THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.108 - MICHAEL KIWANUKA

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

Adam talks to British musician Michael Kiwanuka about musical influences, school days and shameful memories. Michael also plays 2 songs from his album Kiwanuka (You Ain't The Problem and Light).Thanks to Ronnie Scotts for letting us record at the club, to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and to Matt Lamont for additional editing. RELATED LINKSMICHAEL KIWANUKA - YOU AIN'T THE PROBLEM (OFFICIAL VIDEO)MICHAEL KIWANUKA - BLACK MAN IN A WHITE WORLD (OFFICIAL VIDEO)MICHAEL KIWANUKA - COLD LITTLE HEART (OFFICIAL VIDEO)RONNIE SCOTTSMARIE CURIE - TALKABOUT (DEATH AND DYING) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here.

It is rather an overcast day here in the Norfolk countryside. A little bit like one of those days from The Road by Cormac McCarthy. You know, a little bit apocalyptic. Having said that, literally within the last 30 seconds, a gap in the cloud over to the west has opened up. It's the evening of the day as I speak. has opened up. It's the evening of the day as I speak. And the sun is now poking through, so the countryside is all lit up golden, even though the sky is very angrily dark and grey over to the east. It's really quite cool. I'm looking at a tree right now, a big oak, I'm looking at a tree right now, a big oak, and all the leaves are turning gold.

And they're backlit by the sun, and it just looks crazily beautiful. Rosie! Rosie thinks it's crazily beautiful as well. But that's probably enough great, great nature description from Buckles. Let me tell you about podcast number 108, which features a conversation and some music, a performance of a couple of songs from the British musician Michael Kiwanuka. Some Kiwanuka facts for you. Michael is currently age 32. He was born and raised in Muswell Hill, London, the son of Ugandan parents.

Michael's musical talents earned him a place at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied jazz guitar. Anyway, look, he dropped out of the Royal Academy of Music and for a time worked as a session guitarist before finding the confidence to go solo. After gigging around for a few years in London's pubs and clubs, he signed to Polydor Records in 2011. That same year, he supported Adele, and in 2012, he won the BBC Sound of 2012. That is the annual poll that the bbc undertakes of music critics and industry figures in order to find the most promising new music talent of 2012

now they do it every year i think that same year 2012 saw the release of michael's debut album home again it was produced by paul butler of the UK indie rock band The Bees. The band The Bees. That album was nominated for a Mercury Prize, as was Michael's second album, which he released four years later in 2016, Love and Hate. Paul Butler once again involved in the production,

but this time also twiddling knobs were Brian Burton, a.k Burton, aka Danger Mouse, the American man, and the London hip-hop producer, Inflow. In 2017, Cold Little Heart, the sprawling opening track on Love and Hate, was used as the theme tune to Big Little Lies, HBO's excellent drama about some wealthy young mothers living in Monterey, California. Very good if you haven't seen it. Here's a little blast and you'll probably go, oh, I didn't realize that was Michael Kiwanuka. Here it is. Yep, there you go. It's a good one. The album Love and Hate reached number one in the UK album charts.

Michael's third album, released earlier this month november 2019 is titled simply kiwanuka and once again features fancy electronic inflected production from the danger mouse and inflow keeping one foot on the cutting edge ouch and the other in a past filled with i wrote this stuff i was trying to be like a rock journalist. Keeping one foot on the cutting edge and the other in a past filled with influences from the classic soul of Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Otis Redding to rock and pop touchstones like Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, just some of the influences you can hear in Michael's work, I think.

A recent Guardian review of Kiwanuka by Dave Simpson called it a bold, expansive, heartfelt, sublime album. I would have added wickwocks and smartfart. He's snuck in at the final whistle, says Dave Simpson, but surely this is among the decade's best five-star review for that album. Nice. It is very good. My conversation with Michael was recorded earlier this year in Ronnie Scott's jazz club. Thanks very much indeed to them for letting us record upstairs at the club one afternoon a couple of months ago.

And it felt an appropriate venue to talk with Michael about some of his musical influences before we rambled about other odds and sods and I had the privilege of hearing him play a couple of songs from the new record and to be sat right opposite someone as talented as Michael and have them sing and play was very great. And I was grinning and staring at him with a cheesy expression of love on my hairy face,

which you can probably hear if you listen carefully. Back at the end, for an apology and a podcast recommendation. But right now, with Michael Kiwanuka, here we go.

Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat. Yes! We are sat upstairs at Ronnie Scott's legendary jazz club in Frith Street, Soho, London. It's a nice sunny day in mid-September 2019. I'm sat opposite Michael Kiwanuka. Hi.

How are you doing, man? I'm very good, Adam. I'm very good. Yeah, nice to meet you. I'm happy to be chatting with you today. Oh, well, thank you. And you're going to play a couple of songs is that right yeah is that okay that's fine cool are you self-conscious about that kind of thing do you feel like you're being made to perform in like in this context no but if we were at a dinner party and we're just hanging out yes and then like michael play one of your songs yeah yeah like get the guitar out play one

of your special songs yeah surely that happens all the time, doesn't it? Maybe with like family members, you know, like aunties and uncles. Not like Piers. I think people are just like, definitely not Piers Morgan. I hope not. But I think they're just like, are you still doing music? They're like, what's that? Are you still strumming?

Did you have a gig? They don't really get fazed by... I don't walk into a room and people hold their breath or anything like that. What about if you're up in the Hollywood Hills at a swanky party surrounded by movie stars and rappers, and your host comes over and says, Michael, play us a song, come on. I don't know why that woman with that accent is there, but she is.

I mean, I probably... Has that happened? That hasn't happened. Not like swanky. I went to a party in... Actually, Laurel Canyon. My friend Gus was like, oh, there's a party on tonight. Not in that accent.

I'm not good with accents, so I'm not going to do an American accent. He's a really good musician and knows a lot of the cool... Like, i play for beck or you know it's like oh nora jones's band that kind of yeah joey warrenker exactly in fact he knows him really well and he's like yeah there's there's a party man you know you want to come i'm like yeah okay cool and went up with his girlfriend and it was like there was no movie styles of famous musicians but it was like i don't know if you've like you i mean so la or like where everything about it was could have been but it wasn't so it was like the house was

paul simon's son's old house so it was like three steps from movies yeah and then everyone that was there kind of like was in a band obviously but no one had heard of them including myself it kind of looked like a fancy dress party where people there was a woman there was a girl in the middle of the garden playing acoustic guitar in a dress that looked like joni mitchell playing old martin singing some song and it was like where am i yeah i was there for like two hours and thought i think i'm gonna go home but it was fun but that's like the closest i've been to one of those kind of parties where they're like hey you know movers and shakers i haven't really actually been to any of those parties like that in LA, really.

Yeah. That was a funny night, though. Sounds like being on the set of a film about Laurel Canyon in the 60s or whatever. It was just funny that everything was like three steps from what could have actually been called. Right. Are those people that you admired,

that sort of Laurel Canyon scene, Joni and David Crosby? Yeah. My favourite of that scene is probably Neil Young. I'm still a huge Neil Young fan. And then obviously everything around that, CSNY, Joni. You know, I'd never buy David Crosby's solo albums or Stephen Stills' solo albums,

but I liked it and I just liked the romanticism and the Geffen records. All of that I just was obsessed with. So it was quite nice being in LA at that time. I wasn't on tour or anything, I was just there with Gus hanging out, making music and stuff. And, yeah, you know, I'm a huge fan of that. Definitely as a songwriter, it's something that

I think inspires a lot of songwriters, just how prolific they were and the kind of how powerful the singer-songwriter was at that time, you know. When you read about it, it just sounded like a really idyllic time. Yeah. Quite romantic. What's your go-to Neil Young record? I love, like, Zuma.

The Crazy Horse stuff, I like Zuma. I haven't got Zuma. Zuma's great, because, I mean, Cortez the Killer, man, I mean that. Right, OK, that's on there. That song is one of my favourite guitar songs. So it's kind of very rocky, that one, is it, Zuma? Kind of mellow rock, obviously, page rock. Yeah.

Yeah. Rockier. On the Beach. I love that album. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. I've got that one. I love After the Gold Rush a lot. Yeah.

I love that record. It's peach. Harvest is obviously up there for me. Harvest and After the Gold Rush, it feels as if a lot of those kinds of classic, inverted commas, artists do that pair of albums like Van Morrison you've got

Moon Dance and Astral Weeks right next to each other Bowie you've got Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust right next to each other

and Harvest and After the Gold Rush I mean what a run yeah I also really like his first solo album Neil Young Neil Young

yeah yeah I love that record that's got Here We Are in the Years doesn't it I think so it's got like The Loner and it's yeah yeah I love that record that's got Here We Are In The Years doesn't it I think so it's got like

The Loner and it's got which is good and then it's got The Old Laughing Lady oh yeah yeah I love that record oh it's good

yeah he's hard to beat isn't he as a character as well I got to see it so around that time I was obsessed with him and around that time

I was spending a lot of time in America. I was in Austin a lot, randomly. I would spend time in Austin, Lowe's. My ex-girlfriend is from Austin, so I'd go there and visit her. And I was hanging out in Austin. And my friend from England, convoluted story, my good friend of mine, Josh Brown, we went to school together. He would come out on tour with me and do some guitar taking.

And he met a girl at the same time there as well who were friends. So we would always travel to Austin and just have fun basically and hang out in Austin. And I started meeting all these concert promoters that had heard the first album like,

hey man, I can hook you up with some tickets for these things. And then I always wanted to go to Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit concert. Remember those things that he'd put on where you'd get... Does he not still do them? No.

Because I think he... Well, sadly, his ex-wife passed away but they broke up before she died and it was... Right, and that was associated

with her. Yeah, the school they set up. But he would always have like the best lineups. I mean, my dream was to like, if I could ever get a gig

at the Bridge School would be like the dream come true. I never did but I always want to go and it was coming up. It was always in October and it was coming up and this you know i was in austin and this guy that worked for a booking agency could get tickets i was like you reckon you could get us tickets to the bridge

school benefit i can get some flights up and fly to san francisco it's like yeah and then like couple days later i got you some tickets triple a so amazing but the lineup was ridiculous it was neil young and then also csny and like reunited wow it was queens of the stone age doing an acoustic set which is really weird but still crazy to see queens of stone age elvis costello and diana crawl tom waits and who never plays so tom waited to set and a band called heart that i never actually knew i think they're big in America. Heart, the big rockers. Yeah.

The two big ladies with the big hair. That's it. That's Heart. It was all big. I'd never heard of them, but they were also there. Yeah. It was crazy. Yeah.

Crazy lineup. So I was like, whoa. And My Morning Jacket were also playing. And so I was like, amazing. Wow. Triple A, all day gig for free with these amazing singers and musicians, songwriters, and Neil Young. And I remember sitting there, and Neil Young comes out first,

and he's there with his D-35, whatever it is. It's just like the iconic image with his hat on, and he's walking around in his harmonica with a wireless pack. Yeah. Started playing Comes a Time off the album Comes a Time. I really liked that song. And I was like almost in tears

like oh Neil Young oh my gosh the man himself but I had it's his triple A so I went back I'm going to go

and buy some merch bought this like bridge school t-shirt and then Neil Young was just standing there like maybe 15 yards away I was like oh on my own

I was just at this point I was like oh my gosh this is crazy. It was one of those moments, one of my biggest regrets of my life where I just thought, and actually he wasn't on his own, he was talking to one other person. And it looked like quite a serious conversation.

So I just kind of looked at him and I was like, oh, man, he must be, I mean, it's Neil Young, he must be talking about something really serious. So I went over and said, oh, my gosh, I'm such a big fan. I wouldn't have asked for a selfie, it was his hand yeah so i so i didn't you know because you were being respectful i was and then i was like but i just something part of me was just like why didn't i just go and say your music is and i know you've heard this a zillion times before but your music has made my life a thousand times better, you know? Yeah. And I think that's probably like my biggest regret of like, I'll never meet him probably just, but then I could have known, you know,

I got to actually tell him the Neil Young, you know? But yeah, that was it. I'm sure he listens to this podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you're listening, Neil, we've got a couple of albums out now. And if you're up for having a jam you know you know where i am um well shall we have a bit of music yeah what are you up for playing well and play anything you want i don't know i could play something off my new album that's coming out yeah single out or i

could play an older song that if there's songs that you like i don't really like you don't like my music your songs so let me do this one then because this one I think I'm going to play You Ain't The Problem which is the first single of my new album

okay which is called Kuranuka self-titled album funny enough little side note but because Neil Young

Neil Young which we spoke about earlier is like I think it is his debut solo album if I'm correct but it's not his first album But I've always been interested in albums

That are self-titled That aren't debuts I always thought that sounds quite cool It's one of the reasons why I call this album Kuranuka But this is the first single from it And it's also the first track on the record And yeah

It's just a song about I guess realising that You know There's loads of problems in life But one problem that there isn't is you, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. I think sometimes we're quite quick to blame ourselves. Right, okay. But this is just like, you know, no one's perfect.

What if you are a massive prick? Well, then you're hanging out with the wrong people. Right. You know, a massive prick to someone could be, like, someone's husband. Or son. Yeah. Or daughter. So if you think of it that way, then they're definitely not a problem.

What if you've murdered thousands of people? I would say then you are. Listen, I'm spoiling the song. You are a problem. That is. But you should write a different song to deal with that eventuality. Yeah. But let me play this one.

This one's for all the murderers and... Okay. We haven't soundchecked, so hopefully we'll be fine. La la la la la La la la la la Love makes me blind I hope to find who I believe in Get back in line I can't deny myself Show me the feeling

Oh, you got me wrong If you don't belong Living in trouble Don't hesitate Time heals the pain You you ain't the problem I live the lie, love is the crime, it's you I believe in No need to play myself, no need to die, I'm only human I'm done, you got to put me on, I know when you come along

Don't hesitate Time heals the pain, You ain't the problem. La, la, la, la, la I point the gun, you are the one, do all the talking I try to help myself, you are the one, do all the talking You got me wrong, I caught you falling, I hear you calling Don't hesitate Time heals the pain You ain't the problem I live the dream, I hope to be who I believe in

I used to hate myself, you got the key Break out the prison Oh, I hope to never see time passing Don't hesitate Time heals the pain You ain't the problem La la la la la La la la la la

La la la la la la la La la la la la Oh, you got me mad You got me mad No, no, no Oh, you ain't the problem You ain't the problem, no Oh, you ain't the problem, no Yeah, cause I live the dream

I live the dream No need to blame myself Oh, you I live the dream, I live the dream No need to blame myself, oh You ain't the problem, you ain't the problem, no Oh no, yeah, you ain't the problem La la la la la la La la la la la La la la la la la That's great, man. Thank you.

Really nice. I've read interviews with you where you're saying that it took you a while to sort of get used to your own voice and the way you sing. I love the way you sing. But why did you ever feel insecure about it yeah that was it was true it's because i didn't i was desperate to be a guitar player you know i was like the dreams was like i want to be an electric guitar player and i had no ambition or like desire to be the center of attention ever i know it sounds mad because everything i do is about like me now yeah i didn't really care about that i just never like saying i never like tried to sing i never thought of it a thing i mean with the guitar if you like make a mistake like ah the amp was

fuzzy or like the guitar's actually it's too hot you know you can blame your tool but singing is like you've got nowhere to hide with that so i kind of felt like you know it's too hot. You know, you can blame your tool, but singing is like you've got nowhere to hide with that. So I kind of felt like, you know, it was too much, too personal. And I'm like, I don't want everyone to know everything about me. And then the centre of attention thing, even now sometimes, I hate it, you know.

You get used to it, but like, like you said earlier, would you ever get your guitar? I'll never get my guitar out at home and play a song to close friends. It's just like, why? You know, it's just too,

but at a gig, because there's a reason for it and there's like, it's an arena for it. It's like, okay, this makes sense. It's like,

it's still center of attention, but it's not just like, look at me, you know? Yeah. So yeah, so see, it was like,

I didn't really have a good relation with it at first, but thank God I like got into it because I love it now. But yeah, I mean, but I definitely had to like, work to that as well. I definitely spent some time when I kind of got into songwriting and thinking, OK, I do kind of want to sing.

What actually happened with me was I dropped out of uni and I'm a huge jazz fan. I'm a big, big jazz fan. Are you? Yeah. So I studied jazz. Who are you guys? Well, we were listening to felonious monk earlier today like crisscrossed to that record miles davis i was obsessed with his schools i'll buy any year of miles davis 60s blue note um straight ahead like the two quintets like

tony williams quintet with the tony williams and ron carter and herbie but then i love like the fusion the 70s and bitches brew and i love the of the 80s. I just love Miles Davis. Every era. Stuff with Charlie Parker. Wayne Shorter. I like 60s, late 60s, early 70s jazz. That's the sound I like. And so I was studying jazz guitar at music college in London at the Royal Academy of Music. And like it didn't really work out.

So after about a year and a half, I dropped out. And then i started to just go back to songs and start playing i thought it'd be good idea to like i started a band and like it would be cool to like teach guitar because i love the guitar i'm not really bothered about sessioning too much music i'm not into because i'm into music that's not around now like 70s soul and jazz whatever but i thought it'd be fun to do some of my own songs in the pub in the evening with my friends because that's so fun and we would like drive to like balaam or something and play like you know the bedford or something like that and then i remember

like it was the myspace days and i remember thinking oh maybe i could just like try being a songwriter you know and i wouldn't have to be at the front because i kind of hate that i still hate it at the time but i could still write songs and be in the studio and all that i sent it to this guy and he was like emailed back was like this sounds quite good have you ever thought of and i said in the email like you know let's get some singers and i see that you're working with singers and have you ever thought of doing these yourself and i was like no but i'll give it a go and he's like come to the studio and we did it and it was a good studio session but when I thought okay maybe let's

try and be a singer or whatever I definitely practiced I definitely had I knew I had like a voice but I wanted to do it

properly so I just used to listen to records like over and over and just copy how they sang and try to learn how to sing through

Marvin Gaye records Otis Wedding records. I'll just play it and just repeat and then learn the chords and just like try and do the inflections that Otis Redding would do and Ray Charles, because they were the singers. So I thought if I'm going to sing, I want to be a good singer. So it took me a while to work up to like a cold little heart.

It was definitely like every day. I mean, I dropped out of uni, so every day I was just at home playing guitar, making music. So I'd wake up and just practice singing, you know. Right. Yeah.

And so you played You Ain't The Problem from the new record. And I saw you saying that it's partly inspired by your tendency to compare yourself to others. Yeah. It probably comes from that. Yeah. Yeah. And I suppose at a certain point driving yourself a bit crazy by doing that yeah and then just saying okay like you ain't the problem is

a license to kind of give yourself a break if you're in that same frame of mind 100 yeah right gets a little boring just like comparing and you described yourself as an overthinker when you were younger yeah are you still an overthinker sometimes not as much what form did it take when you were little what kind of things would you overthink can you remember oh man everything where does that come from do you think i don't know that's a good question because i think maybe it comes from i grew up so i grew up in muswell hill i'm ugandan and muswell hill if you know muswell hill in north london in North London is a really nice area but you know middle class

is mainly just everyone's white apart from maybe one or two other families yeah it's just Ray Davison members of Madness wandering around

yeah exactly it actually is that you see him on an Arsenal game in like some pub you'll be watching in the corner and I had a really

nice upbringing so it wasn't like bad at all so just to preface that with that but subtly there was things like when i go to my friends houses they'll be like really big houses and they'll have like two cars and

they'll have their own room and it sounds so trivial but me and my brother shared a room and we didn't have a car so i mean no one no one cared that we had that and people love coming around to our house because it was probably a bit different to them but in my head it was like why are we so different to everyone else right okay and then we would be like my mom and dad are speaking like at home in their language which is luganda and i'd be like they're the only people that have like two languages this weird african language with everyone you know so i like we stuck out like sore thumbs man and no one was ever cruel to us or that was as actually like people liked it but i don't know i had this weird thing of wanting to fit in so much and because of that i used to

really keep quiet on things and not say everything so i just think all the time about how to get in to the mix without anyone saying too much and being able to meld into the crowd and i think maybe that kind of got me to just start sitting there thinking all the time because I was always feeling like, oh, you know, where do I belong? And the same thing that you do when you get to a teenager and that kind of thing. I feel like when you're in the middle of so many different things, at the same time, our heritage, we were like, me and my brother were seen as British. So we were kind of in no man's land, which actually is great for the creative spirit. It's actually a good thing

but at the time it was like oh you know when we go to uganda we're like these british people and we're in england we're ugandan like what the hell it used to really piss me off you know i used to just want to fit in and i got a bit melancholy about it so i just sit and think about it you know think about what would life be like and that probably that's probably one of the reasons why i got so thoughtful and melancholic right okay yeah i think anyway i don't know who knows yeah i mean it must be weird but i think that's a natural impulse isn't it just to want to fit in and just to yeah to not want to stand out really it's uh that's totally yeah i guess community in one sense you know because

it's like now it's a different time so like, like, we're beginning to embrace, you know, oddballs. Yeah. Which is cool. And being different is, like, cool now. Or woke is what people say, which annoys me. Because I've been woke since I was 12. Yeah. But, you know, you would be, like, you kind of watch TV and just be desperate to look for someone that, like, looked like you to give you almost a permission to continue being yourself.

Well, that's what I did anyway. I don't know if that's what other people do. But I feel like community is a bit like that. You're kind of all like, yeah, I'll go to this party. Everyone's got their own thing, I suppose. Yeah. I mean, some of those things are more trivial than others, I suppose. For me, it was being short.

Yeah. Yeah. And I was really hung up about it. Yeah. Very sensitive. Yeah. And I liked Adam Ant because I found out from Smash Hits that he was

5 foot 6 quite small, quite diminutive for a pop star even though I was shorter than that at the time now I'm 5 foot 6 and it was, I remember being really happy about it it's a pathetic thing

it's the same it's exact that's exactly what it is for me that's like hearing that it's like thank god you said that because it's like i had this thing with it mine is also trivial but it sounds because it's dressed up in like race and culture it seems more important but it is actually the same mindset because i remember watching they had these like i say this all the time but in school they had these people have these bags and and they'll put all their favorite bands on like yeah man in tippex yeah yeah which was like i was like sick and they'll put like nirvana on there and then it'll get like heavy i never used to be into slipknot and corn but corn and slipknot would be on there and all these bands pennywise all these punk bands

and then they would have hendrix but i didn't know hendrix was so i was like must be another one of these like american punk bands spotty little white guy yeah and then like maybe he looks like kirk cabane and i loved kirk cabane at the time and then there was this bbc documentary and i was like oh i've seen that name it's on all those bags of those all those cool people that hang out with those bags mum would never let me tip x my bag but i would have done that if i could and then he came on tv and it was like yeah i just like mind-blowing and like and i had like kind of an app picky afro then and like i just started playing electric guitar oh man life was complete and it was like i can do it it was

almost like it gave me that exactly the same way with adam and it was like it's weird but for some reason we kind of need that i don't know why it is weird yeah no i always remember that when people talk about that you know you got to see it to be it or whatever yeah and and the value of being mindful of that kind of diversity there is something very valuable in it so have you been in bands no god i wish oh man i've told this story on this podcast before but my only gig with a band was at school in the music room and our friend chris loved talking heads got me into talking heads and he said why don't you come and do vocals on a cover of Cross-Eyed and Painless by Talking Heads. But I got so nervous because I knew all the lads,

the hard lads from school were going to turn up and heckle because they thought Talking Heads was weedy boy music. And they liked Bauhaus and XML Deutschland. So I got so panicky that I got hammered. Absolutely arsehole. Me and my friend. And then went and did the gig and sure enough the lads turned up and were standing in the back heckling in some vague way

and i completely bottled it and we just walked out halfway through the song the gig i'll have you yeah yeah leaving our friend chris just looking at us going, mate, what are you doing? What did you say? I can't remember. It's in my top ten shameful memories. Good story, though. It's awful. It's one of those things that makes me squirm.

I mean, most of the things I can't even talk about because I'm ashamed of that that I just described, but most of the things I'm too ashamed to even mention. Although I will tell you another one that i thought of yesterday when we're talking about you've got to give me a shameful memory i will all right we got there definitely um we had some builders doing some work years ago when we used to live in south london me and my wife and my wife and i had a few uh star wars toys like i always collected star wars toys when i was little and one of the builders a young guy said oh you like star wars yeah okay yeah i've got i've got one of those uh you know dogs one of the big metal dogs i said you mean like an at-at so yeah yeah one of them yeah the big dogs uh you can have it if you want uh so it's

just you know it's crap really i don't really use it but if you like star wars stuff you know just give me a few quid and you can have it so yeah great so i paid him probably more than it was worth but i thought it was fun and i cleaned it up spent an afternoon yeah making it look really nice stuck it on my shelf in the kitchen. And then the next time he came round, he said, oh, is that the dog? And I said, yeah, yeah. He said, it looks really good, doesn't it?

I was like, yeah, yeah, I cleaned it up. He's like, oh, right. Oh, I feel, oh, I'm sad that, I feel a bit of an idiot for giving it you now. Because a friend of mine's just had a baby and actually they'd really like that he'd love that well would you do you reckon you might be able to give us it back i'll give you the money back and i said no oh my god that's so good that is so good and i just thought because i'd spent so long cleaning

it up i was like i don't know what came over me but i just thought no you're not gonna no i'm not gonna give it back you're giving it too late it's too late i don't know what reminded me of it yesterday but i thought of it and it just froze me in my tracks you know those memories yeah yeah turn your bones to glass i know i and i just felt so ashamed, and I thought, why did I do that? Give him the dog back. Oh, my gosh. I mean, yeah, I've got hundreds of them. It's like, you're right, it's embarrassing.

I remember, like, in school, I mean, I've got loads of stupid ones. Like, in school school we would be I'm not going to use real names but we would be like we used to all go skating we would go skateboarding this is like horrible actually quaking

my feet saying this now we would go I mean the guy is so cool now it's like he's way cooler than me but anyway we would go skateboarding on Saturdays

and back then it was like two pounds travel card so you could just skate all day not eat but you could skate all day on the south bank and like you go to like a skate park in the morning it was an 8 a.m session to 12 in westbourne park called playstation i was a rubbish skateboarder but i liked the scene i mean i was like such a wimp i wouldn't try anything but i just kind of sit there and then we would all like seven of us would be like at 12 we would like jump on the tube and then go to south bank and skate the whole day and there was kind of like a new recruit to the group of us skaters and they're like oh yeah you know he's you know this new guy he's joining us he's really cool you know and then we're like yeah okay and then yeah

you can come with us you can join in and we see him in school and it was like he was really excited to be in this new group of friends so he was like trying really hard we're like hey guys you know when are we next gonna go for a skate and it'll be like oh man it's like calm down like we're gonna go we always go yeah like chill and one time time, one Saturday, we'd go and we'd finish in the morning and then we'd all jump onto the tube. But it would be, like, busy and there'd be, like, seven, ten of us. So we'd be like, quick, let's jump on the tube. And someone, luckily it wasn't me, but I agreed to it,

had decided, hey, why don't we just, like, get to the top of the tube station and then just wait at the gate and then suddenly make like a run for it and leave this new guy behind and just jump on the train and then he'll get lost in the tube and we'll get in and we won't wait for him and the doors will shut

and we really did that at the top. I think we did it on the platform where we just timed it where we knew that the doors were going to shut quickly so we were like, isn't our train? And then seconds before the doors shut

we'd run on and he'd be like, hey, so we did it. We ran on the train and it worked. He got left on the platform and we were like, oh, like oh we left him out look at you you're on the platform and we got there carried on skating and then 15 minutes later or something like that he found us you know at a different skate spot and was just the same as it would be like hey guys i must have just lost you um on the train i'm really really sorry about that what happened but anyway I found you

but yeah you must have just forgot that I was there or just so innocent and kind just thinking not even accusing us of thinking that oh man you guys left us

you wouldn't deliberately jump on that you just obviously forgot that I was there and we were like oh he's back and then sometimes I wake up

I remember that and think what idiot we were such idiots just to be like that horrible someone to be like we should leave you in the center of london on your own because you're just a little bit annoying you're not even annoying you're just really nice and like really really yeah friendly uh when i think about that i just think that's basically bullying and i that's such

a horrible thing to do that's the story that i definitely like when i remember it i'm like oh yeah yeah yeah many yeah one of the many i've got loads it's a weird thing in the modern world i feel that in so many ways people are becoming more sensitive and kinder and more thoughtful about so many things yeah but actually things seem to have hardened a little when it comes to forgiveness yeah do you know what I mean? And that part of the reason it's difficult to exchange these kinds of stories is that you do feel for some people that's who you are. If you behaved badly at some point earlier in your life, your card is marked and you will forever be that person. If you had that potential to be so unkind or thoughtless or cruel yeah then fuck you yeah man that's you you're cancelled but yeah i think if people knew half the stuff i've done

it's also like a funny story like you know like cruel games you can play you know like and this happened to me so and i hated it but then i went on did it somewhere else where it's a fake game and you just pretend you make these two teams and one person in the room doesn't know the game everyone else does so you're like should we play a game? let's play a game we're going to think

of a story and we're going to say it but you go outside and when you come back in you have to try and work out what the story's about by just asking questions it's called the yes no game and then you go outside and you're like okay cool so I just have to try and work out what the story's about by just asking questions. It's called the yes-no game. And then you go outside and you're like, okay, cool, so I just have to just ask those questions and through these yes or no's, I can decipher what they're doing.

So they'll come back in and be like, so is it about a film? No. Is it about cinema? Yes. And then you keep going like that and yes, no, and you basically get led around. And basically, all it is to the game

is that the people that are saying yes or no, it ends the word ends in a vowel right i remember that yeah and if the word ends in and you just basically a game to make someone feel so stupid i think i i used to drive me fucking crazy yeah you come you're like you're probably like i don't know freshers week or like you're meeting some new people you're like man i'm making a pressure i remember i was doing mine and I was the fool and I was like oh I'm doing well I'm doing well

and then and then someone goes someone says he's a good friend of mine in repression he was like oh Mike you're so good at this game

I'm like maybe it's my songwriting I just got an idea for stories and getting so into it and then half an hour in it's like

mate there's no there's no story it's just you're just they just start laughing at me I was like what and you're like it's so cool luckily we laughing at me. I was like, what? And you're like, it's so cool.

Luckily, we're good friends, though, it was like in jest. But like, it's funny. You can do it to the wrong person, you can be pretty cruel. But yeah, I'm the kind of person I probably would have flown off the handle. I'm one of those guys that would lash out if they felt cornered. Yeah, man. I mean, you feel a bit humiliated and then you just explode. Of course. Yeah. Yeah, man. You feel a bit humiliated and then you just explode. Of course, yeah.

Yeah, man. Do you spend a lot of time on interaction, social media, self-promotion, that kind of thing, being visible? I'm getting better. I used to hate it and I used to not do it at all and now I've embraced it a bit more just because there's a couple of experiences I've had where it's been really exciting for it.

I remember we were in Australia. We were supporting Muffin Sons this year and they were playing these massive arenas and those kind of gigs are like arenas I mean

they're not I don't know if you've been to many arena gigs I saw Bowie in Wembley Stadium I mean that's a good gig yeah I mean that's back in the day

maybe that doesn't count arena gigs can be incredible but often they're like a bit just well if you're behind the scenes of them actually and you're not the main act, they're just like pretty boring.

Because people are definitely not there to see you and you can hear it even more. Right. I guess people are still coming in and getting their seats. And right. Yeah. And an arena is like if you've got to that stage, that's like the quintessential. Half of it is the fair weather fan. So you're going to get people that are there for two songs. You get that big. So you've going to get people that are there for two songs. Right. Even when you get that big. So you've got some random guy playing these jazz chords. It's like before. Yeah.

You're like, what the hell? So, you know, you're not getting anything back. And you play for like 40 minutes and then you're like in the middle of nowhere because arenas always have to be out of town. But we also had loads of days off because they're big bands and they can have loads of days off. So I decided, like, let's do a gig in like a pub somewhere in Melbourne

we were in Melbourne for like four days so let's just put one on and we can just put it on Instagram and like tell people and maybe people will come and it was like

don't know if you ever threw any house parties growing up if you had your own I didn't but it felt like that thing of like your third house party

or it's your birthday but you're scared no one will come you know you've told everyone but people are like yeah I'm not going to go to your party i've got other things to do so it was like sitting there sound checking like biting your nails and went upstairs had a beer

and went back downstairs and it was packed it's a little pub small pub way smaller than this maybe 100 people 150 max and it was so much fun really raw sweaty pub gig and we've we put it out on instagram like maybe four hours before the gig and i was like that's so fun and it was you couldn't have done that before so there's so many sides of it that i love and there's so many sides of it that i hate so i kind of have been trying to embrace it more and finding my own voice in it so i'm a bit better now i'm definitely not like always on there i'm not that that good at it but yeah yeah to embrace it yeah it would be bad don't you think to be so famous that you that kind of thing was really not practical anymore yeah that'd be pretty that'd be pretty lame although it would be pretty

cool to be i always read those stories and like biographies of like yeah like the cops had to shut it down i would love to have my gig shut down by like the police that would be like the coolest thing like yeah man it got shut down it was great i always wanted to be able to say that hasn't happened yet yeah there was there's a famous one about radiohead doing that 93 east finally they had to like oh yeah move venues just got so busy i want a story like that oh yeah surely you're at that point i mean you could do that in london surely couldn't you maybe i should try that let's go downstairs yeah do you want to play go out in leicester square sure What would I do I've got some maracas We could do Tell Me Why

Okay Yeah yeah yeah Are there harmonies On Tell Me Why Yeah I think there are Speaking of which Oh music Would you do another song

Yeah Are you up for that I am Well I think I'll play Another new song Yeah I'll play a song Called Light

That's one of my favourites Yeah it's one of mine it's the last track i always liked last tracks of albums yeah or like track eight i've always liked that and then it reminds me of like you know like picking the acoustic guitar like you know we're talking about all that folk music and neil young and laurel canyon and stuff such a big part of me but i feel like i haven't really done that for a while so doing this one and makes me feel quite happy that i managed to squeeze a song like this onto the record but this is this is called Light. Okay.

We're miles apart But safe from dreams You're running from The young and dumb Will always need One of their own To lead Shine your light over me

all of my fears are gone and it don't bother me now if it's not meant to be Now if it's not meant to be Too far to run Fall on your knees To find a love Your light for me

My only sun You'll always shine for me shine your light over me all of my fears are gone and it don't bother me

now if it's not meant to be Shine your light over me All of my fears are gone And it don't bother me now if it's not meant to be I had to lose to understand Strung out from all these Pour out a thousand tears I never knew the kind of man Even if we are miles apart

Even if we are miles apart Even if we are miles apart Even if we are lost upon That's great, man. Thank you. I love it. Thank you. Ah, it's so good. Wait, this is an advert for Squarespace.

Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics, and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial.

And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code BUXTON to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Hey, welcome back, podcats. That was Michael Kiwanuka. Very grateful to him for making the time to sit down and talk with me. But yeah, I hope you enjoyed that. I thought those songs were lovely. And it was cool to watch him play them.

Thanks, Michael. Rosie. She's sniffing about. She's on the trail of something or other. What are you on the trail of? Don't know. I just sniff some things. I go after them.

You never know what it might be. Might be a squirrel. Could be a rabbit. Could be a small deer. could just be someone else's poo but i'll go after it and i'll sniff it out because that's my job see ya all right you have a good time now an apology towards the beginning of podcast number 107, Guz Khan asked me to name my two best friends, or my mandem. I named Garth Jennings and Danny Richards. The question took me by surprise.

I haven't been asked who my best friends are since, I don't know, school. So I named the close friends that I've seen most regularly for the last few years. However, many people were upset that I didn't include Louis Theroux and especially Joe Cornballs Cornish. They said they felt betrayed and that they now believed the whole foundation of my partnership with Joe Cornish to be a tawdry tissue of showbiz lies. To be clear, Joe and Louis have always been, and I hope will continue to be,

two of my very bestest friends, though their busy successful lives mean we don't see each other as much as I'd like. I want to apologize to Joe, Louis, and anyone who was offended by my comments. I deeply regret any pain my stupid fucking words may have caused. And I'd also like to apologize to Garth Jennings and Danny Richards if they now feel that this apology has in some way compromised our bestie bestie friend status. I hope that we can now draw a line under best friend gate and that we can all move on. I'm not even going to get into Zuboff chicken salad gate. Whew! Boy, that was kind of weird. It's the Aziz Ansari awkward segue.

Okay, recommendation for you now. Another podcast that I was in, and it's called On the Marie Curie Couch, as in Marie Curie, the charity that helps give care and support to people living with terminal illness. They were one of the organizations that helped when my dad was ill. And on the Marie Curie couch is a, and I'm quoting now from the thing they sent me, a new thought-provoking podcast opening up conversations about death and dying. It aims to tackle these taboo topics and find out how grief and bereavement shape the way we live our lives. It's part of a big campaign that the people at Marie Curie have created to get people talking about death and dying, something that many of us struggle with, for obvious reasons, I would say. In the podcast, Marie Curie expert Jason Davidson

chats to a host of well-known guests about their experiences and how they feel about their own mortality. It's available from the 12th of November via Acast, iTunes and all the usual podcast outlets. I chatted to Jason and that episode will be available on the 12th of November of this year, 2019. Other episodes in the series will feature actor Alison Stedman,

broadcaster and novelist Janet Ellis, BBC radio DJ Janice Long, political journalist Owen Jones, actor Greg Wise, Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, and more. I love and more. My conversation with Jason covered similar ground to the conversation I had with Cariad Lloyd on her grief cast back in 2016. So she was one of the first people to base an entire podcast on the subject of death and grieving and do it in an entertaining, interesting way. Cariad, as far as I'm aware, talks exclusively to comedians, more or less. this Marie Curie podcast casts its net a bit wider and of course Jason

the host is not himself a comedian but a social worker and a good listener and sort of counselor in that way so yeah I talked about my dad looking after my dad And I guess it's a lot of things that, well, it's a subject that regular listeners will know. I return to quite a bit and continues to preoccupy me one way or another. Wow, I wish you could see this sunset. It has gone well. It's getting a bit tacky, to be honest with you, because it's so incredibly colorful. It looks like some design sprayed on the side of a 70s combi van with some surfers inside of it. But it's beautiful um anyway yeah so the podcast i talk about my dad and i talk about you know my own feelings about what the end will be like hopefully i don't think it was too depressing um anyway you might find it interesting or helpful, I hope, and perhaps it will encourage

you to support the Marie Curie charity. So there we go. I can stand down my sincere voice now. All right. Thanks very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his production support on this episode. Thanks, Seamus. Much appreciated. And thanks to Matt Lamont as well for his editing on the conversation. Cheers, Matt. And all the folks at Ronnie Scott's hope I can go back and record something there another time. They made us feel very welcome and I appreciate it. Thanks to ACAST for hosting this and so many other great, great podcasts that it's mad. Hey, look, thanks for listening. You are the hardcore. You listened right to the end. Back next week for more W waffle with an interesting person. Until then, go carefully and bear in mind, I love you. Bye! Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe.

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