‘Adrian Younge Presents Jack Waterson’ Is A Brilliant, Modern Album Created On Analog

The two musicians discuss their friendship, the shared love for vintage equipment, and how Hip-Hop breaks can gel with psych rock

Raj Anand
Still Crew

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My introduction to Jack Waterson and Adrian Younge took place at The Midnight Hour tour last December. Adrian was the de facto conductor of the show, and Jack looked like he was having the time of his life playing guitar as part of the larger band that was backing the aforementioned Adrian and also Ali Shaheed Mohammed of A Tribe Called Quest. Jack’s energy was one of the linchpins of the whole concert — the fun he was having permeated throughout the crowd. It was an especially well oiled orchestra, that was the last thing someone coming to see two Hip-Hop luminaries would’ve expected.

Little did I know that Adrian Younge was was cooking up music with Jack Waterson the whole time, separately from what was going on with The Midnight Hour. That same attention to detail that made the show so great, also makes Adrian Younge Presents Jack Waterson such a unique project.

The two of them met in the ‘90s at Jack Waterson’s vintage music shop Future Music in Los Angeles. It was the beginning of a long, fruitful friendship with the two serving as mutual teachers to each other — Jack brought immense knowledge on psych rock and vintage gear, while Adrian came with a deep understanding of Hip-Hop and the value of sampling.

As close collaborators over the decades, the two have built a fluid musical chemistry, with their unwavering friendship as the foundation. And when you put together two people who really know their shit, the output is magic. Recorded in analog, Adrian Younge Presents Jack Waterson is an album made for audiophiles. It combines their two respective expertises, psych rock and Hip-Hop. The whole thing is a trippy listen, but it’s those small details that really blow you away. The two of them created an album with height, width, and depth that makes you appreciate this album when you listen closely, recognizing different layers on multiple listens.

Jack Waterson and Adrian Younge recently took some time to talk to me about the album and share how they’ve built such a strong chemistry with each other over the years.

Still Crew: I’d just like to start off learning about the relationship between both of you, like how you guys met. I know that Jack was in the band before, and so would just love to hear about that and how you guys got here today.

Adrian Younge: So basically, me and Jack been good friends for about twenty years and I found out about Jack’s store Future Music which sells vintage instruments. And I would go there as a young dude and ask him questions about gear and all that stuff and he started helping me figure things out. Jack helped me on my journey of just finding musical instruments essentially, but the right kind of instruments, the kind of vintage stuff I love — the stuff with character. So we’re just friends making music essentially, just pushing each other to be better man. That’s it.

Jack Waterson: Yeah, I mean Adrian was a sharp cat that asked me great questions. And I deal with a lot of people and you know, some people I develop relationships with through the store. You know, people are always — they get close to me. And so, over time we became friends and like Adrian said, everything is a result of shared love of music and a commonality that we have in it — we’re very, very different people but we agree on a wide variety of subjects.

I love working with Adrian. He’s a dedicated, disciplined, driven human being who has superhuman strengths and you know, working with him is amazing because it keeps me motivated, keeps me dedicated, keeps me moving and so it’s an absolute joy — every time. And the record is really a culmination of all that.

“What makes things difficult when you’re trying to make things sound good that don’t sound good. This already sounded good.” — Adrian Younge

Still Crew: Is Future Music still around? Do you still run it?

Jack Waterson: It’s open right now, I’m sitting in the back. But I’m blessed to have very long-term associates here. One gentleman I’ve worked with on and off for thirty-one years. I think the shortest term person here is about seven years at this point. And so, I don’t know if it’s a mentally stable thing or not but I tend to have very long-term friendships in my life. I’ve got a lot of friends that I’ve been friends with for decades and I think it’s a positive mental health thing because there has to be some give and take in the whole thing, you know?

Still Crew: Totally, totally. And I’m sure that helps, especially if you’re going out on tour for a few weeks and you need everyone to step up.

Jack Waterson: Oh good lord. You have no idea. The greatest thing is I don’t get any phone calls. [Laughs] That means everything’s cool, you know?

Still Crew: No news is good news.

Jack Waterson: I am very lucky.

Still Crew: [Laughs] I’m glad to hear that. So you said that you sell vintage gear at the store?

Jack Waterson: Yeah, yeah. Predominantly — I mean, my curiosity tends to revolve before 1983. Before then, there was no MIDI — Musical Instrument Digital Interface. So without that, those sort of instruments were existing in their own universe, so things had more personality.

Also, things were made much better and they were repairable. The majority of what’s made today is disposable. And there’s no long-term in it and there’s no repairing it — where I have tons of equipment that’s from the seventies. It all still works because you can open it up, you see what’s going on, and it’s repairable. Now things are made like laptops and they just don’t last and so I constantly see newer pieces that come in that are, you know, basically falling apart after one road trip. So that’s where my curiosity lies but there’s lot more soul in the older equipment, and it’s a lot better made. So that’s sort of the touchdown of it.

Then I’m never buying for myself. I’m buying for other people, so I just go crazy. So I’ve bought and sold thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of pieces of equipment. And then because of my exposure to it, I know about it. And then, when I deal with somebody who I want to give my assets to, like Adrian, they get everything from me. We’ll talk about music, we’ll talk about the lifestyle, we’ll talk about the equipment — whatever — techniques. And then you get into this concept of change with people and you school each other — it’s phenomenal.

Still Crew: I love that. What are some interesting or notable pieces that have come through your store?

Jack Waterson: I deal a lot of synthesizers. I started exporting to Germany when the Wall came down and that was my first real, real serious exposure to synths so the store is very well-known for its synthesizers. But we also do guitars, effects, basses, amplifiers, some drum-kit stuff, effects, studio equipment, all that kind of thing. So it all — I sell a pretty wide net and it just depends what inspires somebody because it’s really about inspiration. When you find something that fuels you to inspire you to work, and there’s songs inside there, and when you pick certain things up, man, you can just feel the vibe of them. Adrian is — you know, we go back and forth about this all the time — he’s visually stimulated so he’ll see something, because it looks dope, he just — he’ll sign on and go, “that’s great”.

Now, often times I got to admit, I’ll say, “yeah, dude — you are right. It is bitchin’ [laughs]”. You know, “you are right, it looks cool and it is cool”. So I try not to get into it but this is the funny debate that we’ve had going for years [laughs]. But it’s really inspiration.

Still Crew: That’s incredible. So what inspires both of you guys?

Adrian Younge: Well what inspires us to people — being okay with being ourselves. So, really represent two people coming together to be one person and being that one person without insecurities. So, we’re risk takers and we really appreciate people that are risk takers — not trying to be different for the purpose of being different, but being different because they are just actually different. That’s what we’re really into.

Jack Waterson: During the process of making the record and as we were, writing and working through the whole thing I had this different epiphany while writing lyrics and one of them really was the honest truth and just be completely frank and be completely, completely honest with people. And some of the song narratives — if you know me, certain things you’ll be like, “oh my god, that dude is just like you — he’s absolutely singing about real shit”. And there’s no pretense in it at all, it literally is absolutely factual.

Still Crew: So, it sounds like you’re completely immersed in music. Is that more or less right? What are your lives like when you’re not creating?

Adrian Younge: I mean, our lives, every single day, revolve around music.

Jack Waterson: It’s not escapable.

Still Crew: There’s some artists who, you know, will come out, they’ll create, they’ll release music, and then they’ll kind of go away for a little awhile — for a few months or a couple years and they’ll come back. And then there’s some artists who I guess will be in the matrix every single day and it’s there escape, you know? So I was just kind of curious. It’s interesting though. So you guys are kind of always creating then it sounds like?

Jack Waterson: Yeah, we’re always creating. Adrian is in the studio literally every day. And between my store and art, I’m consumed every day. There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not dealing with some aspect of it. One thing we agree on is if you get on a plane for a long plane flight and you can’t do anything, those moments are so golden. It’s actually enjoyable for that alone. It’s like, “oh I’m in a position where I really can’t do anything — well I guess I’m not going to do anything”. And it’s rare. It’s a very rare moment, you know?

Still Crew: I think that’s a sign that you guys are doing what you love.

Jack Waterson: Yep, absolutely.

Still Crew: There’s no reason to escape it right? It’s not a job if you love it.

Adrian Younge: Uh-huh.

Jack Waterson: Not at all.

“When you find something that fuels you to inspire you to work, and there’s songs inside there, and when you pick certain things up, man, you can just feel the vibe of them.” — Jack Waterson

Still Crew: That’s fantastic and something I think most people wish they had but may never actually get there. It’s great that you guys feel that way about what you do. So Jack, how do you kind of balance running the store and then kind of, your own creative efforts musically?

Jack Waterson: Keep a schedule. You know, I mean, unless store’s open certain hours and you know, I wake up every day and I know I’ve got a list of things that I need to try to accomplish so it’s just really sticking to it and then delivering. And then putting in the work. So if I have to — you know, we have started work before dawn, we work in the middle of the night — it doesn’t matter. When something needs to happen, when you need to move, you need to go, you go do it. If you say yes, you mean yes and do it.

Still Crew: I was out there over the weekend, so I had a chance to run by Nipsey’s store and pay some respects there. We’d love your take on kind of what you guys have seen in the past few days and how the city has come together.

Adrian Younge: I think it’s great. It’s always good — I would say how you treat people, you know? So it’s good to see how many people love Nipsey and it’s good to see that people have come together in positive way under circumstances that are not necessarily positive. So, it’s a great thing.

Still Crew: Sure. Another thing I was curious about is how, Adrian, how you guys got the beat for what became “Untitled 06” over to Kendrick? And from what I was digging online — feel free to correct me if I’m wrong — it looks like Jack was involved in that as well, so we’d love to kind of hear more of what went into that and how that fell into TDE.

Adrian Younge: We were writing songs and Cee-Lo wanted to sing on it. Jack played acoustic on that. He probably doesn’t even remember [Laughs]. And then, literally Kendrick heard a demo and he asked if we’d be willing to give it to him to try to chop up to use for his album and we said “yeah” and there wasn’t much more to it than that.

Still Crew: Nice. That’s awesome. Let’s see. Because you guys — what’s really kind of cool about — actually kind of what I learned even at that show was the music that you guys made actually permeates really throughout hip-hop. Some of my favorites have been the sample from “Sirens” that Jay-Z used for Magna Carta, and “Silently” for ScHoolboy Q’s “John Muir.” A lot of people don’t know you were behind those. I feel like the flavor that you guys bring is very different and very out-of-the-box, especially with that emphasis on the live instrumentation. And I guess that kind of goes back to what you were saying, dealing more with analog and less on the digital side and really kind of exploring the live aspect to it. Do you guys record your music that way too, with live instruments?

Adrian Younge: Oh yeah, for sure. The album is the kind of album you would hear late fifties or early seventies. That’s what they were using, that’s the kind of stuff they were using so you know, the same kind of thing that they were using to make a new album. That’s basically it.

Still Crew: Since you guys deal with all the live instruments, does that make it more difficult to master the records and mix the records after recording them or is it a similar process as if you were — ?

Adrian Younge: No, because it sounds good. What makes things difficult when you’re trying to make things sound good that don’t sound good. This already sounded good.

Jack Waterson: But you’re committing to a performance as well. Due to the limitations of working in an analog platform, you make decisions. You have to play the part correctly, you have to do it right. So there’s no going back and re-doing it sixty-four times and looking for syllables. You have to get this right. And so it puts a quality into music and then that in conjunction with the sound — that’s a lot of the aesthetics.

Still Crew: Totally. So I’m sure that also changes in how you prepare before. You got to come in with your A-game every single time, especially if you guys are working in conjunction together with other pieces in the band, right?

Adrian Younge: On the album, me and Jack played all the instruments and we brought Ali Shaheed in to play as well. So it’s really just us on that.

Still Crew: That’s great. So what do you guys — how do you guys determine success with this project?

Adrian Younge: Success is determined by putting it out. That’s it. Straight up. We make records first and foremost and then there afterwards other people like what we like. So I mean, that’s literally what it is.

Jack Waterson: I agree with that.

Still Crew: Love it. I think that’s the best way to do it too. I feel like as soon as you start to cater to what you think other people would like, it impacts kind of how you create.

Before we wrap up, is there anything else that you want to mention or highlight?

Adrian Younge: Yeah, something I want to say is that I wanted to take this album is something that is really created with headphones. That’s really what it’s about. It’s a very high fidelity audio album that touches a lot of different sonic pallets.

Still Crew: Love it. What about you Jack?

Jack Waterson: To second what Adrian says, you know this record was really the product of his life, my life, and the friendship we’ve had together. It’s great to work in this environment and to make decisions artistically. Adrian and I have worked so much together that there’s not a ton of conversation and we can move very, very swiftly because we’ve had the creative dialogue. We know our point of references, we know where we’re going. Adrian can, in the course of a take, he tells me do it again, it’s “okay, yeah, absolutely”. I trust his taste implicitly. I told him at the beginning, the middle, and right now that there’s only one opinion that I really care about and it’s yours. So if I’m making him happy, I’m stoked. It made my life very easy because this is somebody I love, I work with all the time, and we can just go and address it and do the work and we’ve done this repeatedly time and time and time again and it’s an absolute joy to work in that situation.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

‘Adrian Younge Presents Jack Waterson’ is available for streaming on Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal.

Raj is a writer, photographer, and Bay Area resident. Follow him on Instagram at @RajHasACamera.

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Writer, photographer, and Bay Area resident. Creativity enthusiast. @TSS_Raj.