Paul McCartney Talks About His Collaborative Work With Kanye West and Previews His "Love Mojis"

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Kanye parts:

Noisey: It's always interesting talking to legacy musicians who've been making music for decades and just learning how they continue to refresh themselves or continue to come back to the creative well. Because you're kind of constantly climbing a mountain and I imagine that gets more challenging the longer that you do it.

Paul: Yeah, I think that's true. I think when you first start, your ideas are, obviously, all fresh, the whole thing is fresh, everything that's happening is new. And then, gradually, it becomes not so fresh, not so new. And the danger is—or what happens to a lot of people—they just get bored and jaded and you start just phoning it in. So, for me, when these little things come along. I mean it's like recently I worked with Kanye West and for a second I thought, "is this something I want to do, ought to do?" So I thought about it and then it's like, "why not?" If nothing, he's an interesting character.

Noisey: Of course. What was it like working with him?

Paul: Well, you know, he's an amazing talent. He's a crazy cat with it, but I love him. He's very talented. Completely different way of working from how I work, so it was very different. It's interesting. Really all I did was just threw a load of ideas at him and then left him to get on with it. And he just gradually sent me these tracks, one of which, "All Day," is nominated for a Grammy, Song of the Year kind of thing. And that came from a melody I showed him and a story I told him about this thing. And whereas it was a kind of quite a pretty melody that I'd given him, it came back as sort of an urban anthem riff. But it was just intriguing to see that that's what came of our collaboration. Another thing was the Rihanna song "FourFiveSeconds" came out of it. And then Kanye's "Only One," which came off the back of something we were just talking about. So yeah, this is the great thing about all this, it just keeps you fresh and, w hilst there will always be people who say, "I don't know why you did that," there are people who are going to say, "I'm going out to tour this shit," and there are people who'll say "I don't know why you do that." Because in their perception of it—that's obviously not mine—but their perception of it is like slagging around on Greyhound buses, eating badly, having a terrible time, not selling out, and stuff. But if you like it like I have, it's not that at all, it's something really attractive. And I think this whole idea of doing these off-beat projects really helps to keep it fresh. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Noisey: Is there ever any fear or challenge that you feel to coming back to the creative well like this? I imagine that these are purposeful decisions that you're talking about: working with Kanye, doing a project like this where it's kind of reinvigorating you a little bit. But has there ever been any fears or doubt that you've had coming back like, "Oh man, I've got to do this again." How do you get past that?

Paul: With that, I think it's just part of the creative process. I had a nephew who decided he was going to paint, thought it'd be cathartic. He said it was terrifying. Like, "God, this is no good. What am I doing? Where does this painting go next? Have I finished it, have I not?" It's actually just part of the process and it comes with the territory. So yeah, there is always fear of not being able to do it, but it's outweighed by the thing of the feeling privileged for being allowed to do it. I look at a song and it's a black hole where there's nothing in it and in three hours time I'm going to have a planet. I'm going to pull something out of that black hole. And that's very exciting. So, you know, I like that. But there's always fear attached to reaching into a black hole.

Full interview: http://noisey.vice.com/blog/paul-mccartney-interview-2016

Skype Video (this is lowkey super cool)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e8E6X4kios

CC: @rock-genius

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