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 Herway.

You know, I want my music to be a product of the world that I am growing up in and growing

older in.

So if this song is going to exist as a Tuneyard song, it has to have some dirty nasty

to it.

In this episode, Merrill Garbis of Tuneyard's breaks down the song Waterfountain.

It draws inspiration from the politics of drought and from dancehall reggae.

Coming up, you'll hear how and why she tried to make the song less catchy.

Despite that effort, in 2014, the Tuneyard's album Nicki Nack climbed the Billboard charts

and got widespread critical praise.

Nothing feels like dying like the dry, the nice skin and the low.

Why do we just sit here while they watch us with her too?

My name is Merrill Garbis and I make music under the name Tuneyards.

My name, Brenner, is a co-writer on most of the songs now that Tuneyards create.

It was January of 2013 and I was like, okay, it's the new year and I'm going to start

to make a new album.

So I kind of forced myself into this routine where I'd go into my little studio, which was

a shipping container that had been made into a little rehearsal studio.

So I was there in this super hot metal box sitting at a computer and trying to make

all these demos.

...