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 Hirway.
Over the past five years, Chaz Bundick, a.k.a.
Toro Imua, has made music that's spanned a range of genres and styles.
On his newest album, What For?, he's shifted styles again.
Coming up, Chas explains why.
He'll break down the song Half Dome, named after the hiking destination in Yosemite National Park.
Here's Tori Moua from an interview recorded live at the Noise Pop Festival in San Francisco.
Hello.
My name is Chaz Bundick.
My wife asked me if I wanted to do Half Dome.
I was like, sure.
You know, moving out to California, I've only been here for like three and a half years.
The nature is just crazy out in California compared to South Carolina.
So I've been really like getting back into nature and trying to really see as many different crazy natural things as possible.
I thought about it on the hike.
I could probably write about this because I'm really scared right now.
This song was written on guitar first.
I wanted the progression to have a lot of chords but not be really connected to jazz or funk.