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>>Farzad: Hi everybody we're going to get started.
Thanks so much for coming out. >>Will Abramson: We should have brought note
cards >>Farzad: My name's Farzad.
I'm with the Tastemakers team. This is Kavon, and –
>>Kavon: Tastemakers team as well. >>Farzad: Yeah, let's just jump right into
it. You guys all know why you're here.
In three years the San Francisco-based Yours Truly has become one of the hottest music
video brands on the web. Their mission, to discover and document, celebrate
and interrogate, capture and catapult those artists who without question demand our affection.
In three short years they've produced nearly 300 videos.
Built a number of high-profile partnerships. And in the process have worked with some of
the hottest artists in indie music today. Just a few right here.
ARA Music, Best Coast, Camera Obscura, Dam Funk, Emma, Freddy Gibbs, Grimes, Holly Miranda,
In Love, John Vanderslice, Kurt Vile, Local Natives, Morning Benders, Night Jewel, Odd
Future, Pure X, Real Estate, Shabazz Palaces, Twin Sister, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Vetiver,
Washed Out, Yellow Wolf and Zola Jesus. So that just leaves off Quincy Jones, and
the XX and you got the entire alphabet there. >>Will: They're in collaboration together.
[Laughter] Kavon: So today we are honored to be in conversation
with Will Abramson. We'll discuss his background.
What makes Yours Truly, truly theirs. How they've grown. The obstacles they've faced.
What they're cooking up and what's in store for the future.
Plus a little later we'll be hanging out with Chris Chu who you just saw in that video.
Of The Morning Benders, now Pop ETC. which you'll also learn about later. The Hangout
will be live from Brooklyn. We do ask that you stay until the end of the
video. We're gonna have two camcorders back there and we don't want your head popping
up. We tried to make… we're gonna make this part of the Tastemakers series.
So many of you were here for our first talk for Steven Allen.
This is The Morning Benders and Yours Truly. And then we'll also be doing 'One On One Design'
with Yves Behar. So without further ado please welcome to Google
Will Abramson. [Applause]
>>Farzad: Alright, well we thought a fitting introduction for anyone who hasn't seen your
videos is a quick reel. This is from the series 'In My Room' that you guys do with MTV.
Let's check it out. >> Man: It's not for an event really.
It's not for money. It's not for like, there's no proper show.
It's just; you're just playing your songs again.
[Guitar Music] It's stripped down.
There's just a group of people sitting around you and you're playing your songs.
[Guitar music gets louder] >>Male singer: [singing] Put your dreams away
for now. I won't see you for some time.
I am lost in my mind. I get lost in my mind.
Mama once told me. You're already home when you feel love.
I am lost in my mind. I get lost in my mind.
>>Multiple singers: [singing] Whoo hooo hooo hooo
Whoo hoooooooooo Whoo hoo hoo hoo
>>Man: Those are always the shows that you remember the most.
You know, because you get like a genuine audience reaction.
Like you can play on a huge stage and you can you know have great sound and every ones
into it. But then you walk backstage and you never
see those people. You don't get any like –
>>Woman: I think it's also more fun – >>Man: feedback.
>>Woman: because you just don't you're not afraid.
[Guitar riff] >>Woman: And so I'm just gonna go for it and
I'm not nervous at all [giggles] >>Man: Yeah.
[Single guitar playing] >>Multiple singers: [singing] I left first.
>>Female singer: [singing] Because I knew that this was cursed.
No I never want to see you again. Left you hopeless high and dry yeah
>>Multiple singers: [singing] I moved on. >>Female singer: [singing] Because I thought
that I was strong. I was thinking about myself.
>>Male: Not having it amplified kind of feels like less official.
So you can just kind I have fun— >>Female: Yeah, totally.
>>Male: you know. Like if it's not amplified all of the sudden,
like everything that happens is just— >>Female singer: [singing in the background]
happening right now. [Guitar with background singing]
Which makes like playing the songs. You know like every time can be its own different
thing. You know it doesn't have to be played the
way that it supposedly played which is cool. >>Kavon: All right Will, where were you born
and raised and what did creativity meet you growing up?
>>Will: I was born in New Hampshire but I grew up in Cupertino.
I come from a very musical stock. Both my grandmothers, one of which is sitting
right here played piano, my grandma played recorder.
My dad would sing Beach Boys songs for me in the bathtub when I was a baby.
And on weekends my mom was cleaning the house, she would play Frank Sinatra and George Gershwin
songs throughout the family stereo, pausing only to make sure that I would slow dance
with her at least once a weekend. When I was in fourth grade, I saw my very
first show at the Shrine Amphitheater. It was my Dad's and I favorite band at the
time our R.E.M. And in sixth grade I proclaimed to my parents
that oasis was the second coming of the Beatles. [Laughter]
>>Will: By seventh grade I realized that they weren't the second coming of anything.
[Laughter] >>Will: It was then that on family trips to
San Francisco my parents would drop me off at Amoeba with the brownbag lunch so I could
spend the whole day looking for records. Senior year of high school, the same year
that I, my friends and I won a battle of the bands for this rap group we were in called
All About Backflips. [Laughter]
>>Will: My future co-founder and best friend and I Bob started a music magazine called
'Paper Airplane'. And it was also that same year that I realized
that you could actually study music industry in school.
And I think, I realized that I wanted to be in the music business when I was grounded
on Halloween, my dad took me to see the movie almost famous.
And there's that really nerdy guy who hangs out with rock stars and it was sort of then
that I realized that he wasn't nerdy at all, he was the coolest dude I'd ever seen.
[Laughter] >>Will: And that's what I wanted to do.
So creativity for me as a kid was really just about pursuing whatever felt right.
Like I was always journaling a lot And when I discovered hip-hop I immediately
just started writing in the style that I was listening to.
I was never really musically inclined. Like I can read music and play piano but I
really just always approached music as a collector. You know I think it's just something that
has always spoken to me. And it was there from when I was a kid and
I can't imagine my life without it really. >>Farzad: so wait.
Two things in there. One, as in the preparation for this interview
you didn't tell me about that hip-hop group. [Laughter]
>>Farzad: 'Cause you knew I would've found that.
Uh— >>Will: It's pretty embarrassing.
>>Farzad: But secondly, you mentioned pursuing a career in music.
You found out about school and so, yeah, so at what point did you make the decision to
go down to USC and then— >>Will: Yeah so—
>>Farzad: pursue the whole music thing? >>Will: When I was in high school, when I
graduated I went to Chico State which had a really great music industry program.
But there were aspects of that program that I like.
For example they had their own record label. They had a great college radio station.
But it wasn't in one of the hubs for the music industry which is New York and LA.
So I applied to the music industry program. The Bachelor of Science in music industry
and got in. And so I moved to LA.
In the first summer I got there before I went to school I was interning at Universal.
And so I interned from one o'clock until 7 PM in the afternoon.
And before that to pay for my apartment I was working at Coffee Bean from five in the
morning until noon. So I had that whole summer to sort of like
get ready for this transition I was making to go to USC.
And USC was really, I kind of cut my teeth just doing internships.
And I became the hip-hop music director at our radio station.
It was there that I first interviewed an artist for the first time.
I had MeRs come on my show. And I also interviewed Atmosphere who in high
school was like my favorite rapper. And I'll never forget the feeling of just
being in the presence of someone that you have such respect for and reverence for.
And that nervous feeling you get, much the same way as sitting out in front of an audience
of people that you don't know. [Laughter]
>>Will: But that same feeling that I had then has transferred over to every single interview
I've ever done. And that feeling that I get when meeting someone
that you really love and have invested your emotions into is still so exciting to me.
And I just kept chasing that throughout college and then in my professional life when I graduated.
Actually before I graduated I got an internship at Yahoo music.
And then when I graduated I became a full-time employee there.
And founded the indie music department there. And just tried to figure out how to fit interviewing
artists and being around artists into pretty much every aspect of my job.
Wherever I could. Cuz I just thought, I wanted to develop that
skill but I also just found it so exciting and rewarding to.
>>Farzad: Let's talk about one of the first endeavors you did.
When you were working at imeem – >>Will: Yeah.
>>Farzad: at Yahoo I suppose. And that wasn't interview series called "Keys
to the city". Tell us a little bit about that.
>> Will: Sure yeah so imeem was a streaming music service.
And I got there pretty early on when they were still figuring out the strategy, their
content strategy. And I have a lot of leeway to come up with
programs and launch programs that I thought would help market the brand in different ways.
And so one of the sites main constituencies whose hip-hop.
So I started a documentary series called "Keys to the city" where I would go to all these
various locales to document the local hip-hop scenes and have rappers take me around their
hometowns. The first one we did was in Philly.
It was The Roots and Diplo who participated in that one.
And then, we went to Seattle to do a documentary series about all the Seattle MC's who really,
it's like a really strong scene up there but they haven't been able to launch any national
stars. But when you go there it's like this big fraternity.
And the "Keys to the City" series was really eye-opening because we were traveling on our
own dimes to do this. It didn't have any support from imeem.
It was just stuff that myself and Bob would do.
My partner Bob would do on the weekends. And so we flew ourselves to LA.
We flew ourselves to Seattle and all over the place to do this series cuz we thought
that these stories needed to be told. And this is my first experience with video
production at all. I mean we rent, we borrowed Bob's cousin's
kind of like crappy camera to go do this stuff. And we just went and tried it.
And I think a lot of the skills that I acquired from being an interviewer and being a producer
came from this trial and error that we were getting in this "Keys to the city" series.
We ended up getting some great acts. Like we interviewed The Game and Compton around
LA. And Nate went up to Canada to do a piece on
Kardinal Offishall who's a really big Canadian rapper.
They took him around Toronto for a couple of days and he came back with some great stuff
from there. And it was also at imeem that I met both Nate
and Caleb who round out our founding crew at Yours Truly.
Nate was actually if you go to the next slide. Nate was producing and shooting take away
shows which are basically kind of the grandfathers of performance videos online and—
Farzad: So the difference isn't on "Keys to the city" was just interview strictly?
>>Will: it was interviews and just kind of more in-depth documentary.
So like, the funny thing is that not a lot of that content is online.
Because it was all uploaded to imeem which no longer exists.
So you can't really go back and watch a lot of the "Keys to the city" stuff.
But we did stuff on Raphael Saadiq in Oakland. A bunch of great videos that I think are hopefully
on a hard drive somewhere. But they're definitely not online.
>>Farzad: This is, 'The Take Away Show', started about 2006.
And that's from the blog called La Blogotheque. I'm sure you guys are familiar with them.
They sort of had a network of bloggers and you and Nate I guess both were.
>>Will: Yeah so Nate. I didn't know Nate, but he was shooting take
away shows. And he connected with the mission of the take
away shows and reached out to the founder Chryde.
And he was the San Francisco arm of the take away shows.
And I found Chryde separately just from being a huge music fan.
And when Chryde came to San Francisco for Noise Pop in 2007, he introduced me to Nate.
He's like, you know one of the dudes from the take away show lives here.
And so immediately upon meeting Nate, he and I started working on stuff together.
We started producing videos that ended up on imeem.
And producing take away shows like this Leaky Lee take away show we shot on a beautiful
blustery San Francisco day. And it was also at that time that I met Caleb,
one of those like music industry schmooze fest kind of things.
And Caleb and I actually connected over our mutual admiration for The Walkman, the band
The Walkman. And we actually just had the chance to shoot
The Walkman after years of kind of like waiting and hoping that we would get a chance to work
with them. >>Farzad: just on this past tour when they
were here. >>Will: Yeah, Yeah.
Just on this past tour. They came for the 10 year anniversary show.
So they came by studio Different Fur which is on 19th and Valencia.
It's actually where we shot the very first George Truly video with Waves.
And I think when he was doing the video, he thought that he was shooting a take away show.
And, surprise. This is a Yours Truly video.
[Laughter] >>Kavon: so, I mean I feel like we've already
gotten uses of the story. But kind of like what was missing in the music
industry? Or what was missing in your view that kind
of you know birthed Yours Truly? I mean I feel like we've heard a little bit
of adhesive, but put it together for us. >>Will: Yeah, I think you know we took a hard
look at the music landscape of the time. We saw these different verticals.
There is a sales and subscription, there's news and criticism, there's music discovery
which the thousands of music blogs that we read every day and there's music is lifestyle.
And one of our biggest challenges was figuring out how could we differentiate ourselves in
this already overcrowded space. What can we do to compel users to come to
Yours Truly instead of any of these other music brands that they trusted every day.
And so in figuring out that value proposition, one of the things that is just as important
to figuring out who you are is to figure out what you're not.
And so we knew that you know if you wanted a record review you go to Pitchfork.
If you wanted to watch music video, you go to YouTube.
If you wanted to listen to an MP3, you go to HypeMachine.
But if you wanted to learn more about an artist beyond their MP3 or watching their music video.
If you wanted to get to know them as people, or to watch them create their craft you know
firsthand like you were sitting right there. There really wasn't much out there for you.
And so instead of you know trying to compete with all these brands up here, we decided
that if we were going to win we had to invent our own game.
And so we use what skills we had which was talented filmmakers, passionate journalists
and we created a format to put the artists that we loved in the best light possible.
And so what the take away shows we were doing, was they were putting artists into their format
which was the take away show which to me is still the most revolutionary format out there.
But we decided that we wanted to adapt per artist and give them whatever situation fit
them best. And from a brand perspective, it was really
just about focusing on what we thought we could do really well and iterating on that
process and innovating within those confines. And so it's really just kind of a choice between
do you want to be McDonald's or do you want to be In and Out Burger?
McDonald's has something for everyone. You know they got chicken nuggets, and those
suck and the Big Macs suck too. But when you go to In and Out Burger and you
know that there's three things on the menu and everything is good.
You know exactly what you're getting and you get it every single time.
>>Kavon: Nice, alright so – >>Farzad: So, you're not inspired –
>>Farzad and Kavon: by McDonald's. >>Will: I'm not inspired by McDonald's.
>>Farzad: That's a good segue. >>Will: Although apparently when I was a baby
my nickname was William "the refrigerator" Perry.
They called me "The Fridge", and apparently I could put down like three cheeseburgers
as a two-year-old. [Laughter]
>>Kavon: So I think that people love, I mean I definitely do and maybe I'm just gonna latch
on to like making this a question. Like what are you inspired by?
I mean I feel like I watch some your videos and I have such a distinct Yours Truly take
on this. Like you've almost created your own genre
or your own way of approaching music. What do you guys look for in inspiration right?
What inspires you guys or you know sent you on this path.
>>Will: Sure, I think you know there are four of us that do Yours Truly and each of us have
different points of inspiration. And it's a combination of those four people
who come from very different backgrounds with very different sets of tastes that make Yours
Truly what it is. But we also agreed on a few things about the
brand. You know, we agreed on a few things we wanted
the brand to stand for. But in terms of inspiration, I get it from
a couple of things. Wax Poetics magazine is one of my all-time
favorite magazines. It's incredibly well done, well researched.
It's basically about soul music and Latin music and African-American culture throughout
the years. Their photo of the guy with the pink sunglasses
is taken by Jason Nocito who's the principal photographer at The Fader magazine.
The bicycle is by William Eggleston who's largely considered to be the father of color
photography. Aaron Rose is kind of your Renaissance man.
He the curator of 'The Beautiful Losers'. And just he really straddles the line between
commercial and fine art. There's also Geoff McFetridge on there which,
his hand has touched so many major brands. Pepsi, Nike, New York times you name it.
Jay-Z is kind of the king of the brand extension in my opinion.
You know Jay-Z may not sell the most records, but he's by far the most well respected artist.
And he's been able to take the equity in his brand and apply it to so many different areas
which is truly amazing I think. So, and then, the black-and-white image you
see is a film by Bruce Weber on the saxophone player Chad Baker.
And that film you know shot on 16mm black-and-white is just such an amazing portrait of that artist.
It's completely unflinching and a brave portrait of him.
And ultimately what we wanted to do was set out to tell stories.
And what the thing in common that all of these things have is that these are all brands that
do a great job of presenting stories in the most honest and direct way possible.
At the very base of it, you know these are inspiration points.
These are influences of ours. But at the end of the day it's really the
music. I mean there is no better feeling than finding
a new artist. Like I get no bigger rush that when Caleb
sends me a band that I've never heard of. Or when I find a band on the blog or on MySpace
or Band Camp that I've never heard of. And it's like you start listening and it's
really good in then you're like "Oh God please stay good, please stay good."
And then it keeps being good and then— [Laughter]
>>Will: and then the songs over and you're like, "Oh My God, if this band has one more
good song it's over." [Laughter]
>>Will: so like it's really just the music. And there is so much that, there is no shortage
of inspiration out there. You know every day, or at least every week
I try to make sure to find one band that blows me away.
>>Kavon: Thank you Internet. >>Will: yeah, thank you Internet.
>>Farzad: So discovery is a big part of Yours Truly.
But also can you tell us about sort of the visual and philosophical concepts behind the
brand. In particular the logo.
>>Will: Sure. >>Kavon: Which is absolutely beautiful by
the way. It's –
>>Will: Yeah >>Kavon: It's very distinctive.
>>Will: Yeah, we spent about six months every weekend and most weekend nights at Bob's house
trying to figure out how to present this logo. And Bob who's the designer of this logo is
our creative director and he's a graphic designer by trade.
And so a lot of our graphical influences come from his vision.
And basically what we decided on was we wanted to think about what Yours Truly really was
at its core. And ultimately what we're doing is we're shadowing
artists. We're following them around.
We're capturing their stories, but ultimately we're watching them.
We're standing behind them. We're shadowing them.
And so, this idea of T shadowing the Y comes from that philosophy that we are there to
you know discover and document, capture and catapult and ultimately shadow these artists
that we admire. And deserve to be covered by us.
>>Farzad: When you started to get this thing off the ground, before anybody really knows
who you are. I mean how do you actually gain access to
artists? >>Will: We booked it through a publicist that
I knew named Daniel Gill who represents a lot of great bands.
And Waves was in San Francisco. This was really you know right before he started
to get some, started to get some traction. I think a lot of it has to do with getting
onto bands early. You know getting involved in their careers
early on before they blow up. And there's a lot of evidence of that with
Yours Truly. And it's like artists before they get big
are just more flexible, easier to work with, have more time.
But one of the biggest things was the fact that we were in San Francisco.
So, you know bands have a lot to do in LA. They have a lot to do in New York.
But often times they are just hanging out in San Francisco because there's really no,
there really was no media outlet. Like Yours Truly in San Francisco.
So we were able to get access to bands based on my relationships and Caleb's relationships
with label people, with publicist. With managers and with bands.
But ultimately it was just the quality of the work we were able to show them early on.
You know we shot that first Waves video and the band loved it.
I was able to get it on Gorilla Versus Bear and Fader and Stereo Gum and Pitchfork right
from the outset. So right away we were building a case study
for what Yours Truly could be and what the benefits for you a band would be for doing
Yours Truly. And I think this slide is actually meant to
talk about the brand of Yours Truly. And I kind of want to do that for a sec if
I can. So everything about Yours Truly begins and
ends with the name. "Yours Truly".
Which is a way to sign a letter. And a lot of our core values come from this
act of letter writing. So "Yours Truly" stands for careful curation.
Because you're not just gonna write a letter to anyone.
If you're gonna put the time and effort into writing some a letter you have to make sure
that that person is going to reciprocate or they're really worth the time and effort you're
willing to put in. So we think about that every time we choose
bands. "Yours Truly" stands for high quality but
handcrafted. If you're gonna write a letter, then you're
gonna do your best to you know give your best penmanship.
Even though mine is always terrible. [Laughter]
But you're gonna do your best to make it look good.
But at the same time, like if you mess up or something that's just part of the fact
that there's a human writing it. And so we want people to see that Yours Truly
is made by real people who really care about what they are doing.
And lastly, when you write a letter you want to be proud to sign the letter and then give
that letter to someone. This is yours.
Truly. And so we think about that every time we make
a video. You know this is kind of a little gift for
the bands. It gives them another reason to go out and
get people to fall in love with them. It's a gift to fans, to get to see another
side of an artist that they didn't get to see.
Or to discover an artist they never knew existed. Or to hear an artist speak for the first time.
And for us, the gift is that we get to spend this time with these musicians that we a lot
of times have crushes on or love and adore or just are really passionate about.
>>Farzad: I think the next thing we want to talk about is sort of what is your model for
marketing and distribution? On the web.
>>Kavon: I mean you guys don't have ads on your website.
>>Will: Yeah. >>Kavon: You don't have mass marketing campaigns.
You know, I mean, everyone here works at Google, so we know that revenue, you don't need revenue
right away. But kinda like what is your plan.
>>Will: Yeah. So I sort of equate the Yours Truly business
model to two cross-sections of a house. The outside of the house is the beautiful
facade, the architecture, the big open windows, the fresh coat of paint.
And that's the Yours Truly brand. That's what we've been really developing this
whole time. So whether you see it on our website on our
Facebook our Twitter our Tumbler or you watch it on our channel on Pitchfork TV or you see
Yours Truly videos on any of the blogs that we push out to.
Or our partnership with MTV. This the strength in the brand that's been
able to get us these integrated partnerships with brands like MTV, Pitchfork, Odyssey which
is a local speaker company. We've also done stuff with Levis and Urban
Outfitters. And so it's this strength in the brand that's
been able to give us these opportunities to make partnerships where our brand and their
brand are getting married for short period of time to do these series.
And that feeds the other side of the house which is Yours Truly's services.
Where we offer production services to brands, to media companies like Pandora or MTV or
beer brands or companies like Levis, like Chevy, W hotels, Braun, Aces.
Any number of these companies that see the work that Yours Truly does in its public facing
side. And, you know, attached themselves to that
work and then realized that we would be a great fit for a series that they're producing
for their own purposes. So it's sort of this hybrid model of we are
a public facing brand and an editorial brand. But we're also a production company offering
production services. And it's a cool reciprocation because you
know just last week someone from an agency reached out and they said you know, "I really
like the way Yours Truly videos look I want to do a series on several artists for a beer
brand that I'm working on." And so in that case, we offer our producers
and directors to go execute whatever campaigns that they're trying to do.
And that's a good way for us to make money so that we can continue to do all the free
editorial stuff that we really want to do. >>Kavon: Yeah.
And so tell us about how the web has like played into that right?
I mean you guys are a blog, or started as a blog right?
And so— >>Will: Yeah.
>>Kavon: what is the web allow you to do? And like kind of compare yourself to maybe
even a traditional record company right? What are you guys using?
How are you using technology to replace certain aspects of it?
>>Will: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the decisions were made early on.
And this has a lot to do with the fact that we decided not have advertising was that if
you want to sell advertising, you have to drive traffic to your site.
But what we wanted to do was to create a push model where instead we would focus on the
content and getting the content out to as many places as possible.
Rather than trying to suck people back to our site.
So as soon as we release a video, we're encouraging all the blogs who are fans of this band to
post our video and to link back to our site. So that's to help drive home the brand equity.
But also to just expand the reach of our content itself.
Because we've always been about the content. The content creation process.
So, we always have had this push model where we are leveraging all the assets that are
created in the process. So there's the video, there's the audio of
the session that will upload to Soundcloud that will route through our Facebook or our
Twitter And in an effort to get more likes, or get
people to re-tweet. We do contests for tickets and giveaways and
stuff like that. And basically it's just about leveraging the
assets that are created while were shooting the band.
So while were shooting bands, we're taking instagram photos and posting those posting
that to Facebook. And really it's kind of a different way than
a lot of bands approach. Sorry not bands, a lot of websites approach
building a brand. But for us it's worked.
It's gotten us to be featured and in conversations on all these sites that are outside of our
network. And to get people to you know, maybe if they
see it the first time they'll just watched the video.
But maybe if they keep seeing content on these other sites that they already go to and they
keep seeing this link to Yours Truly, they'll end up coming back and realizing that we have
this huge catalog of bands that we've been shooting.
Pieces that we've collected over the years. That's kind of how we've done it.
>>Kavon: You guys have done a great job. >>Will: Thanks bud.
>>Kavon: Love that graphic back there. >>Farzad: So before we get into more of how
you guys are using the web and actually South By Southwest where on one and the musicians
and then the interactive side sort of came together, met in the middle and you guys were
actually out there together for a day or two. >>Will: Yeah.
>>Farzad: We want to watch something brand-new from you guys.
This is actually, I think it's sort of premiered on YouTube music.
>>Will: Yeah >>Farzad: That's where I first saw it.
Jacob McPherson from the YouTube team threw this up on the web a couple days ago where
you guys were featured on the music page. So let's check it out.
This is a really cool video. >>Lee Fields: Oh, man I feel good today.
Had to get that out, you know. You got a laugh inside you sometimes.
A lot of people don't know. But my, I live by the rules of if you keep
a laugh on the inside it'll hurt you later. So if you got a laugh, laugh I don't, let
it go. Don't hold it down.
I believe laughter is a good remedy. I'm not a doctor; don't claim to be a doctor.
I'll let the doctors be Doctors and lawyers be lawyers, politicians be the politicians.
I'm a singer, that's what I do. [Guitar Music]
>>Lee Fields: [singing, blues style] I've always been a faithful man.
Til you came along. I've always been a grateful man.
I've always been a faithful man. [Saxaphone joins in with guitar music]
>>Lee Fields: Don't make me do wrong. Baby.
Don't make me do wrong. I've always been a faithful man til you –
[Just saxophone music] >>Lee Fields: came along.
[Just guitar music] >>Lee Fields: I was just hanging out.
Trying to clear my mind. I saw you eyeing me.
It was plain to see. Said I was a married man.
>>Lee Fields: I've always been a grateful man.
Til you came along. I've always been a faithful man.
I've always been a grateful man. [Saxophone joins guitar music]
>>Lee Fields: Don't make me do wrong. Baby.
Don't make me do wrong. I've always been a faithful man til you –
[Just Saxophone music] >>Lee Fields: came along.
[Just guitar music] >>Lee Fields: We were just hanging out.
Didn't mean a thing. But when I start walking out, something came
over me. Never felt so guilty.
[Saxophone joins guitar] >>Lee Fields: Never felt so good.
Don't make me do wrong. Baby.
Don't make me do wrong. Noooooooooo!
Don't you know. [Just guitar music]
>>Lee Fields: I've always been a faithful man.
Til you came along. I've always been a grateful man.
I've always been a faithful man. [Saxophone joins guitar]
>>Lee Fields: Don't make me do wrong. Baby.
Don't make me do wrong. I've always been a faithful man til you –
[Just saxophone music] came along.
[Saxophone and guitar music] >>Lee Fields: Yeeeaaahhhhh!!
I've always been a faithful man til you came along.
Always been a grateful man. I've always been a faithful man.
Don't make me do wrong. Don't make me do wrong.
I've always been a faithful man til you – [Just saxophone music]
>>Lee Fields: Came along. >>Farzad: Very cool
[Applause] >>Will: I had just made him breakfast in our
kitchen right before he did that. And we had chickens in the backyard of the
house. And so, he was, he wouldn't shut up about
the fact that we had fresh eggs. "I haven't had fresh eggs since 1973 and they
don't taste the same." [Laughter]
>>Will: But when he did that scream, that like animals scream, I swear the house was
like reverberating. It was insane. It was really fun
>>Farzad: So that was something you guys filmed in Austin?
>>Will: Yeah, yeah. So we were up out there from Monday to Monday
this year. So one of our official showcases which the
white poster right there. That was during interactive, so it was the
last night of interactive. And Caleb produces all of our events.
So he put together this event and then another event in partnership with Gorilla Versus Bear.
That's the poster on the right. So that was at the Hype Machine hotel.
They have different bloggers curate different shows.
And so we did those two official showcases and then the poster with the state of Texas
on it is a poster for our 'In My Room' series. Which is in partnership with MTV.
And then there's just some stills there. >>Kavon: You guys were really busy.
>>Will: We were very busy yeah. It was a lot of fun, but we shot 10 different
bands and we had those shows. It took a lot of, bunch of meetings.
And just catch up with people in the music business that you only know over e-mail over
the phone. It's like so that what you look like in person.
So there was a lot of that that goes on to. But it was tons of fun.
And that was the first piece that we released from our South By Southwest section.
That Lee Fields video. >>Kavon: So your label, 'Love Letters Inc.'
>>Will: Mmm hmm. >>Kavon: you know it really kind of, you guys
are in on. In business terms you're like vertically integrated
right. Kind of going end to end.
Can you give us kind of a sense of your plan is in that sense.
I mean are you guys, like gonna be the first people to go from a blog to a full blown record
label. >>Will: We wouldn't be the first no.
There's plenty of— >>Kavon: Yeah, there's a lot of people.
>>Will: there's plenty of examples of that actually.
One of the best examples is a blog out of the UK called Transparent Blog.
And they released the first Washed Out single and a bunch of other ones.
And now one of the guys has an imprint on, Domino Records.
But our idea with Love Letter Inc. was really just to; it's kind of a brand extension of
Yours Truly. It's really based on our love for physical
objects. Just like letters.
We love to be able to hold something. So we wanted to be able to give our fans something
that they could hold. Something that we could design.
Something that we could be involved in from start to finish.
So when bands are coming through San Francisco to do Yours Truly sessions.
They're playing songs they've written for an album of theirs or an EP of theirs.
Or something that they've done themselves. But in order to keep innovating, in order
to keep you know doing something new with our format we wanted to get involved earlier
on in the process. So in the songwriting process.
Or in the recording process. And we wanted to offer our fans and fans of
these bands better insight into what that process was like.
What does it take to make a record? So the first record that we ended up doing
was this Big K.R.I.T record. And Big K.R.I.T put out a mix tape that I
listened to and loved and this was before he got signed at Def Jam.
And was kind of like a full-fledged rap star now.
But I begged his manager to fly out to San Francisco.
And I was gonna put them in the studio with this great local R&B band.
So he came to San Francisco, crashed on my couch for a couple of days and we made this
EP. And that became the first Yours Truly release.
And the second one 'How to Dress Well'. The white background with the image in the
middle. That was a tribute record of the 'How to Dress
Well'. Tom who is managed by Caleb.
One of his best friends died. And so what he wanted to do is this EP called
'Just Once'. Where he would do orchestral versions of his
songs that we would release on 10 inch vinyl. And make available for sale.
And the one thing that's unique but is also common to each of the releases is that they
each have a charity element to them. The Big K.R.I.T record, 100% of the proceeds
go to the, go to charity. The Nitro records, and 'How to Dress Well'
record, one dollar of every sale goes to charity. So what we really wanted to do was create
these physical objects and be involved in the record making process.
But also, create something that we could use to get back to the communities that deserve
it. >>Kavon: You know I keep on hearing the word
create with you guys and that's what I love about you.
It's like you're always you know. You always, you didn't see that there were
like these behind the scenes videos. So you went and created them right?
And now it's like you want your vinyl records right?
So you're gonna go and create them. >>Will: Yeah
>>Kavon: What else do you guys, you know, what other project you guys got up your sleeves?
Like what else is going on with the Yours Truly.
>>Will: You know were constantly producing videos.
And it's these short either short form documentaries to performance pieces to these making of pieces.
We're doing EPKs and you know making of album pieces.
We did a live concert DVD of the documentary. But really what we're looking forward to this
year is bringing the Yours Truly experience into the living room.
Which is something that I know YouTube is focused on too.
As well as Vimeo. Bringing Yours Truly into the living room.
Improving the Yours Truly site. Getting Yours Truly on iPads and iPhones.
Just improving our distribution model to get you, into as many eyeballs in as many homes
as possible. As well as to continue to produce the same
high-quality content that we have been doing all along.
But I'll give you kind of a sneak preview of one project that I'm excited about.
It's the Stagger Lee project. So in 1895 in a St. Louis saloon this ***
and hustler and notorious character named Stagger Lee shot Billy Lyon in the back of
the head for trying to steal his Stetson hat. And so this story that happened in the late
1800s as soon as it happened it swept through the South and it was played and covered by
*** pianist to just pool balladeers. And passed along before recorded music ever
occurred. Just as sort of a folktale.
And every time whoever sang it would reinterpret it and Stagger Lee gets scarier and scarier.
And he's just this bad villain like character. And then when recorded music came around,
the song has since been recorded over 400 times by Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Bo Diddley.
You name it, the Black Keys. You name it, someone has a version of the
song. And so this character of Stagger Lee, this
badass character has been translated into all these different forms of music except
for the one form that I think it really fits and that's hip-hop.
And so what I wanted to do was to update the Stagger Lee saga for the 21st century.
To basically find two artists who could play the parts of Stagger Lee and of Billy Lyon.
But before they do that, I wanted them to steep themselves in the history of blues music.
Which is what created this song. So the idea is to send Big K.R.I.T. And Yellow
Wolf down to the Mississippi Delta. To have them take a trip to Clarksdale Mississippi
where BB King was born and Robert Johnson was born.
And to basically soak up the roots of blues music and to use that influence to create
a new version of the Stagger Lee song. And we would create a documentary about that
journey. A documentary about the making of that song.
Release that song. Do a music video for that song.
And basically what the goal is to bridge the gap between this American roots and folk music
that it has influenced not only hip-hop but R&B and rock 'n roll.
And try and bridge the gap between what kids are listening to today and this great tradition
of American music that is in danger of extinction. And I just remember reading the story for
the first time and just thinking this has to be told.
And then when I finally heard Big K.R.I.T's music, I realize that he was the guy who could
play Stagger Lee because he's from Mississippi. He's a producer.
His music is so bluesy and soulful and I thought you're the guy, your Stagger Lee.
So we have this idea, and it's really just something were trying to get made at this
point. >>Farzad: That sounds really awesome.
Got a little bit of time left. And I think that means that it's time to jump
on our hangout with Chris who you might've heard for a second there.
So I'm just going to move the computer up so that he can see us all.
Or at least see us up here. And yeah, let's try to do this.
>>Will: Is he hanging out? >>Farzad: hopefully this works.
Chris are you here? There he is.
>>Chris Chu: Hey you guys. Hey how are you?
We got Farzad. >>Kavon: What's up dude, thanks for coming.
[Laughter] Virtual Reality.
>>Chris Chu: Seeing the side of your face, it looks good.
[Laughter] >>Farzad: Awesome. Chris, thanks so much for
taking the time to be with us. Of course one of the most celebrated videos
from Yours Truly comes from The Morning Benders' "Excuses".
I think we all pretty much fell for it the first time we saw it.
>>Kavon: Instantaneously. >>Farzad: I think it's been well, I'll ask
you. What's it been like for the band, what was
it like making the video, what was the reaction which guys got?
>>Chris Chu: It was great honestly. Just thinking back to that day is so special.
And I think, we've done a lot of sessions and music videos and stuff like that.
And almost 95% of the time we do them we have no idea how it's gonna turn out and it's just,
you kind of let it go and we just hope for the best it.
But when we did that session, we just felt like this is gonna be something special.
We knew it from the moment I think that we were done that day.
And then we saw the first captures we were blown away.
>>Kavon: Awesome. And you know what did it do for you guys as
a band? I mean like people see music videos but nothing
quite like that. >>Chris Chu: Yeah, yeah.
I feel like that was one piece of content above anything else that we've ever done that
people knew about us. You know we went on tour all over the world
and by far the most common thing people would say was you know I love seeing you guys play
that song on the roof. Playing that song on Yours Truly or whatever.
>>Kavon: Yeah >>Chris Chu: People definitely got the word
out about it spread around which is most powerful thing you can do.
>>Farzad: That's awesome. Well, we do hope that you guys have plans
to work with Yours Truly in the future. But not as a morning Benders, it's going to
be as POP ETC. Can you tell us a little bit about the name
change and what we can expect from the new group if you could call it that?
>>Chris Chu: Yeah. Well I wrote kind of a detailed explanation
of why we changed the name. Which I can go into just briefly I guess.
We have time for that? >>Farzad: Sure.
Just briefly that's fine totally. >>Chris Chu: Yeah, I mean we named our band
Morning Benders early on like a lot of bands do without thinking about it very much.
[Laughter] >>Chris: I mean we thought it was funny or
whatever and didn't think much about it. But we found out at some point like about
a year and a half or two years down the line that there's this alternate meaning in the
UK and Europe that "benders" is kind of like a slang word or the equivalent of *** or gay
as used in America. Like kids call somebody "gay" thinking it's
funny. And you know were not like super PC guys or
felt like, you know. It's not like something we would correct someone
on the street and yell at them. But when it comes to our band and what we
are associated with it just made sense for us to not be associated with that.
Because it felt like it was giving off this feeling or this expression that isn't in keeping
with how we feel and how we lead our lives. It just, it became ignorant.
You know kids thought we were making a joke against gays.
That's just, that's not a joke we would make you know.
So were POP ETC. now. And we have a lot of exciting stuff.
>>Will: And killer tunes. >>Farzad: Yeah.
If you guys haven't heard the new mix tape yet, you can download it for free on their
website popetc.com is that right?. >>Chris Chu: Yeah.
>>Farzad: And do you think also the new band name in some ways is a prelude to the new
sound? >>Chris: Yeah, I was telling Will the other
day that the motivation behind the name change was well what I just told you.
But it definitely aligned itself with this creative changes well.
We have a whole different set of stuff. And we've always told all our fans that we
want to change, were not creatively satisfied by staying in the same place.
So I know people get their hopes up and they want to hear Big Echo 2 again or whatever.
[Laughter] >>Chris: but we just can't.
I think there's a lot of bands do do that over and over again.
They make five or six albums that sound generally the same.
Which is great for some people, but for us it's not how we want to do it.
So yet we have this great mix tape out. And we got a full album coming after that.
And hopefully some cool videos and stuff as well.
>>Kavon: Very exciting. So, do you know, do you guys actually have
a release date for that yet? >>Chris Chu: We don't have an exact release
date. But it'll be sometime over the summer like
early summer. It's a very summery album, so we wanted to
align with that. >>Farzad: OK.
And hopefully coming back to play a hometown show if I could call it that.
>>Chris Chu: Oh yeah. >>Farzad: Sometime soon?
>>Chris Chu: of course. Yes it's definitely a hometown show.
We still consider ourselves Bay Area kids. And we talked a lot about how we're gonna
and end up back there. So next time hopefully I'll be in the room
with you we all at Google can hang out. >>Kavon: Hey, that would be awesome.
>>Farzad: You're welcome any time. >>Kavon: Yep.
Chris, do you wanna actually. Chris do you have like 10 minutes? Or do you
have like 6 minutes? >>Chris Chu: Yeah.
>>Kavon: Cuz we might open up to questions. And we can have you and will respond to people's
thoughts and questions interrogations. >>Chris Chu: Sure.
>>Kavon: Do we have a microphone? >>Chris Chu: Hanging out.
>>Kavon: Alright cool yeah, hangout. [Laughter]
>>Kavon: that was a marketing plug. We paid him to say that.
Do we have a microphone or no? That thing work?
Perfect, does anybody have any questions or Yours Truly or Chris Chu.
Lisa. >>Lisa: I was just wondering—
>>Kavon: You wanna give >>Farzad: We'll just repeat the question.
>>Kavon: OK. >>Lisa: How much work, how much time and effort
go into drafting each videos? >>Will: Wow.
Well there is a sort of like three different phases of it.
There is the booking of the band which is finding the bands first of all which takes
a lot of work. I have Google reader of about 300 different
blogs that I read every day. I probably say the same is true for Caleb
and Nate but probably 300 different blogs. There's the finding of the band.
Then there's the booking of the band which is a bunch of e-mails back and forth with
their publicist or their manager, just figuring out where we're gonna do with how we;re gonna
do it. Then figuring out how it's gonna get recorded.
And then there's the actual day of the shoot which is usually just a few hours.
And then there's the post production process which is handled by Nate or Bob who are editing
the video. And that's really the most time intensive
process. So if I had to put like an hour on each video
I would say like 16 hours what do you think Nate?
16 to 24 hours maybe. I mean it depends on the content too.
Like if we're doing a documentary or even a short documentary that's really narrative
in nature. Then that takes much longer to edit than like
a performance piece would. But like I said it's these, it's this whole
kind of start to finish process that. It takes a while but it's gratifying.
>>Farzad: Do you find that the quality of artist that you work with actually helps that
process. I mean like when I look at the Morning Benders
video and I see this performance like it looks effortless.
But I can imagine it was an easy thing to get in a room full of people—
>>Will: Well that's all Chris. >>Farzad: multiple drummers.
>>Will: I mean, that was Chris's, this is like his.
I sort of see it as like your swan song for San Francisco.
Like a going away present. You like those are all your friends, and I
remember we were just hanging out. Like I knew you just from being at Different
Fur. And it was sort of like Yours Truly was just
getting started and you guys were enough finishing a new album and you are playing me the mixes.
And you were like, "I have this idea that I want to do this piece and invite all these
people." And it was an honor for you to have us do
it. And I think that the fact that it came out
that way is just, we kind of met in the middle and just got it done that day.
And the stars aligned and all that stuff. But yeah I do think it has something to do
with the quality of the artists. And like I was saying earlier, we think about
people that really kind of deserve the attention and deserve our effort.
Because it is a lot of work to put into a band.
And so we kind of take this less is more approach where we'd rather shoot way less stuff and
have it be way better than just be constantly producing content just because we have to.
If we had a bigger team than I think you know we might be able to do that.
But at the same time, we like just you know making each thing we do very special and putting
our all into it. >>Farzad: Awesome.
Unfortunately, we're actually running out of time.
>>Will: Really, that was it? >>Farzad: so I'm gonna have to call today.
[Laughter] >>Farzad: thank you so much everybody for
coming out, Chris thank you [Applause]
>>Farzad: Catch you later man. >>Will: Later Chris, see ya.