Jude Law

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This is Fresh Air.

I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is award-winning actor Jude Law.

In his new Netflix series, Black Rabbit, he plays the owner of one of New York's most exclusive restaurants, a man who is magnetic and successful, but also deeply compromised.

His judgment clouded, his loyalties divided.

His name is Jake Freakin, and when his estranged brother, played by Jason Bateman, returns with dangerous debts, the world he's built begins to fall apart.

Here's how we first meet Jake, describing his restaurant with a tense foreshadowing of what's to come.

I want to say something quick.

For those of you who don't know who I am,

get the f out.

No, I'm Jake.

And

yeah, yeah, I own the place.

All right, all right.

Wow.

This is the kind of party Black Rabbit was built for.

Yeah.

When we set out to create this place, we never wanted it to be just

a restaurant.

We wanted to build a home for our family, our friends, our people.

A place you could come for a drink, a smoke, for the best burger in New York.

Rocks!

Rock is now!

A place

where the night

could go anywhere.

Law isn't only the lead, he's also an executive producer, shaping the series' vision of New York City's nightlife, a world that's as glamorous as it is treacherous.

The series begins streaming today.

Over the last three decades, Law has moved fluidly between independent films, Hollywood blockbusters, and stage work in London and New York.

He's been nominated for two Academy Awards and is known for roles that walk the line between charm and danger.

From Dickie Greenleaf and the talented Mr.

Ripley to Closer, Cold Mountain, and the Sherlock Holmes films, as well as the Fantastic Beast series.

Jude Law, welcome to Fresh Air.

So let's talk a little bit about your character, Jake, and his brother, played by Jason Bateman.

This is not a Cain and Abel type story.

This is not good versus evil.

Both of you all are pretty messed up.

How would you describe your character, Jake?

Well, the brothers and their relationship sit in the foreground of a piece that's also about

a particular slice of New York life and I hope sort of any city's life.

It's about pulling together a team and providing a kind of hot spot for, you know, the movers and the shakers and all the dynamics that go on behind the scenes of that kind of establishment.

The complexities, the relationships,

the pressures.

And the brothers who had built this place this venue are kind of reflections of all the complexities and

one of them my character jake is the the sort of front man the veneer you know with a smile and a shoeshine and

for all accounts seems to be very successful very smooth a great person at juggling issue problem people management

and vince played by jason is more of the sort of creative anarchic idea guy but not great at following through and he's disappeared he comes back and sort of shakes it all up but what you realize is that actually there's a whole lot of issues going on behind the curtain if you like of Jake and Vince's arrival really just sort of pulls that curtain apart You use the word veneer to describe your character, that he has like this perfect veneer.

But that's just the surface because underneath, as you said, there's a lot of complexity.

He's got a lot of challenges.

I want to play a clip where he's talking to his brother Vince, as we said, played by Jason Bateman, and he's talking about the truth with his finances.

And in this clip, it all kind of comes together where we start to learn it's not on the up and up inside of this restaurant.

Let's listen.

You bet Mom's money on the Knicks.

A lot of people bet the Knicks, Jake, they're a professional basketball team.

And the money you got from the restaurant?

It's the one you and Naveen kicked me out of?

Bailed you out.

Bailed you out.

Saved your ass.

You gambled that too, right?

Then you go down to Junior, take a loan on the house, you bet it again, lost it all, and then you skip town.

Sound right?

Sounds like the least favorable way you could possibly phrase it, but yeah, you're all caught up.

And us,

I gotta ask, because

the suspense is killing me.

What happened to your shoes, Vince?

I got a sweet number on the bus.

You sold your shoes.

I took 500 bucks and I'm chipping away at it.

I'm doing my part, giggles.

Yeah.

Okay?

I did it on my way home from getting my finger chopped off by those damn zeros who say Jen is next.

You're helping me.

They said that.

They said Jen is next.

That's exactly what they said.

How much do you owe him, Vince?

140.

Big number.

140 grand?

It's a big number.

There was juice.

Jesus.

That's my guest, Jute Law, in scene with Jason Bateman in the new Netflix series, Black Rabbit.

I know that you're the executive producer on this, and you initially thought about Jason

as a director.

Yes.

How did it come to be then he's your brother and he's that particular brother?

I believe the order was we were developing this piece and when it became apparent that, you know, it was time to sort of go out, find the director who's going to bring and breathe life into it, we kept referencing Ozark and the tonality of Ozark, that sort of dark, human, but humorous.

pitch that Jason also has as a performer

and he fortunately saw what we saw in in the scripts and came on board as a director wanted to wanted to throw himself behind it and we hadn't found a brother for me and it just became apparent to me well he should shortly you know he's such a great actor and what a great asset why don't do you want do you want to be one of the brothers

and he has this incredible quality i think to be

likable

and it seemed like if we could have a vince that had all this you know track record and we still kind of like him but you still kind of forgive him yeah and he can still kind of be the funniest guy in the room and the most entertaining and charismatic and yeah fortunately he saw that and uh so that's how we became the brothers this fascinating world New York nightlife behind the kitchen, you know, getting to see all the dramas and things like that.

And your character in particular, he's a New Yorker.

You're this New York archetype.

You've even got a New York accent that kind of comes out.

Did you study any particular person or accent or anything to kind of embody that?

Yeah, Jake's a kind of amalgamation of a few people I know

who had similar jobs.

The voice came from working with a coach

and the trick I find that's that helps is to be very specific about an accent.

Like you

can't just say it's a sort of general New York it's like okay what are the where did he grow up and what did the parents sound like and obviously I had Jason as a brother so I also had to go towards what Jason sounds like

and you have to give the accent a kind of history otherwise you're generalizing and so you did that for this character in particular where you you made a person out of this person well you I have that's how I just like to do it I go back and you kind of where was he born and what was his childhood like and what what was mom like what was dad like what was his friends like what was he listening to on the street you know what was his shows was he watching and you you you kind of track their emotional and their life up to where you are at and how they've dealt with the the different bridges the different dilemmas the different dramas and so you fill in this history so that you know

if people talk in a scene about your mom, you have an immediate reaction because you know what happened to mom mum and how you feel about her

and it's the same with an accent it's amazing that the little things that influence if I was to talk about my own accent so I have my mother was from the north of England so I have a very a little bit of the northern England in my R's my dad's from the south of England so and I grew up in quite a

what would I call it I don't know there was a quite a strong southeast London accent which I kind of try to hide because I wanted to sound more

posh.

Yeah.

But it comes out like if I'm in, if I go home or if I'm with certain friends.

So all of that's in my voice.

Yes.

And so if you're playing a character, you want all of those details to be there.

I'm so fascinated by this work because you've had to play quite a few characters with different accents.

I can imagine it's not an easy thing to hold on to all of that while also realizing and that you have to embody this accent when you practice it it's kind of muscles honestly in the end I mean I personally I think I'm always doing an accent even when I'm playing someone who's English because you still they have a different background right right it depends on what English it just depends on what part of England and there's there's the thinking it through and then there's the technique of doing it and the technique is actually quite like taking your mouth and throat to the gym.

You're basically teaching it to do different things.

So you have you have drills to do funny like sentences so that

you're teaching your tongue to go in a certain way and then and you listen a lot.

I am really fascinated by some of the things you've done to really embody a role.

So I watched the other night Firebrand.

Yes.

Yeah, your 2023 film where you played King Henry VIII.

I read that you hired a perfumer.

I work with her quite often, actually.

Really?

Yes.

Yeah, she's first of all, she's an absolute genius, Azzie, and she runs an amazing perfumery called the Perfumer Story.

She makes incredible sense.

And, you know, sense is a really quick way to accumulate sort of feelings and emotions.

You know, if you walk into your grandma's house, it smells a certain way and you feel a certain way.

If you go out and someone's been cutting the grass,

right, it evokes all sorts of memories and

the smell of gasoline, you know, I mean things like that are very pungent and very quick to make you feel and think and feel, you know.

And my job is an odd job.

You know, whether you want to or not, you turn up, you put on someone else's clothes, and you have to embody someone pretty damn quick.

And sometimes it's like, hey, it's seven, the sun's coming up, we've got to go.

We got to get this done.

Get in it.

But let's talk about what she did for you.

I'll tell you what.

She built this, she made a perfume for me, and I'd read this piece about Henry.

He basically had these ulcers on his leg that were rotting.

And it was a miracle he lived the 10 years he did with them.

But you could smell him apparently three rooms away.

He stank like a fetid.

Yes.

And it was a really, what I realized, I'm playing him at the very end of his life when eventually he died of these things from a fever.

And

I just thought it would be very helpful to everyone else and to me if I stank.

So she made me this incredible, noxious odor that I kind of sprayed on myself.

It was made a concoction of pig sweat, fecal matter.

You're going, does this say this?

To mimic the smell of decaying fish.

So it was really bad.

It was really, really, really, really rancid.

Yeah.

But it really

helped.

To me, it was very interesting playing someone who is

incredibly powerful, all-dominant, expects everyone to bow to then every need and thought and want,

and yet is sitting in a body that is immobile because of the weight he's put on and because of the wounds he has, kind of in his own rotting flesh, and having to kind of face himself.

He can't escape what he's done to himself and who he's become.

You know, he's a mass murderer

and

deluded to the extreme of believing that he's second only to God.

Well, he's about to face God.

It's like, okay, what's going on?

What's going on in that man?

You're pretty unrecognizable in that role.

And

I'm just wondering, there had to be some pretty interesting conversations around the rank smell on that set.

It helped you.

It also helped your colleagues, your co-stars.

Well, I mean, I did, it wasn't like I, you know, wanted to shock them or warn them, you know,

but we discussed it, and Alicia Vicanda, who plays my wife in it, the Queen, Queen Catherine Parr,

was very game for it because she sort of loved this idea that she had to have this intimacy and this devotion amidst this sort of wall of stink,

you know.

And the guys who play

my privy

council were old friends of mine from the theatre.

And again, it was this sort of this this

conflict between

observing their their devotion and putting up with this this appalling

physical

decay.

Your parents were educators.

What did they teach?

My father started out teaching English but then became at quite a young age a headmaster.

of a junior school and my mum taught English, she taught junior school too and then she specialized in teaching English to foreign children who are coming in

without English language knowledge of the English language.

And then she

set up a theatre company.

She was always very keen on theatre, so she stopped teaching, went and did

a course in theatre directing and set up a theatre company.

And is that how you were introduced to I was already, they were also very much involved in local theatre so local amateur theatre and that's really how i got involved um it was a place of great yeah community and fun

and

i remember you know sitting in the back of the stalls of this little theater while mum and dad were putting on shows doing my homework with my sister or sitting watching you know endless rehearsals and it just became a place for me of um it was very familiar it was safe it was fun and you know seeing adults playing and laughing, figuring stuff out, telling stories.

How do we do this in this way so that the people understand?

And that was what an education.

I mean, that's, I grew up watching that night after night.

There's this video that's going around.

It's of you at like 11 years old.

Is that?

And you're doing movie reviews.

Oh, no.

Yeah, that was basically

a

A TV company came to the school and were like, oh,

we want kids to review movies of different ages.

And so they met a whole bunch of us and they chose me.

And so, yeah, I went on this morning show and did a couple of film reviews.

Were you a movie boss?

I was a movie nerd, totally.

I was obsessed with films

from a very young age, still am.

What kinds of movies?

What lit your fire?

What do you remember that really stuck in your mind?

I just loved the ritual and the immersion of going into a cinema.

And so, at a young age, you know, I was very lucky.

Gosh, I grew up watching Indiana Jones and E.T.

and I mean, all the great stuff.

And then at a certain age, realized there was all this other stuff, these black and white movies from the past.

And I fell in love with old movies too,

whether Chaplin or, you know,

and then my mum got me really into foreign movies.

so she was taking me to

see

Truffau and Goddard.

And my dad, meanwhile, would be taking me to see Rocky and,

you know,

Rambo.

I mean,

it was a very broad

immersion.

Yes.

You were part of the National Youth Music Theater.

Yes.

Which you say you described it as meeting your own people.

Did you feel out of place before that in the context of school or outside of the theater world?

Yeah, I guess I did.

I mentioned before the community of this local theater and there were, you know, because

there's a sort of trust, you know, in making those

eccentric leaps of faith and putting on a play.

School was a funny thing, funny time for me.

I never really felt like I fitted in

particularly.

I wasn't brilliantly academic.

I wasn't an idiot, but I wasn't like super academic.

I was a pretty good sportsman, but I wasn't like, you know, big jock.

I did fine.

And looking back, I can see I was, you know, I was very pretty and

I was confident and I wanted to be an actor and I probably wound a lot of people up.

I wasn't, I would say, pretentious, but I was also someone who was not going to bow down and be like humble and shy.

And

I found the

need for people to kind of all follow the same path and be somewhat sheep-like incredibly frustrating.

And so I usually kind of spoke my mind, which again wound a lot of people up, I imagine, looking back.

And

when I auditioned and I heard about the National Youth Music Theatre, my parents were like, you know, you might want to do this.

And I got in.

Suddenly, I met all these other kids who liked theater and they liked film and they wanted, or they were brilliant young musicians, or they wanted to work

in storytelling.

And it felt, yeah,

they suddenly felt like my people.

Our guest today is Jude Law.

We'll be right back after a short break.

I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

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So fascinating that you were so deep in the theater then, and that troop, I can imagine, really gave you an understanding of maybe what a career might be.

What were your aspirations?

Was it being a movie star?

Was it in theater?

Was it whatever the possibilities could be?

I think the latter.

i was

hoping i guess if i remember rightly to just have a career in in in performing in whatever in whatever shape that looked like you know whether it was a life i i i got a job from that some someone saw me in a one of the plays we did and got me an audition for a tv show so i left home and i left school and i went and did this tv show and became a professional actor

and that led to another job but but at that what I knew at that young age was I really wanted to go into the theater like I really knew that that's where I would learn my chops and really earn respect

so I remember there was a big process then of trying to get taken seriously in the theater I got into the Royal Shakespeare Company I worked at the National Theatre and that again was a place of real learning and

you know you can't you can't hide in the theatre on that scale i guess if you'd asked me back then, yeah, I'd have said I'd love to be in the movies, but the movies felt a long way away.

You know, I remember seeing movies with Gary Oldman in, who grew up near me, and Tim Ross, who grew up near me, or Daniel Day-Lewis, who didn't grow up near me.

But, you know, these were London guys who I was like, God, that's a career I would love to emulate.

But it felt so distant.

It felt like other.

Theatre was more immediate, and I was just lucky that one then led to the other.

From the very start you caught Hollywood's attention.

Gattaca is one that I absolutely love and is a cult classic.

At the time it had done fairly well.

But the talent at Mr.

Ripley I think is really when you became a name where folks could identify you.

Did it take you then by surprise just what they were paying attention to?

Because it sounds like you wanted to have this serious career.

I still do.

Which you have done.

But when you first arrived, it was really all about your looks.

Yeah.

Did that catch you by surprise?

Not really.

I actually turned down the role in the talents of Mr.

Rookby because my concern was he was the good-looking guy.

And

I was worried that that would limit my career, I suppose.

I wanted to be seen as something more than that

and I'm very lucky I didn't turn that roll down because it changed my career and I got to work with all these wonderful people opened a lot of doors and it was a great experience

but it did all one of the doors it opened was this

attention yes to what I look like and

I still find that

shallow and frustrating if I'm honest and it's interesting isn't it that we're in a time now where

you know for women for many years that was something that was all always discussed and I kind of I uh but but fortunately we're turning a corner now where if you know if if the same conversation were to be applied to a woman they'd quite rightly be able to say you know uh

that's not cool um let's not let's not go there and um

uh

it's always been yeah bit frustrating but it's a very odd subject to talk about because in talking about it, it also sort of feels like I'm affirming that, you know.

That you're saying, yeah, I'm a good looking.

Yeah.

But yeah, it was a kind of,

it felt always like a bit of a limitation,

weirdly.

Did you try to do things to combat that and the choices that you made?

For a certain amount of time, yeah.

There were certain roles definitely at key moments which I chose because I just thought, oh, well, this will take it away from being that

stereotype.

I like to think now

that I've been doing it long enough and I hope provided enough evidence and variety that it's not or no longer

all people see.

But just the other day I was at the Toronto Film Festival and in at least two or three of the interviews, that's all they wanted to talk about.

My looks.

And I kind of looked at them and thought, you know, I'm a 52-year-old guy.

I've got a 30-year career, and that's all you're talking about.

Yes.

You know, it was very odd.

Yes.

And again, limiting.

It just feels, but hey, it's also, it's not like they're insulting me.

My God.

Right, right.

There are worse things to have to keep talking about.

Yeah, yeah.

But it is something that fades.

So it can't be something you hang your entire life on.

It changes, you know.

Well, I'm glad to hear that you actually took on the role as Dickie in The Talented Mr.

Ripley.

What a star-studded cast.

At the time, you all were just young actors.

Matt Damon, I think, was the most well-known person at that time.

We're talking 1999.

What do you remember most about that experience?

There was a palpable sense of excitement and energy that, you know, we were doing something

good

because Anthony Minghella, who

was just the most beautiful spirit

and ran a very happy team.

He was a director, he was the director, writer-director.

He had just won a whole bunch of Oscars for his film, The English Patient.

And yeah, everyone on the set had, you know, there was a buzz around them.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kate Blanchette, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Davenport.

And as you mentioned, Matt, in the lead role.

So

my memory is feeling the pressure to step up and deliver.

It was also one of play and fun.

It was undeniably

glamorous and romantic to be all over Italy and shooting this thing on yachts and in train stations and on the Spanish steppes in Rome and on these little islands off the Amalfi coast.

I mean

idyllic and wonderful and

all young enough, enough or certainly i felt young enough to feel also invincible and and incredibly bold and brave and yeah confident yeah were there any choices that you made um in

embodying dickey that you kind of decided i wanted to complicate this person i wanted to make this person a little bit rougher or more than what um maybe even is on the page

well

yeah absolutely I don't remember all the literature I read, but there's an awful lot of detail in the novel by Patricia Highsmith.

And there's a sort of thread of a backstory that you get a sense of in the film anyway, where he has this violent temper.

He has this sort of frustration, Dickie.

And you see it a little bit.

And they talk about him hurting a boy at school.

Um,

so you know that there's this darkened part, it's this sense of, you know, the ultimate kind of spoilt rich kid really gets away with everything.

There's also a sort of incredible arrogance to that kind of a guy, I thought, that

I was nervous about creating because that's not me.

It's that kind of confidence of just absolutely owning the room,

especially when that room has Philip Seymour Hoffman, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltra, and Kate Blanchet in it.

And it took a lot of

getting,

really, really, really building up to it.

And Anthony was amazing at that, letting me, because I was probably the least known.

I'd done the least work.

I'd done a couple of like little independent movies in some theatre.

And you were aware of all of them and their work.

Oh, yeah.

Kate, I believe, had just played Elizabeth.

Gwyneth was about to win an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love.

Philip was just, everyone knew Philip's work because he was a genius.

And I think I'd seen him in some of P.T.

Anderson's early films, and I knew his work in theatre.

Matt was already a star.

But I remember Anthony really talking me through, you know, the need to sort of assume this confidence.

And

he did it through

very wonderful ways, flattery and

just encouragement.

Like what?

Because he had to pump you up to be confident and to help have this hubris.

Yes, but it wasn't a case of like the coach in the corner talking the boxer into the ring.

It was done over a period of time you know it gave me a sense of ownership and uh belief is there anything that he taught you that you still use today he he talked a lot but not so much on that film because it wasn't really my place but it when we made cold mountain he talked a lot about being a host that when you're when you're when you're when you when you're the lead in a film you know a big film is a moving morphous beast and you get different people coming in sometimes it's the only day on set but it's really important they deliver and that they feel confident and they understand the the the mood of the set and it's like a as he put it it's a wedding and you're the you're the groom or you're the bride you've got to go introduce yourself you've got to make sure they're comfortable yes and they they get the tone of the room and they get the tone of this you know and it's their turn when the camera's on them they're it's all about them and i remember feeling i he was absolutely right and it's important that i think that percolates down on a set um

so that people do their best work so that people are happy.

And you know, it's a collaborative art form

throughout.

Crew, cast, everyone's got to be on their game.

Let's take a short break.

If you're just joining us, my guest is Jude Law.

He stars in the new Netflix series Black Rabbit and is known for acclaimed roles in the talented Mr.

Ripley, Cold Mountain, and the Sherlock Holmes films.

We'll be right back after a break.

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You have seven children?

Yeah, ranges from what age to what age?

28 to 3.

It's always a lifetime.

Yeah, I just sent my daughter off to college and I was thinking actually as I was doing it,

now if I could do that all over again, now I think I got some things, you know, I know.

Yeah.

Would you do it all over?

I would.

Or maybe I'm just in the feels right now, you know?

But

I'm just wondering from you, like

raising kids, do you just, when you have that that between 28 and 3 um does it feel like okay i'm i'm now getting better and better practice at this or does it feel brand new with everyone

oh brand new with everyone um

but

the

experience certainly

calms you

uh I'm trying to think of a good sort of

metaphor for it.

You know,

you've been on the road before, but the weather's always different.

Right?

And maybe the vehicle's different too.

It may be right.

The road is different, right?

It's raining.

Or it's suddenly it's icy.

This road has a lot of bugs.

Exactly.

That's funny.

A lot of potholes in this road.

Yeah.

Honestly,

it's the single thing, as it should be in my life, that keeps me

totally

alert and real.

It's

because every day is a new day for them to discover themselves, and you're there guiding that, or just letting them know that you're there for them.

And

they approach it differently.

And so you're still kind of figuring out how are they seeing this and how can I help or support or guide?

And is that standing back or is that getting there and getting involved?

It's a living, breathing thing.

And it's true what people say that, you know, it never ends.

It's not like, oh, okay, they've left home and they're entering adulthood because then those phone calls are, you know, a little more weighty and a little more serious if they need your help or guidance.

But the physicality and the involvement of being a daddy to little ones is, you know, immediate and demanding.

And

I would certainly also say that having been a dad when I was in my mid-20s,

I mean, the energy I had back then and the ability to bounce back.

I was the first one up.

Now it's like, dad, get up.

It takes its toll.

It's hard work.

How has fatherhood, if at all, shaped the roles that you choose?

If it's affected them,

it's sometimes taking jobs because

I need to pay the mortgage.

That's true.

Right?

And

I think, you know, getting involved in shows like

The Fantastic Beasts and

Marvel, and it was probably because I thought my kids would get a kick out of this.

But, but, but, but me too.

Right, right.

I was as kind of curious to see into those huge worlds as they were.

But honestly,

the biggest way they've guided me of looking back now is that they really help just

create normality in my life.

And I love the tonic of going home and just being dad and not anything else, you know, sort of hanging up whatever coat it is you're wearing or the the the the demands of all of that and the

output because there's a lot of acting to my mind is a sort of offering, right?

But it means you're putting out a lot.

And so being able to go home and just sort of

nestling into a domestic environment where you can just be a father or a parent is a wonderful relief.

Yeah.

Jute Law, thank you so much.

My pleasure.

Jute Law stars in the new Netflix series Black Rabbit.

Coming up, our rock critic Ken Tucker reviews three new albums to listen to this fall.

This is Fresh Air.

There's a lot of new music being released this fall, and rock critic Ken Tucker has chosen to showcase new songs by three very different acts.

Big Thief has a new album, as does Zach Topp, a young country singer with roots in traditional country music.

There's also Icelandic Chinese singer Lei Vei, who brings a classical music and jazz influence to her pop songs.

Here's Ken's review of this eclectic gathering.

Few bands have been as widely acclaimed in recent years as Big Thief, whose signature sound is the haunting voice of Adrian Lenker.

Big Thief's new sixth album, I just played a bit from the title track, Double Infinity, finds the former quartet now a trio, but its sound has expanded with the addition of backup singers for the first time.

Whether Lenker's vocals needed backing is up for debate, but it certainly added a chummy, collegial air to this album.

On the song called Los Angeles, this band from Brooklyn, New York soaks up the LA sun and heat and turns out a warm hymn to cross-continental friendship.

Los Angeles, 333, nothing on the stereo.

Dirty tear like Mona Lisa, smiling in the half-life.

Mysteriously, but seriously, I'd follow you forever.

Even without looking, you call we come together.

Even without speaking, you saved

me.

You saved

me.

Where Adrian Lenker's voice swoops and soars, Zach Topp's voice has a pinched nasal tone that connects this 27-year-old all the way back to classic country crooners like Lefty Frizel and Webb Pierce.

Topp is enough of a craftsman that he can fill a funny song like Good Times in Tan Lines with so many amusing little details and vocal curly cues that it becomes something more substantial than a novelty.

Little bit of dust, a little bit of smoke, falling in a Chevy down a gravel road, headed to a spot everybody knows, cannonballs swinging from an old frayed road.

Talking about good times and tan limes, cold beer and summer nights.

That was all there was to life.

Good times and tan lines.

Good, good times and tan lines.

Zach Topp's big hit singles and new album Ain't In It For My Health signal a shift in country music, which has spent recent years emulating hip-hop rhythms.

Top is making popular a new variation on the neo-traditionalist country music of the 1990s.

Top addresses the gap between hipster country and his own retro style in a disarmingly direct manner on Country Boy Blues.

I shined up my pickup and slipped on my go-to-town boots

I hit Music City like a good time and honky-tonking fool

I've been walking for hours starting to think it wasn't worth the trip

on the Vegas Strip

Yeah, every spot in town's got a drink and a band So why can't I hear a damn country tune

Hopping up and down and all around Lower Broadway with these old country boy balloons

Now, let's take a big swerve from country to classical.

Specifically, the classically trained cellist, pianist, guitar-strumming singer-songwriter called Leve.

In which I fill myself, I fill the world all the same.

I don't think I'm pretty

It's not up for debate

A woman's best currency is her body,

not her brain

They try to tell me

Tell me I'm wrong

But mirrors tell lies to be my mind, just please long.

With her smooth jazz phrasing and arrangements, the 26-year-old Levee has charmed millions who first became aware of her via her TikTok videos.

Leve on her new third album, A Matter of Time, cleverly melds her old-school influences and writes lyrics that have an invigorating sting to them.

Listen, for example, to her witty put-down of an egotistical guy called Mr.

Eclectic.

Mr.

Eclectic

Alan Poe

as different as these three acts are, what Big Thief, Zack Top, and Leve have in common is the way they succinctly summarize both the allure and the flaws of the people they've fallen in or out of love with.

You end up either wishing you were the object of their admiration or glad you're not on the receiving end of their criticism.

Ken Tucker reviewed new music by Big Thief, Zach Top, and Leybay.

If you'd like to catch up on interviews you've missed, like our conversation with author Mary Roach on scientific breakthroughs and replacing body parts, or New York Times magazine reporter Robert Draper on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, check out our podcast.

You'll find lots of fresh air interviews.

And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers' recommendations on what to watch, read, and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at whyy.org slash fresh air.

Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

Our managing producer is Sam Brigher.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shirock, Anne-Marie Boldonado, Lauren Crinzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman.

Our digital media producer is Molly C.B.

Nesper.

Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson.

Thea Chaloner directed today's show.

With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Moosley.

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