
It has its ups and downs and everything, but I felt like it showed the human side of what goes on behind things. Seen different angles of and it’s been a bit inspirational, the drinking. I feel like it’s a place that I’ve been in different ways. I’ve always tried to hold true to what Erykah Badu and Flying Lotus told me: It has to come from an honest place. So, why “ Drunk”? Why so blatant? Did you just want to use a five-letter word? Thundercat graciously agreed to walk us through each and every song on his (then) upcoming album, Drunk, so here we go. We enter the recording of this five-hour conversation on the last weekend before the US presidential election, in the neutral safe haven of a nondescript Marina del Rey hotel, as there’s tons of rather delicious fine baked goods devoured to the crumbling noise of them disappearing at the speed of light.


As like any cat, this thunderous character has at least nine lives, and he’s opening up to questions you’ll rarely read a musician, especially of his caliber, expose himself to. With the long-awaited (third) album propelling him further into songwriter and producer realms, it was time to sit down and talk shop. That six-string bass will keep on playing, those dimples smirking, the gaming consoles whirring in the background. Wherever it may have been, it’s the Alice in Wonderland cat’s brother smirking, subtly reorganizing gravity in a way that none of the other subjects around it would ever realize. Laying the bass foundations to Erykah Badu’s deep space explorations? Lurking behind a pachinko machine, distracting his comrade Flying Lotus trying to reinvent combo-attacks on Street Fighter XIV, burping sake? Towering over a herd of talent on stage with Kamasi Washington and Kendrick Lamar? Any stage worth its salt, anywhere?

Was it somewhere in the background on one of those rare Sa-Ra live shows back in the day? Some backstage, somewhere, rocking a golden Saurian suit? On stage with Suicidal Tendencies? On the grounds of a festival in some desert, towering calmly in his Native American war bonnet, watching mayhem unleash? Stephen Bruner harbors one of these rare souls who instantly ooze familiarity to the degree that it will eventually become tough to determine when you actually encountered him for the first time.
