Jay Som - Tenderness

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishikesh, Hirway.

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JSON has a new album coming out on October 10th called Belong, which is pretty exciting if you're a fan like me, because her last album came out six years ago.

This new one features guest appearances by Haley Williams from Paramore and Jim Atkins from Jimmy Eat World, and I've been really enjoying it, so I thought it would be nice to revisit her Song Exploder episode, also from six years ago, November 2019.

Since the episode was published, Melina's done a lot.

She was part of the Grammy-winning Boy Genius album that came out in 2023, and she's produced and mixed a bunch of albums for other folks.

I've been lucky enough to work with her a few times, including a duet that we did together for a song of mine.

And I consider a friend now.

And that all started with this episode.

So here it is.

Molina Duterte, who goes by the name JSON, is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist.

She's released three albums under the name JSON, and she's produced, engineered, and mixed each one.

Her third album, Anako, came out in August 2019.

And in this episode, Molina breaks down a song from it called Tenderness.

Nothing said I could

say.

I'm Melina from JSON.

I started writing Tenderness the summer of 2018.

I just moved to LA and I was doing a lot of like production work for other people.

This artist came over to like work with me for her whole record.

And there was one day where I had to clean her entire hard drive.

And I noticed that there was a folder that said vintage drum machines.

And I just like copy and pasted it onto my computer because I was like, oh, it's right there.

She doesn't know that, but it's okay.

And I just like experimented with all of those.

I started off by recording this Lin LM1 drum machine.

That's like the Prince drum sampler and I know he used that on like all the hits.

And at the time I was listening to a lot of Steely Dan.

They make a lot of songs that have like a shuffly beat and I wanted to emulate that because you don't get to hear it that often, especially in like pop music too.

Just like

And I thought it'd be really cool to have this like languid guitar part that strums as if it's a piano.

Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Just pretty like minor seventh chords.

The concept and like the meaning of the track came as I was writing it.

Those chords are used in lots lots of like RB songs and it just felt right to like make a song about love.

I was trying to like conceptualize this idea of sitting in your bed thinking about your new romantic partner that you just started dating and you're kind of like wondering if they're thinking about you and wondering if you're like their right person.

Tell me,

did you fall in the first glance?

Did you think you took a chance?

Did you think I'm awake and I couldn't?

As I was doing the vocals, I really wanted that lo-fi effect.

I imagined myself on my bed with like an old telephone and you're kind of like speaking into the telephone.

I really wanted that conversational feeling as if like you're either leaving a voicemail or you're the only one that's speaking.

You really want to put your heart on the line.

Show me

before you haunt me on the screen.

Will my affection pull the strings?

Another forgotten memory.

And that was originally supposed to be the whole song.

It was going to be like a minute and 30 seconds.

It was going to be like the intro of that and one chorus.

But I sat with the demo for a couple months and it just didn't sound right to me.

That was the first time for like an album making process where I had demos.

Usually when I write songs, I record them at the same time because I really like having the idea in my head and going through with it.

But this time I started to get like a little frustrated because I was writing songs that I couldn't play.

When it like goes into the part with a drum fill and it comes into the rest of the song.

That's just like drum samples and it started sounding too like rigid.

It didn't have like a flow and that's when I decided like I need to have Zach play drums on it.

That is my touring mate Zach.

We've been playing music together since middle school and high school like in jazz bands and like concert bands and indie cover bands.

We just went up to his parents house in our hometown which is in the East Bay Area.

They have like this bonus room that he has his drum set in and he usually records music in there because it's always quiet.

I just set up some mics on his drums and he just like nailed it.

He did more to it than I would if I played the drums.

More taste and style and like flavor.

So I had the drums for tenderness and I was super happy because I was like, oh, I could finally have it sound the way that I want it to.

And then I went back to LA and started doing bass.

Bass is my favorite instrument to play.

I started playing the bass after I like really learned guitar.

And then I realized that the bass was the most important instrument in every song.

I think it's just like has so much meaning in like the foundation of a song.

It like really drives and like motivates the groove of it.

With the bass, you can just do the roots, but I think I always like to do a little more.

I like little nuggets of jazzy notes that work in the chord progression.

And I think it like gives it like a really cool flow.

flow.

Most of the guitar tracks were done in Joshua Tree.

I rented this house for like a week.

So the intro guitar, I wanted it to sound like the guitar was coming from an old record player.

To sound like vintage.

And then I wanted to introduce these new elements for guitar layering to make the intro build a little more.

So I played through a cleaner setting and put like a tremolo on it and that was panned left.

And then the end of the intro introduces like another guitar panned to the right.

and then for the first chorus I added in a guitar with like a Leslie effect.

I love layering guitars.

I think that is the secret to making a song sound lush.

The Wurlitzer was done in Joshua Tree as well.

I thought that the Wurlitzer would really like serve its purpose as being like a steely dan part of the song.

Just has that like classic electric piano sound that can make the song come to life.

It like brings a certain energy that like a guitar doesn't bring.

I grew up playing jazz trumpet and throughout that time I was like really heavily invested in like music theory and like learning about everything.

I've always had the mindset that like music can speak for itself and music can tell a story and like evoke a sort of emotion that lyrics and vocals can't.

So I just wanted to have an instrumental passage rather than like more lyrics in the bridge of the song.

I did the final vocals for Tenderness right before I turned in my album.

That was the only song where I was like, I don't know if I'm going to release this because I don't know if I'm singing it good or anything like that.

And I think there was just a moment where I like forced myself to keep doing the vocal takes over and over again for like hours.

And I had like hot tea with me at all times so that I can like coat my throat to like sing it.

Because I'm not, I don't consider myself like a singer or like someone that can belt.

But if I can sing sweetly, I will.

I'm feeling like we just begun.

Nothing's Nothing's ever good enough.

Tenderness is all of God.

I got my friend Taylor Vic to sing harmonies.

I really admire her voice and can relate to the way that she records her voice.

She sings really quietly, kind of in a whispery fashion.

I also got that style from learning about like how you you can make your voice sound bigger by singing quietly and I just think our voices sound really cool together.

I think when you're starting off in a new relationship, you you feel the effects of like puppy love.

You're like obsessed with this person and you're always thinking about them.

And everything you do together is really important, like where you go out to eat and like the sort of vacations that you take.

You feel like you're in this environment that's like yours.

You feel like you're sinking and you can't get out of that.

It's just sort of like you're falling in love.

It feels really good to to write songs that are about being loving and showing like that you can be vulnerable and emotional in relationships and actively wanting people to know that you love them rather than like being emo, I guess.

But I can write songs about being emo anytime.

Coming up, hear how all those parts and ideas came together in the final song.

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And now, here's Tenderness by JSON in its entirety.

Tell me,

did you fall in at first glance?

Do you think you'll take a chance?

Do you think on the weekend I could know?

Show me,

before you haunt me on the screen,

will my affection pull the strings

another forgotten memory?

We've built the city that we're sinking in.

Nobody wants to play pretend.

I just know that.

I'm feeling like we've just begun.

Nothing said I could be gone.

Ten minutes is all the gun.

Yeah,

feeling like we've just begun.

Nothing's ever good enough.

Ten minutes is all the gun.

I'm feeling like we've just begun.

Nothing's ever good enough.

Ten minutes is all the good.

We are

feeling like we've just begun.

nothing to the good of God.

Ten minutes is all of God.

I

feel like I'll just be gone.

Nothing to the good of God.

Ten minutes is all of God.

And I

To learn more, visit songexploder.net, where you'll find links to buy or stream Tenderness.

This episode was originally produced by me, Christian Koons, and guest host Tao Wynn, with production assistance from Olivia Wood.

This reissue was produced by me and Mary Dolan.

The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts.

You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm.

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You can also follow me and Song Exploder on Instagram, and you can get a Song Exploder shirt at songexploder.net/slash shirt.

I'm Rishikesh Hiraway.

Thanks for listening.

Radiotopia

from PRX.