Rolling Rock Row

Anderson .Paak and the Free Nationals are going to soar at Rock Row, Westbrook’s brand new performance venue, on May 26 at 7:30 p.m. We might never come down.

Interview by Olivia Gunn Kotsishevskaya

You’re the first show at Maine’s newest venue, Maine Savings Pavilion at Rock Row. You’re kind of christening it.

Wow! No, I didn’t know I was the very first show. That’s crazy!

Have you ever been here before?

Never. I’m definitely going to explore! I might have to skip soundcheck and go around and see the city.

Ventura, your new album, is fresh out of the oven for this show. What’s it do for you as a performer?

I’m so, so, so excited this is out. It’s just a great continuation from Oxnard, and we really wanted to get this album out—a soulful album with a lot more songs that touched on things I haven’t really done before. I got to work with a lot of people that I’ve always wanted to work with—Andre 3000, Smokey Robinson, Brandy, Jazmine Sullivan, Nate Dogg.

You’ve said Oxnard was your dream album. So why even bother to come out with Ventura, ‘Cheeky Andy’?

This is also my dream album. We finished them at the same time, mixed them at the same time. Oxnard was big because I got to work with one of my favorite producers of all time—Dre. It was like me being able to open myself up to, and work with, a producer and be able to be produced. Before, I was really captain of my whole thing. Dre is my childhood icon. Getting it done with him hand-in-hand and watching him be inspired, that was dope. But simultaneously, I was feeling like I need this other side of the coin, too. I’ve always had like multiple music personalities. When we were making Oxnard, there was this other side of me to be spilled, so I started putting away songs that I wanted for Ventura.

What are you most excited for us to hear on Ventura?

Maybe “Come Home.” Yeah, and “Jet Black” with Brandy.

What brought you and Smokey Robinson together for “Make It Better?”

I started working on that song with Alchemist and Fredwreck, the producers. We started working on the beat, and once we started getting deep into the skeleton with beats, we were both like, “Yo, this sounds like some old Motown. Something that Smokey would be on.” So we started writing it, me and the Artful Dodger, who was on “Anywhere.” We started coming up with the concepts of making a relationship spicy and fun again when you’ve been together for so long, and we were like, “Damn, you kinda gotta put energy into it and kinda take it back to when you guys first met. Try to keep that spark.” I said, “We need to get Smokey on this,” and the next day Smokey was in the studio. He told me his daughter was a big fan so he came through, and we played him the song. He said he liked it, but it had “too many curse words in it.”

He took out the cursing?

Hell yeah! I was like, “All right, Smokey, what should we do?” He said, “Bring me two discs—one with the instrumental, one with the acapella. I’m gonna come back and fix it for you. I’m gonna make it better.” He came back a week later. Any place we had curse words or anything that was a little funny, he switched up the words and made it real beautiful. He just put his Smokey Robinson touch on it. That’s history.

Where did the tour name come from—“Best Teef in the Game?”

It came from the fans. You know, people were saying “best teeth in the game!” I didn’t know. We were in the last minute, and we didn’t know what to call it, so I said, “Let’s just call it that. Everybody on the tour’s got a great set of teeth. Let’s do it.”

What are you most looking forward to on this tour?

The shows and traveling, the food, meeting different people, and just experiencing different cities when we can. We don’t have a lot of time usually, so the way we get to really experience it is the people and the show. It’s awesome to see these reactions to the music. This music that you’ve made in these little studios inside, where you’ve been in forever, and you go out and touch the city and do these shows and see the response. People singing the words back. It’s amazing.