I don't know how well this metaphor is working out. But No. I get what you're saying. Right? There's like a certain level where we still an artist should be up here, and and and the audience should be down here because they want it that way.

我们又不是众筹创作——难道要问大家‘歌曲该写什么主题’？那为何还要找我们艺术家？人们来找我们，不正是因为我们长期打磨出了独特视角吗？我不认为所有创作都该交由群体决定。

They want we're not crowdfunding. What should our songs be about everybody? Like, then why do you come to us as as artists? I think you're coming to us because we've worked for a really long time to, like, try to have a unique POV. Like, I don't think it should all be crowdsourced.

也不该完全透明化。所以我认为幕后制作本身就是艺术（虽然这么说可能显得矫情）。我不是单纯展示Pro Tools工程文件，而是在讲一个有趣的故事——或许能让你更喜爱这首歌。

I don't think it should all be fully transparent, but that's why I think the making of the making of is art unto itself, like, at the risk of sounding pretentious. Right? It's like, I'm not just, like, showing you my Pro Tools session. I'm telling you a story that's fun that's making maybe enhancing your like of the song. Right.

这就是我们坚持的方向：让你听歌时发现我们精心设计的细节，而非直接把整个工程文件丢给你。

So I think that's what we try to keep doing. Let's have you listen to the song and notice these little details that we worked hard on, but not just give you the whole Pro Tools session.

有没有某个舞台瞬间，当听到观众合唱时，你们突然意识到‘天啊，我们真的成功了’？

Was there a moment when you were on stage and you heard people singing and you were just like, woah, this is we've this is really a thing now.

有。2005年我们决定组乐队时，当时还在街头表演...

Yeah. It was 2005 was the moment we decided to be a band, and we were, like, street performing and

对。

Right.

就像那种情况，在纽约到处演出却没人来看。是的。然后到了2017年，我们第一次开始发布之前讨论的那种音乐，那些更脆弱、更令人尴尬的

Like, that kind of thing, playing shows around New York that no one was at. Yeah. And then in 2017, we had our first we started putting out that music that we were talking about before, the more vulnerable, embarrassing

那种

kind of

内容。人们开始喜欢它。之后我们在佛罗里达州奥兰多进行了巡演的首场演出，就在我们发布那些作品之后。我们原本预期观众会很少，因为已经习惯了这种场面。你懂吗？

stuff. People started liking it. Then we got on stage in Orlando, Florida for the first date of our, like, tour then after we put though that out. And I think we were expecting an opening crowd, like, because we were so used to it. You know?

结果人们就这样出现了，想看看有什么精彩的。

People just like, let's show up and see what what's good.

我们得

We're gonna

赢得他们的认可。

have to win them over.

我们出场时，现场只有大约200人，但他们跟着唱每一句歌词。我记得自己震惊得仿佛被甩到后墙上，心想这怎么可能正在发生。十年了，从没遇到过这种情况。那是在奥兰多一个叫The Social的场地演出。没错。

And we came out, and there was only, like, 200 people there and just every single lyric. And I remember just, like, being thrown back to the back wall, and I was like, there is no way this is happening right now. This is in in ten years, this hasn't happened. That was the show at at a place called The Social, I think, in Orlando. That's right.

那真的让我们震撼不已。

And it blew our mind, really.

哇，简直难以想象。这就是音乐最独特的地方之一。你在寂静中创作，埋头苦干。

Wow. I can't even imagine. That that is one of the most unique things about music. You make it in silence. You work on it.

你倾注心血，然后走出去，听到人们唱回你写的歌。那场演出你们也有同样感受吗？

You work on it. And then you get to go out, and people sing back what you've written. Did you feel that same show?

是啊。那一刻的感觉就像是，我们要永远这样下去。

Yeah. That was a moment where it was like, let's just do this forever.

绝对的。

Like Definitely.

我们只希望我们表演得足够好，让所有观众下次能带一个朋友来，这样观众就能翻倍再翻倍。这其实一直是我们像AJR那样的长期策略。但就像酷玩乐队的克里斯·马汀说的，他们能长青的原因是他们从未是最酷的，而总是等待被发现的。我特别喜欢这点。

Let's just hope that all the we put on a good enough show that all these people tell one friend the next time we could play double and double and double and double. That's been really like our the long game, like with AJR. I think it's really but like Chris Martin from Coldplay said, like, the reason they've stuck around so long is that they've never been the coolest thing. They've always been something to be discovered. And I love that.

我不觉得我们注定要成为贾斯汀·比伯那样。我就是...我不认为我们对那种路线感兴趣。我觉得达到那种巨星级别反而会成为枷锁。

I don't think that we were meant to be Justin Bieber. Like, I just don't like, I I don't think we're interested in it. Like, I think that we want to just I think that can be really crippling to be that big.

就是那样

That's what

我觉得我们能做到。但那不是我们的本质。我们就是不行。如果我们还想继续从狗的视角写歌，就不可能达到艾德·希兰那种级别。而我们对这点其实很自豪。

I think we can be. And that's not who we are. We just can't. I think if we wanna keep writing songs from dogs' perspectives, we can't, like, get to that level of Ed Sheeran. And I think we're really proud of that.

我们真的很骄傲这些年来的缓慢成长，慢慢积累核心粉丝。因为现在这个行业很可怕，特别是考虑到TikTok这些平台。过去四年间，整个行业完全变了，所有人都无所适从。

I think we're really proud of how slow it's been in year after year, just, like, slowly growing and having these core fans. Because it's a scary industry now, especially we could talk about, like, TikTok and all of that. But, like, in the last, like, four years, the industry has just, like is just totally different. Nobody knows what they're doing.

详细说说这个变化。

Talk to me about that.

不，我换个角度。2020年之前我们还在按传统模式：这是我们的单曲，我们要推电台看反响。那时候感觉简单多了。

No. I I flip it. We watched it in 2020, just like before 2020 was this is our single. We're gonna push our single to radio and see how it does. It just felt so much simpler.

现在你其实不能自主决定主打歌，至少在我们团队是这样。现在是你做自己想做的音乐，然后期待某首歌能病毒式传播。唯一的爆红途径就是社交媒体，而不是...

And now you don't really choose your own single, at least like in our camp. Now it's like, you make music that you wanna make and hope that something goes viral. And it's there's one weird avenue to having a hit song and it's social media. It's not

老兄，这太奇怪了。

Man, that's so strange.

这太奇怪了。某种程度上很酷，因为它在我们身上发生过很多次，那种感觉棒极了。但当它没发生在你身上时，你会觉得自己像坨屎，既尴尬又难堪。还有点不好意思，因为这全是自我推销。就像我拼命推这个，结果却没成。

It's so strange. Kinda cool because it's happened to us a bunch of times and that's like it's a great feeling. And then when it doesn't happen to you, you feel like the piece of shit and you're and the Embarrassed. And a little embarrassed because it's all about self promotion. It's like, I pushed this one so hard and it didn't work.

我脑海里浮现的画面是某种轮盘赌游戏，你就在玩轮盘赌。你得指望某个东西能成。而拥有观众的价值就像NBA选秀——你能拿到更多赌球，但要是啥都没中...

The image that came to mind for me was some sort of game of roulette, where you're just playing a game of roulette. You gotta hope that something works. And then the value of having an audience is it's like the NBA draft. You get more kind of balls that you can have for the game of roulette, but still, if nothing pops

是啊。尤其对我们来说特别诡异，因为我们起步时广播还是主流，得跑遍美国每家电台两次，握手寒暄见他们孩子，做无数采访——这才是我们习惯的。后来流媒体时代还得去Spotify游说，指望能在上面火起来，那个我们倒还能理解些。

Yeah. Yeah. It's especially weird coming from us because we started in the in the days where radio was, like, the thing, and you had to travel to every single radio station twice in America and shake the hands and meet their kids and do a million interviews, and that's what we really got used to. And then it was the streaming services too, going to Spotify and talk to them about it and have a hit on Spotify. And that felt a little more understandable to us.

没错。然后过渡到这个广播不如从前盛行的世界，对我们来说真的很困惑。

Yeah. And then transitioning into this world where it's like radio is kind of, less prevalent than it used to be. It's been very confusing for us.

而且我们现在还要和比尔·马赫、特朗普这些人竞争。突然我们的对手完全不是其他音乐人了。这太诡异了——你得用一首歌在人们看视觉内容时抓住他们注意力。

And we're also now competing with Bill Maher and Trump and this. And, like, suddenly our competition is totally not other musicians anymore. It's such a weird thing. You have to try to catch people's attention with a song while they're watching a visual of something.

你这么说挺疯狂的，因为歌曲的本质本应是吸引注意力。我是说，除了六十年代广播广告里的叮当旋律，艺术家们原本不会这么想。

Well, it's crazy that you would say that because the idea of a song being the point of it is to catch somebody's attention. I mean, besides a jingle from, like, a nineteen sixties radio ad, that wasn't what artists were thinking.

音乐本不该是这样的。对，确实。

It's not what music is. Yeah. Yeah.

是啊，我刚说的挺离谱。但这就是现在行业的现状。我觉得整个社会都这样——新《星际宝贝》电影像是老版的广告对吧？

Yeah. It's a crazy thing that I just said. It's it is just the industry now. Think it's like I think we're there everywhere in society a little bit where it's like the new Lilo and Stitch movie is sort of a commercial for the old Lilo and Stitch movie. Right?

你会想'我小时候看过这个'。现在TikTok是歌曲的广告，歌曲又是巡演的广告。这很诡异，某种程度上已经脱离了艺术本质。

You go going, I remember seeing that when I was a kid. It's like, yeah, the TikTok is a commercial for the song, which is a commercial for the tour. Right. It's very weird. And it's in some ways, it's not artistic.

我们尽量不让它影响我们。我认为在TikTok出现之前，我们自然就在创作那种TikTok风格的歌曲，正如杰克所说，通过节奏转换、解构乐器、逐个展示乐器音色、制作怪异节拍以及写 relatable 的内容。如果制造TikTok风歌曲是目标，那我们本就一直在这么做。所以完全不觉得我们是在出卖灵魂刻意写TikTok音乐。但你必须对抗那种'唯一重要的是抓人眼球'的本能。

And we try to not let it affect us. I think we naturally, before TikTok, were writing TikTok y type of songs for exactly the reason Jack is saying, with the switch ups and with, like because we like showing deconstructing and showing one instrument at a time and making weird beats and stuff and writing relatable things. Like, if those are the if that's the agenda to make a TikTok y song, we were already doing it anyway. So I don't feel like we're, like, selling out trying to write TikTok music at all. But you have to just be so you have to fight against that instinct of all that matters is catching people's attention.

完全同意。这就是为什么拥有现有粉丝群体如此重要。如果没有他们，我们可能会陷入'该吸引谁注意'的迷茫。但对我们而言，TikTok更像是锦上添花——建立在已有粉丝基础、巡演和社群之上的点缀。

Totally. And that's why it really helps that we have this fan base. I think if we didn't, we'd be, like, falling and wondering who we can catch whose attention. But, like, for us a little bit, the TikTok stuff feels like the cherry on top of the fans and the tours and the community we've already built.

我想回到你刚才说的'那根本不是音乐的本质'，详细聊聊这个观点。

I wanna go back to what you were saying about that's not what music is at all. Talking about that.

音乐是自然的。当你坐下来有所感触时，就会想把它写出来。它不是广告歌，不是为了用十秒抓住人们注意力。创作好音乐时根本不会考虑这些。

Music is natural. Music is just you sit down and you're feeling something, so you wanna write it. It's not to it's not a jingle. It's not in ten seconds that'll capture people's attention. That's not the thought process that goes into writing in good music.

就像我们说的，音乐是写那些尴尬的事，是抱着'可能没人听也无所谓'的心态创作。我们经常这样，往往这时候最快乐——比如写了首超古怪的歌，心想就算没人喜欢也没关系。

It's it's what we said. It's writing about something embarrassing. It's writing something thinking that maybe no one will hear it, and that's okay. And that's something that we get into a lot. And that's, like, often when we're the most happy too of, like, we write a really weird song, and we're like, if no one likes this, we're gonna be okay

就像这样。

with like it.

我们真心喜欢《The Trick》这首歌，虽然它可能是我们发布过播放量最低的作品。粉丝似乎不太买账，收到很多抱怨，比如那个诡异的高音人声让人接受不了。

We're We really like it. We're proud of it. We had a song called The Trick, which was probably the least listened to song we've ever put out or something like that. Like, fans did not seem to like it. We got a lot of, like, complaints about it of, like because there's, like, a weird high pitched voice and be like, I don't know about this one, guys.

但我们就是爱这首歌，粉丝不喜欢也完全不觉得遗憾，因为我们自己非常非常满意。这才是音乐的本质。而TikTok容易让人产生羞耻感，这不是我们想要的创作状态。

But we just love that song so much, and I don't feel bad at all that the fans don't love it because we really, really liked it, and we were really proud of it. I think that that's what music is, and TikTok can really make you feel embarrassed and ashamed, and it's not something that we want to feel. You know?

谈谈'真实'这个概念吧，这是我们对话的核心——诚实地表达。虽然传统意义上的真实让人联想到柏拉图、苏格拉底的逻辑论证，但我们讨论的是更深层的真实，是关于感受的真实性。

Talk to me about the concept of truth, because it's very core to what we've been talking about in this conversation, is speaking truthfully. But when we think of truth, we think of Plato and Socrates and Aristotle and making sure that the logic adds up and stuff like that. You're making a good rigorous argument. But there's deeper levels of truth that we've been talking about in this conversation. We've been talking about truth of the truth of what you feel.

就像你刚才描述的，坐下来纯粹制造声音，这些声音如何真实反映你的感受、你的思考过程、你正在经历的一切？

And then as you were talking there, it was like, you're sitting down and you're just making sounds, and the sounds are somehow true to what you're feeling, what you're processing, what's going on?

我认为，首先，对我们来说一切都在不断变化。我们现在创作的歌曲与二十出头时写的《Week》完全不同，因为我和杰克快三十岁了，我们的真实感受已截然不同。这很主观，也是为什么我们常被问及AI与音乐的关系。

I think well, one, I think we it's constantly changing for us. I'm we're writing totally different songs now that, like, I'm in my thirties, Jack's about to be 30. Like, it just our truth is just totally different from when we wrote week and we were in our early twenties. I think it's it's pretty subjective. I think that so one of the reasons that I'm we get asked about it, like AI and music sometimes.

其实我并不担心AI对音乐的影响，原因正是我们讨论的这个。我相信艺术家声带的独特形状——比如兰迪·纽曼在《玩具总动员》里唱《I Will Go Sailing No More》时，他的嗓音、和弦、录音状态、旋律和歌词的组合有种无法言说的真实感。

And I'm not really worried about AI and music because of exactly what we're talking about. Because I think that when you believe when something about the way an artist's vocal chords are shaped, that when Randy Newman goes, I will go sailing no more from Toy Story. Like, I just believe the combination of his voice and the chords and the and the the take he got and the melody and the lyrics, and I can't describe why. Right? I just believe him.

如果换成乔什·格罗班来唱这句歌词，虽然我很喜欢他，但不会同样被打动。因为那不符合他的特质，他也未必在那一刻真正相信这句词。AI只会把杜阿·利帕、比莉·艾利什和麦莉·塞勒斯混在一起，产出没有观点的模糊中间态作品。

And if Josh Groban sang that and when I will go sailing no more, whatever. I love Josh Groban, but I wouldn't believe that as much. I would believe he's performing that line because it doesn't quite fit with him, and he didn't quite, like, believe it in that moment. I feel that AI is is only ever going to take Dua Lipa plus Billie Eilish plus Miley Cyrus and, like, find some nebulous middle of all the artists that doesn't have a POV. It's just, like, sort of, like, a basic conglomerate of all of the artists.

别误会，随着AI技术进步，音乐确实会变得越来越不同。就像现在AI绘画一眼就能被认出来——最初我觉得很酷，但现在只觉得乏味，因为背后没有真实情感。我们为EP找封面时，总会在Instagram上发现‘这个太像AI了’。

And I don't get me wrong. I think as AI gets better in music, I think music is gonna sound more and more different. I think that's definitely gonna happen. The way, like, art now looks different. I'm scrolling and I see art that I know is, like, has that AI too perfect thing to it.

最后选了位艺术家的作品：画面呈现的不是电脑能制造的‘家庭聚会场景’，而是‘家庭聚会带来的感受’。

And maybe the first time I saw it, I was like, cool. AI ChadGBT can make that. And now I'm so bored by it because there's no feeling behind it. And, like, while we were while we were looking for an album cover for this EP, we we often, like, find artists on Instagram. And I think we found ourselves going, oh, that one looks too AI.

你没法对ChatGPT输入‘描述家庭聚会的复杂感受’——那种悲喜交加的情绪。

That one looks too AI. And we ended up going with an artist that created this this picture of a of a reunion that is how a a family reunion feels as opposed to how just here's how a family reunion looks the way a computer could make it.

不，我想要的不是这种浅层情绪。

And you couldn't type that into chat GPT of how does a reunion feel? What are the mixed emotions that come with a family reunion? Happy and sad. Right. Right.

我要的是更深刻的共鸣。

No. That's not I wanna feel something deeper than that.

就像我们说不清为什么阿黛尔的《Someone Like You》让人落泪而其他歌不行。只要这种不可描述性存在，音乐就会越来越有作者性（如果这个词存在的话）——越来越代表个人视角，而非ChatGPT能写出的通用流行歌。

I want to feel, and I can't describe why. And I think just as long as we can't describe why someone like you by Adele makes us cry and then this one doesn't, like, I I don't know. I think music probably is gonna get better and better because it's gonna get more authoristic, if that's a word. Like, it's gonna become more and more from one person's point of view as opposed to here's a general pop song that everybody can relate to that maybe ChatGPT could have written. Mhmm.

艺术正在朝这个方向发展。

The way art is going in that.

你有音乐人朋友对使用AI感到兴奋吗？他们正在将AI融入艺术创作中，还会说‘嘿，看看这个，瞧瞧这个’？

Do you have musician friends who are excited about using AI and they're using it in their art and they're like, hey, check this out. Check this out.

我们用了款叫Kits AI的程序，你可以先唱歌然后让它听起来像某个女孩的声音。我们还用杰克的声音输入了大量数据，看到粉丝们也在玩——比如‘听这是杰克唱的《Hey There Delilah》’。虽然像是个炫酷的派对把戏，但它确实辅助了创作过程。我当时可能在写一首关于狗的歌。

We used so there's a program called Kits AI where you can basically, like, sing, and then you make it sound like this girl or and you can input a lot of data of we did it with Jack's voice. And we saw fans doing it. Like, here's Jack singing, hey there, Delilah. And, like, it's a cool party trick, but it actually helped in the writing process because I was writing a song. It might have been dog song.

我想我确实在写关于狗的歌。通常创作时我会录自己唱的小样，但那次我想让杰克听听由他嗓音演绎的效果——无需他真唱——这样他之后可以正式录制。在这个过程中，杰克相当于‘隔空录音’了。我们的创意丝毫没有因此受损。

I I think I was writing a dog song. And often when I'm writing it, I'll record me singing a demo with my voice. And I wanted Jack to sound to hear what it sounds like with him singing it, without him actually having to sing it so that what he could go in and actually rerecord it. But, like, in that process of making a cool song, I basically like, Jack was able to record it without actually recording it. No creativity was taken away from us.

它就是个挺实用的小工具。

But it was, like, just like a cool little tool to use. Yeah.

这个应用场景很不错。

That's a good use of it.

我也这么认为。

I think so.

但如果我发布一首Drake风格的AI歌曲...感觉会有点乱套。

But, like, if I'm putting out a Drake song and I I feel like that's kind of a mess.

没错。一旦涉及取代真人——难道我们发展AI的终极目标就是取代音乐人吗？当然不。应该让它处理那些没人想做的脏活累活。

Yeah. As soon as you're, like, replacing people, like, that was our end goal with AI to replace musicians? Like Yeah. No. Have it do, like, the shitty work that no one wants to have to do.

纵观历史，新技术从来不会让‘现在谁都能做专业级音乐’成为终极答案，而是会重新定义‘专业级’。就像Photoshop刚问世时（大概是2002/2003年），我给父亲展示油画滤镜效果，假装是自己画的肖像——这种新鲜感最多维持一天，之后特效就失去魅力了。

But I just I really feel that historically, it's never like the answer is never, now anybody could make a professional sounding song. It's now the definition of a professional sounding song shifts. That's just with every new technology when when Photoshop first came out and you could put like a paint filter, I don't know, 02/2003, I showed my dad that and it was like, look, I it I acted like I painted this picture of me. It was cool for about a day. And then you move on and that effect is no longer cool.

我认为艺术演进会加速：作品将越来越个性化，迭代更快，但同时也会因与科技保持距离而愈发精妙、更具人性光辉。

And I kind of think at an accelerated rate that's gonna be happening where art is probably gonna get more and more personal and move faster, but probably get better and better and more human as it runs away from the computer.

没错。最酷的是这是我做的。

Yeah. What's gonna be cool is I made this.

啊。而这个是我做的。

Ah. And I made this.

你一眼就能认出这是我的风格。有些走音，有变化，和你以前听过的任何东西都不同。

You can tell because it's exactly me as a person. There are off notes, it changes, and it's not like anything you've heard before.

走音这事很有意思——你不想为了走音而走音，但走音也是真实性的证明。写作也一样。当我读到有错别字或奇怪癖好的文字时，我会想：这确实是真人写的。有意思。

Well, the off notes thing is really interesting to think about, how you don't wanna have off notes for the sake of having off notes, but off notes are also a kind of proof of authenticity. It's the same thing in writing. When I read something with typos or there's some weird idiosyncrasies, I'm like, alright. You actually wrote that. Oh, interesting.

不过，如果有人用AI写完后再故意加错别字和怪癖，然后说'骗到你了吧兄弟'——没有比这更烦人的了。那简直是反乌托邦。

Yeah. But, also, I can't imagine anything more annoying than somebody putting typos and idiosyncrasies after having written with AI to be like, gotcha, dude. Like, that would be such a dystopia.

确实如此。

It really would.

是啊。我宁愿相信人们能识破这种把戏。可能我太乐观了。

Yeah. I wanna believe that you could see through that. I don't know. Maybe I'm being optimistic.

错别字可能不太好判断，毕竟只存在于书面。但如果是声音沙哑之类的情况...

The maybe the typos thing is tough because, you know, it's just in writing in a book. But, like, I think you'd be able to tell if a voice crack or anything like that

是刻意为之还是真情流露？在对话中我能判断你是否真诚。我希望艺术也是如此。

was Was on purpose versus they were just feeling the emotion. I don't know. You could just tell like, in conversation, I could tell that I believe you and you Right. You really believe what you're saying. I want to believe that that's the same with art.

关键是在你们演出时，我们渴望建立连接。幸亏我不在音乐行业工作——接下来这句话可能会让我被抵制——但我认为音乐确实有几种不同功能。

Yeah. And a major thing is when we're at your shows, we want to be connected with you guys. I mean, this is probably thank god I don't work in the music industry. I better be canceled for what I'm about to say. But I do think that music serves a few different functions.

有时候这功能纯粹是实用性的，比如我在联合办公空间工作时，旁边有人坐着，我只需要一些声音来盖过他们烦人的对话以免分心。我就上YouTube搜‘专注钢琴曲’，其实是不是AI生成的我都无所谓，只要听不见他们就行。你懂我意思吗？

And sometimes the function is actually it's just purely functional, which is I'm working, and there's some people sitting next to me at the coworking space, and I just need some sound so that I can't hear their dang conversation that doesn't distract me. And I go on YouTube, and I'm like, focus piano. And, actually, I don't really care if it's AI generated. I just need to not hear them. Do you know what I mean?

完全理解。

Totally.

但另一方面，有些我特别崇拜的艺术家，我喜爱他们的音乐部分原因是感受到与他们的精神联结。如果他们用AI创作，我就会觉得不行——我是冲着你来的，杰克和瑞恩。结果你现在要把创作外包给AI？

And then at the same time, there's artists who I really adore, where part of why I love their music is because I feel a connection with them as people. And for them to be making things with AI, I'm like, no. I've come to this for you, Jack and Ryan. Yeah. And now you're gonna outsource this to AI.

这这这完全违背了我们之间心照不宣的契约。

That's that's that's a complete betrayal of the implicit contract that we have going on here.

我完全同意。而且图什么呢？就为了省几天时间？难道做音乐的目标是比谁更快吗？‘看我用AI五秒就做出来了，不像以前要花两周’——这就是追求？

I totally agree. And for what purpose? So they could save a few days of like, why is the goal of making a song I can make it this fast. Like, this only took me five seconds to make with AI verse the two weeks. Like, that's the goal?

这就是音乐产业的未来方向？我可不这么认为。你说的背叛感我深有同感。好音乐应该是场对话，是智慧的传递。

That's where we're headed in the music industry? I I don't think so. I totally agree with what you're saying about the betrayal. Like, good music is like it's a conversation. It's it's passing on, like, wisdom.

是求助的呐喊。电脑根本不懂这些，它顶多能模仿——把兰迪·纽曼的呐喊和布兰迪·卡莱尔的呐喊拼凑起来。但那不是我的呐喊。

It's a cry for help. Like, a computer doesn't know what any of those things are. It could replicate it by taking Randy Newman's cry for help and Brandy Carlisle's cry for help and combining it. But that's not my cry for help.

没错。

Yeah.

对，它永远做不到完美。也许偶尔能撞大运，但没错，永远无法完美。就像它也永远预测不了潮流趋势。

Yeah. It'll never perfect that. Maybe it'll get lucky once in a while, but Right. It'll never perfect it. Just like it'll never predict trends too.

回到霍齐尔的话题，我百分之百确信ChatGPT写不出那样的歌——除非你碰巧输入特定指令可能撞上。但它永远预测不了下一波文化浪潮，那纯粹是人类情感的产物。AI只会跟风已有的流行。

I going back to Hosier. I I have with complete confidence that ChatGBT could not have written that song to be maybe by accident if you typed in a certain kind of thing, but Yeah. It could never predict the next culture and what's coming next. That is just purely human, what human is feeling. They're only gonna go by what was popular.