‘Beerfest,’ Cats, and Our New Political Reality: 30 Minutes with the Legendary Bassist Thundercat
Bassists, generally speaking, get no love. Compared to lead singers and guitarists, they get the least camera time, the least money, the least groupies, the least solos. They are, pretty much by definition, the most underappreciated and overlooked member of the band, their job viewed as requiring little more than a few notes and some adequate neck confidence. They are the Crying Dawson meme incarnate.
But! There is hope yet for those who slappa the bass, mon. Here and there, we’ve seen the rare anomaly escape anonymity, managing somehow to ride the lowly four strings into the spotlight. Men like Lemmy Kilmister, Geddy Lee, and Sting. Or the latest bassist to pervert the natural order: Thundercat.
Born Stephen Brunner, the L.A.-bred musician is, much like his instrument, most commonly known for his supporting roles: his early years thrashing with hardcore band Suicidal Tendencies, his Boy Wonder-like pupilship to Flying Lotus, his Grammy-winning contributions to Kendrick Lamar’s jazz-rap masterpiece To Pimp a Butterfly. Still, he was never going to stay in the background for long — not with his great musical lineage (his dad drummed for the Temptations and Diana Ross), shredding prowess that’d make Wolverine blush, and wacky shoulder pads like those. What’s more, he’s got a great voice.
Drunk, while being Thundercat’s third solo record, is really his aural debutante ball. It’s the most accurate distillation of the 32-year-old: chill, freewheeling, sometimes serious, sometimes stupid, and ready to carpe the shit out of this diem. Over 23 tracks of funk, soul, jazz, pop, electronica, and hip-hop, Brunner achieves self-actualization, kvetching about being black in America (“Jameel’s Space Ride”), gushing about Dragon Ball Z wrist-slap bracelets (“Tokyo”), and literally meowing about wanting to be a cat (“A Fan’s Mail”). Yacht rock titans Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald trade sultry overtures on the laser-smooth “Show You the Way,” and King Kendrick spits a jerky flow on the melancholic “Walk on By.” Yet, throughout the album, it’s Thundercat’s tender, pitch-perfect falsetto and syrupy, underwater basslines that steal the show.
Shooting the shit with Bruner isn’t unlike listening to his music. It’s a dizzying, rib-tickling, scattershot ride — equal parts puerile and profound — that still somehow has a sense of coherence. And by the end of it, you feel good, even as the world burns. What’s not to love about that?
How’s it going, Thundercat?
I’m alright. I’m chilling, just watching Beerfest, staring at my cat staring at the screen, staring into things randomly, like the rice cooker.
Beerfest! One of my all-time faves.
Das boot. People don’t know about das boot, boo.
Speaking of which, your new album is called Drunk. Why?
Because, I don’t know man, why not? [Laughs.] Why call it Drunk? Why not call it Drunk?
Touché. Though I sense there’s more to it than that. Does it have to do with showing sides of yourself you wouldn’t normally show while ‘sober’?
Well, that’s part of it, yeah. There’s truth to it. There’s also the part where I feel like it’s something everybody is experiencing. I tend to find a lot of the time that my friends and I live life in such a seat-of-your-pants kind of manner that psychologically we get yanked through closed doors. That’s the best way to describe life. I feel like everybody is starting to feel that, too. I’ve noticed with a lot of my friends that this is a reality: it’s how you cope with the pain of what you’re experiencing emotionally now. It’s my observation and report of what I’ve seen for the last 15 or 20 years.
You mean this is how your friends cope with the situation America, or the world, is in right now?
This setting, yeah. It’s really a lot more than most people can handle because you’re seeing the worst in people. You don’t know which way to look when somebody’s got their hand out. Nobody tells each other they love each other. The ones that do, it’s because that person makes them comfortable. Nobody ever extends themselves beyond themselves. It’s just an observation of now. You see different waves of it, but a lot of the time, specifically right now, I feel like the world is really cold. So the album being Drunk is a coping mechanism.
Does a musician have a role to play at a time like this?
Well, I definitely do feel like they send the musicians out before a war. The flooding of our creative mindset and music has a bit of a weird taste to it in my mind, but at the same time, it always has played a major role in what helps people. Everything from the song that makes you want to get a girl pregnant to a song that can drive you to punch somebody in the face, to hate, to everything. Music has always been a bit of a current, or an enhancer. Art is like the finer point in society. It’ll always be the backdrop and in the foreground, interweaved in everything. So I think music plays an important role right now and it’s going to keep getting more intense in the years to come.
At least upon first listen, your album doesn’t seem overtly political. Am I wrong?
No. But, I mean, there’s the part where being black is just really rough. [Laughs.] You don’t have to be political to feel that; that’s a reality. Just waking up black is like, “What the fuck is going on right now?” And you learn about it the minute you get a boner and the minute that your hormones kick in. You go, “What the fuck is going on!” You come into the world like that, and you go out like that. So there are politics interweaved in it by way of literally what you have to find yourself having to be exposed to every day.
But I’m not a very political person. I think politics are just as fickle as any other thing, like something cheaply made. A lot of the time people want to know they’re going to be okay, but then you have people that perpetuate dumb shit. So it’s good to see people protesting and standing up for something, because you just have a bunch of social psychos trying to influence the masses. It’s just fucking weird. It rubs you the wrong way. You can’t help but see it every day. It’s like the radio; it’s just part of your reality. I tend to try to keep myself in a peaceful place a lot of the time. Having money or not having money, it’s not about that to me. It’s about creative energy and what you’re doing with your life while you’re here. If you spend time deceiving people, it’s not like you’re going to live to see how stupid and fucked up you made things after. [Laughs.] So what’s the fucking point? Spend your time doing something more worthwhile. Go fuck somebody or create something. I’m probably more of a hippie than super political. It’s getting corny at this point: “Oh, somebody’s got nukes! No, they got nukes! Now they got nukes!” It’s like, okay… who’s going to blow the first one?
Yeah, who wants to be that guy?
Then again, I can’t deny the history of this country. It’s built on violence. It’s just what it is, man.
You tweeted something interesting the other day: “We bout to learn NWA’s struggle was everyone’s struggle.”
[Laughs.] Yeah, dude. If you think about it, what does the phrase “niggas with attitude” denote? It’s the black struggle, it’s the reality. Why are niggas angry? Well now, everybody’s starting to realize that we’re all the niggas. It’s like, “Oh, I’m a nigga too!” Yeah, you’re getting treated like one. [Laughs.] That’s the shit I’m talking about. [If] you’re gay or you believe in something, like religion, you just get treated like a nigga. You’re disrespected. But it’s real. It’s real man, it’s real. The political is just a rabbit hole of terrible. There’s no side that makes sense. Our job now is to fight off the bullshit as it’s happening. That’s all we can do.
Or just stay at home and cuddle your cat.
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying! You know, wildly masturbate to weird cartoons. Read Batman comic books. Try your cat’s food. Try to catch people having sex in their apartment. There’s all kinds of weird stuff. Get some binoculars. Get a magnetic DeLorean car toy. Like, yeah!
“A Fan’s Mail,” on Drunk, is a continuation of your musical saga about your cat. Tell me about your cat. What’s going on there?
Well, I’m about this close to marrying my cat. [Laughs.] She’s great. She’s sitting in the sun right now, licking her chest. Have you ever tried to sit somewhere and just lick your chest? This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s just licking her chest in the same place repeatedly. I know what she’s doing, she’s cleaning herself, but it never changes. Oh, now she’s playing the cello on her vagina. It’s what it is. If I could suck my own dick I guess I would.
Yeah, we’re missing out. Cats are truly living, man.
I’ll tell you something cool that my cat does. I don’t know if she got it from me, but any time she eats and she takes a poop, she just darts off running around the house. I’ve noticed it over the past couple of years. She just takes a shit and just [boing sound effect] for a good three minutes you’re like, “What the fuck is going on?” It’s like she’s happy she took a shit.
Oh my god, mine does that too!
Isn’t that crazy? They run. It’s weird. They just take off.
It’s like they’re excited to have this weight lifted from their bowels.
Yeah! It’s so cool, dude!
So let’s settle this thing once and for all: are cats better than dogs?
Oh, for sure. I’m not the dog guy.
Me neither. They’re way too aggressive.
You always have to have an explanation for why a dog is the way it is. “Oh, don’t worry, she’s a rescue dog.” Like, get that fucking dog away from the kids. It’s like having a dinosaur. What the hell man? I’m pretty sure it’s not a good idea to have a velociraptor hanging around your children.
Tell me a bit about “Show You the Way.” How did you get Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald back in the game?
Oh man, for me that is a crazy one. Those guys are my favourite. I think they’re everybody’s favourites and nobody talks about it, you know? The love of Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. Subconsciously, everybody has a love affair with them.
It’s the music everyone secretly has sex to.
Yeah. If it comes on you’re going to dance to it while you’re in the pussy. “Oh, there’s Michael doing his thing.” [Laughs.] It’s going to happen. You may even bust out trying to sing it in his voice. Michael and Kenny have been the backdrop for a lot of children being born, I would imagine, for the last couple of decades.
They’re probably the reason there’s an overpopulation problem.
[Laughs.] We need to seize control over Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. Wrangle them up! They’re causing people to like each other! Stop them!
I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to hear them in the studio singing together.
You remember that one scene in Saving Private Ryan when the grenade goes off and he’s just staggered for a good two minutes? He’s just like, “What is going on?” That’s what it felt like.
There are already all these thinkpieces about the song spurring a yacht rock revival. Do you take responsibility for that revival?
[Laughs.] That’s awesome. Everybody’s like “Ooo, yacht rock.” Sometimes it’s a cool denotation. It’s funny to be silly with it, but I take [Loggins and McDonald] very seriously, also. I know the genre, but I don’t know the parameters of what would be considered yacht rock. When you’re listening to Mahavishnu Orchestra on a yacht, is that still yacht rock? Or the Godzilla theme song, you know? [Laughs.] If you can afford to have a party on a yacht… it’s not so much a joke as it is just being rich as fuck. [Laughs.] It’s just some funny shit, man. Every time I hear the term yacht rock, I’m like, if you can afford to be on a yacht, you’re already better than most. [Laughs.] I’ve never been on a yacht and been like, “This is fucking terrible! Aw man, all these shrimp and bitches. Ugh! Drugs! This is a miserable time!” Nah. Yachts are fucking dope, dude.
Yachts are fucking dope.
Now that you mention it, my friend literally just had a birthday and called me from a yacht completely stone sour drunk, drooling on his phone like, “You have to come on the yacht tonight!” And I’m like, “You guys are out at sea, man. There’s no way I could physically do that. What the hell are you talking about?” He’s like, “Come on, you have to get on the yacht. We’re out here partying!” I was like, “No. You’re drunk. I’ll die swimming to the yacht. There’s sharks.” And I haven’t heard from him since. [Laughs.]
Oh, shit!
Is he still on the yacht, just faded as shit? [Laughs.] He’s been out to sea for like three days. He’s got a beard when he comes back. He smells of the salt water, he smells like the real, true essence of man. You stink and you smell like the ocean!
He’s a different person, he has a kid now…
His eyes are all clear, his nails are all thick and he wears overalls all the time now like a Gorton’s fisherman. I can imagine…
Aside from yacht rock revival, a lot of people, when they mention your name, say you’re a part of this L.A. jazz revival. What do you think of that?
Well, it’s so interesting hearing about this thing being a revival, as if it wasn’t already there! It’s so weird. I’ve been playing with these guys like Kamasi Washington since we were kids; we’ve recorded tons of albums together. It’s never left! It’s just that the spotlight came back on it. I am born and raised in L.A., and these are my friends. It’s just part of what comes with the territory.
I guess when To Pimp A Butterfly came out, it brought more attention to that scene, brought it into the mainstream.
Yeah! Kendrick reminded everybody that everything is terrible but there is a fine line in it. I love that jazz was the undercurrent and that he wasn’t scared to try to weld something that people get all weird about. Old people get really elitist about it, young people… It just makes people weird sometimes when you get way off into the jazz world. But more than that, I’m happy people are interested in it again. It is a good thing.
You guys kind of took it out of the ivory tower.
Yeah, you know exactly what I’m talking about, man. Getting people excited about music. Like, “Hey guys, look! It’s that music thing again! Here it comes. Woo!”
