Jack Antonoff

21:17Realizing who you are, that's not going to change. And then realizing which parts of those things work and don't work. And Tori's been a real fun one because I just kind of like just drag everyone with me now. Well, if you were a middle child and you were running out of the house and not coming back all day, I mean, that's maybe where that stems from. It's like you're kind of nomadic from the get. There was a lot to run away from and a lot to come back to. I don't know. I think I'm a little more free. I think I used to think it was like a problem. But now I'm surrounded by people who appear to love me through it.

21:44Okay. What did mom and dad do for a living? Rick and Shira. Shira. Strange name, Shira. Yes. When I read it, I was like, is it Shira or is it Shira? Shira. Like you'd think. S-H-I-R-A. Okay. Yeah. That's what I would think. She's a nurse. And Rick? He is an amazing guitar player and studied in New Jersey with Reverend Gary Davis Jr. He's a brilliant ride time player. And then went to college. They met in college. and then when he graduated college, sounds like a Springsteen song, which is what happened. His dad was like, cut your hair, you're coming to work at the shoe factory. And that's what happened.

22:16So grandpa owned a shoe manufacturing facility? Yeah, called Phoenix Footwear. Oh, trusted brand. Yeah. He dies in a car accident. His name is Jack Antonoff. That's how I become. So you never met him? Never met him. And he looms. Loom sounds like a bad word. That's okay. It's not bad, is it? It's not bad. What's the better word for loom that's more beautiful? He buzzes beautifully or dazzles? I like looms. When I think of loom, I think of like a looming. Because you're thinking of gloom. Is that what it is? Well, I think looming means like there's an impending desire. Looming is like my mother just looms over you.

22:47Yeah, but like looms large. He clearly was wonderful and was the head of the family and also died at a bizarre, you know, I've experienced death on both sides, shocking and non-shocking. My dad tells the story and actually it's like a movie. My mom was a nurse at Holy Name Hospital where I was born. And my dad called my mom when he found out and he said, don't go to work. My dad's there. i mean it's so stunning of a line it's crazy yeah and my mom's like what and my story my parents story it's they're all sort of colored by these big moments of loss so my dad has the shoe factory they have rachel they have me this is really in the air something happens with the government where you can now just import i don't know what point in the 80s the shoe factory they started competing with china or wherever else my dad tells the story like it was just one day it was over.

23:35Oh, fuck. Yeah. But he's like a business guy. He's gotten involved in different things. When we were growing up, he had a company that did carpet cleaning. We lived a very suburban, normal life. Our world was very rich, but small. We did things. We tried sushi. Yeah. I never went to Europe. I went to Disney World. Yeah. Same. I went to Burlington, Vermont. But I think anyone on the outside would go like, wow, there are two surviving children. One's this incredibly creative and wonderful fashion designer. One's this incredible musician. I think you're just inherently curious, like, what do you think the quintessential thing they provided for you guys?

24:10There's layers to this. So the first thing I would say is when our sister died, I noticed this, and I won't take any credit away from my parents who were very open to us having our passions, but when she died, I was 18, Rachel was 20. They were so disconnected from what mattered. People my age were like fighting tooth and nail to get into a better college. They were just like, who gives a shit? I was already cooked at that point because she had been sick. It's really hard to care about things other than what's in your soul when faced with that, which is actually why it's a really good time to make decisions when you're deep in grief.

24:41It's so clear what matters. When you're in grief, you're not having coffee with someone you don't want to have coffee with. Yes, that's so true. You're not going to see a movie you don't want to see. You're not staying on the phone too long with someone who's bothering you. You're not ruminating on some object you hope to buy. Yeah, you don't care, but you do care about the jokes. You care about the food you like. It's not everything serious. It just strips away the fog. And so my parents like, you can live at home as long as you want. In my community, I was a fucking loser because all my friends are like going to college.

25:08And it was that time before the college myth had started to unravel a little bit. It was also a time when making art and things like that for both Rachel and I. What's your backup plan was everything. Yeah, well, you're in a suburb. And so everyone's pretty much college bound. Yeah. And the kids who weren't, it wasn't like, do you? It was like, is so-and-so going to be okay? It's a group of people. The first time my album is really about this breaking the generational pact, your ancestral pact, but most of the community I grew up in were people whose parents had it worse and their parents had it worse and their parents had it worse.

25:38And they arrived at this suburban place where having food on the table, having a roof over your head and a good education was the top of existence. Which by the way, I don't think they're wrong, but Rachel and I, because of when we were born and because of the circumstances of our family both kind of severed that and tried some shit and then both ended up living home until we were like 26, seven. Okay. You're both there for forever. Okay. Wonderful. What kind of boy were you? I know you were in a public school for a while. Public school was terrible. It was like the fifties. Like bullying wise?

26:10It was like jocks, cheerleaders, then like me and three other people. That's how I grew up. Some of us were gay. Some of us weren't, but we were all like gay. It was so bizarre. I wasn't like ahead of my time or anything, but I was just sort of like, guys what is up yeah and it was so apparent to me at that time how kind of weird and repressed other people were i would like to be like jim like you're gay and that's great yeah you should just you know instead of like beating the shit out of my friends right so you were a little misfitty outcasty well i was just so into music the music i was listening to was very fucking serious and i was vegan i was political and i was talking about all these things and i was listening to Papa Gandhi's Let's Talk More Rock and shouting, meet his murder.

26:51I still believe those things no matter what twists my life has taken. Those are great educations. You know, this is a very New Jersey story. I was desperate to get out. Now we've moved back, but I was desperate to get out. I was like, there is. Isn't that ironic? We always make our way back. You know Jersey Will? No. No, but we're on a string right now. We had Charlie Puthon who was talking about his love for Jersey. And then we just had Tom Pelfrey. I don't know if you watched Task. Did you watch Task? No. the HBO show. He's this beautiful actor. But I'm pretty hip to anything HBO. I think that's like one of the great...

27:22If you gotta take a gamble, that's a platform. Yeah. But he's from there and he was just talking about it. And then, yeah, the Springsteen of it all. The best way to put it, there's suburban mentality, there's outside the window of the party mentality, there's younger brother mentality. There's no place on Earth where it's that literal. L.A. sprawls out. Tokyo, London. There is New York City, packed to the brim, a very small body of water, and then most of the population of New Jersey just stares at it. Think about it scientifically. How much literal energy comes off New York City, amazing energy, turns into sad ash and sprinkles on New Jersey.

27:55You are staring at it. Every band is playing there at any night. Everyone's having sex. Everyone's doing drugs. Every Broadway show, every bar. Movie stars live there. You are fucking face to face with what you're not. It is so potent. All the other cities I've been to, and I've been to a lot of them, they sort of like subtly sprawl. It is dead serious. You're not here. You are not there. Robert De Niro is like a mile from you as the crow throws, but you'll never see him here. He's not thinking about you at all. Maybe once a week you're the butt of a joke. Yeah. Maybe. It's like on planes when you're in the seat behind first class.

28:27Just like that. Like it's daring. Oh man, I'm going to take that. I'm going to take it. So probably everyone has a really healthy, less than chip on their shoulder. You are one or the other. I grew up with people who haven't been to New York City in years and live six miles away. They're like, why would I go there to get a shittier Italian meal for twice the price and see Annie get your gun? Like, no thanks. Worst pizza. There's truth to it, but. And then you have people who are enamored with what else is out there in the world. It's like a storybook. I mean, it's medieval. It creates a fire in you that is wonderful and chippish.

29:01Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the beauty of it is if you can be there with your cup full. I had no experience with Brooklyn. I went to a friend's house with like a rooftop thing. And I was like, oh, wow, this is better than living in the city because you actually get to see it. You get to see what the poster was and you see the Brooklyn bridge and then you see that and the whole thing's there. So if you're there and you feel wonderful, it's almost like the most beautiful vantage point of the whole thing. It's where you're telegraphing from. Like no matter what I do in my life, I'm someone who is cooked in New Jersey and I'm telegraphing from what I call the shadow of the city from the outside.

29:33You hear it in the music. I meet kids who grew up in the city. They're just like, what's up? Like they don't have anything to prove. No. They saw it all. They did it all. And that's why the Velvet Underground saw it the way they do. That's why the Strokes sounded that way. Music and your soul is telegraphing from, you can't ever get it out of you. And I always wanted to talk about it, but in my early years, I had way more like, New York was exploding when I started playing music. We'd go into the city and go to the Mercury Lounge and it was every label, every band, it was just, it was fucking happening.

30:00And it wasn't because we were there, it was. That time, you know, 99, 2000 downtown was one of the great moments. Then it moved to Brooklyn and I was always right outside of it. And it was beautiful and sad, like being from New Jersey. All right. I want to, because I have some theory about you based on nothing other than reading about you. Jewish. I don't know how you're Jewish. If you're not Jewish, your whole thing is a big fucking problem. I will say when I see the amazing success you've had working specifically with female artists, I think, yeah, he got trained great as a younger brother by an older sister.

30:35I just have some sense that you're comfortable with someone being older and a little bit dominant and you're not threatened by it and you know how to work with it. Oh, for sure. Rachel is, my parents will hate hearing this. My parents raised me great. Rachel also raised me in a different way that was very lucky. Rachel always says like, I love my parents. I'm not shitting on them. And they will definitely listen to this. But Rachel always jokes, you know, when I came into the world, I was just like, so I guess this is normalcy. and then when I came into the world, Rachel was like, this is weird.

31:08You know, she was like telegraphing to me like, hey, it's weird here. Don't worry. Yeah, don't worry. I see you. Yeah, a lot of weird stuff happens. This is the moment my brother and I would always have like, we'd look at each other. This is nuts, right? Yes. Okay, good. Then as long as you know it's nuts and I know it's nuts, we're good. Yeah, I had the luxury of having that telepathy right away where she was three and I was one. She was just like, they're weird. They do weird shit. A lot of weird shit. Yes, yes. Yeah, did you watch Sentimental Value, the movie? I fucking haven't yet, but it's one of those movies where it's just like everyone who I love is like, you'll love this movie.

31:40Yes, you basically just said the most important scene in the movie, which is this older sister and younger sister, and she said the difference between our childhoods is that I had you. Oh, I see Rachel is on the front line. Yeah. She's the vanguard. Storming Normandy, like coming out of the boat and bulls are flying there. And I'm like nine ships behind me and like, you guys are going to clean it up? Yes. And then we'll come in and just sort of like poke at the bodies? Once lunch is served. What's for lunch? Are we going to grill on the beach? Someone said that. I don't know.

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35:47Helixsleep.com slash armchair.

35:56Now, this daughter syndrome is real. It's wild. Rachel carries it all. I'm more transient because I have the luxury to be so. Yeah. Okay, when do you start playing music? Kind of always. Dad taught you how to play guitar, I presume? Somewhat. He would play to us. I would always pick it up. I'd bang on a piano. It got serious around like 12, 13, but I just always did it. And a lot of time alone in your room. That's what we were doing? My whole life. It made me feel seen in a way that I didn't feel anywhere else. And then when I started writing music, which is around 12, 13, I felt, for lack of a better word, like I could feel myself in a way that I hadn't ever before.

36:36Control. Yeah, but also it's a very out of control thing, but just more a bit like how I hear people talk about God and religion. I just believed in it with zero cynicism. There was no edges. It was pure belief. I feel that way to this day. But like communication, I was shy in some places kind of when I was growing up. And when I was writing music or making music, I felt like I was communicating with myself and then an imaginary person who got me. I felt a life right around then. Everything else in my life really stopped. Do you think though that it was a medicine that without it, you would have been in a much worse state?

37:09Oh, I think I'd be dead. I had all these weird tins. I was such a collector when I was a kid. I went to a baseball card collection and a stamp collection. Did you have tics? A lot of tics. I had to do this or everyone would die. I still have that. Anxiety. Yeah, I try to keep it in check. And I go back and forth on it because on one hand, it's bullshit. But then, no, it's sort of also like one's religion. As long as you can put it in a good place, it is nice to imagine yourself at the whim of someone you're praying to. But once I found music, that was it. What's interesting when I look back, because my work, there's different sides to it, but it's kind of one thing.

37:39And I'm always sort of asked to explain it. And I always just go back to the beginning. I always loved writing and singing. I always loved performing. And then I always loved helping my friends with their music. And away my life is no different. It's just, you know, the hotel rooms are obviously nicer and I get to be in studios and stuff, but it's that thing and the community around it. My biggest anxiety is ever. I was always worried someone was going to quit the band, which was really hard back then because a lot of people did music for fun. And I was so serious. Do you think you stressed other people out around you?

38:09I think so. Yeah. Like just fucking relax. It used to drive me crazy when everyone would talk about their plans. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I still have that a little bit. When Dax will talk about the future and his future, it's like, well, what about this now? Why are you thinking about that? I love a no one leaves pact. Yeah. I have that in my band now. I have that in my partner. We have my family. That comes from the family. No matter what the fuck is going on in my family, and not everyone has this, is like, you don't leave. You work it out. And I didn't realize how precious that was until I saw other people's families.

38:42Some people leave. Now, the most unappealing trait of yours is your school I've ever heard is the one you went to, which is professional children's school. Yeah, Rachel says it sounds like tiny lawyers, right? Yes, it sounds terrible. Tell me what is the professional children's school because it becomes your gateway to Manhattan. Yeah. So it was a public school in Jersey. And then Rachel was in the musical theater and she found this place where you could go. And it was for like ballerinas and people in theater. I went from a New Jersey public school where everyone would say gay slurs to me, which was strange to a school where I was the only straight kid.

39:15Yeah. A beautiful flip. The point of the place, I think it was made for the ballet dancers, was it to give you time to do your thing. and I was starting to tour, but I used it as a way out. And like I said, my sister was sick and I convinced my parents because they were just sort of like, yeah, sure, is that going to make you happy? Nothing matters. And we have a lot on our plate. So if you've figured something out for yourself, it was a beautiful time. It saved my life in the sense that I think I had more fear, chip, rage about the things I want to do in my life because everyone was articulating to me why it wouldn't work out, which is a terrible thing we do to artists and is not even the truth.

39:50There's a lot of work in the field. Ironically, as recent history has shown, you might be better off wanting to do something in recorded music than being a lawyer at this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could do a million years on that alone. But I got there and I just was surrounded by people who weren't afraid of their hopes. Yeah, it wasn't embarrassing to have dreams and aspirations. Yeah, there's a lot of rage when you declare that you want to do something. Why would you believe in yourself? I don't believe in myself. In other countries, you know, being a singer or being an actor, being in the theater, playing music the government deems it important enough to subsidize.

40:23So it's not, fuck you, you want to go play music? Well, I got to work this job. It's like, cool. And I love doing this. I'm a teacher. In America, there's this sense, and it cuts in different ways. I always say, when you go see a band at a club or a bar, right? No one's going to work for free. The bartender doesn't go for free. The secured doesn't go for free. The band goes for free. I was taught to eat shit because I was so lucky to be there and I have so many different feelings about that now and it's interesting when you tour the world and you see how art is treated in different places but yeah there's a lot of that there's a lot of oh you want to do this well then you better fucking get your ass kicked out there it's a badge of honor but it's also like that was heavy yeah but I think what's going on underneath is I'm afraid to pursue the thing I want to pursue you somehow have this confidence that you don't deserve and I'd be delighted if you fail to confirm that I shouldn't have tried I'm totally sympathetic to that.

41:14It's scary to try. When I was 15, I was in bands. The kids in public school were like, fuck you. Why don't you come to do the shit we do? You think you're better than us? When I was 18, all my friends were getting into college and I was still in the van. They were like, how you doing? When I'm 21 and they're realizing that maybe college isn't going to lead to their dream job and I'm still in the van. They're like, good for you, man. I'm cool again. When I'm 24 and they can pay their rent and I'm living at home still in the van. It's like, how you doing, man? Like it goes in and out. But you do make that deal or you don't.

41:40You're not going to get anywhere toying with what else you could do in anything in life. You just have to make that deal and live by it. Well, I think this is an adorable chapter. So at, I guess, 15, when you're at the school, professional children's school, you form your first banner, maybe it wasn't your first banner, but outline with friends from elementary school. And then you figure out how to tour. This is a part of the story that gets glossed over. I think ambition is very required. This is such an ambitious thing. We had a book called Book Your Own Fucking Life. It was a book that went around.

42:13It had all the phone numbers of the local promoters in the scene. And that's me and my friend Evan, who was in another band called Random Task. We did the tour together. I think they got from Austin Powers. But we sat down and we called and we said, hey, can we come play in Austin on this day? This is the Bill Gates part where it's like you get a job designing this water and power program at 15. Like you're calling around businesses. We thought it was a fucking honor to go on a tour. We weren't like, are we going to play to anyone? Is it going to be worth it? We just all saved up a bunch of money, all the bands.

42:42And we went on this tour and we slept in rest stops. And we absolutely fucking loved it. It was freedom. And you were in your mom's minivan? My band borrowed my mom's minivan. One member could drive and did all the driving. This is adorable. Oh, yeah, could drive. I didn't even think about that. His mom's van, but he can't drive. I can't drive. But it was crazy. I mean, it was so dangerous. Like the panhandle in Florida. It's just wild what could have happened. Also, if you would have gotten pulled over in the car, so it would have been like, wait, there's an 18-year-old, They all look like they're nine.

43:09Were you guys being debaucherous? You must have loved weed immediately. I loved weed. Drinking wasn't that big a part of my culture. But I fucked myself up. I don't want to jump ahead, but height of grief, I took a bunch of acid. Hence that line, I want to get better pain at the acid test and ruined myself. And it really changed my relationship to getting fucked up forever. Wow. I got burned out quick. Oh, boy. What age was that? 20, 21. Yeah, somewhere in there. Maybe that's a gift. I didn't come back for a while. It was terrible. Okay. I don't even like talking about it. Oh, God. Wow, wow, wow.

43:36It's horrible. Sorry to anyone listening. Pro-acid. No, not pro-acid. I'm happy for those people. I'm sorry to the people who I'm triggering because they had that bad trip. Oh, I see. I see. Because I can go there. I just lost my sister. I'm with the band. We're like out on the road and we just got some acid and we're like, let's just eat all of it. There was no, it was a different time. No, it wasn't guided. No integration afterwards. It was really hard for me. Called a family friend who was a doctor and I was like, I did this. I'm not okay. They actually weren't that helpful. they were like, well, it can change your brain chemistry.

44:09Oh, great. Just what you want to hear when you're convinced this trip's going to last forever. But it did kind of save my life because a lot of my friends got real fucked up on drugs after that and I was... Scared straight. Yeah, I was just trying to like hang on to my sanity without it all. Okay, so that band goes on. You meet a lot of different folks while touring and the next band is fun? No, Steel Train. Steel Train. I'm so sorry. There's a band in between. And Steel Train, you convinced two people to drop out of college. Yeah. That's a big swing. How do we go from Outline to Steel Train? And is there any band breakup sadness there?

44:41Were these all easy transitions? They were easy-ish because I felt like a lot of my life, I was surrounded by people who were naturally moving into a different phase and I was just on the same track. And then I think I attracted people who Steel Train toured for like a decade. There is no more legitimate band on the road story. We would go out and we would tour 200, 250 days a year. And we played at 10 people. Then we played at 20 people. Then we played at 50 people, 75 people. You were doing 200 a year for 10 years? Oh, for sure. We were just gone. This is like the Beatles in the German brothel story.

45:11Yeah, we were gone. We lived on the roads. All we did. All we did was tour. Still in the van? Oh. Okay, that van really... Not even close to the bus. I mean, you get good at it. You figure out all the hacks of how to get a good hotel for less money. You pull up and you say we're a church group. Don't you kind of miss that time? I miss it with every fiber of my being and don't want to go back to it. Yeah. At the same time. I'm more in awe that it happened. It's nice when there's facts of your life that show exactly who you were. We just wanted to be there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was beautiful though.

45:42And it was right before it all got really complicated in music. All we could do was play. I hold no judgment over anyone right now, but it got complicated. And all we could do at that time was just go and convince people to let us play. Convince bands to let us open for them. Tell all the fucking press and TV shows that were there at a moment's notice. Someone cancels. We get to play Conan. It's our big break. I see it like the gas tank. For me, I was cooked. I was just going to stay. But like everyone else, like just when it's like, we're not making any money. This sucks. We get a slot early on at a festival.

46:11Buys us another six months. Yes. We get to play Conan. My grandmother's like, oh, you know. Yeah. These things fill the tank back up. And you were approached by two dudes for fun at this point. Well, we had all toured together a lot. You had all toured together. I think the three of us recognized liferness. Right. Like three, hell or high water, we're not deviating from this. Yeah. That was a side project. We started for fun. Okay, so from the time you formed Fun, is that 2012? Earlier, maybe 10. Okay, when is the hit song drop? Is that 12? I think, somewhere in there. Okay, so you have this wildly popular song, We Are Young.

46:47Do you remember that thing you do? Yes. Yes, that movie. It felt like that. Hearing yourself on the radio, like all these things that I thought were not only impossibilities, they were so off my radar. I was so disenfranchised from the mainstream. I thought my path was like, I just looked at fans like spoon or Wilco and just strictly wanted to just play, find my audience and play to them forever. I never thought about being cast out in that big a matter. You know, it's easy to talk about all like the shame and intensity here in Iowa and your cousin comes to show and there's no one there. This is obviously all those feelings.

47:18And I carry them today so I can get into them. But truthfully, we wore that shit like armor, man. We were like, we're fucking here. No one's paying us to be here. No one's asking us to be here. This isn't something like American Idol shit where we have a panel of judges. You know, it's a group of people who no one said, oh my God, you're amazing. We played music that we felt like we had to make. Opposite of talent show music, as I like to call it, which is a lot of my favorite bands. It's like, you can't really pinpoint exactly. And we would roll up and play to fucking no one and load our gear and sleep on the floor.

47:46Fuck yeah, no one likes us. Yeah, we would love when people came, but we were so empowered by how much it meant to us. Yeah, it wasn't for approval. You didn't make it for the approval. So then when it was on the radio, were you embarrassed? I was stressed because I'd spent my life doing what I do, which is really about my lyrics more than anything. And then I had joined this band for fun and they weren't my words. And then it got really big and it really freaked me out. You had a crisis. Oh yeah, I started working all night. I also didn't like the idea of having to play We Are Young forever. It wasn't my song, it wasn't my lyrics.

48:20It hurt a little bit. Well, it was weird because I was getting everything I wanted. But you felt like it wasn't yours? Yeah, and so I just went and did my own thing. You do bleachers as a solo project in hotel rooms as you're touring with fun with this huge hit. It helped. You had money now. Some, maybe less than you'd think because of how it all works. But I remember, you know, that first year starting to be like, oh my God, maybe I could get an apartment. Also, when you toured with fun, you're presumably sleeping in a Prevost. Yep. That was exciting. That's gotta be fucking titties. But all complicated.

48:51Didn't feel right. Well, I'll tell you what happened. and I felt so unseen because I had communicated so much of my life through my lyrics that I wrote the first Bleacher song, which is called I Want to Get Better, which could not be more of a cliff notes of my whole fucking life. Almost to an absurd degree, my reaction to that was like, I'm going to write a song and start a band that completely sifts out anyone who doesn't completely understand who I am. So that first album is so abrasively confessional, but it's cool. It's neat to get something and realize that it's not. We had a number one song, And it was really cool.

49:23I'm not minimizing it, but I didn't sleep better at night. I actually was just sort of thinking about my lyrics and what I wanted to do and how I wanted to play and felt a little bit like I was getting pulled. Do you feel like you were getting offered kind of like the golden handcuffs? It's like, oh, this could be a trap and it's unsatisfying. For sure. And also to be uninvited for so long and then to be invited, it makes decision-making very hard. I've had this at many different points in my career. So when that first happened, it was like, we got to go to Germany to do this thing. Now we got to go to Japan.

49:48We just got this thing. And your humanity is... gone because you're just gone and it's a really beautiful lesson when you learn it that there's something you want to do there's something you want to say and you do it and when you do it you do it because you do it do it do it do it and when people start to fuck with it even on absurd degree people start asking you to do other things and it feels really good oh yeah because all of a sudden you're popular but i don't want to do that i don't want to do that but and you're afraid if you don't do that there'll be nothing else ever again this is the last thing anyone's Look at all for me.

50:22And until you get your group of people around you right, which it wasn't at the time, you're getting weird advice. Yeah, a lot of new people enter the scene once. A lot of new people and they've done it before. You're getting more attention from a label. There's all kinds of stuff happening. And you have this gut that is so clear, which by the way, it's so simple. Don't do anything that you're not excited to do. It's so simple. If something feels a little cheesy, it's very cheesy. If something feels like not you, it's not fucking you. It kind of is that pure. And then there's ways of doing things that aren't necessarily you, but you do it your way.

50:52Yeah. And it's cool. But that was a tough time. I had music bursting out of me and feeling like it was being quieted by the success of something else. Very strange, guilty feeling. Very strange. That is a bizarre experience. And you feel bad about feeling bad. Yeah. I've had this a few times in my life where sort of people are like, wow, that must be the best. And it's sort of like, well, no, actually it wasn't. It was really hard and complicated because that wasn't my goal. We've talked about this with several actors. The one that comes to mind right now is Wednesday. Jenna Ortega and I can so empathize with her which is like she has this moment of enormous opportunity and everyone around her it's such an exciting thing and they're saying you must be so happy and then when so many people are telling you you must be so happy which isn't a real thing.

51:38They're just projecting all over you they're just saying you got something that I've heard is nothing to get. It's beautiful what they're saying they're excited for you. But no one's ever like how you feeling. Right. Are you scared. I just said to her, like, that's a hard, because then you're afraid if you're honest with people, you will appear to be ungrateful. And so now you're kind of locked in. You get isolated by this dissonance of everyone thinks I should be feeling so good and I'm not. What's going on? Am I broken? But you are, you are. I mean, don't make people feel bad, but the spectrum of ungrateful, that's a game you could play forever.

52:09One person seems ungrateful compared to someone else. You are living your life and you know when something good has happened, but you also know that you will die and there are things you want to do with your time. It's now yours to lose, which is stressful. It's very stressful. And I've always been super in touch with that. And it's weird when you do a thing that everyone thinks is for everyone else, but it actually isn't. This is something I run into all the time, especially in my work with pop music. This is not a service industry in any way. And because everyone sees it or hears it, they think that it's made for their pleasure.

52:44And it's really not in a mean way. It's really not. Music is made because you feel compelled to articulate something. Because you're a little bit in anguish if you can't get that thing out in the way you want it out. Yeah, you have a feeling and you feel crazy because you can't say it and you can't sing it, but you hear it and you spend all your time turning it into something reductive, but literally that you can press play on. And then you want to take it out and celebrate it. And then sometimes people love it or not. But the act of releasing it even just now me talking putting out an album you're chucking messages in the bottle out in the world you're not looking for everyone just like in high school it's like where's that one kid something about them i'm like oh my person that's it and when you do something that is public there can be this sense from people that you're doing it to please the people that the puzzle you were trying to crack was how do i get all these people to like it but that wasn't the puzzle you're trying to crack is like if you fucking cut me open what would the music sound I'm like, everything you write is the last thing you'll ever write until you do it again.

53:43And you have to do it in a different way. The uncomfortable truth for people who do work like this is that it does dry up. We don't like to talk about it. But very few, you either die, it dries up, or you're a total unicorn. So I've been in a phase recently where I'm very surprised every time the feeling keeps coming. But I don't take it for granted. I don't sit there and think, yeah, this is what I'll do. You're dropping a bucket into a well and you're like, what day will the well be dry? The image in my head is it's a little net. Yes. It's like catching. Marcus Mumford said the exact same thing, or I think it was him.

54:15Yeah, it was. You're just out there trying to catch butterflies. Yeah, like I could write a song, but who cares? I'm trying to write that song. And I would never, when I'm producing a record, I can make it something. Who cares? It's like we're after something so specific and you just know it when you have it. Why it's so weird to me when people get in like arguments over music. It's like so obvious when you're going this way or not, but it's really maddening. And I think it can drive you fucking crazy. I'm in a phase now of feeling really grateful for it, that I like do something that I can't control.

54:46It makes me feel like there's a mysticism to it, but I wouldn't name names, but I look up and I look at some people and I'm like, where'd it go? When will it leave me? Sure. Terrifying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you come across Taylor's radar? Is it from fun or is it from bleachers? In the best ways. It was from fun, but we met, in Germany. Oh, ding, ding, ding, ding. This whole thing was scripted. We love that. At a thing. At the Schung, Schung, Clunk podcast? Exactly, yeah. Which is when it went number two in the world. It's all based on one episode. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. What was that movie that had the great slogan about number two?

55:23It was the Heinz Ketchup movie. It was a movie where number two and that ain't bad or something? Probably Crazy People, the Dudley Moore where he's an ad executive and Volvo's are boxy but good. Not that one. It's like a rom-com Where like there's a thing that's number two in the world. We're going to have to find it for the fact check. Yeah. Someone listening is like, it's fun. Yeah, exactly. I guess someone's punching their dashboard. We're in Germany. We meet the thing and quite quickly we get talking about Yaz or as in Germany called Yazoo. A song called Only You. Do you know the song? No.

55:50Well, sing it. All I needed was the love you gave. Yes, we all know this. All I needed for another day. Beautiful song. All I ever knew. Only you. Yes. Great song. Perfect song. Yeah. It does that thing. You could weep to it. You could dance to it. You could drink to it. I could cry talking about it. Yeah. Yeah, all the beautiful sort of like sad 80s stuff. So she's about to, you know, first time we worked together was on the making 1989. So we were just kind of humming on this thing together. Somehow we got talking about it. I'm about to make the first Bleachers album, which really has that tone.

56:24And we just stayed in touch. And then we started listening to some music. And all the stories of my collaborations are just very simple. you meet, you see the same thing, you hear the same thing, and then you chase it together. I'm really reducing a huge thing that's a mountain. And there's great stories about that mountain with anything I've done. But truly what it is, is like, you have a feeling. So when we first met, whether we were talking about it openly or not, we were basically being like, man, Yaz rips. That shit's great. Not bring it back. But that feeling of sort of like the sadness of synthetic sounds, hearing someone fight their emotional way through the machine, It's pop.

57:02That's something. I think Alison Moyer's voice, I mean, has that thing that all the greats do. It's so listenable and beautiful and so fucking painful. Yeah. You know, maybe the greatest version ever of that is Nina Simone, where it's just both things are happening at once. That's so true. So we're humming on this thing without knowing we're talking about it. At the moment, it's simple. I love this song. Oh, cool. Here's what I'm working on. Here's what I'm working on. We should mess with something. Send her a track. So it's all done through computer at first. When you say sending stuff, it's just like texting.

57:28Sending little ideas. How does it become official? It becomes official in a very simple way. Okay. So at this point, like I said, I collaborated my whole life, but maybe like some doors are opening. I'm starting to write with people and do that because Fun had that hit. And I would inevitably get to this point when I would work on a song with someone where they'd be like, okay, now we're going to have a producer do it. And I'd be like, well, I'm a producer. And they're like, totally, what have you produced? And I'm like, all my friends' records. And it's like, bye. And can you tell us like in a literal sense what the producer is doing?

57:54Well, there's many things. So the line between production and engineering is a very blurry run. The most simple way I could describe producing is what will it sound like? What alpha will it wear? Are the drums like this? Does an orchestra come in? So George Martin, maybe the greatest producer of all time, wasn't playing the strings, but he was saying, well, what if the strings come in here? And then what if we play them backwards? The ideas. I happen to also be an engineer, which is a different craft. They meet often. What a shortcut. Instead of trying to articulate something to someone else operating, you can do it and quickly figure out, no, that's not right.

58:28I like to search. And so at that time, because I was loving Yazoo and Erasure and Robin had put out Body Talk and kind of changed everything. And, you know, I bought this keyboard that was called a Juno 6, which at the time was like$700, which is lulls now. But, you know, I got it. And a lot of my favorite things come from not knowing something great. I play a lot of like cello now or instruments I'm not really acquainted with because you find things without all the knowledge of what you're doing. So I'm messing around this thing. I'm just starting to make things. And so I I was just making tracks that would become the first Bleacher's album and would become the first work I did with Taylor.

59:04It just all came from joy and a new soundscape. But that's like any time I make an album or collaborate with someone, you have a feeling, but you don't admit it. The feeling is, what if we did the most incredible thing ever together? You know, what if we got together and did something where one plus two equaled a million? But you got to go in with some armor. You got to say like, oh, check out this sound. Act cool. We got to act a little. You know when you're at the bar and you're playing the game, it's like two pictures of the same. It's like two pictures of you and then one of them has no earring.

59:31You're like coming up on the high score. And right in that moment, you get very quiet. And when you beat the high score, you don't jump up and scream. You just keep going. I always think about that when I'm making records. It's like we don't sit around and be like, oh my God, that's it. Everyone knows something's happening. And you just keep going. Don't you think there's a huge undercurrent of like we could jinx any of this at any moment? Because you're dealing with magic. not could, like will. That's why my room at this point, like in the past, you know, somebody's let someone hear something.

1:00:00It would just die from someone else's gaze. I learned that from Taylor too. I'm going to ruin then one of your songs before you leave. My gaze is going to be so powerful. Should I wait? We'll be at the end. But the preciousness is the house of cards. Someone walks in, you're building something that only you see. And someone's like, what's that? Yeah. Or like, oh. Yeah. I would just walk out there and just fly off the roof. It's like why people don't tell other people what they're going to name their kid. Because you'll hear, they'll be like, oh, that's nice. And you're like, well, I can't name it that now because I hated that rich.

1:00:32What do you want? What are you looking for? You're looking for validation? There's nothing good that comes from me. Even if someone's like, you're the greatest ever, do it. What does that do? What does that do for you? It's such a personal process. And I definitely learned that early on from Taylor. And then early on from when I just really started writing the Bleacher stuff of like, I know what this is. well so to finish the story we made those few songs that would end up being in 1989 and I was waiting for her to be like and now so-and-so big shot's going to produce it and she was like so when should we send it to mix so she was the first person to believe in me as a producer and it was obviously a monumental co-sign but it takes that it takes a person to hear something and you have to remember at that time she landed the plane so well but making 1989 was a very strange move there was a lot of people on the inside that were like this isn't going to work right everyone's gonna be bummed about this this and that you're gonna lose all these fans and we did that a few times then we made reputation and then folk like it goes on and on everything's so high stakes with me i feel like i love that moment where like this is gonna land or fucking not land but we are just going for it you're aiming for the fence yeah stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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1:05:59What do you think it is about both of your symmetry that comes together? I don't want to tempt you to jinx everything, but just are you able to identify what it is about each other that produces this kind of harmony? We're great friends, which is a beautiful thing, but that's not where it necessarily comes from. We have this third brain we can go to. It's a really weird collaboration because it has nothing to do with anything you want. it just is or isn't you can make something with someone else or you can't and if you can't and you try you are going to make something so bad i can imagine two like hyper talented people that like each other and are convinced that these two talents combined you can only imagine the exponential explosion and then yeah the frustration oh it's usually i mean it's why we've had such a drudge of poor super groups one plus one rarely equals two let alone a million usually it equals like 0.7.

1:06:52That's so true. A question I always get is who do you want to collaborate with? And I'm not even being like cute about it. I'm like, I have no fucking idea. All my collaborations have taken me by surprise in wild ways. Is Lorde next? After the success of that, presumably people start reaching out to you. 1989, first Bleacher's album. And then we quickly get to work on Melodrama and the St. Vincent album, Mass Seduction. It's not like something needs to come out and then everyone, you know, it's like people started to understand me. I started to have some songs that people heard that I had co-written.

1:07:20And then I started to have stuff that was my production too. And it was coming from such a different place because at that time I was really buzzing on this big, sad, kind of John Hughes-y feeling, which wasn't really alive in the mainstream yet. It was just where I was at. So yeah, for people who don't know, John Hughes is Breakfast Club. He's Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. St. Elmo's Fire. 16 Kings. Uncle Buck. Uncle Buck's so good. Is that, there's nothing left but grizzle and fat? No, that's The Great Outdoors. Yeah, the old 96-ster. I say there's nothing left but grizzle and fat in my head like four fucking times a day.

1:07:50I say that. My friend reminded me of Justice for Harambe. And now I say Justice for Harambe a lot, which was their tick. They say Justice for Harambe a lot in their head. But nothing left but grizzle and fat. You know, talking about the scene. I've never seen it. John Candy has to eat an entire steak. It's called the old 96er. If you eat the whole thing, you get it for free and they put your picture on the wall. He eats the whole thing and he goes, I'm done. And then the guy goes, no, you're not. And John Kennedy looks up and goes, there's nothing left but grizzle and fat. And then the guy gives him the look and then he eats the grizzle and fat.

1:08:20And that is in my head more than music. But yeah, John, he has had this beautiful signature heart in everything. Well, he's not cynical. The act of making things, touring, making music, it's such a hopeful act. I don't think Lou Reed is cynical. I don't think Leonard Cohen is cynical. I don't think it's possible. The barrier of entry to do the thing, to put it out, to be there. I love the subversion. I love playing with things and music that does that. But the beauty of this is it's so uncynical. That's why I love playing live so much. You cannot go to a show cynically. It's not possible. If you did it, you would just get eaten up by the sincerity at the show.

1:08:55So many things in this moment in our lives happen cynically. Most forms of communication are what plays as just the cynical. When you get to a show, it's like you're not leaving your fucking house. You're not paying money. You're not going through all this stuff. Getting in the car to go somewhere. Not even be treated that well because of how the customer is going. We get into that later. to get into that room. It's like church. And what we do is so uncynical. And then the world is so cynical that they kind of smash together in this funny way. The other way about movies too. You can't make a movie cynically.

1:09:23It's too much work. No, no. Yeah, you're earnest in the making. People have done it and it doesn't work. It doesn't work. It just doesn't play. But it's like, they're also not, they're protecting themselves with the cynicism, but the act of making something is vulnerable. It's so fucking hopeful. Yeah. Like even, I know so many people who are like, oh, this is dog shit. But then they get talking to them and they're like, Like, there's something there. Just leave with that. No, the cynicism is when Pulp Fiction comes out and it's such an enormous hit that people try to make it as a cash grab. And there's nine movies all of a sudden that are trying to be tarotino.

1:09:54Oh, the industry is cynical as fuck. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Because they can't admit the one truth. Exactly, but the creators are not. Which is, we're going to put a lot of money behind something and we have no way of knowing what's going to work. And if they could just admit it, everyone would be so much happier. And accept it, yeah. I know. Because hence collaboration, one plus one plus one plus one is never we get to the end of every year the best albums the best movies all the best work it just fucking was yeah and then there's these very little math yeah these like things that get smashed together that feel like the only math that works is like ip and it's why movie goers are a little bit cynical in general because the math does work i have a friend who says give me a movie quote from the past 10 years and everyone goes uh but you go back further it's like, you know, show me the money.

1:10:36Exactly. That's scary, actually. It's an interesting point. My curiosity is you've had such success with so many of these artists. And I do wonder, is that something you think is part of your skill set that you, and it's hard to say yes or no, because it sounds egomaniacal, but is there something about you that brings out some confidence in these artists? I guess you hope. Well, obviously. I'm really dead serious about it. So I can meet people there and I also feel met there. I mean, there's different ways of doing it. There's the path of more fear-based, like eye of the sauce, which I think is ridiculous.

1:11:10But I think when you decide to take a journey with someone is really powerful. I always feel the analogy of like flying a plane. We see something, we're going somewhere and then we're going to do it. That's how great work is made is like there's a North star in the room and everyone's chasing it. Not to simplify something complicated, but I think bad work is made in collaboration when people have different North stars and they're yanking each other in different directions. And then it kind of has no soul to it because it's all spread across something but yeah maybe i mean hopefully okay so just to run through because it's really bonkers and the list has to be said just so that i can then ask the next question which is 13 grammys but taylor swift 2014 grammy album of the year then lord's melodrama then lover then del rey's norman fucking rockwell then folklore then did you know there's a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard, Delray, then Midnight's, then Torture Poets Department, and then Short and Sweet, which here's where I really drop in.

1:12:05I am obsessed with that album. My daughter introduced me to her and I can't believe how great that album. It's just every single song is fantastic. I love it so much. One quick question. When you're there at the Grammys and you have multiple album of the year nominations, that's happened before, right? There's a couple albums. That's true. What do you root for? You don't have to say which. Is there one? No, exactly what you think. It's like, this is crazy. Yeah. And will I cancel myself out? I try to take all that shit as just encouragement. I try to take it two ways because I've noticed that it brings up a lot for people.

1:12:37I try to take it as encouragement and a moment to be with my family. You know, we don't look back often. My life is so forward moving. I'm on tour, the next city, the next song, the next thing. I'm so focused on what I'm doing next that anytime we get to go to those things, my dad will cry and we'll talk about the old days. Oh, that's so sweet. I like to try to access things at their best because otherwise it brings up a lot. Because looking back, I assume is too hard because there's so much pain. There's pain and Nelsies don't do it often. I don't make a lot of space for it. I'm not like a big reminiscer.

1:13:09Yeah. Again, you might jinx everything. If you were to acknowledge how successful you've been, it might go away. Is there any anxiety about it or tension with it? Oh, sure. Yeah. It feels... Yeah, for sure. Again, back to the Jen Ortega thing. It's like you would think anyone who collaborated on that many hits in a row must be flying high. But I can also imagine it constantly being met with. Then what do I do next? Or does it go away? Or any of those feelings? Yeah, things come and go. I think the most potent one I deal with is the feeling of being known or perceived in a way can be beautiful.

1:13:41And also you can feel like a version of yourself is being put on you. on the Bleacher's record on this new one, I really got into like my origin story. And I think the reason why I was so compelled to do that was because I feel like, not in a bad way, but just it all gets rewritten and it's weird. You lost your agency over that. Yeah. Like having any digital footprint or public information about you kind of becomes law or becomes Bible. And that's great. That's really neat. Like all the things you just read, amazing. My soul is in all that stuff. But then there can also be this feeling of you're just yourself and that feeling slightly ghostly in a way.

1:14:19And it's a weird twist because I'm also like extremely private. It's funny. But then I put so much into the music and share so much that you'd have the impression you know everything about me, which would be fair. For most of the time, it's like once I'm done with it, it's yours. And you can hear me sort of stammering around it. Like it's just an odd thing. And I think it is actually getting better, but I think it was really odd in the past couple of years. but I think now there might be more grace towards artists and accepting the idea that part of the work is playing with their own hypocrisy and that the rage you have at your senator might not be for your artist.

1:14:52Right, exactly, yeah. Which makes sense. Celebrities gotten nuts in the past few years. It's changed. Yeah, some people have done some weird-ass shit and also the world has gotten to a weird place and you just put it all together and I think everyone's really looking for some answers, but when I'm just sitting there writing, I'm not thinking about any of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's complicated. Okay. And I promise you, I'm going to do a real nice chunk on everyone for 10 minutes. Worry not. You do. The last question I kind of have about your co-writing and your producing is, I want to know, how does Kendrick Lamar come into the picture?

1:15:25For me, I would be like, I've established myself as Edgar and work really, really well with these female artists. And it's a very specific thing. And if I were invited in to work with a rapper from South Central, where I might have a little bit of imposter syndrome or just fear of like, oh, am I going to be the whitest, nerdiest person this guy's ever met? Like what kind of feelings did you have? I just am so focused on the soul of what is happening. And that's bigger. That's just articulating a feeling, what someone or group of people sound like at any moment in time. So everything beyond that to me is secondary, whether it's genre or personality or age, gender, all of it's all so separate because I boil it all down to there's people in this room, we're all hearing a thing.

1:16:08And like I said, we're trying to literally make it a reality and not just like a conversation or a feeling. So I feel bizarrely comfortable in any situation where that's the goal. Did you meet him somewhere and start having a chat about Yaz? No. Not no, though. I have a band with a guy named Sam Wave and a guy named Sam Dew. Wave grew up with Kendrick and has produced all his albums. And they were upstairs to Electric Lady one day and I was downstairs working at something and Wade texted me. He's like, come upstairs and mess around. Go upstairs, start playing some chords. Didn't leave for three years.

1:16:38And that's often how it happens. It's like love. There's just chemistry. It becomes like a secret world. That's what I feel like my collaborations are. And that's no different than what it was with that album or the album. It's sort of like you find something and then you go apart and you come together and you revisit and you build on it. It's just a giant secret. No one knows what's happening. No one knows what you're thinking or you're feeling, what it's sounding like. And then one day, boom, it's just out. It's wild. I love it. I love that wild anxiety of something coming out. But I have insecurities and I guess I might be intimidated by Kendrick.

1:17:11I don't feel very intimidated by anyone who is pursuing music. Yeah. Cause this image I keep, it's like we're all grabbing at something and all the greatest people I've ever worked with. And a lot of the people you're naming, I truly believe to be the greatest of all time. Me in that exact place of we're just all grabbing at something. I would never name names, but the least inspiring people I've ever met are the ones who say they know how to do it because it's like, oh, do you go do it? And it's often like a lot of things in life that the people who can explain exactly how to do it, how they're going to do it and why you're wrong and they're right are really making up for something.

1:17:40And then you spend time with people who are known as the absolute top of their craft. And we're all having the same conversation, which is just like, what if, what if, what if you're comfortable in the uncertainty? It's all uncertainty. And then knowing when it's done is pure certainty. I also don't understand why people tinker forever. It's like, once you hear it, it's like, all you want to do is back up the drive and put a helmet on it. It's like, you want to protect it. Like you want to put it in that fucking thing in Beauty and the Beast that the rose is in. It's such a protected space. You know, and then if I like go hang out with people, I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot.

1:18:11The world sees you. Yeah, you almost got to go somewhere. Because you're my friend from the studio. And see them through other people's eyes. Bang on things to try to find new sounds. Yeah. It's got to be so weird for you to see the way people are around Taylor or thoughts around her, the fainting. Like she's your buddy. I mean, it'd be like if that was happening with you, which it may be. I carry smelling salts with me frequently. Yes.

1:18:40And no. But also I do see all this as magic. I'm like right there. I don't know. There's so many people in my life, different artists who I've had that relationship to not knowing them, but they very deeply got me through a period of time, saved my life in many ways. So I'm just not casual about any of this. When someone has a wild feeling about someone else, I'm never like, oh, they're just a person. I'm like, yeah, shit's magic. I get it. I have my own experience there. Okay. So Everyone for 10 Minutes is Bleacher's fifth album. Oh yeah. Okay. And now here's where I will be very honest with you.

1:19:12And I'm embarrassed to admit, although I've heard all this other work you've done, I've not been consuming a lot of Bleachers. Very oddly separate audiences. Yeah, sure. And I was completely missing the boat. I started with the new album and I listened to all those songs. And then I was like, oh my God, there's so many things I like about Bleachers. I hear so much general public in it. Oh, cool. Did you like general public? Fuck. They got some John Hughes needle drops, I think. I was so into new wave in junior high. That's what I regulated with. I was just so in love with people and so heartbroken.

1:19:45All that music was so perfect for me. Yeah, it's so dramatic in the best way. The horns. I fucking love the saxophone so much. You couldn't make a song in the 80s without a saxophone. It was illegal. It became frowned upon. Got a little cheesy. So then we lost it, but it's like anything. It's how you use it. I mean, look at the guitar. It's like you could make the guitar so cheesy or it could be the most interesting transcendent thing ever. I love the way Neil Young plays solos where he's like fighting it. Saxophone is the same thing. Censored is the same thing. I love playing with things that have been distasteful and finding a new voice for them.

1:20:15Just in order, I love Dirty Wedding Dress. Take You Out Tonight. I'm going to say there's a lot of spring steam in that song. Dirty Wedding Dress and Take You Out Tonight literally take place where I live at the shore in Jersey. I can feel it. That's my music. New Jersey has a sound that is one of the most important sounds in the world, but not documented the same way that like New York, London, Manchester. People obviously know Bruce, but there's so much more to it. There's Southside Johnny. There's that whole shore sound. We're learning so much. Charlie is like a historian on New Jersey musicians.

1:20:44And he went to like some famous jazz pianist workshop. Yeah, like camp or something. It's crazy jazz. The way I articulate the way I use horns, which is very New Jersey, is horns are coastal, right? Because when ships come in, you got to blow a horn. You know, no one like hits a harpsichord when the ship's coming in. Like you got to blow a horn. So you think of horns and coastal. You got like New Orleans type jazzy horns. You got sort of New England, like crab shack, deep, deep horns. I love this take. Yeah, this is interesting. But LA, sort of Captain Geach and the Shrimp Shark shooter type, another, that thing you do reference horns.

1:21:13But then you got New Jersey, which is coastal horns, but big and sad. Big, soaring, sad horn lines where it's like there's a duality of, there's a saxophone here, which is supposed to be like a wink, but they're playing this super sad long line. Very Springsteen, like, God, that line, Secret Garden, when it's just like hanging over. I love that stuff. Okay, and then this happens to me. Almost quarterly, Monica will know this. I find a song and I listen to it thousands of times. I can listen to songs on repeat. Me too. For hours and hours and hours. I never tire of it. And Upstairs at L's is fucking.

1:21:48Oh, really? Oh my God, dude. I can't tell you what I've been going through the last 24 hours. ELS. Electric Lady Studios. I didn't put periods in it, did I not? Oh, so I did pronounce it wrong. No, you're correct. No, everyone says Upstairs at L's. Because there's no periods. I didn't put periods. I have to figure out. Yes, I did put it together afterwards. This is on me. But I was like, oh, is Elle's The Friend's House? But then when I listen to the lyrics, I'm like, no, no, this is definitely where you record. Finish up a track, send a text, party on the roof, everybody get dressed. This feeling, if you're artistic, I feel like I just got zapped.

1:22:20It's like, to me, when I finish a script and I'm like, I fucking did it. And I wonder if we have a similar emotional state where it's like, I have to earn joy. Oh, yeah. And when I earn it, the heights of joy I can reach. I want to party. I will let it fucking rip when I'm there and I get something I like by the way that space up there it's such like a secret rarefied place because it's all my friends like no one's going to come and go live so we're just actually completely loose and having fun and so those nights when it's summer you feel yourself from something you just made and then you just kind of group text a bunch of people like let's have pizza and drink on the roof those are the nights and I'm a believer that it's always the good old days but I'm like we're like living in the good old days and I want to write a song about that the album ends with I'm Not Joking, which is very intense love song.

1:23:07And then upstairs at ELS is like the credits rolling. I finished the album. Here we are. I was kind of shocked it wasn't like a first song on there, but I guess that makes a ton of sense. Well, that's a funny thing about Secret Singer. Like my manager, my label, they're like, this is probably a hit single. And I'm like, neat. The album is my origin story. Then it's people I've lost touch with quite quickly. And then it's my wedding. And then it's depression. And then it's sort of finding God through love. And then the credits roll. And I'm at the studio finishing. We all are. Yeah. But what's cool about these days is people find their ways to things.

1:23:37Yeah. But there's no doubt. I understand pop music. Like that song is very. My grievance is you've released three tracks already on the album that I can listen to on Spotify, which I could hit repeat on. But I have got the early things on the website. So I've listened to this song. Yeah. I'm not exaggerating 50 plus times in the last 24 hours. And I have to go to my computer and restart it every single time. And it's worth it to me. That means a lot to me. this fucking song i'm not downplaying that song i love that song but it says a lot about songwriting like capturing a feeling not everyone comes and hangs out with me at the roof up there but everyone knows the feeling of i feel enough joy in life to want to text my friends and hang out which is kind of a big deal yes it is most of the time i think we're all like i feel like thinking about what i want for dinner and then blowing my fucking brains out is often a feeling you know or like i I feel like turning my phone off and pretending no one exists.

1:24:34So when I have those moments where I'm like, let's be together, makes me feel very alive and I'm trying to do more of it. But I could be projecting onto you because I feel like I know that moment so well. You're not projecting at all. It's literally that moment. Do you also relate to, and I'm just now at 51, the yoke's coming off a bit. And I have to tell you, it's such a lovely feeling. But do you feel the weight of, I have to do so many things. Everything I think I might be able to do, I must do. the daunting fucking force and burden of that yeah and it's one of the reasons why i love being on tour so much because you're like a baby do nothing because the show is so big so it kills that voice i'm shocked you've never become a big addict because i'll tell you i'm more and more understanding my addiction what i realize now more than ever is that the benders were these little breaks I could give myself of like, okay, no, all we're doing is getting fucked up for three days.

1:25:31We're not going to try to be spectacular at anything. I mean, that's why Phantom Thread is one of my favorite movies. My wife jokes, sometimes when I get sick, it's the best times because everything gets quiet. You know, I'm a little bitch, but I'm not trying to conquer myself in my head. That's why I love road trips. Not allowed to do anything. Yeah. I love Christmas time. I'm sure you, like me, had moments during lockdown that were transcendent just because it took the whole fucking world shutting down for me to get a break yeah these are things i at once long to work on and then also i'm like yeah i am i go back and forth i have a feeling and maybe do you have kids no this is my feeling and you can tell me this bolster or not but i sit there and i think to myself i'm running towards this thing and when that happens it's going to just like rewire me a hundred percent maybe that's naive maybe it's happen and there I'll be.

1:26:19No, it'll a thousand percent because the voice of what I got to do is like at three on the volume and the what did these children need is at 10. Yeah. And it's so liberating. Well, that's how I feel my dog. So I can only imagine what happened with kids. I'll stop working. Not true, but I will work in a way that is so much more healthy. Well, I've already started that getting married, changed that because I always was running. I always had so many negotiations in my head. I was never with the right person. So I was like, you know, that terrible sort of like, does everyone get everything? Well, I like my work.

1:26:55Maybe I'll just, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I met my wife on the roof at electric lady. Oh, you did at one of your, come over and get dressed. You remember the Lana song, Margaret? He met Margaret on the rooftop. No, I have to go. Lana wrote a song about it. Oh my God. That's really sweet. But yeah, we met right there, which is another reason why that place is so special. Well, it's actually, what's interesting about it is when you find some common happiness your work gets even better i have to say your wife she's one of she's on your crush list oh my god she's on everyone's crushes she's stunning i noticed that sometimes when she like does something it looks really beautiful like go on the internet and everyone's like i'm gonna kill you to me and i'm like huh yeah he was unfailing he's like i fight find me in the street i'll fight yeah i like that idea if someone came up to the street i would i would be so funny to do so i gave you the street was like i like your wife a lot and i want to fight for her first i I'd be like, well, that's her, my friend.

1:27:45Yeah, yeah. I'm not in charge of her. Yeah, but I mean, she's kind of internet lingo. This may shock you. I can relate to that. Of course you're like my wife quite a bit. Your wife's the best. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Had you seen Once Upon a Time Before You Met Her is my question. Yeah. And she saw Spaceballs before she met me. Perfect. No, I was totally aware of her. And I met her once. Prior to the rooftop. Once. And now it's like a great moment that we look back on. It's so weird. And it was really weird as I met her a long, long time ago at this party. It was actually Taylor's party. And for some reason, we took a picture.

1:28:17Maybe she saw it in the future, but Taylor just grabbed both of us. It was a picture of the three of us. Oh, wow. And then two years went by before I ever saw Margaret again. Did she go to the children's professional school because she's a dancer? There's a lot of weird similarities in her life. That was kind of a joke, but she did. Oh, really? No, it's true. I just know that she's a dancer. I just assumed that maybe she lived in California and she's like from Montana, grew up in North Carolina, very similar to me. I mean, I left Jersey, which is a lot closer, but she left North Carolina, went to the same school.

1:28:44That's wild. That is wild. And now we live in Jersey, which is very much how we both grew up. We're really happy to get out. The way people react to pop culture in New Jersey, there's like a sweetness to it because it's out of the sauce. New York less so, but LA is sort of like, everyone knows what you're working on. Yeah, the chatter. We got to Jersey and people were like, you do music? I love... Billy Joel. Exactly. We just saw him and he was really good. And I also love Pearl Jam. And then we are going to see Celine Dion. Yeah. We have a house in Nashville. And same. My neighbor's like, they've seen three movies in the last four years and they're hardly interested.

1:29:26And it's lovely. They're not like sitting there being like, well, this was an indie movie, but they spent$20 million on the promotion. So is it an indie? It's not that shit. They're just sort of like, Zootopia is very good. And they're not wrong. Yeah. They're not looking for a hot take. Kind of how I feel about movies in a weird way. Like I hear all the sauce, but I don't care at all. I don't make movies. I don't want to make movies. I like making music movies here and there, but zero ambition. So when I watch a movie, I am just fucking loving it or not. And that's all I care about. Where I know a lot of people who are in the sauce.

1:29:54It's just fascinating. Yeah. Some separation is nice. You get to experience people who are hitting you at all different levels, which is also like the show. When I play, there's people coming together from very different walks of life. I like it because it right sizes your thing. When you're talking to your neighbors and they're like, yeah, I like music. I like Billy Joel. and I like Pearl Jam. And you're like, oh, right. That's the actual spot it occupies in people's consciousness. And I like being reminded of that. It's like people like movies, but they like them. They're not fucking obsessed.

1:30:21I didn't love all versions. And very often, I always tell my friends, you play live, you see the 1 % of fans that know everything about you, which I love. They know every bit. They know every joke. They know everything, every inside joke. And it's like that interaction is really interesting. but there's also like Jennifer up in the rafters. Her friend brought her. Yeah. And she loves the band for a different reason. Yeah. Jersey's fucking chill. I think it's very good to get out of the bubble. LA gets hard for me. I don't know if you guys can relate, but it might be because I don't have a home.

1:30:53Keys feels that. I don't. I have no home. I live here. Okay. But I grew up in the suburbs also. Where? Georgia. Suburbs of Georgia. Like Marietta? Duluth. Very close to Marietta. There was a club in Marietta called Swayze's. Oh, I don't know. And they had pictures of Patrick Swayze everywhere. Oh, good for them. That's fun. I love Swayze. That's a little more fun than I would expect from Georgia, to be honest. But I like this because it's a departure from that. Yeah. I just have no home. So I'm like. Yeah. Rootless. Okay. We've had you forever. My last question is, because you've worked with so many people, have you ever been called upon to smooth out a beef between two artists?

1:31:26And you don't have to tell me who, but have you been brought in? I haven't. You haven't. No. Okay. It's an interesting question, though. I can see that happening. Me too. I'm trying to think if there's anything. Not really. No. No. Okay. That's good. Thank God. I would hate that role. Yeah, but everyone's kind of in their own zone, especially when you're making an album. You're really just like off on your own thing. But are there betrayals? Does it feel like, oh shit, I guess I can't go work with this person now? Yeah, yeah, sometimes. But you always make your own decisions. And I find that the whole world is so different and bizarre and interesting.

1:31:55And also all high school at the same time. It's amazing. But you have your people and you stand by them and you ride for them. No, nothing that really like specifically happened. Right, right. I know anyone who's really bummed anyone out that I know I try to hang with my friends. Yeah, yeah. Okay, everyone for 10 minutes. It's out May 22nd. You're going to turn me down as you should. It's a very crazy request. I've never done this, but I just want you to know. Yeah. I am willing to dance with you to that song. Dove Shards of ELS? Yes. I've been dancing all morning to it. Okay. And I don't know if I want to dance, but here's what I think you should do.

1:32:29Okay. Put it on. See what happens to your body. And let's just watch you. Okay. That's really stressful. song. Oh my god. That's already the most embarrassing thing ever. I've never listened to the song with anyone who wasn't part of making it. I'm not asking you to answer me, to be clear. No, he clearly offered that up. What I know is that I can't tell you how I feel about it. I know that. You don't have to move. You could talk about it. No, I'm going to move. Mimonicle, edit it out because it's going to be so cringy. What you might be really getting you going is the drums are a thing called a Lindrum, which probably most popular Prince used a lot.

1:32:58It's this great 80s drum machine, and it's very punchy, and I think it might speak to your hips. and then we play like a lot of live drums on top of it and i think maybe that speaks to your shoulders okay god i like i like all this stuff literally have you ever danced with anyone on the show never i've never done this you look upset when i did this to bj in chicago kid in anderson pack song that song fucked me up in a way that i had to dance really on instagram and a lot of of my friends were worried about me, but I don't regret it. I'd be relapsed.

1:33:39Are you here all day? Yeah, basically. Like, do you just spend all day here? Essentially. Or do you go to your big house? I go to my regular size house. Is it tough to be here in the small house? Yeah, all I do is look around and I'm like, oh my God. So you're like, Dax, it's just like. These poor sons of bitches over here. Okay, are we ready? No, I'm still figuring it out. So what happens after this? We'll do a fact check after this. so that's just him and I everything was facts yeah we check these facts and it's really fun but really it's just a chance for us to kind of just talk about nothing and then I'll like check some facts do you ever do episodes with no guests no but the fact check kind of serves oh my god I love it I'm almost gonna do this just to make Monica glow yeah I mean is it a good vibe if you and I keep talking and he dances I know I kind of want oh my god oh my god so then what will happen so intense.

1:34:33I can't believe you're making him watch you do this.

1:34:48Monica's upset. No, no, no, do not. Oh my God. Do not make me participate.

1:35:01Is this like a music video? I can't. I'm disassociating. He's free.

1:35:11I do love this song. We did it. Okay.

1:35:20I'll say this. It's very John Hughes, Dax, the way you're moving. Oh, that's true. Keep it going. I do like this song. This is great. I kind of like this now. I didn't like it at first. Now you're right. I kind of like it now. Oh my God, why are you raising it? I didn't like it at first. I like it now.

1:35:47He's in really good shape, huh? Yeah, that I'll give him.

1:35:55Here we go.

1:36:09How much more? Not much, but you truly look uncomfortable. Here we go. Ah! Oh, my God. My eyes look closed, and then I opened the back. Wow. Oh, that's good. I like that. Okay. It's a new move. Hey.

1:36:36Oh. Oh.

1:36:44Woo.

1:36:52This is the show. This is the show.

1:36:58Oh my god, it's like a 20 minute long song, you know? Why you made this song so long, man.

1:37:11Wow.

1:37:15Very compelling. I'm going to say something, okay? It was upsetting, and then it was really beautiful. I really feel like you really, like... I thought I might get... No, you really did get me there. I don't know how I got there. Just leave the desk. Look, it's like watching your dad. You know, it's watching your dad. This is how I felt, okay? Yeah. And I think we need to do five more minutes. Okay. I'll sit back down. I felt like, first I was like, oh my God, what's he going to do? And then I had that feeling like I'm at a comedy show. Is the comedian going to bring me up? Yes. And then, I'm not even joking, I feel like he's really going to another place and that's beautiful.

1:37:48And then I genuinely liked a lot of the moves because they felt like, is it Anthony Michael Hall in Breakfast Club kind of thing? Ellie Sheedy. And then I quickly realized that what was going on was really about Monica. Her watching you with love. Are you sure there was? And I know you love me. With love and sadness all at once was like the years you spent together, like it was all just happening. Like I almost like her and her darling was like, that's Dax. I love him. And what am I going to do? I was acting now. This is him. He's not putting on a show. It's so earnest. And earnest can be. chance that that's the video and that's it.

1:38:25I sign up. I can dance much better than that. I was on the spot. That was really good. No, you have great moves. The space wasn't great. In my bedroom today, I was like, I was born to dance to this song. I love to move my body. I just don't do it to my own music unless I'm playing it because it feels funny. It feels. But I do love to dance. I thought that could be the case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not that I'm not meeting you where you're at. I just, this was about you and then it was about Monica. I actually felt like there was double whatever glass here. I felt like I wasn't here and I I was watching you alone and Monica was like a ghost watching it.

1:38:56That's fair. If I'm being honest, of the three minutes, probably 30 seconds of it, I was unselfconscious. That's it? I felt like the whole time. It did feel like the whole time. That's good. I thought when you went to Monica, those were probably the moments of being self-conscious. It's you. You're my guest. No. I'm doing something very bizarre in front of you. No, I like it. But it is with genuine intention. It's received. Of thanking you and hoping you can see what that song does to me. I will request other videos of you doing it. Okay, great. Maybe to each song on the album. I will request that you just do it.

1:39:31I will request that it becomes your apologies to Matt Damon. I would love that. I signed up for it. If you have fucking Joyce Carol Oates here, you just kick the table over and just dance in Monica's face, right? If you have Nancy Pelosi here, you just flip the table. and go, you're going to watch me dance for three months. But I don't want them dancing. Okay, okay. It's not like a cheer tunnel. It's not that. It's a subversive, strange moment where you just interviewed, let's say, you know. Barack Obama. Barack Obama, right? He would have joined though. He's not allowed. The whole idea, because it's not like, we're zany, here's a fire moment.

1:40:06It's not that. It's I just interviewed you and now you're going to witness me having childlike joy around someone who knows me deeply and loves me and is embarrassed for me. You have to sit there and watch that. Also, I'm living out probably your worst fear. I just said, this is my worst. Really? I think you're honest. Because I think when you're interviewed, you're so vulnerable and this is your guys' space. And then I had to have the weird vulnerable moment of watching you. I know. Very uncomfortable to watch me dance. Almost worse than doing the dancing. But that's why it feels... Remarkably.

1:40:38Yeah. That's why it feels tough. It's like now you're in this position. You're in an awkward position. Dax played with a line. So Dax didn't do something inappropriate, but we all felt like something inappropriate was happening. What was going on. And that's really interesting. So imagining Joyce Carol Oates sitting here or whatever, and you do that. Joyce Carol Oates is... She's coming. Is she coming? Yeah. Who's coming soon? Can you not say? Wait, who's coming? That was a joke. Do you announce who's coming? Yeah. Well, we don't really, but we... That's always a secret. It's always a secret. It's always a secret.

1:41:09Okay. So like, if I'm guessing, I don't know. Manifest something for us. Okay. How about... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joyce Carol Oates. Okay. Okay, how about... Taylor, let's use Taylor. She'd be great. She'd be great. Okay. But she'd be... She'd be really comfortable with that, I feel like. I feel like she'd be like, you go, do your thing. Yeah. Get down with yourself. I think she'd be like, this is what I'm trying to get guys to do. Vladimir Zelensky. Yeah. Okay, great. How about Putin? Wait, what's his name? No, what's his name? Not Vladimir Zelensky. Oh my God. Did I just connect Vladimir Putin and...

1:41:37Zelensky? What's Zelensky's first name? Voldemir. Voldemir? It's basically the same. What the fuck is, is it really? It's something like, I don't know how to say it. Oh, yes, I'm not way off. Okay. Imagine you're getting into it with Ted Cruz, and you're really going there. Or like, I'm just trying to think of an interesting character. Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham. That might put him over the edge. He might pass in my presence. Yeah, he might hit the rainbow bridge. Like, you had to have known Mr. Shepard, then he would have died. He might leave this big blue marvel. Him watching you do something that is so antithetical to what he's about would kill him.

1:42:06You had to have known that, Mr. Shepard, is what they'd say. I'm trying to say. Are you okay? Oh, I'm more than okay. Okay, just wanted to check. This is where I live in the place of... And you know, you are on stage and you're seeing this. In the most sincere non-bit-y way. Yes. I feel like I owe you that because of how much joy that thing gives me and how much I relate to the moment that you're describing. Love it and receive it and put in a formal request for it to be the, and we're in a time, Matt Damon, of this show. Let's get this podcast to number three or two. Let's get it to number two.

1:42:38We gotta beat those Germans. This might get us there. this might get us there well this has been a blast it's been a first for me and it's been a blast and not a last and I can't wait for people to explode to this song the way I just did it's a great song now I can say even having experienced that in the worst possible situation you liked it I really liked it I did have a thought while it was happening was like is this a new kind of like strip club not stripping but like is this like a new thing where like a guy just sort of like has joy and you sit near? I think it would be too much for people to handle.

1:43:13Interesting. Watching a man and just gives you joy. I think it's, no, it's good. It's good to show what you just did is the opposite of the manosphere. So I will give you credit for that. You think that's the inverse? I do. It was definitely not cynical. Definitely not cynical. Yeah, and that's all we're going for today. Yeah, okay. I think Monica's going to pack up for a long time is how I feel. Yeah, I have a lot to sit with. My schedule therapy. Well, this has been a blast. You guys are the best. I knew I would like you because I love Rachel so much and it was everything and I hope you'll come back.

1:43:40If you cut that part, my little heart will break. I can already read the headline. Dax Shepard forces. Honestly, that's my worry. Yeah, forces. You can't live your life. Yeah, but you know what? You don't do it. It's got to be me. You got to be you and you got to dance for. When you have to dance, you have to dance. For real. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's the puzzle that needs. But next time you have like a dignitary or someone. Yeah. This is just what we do here. Jack, this has been a blast. Everybody listen to everyone for 10 minutes. May 22nd. Come back. He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time.

1:44:12Think God Monica's here. She's got to let him have the facts. Well, he got a free, he got a free answer out of it. He did. He did. That could be, that just could be the music video. I don't know what they would have offered me, what the budget would have been, but it was, he got it for cheaper than whatever that was. He sure did. A hundred dollars or something. Well, we're both, we both had whirlwind weekends. We did. Yes. You here in town, me in Nashville. I have my brother and his partner, Emily, in town, and it was so fun. Also, they loved the house, which was really nice. Yeah. Last time we checked in, we made a joke about if they say, like, go to Malibu, you just keep talking.

1:44:56You know, like, they didn't say that. You just keep it going, keep it moving. We did go to Malibu. Who brought it up? They did. What'd they say? My brother was like, or I just said, is there anything you guys really want to do? And he said, we do want to go to Malibu. I was like, oh shit. Standard. God, okay. Did you take Los Virginis or did you take Canaan Dune? I took Canaan. Canaan, okay. I was sort of, I mean, I just follow, I follow my phone, you know? Good, yeah. I follow my phone. That's good advice. Jess and I get in fights a lot about which app to use. I won't say which one he uses. Waze?

1:45:33I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say what he uses. I just really dislike the one he uses. Okay. I only hate one of the three main ones. And I'll remain quiet on which one. But we have Apple Maps, we have Google Maps, and we have Waze. Right? Am I missing one? Those are the three I know. Rob probably uses a punk rock one that's like no one uses. It's like really cool. Yeah, it's like X traffic. Oh, shit. I want to do that one. I'm not cool enough. Which one do you use? I use Apple. I use what's on my phone. Okay. And I love it. And I use Google and I love it. Okay, but we don't. Yeah, it's fine.

1:46:13We're not debating. Generally, when you and I drive together, I know where I'm going. We drove together last week to a screening. Uh-huh. I knew how to get there. Yeah, you didn't put it in. I didn't need that map. That's the difference between us. You would have mapped even that place that you know? Oh, definitely. I don't really know that place. Like I do, but not enough. I need to. You know how to get to Sunset Tower on your own? Yes. Okay. Although. I mean, it's two turns. Go down Western to Sunset in a pinch. This is what I like about maps, though. It can tell if there's traffic. So it will take you a different way.

1:46:51I'll never take you the two turns version. Yeah, it doesn't take me two turns. The 30 turns. Which if I'm going on my own, I can get there on my own. If I didn't have my phone, I could get there. But I'm going to go to turns. Right. And when I follow the map, I feel like I'm probably getting there faster because it's telling me. I think you are. Yeah. I'm living in great stress. Have you read all these articles? They're starting to mount cameras up everywhere as a big statewide initiative for speeding cameras. Really? They're going to be everywhere. And I think they let you go 11 miles an hour over the speed limit.

1:47:25And then they just automatically send you a ticket. Yes. Really? Yeah. and I got a list of the places they were putting it, but it wasn't terribly exact. Oh, no. Just like this corridor. This is going to be horrible for you. It is. I'm going to have to learn all new routes. They're really pushing you out of this city. They want me gone. They want me gone. They do. Wow. Yeah. Wait, that is annoying. And then I can't really speed in Mount Juliet because there's so many cops. So that's okay. I was actually going to ask you because in Georgia, you cannot speed. The cops are everywhere. where they're in cars.

1:48:01There are speed traps. They're in cars that are black, that in black writing say like Duluth police. So you can't tell that it's a police car. Until you're already pulled over. Correct. Yeah, yeah. And so it's always been a thing. And I only go five over there every time. And that's the vibe in Mount Julia. On the highway in Nashville, fine. People are flying. That's kind of fine. Ten over. Yeah. For people who don't know the culture in LA, It's everyone drives as fast as they want. Pretty much. Because you actually cannot go that fast because there's so much traffic. Yes. But there, I got to say, it's state to state to state.

1:48:40California is the least. Yeah. Patrolling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not running like speed traps and stuff. They're there. And they have a whole. When we made ships, I got to meet a lot of the CHP people. Well, they have an actual agenda, which is they just are patrolling high accident areas. They're just trying to make everything safe. That's nice. That's good. All to say. Until now. People drive pretty fast on the highways here. On the highway, yeah. Yeah, everyone's going 80. That's definitely over and 11 over. That's true. That's 15 over. Again, only if there's no traffic, which is pretty rare.

1:49:18Yeah, but when you get it where you want. I know, that's why. That's why. Anyway, I'm just waiting. I guess they're going to have like a month grace thing where you'll get tickets, but you won't have to pay the fine. And then it kicks in. Then you'll have to pay a fine, but there's no points. Oh, interesting. Yeah, but I just I don't like the idea of there being a record for your insurance provider. I don't love that either. But I don't really speed, but I just don't like being watched, even though that's kind of weird for me because. You're not a libertarian by nature. I'm really not. I've not.

1:49:47I've gotten more into privacy as the older I've got for some reason. Yeah, things happen when you're older. That's just how it is. Yeah. Yeah. Like my mother was just here and she's like her trust level with the government is at a real all time low. Oh, right. And I think that's just aging. Yeah. I mean, she's always was like a 60s flower power. Yeah. Pay to Vietnam. But right now it's just feels like every everything's not to be trusted. That's true. At any rate. So, yeah, I have to drive pretty slow in Nashville. And now it's looking like I'm going to have to drive slow here. I'm going to move to Germany.

1:50:21Audubon. It's my last. I thought I was going to retire in Nashville, but not the case. Oh, well, that's a ding, ding, ding for this episode, actually, because, you know, we are going to try to unseat the number two most streamed podcast, which is in Germany. Hush and Dush. Yeah. So maybe you should move there to just get like feet on the ground. Well, we at least know you can have an enormously huge podcast over there. That's true. And I think you should proselytize it. I mean, I think I'll stay. Maybe we could start doing zooms um yeah germany doesn't feel like the place for you it's not for me i don't although i do want to visit there i've never been there i'm sure i'm sure i would enjoy it it answers the question what if everything ran perfectly right yeah everything everything runs exactly on time everything's spotless clean yeah they've got a real ethos there and i appreciate that part's nice things but then you do start feeling like where's the the parisian vibe exactly where's the sexiness and they're okay this is the show gemish the hack oh it's like a game well they're playing they're definitely playing a game they're also one of them's younger so they've been hitting it hard either he started really young or they've just had an explosive ride got 341 episodes not that many no so they're yeah they're getting a lot of downloads oh my god Every single German listens to it.

1:51:43Do you think maybe they'll have a song? He looks like Diplo, right? The guy on the left or right? On the right. Okay, yeah. They both have a thing. Yeah, they're both attractive. Yeah. The guy on the left looks like Diplo, no? Is that his name? Diplo is his name? And being fit is his game, right? Yeah, he looks like him. Yeah. Yeah, it does. I just looked up Diplo. It does look... It might be Diplo. What if it's Diplo? That would explain why he's got such a huge... Now he looks older here. That's that's that's Diplo. Oh, shit. I thought, dude, that's they're identical. Wait, is maybe it is Diplo's podcast.

1:52:19Hold on. Gemmish. Oh, no. It's like it literally comes up in German. No, Felix Lobrecht and Tommy Schmidt. Congratulations, boys. Yeah. Wow, man. Hey, have us on. Yeah. Let's get us big in Germany. I can hit him with my six sentences of German and then we're out. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Oh, it's a comedy audio show. So lots of lots of shisha. Yeah. So I went to I'm fresh off of Nashville. Yes. We started the Hulk Hogan documentary. Yeah. Which was incredible. So incredible that we had a reservation for Brick Tops at 730. Your favorite restaurant. Favorite restaurant. We considered not going. Wow.

1:53:03Went to Brick Tops. It was delicious. They've taken the ribs off the menu. Oh, that's you have notes. I love those ribs. And then Saturday, more boating. We went and watched them unload the coal for the electric plant. Watch them unload the barges. We got so distracted by that. We almost missed our big horseback riding adventure. We're out there just watching this thing. We have such different versions of vacation. I know. We were riveted, Monica. the way this pulley system moves the barge and then each scoop it picks it up like i don't know how it picks up that cleanly yeah and we just watched them anyways then we had to haul ass back because we had horseback riding right we had to drive 35 minutes out there for that that was a surprise for them i had asked aaron earlier in the day how much he weighed because they send an email saying you you can't be over 240 i was like oh shit i don't know what aaron's weight's at right now yeah and then like then i want to tell him if they ask you just say 239 but they did weigh us oh okay yeah he was fine that's not something to fuck around with he was fine he was like 230 everything was okay great but when we pulled up he goes oh my god horseback ride and thought maybe we were taking a helicopter ride because you asked how much i weighed i was like would that have been cooler he wished he wished so we went and you know i thought it was gonna be really fun because i like being scared and i'm scared on horses yeah there's yep they scare me yeah i've had some bad experiences they're majestic animals but they are they have minds of their own they're in charge yeah actually this is good for you you're like relinquishing this other thing is more powerful than me yeah it's like immersion therapy some kind but of course we start doing this trail ride through the state park and it's beautiful um but little hints are coming out right away it's like how old are everyone's horses oh turns out mine's 25 right And they're like, oh, that's about as old as they get.

1:54:59Oh, they said he probably should have been retired. Like now they now they start saying like maybe they he's past his prime and he should have already been retired. And I'm like, if they lived at 25 and mine's 25, that's like that's the equivalent of being 100. OK, he's he's a grampy. Yes. He doesn't want to be out there. Oh, OK. So he likes to follow the leader's horse right with his face on the horse's asshole. Do you think he had a little bit of dementia, just a touch of it? He had something going on. he wanted to be nose to butt but if harin's horse got even close to mine he would jump and kick and so mine was intermittently kicking and stopping and freaking out and doing more kicking and then aaron's was like trying to avoid getting hit by the kicks and almost hit aaron in the face and so i just had this complete uneasiness for an hour and a half yeah like when's my horse gonna really do something wild yeah and then were you able to laugh or were you like i want this to be done now oh boy both maybe both yeah and then another like there it was a little muddy and slippery so the horses were slipping a bit and then and then one of the the the gals said uh oh yeah these horses have been clumsy all day so i was like there's too old should have been retired they've been clumsy all day i just kept thinking like we keep kept getting more and more hints that it was gonna go terribly awry and then we never rode fast where i could have maybe gotten and the giggles where I'd be really scared.

1:56:24Okay. So it was just this like, my least favorite part of it. I'm just having anxiety. My horse is going to buck me off or something. Now, did you cycle? I'm more interested in the psychology, obviously. So were you like, why did I do this? And like, it was for to be funny. And like, at what point am I not going to do this anymore for bits? Or like, what was happening in your mind? I wasn't having a lot of existential stuff. Oh, you weren't. Okay. Anywho, it was fine. We started forgetting we were on a horse trip and just started. You know, you have like a guide in front and a guide in back, then the three of us.

1:57:01Yeah. And at first we're doing horse talk and horse questions and state park questions. And then we're just like, we're just going to talk how we are. And now we're just doing our dumb stuff. Okay, fine. It was great. It was great. And then we came back and my neighbor Nate had made this incredible smoked feast for us. pork butt smoked and two racks of ribs that were impossible. Which is good because you didn't have ribs the night before. That's right. Kind of a blessing, really. Yeah. So then Nate came over and then the four of us had dinner and we stayed up and then we watched some more. Oh, I left one thing out.

1:57:35We had gone for a walk on Saturday through the neighborhood. Tyrell was in the mood for some exercise. So we took this long walk and there was the cutest little boy. He had to have been between 10 and 12. and he had a little mini bike, an old fashioned mini bike with a lawnmower engine and two wheels. And he was ripping back and forth and we were like cheering for him. Oh, you know, the first thing we saw him do is he pulled his, before he even knew we were watching him, he pulled his motorcycle over, got off and moved something out of the road. And we're like, what was that? And then when we got up to the road, we saw he had, he saw a turtle on the road and he pulled over and moved it out so it'd be safe.

1:58:09So we knew he was a really good boy. So we were like waving to him every time. And every time he'd drive by, He quickly waved and put his hand back on the gas pedal, on the throttle. So on Sunday, we got all of my motorcycles out and we were ripping around the yard. And Tyrell hadn't been on a motorcycle in 25 years. So that was hilarious. And then I was like, all right, let's go out in the neighborhood. A motorized horse. He was on a motorized horse. And we went over to the little boy's house. We went out into the neighborhood. He already had his mini bike out. He heard us in the yard. And his dad said, he heard you and got us out.

1:58:41And I said, oh, good. we've come over to invite him on a ride. So we went on a ride with this little boy. It was so fun. We just did a bunch of laps in the neighborhood. That is so cute. It was really, really sweet. Oh my God, he probably like. I have the cutest video I showed you. It's him pulling up and waving. He probably, you just like made his whole, you know, probably like day. Cause you know, kids, they forget. They reset quickly. Yeah, but wow, it's really sweet. Really, really sweet. Yeah, for 36 hours. I can't believe he moved a little turtle out. Yeah, he was a nice boy. He had a good heart, but he liked ripping around.

1:59:18That's what Aaron said. If we were in Melford, we would saw that kid try to catch air on it. Exactly. Yeah, I wonder if I could jump this turtle. Exactly.

1:59:28Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:59:40And then Sunday massages for all three boys. Tyrell had never had a massage in his whole life. I can't believe that. So that's 51 years. Yeah. Did he enjoy it? He loved it. Okay, good. Of course. Yeah, they're the best. Yes. But I know I'm like, I bet my dad. Well, not I bet. I know what my dad's definitely never had a massage. My mom either. Really? Yeah. Oh, they're so nice. They won't want it. Yeah. Tyrell was saying he never wanted one because he has hair on his back. That was the whole reason. And Weekly was like, you know, almost all men have hair on their back. Something would be uniquely disgusting for the massage therapist.

2:00:19Yesterday, I had things I was supposed to do. I had to work. I had to edit. I had to do. You're a busy woman. I'm a busy lady. Can't just be hosting the rest of your life. well no my my brother was gone oh he left yeah they were gone so i like stuff i had a whole day planned of getting being productive and i didn't do any of that okay i started going through some pictures because i needed to print some pictures i've decided you know currently my house doesn't have many pictures personal pictures there's art i'm getting into art that's it we'll put a pin slash bookmark in that. And I have a couple pictures in my bedroom and a couple in the guest bedroom, the guest bedrooms, but none in the living room.

2:01:11And I was like, you know what? I need like, if you walk in here, you don't know who lives here and you don't know who they love, you know? Yeah. So I, and I had, I knew I had some frames, but I didn't know where they were. They were in the garage. So I had to, you'll be interested in this. I cleaned out my garage. Oh my God. It was really hard. I hated it. Yeah. But I got all my frames and I brought them up and I was like, okay, now I need to print pictures. So I went through, I was going through so many old pictures and I was bothering everyone. I was like, you know, texting everyone. Do you have this picture?

2:01:46Do you have this picture? Do you have any pictures of this? You're calling on others also to help. Yes, I was. And so I was doing that. And then also, you know, the photo book I made for Ryan for Secret Turkey last year. Artifact Uprising. I'll give them a shout out. Amazing photo books. Oh, I hope I don't have another cough attack. Oh God, don't leave. You can cough here. Callie is the one that introduced me to them and she has great taste. So, you know, and you can make these photo books and they're so cool. They're not your average photo books. Sorry, average photo book places. But I made three photo books.

2:02:26one was golden globes okay second was sag awards after sag actor awards third was my apartment this one was hardest because i was like i i think i only want pictures in the apartment i need to boil it down to 50 pictures that's the max i was trying to balance like pictures of the actual apartment and then some pictures of people you know it's a lot to think about your different meals you've hosted we did not take enough pictures in that apartment i was actually kind of pissed yeah but again i'm asking people i was i i not to not to throw her under the bus because obviously we love her the most here but i had to ask kristen for a picture okay and she's just not sometimes she's not the best at responding so i got a little nervous because i really wanted to get these books in you know in you wanted to get it off your plate I did yeah and I I asked her I said do you have the picture of me you Dax and Anna from the Vanity Fair party I knew she had it and then she wasn't responding and so you know what I I checked back in and I felt bad she's a busy lady she's shooting a show right now yeah I did my due diligence I first texted Anna yeah I said, do you have this picture?

2:03:49She didn't. But she was on set with Kristen. So she went to get Kristen's phone. This was going to solve my problems, you know? Yeah. But Kristen had already left. For the listener, it sounds like you're crying, but you're not crying. I'm not crying. I'm having a cough attack. Yeah, she had one of her cough attacks that are springing up more frequently. I know. It's really, I don't know. I haven't. And now I guess when I'm talking, they're having. Do you think they're psych? Now I'm getting nervous. or like psychosomatic or something. Wasn't everything at least half? I mean, I don't, I'm unwilling to accept this as something.

2:04:25Like I, cause you know, I canceled my doctor's appointment. Oh, okay. I didn't. Oh, so I had a doctor's appointment set because I've been getting sick a lot. I've been getting a lot of bugs. Yeah. And you know, this is why single people don't, they die. Yeah, they don't live and they die because they don't go to the doctor. luckily I have Jess who said I want you to go to the doctor yeah this is too many bugs and they're lasting for too long and I was like okay uh sure maybe next time you know and then but this last bug was lasting for so long I did make an appointment had it scheduled but then I got better that's always the case yeah the second you make the appointment or you show up at the doctor yeah Yeah.

2:05:09And it was an 8 a.m. Oh, yeah. And I was like, I'm not going. So I canceled. OK, great. I did break the news to Jess yesterday that I didn't go and he was mad. OK. And now I'm mad, I guess, because I still have I thought I was better and I have a little bit of a cough attack, but that's OK. I'm going to edit all out. So no one's going to even know what we're talking about. It'll be like, what are they talking about? Anyway, so I got the picture. I pestered her I said sorry to be a pest But you know sometimes you have to be a pest in life To get what you want Sorry to be a pest I just really want to get this book in Today And so she sent it to me And great that one's Sent in The Sagward one sent in I'd ask Anna I was really pestering Anna a lot for those Do you have any pictures of Kristen while she's on stage Wow yeah You guys I gotta finish this book today I did she was like what's going on?

2:06:06Yeah, what's the rush? Yeah. And then the apartment, that was real. I reached out to a lot of people, Anthony, Allison, Rachel, Jess, Anna. But it was fun for me because I was going back through all my pictures and looking and just like, man, have we changed. Yeah. Because you know what's really fun about the apartment? I moved in March of 2018. We started this show February of 2018. Oh, wow. So it really bookmarks that time. Yeah. And it's really sweet to like see over the course of the past eight years how much has changed. Just us personally growing, but also just look wise. And also what we've all been through.

2:06:50Me the most, right? You look so different. Yeah. But not you don't look older. You just look different because you've changed your body so much. I know. Do you think people think I had like reconstructive surgery? Well, you haven't. I can confirm. We haven't done that. But yeah, it's changed so much. It really, I feel like if you did a before and after a random picture from parenthood and now. Yeah. You could make some case that I've had like some kind of a face transplant. Rob, will you put two pictures up? One of Dax during parenthood and one of him at the Golden Globes. This morning? Or this morning, yeah.

2:07:25Taking photos of me this morning? I think actually I really did. It was interesting because, you know, I'm always like, why are you? You don't need to like keep working out and whatever. But I've been noticing some other people aging. You mean you shouldn't work out or I shouldn't? You. Oh, right, right. Okay. Just like you're so big, you know, muscular. And I get worried that it's causing you to have dysmorphia and, you know. but when I was going back in time and looking at these pictures and also simultaneously I'm watching some other people in the sphere age I was looking at other pictures of people as I'm yeah as I'm it's all right there yeah I was like oh wow he does look healthy like and that's good so he probably should still continue on this path so I have to give it to you oh wow thank you and i'll meet you halfway which is i think the area where it's going to be problematic and this was in the hulk doc oh okay for the listener we have a very beautiful picture of dax and christen at the golden globes and then dax on parent okay you do look younger yeah but you don't look old at all here completely different i look super masculine on the left and not on the right you look very My beard came in since then.

2:08:50Like, I couldn't grow a full beard back then. You look very boyish on the right. Yes. Can you? Sorry, Rob, because I know that you're, like, doing some cool, like, stuff. I wonder if you can get a picture of Dax and Kristen at the Chips premiere. Yep. Oh, wow. She's looking so good. Just perfect. Yeah, she's doing great. Yeah. Started hot and ended hot. From A to Z. And I started at a six and went to a seven. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is just I was clean shaven a lot. Yeah. She looks the same. Yeah, you look. Yeah, you're right. I look like a car salesman. Because you don't have facial hair.

2:09:34I look like I could sell you a car in this photo from the chips for me. I don't think so. Like, what are you in the. Are you have a large family, sir? Do you have many passengers? Do you carry normal? You guys watch the fact check. The fact check has visuals now. There's so many visuals. And like this episode is pretty visual heavy. Yeah. So I would recommend coming and watching. And also look how fast Rob worked his magic. Yeah, he is good on a computer. It doesn't get better. Okay, this is actually great because, well, you can't see your eyes. You're wearing sunglasses in the one on the left.

2:10:07Want me to take them off? Take off the sunglasses and paint in my eyes, but make them look my current eyes, not eyes from chips. If I had Photoshop, I could. I got another one. No, it's okay. I mean, there must be a picture of you without your sunglasses. Oh, there is. I found one. You're wearing sunglasses there? Sometimes I do, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, why not? Yeah, sure. Jack Nicholson always did. Yeah. I mean, they look nice. I don't think he ever took his off outside of a movie. He's at the Lakers game indoors. He's got an interview. He's got his shades on at all the award shows. Yeah. It's kind of cool.

2:10:41Oh, there we go. Very nice. okay this is a picture without his sunglasses on i just look more like my dad wait what's happening why is chris this is a golden gloves the year before two years ago this is from this year okay is that yep so this is from a couple months ago okay and the one on the right is from chips so again she looks the same actually wearing complimentary outfits i really like what's going Dashes of green and black and purple. Pretty purple. Okay. And it's the facial hair, but also, yeah, you look, it does look like your face has changed shape, but it's because of neck of. Well, yeah.

2:11:25The muscles. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. Really interesting. Oh, but I was going to say watching the Hulk doc, the thing that I think could be in my future, that's problematic is both the Hulk Hogan doc. and the Ronnie Coleman doc, both these guys still lifting weights and they can't walk. No, you can't. Or they can barely walk, right? They have a cane. He can't get up off the machines, but he's still lifting a ton of weight. And I'm like, what's going on there where it's like you're still very strong, but you can't walk. Yeah. And you just keep lifting weights because the idea of getting smaller seems terrible.

2:12:02Yeah, you got to watch out. And that's a trap I could definitely fall into. Okay, well, I'm glad you saw that as a cautionary too. Yeah, yeah. um rob you still walk pretty good just out of curiosity now i want to can you can you show me at the chips premiere and me at the golden globes okay yeah so on the left we don't own that photo on the left what we don't own that photo on the left there's a whammy on it the watermark all over it we don't we don't own that picture on the left but we own the one on the right we don't own either but um yeah do you think i look different everyone weighed in pretty similar what do you think i actually i look i mean i look yeah i guess i look younger on the left you also look like you're going to a nightclub i do i'm wearing a jump suit but i'm wearing i'm smiling with my teeth uh-huh which is nice um your eyes are very dark yeah but my eyes are pretty dark on the same thing i actually don't think i look that different no no huh but i i just look like nine years younger yeah younger but huh interesting i think i i i actually think i look better on the right okay no one here wants to comment on that that's okay you don't have to you don't have to but I do think you like how you're trending you look great in both I don't know that we can really say which is better just a little different with some age have my features changed no I mean if you were smiling with your teeth in the right I think it would be a better comp right but you've said goodbye to that we don't smile with teeth anymore there are pictures with my teeth I do both.

2:13:52But are people advised not to? I mean. I don't really know the rules. Not necessarily. It's just like. I never figured them out. It is supposed. I think you're just like, it's like more model-y. Yeah, or chic or whatever. It's stupid. People should smile. Whenever I'm home with my friends at home and we're taking group pictures, they always make fun of me. They always say, Monica, smile with your teeth. Oh, really? Yes. Even in group photos. Yes. So it's not just a red carpet thing. Yeah, now I'm just like used to doing it. So I. That's your natural. Now it's become a little more common when there's a camera to not smile with my teeth.

2:14:30Right. But these people who've known me my whole life are like, absolutely not. You're smiling with your teeth. Yeah. And I like that. They're keeping me. Grounded. Keeping me grounded. That's right. All right. Should we do a little fakies? Yes. Okay. So this is for Jack. Oh, for the people who haven't guessed or known or watched this episode, this is the one where Dax dances. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Hot off the presses. Yeah. Yeah. Which may or may not be in the episode. Yeah. We don't know. We still don't know. We don't know. We'll see. But just reminding everyone, Jack loved it. He's requested that I do it at the end of every episode.

2:15:10So much so that he texted you as like really doubling down. Please do that at the end. I don't know if it's all just a big trap to embarrass me. But I kind of trust him. He seems like a very trustworthy guy. He had a beautiful knowledge of himself. Yeah, he did. I text him and I thought. You know, obviously we didn't get into this in the episode, but Jack has a quite a list of. Ex-lovers? Yes. Yes. And I get it. Sure. Yeah. I get why. Yeah. He definitely makes you feel very seen. He connects. He makes eye contact. He's asking questions. It's that easy, guys. It's literally that easy. It is literally that easy.

2:15:56Yeah, yeah. But apparently it's not easy. It's not easy. It's scary. It's scary. The boys are really scared when they're talking to a girl they like. I know. But you guys, you can do it. You can do it. You just ask questions. No more lions to fight. There's no more tribes to fight off. Yeah, you're okay. The last thing you got to do that's risk. Risk heavy. And you just look people in the eye. You ask questions. You do need to be a little vulnerable. Yeah. But he wasn't too vulnerable either. It wasn't like we've had more. Yes. So, but I really, I understood it. He connected. This is a duck, duck, goose.

2:16:34I was in my bedroom and I could overhear Tyrell getting a massage. Uh-huh. And this was an hour into the massage. And as I like walk through my bedroom, I could hear him in there asking her a million questions. He was still talking to her summer. She's incredible. And I literally thought like, oh, yeah, Tyrell, whose women have always liked. Yeah. Is very engaged and just asking questions and curious. Curious. Yeah. And she's married and all. But I was just like, oh, right. That's what that's how people like each other. as they engage. Do you think the phrase curiosity killed the cat is the reason like all of these men are confused?

2:17:13No, I just think for some reason it's counterintuitive, but I think for some reason men don't know what to ask. Like they think it's more complicated than it is. Yeah. Or they, I think maybe they feel like they should have the answers so they don't need. It's time to like, yeah, show them what kind of a catch they are. Right, right. You don't need to do that, no. And, oh, for people who are definitely going to ask, I want to cut this off at the pass. Last week, I think it was, when I said I engaged with something that a lot of people like, but I didn't like. Or maybe I even said I was reading something.

2:17:53Yeah. It is not Lena's book. Oh, okay. It's not Lena's book. So I know that's going to. You thought maybe people would. I think people are going to assume that. Okay. I am reading it and that is not what I was talking about. Okay, great. All right. Topo Chico shortage. Yeah, let's talk about it. Let's talk. Okay. Shortage is going to last through the summer of 2026. That's this summer. Yeah. Why is it happening? Coca-Cola conducted maintenance on the bottling factory and found geology issues in the source wells. Oh, boy. All right. That can't be great if you've bought a company and it's all dependent on one source well, but you didn't figure out if that well's...

2:18:36It's geology issue. This is like ding, ding, ding to your peptide. Your peptide was rancid. Your peptide wasn't rancid that we know of, but your... Something in the vial was no good. This is weird. This happened to you twice. Remember when you had that like rancid water, flavored water and you got a - At the ranch. Yeah. And you got a crazy - Honest. And puking. Yeah. Food poisoning. Food poisoning. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you got crazy food poisoning from that. But everyone else was fine. Oh. Like other people had drank those and no one else had a problem. I thought it was in your trailer and it was like - It was just this brand with this flavor.

2:19:25Anytime I had it, it made me sick. That was a one-off batch. Oh, I thought it was. Well, I think the three times I've had it, I've gotten sick. Oh, my God. I think there's just something specific I'm allergic to. So then it isn't food poisoning. It's you have an allergy. I guess. I didn't hear anyone else complaining about it. And there's big gaps in times when I've tried the product. Really? Are you sure you tried it again? Why would you do that? For fun. I think it was like one of the normal water companies made flavored water for a minute. Right, right. Yeah. And it was those. Yeah. And one of the flavors, black cherry or something, no bueno for me.

2:20:05Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, because it wasn't just Honest. You were fully food poisoned. Yeah. Yeah. Not good. Okay. We are young release date, September 20th, 2011. That was a fact. What is the rom-com movie that mentions the Heinz slogan? It's probably what Dax said. Arthur II on the rocks. The sequel to the 1981 hit starring Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli. The film references the famous marketing slogan, Heinz 57, number two in the world, and that ain't bad. Other options, Agent Cody Banks 2. Destination London also lightly mentions Heinz, but it isn't a rom-com. Other famous ones are When Harry Met Sally, but that's just product placement.

2:20:53Okay, that's standard. What year has Jack been at Grammys with multiple Album of the Year awards? He's been in this position three times. Wow. That's awesome. Wow. He was the first person to ever be nominated in all three major categories, Album, Record, and Song of the Year. Whoa. For two different artists in the same night in 2026. Mm. The only other people who've been nominated for multiple albums and album of the year is Serbian Gania. This feels a little bit like the Spotify list. Okay. Pharrell. Sure. And Tom Elmhurst. I don't know Tom Elmhurst. Me either. Years, he had multiple nominations in album of the year category.

2:21:352020, he did not win. This one is a technicality because he was not technically nominated, but he did produce a second album on the list. Norma fucking Rockwell Lana Del Rey and then Arizona baby Kevin Abstract 2024 he won with Midnight's Midnight's Taylor Swift and did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard Lana Del Rey 2025 he did not win Torture Poets Department Taylor Swift Short and Sweet Sabrina Carpenter good luck I know but they didn't win okay 2026 he did not win Man's Best Friend Sabrina Carpenter gnx kendrick lamar man he has some amazing albums under his belt this is so cool no he's kind of the producer of the last decade i know i know i know it's so cool okay the president of ukraine this was upsetting yeah um vladimir so it is so it's not vladimir vladimir very close yeah we knew that we just honest mistake honest mistake yeah honest mistake ding ding ding okay those are facts for Jack I loved him he was really great I really enjoyed him too he's a real artist yes that's exactly right he's a real artist and how should I say it I probably shouldn't say it but I think I'm gonna I think being a real artist truly madly deeply TLC is a bit of a burden Oh, of course.

2:23:12Yeah. All of these phenomenal writers wrestle with depression and anxiety. Yeah. I think it goes hand in hand. It's a lot. The willingness to sit in a room with uncomfortable emotions and convert them into something. And like, it's a need that must be met. The need to create. Yeah. It has to be met. And in a way that's different from me or I won't say you. yeah you can say me me or you right who who are creative and have the only place i've ever felt it is just writing or it's like there have been things i have to sit down and write but other than that i love it i love writing and have written and i love creating things but i don't feel like i'll die if i don't right yeah and i have too much fun with other people yeah i can do I know I can do other things in this life and not cease to exist, you know.

2:24:11But but he is one of those in the category like he just has to. He has to do this. This is a ding ding ding. I happen to read this this morning that Michael Jackson one time called the guy who was producing his album at like 3 a.m. and said, wake everyone up, get them to the studio right now. Yeah. And when he was there, he explained to the musicians, the reason they had to come tonight is that God sends songs down. And if he doesn't catch it, Prince will. See? It was literally like either he's going to catch this song right now or Prince is going to. So he has to wake up and do it now before Prince catches it.

2:24:51It's really. And I think he believed that. Yeah, yeah. And I know who's to say it's not true. Every time we talk to one of these super prolific talented songwriters, they're all describing it the same way. Exactly. Who am I to say it's the other way? Yeah. Wow. And I'm grateful these people who I do think in general suffer a little more and then give us these incredible. Me too. Me too. I have a lot of compassion for these artists because their brains are working in a much different way. And that has bad. There are bad things to that. Yeah. But then we get to like benefit from their genius. Yeah.

2:25:28And we also have so many opinions about all of them. Right. Yeah. And how they should behave. Yeah. Yeah. Which is maybe not fair. All right. Well, that is it. All right. Love you. Love you.

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