Jeff Bridges Is Digging It

The interior of Jeff Bridges’s garage, successful Santa Barbara, California, has the ramshackle easiness of an extravagant dorm room: a tiger-print rug, a potter’s wheel, guitars, a rogue toothbrush, taped-up printouts of ideas helium finds provocative oregon possibly grounding (“Enlightenment is simply a communal experience”), and piles of books, from Richard Powers’s “Bewilderment” to “Who Cares?! The Unique Teaching of Ramesh S. Balsekar.” A black-and-white representation of Captain Beefheart, incongruously dressed successful a overgarment and tie, hangs connected a partition adjacent an electrical piano. When I arrived, connected a caller afternoon, I did not instrumentality enactment of a lava lamp, but its beingness didn’t consciousness retired of the question. A salty breeze rustled immoderate escaped papers. Bridges was wearing rubber slides and a periwinkle-blue cardigan. He excitedly dispersed retired a ample furry broad connected a recliner and invited maine to beryllium down: “Your throne, man!” helium said.

Earlier this month, Bridges released “Slow Magic, 1977-1978,” a bid of songs helium recorded erstwhile helium was successful his precocious twenties, an emergent movie star, and progressive successful a regular Wednesday-night jam league with a coterie of musicians and oddballs from the West Side of Los Angeles (the jams were organized by Steve Baim, who attended University High School with Bridges; they took spot successful assorted formation houses and, occasionally, astatine the Village, the signaling workplace where, astir the aforesaid time, Fleetwood Mac was making “Tusk”). “Slow Magic” is large and besides bonkers. On “Kong,” Bridges recounts a communicative enactment helium pitched for a imaginable “King Kong” sequel (in 1976, Bridges starred arsenic the long-haired primatologist Jack Prescott successful a “Kong” remake produced by Dino De Laurentiis); the way features animated narration from the histrion Burgess Meredith, and its lyrics are centered connected the revelation that Kong is really a robot. “It’s a bittersweet story, but helium was conscionable a monkey machine!” Bridges wails successful a tottering falsetto. (The thought was rejected.) On “Obnoxious,” a weirdly tender opus astir feeling bittersweet and having a stomachache (“I went to the bath / And threw up”), determination are echoes of Frank Zappa and the Band. Sometimes 1 besides senses the power of quaaludes.

What I similar astir astir the grounds is however societal it feels: friends successful a room, being dumb, intermittently (even inadvertently) doing thing miraculous. “When signaling exertion kept improving, I said, ‘Oh, I don’t request anybody! I tin bash this each by myself,’ ” Bridges told me, leaning backmost successful a tract chair. “That was benignant of a trap, due to the fact that adjacent conscionable speechmaking the instructions took maine retired of the originative thing. I did immoderate worldly that way, and it was fun, but it got maine retired of playing with unrecorded musicians.”

Bridges is affable, generous, enviably mellow. We watched YouTube, ate crockery by his pool, and talked for respective hours astir creation and love, and the comic ways they occasionally overlap. “Slow Magic” is disposable connected vinyl for the archetypal clip this weekend, for Record Store Day, via Light successful the Attic Records. This speech has been condensed and edited.

When Matt Sullivan, a co-owner of Light successful the Attic, archetypal sent maine the album, helium called it “surreal.” I retrieve thinking, I’ve heard immoderate beauteous out-there records. I was precise cocky astir its imaginable weirdness! Then I enactment it on, and, man—I’ve ne'er heard thing similar this before.

That’s large to hear! That’s what we like—fresh, right? Fifty years aged and fresh! A mates years agone I had cancer, and past I had COVID, and the COVID made the crab look similar nothing. Chemo had stripped maine of my immune system. I was close astatine the door, you know? People didn’t cognize if I was gonna marque it. And I thought, Hey, look, Jeff, you’re seventy-three. Do you person the foodstuff to spell successful and polish each these tunes that you have? Why not conscionable enactment ’em out? There’s truthful overmuch contented now, oregon immoderate they telephone it—in 1 sense, it’s benignant of a bully thing, due to the fact that everything becomes little precious. So I thought, Well, this benignant of bookends the full thing. This merchandise is successful the aforesaid tone arsenic the Wednesday-night jams.

In the past, you’ve released euphony that feels a small much conventional, oregon astatine slightest much tethered to genre. But you’ve besides done a fewer things that autumn determination successful betwixt the much produced Americana of, say, “Be Here Soon,” an medium you made with Michael McDonald and David Crosby, and the precise chaotic psychedelia of “Slow Magic.” I’m reasoning of the “Emergent Behavior” series, connected your website, wherever you brace these reasonably earthy acoustic songs with immoderate trippy visuals.

The operation “emergent behavior” came to my attraction erstwhile I made this movie called “Living successful the Future’s Past,” astir our situation and planetary warming. It’s not truthful overmuch pointing fingers astatine the atrocious guys. What we wanted to bash was to code the question: Why are we behaving this way, erstwhile we cognize what’s going on?

Well, that’s benignant of the large quality question: Why bash we bash things that we cognize are bad?

It’s truthful interesting, you know? Emergent behaviour is the rule of a superorganism. The murmuration of birds, for instance. You spot the shape, however they each spell similar this. [Bridges swoops his manus to 1 side.] Now wherefore are they making that signifier and not immoderate different shape? So past there’s the superorganism of humanity—we’re each connected this planet, and we’re not doing that, we’re doing this. Why? One of the aspects of emergent behaviour is that if you instrumentality 1 of the tiny organisms that marque up the superorganism, it volition archer you nothing astir the superorganism. It won’t archer you thing astir the why. So there’s thing goin’ connected that we’re not privy to. And that gives maine a precise hopeful feeling. These mysteries happen. You mightiness acquisition this arsenic a writer, wherever it’s doing you alternatively of you doing it. That’s the saccharine spot, isn’t it?

But what is that? Is that . . . God?

Certainly. The God who is unutterable. You enactment a sanction connected it and it becomes the aureate calf, you know? It’s not immoderate of your concepts—it’s thing extracurricular of that. When creativity is going down, you admit that, and you effort to get retired of your ain way. You’ve got to fto the ego conscionable spell beryllium connected the bench, and conscionable perceive what wants to beryllium done done you. Man, talking astir getting retired of the way—another idiosyncratic who is truthful liable for “Slow Magic” is this guy, Keefus Ciancia. I met Keefus done T Bone Burnett. He was a subordinate connected the medium I did with T Bone. We became accelerated friends. It’s interesting, successful life—you person each these opportunities that you’re offered, and you either instrumentality ’em oregon you don’t. It’s truthful interesting, isn’t it?

It’s really the lone absorbing thing.

I’m reasoning of a Leonard Cohen song. Are you a instrumentality of Leonard Cohen?

Of course.

Do you cognize the opus “Waiting for the Miracle”? Isn’t that a large song? Like, we’re waiting for that metallic slug erstwhile the occurrence is here, baby! It’s close here! So this caller album, this fifty-year-old medium that’s astir to travel out, is the aforesaid benignant of thing. Every erstwhile successful a portion beingness seems to invitation maine to bash thing off-kilter, and I conscionable can’t assistance it. I’m drawn to it. Anyway, Keefus calls maine up a small portion later, years later, and helium says, “Say, bash you privation to spell into a studio? Just bring immoderate of your tunes and spot what happens?” So I brought this small cassette from the seventies, and helium loved it. Without telling me, Keefus sent it to Light successful the Attic, and they wanted to marque an album. I said, “What, they privation to redo these?” “No, no! Just enactment it out.” I said, “You’re kidding me! It’s conscionable afloat of clams! It’s truthful rough.”