Thundercat On Losing a Soulmate and Finding His Voice

When Stephen Lee Bruner, aka Thundercat, gets on the phone, he lets me know immediately that he’s staring at his cats and proclaims that they are “trying to take over the world.” I mention that it’s been about 15 years now since he first became ordained in Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder community—around the same time he was making music with Kamasi Washington, Cameron Graves and Ronald Jr. as The Young Jazz Giants while also playing in Erykah Badu’s band during the New Amerykah era in 2008ish—and he’s a bit taken aback by such a number. “You’d always hear your parents say stuff like ‘time goes fast,’ and you look up and you’re just like, ‘Wait, I can’t believe it was that long ago,’” Thundercat says.

Thundercat’s second studio album, Apocalypse, came out in July 2013, but it took until this month for the singer-songwriter, bassist and general practitioner of bulletproof vibes elected to do something celebratory about it. The Ten Year Anniversary Edition of the record came out a few weeks ago, and it features two never-before-heard songs—“Paris” and “Before I loved myself ‘I’ pooped my ankles (true),” the latter of which was recorded with the late Austin Peralta before his sudden passing from pneumonia at age 22.

Apocalypse gave Thundercat a voice and the tools to make Drunk in 2017—one of the R&B and jazz fusion records of the century, which came off the back of having worked with Kendrick Lamar on To Pimp a Butterfly and Moses Sumney on Lamentations. While Thundercat wasn’t quite the mega star back then that he is right now, he was a wunderkind four-string maestro whose musical touch knew no bounds—as he played in thrash bands like Suicidal Tendencies and jazz collectives like West Coast Get Down. And while Apocalypse didn’t send Thundercat immediately to the stratosphere, looking back on songs like “Oh Shiet It’s X” and “Heartbreaks + Setbacks” continues to be a plentiful affair and an intimate look at both his and Flying Lotus’ rising genius.

It’s not often that you can pinpoint the exact moment an artist becomes themselves, but Apocalypse is one of those instances—as the explosive funk basslines and storms of psychedelic fog are exactly what shaped Stephen Lee Bruner into Thundercat forever. Earlier this month, he and I cut it up about Apocalypse, Peralta’s passing 10 years later and, above all, the moment he and Flying Lotus turned their one-in-a-million chemistry into a soulful empire. The below interview as been edited for clarity.

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Paste Magazine: Talk to me about getting linked up with Flying Lotus and the Brainfeeder community, when you were working with Georgia Anne Muldrow and Erykah Badu.

Thundercat: I feel like it was a very golden moment in the sound of Los Angeles, to be honest. Me and Lotus were talking about this the other day, where it was like, the people that were around—or the people that were around us, from Sam I Am to Georgia to Sa-Ra Creative Partners to J*Davey—[made for] a very interesting dynamic. And, in all honesty, between me and Flying Lotus, our friends would always say stuff like “I really think you would like this guy.” Any other day somebody says something like that, you tell him to shut up. It’s like, “What makes you think that? What in your mind makes you think that?” But there was something about it and the people it would come from—that were mutual friends—and it was always like, “Oh, you guys would get along. You guys are both crazy.”

It’s not one of those things where we intentionally ran in each other’s paths. It was just like “If it ever so happens, sure, but there’s no expectation here.” And I remember me and Lotus meeting at South By Southwest off the back of me playing with J*Davey for different showcases. Being from LA, it’s like, whenever something happens, you go to another place and, of course, you see all your friends from LA there, too, sometimes. And, in this specific moment—me being with J*Davey—I remember they were picking bones with me the whole time, because I was wearing a varsity jacket in 110-degree heat. I just didn’t give a shit.

I remember meeting Flying Lotus in the middle of the road in Austin, Texas in-between being drunk. And I was with Brook D’Leau and he was like, “Oh, yeah man, I was saying you guys need to meet.” And I remember Lotus was sketchy as hell. He was like Freddy Krueger, and it was, immediately, like Freddy Krueger meets Stimpy. I’ll never forget it. It was perfect, we were both like, “Oh, yeah, I heard a lot about you, man.” And who would have thought, the way that things were panning out between me and this guy who decided to sit behind a computer.

Lotus works with you on The Golden Age of Apocalypse. Before then, he really only had produced a handful of records in full. He did José James’ Blackmagic. He did Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime’s Mages Sages II. But your record, Golden Age of Apocalypse, is that one, you know? And it being your first solo record as an artist and one of Lotus’ first records as a producer—looking back, can you see moments where the two of you were really learning together, in real time, how to build an album out from two different perspectives?

We talked about it all the time, it’s just one of those things. You know, a lot of the time—and most of it is unbeknownst to us—the way it’s going to pan out, I feel like Lotus has always taught me that there’s a story in every part of what it is. You just have to learn how to tell that story and, for me, it’s not something that I always see on my own. It’s that thing that is shaped by the both of us, and it’s always been like that.

When you hit the studio later on to make Apocalypse, what had you learned from Golden Age that was immediately impacting the weight and shape of the album? I know that Austin [Peralta’s] passing was massive in that regard—and we can talk about that later—but musically, what was that thing that you pulled from making the first record that became non-negotiable the second time around?

This is where the term “trust the process” comes into play. I’ve never been one to direct the current of how it goes, right? I have points of interest in things. There’s a part where I want to show different places and connectivity in certain pieces of music, but there’s a part of it where it’s like, even when it comes down to the act of singing, there was a part of it where I had to be open to it. It wasn’t something that I led with as a teenager or as a child. I didn’t go: “I’m a singer.” Lotus was the one that told me that I should sing more. He was like, “You should sing.” And I was like, “Huh.” It’s more so about finding interest in the melody and harmonies of the songs and seeing where that leads me. Compared to touching on certain places or points, it’s more so from a harmonic perspective.

Before your solo career kicked off, you’d spent time working with Kamasi Washington, Erykah, Suicidal Tendencies. Collaboration had been your thing for a long time, but those first two solo records—it’s not until Drunk and It Is What It Is where you start filling tracklists out with guest features. Had there been any conversations about bringing people in on Apocalypse, or was the vision you had just one with Thundercat and Flying Lotus in it?

That was more so as a reference. Lotus was always very much encouraging of it to be me—because there a lot of that there, all the people that I had been working around or working with throughout the years. It was like, “Aw, man, it’d be great if this could happen, if this person did this” and Lotus was very much like, “Oh, man, this has to be you. They already have a voice, you have to find yours.” He’s always encouraged me to step out and push myself and, in those moments, I could see the value in those things—because it was coming from a place of honesty with him, with me. There’s lots of work that I had done with people from Suicidal to Erykah, but he said “But who are you?” And when he posed that question to me, he also helped me be able to shape it. And I think that was why there was so much more focus on who I was and how I would feel more so than features.

How crucial is that guidance when it’s coming from someone who’s not just a producer or a collaborator, but they’re your peer, too. When you’re working so intimately with somebody who gives you the space and the means to come into your own and transform from a session player or a live band guy to this full-fledged recording artist, is it immediately noticeable? Or is that something that you have to look back on with hindsight five to 10 years later to really appreciate that push and that encouragement?

Oh, my goodness. With Lotus in those crucial moments in my career, the importance of understanding that or that being conveyed with somebody is a major piece of it. You have different types of personalities, different types of creative expression with everybody—goodness, that was a beautiful question, man.

I appreciate that.

It was extremely imperative to who I was. And I really appreciate him for seeing that in me—because I probably wouldn’t have done it otherwise.

On Apocalypse, we really get this first taste of where you’re going to go later on the next two albums, Drunk and It Is What It Is. A I love the palette of Apocalypse so much, especially the throwback boogie funk, the middle-ground between prog and jazz fusion. I’d love to know what shit you were listening to when you and Lotus were cooking this record up, but I would also love to know what you were trying to make of genre. Were you trying to cultivate or dissect a specific eccentricity? What was swimming in your head at the time?

Life, pain, violent change, alcohol—a lot of alcohol—a lot of trying to understand that question that got posed to me of who I am and what this is, trying to understand who I was.

Thinking about alcohol and the song “Oh Sheit It’s X,” that remains one of my favorite dance songs ever. Put me in the studio when you’re making Apocalypse—because I gotta know what’s going on when you’re making a track like that. What are those sessions looking like? How are you and Lotus bouncing off each other in those moments?

Goodness. Well, first, that song was produced by Charles Dickerson—also known as Mono/Poly—and that song—I remember this very vividly—I remember it taking shape over time. Me and Charles would be going through different things in different files and he’d say “Oh, here’s something to play bass on.” We were going through stuff, and he sends me this little synth line and drums. And I remember—and there’s a part of me that is very well-versed at filling things in melodically and harmonically—as he sent me this track and I filled it out a bit, we laughed—because there’s a part of him that, a lot of the time as a musician, when a person’s thinking about the creation of their stuff, it can take such a twist that they wouldn’t have also thought of themselves for it to be.

So I remember playing it back for Charles musically, before I recorded lyrically, and part of him was like, “Wow, that’s a weird way that fits for that” and part of me could hear where it was coming from. I recorded the vocals—there’s not too many times in my life where I’ve recorded while I was on tour or moving about and doing stuff. At this time in my life, I was playing in Erykah’s band and I would be in and out of town a lot, I’d be on tour for months at a time with her. I was like, “Well, why not work while we’re out and about?” I would be hanging out with Rashad Smith and Durand Bernarr, and we’d be making music out on tour, sometimes—just messing around. And we’d be hanging out, going in-between cities and, sometimes, you meet up with the band in the lobby [of your hotel] to go get some food.

And one day I invited Durand to listen to some of the stuff I had been working on—and I was also trying to figure out how to sing “Oh Sheit It’s X”—and Durand Bernarr coached me through singing it. He knew the range of my voice, so he would find ways to help me hit certain types of runs, but it was very instrumental in creating the sound that everybody hears. It’s somewhere between my falsetto and my normal voice, which are very far apart. That’s how that song took shape, but where it lies—in the scheme of the story—is so specific. I like to tell the story of that song, because it’s about a party for New Year’s that lasted for, like, three days.

And Lotus wasn’t there and he was mad about it right?

Right, he never comes to anything! I think he was there. We all experienced that moment, where it was, like I said, a very special time in the sound of LA. Lotus knew what I was talking about, and I think that the place the song takes shape, the place it falls on the album, is a bit perfectly placed—because it was a moment that didn’t specifically lead to such a tragic reality, but it was where Lotus could see the story from his perspective and be like, “Oh, I see how that’s connected to this.” He would see those lines or those ties, so I think that song took shape at the right point on the album also because of Lotus’ direction.

Well, and thinking about Lotus’ direction, too, I read that you were hesitant to keep the “Oh shit, I’m fucked up” lyric in the final cut but he encouraged you to keep it in there. How does that single piece of guidance, him encouraging you to just keep that one line in there, go on to influence your approach to lyricism on the next two records? Just trusting that choice and trusting where the energy of the song wants to go, has that made it easier for you to trust yourself and trust the sobering, vulnerable turns you were taking on a record like Drunk—where you were just really opening yourself up in ways you hadn’t before?

Yeah, absolutely. The way I was brought up was that my parents didn’t talk like that. I wouldn’t talk like that around my parents. The day you learn to cuss as a kid is always like—you sound like Redd Foxx, you know? You and your friends start cussing and it’s like Superbad.

The seven swear words you can’t say on television.

Right, you started replacing every word with “fuck” and all of the above. I remember feeling like, “Oh, my God, my mom’s gonna hear this.” It opened the door to realizing this is who I am—because it’s who you are, and you can’t sit here and trifle with that too much. Or you can, and you’ll miss the opportunity for it to be what it’s supposed to be. I think that’s what helped me. That helped me take those training wheels off, psychologically, to being able to express myself. That moment definitely helped that.

Obviously, Apocalypse ends with the suite that you wrote for Austin Peralta. In 2013, I imagine it was never really in question just how crucial his influence was on you and the whole Brainfeeder crew. But it’s been a decade. When you look back on that record, what sticks out to you the most now about Austin’s influence on not just your musicality, but how that came through on Apocalypse specifically?

My goodness. You know, it never gets old for me. It’s very much an open wound. That was my bro, and his influence on my life was very positive. It was genuinely like losing a brother—even to the point where my mom considered [me, him and Flying Lotus] “the three brothers.” He was crazy as hell. My mom doesn’t cook for us often, but she just always knew Austin would be there. If she ever did anything, she’d say “You think Austin will want a plate?” That’s why I felt so moved to say something at the end of the album. It was very hard getting through recording that. It was so funny, because I think that, in very weird ways, there’s such an ominous reality of “How does this become the actual bookend?” I could say the same about Mac [Miller], where it just feels perfectly horrible. It’s very symphonic, how it’s created the bookend of what those moments are for me.

I always say Austin was my first band. There’s a video that exists of me and him playing. Kamasi and everybody was always there, too, but my first true band member—that was there for me on a personal level—was Austin. My first time playing in Tokyo by myself, where I went and they didn’t have a budget for anybody to do anything—I remember I wanted to go and I had a Saiyan vest made, because I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m going to Japan on my own.” And Austin wanted to be there with me, he didn’t care what it was. He was like, “You could pay me in bubblegum.” The first time I went and plug-and-played on the street, until the cops came and tried to shut it down, I was dressed like Saiyan and it’s me and Austin playing “Daylight.”

There’s only small footage of moments like that that exist, but it was like I lost somebody that was one of the loves of my life—as a friend, as a soulmate. I believe you’re not just assigned one soulmate. You get different ones, and he was one of them. And I’m very grateful for the time that I would have with him, because he taught me a lot by just forcing me to play all the time. He would do little weird stuff, too, to keep me from forgetting where I came from. He’d always have some gig for me to go to that I didn’t want to go do. He tricked me into playing gigs for me. He’d be like “Hey, I have a gig tonight!” And we’d go and it’d be my gig. I was like, “Austin, you can’t just go and book shows for me!” I loved him. I think Ty Dolla $ign said something to me one time, where he was like—I think his father said something to him along the lines of—“If you live to see yourself get old, you will watch a lot of your friends die.” It’s such a factual thing. I remember him saying that to me after Mac died and, looking back along the lines of what has been experienced with stuff like this, you look up and you have those friends that leave in that manner.

It was a very hard thing to cope with when it happened. It was very internal for me. A lot of our close friends, we were at the funeral home—and Austin was the youngest of all of us. It was like, “Oh, man.” It was very internal, the pain at that point. And, to say goodbye to him, I had to.

I know recording the vocals for the suite was particularly difficult. Did you eventually finish those takes, or did you and Lotus use the demo tracks for it in the end?

We got as much of it as we could, but it was really complicated getting through the lyrics for that, for sure. And we just had to try to take what we could get. Saying goodbye over and over became very complicated, and we just had to stop it where it stopped.

It could have gone on forever.

Yeah.

You once said, years ago, that art is a service and that we miss so much if we don’t stay open to everything. I’m thinking about not just Apocalypse as an album, but that period of your career altogether—what did you pull from making that record that, really, couldn’t have been possible had you not remained open to what elements were around you and what the creative process wanted to give to you?

The unknowns are the unknowns. I’m happy I was open to it when it showed up. And so many things it could have been—it could have been a drop in a pond of something that never saw the light of day. It could have been a number of weird little nuances. But, more than anything, I’m just happy that I opened myself up to what it could be.

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Matt Mitchell reports as Paste‘s music editor from their home in Columbus, Ohio.