How Do You Win a Grammy?

0:00I think in Japan, like they had robots that were playing string instruments. And it made me feel very confident, actually, because like our job is safe for now. Those robotics sound like dying cats. With Claude Cowork, right, we can go literally download skills now and be like, oh, you now have the skill of resume writing. But like a human being, in my opinion, is is more than the sum of those parts or skills. Smart girl. Dumb questions. I'm Naima Raza. This is Smart Girl Dumb Questions. And today I'm joined by the amazing Grammy-winning band Archive. I'm here with violinist Jonathan Myron. Hello.

0:40What's up? And cellist Philip Shegog. Hey. Last time the three of us were hanging out together, all three of us, we were on stage at the National Sawdust. It's a beautiful space in Brooklyn. The Grammy Museum had invited you to perform. So I'm going to play you a little moment of that. We love them both. Who knew that string instruments could be so sexy, guys? I had no idea. You guys have had an epic year. You have played the Emmys, the Governor's Gala. You were playing with Lindsey Stirling. You played with the Lakers, not basketball, thankfully. I feel like that deserved more laughs, by the way, the Lakers joke.

1:22I mean, I know you're a band. We laughed on stage. You had also just come out with your sophomore album, Bright Side. And now it's not even five months later and you've won a freaking Grammy. When you're sitting in those seats at the Grammys, are you actually enjoying the performance? Or are you just like every five minutes, like worrying about your potential rejection? Every five minutes, every second. Really? Oh, God. We were like, I think the fifth from the end, something like that of a probably three and a half hour ceremony. There's like 95 Grammys or something. So we're like 90th or something like that.

1:51So we're just, you know, trying to practice all of those, you know, controlled breathing, everything and trying to enjoy it. So they have two ceremonies. They have the premiere ceremony, which is three and a half hour long ceremony where the majority of Grammys get handed out. And then they have the telecast, which is where song of the year, best new artist, all those. As soon as the first one finishes, you got to book it over to the next one. It's a long day. And the real secret for anyone who's ever going to the Grammys is bring your own food because it is a marathon of a day. And they don't really have really great food options.

2:24So like you're going from Peacock Theater to Crypto. To Crypto? Crypto Arena. Yeah, it used to be Staples Center. Oh, yeah, it's Crypto Arena now. They don't give you food and they don't make the Grammys real gold. Things are tight. I mean, Jonathan, you have had, I think, since 2018, is it a memo, a document, something saying that you were going to win a Grammy? Oh, you mean my strategic plan that I put together? Yes, your strategic plan. Did I say this since 2018? I guess so, because that's when we started. Wow, you were dreaming big from the get-go. I didn't have Grammy on the... I said maybe at some point, but I do remember the last time I updated it before looking back.

3:02It was two years ago, and I had said within five years we would get nominated or something like that, and we did it within two. Brush that shoulder off. Look at that. pretty good, you know? Hey, and it's an amazing thing. I think everybody, you know, who wants to dream big should go and create a strategic plan because I look back and say, we actually like achieved and exceeded like all of those goals that we set out years ago. And maybe we were manifesting it. Yeah, I was going to ask, does this mean like manifesting is real? Vision boards work? I believe in manifestation. Or if nothing else, kind of what you aim at determines what you see and the direction of your action.

3:43Okay. So after three hours of like 60 minutes where you're every second. And our blood pressure is steadily rising. Yeah. So that's 60 times 60 times three, which is what? Over 10 ,000. 10 ,800. Yeah. 10 ,800. Thanks, mom. If you're good at music, are you genuinely good at math? Does that always happen? I actually, there are a lot of people, I believe in that because at least when I was playing like classical music and you're reading music off the page, I saw everything in numbers. One, three, five, shift, there. But I know I didn't answer the math question just now, but I'm actually... Math was one of my strongest subjects back in the day.

4:18But on the other side, right, all of music and especially rhythm all divides down to twos and threes. So there are some musicians who say I only need to count up to three and then I'm good. So these 10 ,800 seconds that you're sitting there wondering about your own potential rejection, were you shocked? What's the emotion? We'll play the clip of you winning. It was just surreal. It really was surreal. I don't know if we were... I think we were shocked. I think there was an element of shock of like, holy crap, we did it. Like, there's no other feeling like that. We got on CalShe. You were on CalShe?

4:50Of course I know what CalShe is. We were on CalShe that morning. A friend sent it to us. What was the chances? 60%. No way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys were 60 %? 60 % that Brett said it. Did you put money on your own? No, no, I did not bet money. Look at what's happened to the Grammy. But I feel like that was... What's happened? But who's betting on that? I know, I know. I should have put money. I would have bet on you. Do you think your parents bet on you? No. I don't think they know what Cal she is. I don't know. My parents definitely don't know what that is. But they're like, what's happening to the Grammys?

5:13It's like, it's crypto arena. It's Cal she betting. This is not what they envisioned in like the 1950s when they set this up or whatever. But I think, yeah, we were totally shocked. We had no idea. I mean, just watch the video. I know. You can see our faces. See how we like leapt up and we like gave each other the biggest high five and then we like prance to the stage and I'm like just on stage shaking. It was great. I just want to know how you win it. And I don't want the like, you get to Carnegie Hall by practice, practice, practice kind of thing. I want to know, like, what is the process like?

5:44It's a crazy process. I mean, obviously, you need an amazing project, countless hours, blood, sweat and tears, all those things. And so you need a really, really good album product that speaks to people. There's a community of voters there made up of, I think it's over 15 ,000 voters. Incredible musicians, producers, managers, you name it. Label executives, all these things. It's like a jury by your peers. It's like a criminal court. Just like criminal court. But for people who are good at music. And so like, they know their stuff. And then you need to find a way to make sure they hear it. Otherwise, like, there's no chance.

6:25And so there is a campaign of sorts. You guys are like presidential candidates. It's very much. It's like a political campaign where, you know, everybody knows who's at the top of the ticket. Everyone knows who's running for president and senator and all of that. And so that's kind of like the big categories, right? Everyone knows who they want to vote for, for best new artist or record of the year. And then you go further down the ticket and it's like, who's running for state comptroller? I don't even know what state comptroller does. but I saw Jenny's lawn sign. And so, oh, at least I know a name and maybe I'll go like, go study a little further.

6:59Like we won for best contemporary instrumental album. There are people that live in that world. Is there a secret sauce that you learn through this, the kind of funnel from, because I mean, I think what the Grammys have published on their page is like, there's a submission process, then there's a screening process, then there's a nomination process, and then there's final voting. So going from submission to getting screened, does everyone get screened? Yes. Every project gets looked at by a committee that essentially makes sure that it's in the right category, right? And then the nominations happen.

7:34Are you campaigning to get the nomination or do you start campaigning once you have the nomination? Are you like Gavin Newsom, like you're already out there putting the stuff out or are you waiting. No, it's like in our category, there were hundreds of people that submitted in our category. We had no idea that, you know, like we were, you have to campaign for that first round as well. It's crazy. I mean, it's a big process. And I guess to go back to your question, like what have I learned about it is that like, it really is a democratic process. It really is like one voter equals one vote for your project.

8:08And it really creates a sense of possibility for indie artists. Obviously, for a Best New Artist or Artist of the Year or whatever, those campaigns are massive and you have big teams and it's a little bit more tailored for the smaller categories, but it's the same process. They can host bigger parties. They can send their lawn signs to more yards or whatever. You guys are independent. You own all of your music, right? Yeah, exactly. The whole record was the two of us, basically. We wrote the music, of course, but we also recorded it here in New York, engineered it, mixed it, produced most of it.

8:42We had some amazing producers who added their special pixie dust on a couple of the tracks, but it was basically Jonathan and me from start to finish. And then getting the record out, not just for the Grammy campaign, but even just to share it with the world and to find fans, the entire marketing side of things, the music videos that we shot and made for the record, all those things. It's been a labor of love. But yeah, it's been a two-man team, basically. What's more exhausting, kind of the music and performing part, the archive part, or the politics and the Gavin Newsom part? For me, the archive part is infinitely more fun, right?

9:19Being an artist, right? Being in the studio and getting to create music. That, for me, is—that's why I do it. I think, you know, the industry requires both. Yeah. And so that's a very Gavin Newsom political answer that I'm giving you. I was going to say, you should run for office now, yeah. But at the same time, like nothing really happens without the other. Without the business side of it. No, absolutely not. You could be playing in your bathroom. And like, what does that do? Well, I mean, social media now has changed the game. You could become a huge TikTok star if you play in your bathroom.

9:46If we just did bathroom songs. If you're wearing the right outfit or not wearing the outfit. That's right. That's right. So the game has changed a little bit. Now that you have won, are you part of the Recording Academy? Yes. We've been voting members for three years now. And finding, right, learning about the process, but also learning that the Recording Academy is a lot more than just the awards. That's the thing that everybody knows externally, but there's so much work that they do. A lot of work around advocacy, fighting for musicians' rights, literally helping pass legislation in D.C. What legislation are you?

10:19AI legislation is the biggest right now. See you for more Smart Girl Dumb Questions after the break. Jonathan, I want you to talk a little bit about the, because your parents not only, I mean, you were not born in the States? No. My mom is from Taiwan. My dad is American. So I was born in Taiwan. I moved to Singapore when I was four years old. And when I was nine years old, my mom literally moved me from Singapore to Cincinnati, Ohio, so that I could study music. So my parents did long distance for four years, just so that I could study music at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. And then after that, we went from Cincinnati to New York.

11:03And so I've been in New York since I was in high school. And then tell us about like, so then, and then, you know, Philip has this amazing story of getting the cello and you become an amazing cellist and you guys hang out at Juilliard together or you actually don't hang out. You're at Juilliard at the same time. Definitely didn't hang out because we were opposites. Well, for one, Jonathan was a couple of years ahead of me. So we overlapped by a few years, but we weren't immediately in the same classes. but we were probably still, even despite that, Juilliard's a tiny school. It's like 700 students.

11:33But the reason I say we definitely didn't meet at Juilliard is because we were completely opposite kinds of students. I was like goody two-shoes. I was literally an RA for four years. I stayed in the dorms all six years. Loved my time there. But as goody two-shoes, taking all the extra classes, being teacher's assistant for the ear training program on like student government. Preparing for the Grammy campaign. Preparing for the campaign. But I was not very cool. Yeah. And what were you, were you just like a complete reckless, like what were you, a reckless child? What were you doing? Were you a train wreck?

12:11What was happening? I, you know, I always kind of put my focus into the things that I loved. And so there was, yeah, there were classes at Juilliard that I really, you know, invested in. But I really cared about like stuff that was happening outside of Juilliard. And so, and I really, you know, it's a very competitive place. I really didn't want to spend too much time in the actual building. And so I kind of left and had New York City as my, as my campus, you know? He also hosted really cool house parties that I definitely would never have been at. You weren't even invited to? Oh my gosh, this is like Mean Girls, but for people in music school.

12:45There you are at the Harvard of Music, Juilliard. And you, how do you like lay eyes on each other? Well, there was some cinematic, beautiful, like, love song playing in the background. The door opened at the end of the hallway. And then the wind blew, you know. The doves were released. Oh, that's fun. And then, yes. Yeah, no, it was like, both Philip and I got nominated by Juilliard to represent them at a conference that was held at Juilliard. And one day after our classes, there was a party. We had our instruments with us. And we started to jam. and for people who don't know what jamming is it literally means like making music up on the spot so we were kind of like the DJs for this party and you can bet you that we weren't jamming in the style of Mozart and Beethoven you know we were both classically trained we were jamming on like classic rock songs pop songs and to like be in that moment and to meet another classically trained student at Juilliard who could jam across styles was a really beautiful eye-opening moment for us and so this jam lasted over an hour we went on a big journey the whole room was like dancing and singing and having a great time and that was our lightning in a bottle well I love it this is better than a rom-com I love it and the music it really was the wind and the and then then the The lights turned on and the soft glow.

14:10And at that point, were you on like a classical violin and a classical cello? Yeah, we were still purely acoustic players. And that's the thing that made it not only such a beautiful connection, but also such an exceedingly rare connection. It's because at least, right, the Juilliard is a conservatory. And so you're primarily studying, right, the masterworks of Western European literature, which is amazing. But you don't learn how to jam. you don't really learn how to stretch yourself into these other lanes of thinking. And so to meet someone else who was playing in that way was indicative that we both had been on these journeys outside of our training, right?

14:49That was clearly fueled by a personal curiosity. And so that's what made it even more eye-opening of life. I didn't even know someone else at school thought this way or could play this way. So who asked who out first after that? Oh, please. and just to clarify for anyone listening or watching who's confused these guys are not together actually yeah you're feeling the fan thing exactly i call philip my work wife yeah but i asked philip out first yeah you have an actual wife i have an actual wife she's victoria she's lovely she's who i actually knew first oh oh it's kind of not romantically and also goody two shoes and you know what the crazy thing is that i actually met my real wife victoria around the same time that i met philip so talking going back to like what you're saying like does life just take off so you're polyamorous so i'm polyamorous and life just changed in a few weeks for me um and i asked philip out first so i had i got this opportunity to perform at a conference that was held in new york hosted by barack obama's sister what and it brought together like incredible peace builders and professionals from around the world and i had a five minute slot to perform there.

16:01So like Gandhi's grandson was there, like there were students from Parkland, you know, right after the shooting that were there. And I had this five minute slot and I was like, what the heck am I gonna play and perform at this thing that's actually meaningful, that lives up to the meaning of this conference? And fresh in my mind was the jam that I had with Philip and that magical sound that kind of, you know, went beyond boundaries and genres. And I was like, well, let me call up Philip. And I called Philip up. And I was like, dude, do you want to write our first piece ever for this conference hosted by Barack Obama's sister?

16:42And he said, yes. We played our first show, which was at this conference. And then after the show, the audience just came up to us. And they were just so jazzed and touched by our music. and they kind of talked to us like we had been doing this for a really long time. And we went along with it. We were like, yeah, oh, yeah, I know. Like, you know, our duo has just been, you know, we've been working really hard and playing all over the place. It's like an all-nighter the night before kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Working really hard the night before. This is the most meaningful performance we've given.

17:13We've given. Yes, it was true, factually. It is very true. And it led organically to so many other opportunities down the line that were quite big, actually. You know what? I love this story, actually. One, I did not know this story. So I love this story because I didn't know the story. But the reason I actually love this story is because you had a chance to go perform at this fancy thing. And you were like, let me do this with somebody. It's going to make it better to do it with somebody. And I think that's really sometimes rare because when people are sometimes given a spotlight, it's hard to share or build something with somebody else.

17:47And I think it's just cool that you knew the music was that much better, like the product of it together. I think I was still probably like radiating from that jam that we did. And I saw how the collective moved the entire room that we were in. And that was just really powerful. I want to get to how you guys work together and kind of the discography. But before we get there, Philip, I want to do a lightning round. I'm going to start with you. So quick things. First of all, is there beef historically between violins and cellos or between violinists and cellists no but cellists just know you know to let the violinists do their own thing because they're chill and the violins are usually too uptight and just like generally have bigger egos but the cellists are just the chill hang of the party so sounds like there's a little bit of beef there jonathan does size matter in instrumentation i mean no because our instruments are equally powerful they just do different things you know like um are the sizes of your instruments philip um correlated inversely to the sizes of your no i'm just kidding i mean we're we're uh you know each other's work wives so do you guys think a violinist can ever be or or a cellist can ever be as sexy as a guitarist like you guys have groupies i want to say you guys have groupies definitely you have fans yeah and people are like there's something so where does that come from what is it about string i don't know what is it that makes it playing i think is it's incredibly um tactile right it's a very physical instrument in some ways way more than guitar right like that that's just my observation right the range of motion that we have to do as string players right you know and you're showing you know you're using your body in a lot of ways.

19:38I think it can be a very attractive instrument. So you never regret not being a drummer at this point? Well, I've adapted. So I've now tried to slap and hit and... He's a percussion player. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's true. You do slap and hit when you perform and play. And you might do that. Why is it that every lead singer is also a guitarist? Are they actually a guitarist or do they just hold that to feel useful on stage? I think a lot of them do play. I think it's just a natural thing to be a singer-songwriter and you're playing the guitar while you sing. I think that's just how it's worked. And it's a very sexy thing to be.

20:16So that's kind of what's happened. Okay, last lightning round question. Are bands out? Because I feel like there used to be so many bands like in the 90s, the 2000s, like growing up as kids. I think bands will come back and are starting to come back. And I think part of that, and this is a opening to a much deeper rabbit hole, But I think the idea and the feeling of having a group of people live on a stage is going to be increasingly, that authenticity is going to be increasingly desired as we have more and more things that are artificially created. And as we have, right, if we think of the last couple of decades as, you know, the sound of pop has been kind of dominated by things made in the studio, right?

20:54It's like electronic drums. And we love all that stuff. But I think the idea of those four people are playing instruments on the stage, and I feel that, I think that's going to be increasingly, like, people want that. Yeah, I think so, too, like, especially with AI down the pike. And also, I think there's been something about, like, kind of small screen and everything broadcast on social 24-7 that has led to this kind of hyper-individualistic, I-did-it-myself kind of culture. Like, I always joke that Guy Raz's podcast, How I Built This, should be called How We Fucked This Up. It's, like, usually collective and a quite painful process, you know?

21:26But I hope that bands are making a comeback because it feels like we're in the age of the solo artists now for a decade plus. And how many people do you have to be to be a band? I don't know. You introduced us as a band. You're a band, right? I was thinking if that was right. Yeah, I think so. We think of ourselves as a band. Yeah, it's a band. Duo was very descriptive because it lets people know that it's not for people. But yeah, we're an ensemble. So I want to know, at what point did you guys decide that you were going to take your classical violin, your classical cello. If you're not seeing this, you should watch it on YouTube because these instruments have, they've become electronic.

22:03So at what point did you adapt the instruments or your own playing or like, yeah, tell me how that changed? So we can't take credit for developing the electric string instruments. They've actually been around for decades. We do like to joke that they are the forgotten cousins of the electric guitar that just, you know, need some love. But they've been around since essentially the same time, right? I think the 70s is probably when the first ones were coming out. But for us, they were a COVID project. It was when we had the time to actually delve into this thing that we were so curious about. Because at that point, we had been playing together for a couple of years.

22:38And we were already discovering that the sound, right? The worlds that we wanted to create in our music were kind of, it was too much for what the acoustic instruments could make. And so we You're like, okay, we know that there's - Why was it too much? Just like the sound, like if you hear our music, oftentimes we are not just imagining like a melody line and a bass line. It's like an IMAX movie. We're imagining an entire soundscape, right? Maybe pulled from our love of film and film soundtracks, but also our classical roots, right? We grew up playing in orchestras where you're immersed in sound.

23:13I guess I'm familiar with the bigness of your sound. I just didn't know that kind of a classical instrument doesn't have that kind of, I guess, doesn't have that horsepower, that range. Like a violin, right? It's like what you see is what you get, right? You play that string and you can play it loud, but it's not going to like fill a room in an arena, right? Yeah. I think for both of us, we went on our individual journeys where we looked in the mirror and we thought about what kind of artists do we want to be? and for me that happened well when I was 22 so before you guys met before we went before we met uh I took some time off after my undergrad degree and felt like the real world slapped me in the face to be perfectly honest I felt like my training at Juilliard and and training in general did not prepare me for the real world I knew how to like go into an audition you know if I wanted to go and play in an orchestra.

24:11I knew how to teach. I knew how to perform, but I didn't know how to, well, write my own music. I didn't know how to learn by ear and jam with other artists. And so I went through a couple of years of pretty dark depression where I asked myself, what kind of artist do I want to be? And I thought to myself, well, music is this incredible force that transcends boundaries and genres, and it touches people. And it doesn't matter what genre, you know, you're playing to do that. And so I took it upon myself to go and educate myself in some of these other styles. And so I started playing jazz. I started, I was like, oh, I love Yo-Yo Ma.

24:55I also realized like, wow, I don't have any of the business skills that I need to make it as an artist. And so I started taking classes at NYU, Columbia, around management, fundraising, marketing, all these different things. I worked in like nonprofit settings for a while. I was like managing education programs. I was doing a lot of these things, like getting real life experience. All the while, like doing different things with my art. And so all this to say, like, I feel like that journey started many years before Philip and I met. Yeah, that you had each individually kind of thought about what kind of musicians you were.

25:30journey, playing a lot of like new music at school and working with composers and doing things that had never been done before. So that when we did meet at that jam, we were ready for each other. You know, it's like, well, the opportunity presented itself and we snatched it up. If we had met years before that, neither of us would have been ready for that moment. So you wanted to make it bigger, you wanted to make it more modern. And part of that was the instrumentation, but a big part of it is just the sound you guys have created because this kind of electroacoustic thing i mean it is i mean i always see you know in descriptions of you it's like the genre defying electroacoustic duo and it does feel like something that doesn't exist even if there might be references and i'd love for people to hear a little bit of it can we can we do that can we show and see a little bit of it so let's see your your um which one should we start with i don't know where should we go with the electrics Start with the electrics.

26:24And what are you going to play? Sorry. So we're going to play an original tune of ours called Tokyo Sidecar, which is actually one of the first pieces that we ever wrote for these instruments.