Roger Mooking

0:00I'm in Texas right now just outside of Austin. What's shooting the show? You know, just shooting shows. Which, which, which, which would be a spice one? What do you shoot fire? I bet it's fire in Texas. I'm assuming. Yeah, we're doing a show right now called Manfire Food for Cooking Channel. Yeah. So I'm out here shooting now. We're traveling all over America. This is the Texas run right now. Yeah, man. See, we shot some shows at South by South West last year. Did a whole Texas barbecue episode as well. I mean, we focus on music, but figured we're down there. We got to do some food stuff. That's so. Yeah, for sure. What did you hit? Oh, it was like these like, oh, it's place in Austin. I can't remember what it's called. But there's a lineup from like 7 a.m. And you have to get there before. Franklin. Franklin. Yes. Franklin. That's the one. Yeah, Franklin is the one. Yeah. That's crazy. It's crazy there, though. All right. When you get there, this shit is amazing, right?

0:46Oh, it's the greatest food I've ever had in my life. And I'm not really a meat eater, but it got me. I had no choice. Yeah, no, no. Yeah, absolutely. And he only opens on the weekends. And when he runs out, he runs out. He's done by 11. Yeah. You know? So do you get priority because you're shooting a show there? Have you been? Well, you know, the thing is the production company, I'm shooting with down here. They're good friends with the people at Franklin's because they've shot them for other shows like Unique Eats and stuff like that way before. Like he blew up when he was just a food truck. So when we go, it's like she calls him up and he sneaks us in the back door. And he sets us up a little picnic table in the back, like where the like the grease buckets and stuff are. And you know, we passed the line and he hooked us up, man.

1:32He never let us pay. And we always feel guilty and leave him a big, big tip. Well, I didn't think we'd start with the food stuff, but maybe we will. So what do you do? Whatever, man. Are you shooting man-fire food at Franklin's? Like are you setting up a fire pit or trying to find? I'm confused about that. Oh, no, no. We didn't shoot often this time at all. Last year, we shot some stuff in Austin. We're doing all kind of more rural parts, like Bass drop Texas and college nation and like all these really way out parts of Texas that, you know, are interesting for a person of color. You know what I'm saying? Right? So, you know, but it's been a really good trip, man. It's a lot of fun and we're banging that stuff out, you know, that's for cooking general. And you're shooting it now, but it premieres in like two weeks or I guess a month.

2:21It premieres June, top of June, so I have a camera, June, yeah, something like that. And you're still shooting it. So you guys shoot right up until basically the premiere. That's not. Yeah, you know, that's one thing I noticed about the American productions and the Canadian production teams, the networks, the Canadian networks work a little bit slower than America. You know, they're just like so ultra-American. We want to do their show, shoot it now, put it on air next week kind of thing. You know, it's like, let's know, you know, so it's always that kind of little conundrum. Well, good, man. Fun. Which one's more exciting for you as a performer or producer? What do you mean? Let me shoot a music? No, no, no, shooting, no, no, stick with the TV for a second.

3:07Shooting quickly or getting the longer drawn out process to maybe have time to think? Oh, you know, I can't take it for what it is, you know, like when it comes to production stuff like that, I kind of stay out of the mix of the production logistics. My workload for the creative workload is just so steep right now that, you know, it's between doing recipes, writing songs, rehearsing, doing these charity projects I do, about to drop this album. You know, so it's like my creative workload is just monstrous. So when it comes to production logistics, I just make sure I work with people that I really trust and believe in and I let them handle that stuff. And sometimes it moves fast, sometimes it moves slow. You know, sometimes the slow stuff is good because it allows me to focus on the music I

3:52got to make or rehearsing and stuff like that. You know, I take it in stride, man. One day at a time, boss. It's funny to say the music I got to make. That's a good segue to switching to the music. How come you do you feel like you have to make it? Like it's something inside of you. I need to get this out to make music. And I know it really sounds like a cliché. You do a lot of music interviews and you probably hear that a lot. But, you know, I've been making I've been fascinated with music from a little kid. My brother was a DJ and my dad was a huge director collector and anyone in the Caribbean. When I was like four years old, he had like, you know, Santana, the Marley's. He had Simon and Garf, uncle, old West Indian, Paran music, old school

4:41calypso's. My dad has the deepest collection of old school calypso's. Is anybody on the planet, I think. And so I just grew up fascinated with music and food in our household. And I kind of fell in love with it when hip hop started burgeoning and great dancing and got him to do it all of that stuff. My brother had a crew and he was an older brother. So I always wanted to be down with my brother. You know how that goes. Of course. So I just I always loved the music man. And when I was about 15, I started making music and it just and I fell in love with it. You know, the first time I was standing in front of my like and just it just felt amazing, you know, and it was such a fascinating process. And now these years later, I know so much more about the process, but it's one of those things that you never fully understand the process.

5:30There's a there's a mystery about it always, you know, you're always seeking that that magic moment or seeking, you know, people kind of true for just honesty, you know, and sometimes you have to peel away those layers and, you know, but still be entertaining and colorful, but just straight up and honest. You know, it's a it's a magical conundrum man that I don't think it will ever ever. I don't know where to go from now, but I think I think I've got something. You tweet it's well, it's a question I wanted to ask you because you tweeted a Darwin quote the other day. It's not the strongest of the species that survived. We're the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. So how have you changed with this record? You know, it's interesting because I'm sure you've seen this in the publishing side too.

6:17And you know, because I operated in so many worlds, you know, it's like there's the food in the restaurant world and the hospitality industry. There is the music world. There is the recording world, which is kind of somewhat separate from the music world, especially today, right? Yeah. There's the publishing world that I deal with a lot because, you know, I do fair amount of writing for magazines and there's a recipe world. And so I'm operating all these different kind of media and entertainment platforms. And one thing that I see and I'm sure you've seen over the years is those platforms are dynamically changing, particularly in the last five to ten years, right? And the whole landscape is changing. The business models are changing, how they interact with customers are changing, the language

7:04that they communicate with is changing dramatically. And you know, you see like people who are your colleagues five, ten years ago, they're now working in my kitchen. You know what I mean? And so you see like this transformation and it's really interesting. So I just kind of roll with it. You know, like I said, man, you know, I just take one day at a time. I'm always on the pulse of what's going on because I'm deeply involved with all of these different forms of media from a creative standpoint to a execution standpoint to a deliverable and promotional standpoint. And I've seen how the game has changed over the years. And you know, that's what to me keeps it exciting. You know, it's like I'm perpetually curious and severely ADD.

7:55So I need to be constantly fed new information and just kind of find a way, you know what I mean? And that's really what it comes down to, man. It's the survival of that adaptation, you know. So talking about survival, do you do this living on $1.75 a day? Have you done that already or are you about to do this? What that is, they asked me to contribute to that and I said, look, I'm in the middle of shooting a show and part of the thing is you can't take food that's given to you and obviously to the show. I have to do that. But what I did is I contributed a recipe to them. But prior to leaving on this trip, I did the $1.75 thing for a week. You know what I mean? And so what was it? What was that like? Was it? I mean, those first days must be impossible. Does it get easier?

8:40You know, it's not a possible man. He used to live on $1.65 a day for food. When I first did the kawatoule. Look out, you're used to eating very nicely and cooking for yourself and doing all that. Yeah, but you know, I appreciate the challenge, because you know, it's easy once you achieve a certain level of being able to do certain things that you want when you want to do them kind of thing. You know, I like the discipline of being focused on something that's uncomfortable. You know, like for, you know, I've been cooking in kitchens for 20 years. It's only in the last five to seven years in my career where it's been comfortable, right? And working in the kitchen is a very uncomfortable work.

9:27But I love it. And there's a discipline about that. And so this kind of challenge, you know, for me, it was like, you know, never forget where you coming from, you know, and it physiologically reminds you. Don't forget that. Because you feel hungry, dude, on $1.75 a day. It's not easy. And you know, you're not able to indulge in, you know, candy cane beats and like, what do you beef and like all this kind of shit, right? So, yeah, but you know, my palate is adjusted. You know, I eat a nice life. Yeah, I got a nice, nice diet, you know what I mean? It's just a reminder, mostly for me, man. And yeah, it's hard. But I kind of thinking, I might just take this up every year, you know, and I do a lot

10:16of charity work all over the world and locally and dealing with food security issues and all kinds of stuff like that. So, you know, when I go to those places, you see the real deal and I make sure I do that stuff every year and continuously so that I kind of check my head. What are you eating for a buck 75 a day? Like, what is a lot of, I would assume, rice or pasta, a lot of starch? When I was doing it, I did oatmeal. I did a lot of stuff, you know, because oatmeal is actually really healthy and it's very simple to prepare and it's really inexpensive. So I was doing that. I was doing rice and mixing it with brown rice and white rice to get a little bit more nutrients.

11:01I was eating. It's kind of a starch heavy diet. When I used to do this back in the day, like when it wasn't an experiment, around the corner from where I was living at that time, there was a two for one pizza. Remember two for one pizza? Well, they still have it, of course. Oh, do they still have it? I didn't even mess with it, right? Around the corner, they used to have a two for one pizza and once a week I would take my buck 65 and they had a special on that. I think it was Tuesdays or something and you could get double slices and a pop for a buck 65. So that's what I used to do back in the day. That was my treat from the potatoes and all the other stuff, you know, but I love, you know,

11:48hard boiled eggs, stuff like that, right? I wonder if that's where Buck 65 got his name. I wonder if it comes from that two for one pizza as well. Yeah, I love that. I love that buck. You have buck 65 is ill, dude. You mentioned in there focusing on the discipline of being uncomfortable. Oh, my God, is a personal song. I know we're jumping around from food to record food record, but yeah, no, it's all good and my life is like that. I'm sure it is. So how hard was a song like that to write? Did you, as you're writing it, did you feel like I'm getting too personal? This is, or was it more of a therapeutic to write a song like that? Well, you know, I went into this record with a couple missions. You know, I wanted to be, I wanted the sound of the record. You know, this is the first time I went into a record with such a really clear vision, right?

12:37You know, the last record, a clear vision of how I want to sound feel everything. A lot of times when I go in, I'm just, I start creating and then it starts to create itself, right? With this record, I had a very clear focus. I knew the album title from like two years ago, I've been walking around this title in my head. I knew the title. I knew how I sonically wanted it to feel, you know, in my head. I had it. I had a model the whole time saying I wanted to feel like creamy centers and raw edges. So, you know, the initial listen is like really raw, really emotional. The sonics are, you know, there's some distorted elements. There's like a real edge to it. There's the vocals are aggressive sometimes and really vibrant, right?

13:23But when you get down into the stories of each of these songs, they're dense, they're rich, they're full, they're palpable. When you bite into them, they bite you back and they live with you. You know, it's like when you bite into a chocolate truffle and it sits on your palate and it just sits there and it's creamy and rich and half hour lady, you could still taste that chocolate. That's kind of how I dealt with the stories in this record. And I realized going into it that I just had to be really honest, man. I made the music with my production partner on that song Byron. We sat down and we just started making this music and I built the chorus up and we built this really grandiose intro that you hear.

14:11And then we built all the music for the verses. What I would do is a lot because I was working between shooting heat seekers at the time and writing this record in the hotel at night. I would come home from heat seekers, you know, 10 at night and I would stay up till 6 in the morning writing lyrics off of instrumentals that we would create like a week or two ahead of it. So the instrumentals are influencing the way the lyrics are coming out. In that particular song, yes. In another song I had the ideas for the lyrics and I would formulate the music based on what I had, the idea of the lyrics in my head. And then I would actually write the stories. You know what I mean? But on that song what I did is I was actually at home in Toronto and I took that instrumental

15:01with me and sometimes I'll write in my car. Writing and it happened to be, you know, that parking lot is like three minute drive from where I was writing and the chorus was already there. I said, you know, the music is just so emotional and going to write whatever and I would stop myself because I tell you I didn't want to write that. I can't even listen to it.

15:48I just found it interesting. No, no man. It's, you know, it's real, you know, so totally cool with it. So I just started writing and I tried not to write that song for about an hour. I would try to write other stuff but it just, it wasn't sitting properly with the music and just what was there before me and what was in my head and, you know, still a very raw motion and it still is to today, right? Sure. And then I just said, you know, fuck it, dude, like for myself I have to do this. And I just, so I wrote it all the letters from the court of them and I was in this booth crying

16:38like a baby like for an hour in the booth, right? And that was really hard. We got it done and we kind of left. We didn't even speak about it much, me and Byron after that, something else and we just kind of left that. And then a few months later, my wife was pregnant at the time when we recorded that and we had our son had passed away and so I was writing that song. And then a few months after that, my wife was pregnant but that felt as well. And so I actually had to go back and the song, the first line of the song says, why do we have to take his breath? And I had to go back and record.

17:39Yeah. I don't know where to go from that. Yeah, you know, like it's like that be sometimes it's, you know, it's interesting because when I was sequencing the record, I wanted to go, I wanted it to, like I said, rough creamy centers and raw edges. So I wanted the record to really ride like how life is, you know, like, you man, one day you're running a marathon the next day you're fucking here. You got an amputated leg in five minutes, right? So and life is like that, you know, and then you go right from that to some jokes. You know, somebody makes you laugh while your legs being amputated. You're like, you know, somebody cracks a joke that that's that real shit that happens,

18:25right? So when I was sequencing the album, I was like, where do I put this song? Like, and I realized that we came out of a song called Shoulder to Cryon, which, have you heard the whole record? Yeah, it's got the scratching baby cries. Shoulder to cry. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We went from shoulder to cryon, which is kind of like, you know, there's all these people on Twitter who are like egg profiles, and they talk shit, right? And most of the time I laughed that stuff off of that one day. I just got pissed, you know, people are talking some stupid shit. I just got pissed and I was just just going at those people. I mean, a record for those people, you know what I mean? But it goes from the most confident, like braggadocious moment from shoulder to cryon, then you go directly into the Oh my God.

19:13And then straight out of Oh my God, you go into after party, which is a party record. And you know, some people were like, why did you do like, I talked to a couple people who make my manager, you know, Byron, who else producing a lot of the record with. And he said, why did you do that? Like, it's so weird to go from one moment like that. I said, life is like that, man. You don't know what's going to happen. You can turn the corner and snap a finger. And that's what it was like. You know, I was at home. I was doing an interview with a publication in Trinidad. And I was cracking jokes. We were having a blast with this, with this interviewer in Trinidad. And my household was ringing. I was on my cell phone.

20:00And I was watching my kids because my wife was out at a doctor's appointment. And I was watching my kids. The phone just kept ringing in the middle of this interview. So halfway I stopped in to this and hold on a second. I picked up the phone. And as the doctor saying, I'm sorry, tell you, but your son passed away. Your daughter passed away. So I had to, you know, hung up the phone on the interview. I ran to the hospital at fiasco. But that's what life is, man. You go from like an extreme high to an extreme low. And I think everybody's life is like that. I know my life is like that. I know I've been through moments like that. And I think everybody in life has gone through a moment like that.

20:45Maybe, you know, they're blessed and they have never, you know, had to two children or whatever like that. But everybody has that thing. You know, how many people's lives have been touched by cancer, whether it's theirs or their family or their parents or their grandparents or, you know, life just goes up and down like that, man. And I just, I wanted to reflect that, you know, and a lot of people kind of bucked me on that. They're like, yo, that doesn't make sense to do that. You're killing the momentum of the records. And I'm like, yeah, well, that's what life is. This is a record about life. And I want people to relate to it like in its actuality as it occurs, if we were to script our life, we would script magic constantly.

21:31Right? Yeah. But we don't get to script our life, man. It just unfolds. And so I wanted the record to just unfold like emotions unfold in life, right? How would you script a live show? Are you going to tour this record? Do you have time to tour this record? I would love to tour this record, man. Yeah, for sure. You know, it's a little tricky with my schedule. You know, I'm already on the road 200 and something days a year. But it's definitely a priority for me to get out there and play live shows. I have a few appearances kind of lined up and booked. And so I'm excited about that. And, you know, I'd done a couple rehearsals already. And it was nice to kind of be back with some just really vibing in that live setting because

22:18I really love live and artists to be able to deliver live. And would you want to, I don't even know how you'd pull this off, but like do the live, like Jamie Oliver kind of cooking show have a like a hip-hop set and a cooking show? Or do you want to keep those lives separate? Well, it's an interesting question. And I think it's an immediate leap for people to want to see that and do that. And, you know, like I said, man, I take one day of the time if there's an interest in that sort of thing. I think there's an interest to do that. But I also don't want to denigrate the value of each. You know, it's like you do a cooking thing and it's like you go and do a performance with

23:03the music. It kind of feels like, oh, there's that rap and chef guy like that. You know what I mean? Yeah. It can come up off kind of hokey. So we were being very mindful of that moving forward and, you know, all things in the approach, man. But at the end of the day, I love to do both things. I'm not ashamed of that unfold since we're starting to do rehearsals for show. And if not, and it's just a music thing, then it's what knows going back a while.

23:53But I don't know many people that have played with James Brown. So what did you learn as a performer from playing with him? Oh, man, we need to do a whole lot of things about this. James Brown changed my life. I got to tell you, when we did those shows, I said to myself, in all honesty, if I never do another show ever again, I would die a happy musician. Sure. Right? Just to be in the presence of that level of greatness. And you know, we know the legend of James Brown.

24:41And, you know, he's amazing. You know, I could go on and on about him, and like an angel and a bird. And I said, no, every note is dead, a great man, man, he is. But it's in those silent moments that nobody sees, you know, it's him rehearsing. You know, he's been touring with some of the, in every sound check, he would go through a different section of the band. It's one day it'd be, he would run them for like half an hour after sound check. He like, okay, keys today move. And he would run them, run them through cycles of things, right?

25:29Stop. And he's correcting them. Dude, you've been singing the same harmony for 40 years. And he's like, oh, you're flat. No, you're not paying attention. Right? And that's in sound check. And during the show, there's moments where he turns us back to the audience. And he's actually running drills on the band, live on stage. And you don't even realize, you just think that he's vibe and dancing, right? But he's actually giving them cues. And he, they're on test every single night, right? So he's giving them cues and it could be like a little tone tap. If you miss that cue, he finds you 50 bucks or whatever it is, right? And everybody like you see, you know, unfortunately you won't ever be able to see it again, but

26:18you would see the drummers when he was running the drummers during that show. The drummers are afraid to blink because they're going to miss the cue. And also there was no set list. You know, he's going through this catalog for two and a half hours, three hours, that's the 100th song with beat. And there's no set list. And the band doesn't know every day of the different show because he has like these routines that he does, but he cues in and out of these routines. And the cue could be like, like a snap of a finger. And everybody knows what that is, but you got to go from 150 BPM down to 60 BPM in like on one beat.

27:05And everybody's got to be locked at that tempo, right? And so I just learned, you know, even at his level of expertise and greatness and fanfare and praise, he's working hard every day. He's working his time. He don't need to do that. And he could kick back. You know, they've been pouring 40 years with them. You know, he could take it easy, but he just loves what he does so much. And this is a constant, a professional and just demands what I really took away. I'm going to let you go. So we do something called five questions, five quick questions, one word answers. Yeah. Road or studio? Say that again. Road or studio?

27:56Leonard McCartney. Only because of wings. The wings of the shit. Oh, you're like wings. All right. Good. I like that. Wings of the shit. What are you talking about? No, no, I am a wings fan. It's post wings that I'm up until like 90s 70s got the 80s and the 90s that I'm not a big fan of. But 100%. That's why I say wings. That's why I say wings. Okay. Pong saved it. Pock or biggie? Biggie. When you even name check them on the record too. When you hear a song, what usually hits you first lyrics, melody or rhythm song you've written your most proud of.

28:42Cool. And in one word, Roger Mooking.