Lost And Sound

Devendra Banhart

• Paul Hanford • Episode 182

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Somehow, Devendra Banhart’s landmark album Cripple Crow is 20 years old. An album that somehow joined an ancient American spirit of song with a just-around-the-corner iPhone generation. So when he joined me on Lost and Sound, I presumed this would be our focus. But instead, right from the beginning, the conversation veered into completely unexpected territory.

Banhart, who first rose to prominence in the early 2000s as a leading figure in the freak-folk movement and has since evolved into a multidisciplinary artist, opens up about the intimate relationship between creativity and humility. “You cannot show up at the gates with arrogance, with hubris, with ego,” he explains, describing his approach to making art.

We dive into what makes music emotionally resonant, with Banhart outlining his theory that great songs must speak to “the body, the heart, and the mind.” This somehow connects to asking, “Where’s Macarena now?”, and to crying over the mournful qualities of Van McCoy’s disco classic The Hustle.

Way more a conversation than an interview, and that’s a good thing. Throughout, Banhart demonstrates a remarkable wariness of certainty, describing it as “the most frightening attribute of a human being.” It’s a philosophical stance that informs not just his music but his entire worldview on the day we spoke, suggesting that the best art emerges from questioning rather than knowing.

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Listen to Devendra Banhart’s music on Bandcamp
https://devendrabanhart.bandcamp.com/album/flying-wig

Preorder Cripple Crow (20th Anniversary Reissue) here.https://devendrabanhart.com/

Follow Devendra Banhart on Instagram:
📸 @devendrabanhart

\https://www.instagram.com/devendrabanhart/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.

Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

Want to go deeper? Grab a copy of my book Coming To Berlin, a journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.

And if you’re curious about Cold War-era subversion, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC World Service.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.


Speaker 1:

So what unites Macarena with Moon Safari? On the surface, you might not guess that this has anything whatsoever to do with my guest on the show today, but that's just one of the many surprises you're about to hear, where I'm joined by the one and only Devendra Banhart. Hi, paul, here, and welcome to Lost in Sound, the show that goes deep with artists shaping music and culture from the underground up. But before we get going, lost in sound is sponsored by audio technica. Over 60 years old and still a family-run company. They make headphones, microphones, turntables and cartridges. Their gear is studio grade, affordable and built on the belief that great sound should be for everyone. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to audio technicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. Okay, so it's late summer in berlin, I'm, I'm sat um outside my studio, uh, by by, by a little bit of pavement, and, yeah, this is the show. Thank you, hello, and welcome to episode 182 of Lost in Sound.

Speaker 1:

I'm Paul Hamford, I'm your host, I'm an author, a broadcaster and a lecturer, and each week on the podcast, I have conversations with artists who work outside the box about music, creativity and how they're navigating life through their art. So, whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's good to have you along. So, yeah, sometimes I think I do this podcast because I find it exciting to speak with artists that make music. That I think is really cool. But sometimes I get reminded that, beyond that, it's about when I'm talking with these artists and something happens which touches on something that to me is deep and kind of intangible about their life as an artist, and often it's something that isn't too prescriptive or academically framed or even journalistic. It's something that isn't too prescriptive or academically framed or even journalistic. It's often something that just kind of oozes out through the conversation and it's like I get a brief glimpse into what art means for them as a person who is living and breathing and practices it and makes music their life, and that might in some ways sound like a quite an obvious thing to say. I mean, obviously that's what this format is for, in a way, but I love it when it happens, and this conversation you're about to hear is definitely one of those. Like, I didn't even get all that many questions in there and what happens, what you're about to hear, really kind of goes off the map in a way that I really love.

Speaker 1:

My guest is Devendra Banhart. You know him. I'm sure some of you are listening right now, maybe for the first time, to the show because you're into his work. So if that's you, hello and welcome. So yeah, devendra.

Speaker 1:

Over the past two decades Devendra Banhart has carved out a body of work that has been at times both zeitgeist and willfully idiosyncratic. I mean, there was a point in the mid to late noughties where I think what he was doing, along with perhaps Joanna Newsom as well, redirected the musical epoch, or a very major musical epoch, where the music they were making, which at the time got labeled as freak folk, seemed to resurrect a very particular late 60s, early 70s californian thing maybe, maybe actually going way beyond that, maybe resurrecting something older, something more inherent out of the tapestry of North and South American history, and they managed to feed into their music at a time where we were all just getting our first iPhones. Since then, his music has become more lush and expansive. There's a real Eno-esque quality to his most recent album, flying Wig, example. He's also established himself as an accomplished visual artist and writer and seems to these days move fluidly between different forms of expression. So in our conversation and this is going back to what I was saying just now.

Speaker 1:

This is barely an interview. Something's just sort of happened and it became a two-way conversation. I mean, we didn't even end up touching at all on the reason why we were having this conversation in the first place, which is to mark the 20th anniversary edition of his massively game-changing album, crippled Crow. Instead, what happened? Well, you're about to hear it, and I loved it. The conversation happened on Friday, the 15th of August 2025, and I should say there's a bit of a recording quality issue here.

Speaker 1:

This was definitely not Devendra's fault. This was my fault, and if you listen to last week's conversation with Mabee Frati, you'll know that I had a technical meltdown for a week where my laptop died, my cat tube went, headphones, all sorts of things like that, and in the space of that week, I did four conversations for Lost and Sound. So a couple of friends stepped in and tried to help clean up some of the digital zoominess that happened for me, kind of cobbling together the interviews out of what what equipment that I had spare. So I was using my ipod directly, using the mic in, and, and, despite best attempts and in a very, very limited time, um, some improvements were definitely, definitely, definitely made. So, thank you to, to these friends.

Speaker 1:

You know who you are for helping out there and devandra comes through great, I think, in it. I come through a bit shit, you go. Anyway, if you like the show and you haven't already, please do give it a subscribe, give the show a rating and a review on the platform of your choice. It all really, really, really helps. And so, yeah, we had this conversation on the 15th of August 2025. I really love this one. I think you're in for some huge surprises. Actually, here's my conversation with Devendra Banhart. Hey, devendra, how are you doing today? Doing okay, how are you? Yeah, good, thank you, good, thank you. Whereabouts are?

Speaker 2:

you, I'm in Los Angeles. I'm in Echo Park, los Angeles, like as a just a little of a neighborhood in Mexico, a neighborhood a little bit out the ways from Mexico City, but it feels like that here.

Speaker 1:

Is that where you usually live in Mexico City?

Speaker 2:

No, no, it's just this. Used to be Mexico. That's my dumb joke about California.

Speaker 1:

But I live normally here and I'm a California girl all the way pretty much. I just showed my dumb joke about my lack of knowledge about the way the US states have been controlled.

Speaker 2:

I think it's that I'm not. Funny is what it is. Yeah, I think having the amount of times I have to explain my own jokes, that's how I know At least I have no delusions of humor. But are you in Berlin? I?

Speaker 1:

am in Berlin. Yeah, I'll just show you out the window. You could probably see a little bit of probably some tenement buildings, if the light isn't too against the bird. Do you have experiences of the city? Do you have fond experiences of Berlin?

Speaker 2:

I don't know about font, but certainly experiences. Just kidding. Berlin's amazing. Been there many times and I love it. It's pretty opiate and it's kind of built for people, which is I can't say the same for this city right, yeah, yeah, that's.

Speaker 1:

That's the thing that I always hear. I have friends in um la and I think the big conversation is always about like you're, you're getting the nature, but you have to drive everywhere exactly, but it's nice for me because I don't really like leaving the house too much.

Speaker 2:

I'm thinking of getting rid of my car actually, and seeing what it's like to live in la for a year without a car. And berlin, you just have a nice bicycle. It it's so nice. You just drive around. I really appreciate how you can drive around Berlin listening to David Bowie and half of his songs are streets in Berlin. It's so fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the actual borough I'm speaking to you right now in is Neukölln, obviously named after one of the tracks from, I think it's on the Lodger. I always get confused as to which of those three albums has which track.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think of Berlin as the Universal Studios of David Bowie. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But I think Bowie had quite a good time in LA too just before that. I don't know if it did his liver any good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. I guess, yeah, this is a city that sells itself from a distance. It looks really good in a montage and it looks really good far away and it's my favorite place to leave because I still buy into that, that, what it sells and how it sells itself. So you know, you say to me gosh, yeah, this is that place. Dav Bowie used to hang out there. Wow, amazing, and everybody hung out here. It's incredible, sure.

Speaker 2:

But when I'm here I'm just kind of I don't know what any of that stuff is. I don't see any of that stuff is and I find it and I really just have complaints about this city. So it feels like and to avoid just being this complaining person, I'd rather just feel like I've never been here. You know, I live here but I've never been here and I'm fortunate because I have a house that I like with a lot of books, and I've got a little home studio where I'm talking to you from and I can just get into my thing. But I only understand the city from a distance. Or when my friend, paul in Berlin, tells me about a place David Boyce hang out at, I go, oh, I should. I've probably been a million times. But you know it only looks good from far away.

Speaker 1:

Well, I've never been to LA but I've lived vicariously through many LA stories, just through cinema really, and the kind of the way it's tinted through like things like noir, I love that I feel exactly the same way, exactly the same way.

Speaker 2:

I accept that you know, and, let's say, with berlin, I've been there through many songs, I've been there through many films and many photographs, of course, but actually having been there, wow, I'm inhabiting this space that inspired all this, this, this art, and I can get a sense of where these things came from. I don't have the experience here, what you just described about everything being here and experiences. I feel exactly the same, like I, I've never been here. I just saw someone I truly think is a genius. She's an artist, comedian, writer, everything really named kate berlant and she just did a stand-up set at a very famous place here, legendary place, called largo. Elliot smith used to play there. Everybody's played there. It's amazing, but and it's a very intimate space and kate berlant did this amazing you know description of la and and how much she actually likes living here and I'm listening, going like, wow, I'd love to go to that place. Where is I need to go? I need to visit this LA.

Speaker 1:

So I still haven't even been here, I mean as someone who I think, particularly through your music, does draw such a like, a rich world around it. You know like I get such a sense of like, of like character and story and atmosphere from your music. Do you feel like the sort of detachment from your actual physical surroundings has been to your advantage creatively?

Speaker 2:

Um, yes and no, yes and no. The environment affects what is written so much and I think and I'm sure you know this, do you how many? Can you tell me a little bit about your kind of musical history and when you started to play music, and was there a piece of music that made you go? This is what I want to do, or you know some musical memories?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, totally so. With me it was like, I mean, I was in a band in by driving around in the countryside smoking weed and listening to Led Zeppelin and Sly and the Family Stone and also rave culture as well. Frost was actually Air Moon Safari, because it was about this idea that you could sit at home and you could make something out of lots of instruments and very lo-fi, but it could sound incredibly out of space really. I guess that was the beginning of my musical journey. That was a long time ago now, though, but that was a very formative experience for me yeah, and what's your relationship with that?

Speaker 2:

how many people were in? Brothers and son?

Speaker 1:

there was three of us, including myself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah and what where did? What is your relationship like now with them?

Speaker 1:

um, it's, I mean one of them. I mean're still one of them. I have not seen for about 15 years and I know that we're still like if I wanted to ring him. No one rings each other anymore, do they? But I know like, for instance, during the pandemic, we reached out to each other, you know, and just sort of shared a few moments. A couple of years ago his father passed away, so you know, I reached out to him, so there's still a closeness there, but it's just not really like active. And the other one is I do see from time to time is a very good friend. You know we live in different cities but we're still, you know, we're still connected and I think the three of us are always going to be connected through the experiences we've had, even though it might be something that I don't think about for periods of time, and then something will come back to it.

Speaker 2:

Is there a little bit of a longing to reconnect musically with them?

Speaker 1:

I have dreams about it.

Speaker 2:

That chapter's closed.

Speaker 1:

Moving on, or maybe both I think it's both really, isn't it? I'm sure I could ask the same for you as well. Like there's never really one way of looking at anything. I don't think for me anyway. Like I have dreams about playing music with them again, but then, in actual reality, I also remember sometimes some of the frustrations that we all had with each other, and then it did actually reach a natural end as well.

Speaker 2:

So is there an episode where with the both of them?

Speaker 1:

no, I should do that, shouldn't I?

Speaker 2:

that could be really interesting I should definitely do that, I think you keep it.

Speaker 2:

Maybe you don't even put it out, maybe it's or, or yeah, or you do. You know, I mean that. Just see what could happen in this space where you aren't it's not like you're not just having a conversation like you would in a coffee shop, and that doesn't sound like it's going to happen anytime soon. This might, because this is so unique, in the same way that a therapist or, you know, your analyst. It's a very unique relationship. It's not your lover. It's not very unique relationship. It's not your lover, it's not your friend, it's not your family member. It's something quite different and that's why you share with them is different. So, yeah, and so maybe the way you communicate and you know, therefore, what emerges from that experience will be surprising that's a really good idea, I mean is it a little frightening?

Speaker 2:

Is the? Is it a little frightening?

Speaker 1:

Um, yeah, do you know what? No, it's, I think it's actually quite. I think it would excite me to do. I don't feel I think if we were going to have a completely honest conversation, like and brought things up, as I'm sure you know you've had experiences of when you collaborate with people and sometimes you know, particularly in your more formative stages, like, like egos get in the way and, um, uh, decisions are made that like aren't perhaps best, best for the art that they're. That's more like self-serving, even if you think they're for the art at the time. Um, I think, things like that.

Speaker 1:

I think if we had a really honest one, there would be scary moments to sort of just hold ground and just be honest through the conversation, but, um, at the same time as that, you know we don't. Then, you know it wasn't like the, the gallagher's getting back together. You know, is this I kind of? I I can't imagine like or like the beatles, having to kind of resolve the whole kind of eastman legal issues. There's, there's, you know, I think, maybe one of the most, one of us like 10 pounds, that's about it 10 pounds for a bottle of cider I still think, yeah, it's worth exploring and seeing what could happen and you can at least talk.

Speaker 2:

You don't have to get into why it ended or the early resentments or any of these things that any of it can but it could also just be just talking about that time and it could be centered on music. Still, I think something unique will come up, is my point. I'm still thinking about you mentioning air and how it always hits the same. It always feels good it. So it's just the time it's such a good song. There you go, you have a good song, and people say, people say you know, a good song is a good song and however you clothe, that song is kind of secondary, because if it's a good song, it'll still, you know, have it's, it'll still not expire or, you know, won't have an expiration date. That's probably true. But an example of that kind of not working is um like. I recently heard this song that was a big hit when I was in high school by the mighty, mighty bostons at the ska, at the fifth eighth ska revival, whatever uh called maybe. I think it's called the impression that I get. That's the one I was thinking of when you said that yeah, that's the big hit, right. And so I just came on and I and it was, wow, this is so painful and tacky and these horns are so awful. But if you listen to that song, imagining that the horns are are synths, it's a fucking hit.

Speaker 2:

It would be a hit today and people go, oh, my god, I love that, that song and and if it it, if it had come out then with synths, it would have been this kind of retro-y song which air did oh, they're, they're doing these retro songs. But it would be this constant hit. It's going to take a long time for taste to develop and people go, oh, these horrible horn sounds are actually playing. A wonderful melody and a really interesting song sung so beautifully. The guy's voice is incredible. Before he hits the chorus, he screams. The scream is so amazing. But the production is so awful and the style is so bad that you don't see what an incredible hit it is. I don't know, but Eir managed to do the opposite and those songs are so wonderful still.

Speaker 1:

That's a really good way of looking at it, like the combination of the songs and the production Becoming time. I think I don't go that far without sitting in a cafe. That doesn't take not too long in time without sitting in a cafe. And you know, like the first song it creeps up in volume very, very slowly. You hear like a little bit of the bongos, then it's that and they're masters. Yeah. I get juddery thinking about it.

Speaker 2:

It's very, very, it's a cozy space, it's a wonderful place to return to and it kind of does what one of the challenges I think of writing songs. You know which is the target. You know, like music, all music is targeted at three areas the body, the heart and the mind. I mean, it's so basic to say, but it's true, like all music is targeting one of those places predominantly, yeah, but a great song is really, of course, targeting all three the body, the heart, the mind. Moon Safari does that. I think it hits home. There's lots to think about, lots to feel, and then lots to Well, I guess the hard thing is, many emotions arise, there's lots to think about, and then your body, your physical being, is also stimulated.

Speaker 1:

I think what you're saying there really reminds me of a conversation I had with Rudy Tambala from ARKane and he was sort of using a similar, almost like, as a sort of graph that he could explain of like I don't think he used like directly body, mind and heart, but he was talking about like frequencies like you could have. You can have distortion, but then you lose something of rhythm. Or you know you can have melody but then you lose something of rhythm. Or you know you can have melody but then you lose something of the, the, the groove, oh yeah, although these combinations, like you can have combinations of like, all of these elements, but if you set them all up to full they cancel each other out. You know there's only certain frequencies and ways of music expressing that will they have to fit like a shape together? Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:

oh, a hundred percent. It's definitely the closest thing for me to to problem solving, because I've never solved any problem else in any other place in my life like I. I only have had problems my whole life and and they've and none have been solved. It's only only, and I haven't even solved the song problems. I think that because I'm a real, I think, example of of a quantity of equality, you know, it's just like I I put out not even half written song, a quarter written songs that I know, not even quarter baked. You know that's that really I should put a sticker on every one of my records quarter baked. You know, maybe it's half baked. If I could get the half baked I'll feel like really proud of myself.

Speaker 2:

But is the problem solving endeavor, like how do I get this, these, this, this structure, this architecture, to all make sense and be a platform for the words and for these lines? And I hate, I hate rhyming poetry. All poetry that rhymes is like I will never, I just that's it, the book's done and it's never, ever, something I'm interested in, but it is something that I have to work with with a song and you know, verse, chorus, formula, that whole thing is. It's still really rich and mysterious to me. And there's a billion endless ways to do it. So there's a million endless ways to do it.

Speaker 2:

So there's a problem solving a puzzle piece kind of element to writing a song. That's the only time that I felt like, okay, this I'm done. I finished a song. I actually solved a problem, kind of it's right, okay, but of course also that's really a collaborative thing. That's the fun. Part is that when it starts to to speak back to you, tell you something, it starts yeah, away, don't, don't. Part is that when it starts to to to speak back to you, tell you something, it starts yeah away don't?

Speaker 2:

don't you experience that when you write?

Speaker 1:

it? Um, yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you're talking about collaborative, you don't just mean collaborating with other people, you mean, like the collaboration with different parts of yourself as well, do you mean?

Speaker 2:

yeah, you kind of work at it. Enough that it's. It starts to point the way as well. Yeah, yeah, I personally I'm looking in every, in every, and I'm looking everywhere, particularly in the wrong places, and then eventually, once the because I'm in a dark room and I've never found the light switch every my whole life, and so I'm just looking around, fumbling around, and then finally something starts to take shape, but it's, it's in the fumbling around and in that effort, because I've never been. This thing about being inspired has always been so alien to me and I've always been not jealous, but wow, it's just in awe of people that have inspiration, I've found that the only thing that is inspiring is doing the thing. So waiting for inspiration has never gotten me anywhere. I'm sorry, that was a long harangue.

Speaker 1:

No, that's really good.

Speaker 2:

I do mean collaborating with the work that you're doing, not so much with other people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love what you're saying about that and like, uh, particularly the sort of image of like being in a dark room, like what would it feel like to you if someone came in and turned light? Switch on at the moment that you're just trying to figure it out yourself great question.

Speaker 2:

I love that question. It's so fun to ask a question based on a metaphor, so I would, of course, I think the obvious answer is tell them to turn the light back off. Yeah, yeah, you are. Yeah, do not turn the light on. Please don't turn the light on. I'm not looking for the light switch, I'm looking to be guided. And then another way of looking at it would be maybe you're approaching a place. You're approaching a place called a song, whatever it is. You're approaching this place, but you cannot show up at the gates of this place with arrogance, with the hubris, with ego. You cannot show up puffed up, with a puffed up chest. You can show up dressed well, you can show up with a nice pose, with your back straight, with a nice posture, but you have to be pretty, pretty dumbfounded and pretty odd. You have to. You can. Your jaw can be like relaxed, you could be kind of like like that. That's how you have to show up. You cannot show up with don't you know who I am?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I'll never, ever let you in have you ever had a period in your life where you've? Is that something like you're speaking now? Is it something that you've learned through experience or the hard way to be like that? Or is that something you've always had an inherent understanding of?

Speaker 2:

I, I don't know. I don't know. I think that's probably come, something that's been, you know, over time that's probably emerged. I actually for sure. What am I talking about? I don't know. I know that. I know it because I showed up with that attitude and nothing's come. I know it because I know that didn't work. That doesn't work. It.

Speaker 2:

It requires humility, it requires getting, you know, the getting out of the wayness, and what is the thing that gets in the way is the ego. And and the irony, of course, is that you're trying to reach a heart, a head and a body, hopefully all three. And for you, you know, the head really does get in the way, and I use head, same thing as ego really does get in the way, and I use head, same thing as ego. But then, of course, then we're getting to like we have to be very specific about our language, because mind could also be a word for soul or for heart too, but that's in a different context. But here we're saying, you know, ego gets in the way. And so you're asking me if I've always known that. Of course, not 100. That's something I've learned.

Speaker 2:

I don't think this is factual of, of course, because I'm terrified of facts, and I find the most frightening attribute of a human being to be certainty. So I have terrified of people that are certain this is exactly how it must be. It's fucking. Nothing makes me want to run away faster of certain people that are certain this is exactly how it is, how it must be. All that. It's fucking nothing makes me want to run away faster. So this is at least my experience, but it's I don't know if it's exactly how it is. You know, I have a buddhist teacher and um, he lives in the north of india and I went to visit and he said you Western people are obsessed, are addicted to your concept of reality. Not obsessed, you're addicted to your concept of reality. So it's like, oh yeah, that was a reminder of this. There are so-called facts and certainty or something that I'm weary of in myself. So, yeah, my experience is that, but I don't know if it's the truth.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think um facts and um, I think we've become much more of a fact-based society just through, like smartphones, and just through, uh, having technology right by us that can you know, like tell us the directions to go somewhere you know, can tell us those are wonderful.

Speaker 2:

I mean I wouldn't get. I wouldn't know how to. I've driven to the. I wouldn't even know how to get to the gas station that I can walk to from my house without you know the facts. Those kinds of facts, but I mean kind of the way someone should make art, kind of opinion, that, or how somebody should live. Basically, like you know the the. The biggest thing that should be drilled to all human beings at all times is you don't know what the other person is going through. At all times you have no idea what anyone else has been through. So the source of suffering is taking things personally, and if you can just keep in mind that you don't know what someone else has been through, then that leads to not taking things personally, and then that's something that is completely, uh, created by some sense of certainty or believing that someone else should live a certain way that you think they should live.

Speaker 1:

I'm talking about those kinds of right, I see what you mean not not like helpful facts, but um just have, yeah, dogma, yeah yeah, yeah and we live very much in dogma based times. You know, we have you good politics. They can still have very, very sort of attached certainty to their belief and it creates more divides, I think.

Speaker 2:

Couldn't agree with. I agree with you. I disagree. Let me tell you why.

Speaker 1:

I disagree. No, you cannot disagree. This is why you're wrong.

Speaker 2:

I actually think. I mean it's fun, because it's fun. Disagreeing is more fun and it's more entertaining, and being right is so seductive, so fun, so it's like a game. Everyone wants to win a game. It feels so good to be told you're number one and get a prize, so it's understandable. Number one and get a prize, so it's understandable. But that's such a source of Hell is thinking the world should be the way that it isn't. Hell is thinking that you know best and you know what other people need or want or what's best for them or better for them, or that only you understand. These are hell, hell realms, but here's the catch. Here's the catch, though, but I am actually the only one that knows. I'm the actual only one that. Hey, you know I'm saying this about everyone else, but no one didn't know me secretly and how it's supposed to be. That's also the thing. Okay, back to music. Can you tell me?

Speaker 2:

I have a question that I ask everyone, everyone, and it's a question. I'm ongoing, it's an ongoing question, so I ask friends that I've asked this question a hundred times too, and I'm fortunate because I have some real, real record collecting friends, because I have some real record collecting friends Zach Cowie, kevin Barker and Andy Kavik are the first people that come to mind who are constantly listening to music, so they're somebody that I've asked thousands of times this question, but we're just meeting for the first time, so I'll ask you this Can you tell me the song that you remember having made you cry the most? Or and the song that you just know that always makes you cry? So an experience you had with a piece of music that you couldn't believe how much you wept, and then one that, if it comes on in public, you kind of go like I got to get out of here. Or can we skip that that? Do you have an answer for that?

Speaker 1:

this is such a good question and, um, I'm really happy that this is the first time I've been asked this actually, um, because I feel like this is something that's come up when I've, when I've heard these pieces of music. Um, I, I've got two for you, um, the first one is probably quite an obvious one and that's, in my Life, by the Beatles.

Speaker 2:

Are they like a new, like a TikTok band or something?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think they're sort of you've heard Oasis.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I've heard Oasis.

Speaker 1:

You've heard Oasis right, they're sort of influenced by Oasis.

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 1:

I heard this Beatles band and I was like they're just ripping off Oasis, what the fuck? Yeah, totally, I wouldn't be surprised if they get back together next summer and do okay, so, so so in my life, yeah, of course, in my life, yeah of course you too I think that was my first like I oh my gosh music is so emotional.

Speaker 1:

I remember that you know it is, it is and I think that was I. I connect that with like um, like an early breakup, like not not a serious breakup, but like the end of a fling.

Speaker 2:

Yeah but it's more serious there than ever. That's what.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, because it was.

Speaker 2:

It was no, that it wasn't serious at the time. At the time it's the end of the world and you hear in my life you're like oh yeah I'll have another cigarette on the couch and stay on the couch today.

Speaker 1:

And the second one is is very similar like reasons, but it's um. Oh shit, what's the name of the song? Um? Do the hustle, do the hustle. Oh, oh, my god. Great, because it's so melancholic. One of the best answers.

Speaker 2:

I love that you're saying this. Oh my gosh Wow.

Speaker 1:

Okay, because it sounds like looking back on something that doesn't exist anymore. You know it's got that. To me it sounds like you're looking back on it could be a relationship. It sounds like you're looking back on it could be a relationship it sounds like and you're looking back on how beautiful or happy it was, but it's got that slight minor note thing and it sounds like now it's like you're looking back on something that once worked.

Speaker 2:

yes, two sides of the same coin yeah this idea of, of, of a sentimentality, of a looking back, of a nostalgia, of a remembrance of things past in my life. Is it called in my life or just my in my life? Is it in?

Speaker 2:

my life, yeah, yeah in my life, like it's so explicit and it's like here we are remembering, you know these places and literally it's like telling you it's. It's like here we are remembering you know these places and literally it's like telling you it's. It's about remembering the past, but to it's such a musical perspective on your end, to to to on the other end of the coin site, do the hus or the hustle, do the hustle as another song. That is, this remembrance of things past and the bittersweetness of of of something that will never return. It's such a musical choice because that song, the only lyrics in that song, are do it, do the hustle, that's it, there's no like back back in the day or like where'd you go?

Speaker 2:

Nothing, it is just do it, do the hustle which is free, there it is. Hey, do it now. I mean, it's a pretty present moment, you know, it's pretty present tense. Hey, do it. It's a command, let's do it right now. It's just full of action and full of presence. Do it, do it now, do the now, do the hustle. But it fills you with this kind of nostalgia. I love that. I love that that can do that.

Speaker 2:

I actually finished something that I was trying to do, something like that, yesterday, and today, after we speak, I'm going to do the vocals for this song. That's basically the's, basically the macarena, the shadow side of macarena, or the macarena year. Now, after years, after years, where, where is? Where is she now?

Speaker 1:

where is she now? That's brilliant. So you're filling in your, your, your. What. What do you reckon is the uh um? Do you know before? Do you know what she's been doing for this amount of time? Or is the song going to kind of tell you that?

Speaker 2:

Well, the song is going to hint. And because it isn't from her perspective, it's still written from the perspective of these people that wrote the song. And so if you look at the lyrics of the Macarena, it's basically use your body, because that's what your body is for, it's for dancing. Hey, hey, macarena, use your body. Macarena has a boyfriend whose last name is Victorino. He got into some trouble once. He's a nut, he's something like that, he's a bit of a scamp. And hey, use your body, use your body, give it some joy. It's made for that. Dance, macarena.

Speaker 2:

We saw her once in front of this mall, macarena, and she always talked about moving to New York, something like that. But pretty much that's it. And it's based on this Venezuelan woman named Magdalena who the people that wrote that song saw at a party, and then they named it Macarena after one of the people. The person in that band's Los del Rio. What do they call it? I think Los del Rio, their daughter, macarena. But it's based on a Venezuelan woman named Magdalena. It's written as if I'm in Los del Rio.

Speaker 2:

It's been many decades and I'm just wondering. I'm actually it's very, how many decades? And I'm just wondering, like I'm actually, it's very unrequited and I and and I fell in love with magdalena. Then I've kind of been hoping I'm running them again and, um, I wonder if, because we had a quick comment in my yeah, at least what the lyrics are saying of the actual macarena mega head. What the lyrics are saying is at this party I saw you dancing, you're amazing, and we had a little conversation. You've got a boyfriend, so okay, edit, last name is verino and you want to move to new york someday. This is all the information I have, and so now it's now it's the song based on me reflecting on that, did you ever make it to new york? Etc. So I'm, that's what I'm going to track today, but maybe I should skip it and just do a new do the hustle. What is? What is the new?

Speaker 1:

do the hustle stop maybe, maybe, maybe, that, maybe, that's it.

Speaker 2:

Get out of the rat race, don't hustle, no more hustling do the hustle?

Speaker 1:

yeah, that is. Yeah, it is. Maybe, maybe it's a reflection back on when the hustling felt good, I don't know, um, it's something that just doesn't work now, but but I love what you're saying. But I think what you're saying sounds like a very similar thing. You know this version of Macarena, like updating it, that sense of loss, that sense of loss for something beautiful. But I had no idea that there was a Venezuelan history to Macarena, neither did I, neither did I.

Speaker 2:

It was all born from a record that I'm working on right now. I've kind of been working on my own my whole career and really resisted actually working too much with other songwriters because it's scary, because I was just scared of it. It seemed awkward and it's such an awkward experience writing a song. You're sitting around there going like so many things don't work and to expose that to somebody else sounds terrible. I have a few people like Andy Kabig from Vetiver that since we were kids we were doing that together. So it feels very comfortable the idea of getting a room with another songwriter. I'm just not courageous enough to do that, so I've avoided it and and no and. But somehow, naturally, over time that's kind of changed and I've make. I went down to mazunte and made an album with andy from vetiver okay, that's not really saying much. Wow, the guy I was. But with um john moods and with, uh, johnny nash and um, I really really respect all three of them and love them very, very much and everybody brought their own thing.

Speaker 2:

So we were hanging out in this place and recording everything and it's kind of a Mexican hippie beach town and somebody walked by and they were blasting Macarena and we all started just singing it. It's such a great song, my gosh, I haven't heard it in a long time. What an earworm. It's so good, macarena. And and we all started just singing it. It's such a great song, my gosh, I haven't heard it in a long time. What an earworm. It's so good, hey, macarena.

Speaker 2:

And then we just started thinking, well, where's Macarena now? And what if we make this Macarena after the party and just sitting by the window at dawn or dusk on their own alone? Maybe? None of those dreams manifested. And so we sat down, started writing this music. That felt like that, or at least just the other side of of it doesn't have to be a sad story. It's just the other side of that, of that experience. You know. Basically right, it was in all. Art is like what do I do with this being aliveness? Basically, one part of that is when the party's over. But how does that look? The music exists, but I, finally, I wrote the lyrics yesterday. Today we're going to try.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing.

Speaker 2:

I want to hear a little bit about your present musical projects well, I don't, I'm not making music at the moment.

Speaker 1:

Um, I haven't made music for quite many years now actually, but I, what I do now is I write about music, I make these, I make documentaries and I teach music, uh, but like the kind of cultural theory about music. So I mean, this is something I was going to ask you actually, but I guess it's a sort of connected question or just a connected, not question, just quite connected topic. It's like you know, you're, you're, you know, I think you're you kind of develop more and more of a reputation now as a painter and a curator as well as a musician, and so I've always felt that, apart from skill sets, the art is just very fluid. I wrote a book and that, to me, felt like I was connecting with a similar kind of process as when I used to write music and as someone you know for yourself, like you know, I mean, do you see how fluid, do you see the different forms of art? You know, is there like a very different way of being when you're making music than there is when you're painting?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and they're both well fluid. I mean, that's such a rich topic and we could talk about trying to get into a headspace of fluidity, trying to cultivate fluidity, trying to beckon fluidity. But I'm actually still stuck on your mention of making documentaries. I was wondering if you could tell me about what those documentaries are.

Speaker 1:

I sure can.

Speaker 1:

So they're very Berlin-based, so they're for BBC Radio, and the first one is about this guy called Mark Reader and there's a film about him as well which you should really check out if you've not seen.

Speaker 1:

It called B-Movie, and he's like this guy from Manchester who moved to berlin in the late 70s and got embroiled in the the kind of punk scene here, um, and then he would go on day visits to east berlin and he spent ages trying to find like punk kids in east berlin, under the gdr, you know, and there were punk kids, but they had to live in secret, you know, they couldn't walk down the street with a Mohican or without being arrested or potentially being arrested. But he found these communities and he ended up. Well, firstly he started smuggling in cassette punk cassettes across the wall and then eventually he smuggled in like a whole punk band across the berlin wall and they they played a gig in a catholic church no protestant church, so protestant church and uh, um, and and was smuggled back out again in front of like a small amount of, uh, illegal punks and um is there in the work.

Speaker 1:

Perhaps is there a what's in the work? Sorry, a book in the works.

Speaker 2:

Perhaps Is there a what in the works, sorry, Is there a book in the works?

Speaker 1:

Maybe in a couple of years? Right now that's still a little bit far away. Yeah, but I will send you a copy of the book that has come out if you like. It's all about Berlin.

Speaker 2:

I also would like to just submit as we part, would like to just submit as we part, as you apart, and I'm parting, really feeling like, really honored to to have been able to speak with you and uh, and I'm really I feel for you. Sorry that you had to endure talking to me, but it's been an honor I'm trying to really butter you up and be as polite as I can be before I submit into the um, the, into the beautiful top hat of of of dreams, a brothers in sound episode.

Speaker 1:

It's going to happen, it's going to thank you and what. I'll tell them that you've actually requested this. Um, and before we part, I just want to pass on something, something, but she doesn't know. I'm gonna say this but my mom, I bought, uh, oh me, oh, my like, about 23 years ago, uh, 22 years ago, and it's one of my mom's favorite albums and she fucking loves it.

Speaker 2:

She I knew that there's one person out there. That's the greatest I could possibly hear. Could you say thanks, mom from me.

Speaker 1:

I will do, I will do, I will do. It's something that me and my mom share together, so yeah, she'll, she'll be delighted to know that's so sweet, that's so cool all right, it's really great chatting to you, daventure all right, I'm gonna go weep to do the hustle and I'll talk to you later.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, buddy I now see macarena in an entirely different light. Thank you so much for that, davandra, and thanks for sharing your time and thoughts with me there. That was me, paul hamford, talking with davandra banhart for the lost and sound podcast, and we had that conversation on friday august, the 15th 2025. Crippled crow 20th anniversary deluxe edition is released on friday, september, the 12th 2025, and if you like the show and you haven't already, please do give it a subscribe. It really, really, really, really does help. I'm hugely grateful for every subscriber. Every comment, every listen really really does mean a lot to me. Give the show a rating and a review on the platform of your choice if you really really want to share that love and if you like what I do and you want to hear more. Yeah, we talked a lot about my uh radio documentary. That was a bit of a surprise to have that turned on me, but that was quite fun. Um, you can check it out the man who smuggled punk rock across the berlin wall by heading on over to the bbc sounds app or on the bbc world service home page.

Speaker 1:

Audio technica sponsor. Lost and sound, the still family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones, studio quality yet affordable products because they believe that high quality audio should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to audiotechnicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. The music that you hear at the beginning, at the end of every episode is by tom giddens, and so yeah, that's it. I hope, whatever you're doing, you're having a really lovely one today and I look forward to chatting to you soon. Thank you.