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How Bette Midler, Britney, and despair led John Early to his debut album

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What was it about “Unprotected” that made you want to perform it in the show?

It’s got a teen yearning to break out from the chains of being stuck at home, the chains of your youth. Lyrically it has this bursting quality to it that obviously takes on a deeper meaning when you apply what was happening behind the scenes to Britney. Putting it into the live show was partly down to my band, The Lemon Squares, who are these boys who are used to making bluesy, rocky music. Any song you put through that filter instantly becomes grittier. It would be boring if I were just getting up there and doing precise, sterile covers. I’m not a particularly great vocalist so it makes sense that the music has this swampier, shaggier sound to it. The point of doing a cover is to interpret it and make it your own.

Have you ever considered writing and performing original comedy songs?

I have never wanted to do that, no. There is something about the devotional aspect of a cover, this reverence for the thing I didn’t make, that is beautiful to me. I grew up going to church and singing hymns, too. I think it’s connected to that. My song choice is comedic, obviously. I cover Tweet “Oops (Oh My)” because it’s about masturbation, of course. But comedy songs? I’m just not drawn to them.

A lot of your comedy skewers performative earnestness, and that is something that is prevalent in a lot of cover versions — from morose ballad versions of cheesy pop songs to ironic karaoke choices. Was that something you were thinking about at all while working on Now More Than Ever?

I hate the trope of slowed-down covers in a horror movie trailer. It seems like music, now, is all very ambient and the vocals are soft and whispered with a weird, cheap moodiness to it. I am very unmoved by that kind of cover. What I am trying to revive is an older version of a cover, the early ‘70s when The Carpenters, Isaac Hayes, Dionne Warwick and everyone else was covering Burt Bacharach songs. I think it’s cool and in these variety TV specials they would just do these beautiful covers. There was no irony, nothing was slowed down. That’s what I am trying to do, my own scrappy version of that.

I’m being hard on Millennials but I’m not trying to make fun of any one individual. I also try to implicate myself in the jokes, too. It’s more about this bombed-out cultural landscape that we have inherited. We’re obsessed with reboots and cover versions because we’re determined to go back to a time when there was real cultural offering for us and not just these scraps on the internet. We’re always just left with something that is lifeless and torn apart. Everything arrives to you just shredded.

Is part of that what inspired you to release this album? You’re part of the first generation who has only produced work for streaming platforms and that could all disappear tomorrow if someone makes that decision. This is a physical thing that will be on people’s shelves forever…

Yes, and that is so scary. It’s definitely part of why I wanted to make the album. My love of this sort of performing comes from buying vinyl. I once stayed in an AirBnB that had a record player and I bought two Bette Midler albums, The Divine Miss M and Songs for the New Depression, from a guy on the street and they changed my life. I didn’t realize how cool she was. She was doing duets with Bob Dylan and there was a smoky, crackling quality to it. My live shows have always been about getting things popping and sweaty and my hope for the physical release of this album is to do something similar. I want someone to find this album in the future and feel the liveness of the show.

Finally, in a recent interview with Seth Meyers you mentioned that you have to “release the sphincter” to reach the high notes on “I Feel Love.” Were there any other bodily adjustments needed to perform the songs on the album?

Yes, actually. “The Pain Of Loving You” also has a really high note that, for some reason, I didn’t change. I forgot that I was in charge. There is also another Donna Summer cover on the album (“My Baby Understands”) and I had to get drunk to do it. I love that song so much, and this is often a problem I run into, where I love a song and want to sing it but then realize I have backed myself into a corner where I have chosen a very vulnerable thing to sing. It’s a cliche of cabaret to “take it down” and I started to do one slow song in my sets as a joke. But then I realized I wasn’t equipped to actually perform the songs. The only way through at that point is brazen confidence or alcohol.

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