Six years after his last album, the artist who still can’t understand why anyone calls him trip-hop talks Different When It’s Silent, the Pixies, smoking weed with his Jamaican dad and why a song with no chorus is the thing he’s proudest of.
Tricky lives his creative life well. Adrian Thaws, known as Tricky, isn’t about a single sound in his career. He first emerged during the early days of Massive Attack and further moved the needle with classic ’90s albums Maxinquaye and Nearly God, but what made him first known isn’t what keeps him and his work going. Whenever he releases a new project, it is truly new.
Different When It’s Silent is the latest example of Tricky exploring new avenues. The artist’s first album under the Tricky name in six years brings out some industrial and indie rock from his soul. There’s his signature honesty in lyricism—placing intrusive thoughts into a tranquil groove or melody that makes for a hypnotic listen.
It’s fitting when you talk to Tricky: the man is always on the move and going from one room (over Zoom) to another. He’s still moving, now touring and sharing his latest album with fans. There’s an infectious freedom to his work, and it’s a freedom he doesn’t take lightly.
During a call with High Times, Tricky discussed living an uncompromising artist’s life.
Knowing your work, the new album feels a little unfamiliar in a cool way. It’s your sound, but it still feels like you’re starting over with such a wide, blank canvas. Do you always try, when you begin a new album, to not forget what you’ve done before but forge a new path?
Yeah, I can’t remember which artist I was with. I was talking to an artist, and we were talking about music, and he said, “My fan base wouldn’t be into me doing this different thing.” And I thought, “Well, you’re trapped then.”
So I do what I want. I really rarely have ideas of what I’m going to do when I’m in the studio. I just basically do whatever. It’s really nice in the studio. It’s all your own free time. You don’t want to answer the phone. You can eat there. Your day is all figured out. For me, just hanging out in the studio, I have a great time. So I have no expectations, and I just record.
What’s weird, though, I still can’t see why people use the word “trip-hop” with me when every album I do is different. It’s like, what is trip-hop about Angels with Dirty Faces, Nearly God, this album? I don’t really understand that.
There’s more industrial rock and indie rock in this.
I think it’s my first indie album. I totally agree with what you just said. I think it’s an indie album. I think it’s a Tricky indie album. It’s closer to indie. If it had a name, I would call it alternative rock/indie.
It’s not surprising to learn, either, that you grew up really into Gary Numan and the Pixies. This album feels a little cut from that cloth.
And I still listen to the Pixies, and I still listen to Gary Numan. I listen to them more than any artist around now. There’s no new artist I listen to as much as I listen to the Pixies and Gary Numan still now.
I think we’ve kind of lost a bit of that authentic… The Pixies, they’ve got no musical father or mother. You don’t know where they come from. Same with Kate Bush. Bob Marley, similar. Prince, you can’t put a finger on.
I think it’s basically the industry and the labels now, and social media. Everything is the same. It’s an algorithm of music and what sells. Majors are signing TikTok singles, and then these poor kids who get signed for a single, if their next single doesn’t do anything, they just get dropped straight back to TikTok. I don’t think that helps with new music.
There’s what’s happening in the music industry, and then there’s what you’re doing over here. Was that always a hope or goal?
I knew from the beginning I wasn’t going to try and fit into any category. I wasn’t going to compromise my music. I was talking to a guy once who—I don’t want to say the label—but quite a big indie label, and he’s got a really big band. I said, small talk, “How’s the album going?” He goes, “Yeah, we’re finished. We’ve just got to get the singles.”
And I’m like, “Well, you’ve either finished the album or you haven’t finished the album.”
He said, “Yeah, yeah, we’ve finished the album. We’ve just got to get the singles.”
Basically, they’re trapped by the success of a single. So their album ain’t finished until they’ve got hits. I don’t have that problem. I bring out any single I want. That’s freedom.
I’d hate to be in a position where I need singles to release an album. If there are singles, there are singles. If there’s not, there’s not. I don’t think I could work any other way.
Your work isn’t about singles but about the experience—the beginning, middle and ending of the album. When you were working on Different When It’s Silent, what was the arc to the album that you saw?
Well, first of all, you know when the track’s finished, but even the sequence is important. It’s like I make albums. I love making one piece of work. I’ve had tracks which would be considered big radio tracks, but I took them off the album because they don’t fit on the album. It’s got to be one piece of work.
I only think in album terms. Then after I’ve finished the album, I choose the singles. The radio pluggers we employed for this, they didn’t want “Out of Place” as a single. They said, “We like it, but we don’t think it’s a single.”
It got A-listed on [BBC Radio] 6 Music. Someone asked me the other day in an interview what I’m proud of. I’m proud that I could put out “Out of Place.” There’s no chorus. There’s nothing. It’s just a piece of music—it starts, ends. To get a song like that on the A-list, I think that makes me proud.
It shows, who really knows? Radio pluggers, record companies—no one really knows. I don’t know. You put out something and it resonates with people.
I think we’re in good times, though, because music is so oversaturated. People are starting to find the real stuff, like bands like the Pixies again. And new artists, if they are doing something different and soulful, people are starting to find it. I can feel the change. There is a change. People are starting to appreciate real music and not manufactured music.
There’s this duality to this album where your work is uncompromising, but on Different When It’s Silent, it’s also really accessible. It’s not poppy, but it is pleasant, as dark as the album can be.
It’s not like trying to be so left-field that it doesn’t make sense. You get some artists, you can hear some artists trying to be really left-field with it. You get these big, famous artists trying to do something different, and you can see right through it. You can feel right through it.
I think you’ve really got to be yourself. For people to resonate with you, you’ve got to be yourself. I think I get a lot of love because people recognize themselves in me.
I’m not a celebrity. I’m not a pop star. I’m just someone trying to figure it out like everybody else is. Because I don’t have that celebrity image, I think people resonate with me because we’re the same, we’re similar. I think my music is honest.
When you’re writing and exploring in the studio, do you wonder how it will connect or relate to people, or do you just put it out there and hope they connect with it?
It’s almost like I know some people will connect. I don’t need the masses. Years ago, I was on tour in America and I was touring with Tool. I was sat on the tour bus by myself one afternoon, and I’m like, “Okay, this is everybody’s dream, right? You’re a musician, you’re touring, you’re with Tool, you’re with these great bands. People want to work with you.”
And I felt like something was missing. I still couldn’t understand: How can I be this successful, and I’m still feeling like, “Well, what now?”
I got a friend called Perry. We’re in Philadelphia, and a nurse gave him a CD for me to sign who worked in a children’s burns unit. She said to him, “They played my music to the kids in a burns unit.” Then I met a woman with Maynard, a pregnant woman who said to me, “You’re in my life, and you’re in my children’s life.”
Then in Texas, I met a guy who was in a coma, and his parents knew that he listened to my music. They played my music to him while he was in his coma. I got to meet him at a show, and he tells me, and I say, “I don’t know what to say. Oh, wow.”
He goes, “You don’t have to say anything.”
I realized that’s what it’s about.
I get the most people saying to me, “Your music was with me in difficult times.” So I don’t need the masses.
Even with Marta [Złakowska, his longtime collaborator], we just did a show in Berlin, and Marta—the song “When It’s Going Wrong”—a girl came up to her and said, “I was going through difficult times, and this was on repeat.”
That’s what it’s about. When these things clicked, I realized that’s success there. I need to connect with people like that.
It’s like during COVID as well. In Berlin, I met this young girl who came over to me because you could still go out in Berlin. Her friend had just committed suicide, and he had “Hell Is Round the Corner” tattooed on his leg.
I could see she was going through it. She came and talked to me, and we talked for a second, then she left.
I think through music, you can be there for people. When I was on the tour bus touring Maxinquaye, and I still felt like, “What’s next?” I felt like something was missing. Then when I discovered that, I’m like, “Oh, I’ve realized why we’re supposed to be doing this. This is what we’re supposed to be doing.”
I’m lucky enough to have experienced certain things in my journey where I don’t have to think about it. If it resonates with me, it’s going to resonate with someone.
That’s a good way of looking at success, bringing comfort to others. Do you ever find music cathartic when you’re making it or playing it live?
Yeah. In the studio, I could go for days without eating food. I don’t need anything. I’m totally comfortable, totally satisfied. Onstage, for however long I’m onstage, I’m not hot, I’m not cold, I’m not thirsty, I’m not tired. It’s like some people do yoga or tai chi or meditation. Working with music is a form of meditation.
When you’re onstage, you’re not thinking about what you’ve got to do tomorrow. You’re in the present, and also, you’re not in the present. You could be in the past, thinking about your family and stuff, and certain songs mean something to you. So you’re having that conversation as well.
It’s like talking to the gods. For some reason, I’m always looking up, and it’s very spiritual. So I find it really soothing.
How often is cannabis a part of that soothing experience?
Well, I smoke hashish. Weed is just a part of my culture. I’ve given up sometimes, and I start again. But my dad’s Jamaican. I used to smoke weed with my dad, and I used to walk around England with a spliff, and it’s almost like I didn’t realize it was illegal.
Not that I didn’t realize—it was so much a part of my culture that it was just totally natural to me.
It’s just always been a part of my life, from 14, 15. It does definitely help you relax. There’s no doubt about it. I think you need to find what’s good for you, though, smoking. It all depends on your upbringing. If you have trauma, there’s certain weed I can’t smoke.
That’s because of trauma I’ve had in my childhood. But it definitely relaxes you. It definitely makes you able to meditate. Smoking weed and listening to music on the tour bus is just fucking the best.
Since you’re going to hit the road soon, who do you think you’ll be listening to while smoking on the bus?
I always listen to the Pixies, Rakim, the Cure, Kate Bush, Gary Numan, Cat Power, Vybz Kartel—a mixture of stuff. Also, I have a playlist before we go on. On loop, it’s like an hour’s playlist of all music I’ve grown up on or I love, and that’s going before the show.
How do you think the new album evolves once played live?
Well, some just don’t work. Some just don’t work live. It’s like with any album, some of the songs you think, “Oh, this is going to be banging,” and it just doesn’t work.
We do a song called “Piano” off the album, but it took us, I’d say, four weeks to get it right. So I basically took it out of the set because it just wasn’t working, and now it’s back in the set. We’ve had to rewrite it for the shows.
I do my set list like an album as well. It’s not just songs. I don’t do many songs like “Hell Is Round the Corner.” I’ve tried it. I can’t do it. I’m not interested. That’s my biggest song.
I do my shows like an album—the sequence, how it starts. It’s not just doing well-known songs. It’s an album sequence. Sometimes you have to change things or move things around, but I’m also still learning about this album. I haven’t tried everything yet. We’ve got four songs off the new album, all different ones. Then when we go in next time, I’ll figure out another one, if something else will work.
But I did a tour of a full album when Maxinquaye first came out. When you’ve got a catalog, just doing one album, I think, is hard.
As you’re on the road right now, what experience do you hope to create for people when they’re at your shows?
Well, people either really love it or won’t get it, and I’m okay with that. But the good reaction is like they’ve never seen anything like it before and they’ve never experienced anything like it before. That’s what I hope for.
See, a tour for me is like, people are coming to see your show. They could be anywhere they want to be. I feel it’s important for people to take time out to come and hang out with us. I think it’s such an honor. So, it’s not something I take lightly.
They’re spending money to come and see us play, so I take that very seriously. They could be with their family, they could be traveling, but you’ve chosen to spend this couple of hours with us. That means a lot to me.
I want to give 150% back because it does mean a lot for someone to come. I don’t take things for granted. I try and give all the love I get back because it means a lot for someone to come and take time out of their life to spend it with us. It’s just amazing, so I take it very seriously.
