(Photo: Monty Leman)
Questlove — seriously — needs no introduction, not any more. In what was probably for him a typical weekend, he bounced down to SXSW and appeared on a food panel with Austin’s superstar chef Paul Qui, played a DJ set at Qui’s dinner party (followed by D’Angelo set), and promoted the film 808, about the legendary drum machine, in which he appears.
Questlove was already back at the Tonight Show set, in a break during a sketch rehearsal, when I caught up with him by phone to find out just how different his life has become since he spun my book launch party a year and a half ago — approximately 5 minutes before everyone in the world learned the name Questlove.
(Photo: Monty Leman)
How strange is it to be featured in a film (808) talking about a drum machine that was part of the background sound of your early music years?
Even though it was small in size it was monumental in impact. I was honored they asked me, because I’m a musician that doesn’t need an 808 drum machine, but it’s still a big part of my life.
The part about your memoir that really spoke to other artists was the frustration. Knowing that you were good, but that it wasn’t happening — after all that work, it still wasn’t happening. But this is your moment. How do you feel now? How is your internal life?
I’m a little freaked up, to be honest with you. I told my manager, right before my manager passed away… When you’ve been struggling for so long, it’s hard to trust or really be comfortable with any situation that comes to you that feels good. I told him, y’know dude, who starts trending higher than they ever have 20 years after they started? There’s not even a precedent. It’s like we [the Roots] coasted, we had a lot of credibility and respect, but… You become part of the mainstream culture, where suddenly you become a household name — it’s kind of weird to make your impact 20 years after you started. It’s a little freaky. [Laughs.] Usually an artist, 20 years in, they’re riding the nostalgia wave. We’re still in the introduction. This is the longest introduction ever.
We know that you’re kind of a workaholic.
Kind of.
Now that you have the world’s coolest day gig, you’re really able to dabble, doing a little bit of everything — writing for the Times, you’re at SXSW talking about food, still DJing. Can you just not stop? Or is this Quest having a good time?
[Laughs.] I don’t know how to stop, to be honest with you. But you know… if I wanna – do my last achievement, which is a wife and kids, I better learn how to stop quick. So that’s always my thing, I tell myself every last week of December., how am I gonna turn these 16 jobs into just like six or seven like normal people? Normal people have six or seven jobs.
I have six or seven jobs, so as far as I know that’s how it is.
Exactly. You gotta have six or seven jobs to make it in New York City. The people who just have one job in New York City [laughs] – they live in the Hamptons.
I said that to you, and I’m like, I’m so full of shit, because I just agreed this morning to score Zoe Kravitz’s new movie – and I start my third semester at NYU this Friday, so I’m getting all my notes together. So I’m really back to 16 jobs now.
When do you sleep?
Um, I take naps. I take naps in the makeup chair, in the hair chair, when it’s time for Fallon. I got a nice car, so I can sleep in the back seat while I’m going to work. I sleep, I just, it’s just — when don’t I work. That’s the real question. But I’ll say 90 percent of the stuff I do is also fun. So I don’t see it as work.
At your book launch (for Mo Meta Blues, in 2013), you said that it’s stressful, that a DJ gig is stressful.
It’s stressful because I need make the perfect playlist. And it’s weird, because… two nights ago in New York I probably did the best set I’ve done in years at the NBC salesmen party. Where the sales people get together for upfront. That party was something out of Wolf of Wall Street. But I did the same exact last Saturday in Las Vegas and it failed. Like I cleared the room in like 25 minutes. So it’s stuff that like keeps me… You know, I think of music more or less to study the psychology of people. And music has different impacts on people across the United States as far as different territories are concerned, and what works in New York might not work in Vegas, or what works in Vegas won’t work in Miami, and what works in Miami won’t work in Seattle. It kind of keeps me on my toes. It’s less about the set and really more about studying people’s habits.
I loved that Times conversation with Chris Rock — you were picking up on Annie Hall and other movie references. Do you know everything about movies, too? Is that the next thing, will we see you scoring more films, or working the other side of the camera?
I like to think of myself as a cinephile. For Christmas I gave Amber Tamblin and David Cross the complete DVD Criterion collection – Amber just directed her first film and David directed his first film… I was in Amoeba Records shopping for the [full Criterion set of] DVDs, it just hit me like. [I’d seen them.] A lot of that was basically to pass the time in a tour bus. We did 250, 270 days out of the year living on a tour bus. A lot of these trips are like — some of these cold just five hours, but most days are somewhere between seven to nine hour trips, sometimes 15 hours. So you learn real quick to keep yourself entertained on the bus. So I’d often watch any and every film — I’m not saying I’ve seen every film released on DVD — but I’ll damn near say I’ve seen 70 percent of anything worth seeing on my tour bus. I’d like to think of myself as a film expert.
You worked so hard on D’Angelo’s Voodoo — how strange was it doing a high-end dinner party with him?
That’s funny, I didn’t see it as a dinner party because I really didn’t participate in the dinner [laughs]. During my week off, I decided to see five [D’Angelo shows]. I just spent that whole week seeing five different types of shows, which is kinda cool. I got to see some European shows, which were much more looser. Got to see the New York show which was one of the tightest soul revues probably ever displayed in the last 40 years. And then I got to see two very different off-the-cuff sets. They did a beat cuts, kind of obscure song show, at Spotify. And I got to see a stripped down version of the show at the dinner party which was cool. But actually there was this one guy insisted on just standing up in front of everybody. You know I understand if you want to dance, if you’re moved to dance, but you also can’t stand in people’s way.. I think I spent half the show keeping my eye on everyone eyeing him, because I think there’s gonna be a pugilistic situation about to go down. [Laughs.] I thought a riot was about to break out.
What is SXSW now? It’s gotten so big. You played it years ago.
Yeah, we’ve done it before. This is actually the first time I’ve been at the tech end and not the music end of it. It was interesting for me to come down there meeting for the food portions, and the tech portion of it. I was more or less curating panels and really just kinda shaking hands and kissing babies. So it was different. I didn’t feel like it was the same old same old. Often, like say something like Miami’s Winter Music Conference which every DJ goes to now, they start to feel jaded, that sort of thing. But I really didn’t feel that way with SXSW.
There’s a lot of new experiences down there. I’m certain that maybe next year if I just go for the movie end of it. I could learn a whole slough of stuff. I enjoyed it very much. It still serves its’ purpose, and it serves it well.
Bradley Spinelli (@13_Spinelli) is the author of “Killing Williamsburg” and the producer of “#AnnieHall.”
