Bonus Episode 14 | Sculpting Sounds and Emotions with Patrick Leonard - Mick Unplugged
28:30 Share

Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny, and light up your path to greatness? Welcome to the epicenter of transformation. This is Mic Unplugged. We'll help you identify your because so you can create a routine that's not just productive, but powerful.

You'll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the game, and take a step toward the extraordinary. So let's unleash your potential. Now, here's Mick.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Mic Unplugged, the podcast that drives deep into the hearts and minds of inspiring leaders and creatives. And today I'm here with someone that I looked up to for many, many years of my life. So I'm thrilled to have with us a legend known for his iconic collaborations with the likes of Madonna.

Elton John, Roger Waters, Leonard Cohen, just name a few. But now he's stepping into the spotlight with his solo album, All Comes Down to the Mood. We're here to explore his new project, his illustrious career, and his unique creative process. Without further ado, please welcome me in joining the great Mr. Patrick Leonard. Patrick, how are you doing today, sir? Hi.

I'm like, you flatter me. It's all true. It is all true. I mean, kind man, you're too kind. No, you were the kind one for, for taking a moment to spend some time with me and the listeners and, you know, all the collaborations, you know, we, we just highlighted Madonna and Elton John and Roger Waters, but now you're doing your own. Yeah. You're doing your own. All comes down to mood. It's going to release soon. What inspired you for this project?

Well, as you and I were just talking, you know, my wife and I relocated from the West Coast to the East Coast. So we're in a very different environment and a very open environment. We're in the country and it's very open. And being a kid from Michigan, from rural Michigan, I thrive with trees and streams much more than stoplights and cars, you know. So there's that.

And I think what got me to this point is after Leonard Cohen passed away in 2016, I'd worked for Leonard for about seven years and done almost nothing else in that time. No records or anything with anybody else or no writing with anyone else. And at that point, you know, for collaborations, it felt like kind of the last house on the block, you know? I mean, I really couldn't imagine going in and writing pop songs with anybody or doing anything. It just seemed like a good, complete circle.

And then as this stuff was going on, we were doing a little hiding from COVID a couple of years later. Roger Waters and I started talking about a project that we sort of started picking out a little bit just remotely. And then when we moved here, that project turned into the Dark Side of the Moon redo, which I worked with him for months.

some time on a few months. And then I don't know why. Well, I do know why, but I decided I didn't want to do it. And I think it just had something to do with having all this music I'd been working on myself and the new environment and the new studio. And it just didn't feel right to me. And Roger had his whole band and he was all set up and it wasn't going to leave him hanging or anything. He's going to, he's going to do it. And he did it anyway. And he did a great job. And so I kind of said, I'm not doing that. And, and,

Maybe I didn't have that much of a purpose right at that point. But then and this is just it sounds like nonsense, but it's not. Then David Gilmour called me and said, I want to make a solo record and I'd like you to help me with it. And I went, OK, because you need your reaction when these people call us not to say no. Right. Yes. Yes. Childhood idol. Yes. Let's go. Right.

And it was a little bit the same thing. We worked for a while and I just felt like I can't bring what I need to bring to this. And so I backed away from that one. And now I find myself really with kind of the ultimate nothing to do. Because once for me in my world and my background, once I've said no to that, there's nothing more. There's nothing more. There's nothing. I won't say yes to anything if I said no to that.

And it's with the deepest respect for those two guys. So I'm going to make a record of my own. And I started picking through the pieces and bits and bobs of things that I had to see if I could come up with enough material. And I started to construct things. I assemble right from the beginning when I'm doing things. I make because I see things as records, not as singles. I start assemblies right away. First songs, you know, side one, I do that. And I've always kind of done it.

And I just went, I don't have anything. So I started writing and it all comes down to mood or all new songs that were written as a body of work, intended to be a body of work as a vinyl. So I just dug into any chops and every chop that I have and applied it to my own work for the very first time in my life. And it was, you know, these things are never easy. If it's not a near death experience, it's probably not very good. So there you go.

And that's really where it came from. It was a lot of writing. I think I wrote over 30 songs for the 16 that are on there. It's a double album. It's a very long piece of work. It's 84 minutes of music. But I threw out more than I used. And, you know, lyric rewrites and lyric rewrites and then take a lyric that's good and write a different song to it. And just the process until it felt

finished people always go you're never going to be done i said no yeah i am i really am i really am like i'm really good at like i'm done now that's it but people don't understand like this is great why isn't it done it's like well that's whatever little voice says no

You can be better. Right. Anyway, that all said, it's done now coming out. The artwork was done by Storm Studios. The cover, which is the old hypnosis guys. Yeah. And no connection to the fact that I was just talking to Roger and David for all that time. Just that when I came to doing this, I just wanted people that made album covers. Yeah. So I reached out to them and developed a really nice relationship. And they did it.

tremendous job and it was the cover was almost more work than the album you know it took longer it did it took longer but it's a thrill to have it you know and especially in vinyl you know that's how i listen to music is you know so there you go there's nothing like dropping down a 45 and like bang it on vinyl right sounds different sounds it like touches your soul

Yeah, well, it's a very different technology. And the simple explanation is when you put a needle in a groove, the needle is vibrating based on what the groove's doing to it. And that vibration is being amplified and the speakers are vibrating the same way the needle's vibrating, but bigger. And when you listen to digital music, it's zeros and ones going by convincing you you're hearing music.

it's a totally different experience. One is your mind and the other one's your body. Correct. You know, no despair, nothing despairing about any of it. We've consumed digital music for a long time, but if I'm going to go listen to something in our little music room, I put on a vinyl. I mean, I can't in my room here in my studio. I can't because I, you know, I don't, I'm not doing that down here. This is the workshop. And so it's, the instruments are all analog, but the computer, you know, I'm not using tape right now. Although I,

I'm now threatening the idea of getting a multi-track tape machine and making a record on analog tape. I don't know that it's worth it. But anyway, digital analog, big difference. Totally agree. And you hit on a couple of things. I have a vinyl player and my wife was like, why do you have that? I'm like, hey, music just feels different, I promise you. And so I was like, what's your favorite song of the vinyls that I have? We're going to play it on iTunes.

And then we're going to play it on vinyl and you're going to feel the difference. And within 10 seconds, she's like, oh, my God, I almost forgot what this felt like growing up. Right. Like Saturday mornings when your parents are having you clean the house and they throw the vinyls on like it brought you back to a place. And that's what I love about your music. And more importantly, this album. Right. You hit on 16 songs, 80, 84 or 80 plus minutes. And I got to hear a sample. And I'm going to tell you, like, here's what I heard in the sample.

I heard some 80s pop, some 80s soft rock. I heard some funk. Like, what's your creative process? Because just in that sample, I'm like, I can't wait to hear the whole thing because it's probably going to be my favorite album because I just felt like I heard music.

And no disrespect on today, but I heard music just listening to that quick sample. My directive on it was the writing is going to be my writing, which my writing never feels time related. Like it doesn't feel like now or then, or it's, it's always been the same. So when I sit down to write something, my process is the same. I have a,

A little keyboard here in case we want to. But I usually just start with improvisation for everything at the piano, not an electric piano, at my regular piano. But in this case, my conditions were no keyboards that were made after 1979. So there's no 80s anything. There's no polyphonic synthesizers, no drum machines, no sequencers, none of it.

Everything is pianos, electric pianos, Hammond organ, Mellotron, Minimoog synthesizer, because that was around, and some modular synthesis, because that was around at the time. And so I kept it so that it's basically a 70s record in that sense of it.

and there is almost no electronic anything. It's guitars and keyboards and so it's very much that. And then thematically, as I started writing, the lyrics started to present certain themes and certain groupings for sides, you know, because when you think

When you make your favorite records, you better believe those guys planned that side and the other side. And if there's a double album, all four sides were planned. So they did a thing. So that construct influenced it a lot. It's not fixed. It's not quantized. It's just raw. And raw in a record-making sense. Like, it's not playing in a bar. You know what I mean? Like, it's not that. It's very polished, but it's still people playing music.

So that's that part of it. The creative process part of it. I have a small issue when it comes to these things. This record now I wrote over a year ago. And since then, I've written two more records. And so I'm obsessing about the latest thing I'm working on because it's definitely going to be the next record. And it's always been a problem for me because I write every day. If this record had come out the day I finished it, I could have been very fluent.

You know, very engaged in it. Now it feels like that old thing. And I don't mean that literally, but my process is the same. I write at a piano and I start with improvisation and I find chord progressions or I wake up at two in the morning with a lyric idea and I dictate it into my phone quietly in the other room to not wake my wife. And the next morning I come in and put it in the computer and get it in some sort of shape and print it out and sit at the piano and write from lyrics.

And I would say on this record, it's about half and half, maybe more lyrics than music. And that doesn't mean a complete lyric. It just means the initial thing came from a lyric. I think it was Leonard that really informed me of the power of starting with a lyric. It was my relationship with Leonard was he'd email with Ding and it would just have a title and I'd open it up and print it out and it would be a lyric from Leonard. And I'd write something right on the spot.

and sing it and send it back to him, usually within 15 minutes. And he'd go, yes or no, try something more bluesy or more country. And that was how it went. So responding to a lyric is very different than the songs I wrote, say, with Madonna or other artists I work with, which was also always kind of the same thing as I go in the studio and I write music and they show up and I show it to them.

and then they can do what they want with it or not like it or like it or whatever it is. But that process of sitting down in isolation and writing a chord structure with some sort of melodic thing and beats and stuff, give it a drum beat, that's the other method. And in this record, it went both ways. There was quite a few songs where I had a melody and I had chords and I can make a demo version that sounds fairly convincing on my own fairly quickly and then look, search for that

theme of like, what's this about? You know, so that's kind of the process. And then as the songs start to reveal themselves, sequencing, and then you go, this theme doesn't feel right here, but the feel feels right. And that's when sometimes you just take the lyric and throw it out and write another piece of music. So it's that fearlessness to make sure that the structure is really what I want. You know, it's really what I'm looking for. It's strange to say I. It's strange to say I. I get it.

I get it. You know, and we for 50 years, right? It's all about Patrick. Now it's all about Patrick. And I, I personally feel like this. It's,

Today, we throw around the terms genius and legend a little too loosely. Yes. But I need Patrick Leonard to know you are a genius and you are a legend. Oh, man. Like that creative process is genius. I mean, that's amazing. And it's not just me saying that, right? So, and I'm going to read this quote because it came from Sir Elton John and I have to do it justice.

justice, right? So Elton said this album by Patrick will make you sit up and take notice. Surprising melodies, incredible music played perfectly by all concerned. For me, and this is Sir Elton John, for me, it's the mana from heaven, listening to the unexpected twists and turns, a brave album, and one that is a complete triumph. When you hear those words from Elton John, how does that make you feel?

You don't want me crying on your podcast, Mike. You don't want that. No. I'll turn into a blubbering baby. When Elton's first record came out, and I don't even, you know, how did you know about those things in those days? I mean, I was a kid, man. I was just a kid. So how do you know about it? I don't even know how I knew about it. But that first album changed my whole thing.

because the way he played and the quality of the recordings and the players and then the next record, Tumbleweed, because here we, in America, it was not, there was another album before the one with your song on it that came out in the

But the first one I heard was your song and then Tumbleweed. And then I saw him play over and over again. And then all those years later to find myself making a record with him and from scratch and to see his methods. You want to talk about a genius, you know, forget it. I mean, the stories are like nothing else. He is an absolute one off in every sense of the word.

So I know when Elton says that about the record that I know what he did. He put it on and he cranked it up so loud that it would kill any normal human in the room because he listens at deafening levels. He really does. And this record is kind of like that's what it's that's what it is. It's a you know, when you actually get there, it's much more 70s rock than it is 80s anything. And if you're 80s and it's just the writing feels familiar, probably.

Yeah, that's me. You're right. Because I definitely heard, like I said, I heard some funk. I heard some really tight structure beat. And for those that don't understand music, like tight structured melodies are a thing of the past. I don't think anyone does that anymore. It's on your album for sure.

No, thanks. I mean, I, you know, the blue collar work ethic of being down here in my room, usually before sunup while I was making the record, oftentimes three, four in the morning, because that's when I got a lyric idea and being here until six at night and not five days a week, take weekends off every day. And, and, you know, you think, well, don't you get tired? It's like,

No, this is the mother's milk. Because when you start to get the building blocks and you start to get the pieces, everything disappears and you're just going to get there. It's funny, I was writing a little thing for a magazine the other day, just looking at themes and I talked about the word genius. And in my little thing that I started to write, which I didn't use this part of it, but something that occurred to me is I said, in your mind, think of people that you think are geniuses that are alive right now. And if you can think of more than three, you don't know what a genius is.

And the things I've said over, you know, decades is I say when Beethoven was alive, everyone else was trying just as hard as he was. But you can't think of anybody else, you know, and it's that sort of thing. And so what I've said for a long time is I said, 100 years from now, it's going to be Stevie Wonder and everybody else. That's really how I feel about it.

I don't disagree. Stevie just defined it all to me and will always be that guy who's like, that's it, man. That's a genius. And I got to work with him and spend some time with him at his house. And that was, wow, from Elton through Elton again, you know, because he played harmonica and clavinet on Dark Diamond on Elton's.

songs from the West Coast record. And what a moment, what an evening. And to me, that's a genius. And if that's how I measure genius, then I'm just a kid with a bunch of skills and a creative mind, you know, smoked a lot of weed in the 70s. You know what I mean? Like, I know what it's supposed to feel like because I saw a lot of concerts very stoned. And I'm just trying to recreate that. A genius, you know, old stoner, maybe. No.

No, I'm giving you genius. With some skills. No, no. Very few geniuses and legends, but Patrick, you're one of them. I promise you. You're very generous. Thank you. I promise. So what are your thoughts on music today?

What are your thoughts on the current state of the music industry and do you see it evolving in the coming years? I have a tremendous cop out for you. I have no idea what's going on because I never listen and I never will listen. I just don't. I can't afford it. Even in the 80s when I was making the records I was making, I wouldn't listen to the radio. I didn't.

I can't. And I've never been able to, except when I was a kid. But even then, it wasn't the radio. It was consuming albums of bands that I idolized. And that list has not changed or grown since then. I think after Joni Mitchell made Mingus, that's probably about the cutoff for me, for things that I go, this is part of my musical life. And Peter Gabriel's So was a tremendous record, but it's not in the same category.

And the stuff that I consumed until I had to stop consuming it, which is kind of strange, but it was Keith Jarrett because that's a genius. That's a Stevie Wonder genius right there. And all you have to do is have gone to Carnegie Hall and sat there and watched him improvise for two and a half hours. Absolutely. Go, OK, you know, really, you know, that's like out of an airplane with no shoot and figuring out some way to get to the ground, you know.

And so I don't know what's going on in pop culture, but I do know just in my own humble opinion that the technology and the social media has done a lot to connect people and a lot to bring people to commonplace, which I think has some redeeming value and has some beauty in it. But I never saw music as an even playing field.

That's what I see even just peripherally. And I can't listen to it the second I do. I got to back off it because I'm not saying there aren't brilliant people. There's always brilliant people.

And I'm sure there are some with shocking inventiveness and everything else. I just the medium having become so technology dependent, it's just a complete turnoff to me. And, you know, I'm sorry, I'm 68 years old. Like, I'm not going to dance to the songs, even if I could, which I can't.

spent a lot of time sitting at pianos these legs just good with a sustain pedal so I don't mean to cop out of the answer but honestly I don't listen and my feeling about where things are at is I think there's a lot of people making music and there's probably some really brilliant ones and I hope it lifts people up but I don't know because I can't listen because it affects this no you didn't cop out you gave me the answer

Right? Like you, you totally gave me the answer. And one of the things that I respect about you and your genius is kind of what you were saying and alluding to. And I hear comedians say this a lot too. I like, I don't listen to other comedians because I never want to be influenced by a joke or a story. And I think for you as a, as a writer and as an

artists, it's almost the same thing. Like you don't want to be influenced by something and you always keep the main thing, the main thing. And I think that should be relatable to people in your everyday lives too, right? Like it's not that it's a bad thing to listen to others and heed advice from others. I'm definitely not saying that.

But I'm also saying just sometimes you need to be careful and you got to focus on the things that you do and do well and just keep perfecting those things and not be influenced by. And if it's your core and it's what you do every day and you want it to be yours and anecdotally, and this is not a point of pride, this is a really strange thing. I don't know anybody's songs. I never learned anybody's songs.

the tours that I were on, I had tape across the top of the keyboards because I didn't remember the songs because I didn't want to remember the songs. I can't play

I can't play my own songs. I can't play freaking Happy Birthday, Mike. I never learned songs. So when I was a kid and taking piano lessons, which started when I was four, I'd fake it. And I could say my sister was a classical pianist. My dad was a jazz saxophone player. And I could play gigs with my dad with a fake book. And I could play in rock bands because I was young enough to know the rock songs and actually learn them and remember them. But I don't know them now. You know, I don't know anything. I can't play my own songs for you. I don't.

I can't. And sometimes I think it's super intentional, but it's not that intentional. It's if I'm going to sit down, I'm going to write and try to create, whether I'm improvising or trying to write something. And

If I'm going to study, I get out the same books I got when I was 10 years old. And I do the finger exercises and the scales and the arpeggios. And if I'm going to learn harmony, I go to Ravel and I listen until there's something I don't understand what the notes are. And then I stand it up on its end and look at it as a harmony and go, okay, that's a really interesting harmonic relationship. Because a lot of what was happening back then is the relationships took place over three or four octaves. Yeah.

You know what I mean by that? But instead of a chord being here, a chord is, you know, it's from there to here. But you've got to have the harmony in it because that doesn't sound good.

But that does. So you need to know this stuff. And that's theory. That's not someone else's music. That's theory. So you're going to go hunting. You bring what you need to get the critter you want to get. It makes sense. Going with someone else's idea, you're going to get eaten by a bear, man. You know what I mean? That's genius life advice right there.

We could just end the podcast on that. Like that was genius life advice. Thanks, man. I mean, the tools that you need to capture what you're trying to capture. Yeah. Or else be willing to be hunted by someone else. And you know what, too, in that if you're doing this, it's your life duty. It's your life adventure. You're going to go until you can't do it anymore. Period. And you're going to do it unrelentingly with one goal in mind. Be better. Be better than I was this morning.

What else am I doing if I'm repeating? So finding ways to challenge or looking at things that are very difficult to do. Like there's things on my record that I wrote and then realized they were really difficult to play because I'm putting a song down. So I'm just winging something and then I have to play it on the organ and the piano. And it's like, wow.

you know, because when it comes out, like I could easily right now improvise something that I could never play tomorrow. If you wrote it down for me, it'd be like, well, this is so strange and squirrely and odd. And that's,

That to me is kind of what it's all about. If there isn't something that you've never done before on mood, there's things that are in time signatures that I defy anyone to try to count because they're changing every bar. And it's not because I wanted it to be academic. It's because I how I wanted it to feel. And you're tapping your foot to it. But trust me, man, it's all over the board in terms of where those downbeats are falling. And what that does is it makes you listen.

And I'm not trying to make you listen either. I'm just pleasing myself, you know, which is, I think, another component in this is you care what others think because you want it to affect them. But you're doing it for you. You know, the challenges I do are not for anybody else. The challenges I do are for me. Sometimes they're a bitch, man. Sometimes, you know, I love it is.

I'm thinking you were talking music and you're out here giving life lessons. I think an album needs to be life lessons by Patrick Leonard. Oh, no. You know, you do anything long enough, you get in all the nooks and crannies, you know. There's a thing behind us here. Do you know what modular synthesis is? No. I'll turn this around and show it to you. First, I'll show it to you and then I'll give you a little bit of here. Can you see that? Wow. Yeah.

Yes. That's my modular synth. And what it is, is it's individual modules that are from different companies, many of them. And you put them in a rack and you screw them in and you connect them from the front. There are no connections in the back at all. And you make sounds and do music with them. And when you're done, you pull the patch cords out and it's gone. There is no memory. There is no nothing. OK, everything is the first time and everything is the last time.

So it's the greatest thing for me because that's how I like to think of it, all of it. Like I'm doing this now and then that's it. And then I got to do something else. And hopefully I learned from what I did so that the next thing I do is better. A lot of people don't like that idea that you're trying to be better, you know, but I do. If you're not kicking your own ass a little bit, who's going to do it for you, you know?

you know there it is especially if you're if you're a little bit the big fish in some ways because then people don't say anything yeah no yeah that's why i love my wife she's not shy no love it absolutely love it patrick i'm gonna get you out of here on this it all comes down to mood

What do you want people to know most about that album and this project? What I would like from people in this record is I'd like them to listen to it. Just listen to it and listen to it as a body of work if you can. By the nature of it being two discs,

Whoever buys the vinyl, it's easy. You get 20 minutes, you turn it over, you get 20 minutes, you go have a sandwich, you get 20. You know, it's a little bit of the vinyl ritual. But if you're listening to it any other way, if you can look at the way it's laid out and consume it that way, it'll mean more.

because that's the intention of it. You don't want to watch a movie a scene at a time. You want to watch it as chapters a little bit. And it's not intended to be anything other than what it is. And something that I've always noticed or started noticing and found it to be really true is all of my great favorite bands that I loved and artists that I loved

in their careers, no matter how long their careers were, there tends to be three albums as a group somewhere in the middle, usually a little bit towards the end, sometimes towards the beginning that are it. And there's the ones that were getting them there and the ones that they maybe shouldn't have made.

And then there's those three. And for almost everyone, you can sort of go, it's these three. And if you think about it, it's an interesting little thing. And when I finished this, I was talking to somebody and they said, what do you want from this? And I said, I want it to be the first of my three. That's what I want. That's what I'm looking for is I just want to keep being able to do this now because I like doing it. And I

I like collaborating, but I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm going to force myself to find it all, you know? So that's right. Get uncomfortable, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're not terrified, what are you going to get out of it? You know? Right. I love it. Ladies and gentlemen, dropping June 14th is the first digital single. And then the album, both digital and vinyl, which I'm going to have the vinyl July 26th. Right. Can't wait.

Thank you, Mike. It's been a pleasure. Patrick, you are amazing. And to all the listeners and viewers, remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. Thanks for listening to Mick Unplugged. We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution in your life. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast and be sure to check us out on YouTube at Mick Unplugged. Remember, stay empowered, stay inspired, and stay unplugged.