{"id":16199,"date":"2019-05-02T09:34:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T13:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=16199"},"modified":"2020-05-01T10:24:56","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T14:24:56","slug":"rolling-rock-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/rolling-rock-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Anderson .Paak"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"issuuembed\" style=\"width: 525px; height: 341px;\" data-configid=\"37604829\/69532511\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.js\" async=\"true\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1 class=\"p1\">Rolling Rock Row<\/h1>\n<h3 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Anderson .Paak<\/b> and the Free Nationals are going to soar at<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rockrow.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b> Rock Row<\/b><\/a>, Westbrook\u2019s brand new performance venue, on May 26 at 7:30 p.m. We might never come down.<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>Interview by Olivia Gunn Kotsishevskaya<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-16196\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/ML-Paak_t-300x163.jpg\" alt=\"ML Paak_t\" width=\"300\" height=\"163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/ML-Paak_t.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/ML-Paak_t-200x109.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>You&#8217;re the first show at Maine\u2019s newest venue, Maine Savings Pavilion at Rock Row. You\u2019re kind of christening it. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Wow! No, I didn\u2019t know I was the very first show. That\u2019s crazy!<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">Have you ever been here before?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Never. I\u2019m definitely going to explore! I might have to skip soundcheck and go around and see the city.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\"><em>Ventura<\/em>, your new album, is fresh out of the oven for this show. What\u2019s it do for you as a performer?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"> I\u2019m so, so, so excited this is out. It\u2019s just a great continuation from <em>Oxnard<\/em>, and we really wanted to get this album out\u2014a soulful album with a lot more songs that touched on things I haven\u2019t really done before. I got to work with a lot of people that I\u2019ve always wanted to work with\u2014Andre 3000, Smokey Robinson, Brandy, Jazmine Sullivan, Nate Dogg.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">You\u2019ve said <em>Oxnard<\/em> was your dream album. So why even bother to come out with <em>Ventura<\/em>, \u2018Cheeky Andy\u2019?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">This is also my dream album. We finished them at the same time, mixed them at the same time. <i>Oxnard<\/i> was big because I got to work with one of my favorite producers of all time\u2014Dre. It was like me being able to open myself up to, and work with, a producer and be able to be produced. Before, I was really captain of my whole thing. Dre is my childhood icon. Getting it done with him hand-in-hand and watching him be inspired, that was dope. But simultaneously, I was feeling like I need this other side of the coin, too. I\u2019ve always had like multiple music personalities. When we were making <em>Oxnard<\/em>, there was this other side of me to be spilled, so I started putting away songs that I wanted for <em>Ventura<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">What are you most excited for us to hear on <em>Ventura<\/em>?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Maybe \u201cCome Home.\u201d Yeah, and \u201cJet Black\u201d with Brandy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">What brought you and Smokey Robinson together for \u201cMake It Better?\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I started working on that song with Alchemist and Fredwreck, the producers. We started working on the beat, and once we started getting deep into the skeleton with beats, we were both like, \u201cYo, this sounds like some old Motown. Something that Smokey would be on.\u201d So we started writing it, me and the Artful Dodger, who was on \u201cAnywhere.\u201d We started coming up with the concepts of making a relationship spicy and fun again when you\u2019ve been together for so long, and we were like, \u201cDamn, you kinda gotta put energy into it and kinda take it back to when you guys first met. Try to keep that spark.\u201d I said, \u201cWe need to get Smokey on this,\u201d and the next day Smokey was in the studio. He told me his daughter was a big fan so he came through, and we played him the song. He said he liked it, but it had \u201ctoo many curse words in it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\"> He took out the cursing?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Hell yeah! I was like, \u201cAll right, Smokey, what should we do?\u201d He said, \u201cBring me two discs\u2014one with the instrumental, one with the acapella. I\u2019m gonna come back and fix it for you. I\u2019m gonna make it better.\u201d He came back a week later. Any place we had curse words or anything that was a little funny, he switched up the words and made it real beautiful. He just put his Smokey Robinson touch on it. That\u2019s history.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">Where did the tour name come from\u2014\u201cBest Teef in the Game?\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">It came from the fans. You know, people were saying \u201cbest teeth in the game!\u201d I didn\u2019t know. We were in the last minute, and we didn\u2019t know what to call it, so I said, \u201cLet\u2019s just call it that. Everybody on the tour\u2019s got a great set of teeth. Let\u2019s do it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">What are you most looking forward to on this tour?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">The shows and traveling, the food, meeting different people, and just experiencing different cities when we can. We don\u2019t have a lot of time usually, so the way we get to really experience it is the people and the show. It\u2019s awesome to see these reactions to the music. This music that you\u2019ve made in these little studios inside, where you\u2019ve been in forever, and you go out and touch the city and do these shows and see the response. People singing the words back. It\u2019s amazing.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anderson .Paak and the Free Nationals are the first show at Rock Row.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,943],"tags":[359,354,365,127,323,160,322,366],"class_list":["post-16199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-personalities","tag-anderson-paak","tag-entertainment","tag-live","tag-maine","tag-portland-magazine","tag-portland-maine","tag-portland-monthly","tag-rock-row"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16199"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18547,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16199\/revisions\/18547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}