{"id":617507,"date":"2026-09-16T05:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T05:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/617507\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T05:00:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T05:00:22","slug":"beck-tells-us-about-ride-lonesome-it-took-a-long-time-to-get-that-kind-of-courage-to-be-this-direct-and-emotional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/617507\/","title":{"rendered":"Beck tells us about ‘Ride Lonesome’: “It took a long time to get that kind of courage to be this direct and emotional”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beck<\/a> has spoken to NME about tapping into a certain spiritual and emotional realm for his new album \u2018Ride Lonesome\u2019, as well as his often misunderstood genre-hopping musical journey to here from the \u201990s.<\/p>\n

We met Beck in a studio space at his label\u2019s London offices where he was lucid but admittedly \u201cin jet lag mode, man\u201d \u2013 quite fitting to talk about his beautiful new album \u2018Ride Lonesome\u2019, which he described as a \u201cslow motion, twilight, Mojave, acoustic, a trance of sound and emotion\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been seven long years since his previous album \u2018Hyperspace<\/a>\u2018, but it\u2019s not as if the singer, songwriter and composer has been resting on laurels. As well as the enforced stop-gap of COVID and lockdowns, he\u2019s gone out on several world tours \u2013 including his acclaimed orchestral theatre run last year<\/a> \u2013 as well as labouring on the songs that would go on to make up \u2018Ride Lonesome\u2019 with gruelling attention to detail.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn another era, it probably would have come out a year and a half ago,\u201d he told NME. \u201cI was initially going to finish this record and have it come out in 2023, but I ended up shelving it for two years. I wasn\u2019t sure about the songs, I didn\u2019t think they were strong enough, and I just wasn\u2019t in the mood for what the record would require to really fully live it and bring it to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Would it be fair to say that Beck is quite hard on himself?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m realistic!\u201d he replied. \u201cYou hope for the best for some of your songs, but as you get older you\u2019re a little more realistic about the song is and what it could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

A record in the more acoustic and emotion-swept lineage of his classics \u2018Sea Change\u2019 and Grammy-winning \u2018Morning Phase\u2019 rather than the genre-smashing alt-rock party soundtrack of \u2018Mellow Gold\u2019, \u2018Odelay\u2019 or \u2018Midnite Vultures\u2019, Beck teamed up again with some old friends to bottle a different type of magic. It was made with his original touring band from the \u201990s that recorded \u2018Sea Change\u2019 and \u2018Morning Phase\u2019 and mixed by Nigel Godrich (who produced the former), a collection of musicians Beck described as his version \u201cThe Wrecking Crew\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a musical chemistry that\u2019s something gratifying for us,\u201d he shared. \u201cIt\u2019s a relationship over many decades that just gets deeper and has more shapes, colour and nuance through time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Beck. CREDIT: Autumn De Wilde<\/p>\n

Check out the rest of our interview with Beck below, where he also told us about putting together \u201ca heartbreak record\u201d, his struggle to be sincere when people in the \u201990s found it \u201cnauseating\u201d, and why human connection will always win out over AI.<\/p>\n

NME: Hello Beck. \u2018Ride Lonesome\u2019 is something of a spiritual successor to \u2018Sea Change\u2019 and \u2018Morning Phase\u2019. What does it take to make this kind of record over say, \u2018sex rock Beck\u2019?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beck: \u201cYou have to have patience. This kind of music takes a lot of time, and you can\u2019t just go and knock it out. The singing, the playing, everything has to hit the right kind of emotion. Some days, that just doesn\u2019t come. There\u2019s a lot of time waiting for things to align. I had to sit with everything for a while to get a sense of how to sing it, how to play it, how to make it fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of emotional authenticity, these records always tap into something. What can you tell us about where you mind needs to be at to get into that space?<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the music was born around the time of COVID, and a lot of the songs were written because I was stuck inside my house by myself for a couple of weeks. It just happens organically. It isn\u2019t something you can control or plan, but it\u2019s where I was at.\u201d<\/p>\n

What sets it apart from \u2018Sea Change\u2019 and \u2018Morning Phase\u2019?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s more related to \u2018Morning Phase\u2019 than \u2018Sea Change\u2019. For better or worse, early on I didn\u2019t really define or differentiate different types of records that I would make. I started out making more folky singer-songwriter records on tapes and things, then I had this fluke thing I did with \u2018Loser\u2019 and there was a lot of talk before my first album came out: \u2018Do we name these as two different things?\u2019 My manager and the label were like, \u2018No, let\u2019s call them the same thing\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ethos at the time was that the audience would just have to accept everything, warts and all. Some of my peers have different acts, like an electronic dance project and a proper rock band, then like more compositional or singer-songwriter things and call it something else. I didn\u2019t really do that. It\u2019s made for a bit of confusion, but there\u2019s definitely a different ethos for this kind of record rather than one like \u2018Midnite Vultures\u2019, which is almost a different project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyrically, what were you mining on this album?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a heartbreak record. It\u2019s pretty obvious! A lot of the writing is very direct. It\u2019s about reckoning with loss, letting things go, navigating these emotionally impossible places and trying get through those moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s romantic loss, there\u2019s losing a loved one \u2013 a good friend \u2013 and just changing eras of your life. These are the kind of songs I wanted to do when I was young, but the musical climate at the time was pretty inhospitable to this kind of music. It took a long time to get that kind of courage to be this direct and emotional. I came up at a time when you get up in a bar, a club or an all-ages cafe or something, you start strumming elegiacally and you be booed, have things thrown at you and get heckled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would sneak in or keep to myself. There were bands and artists I knew. I was friends with Elliott Smith<\/a>, Lou Barlow<\/a> \u2013 they were writing more quiet and introspective music at a time when it just wasn\u2019t fashionable. I remember feeling nervous for them because I had my own PTSD of trying to navigate that. I remember trying to perform heartfelt songs and finger-picked acoustic music, then by the end of it just screaming \u2018MTV MAKES ME WANT TO SMOKE CRACK\u2019, then people\u2019s fists were up in the air and they were happy to hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a strange balance in the \u201890s when people said that they wanted authenticity but at the same time sincerity seemed\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026nauseating, yes. I don\u2019t think other generations had to deal with that. There\u2019s a fashion for every moment. Led Zeppelin<\/a> wasn\u2019t trying to make big band music, Frank Sinatra wasn\u2019t trying to play music hall ditties or whatever was possible the previous generation. It would be difficult to try and make a record like this back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right now, folk and country so in vogue, there are a lot of young indie and pop artists smashing genres and sounds together like you did, \u2018bedroom music\u2019 can fill arenas now. Do you feel accepted now and do you sense your influence?<\/p>\n

\u201cNot really. I have a lot of peers where I see their influence everywhere. It\u2019s the same way that you don\u2019t sing my songs at karaoke, the lyrics are too weird. A lot of my peers wrote great karaoke songs that anyone could sing. When I was younger I was always deconstructing and trying to subvert the very song I was working on, so a lot of it wasn\u2019t really conducive to direct influence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that younger people would maybe notice that my early records were really aggressively genre-defiant. That\u2019s something taken for granted now, but at the time it was highly transgressive. I remember getting a lot of shit for it, especially from journalists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand it, but at the time smashing genres together in an almost somewhat antagonistic way was for me almost a sort of post-modern punk rock. You couldn\u2019t really shock people with volume or even lyrical content. Even Pixies<\/a>, who were after punk, the way they shocked people was really aggressive music with really cute and sweet melodies. That was punk. For me the only that was punk was to flagrantly smash rap together with country, noise and symbolist poetry and see what happens. I remember being told constantly that this came off to people as a type of insincerity, or a lack of spine to claim my own sound and corner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then you were called \u2018slacker rock\u2019, but actually putting quite a lot of effort in\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that was funny. The background I came from was working all the time just to survive. I would have loved to have that suburban life of living in my parents\u2019 garage and not needing to have a job\u2026 \u2018slacking\u2019, as they say. The previous generation will always throw some kind of name or catchphrase on the younger generation to bring them down a notch or at least be reductionist.<\/p>\n

\u201cA clip popped up recently of Dean Martin<\/a> (who I love) introducing The Rolling Stones<\/a> on his TV show, and he\u2019s rolling his eyes. I was talking to Conan O\u2019Brien recently and he said he always made a policy to never make jokes about artists, especially younger performers that weren\u2019t of his generation. That never comes off well in the history. I\u2019ve always felt that it\u2019s important to welcome or support new artists coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you think young Beck would have fared in the current landscape?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that there\u2019d be a lot more room and acceptance. There were a lot of rules at the time when I was coming up. I\u2019m sure Radiohead<\/a> or Bj\u00f6rk<\/a> or anyone else coming up at that time would have to say the same thing. Records like \u2018Post\u2019, \u2018Homogenic\u2019 or \u2018Kid A\u2019, were really hitting walls of resistance. I remember hitting that with \u2018Odelay\u2019 and even \u2018Sea Change\u2019. People were storming out of those shows and I lost a lot of audience. It felt a little self-destructive with my audience, but intuition is always correct. Those records are probably more popular with the people who come to my shows now than those that sold infinitely more at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of intuition, people have been talking a lot about use of AI in music \u2013 with Dr Dre \u201cembracing\u201d it<\/a> as a tool. You\u2019ve just done an orchestral tour which is a very human effort and made an album like this. Where do you stand?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s driven me in recent years. Most of these songs were recorded live in a room. It\u2019s just five people in a room playing: take no punches, tape no changes, this is who we are and this is what we sound like together sitting in a space in realtime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t say that\u2019s better than programming some beats on your laptop, that\u2019s fine. I just prefer more of a human effort. I\u2019ve found myself really drawn to orchestras over the last decade, and I go to them quite a lot. I had a couple of years where I\u2019d go to them every week, just to sit there in a room in this ridiculously outmoded way of making music happen when we can just have an orchestra on our iPhone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of 80 people sitting together, playing a piece of music just feels so humanly indulgent. In a world of things being optimised and streamlined, it just feels so beautifully counterintuitive yet humanising and gratifying. I can\u2019t quite put my finger on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike any technology, there are great benefits, but you\u2019re also going to lose great things too. You gain and you lose with each step. I didn\u2019t have an iPhone until five or six years ago. I held out for a really long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

How much happier were you?<\/p>\n

\u201cI was better off, any my eyes were better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can we expect a very \u2018human\u2019 tour?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tour is going to be very different. It\u2019s going to be different to any other tour I\u2019ve done. It\u2019s definitely going to be an experience. It\u2019s going to be slow and dark with a quality of otherness and remoteness. I don\u2019t want it to feel like a rock show, I\u2019m going for a theatre production directed by Robert Wilson or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

You made the album with your old pal and drummer Joey Waronker, who also joined you at Royal Albert Hall last year in a break from touring with Oasis<\/a>. Will he be with you at your shows in 2026 and 2027?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t get Joey. He\u2019s a busy man, but he played on the record and we always play together when we have a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are you already thinking of the next record? Will it be another seven year wait?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always in the middle of a bunch of projects. I have records that have been simmering for many years. They\u2019re ready when they\u2019re ready. When \u2018Sea Change\u2019 came out people were like, \u2018Where did this come from?\u2019 I\u2019d been working on a record like that for a dozen years by that point. Some of the songs on \u2018Sea Change\u2019 were 10 years old by then. Hopefully there won\u2019t be a seven year gap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beck releases \u2018Ride Lonesome\u2019 on September 18 via Capitol Records, before a North American tour kicks off on September 22. Visit here<\/a> for tickets and more information.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beck has spoken to NME about tapping into a certain spiritual and emotional realm for his new album…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,131,46,409,1548],"class_list":["post-617507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-indie","tag-israel","tag-music","tag-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}