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 your way.

This is moment where you realize I'm making a fox song. You know like yeah, you are

I was like oh really you just go like a hundred percent into that

Thundercat is the alter ego of bassist and singer songwriter Steven Bruner

He's played bass for both suicidal tendencies and Erica Vado and helped shape Kendrick Lamar's chart topping critically acclaimed album to Pimpa Butterfly. In this episode

Thundercat breaks down his song them changes. He co-produced it with longtime collaborator flying Lotus with Kamasi Washington on saxophone

I am a Steven Thundercat Bruner. I started playing bass around the age of four or five or so

You know every time I go back and look at different pictures and stuff like that. I always had like a guitar like toy

You know when I couldn't talk I actually started writing in my early teens a lot of the time music starts with the drums for me

This song I remember it started with the drum sample from the Isley Brothers, you know footsteps in the dark

It's one of the most amazing songs period, you know

When my generation we grew up with today was a good day, so it's like of course I would hear that more often, you know

Ice cubes is so juxtaposed to theirs. I know it's a classic thing

You know, I was it's like it was always like that weird feeling of like oh god here we go sampling, you know

Something that people have used before but you know, it's like I'm not gonna not explore the options of what it has to offer me

You know because you can feel it that drum when those drums start. It's like they're real heavy

I just started the drums and it felt right

That's just me

Cording on the bass I play a six-string bass to write with a lot

I have to because there's no way I'd be able to play a lot of the parts on a four or five string because some of the chords are really thick like playing

13s or like playing my bass with my hands really spread out

It was a custom instrument. It's got a maple neck and a maple body. So it's like this really bright tone

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