20th Anniversary celebration with iconic musicians Kaki King, David Lee Roth, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Michael Stipe, and the Indigo Girls

0:00I can't come up with anything more difficult and more satisfying. But I have always assumed that I could make you feel great.

0:12From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.

0:19On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On this episode, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Design Matters, we'll hear from some of the musicians Debbie has interviewed over the years. I really like sad music. I didn't know what a bass guitar was until we started our second album. Every day I want to do this. Like, that was the important thing, right? All right, what are we doing? At the top of every episode of Design Matters, my producer Curtis Fox states that I interview some of the most creative people in the world.

1:0320 years ago, in the early days of the podcast, those creative people were nearly exclusively designers. Eventually, artists and novelists came into the mix, along with filmmakers and playwrights and poets. But musicians came relatively late to design matters. Now I try to get at least a few musicians on the podcast every year to talk about their career and their mysterious craft. and, if we're lucky, to play a tune or two. One of the first musicians I had on back in 2018 was the guitarist phenomenon, Khaki King. And that's her, by the way, playing the theme music.

1:51Did you ever question your ability? No. Have you ever? No. I mean I think that I could always have I always knew that I was good at guitar in a way that a lot of people weren't I don't I didn't let it go to my head but I knew and I but I think what distinguished me and what I wanted to focus on more than anything was the writing the playing is technical like it can be taught it can be practiced the writing is very important and and ultimately developing my own voice as a writer in an instrumental context is that's the hardest thing to do So I think that maybe the technical prowess, I knew that I was, you know, a hot shit player, but the writing part didn't hit me until later where I thought, okay, I really sound like me, even though it's just one guitar playing.

2:42You said that the six-string guitar is your absolute truth, that for you the guitar is infinitely interesting. You know that you'll never master it and you'll always be challenged. while there are those who would argue that you have mastered it, what do you consider to be mastery? What is mastery? There just is none. I mean, there's so many routes that you can go with this instrument. There's so many paths it can take you down. I think that when people say things, I think that probably the worst thing that was happening to me as a young person was that the things that you read, the quotes, the...

3:18Rolling Stone calling you, putting you on the list of the new guitar gods. Yeah, the accolades. I mean, like, that's ridiculous. That's just insane, bad copy. It's just... Why? Why do you think that? Because I think that it limits the scope of other people doing something on the guitar by saying, here's the top 10 and everything else is junk. Or, I mean, the implications are really bad. And the implication that, you know, a genre under herself, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it's just that it's like you've hit the ceiling and there's nowhere else to go. And for me, there is an infinite world of possibility on this instrument.

3:53I've played it forever. I know. The hyperbole was just upsetting because it wasn't sort of measured with something like, and she's working hard to do more good work. Yeah, I think the most ridiculous thing I read was somebody referred to as Bootsy Collins meets Van Halen. Like, what the hell is that? Can you imagine Bootsy Collins and Van Halen in a band together? Like, that would sound like just garbage. Or a mashup. You know, a mashup would be fun. But if those two assholes tried to make a band together, can you? It's just nonsense. So I didn't know how to really process that other than to ignore it.

4:29You have likened touring with just you and an acoustic guitar as almost a martial arts-like challenge. And you talked a little bit just a few moments ago about the resilience needed for being an opening act. But you've said that holding the audience's attention for 90 minutes with that format is the hardest thing you've ever done. I'll rephrase that and say it is when I'm at my best. When I am taking on the biggest challenge that I can and making it work. And when it works, I can't come up with anything more difficult and more satisfying. You had real success with your first two solo acoustic efforts.

5:11But after those two albums, you decided to mix things up a bit for your third album until We Felt Red, which included more musicians playing on the record in addition to you singing. When I first became aware of your work, you were doing the solo acoustic work. So when this album came out, I was astonished. Were you so mad? No, I actually really liked it very much. But I was surprised because when you weren't singing in your first two, I thought, well, maybe she has a bad voice. You're actually a fan. Yeah, I am a fan. Oh, my God. This is so cool. I saw you probably at the Knitting Factory because I don't remember where I saw you, but I saw you in 2004.

5:51No shit. For absolute sure. Yeah. Was it just me? Yeah, just you. You had dark brown long hair. Yeah. Yeah, and you're a baby. I was like, how does this woman do this? It's crazy. Wow. It's crazy. Will you play us a song? Right now? Play us a song. Yeah, play us a song from Until We Felt Red. Oh, God. Well, you know the song I have to play. Okay. This is a song called Jessica. It was written about a camp counselor. She had a thing for me. I didn't really know what to do with that, but I had a thing-ish for her, and I wrote this song.

6:29guitar solo

6:56I'd be 18 when she is turning 23

7:14Decorate her room with greeting cards They burn up when she turns The light on in the dark

8:19guitar solo Never really was

8:32When the milk Tasted like perfume You had been drinking Looking from the carton and I know

9:28Thank you. You're welcome. That was beautiful. I can't really articulate how magical it is to be in a little recording booth about three feet away from such talent. That was Khaki King in 2018. Khaki King actually mentioned the band Van Halen. A year later in 2019, I had the opportunity to interview David Lee Roth. I never imagined that I'd ever interview Van Halen's lead singer. But there we were in our little podcast booth and David Lee was really fired up. And he said some things about growing up. I'm still thinking about six years later. When did you first realize that you had a talent for singing?

10:16Well, we're making a wild assumption. No, David Lee, we're really not. Your Honor, that's an assumption. We're really not. There is no basis. Yeah, yeah, sorry. I'm not falling for that one. That is entirely a subjective comment. No, no, it isn't. This man has a voice that sounds like water on a sick cat. No, no, it doesn't. He's mutiny on the high seas. He should have been a sailor, Judge. I've heard you sing a cappella, sir. You have a voice. You've got the pipes. All of the people, all of the jobs, all of these experiences are in my voice. Okay? You're never completely there. You're always a work in progress.

11:01You're either going up the mountain or down the mountain. The top is about as big as this little space here. It's usually fucking freezing. I've been up some high mountains. Okay. Everybody's waiting. Well, you get the fucking camera ready. And then I forgot the flag. A lot goes on up at those tiny little summits. And then it's down, down, down. All your time is ascending and then going back down the mountain. You follow? I do. Your time at the top's almost insignificant. You're freezing. You hold up the flag. Hurry up, Ray. Stuff that shit back down there. Get your glove back on as fast as you can and vacate.

11:44So it's all in the planning. It's all in the doing. I never assumed that I was great, but I have always assumed that I could make you feel great. I can make you feel young and skinny from 800 yards out. How? Two choruses. How? Give me a few moves, okay? We're going to engage. We're going to talk because my instrument is exactly what we're using right now. Now, I haven't started to work you. I'm legitimately answering questions. But I could reverse this very quickly, young lady. I'm sure you could. I'll make you feel so desirable and young. Fuck it, I'm going to have a drink. That one cigarette a year is right now time.

12:28I'll buy you that drink. When did you first realize you had a talent for singing? I never decided I had a talent for singing. But you started taking singing lessons. I loved it. You just loved it. I loved it from the time I was seven. Okay. And it was my first school play. I was in third grade. And again, scruff of the neck. It was, okay, this teacher is going to help you learn the libretto. This teacher is different for the dancing. Now you got to go get measured for the costume. Now is dress rehearsal. It was codified in Boston, Massachusetts, Brookline, Massachusetts. Do you remember what play it was?

13:07Well, it was about, I don't remember the title, but there were different facings of books. Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, et cetera. And I was Mr. Bookworm. I still have the glasses mom made for me, mortarboard, et cetera. Shall I sing it to you soulfully? Yes, please. Because if I sing it like a little kid, it's... No, sing it soulfully. I'll update it a little bit. Please. There, my name is Mr. Booker. I hope you likes to read. Hey, did you pay to get in here? And I would just go from book to book and open up, and Wizard of Oz characters come out and whatnot. Beyond that, I didn't learn to sing from happy and celebrative and whatnot.

13:50I don't sing to celebrate. Never did. Give me two minutes, and I'll share with you where I really learned to sing and where the code comes from. because I rarely ever talk about it. Okay. A fellow named Salo Blumenthal. I was in fourth grade, and we were studying for Bar Mitzvah. All right? Not a lot of people know you're Jewish. Mm-hmm. It's the middle name because it's Indiana.

14:21And Blumenthal would walk in, and he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He was as wide as he was tall, and he wasn't very tall. And we would be sitting here. We were wise acres. This is, you know, the 60s, the hippies. It's, you know, flower power and Grateful Dead and the Doors and bring on through to the other side. It doesn't sound like Bar Misfit of most years. And Sailor Blumenthal would walk in and he'd always do the same walk. He would take his old sports coat, cheap jacket off, and take it off, and he'd roll up his right sleeve first. There's nothing there. And then he'd roll up his left sleeve, and he'd lock eyes with you.

15:05And he'd see the number tattooed on the inside of his forearm, which was his camp number. And then he'd roll his other arm up like that and lock up and see if you were still looking. If you were new in the class, you'd look to see because that was his orchestra number. And he would tell his story. Inevitably, the newbies in class would ask, what are those numbers? And he'd say, well, this was for Birkenau, and this is from so-and-so, and this is my orchestra number. And they'd say, what did you do with me? He said, I sang. Inevitably, somebody like a Ricky Weiss sitting behind me or one of the Weisman brothers would go, what happened if you didn't sing good?

15:47And he was very serious. He would lean forward and go, you didn't sing good. You went up the chimneys. and more than once in the next five years I would hear Mr. Roth if you cannot find it in yourself to sing for those who did sing so you don't go up the chimneys and I think of that every time I sing every time I write every time I dance it is so compelling let's take away all the earn the money and support yourself my latest review from somebody somebody.com that is the most deterministic compelling thing that you could possibly tell a kid can't be more thankful wow what a fucking slap a fucking wake in the face for a kid who might have gone in a wrong direction keep in mind i got sent to my first work-related environment when i was 13 my parents took me down to the police station in Pasadena and had him tell me, you fuck up again.

16:51You're going to a foster home. That's exactly what happened to me. Mom was very unforgiving. Now, your sisters have said that there was a bad Dave and a good Dave and the bad Dave came from Sybil Roth. That means assertive. Okay. It means compelling. It means determined. Okay. When you say a bad person, are you talking about ethics and moral? I think you can determine that I have a fair share of that. Absolutely. Today, what qualifies as bad? Is very different. Very different. Yeah. Okay. We're always compelled now more than ever, perhaps, to determine what is a good credit. Is it somebody who supports and enhances?

17:38Or is it somebody who prefers the boo instead of the yay? I like that boo instead of the yay. I know plenty of heavy metal bands that I can get on that plane at JFK and I can go boo very creatively all the way to LA. It's a five-hour trip. If it's yay, oh, wow, it's so great, really moving, great.

18:04Critique. Observe the flaw. Do you follow? Damn, yeah. Diane Arbus, the photographer, she says my whole career was based on the flaw. We all think we have it together, and I'm paraphrasing. But we all have a flaw somewhere in the program. Those pants are just a little high water short. That belt buckle, white with polyester. And that's what's observed, and that's what is photographed. And therein lies the statement, wabasabi. It's the flaw. It's when the beautiful old buildings around here start to fall apart and decay. There's a beauty in that. And if it's not in the thing itself, it's in the feeling of impermanence that you get.

18:48And it's quiet in there. That was David Lee Roth in 2019. Lucy Wainwright Roach is a singer-songwriter with a beguiling and beautiful voice. I talked to her about coming from a family comprised of musical royalty, but what I really hoped for was getting her to sing. I spoke to her in February of 2020, which was lucky because we were able to record in our booth literally days before the pandemic hit, and we all had to go on Zoom. Lucy, you've been described as a master of musical melancholy. Would you say that that is accurate? Well, I mean, that's a nice compliment because I really like sad music a lot.

19:39And I don't think I'll ever have the feeling towards my songs that I have towards songs that I love. Most of the songs I love are really sad. What are some of your favorites? Oh, man. Well, there's a song called Holy by Chris Perica that I love so much that's so sad. I just listened to it today. I can't listen to it without crying, and I really love it. Someone like Patti Griffin has a lot of really sad songs. You voted for her. What was that like for you? It was great. I'm a big fan, and I don't know her well, and I did a few shows with her last year. It was great. Her audience is great, and I got to watch her show every night, and she's so amazing and wonderful, so that was great.

20:24I also love songs that maybe don't sound that sad but strike me as sad, like the Paul Simon Crazy Love on the album Graceland. And it's almost upbeat, but it breaks my heart, that song. And I really love to take upbeat sounding songs and turn them into what someone coined sad snoozers. Oh, I like Master of Musical Melancholy better. I saw that. I wasn't even going to ask you about that. I don't think that there's a better example of you doing that than the song on your album that you released in 2013. The album is titled There's a Last Time for Everything, which features your really unusual and brilliant cover of the Swedish pop star Robyn's Call Your Girlfriend.

21:09The original is a club beat heavy pop dance anthem. And the entire video of her doing it is of her dancing in a gymnasium. It's such a great video. It's such a great video. But you perform it with a few chords on an acoustic guitar and a small choir. I was wondering if you would do that for us as well. But also tell us about why you decided to do that song. What is it about that song? When I was making that record, Jordan, the producer, and I took a drive to see Nico Case in Atlanta. We drove from Nashville to Atlanta, kind of in the middle of making the record. And we played that song, and we both loved that song.

21:52and about halfway through the song, we sort of both looked at each other and thought like, could we possibly? And we did. And I'm so glad we did. I love that song because it's so unusual. Like what she's saying, the way that she's saying it is not something that I'd heard quite that way before. I heard it described or I read it described as a reverse Jolene, the song by Dolly Parton, which I think, yeah, that's actually true. Yeah, totally. That's true. Yeah. I just love it. And then when we tried to do it slowed down, which is my mode that I want to take every song into, it kind of really worked.

22:29In fact, a lot of people think it's my song. And then when I tell them that it's a dance song, they're just totally shocked. Because I think when you hear it slowed down, it doesn't seem like it would be a dance song at all. In fact, the other day, somebody came up to me at the CD table and said, Oh, my God, the other day I was in a store and suddenly this dance remix version of your song, Call Your Girlfriend, came on the radio. And I was like, Oh, my God, she's gotten so big that they're remixing her songs, this dance song. And I was like, Not to worry, I haven't gotten so big as that. That's the original.

23:08Sort of like Tom's Diner. So I love that song and I'll definitely do it for you if you want. Yes, please.

23:39My reasons say it's not her fault But you just met somebody new Tell her not to get upset Second guessing everything you said and done And then when she gets upset Tell her I never meant to hurt no one And you tell her that the only way Her heart will mend Is when she learns to love again And it won't make sense right now But you're still a friend And then you let her down easy

24:45Call your girlfriend It's time you had the talk Give your reasons Say it's not her fault But you just met somebody new Don't you tell her how I give you Something that you never even knew You missed Don't you even try and explain How it's so different when we kiss And you tell her that the only way Her heart will mend Is when she learns to love again And it won't make sense right now But you're still a friend And then you let her down easy

26:03Call your girlfriend It's time you had the talk Give your reasons Say it's not her fault But you just met somebody new

26:34And now it's gonna be me and you And you tell her that the only way her heart will mend Is when she learns to love again And it won't make sense right now But you're still a friend And then you let her down easy

27:10Call your girlfriend It's time you have a talk Give your reasons Say it's not her fault But you just met somebody new

27:41Call your girlfriend It's time you had the talk

27:56That was Lucy Wainwright Roach singing Call Your Girlfriend. from 2020. The pandemic hit shortly after my interview with Lucy, and we had to start recording interviews via Zoom. Fortunately, musicians are used to recording themselves, and many of them, like Michael Stipe, were happy to do so and then send us the file. Michael Stipe was, of course, the lead singer of R.E.M., one of my favorite and personally formative bands of all time. Since the band retired, Michael has been engaged in all sorts of collaborations, including photography and writing projects and making books. You said that your greatest achievement has been deciding what you wanted to do at 15 and against all odds doing it.

28:49And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what gave you the sense back then that it could be done. delighted and interesting that you talk about kids today using a process of negation to try to figure out who they are and how kind of sad and upsetting that is my band or my former band we we used a process of negation quite regularly to to figure out what we did not want to be not only as public figures but as songwriters the way that we dressed ourselves the way we presented ourselves the way we talked to the press we knew all the embarrassing and fucked up tropes. So we used the process of negation to figure out how to not be those horrible idiot cliches.

29:34And I think we did a pretty good job of it over the course of 32 years. But going back to when I was 15, yeah, I mean, it was unbelievably naive of me to think that when I read these articles about the punk rock scene as a 15-year-old, I read them and what these people were saying over and over again were that we're not special. We're not particularly talented. We're normal people. Anybody can do this. Anybody can pick up a guitar. Anybody can grab a microphone and start to sing. I took it quite literal when they said anyone can do this. I was like, okay, that's me. That's what I'm going to do.

30:08It was an insane teenage dream that became an even more insane adult reality. Being the singer of a band, I became the singer because I didn't know how to play an instrument. I didn't know I had a voice when I was 18 years old or 15 years old or 19 when I started REM, I certainly didn't know I had this voice. I like my voice a lot. And I think I've become a very good singer with a very distinct voice, but I didn't know that at that age. I just knew that that's what I wanted to do. But then learning that you have to not only have the audacity to present yourself publicly, but also that you have to have something behind that.

30:48There's got to be at least a modicum of talent. I didn't know you had to write songs. So I didn't know what a bass guitar was until we started our second album. I couldn't identify the bass guitar sounds from the guitar sounds. I didn't know that the one with four strings made all the low notes and the one with six strings made all the high notes. I mean, that's how naive I was about music. And you can hear it in that early stuff. I mean, it's quite, and they're beautiful. I'm not disregarding those recordings at all. They are for some people quite magical. But I hear and I acknowledge a band and within myself, an artist learning how to not crawl publicly, learning how to be a toddler publicly, learning how to poop his diapers a few times.

31:30And then if we can carry this a little further, I finally take the training wheels off the bike and I'm actually a songwriter and a lyricist. And now I find my, I wrote a song last night, Debbie, I'm so excited. I took this crazy moment at a house party in London, maybe 15 years ago, with a bunch of friends dancing. And this thing that came out of my mouth to a great friend of mine on the dance floor, and I always remember this phrase. Well, it presented itself at 2 o 'clock this morning with a song written on a Moog synthesizer in 2018, pre-pandemic, that has been sitting around in the studio.

32:08And last night, they came together and created this. I'm going to go in tonight and see if there's anything to it. But I woke up really excited that this insane phrase from 15 years ago, London House Party, has found its way into a song written on a Moog in 2018. And in 2021, boom, here it is. So we'll see. Hopefully, it'll wind up on what is, I'm certain to be, a solo record that's going to be coming out probably within the next year, hopefully. You stated that it took you the better part of your 20s to recognize that insecurities are actually a superpower and something that you could utilize to allow your better work to come forward.

32:50And you also realized that you didn't have to be snippy and cynical. And you've said that, quote, cold ass bitch was a coat I put on to protect myself. And I realized I can take that coat off now, which I love. How did you come to that realization? How did you get to that point where you could throw off that coat? Yeah, wow. I mean, I can't believe that quote came out of my mouth, but it did. Anyone who knows the band from earlier days, I would come on stage wearing four or five layers of clothing and usually a hat and maybe some glasses. And as I got heated up during the performance, I would take them off.

33:26And by the end of the evening, by the end of the performance, I was down to a t-shirt or down to my jeans, no shirt at all. I always felt the need to protect myself and to layer myself from the world at large. I was born a very shy person. I'm not anymore because I had to learn how to not be. The part of that, Debbie, that I find interesting is that I was really moving on instinct. And instinct was telling me that the things that are embedded into me and a part of who I am, the very part of my DNA that allows that insecurity, allows that vulnerability, Part of it being queer, part of it being bullied, if you will, as a child, part of it being from a family that had this nomadic, peripatetic, crazy pick-up-and-move-every-couple-of-years lifestyle, and having to really be fiercely independent or independent within a very tight family unit of two sisters and a mother and father.

34:24All of this created, I guess, an instinct that allowed me to, without acknowledging it and without having the language to describe it to myself, allowed me to use that insecurity and that vulnerability to create the persona that became who I am. And that gets into a whole other philosophical or deeply psychological, I guess, arena that we don't need to go into. We become who we want to become, and then we create who we want to become, and then we become them. But I didn't have the language to recognize that until much, much later. When I did, I had established myself enough that it didn't knock me backwards or throw me off my game.

35:08It simply allowed me to look at the earlier work and not disregard it so easily and to acknowledge, wow, I did do stuff that was incredibly ballsy and incredibly courageous. I just didn't see it as such. And I still don't think of myself. I still have, what is it, imposter syndrome. I always think that the next song or the next photo book is going to be the one where everyone realizes that I'm a big fake. And that in its own regard can be a great power, a superpower. I'm a little bit quoting Greta Thunberg, who referred to when she became a public figure through her activism and then was being mocked by the world's media.

35:52How embarrassing are we as Americans? But being mocked for her voice, acknowledged publicly that her being on the spectrum or being autistic was what she regarded as a superpower. And I was like, whoa, hang on a second. Here's a teenage girl telling me that this thing that we've thought of my whole life as something that's a disability, she regards as a superpower. I have those superpowers within my vulnerability and my insecurities. And I've actually employed those throughout my entire adult life. And with the work that I've presented as a public figure, as a pop star, as a singer-songwriter, as an artist, as a photographer, etc.

36:29etc. And wow, thank you, Greta Thunberg, for allowing me to see myself a little more clearly. I'm sometimes embarrassed that it feels like I start every sentence with the word I. I feel a little navel-gazy, but part of being a pop star allows you to not only acknowledge that the ego that it takes to get up on a stage and think that what you have to say or sing or present is valuable to someone beyond yourself also comes hand in hand with the humility of stepping back and recognizing that if you start to believe you're a myth, you're screwed. And the work that you do is vastly unimportant. You are really, really human.

37:13And that humanity, I think I'm just, this sounds insane to me coming out of my mouth, but that humanity, that humility combined with that ego is what I think that friction can create beautiful work, whether it's in a writer, in people that performance artists and dancers, or in something as rigid as opera or ballet, or in something as freeform as my idea theoretically of what punk rock means. That was Michael Stipe from 2022. Michael Stipe co-created R.E.M. in Athens, Georgia, And in 2023, I interviewed two more musicians from the Athens music scene, none other than Indigo Girls' Amy Ray and Emily Saliers.

37:59Amy, I read that when you first started singing together, you thought your head was going to explode and realized that Emily was your musical soulmate. Yeah, I think I did write that. Debbie, you love that note of your life smiling so big. Like I just, when I read, and that you were inconsolable. I read that as well, that you were inconsolable. I was like, this is it for me. You know, I found my path. I don't think Emily felt the same way, but that's the way it is. I mean, and I was a year younger too. So I was very like in awe of the older person. And Emily disputes this, but she was very popular in high school.

38:39And maybe I have a romanticized vision, but she disputes that. But there was a certain magnetism already. And so I was like, whoa. And the sound of harmony and someone that could just sing harmony to anything. It was a whole new thing for me because I'd been in church choir and chorus. And, you know, my sister's all and my dad sings and everything. But I hadn't experienced the effect of singing with someone in harmony, like next to you, that's just a single person. It's a very different sound than a choir, you know, because in the choir, It's like you could open your mouth and nothing comes out and you still can't, the choir can't tell, you know, basically.

39:21When it's just you two, it's like this, you know, overtones are created and crazy things that feel so magical. So I think for me, I was like, wow, this is it. This is what I want to do. This is the person I'm going to sing with. And I want to do it all the time. And I didn't care about making money. I just, I was like, I just want to do this. It wasn't about like fame or I wasn't thinking about the way you think now because things are so accessible with YouTube and like people that become sort of instantly famous. And at the time, we didn't have any of that. So I was just all I could think about was every day I want to do this.

40:00Like that was the important thing, right? Which I think is good, you know, because look at where we are. I think it's good to have that perspective of something that you just love. That was my response. You're accurate. I don't know where you get your info, but it's good. Emily, was it the same for you? I kind of got the sense as I was researching your histories together and separately that it wasn't quite the same epiphany. It's okay. No, not the way Amy describes it for her. But what it was was the most fun thing I was doing. And we became really good friends in high school. I mean, we used to quote lyrics to each other.

40:39We loved The Last Time I Saw Richard by Joni Mitchell. And remember, Amy, we used to get so heavy into lyrics. Yeah, sign them in our yearbooks. Sign them in our yearbooks. And so we were like best friends at that point in high school, very soul connected. But just playing those songs together was fun. Like we both picked songs that we liked to do. And then we were really encouraged by our AP English teacher, Mr. Lloyd, Ellis Lloyd. And so he set us up with like, well, why don't you learn some songs and you can play for the class. And so, but I have never in my life sort of, Amy's so, she's so in touch, like with what's going on.

41:17And she has a vision for things. And she always knew what to play next and kind of what to do. And I mean, I'm not trying to be self-deprecating, but I'm a little bit head in the clouds just trying to figure out what's going on around me. And so for me, it was just like, wow, this is really, really fun. And Amy really propelled us in terms of the next steps to take. But I also, I wanted to be an English teacher. I know. I want to talk about that. And then I was like, when I was 11, I was taking classical guitar and my, I was just into a different kind of music really until I became more co-rooted in the music that Amy was turning me on to, you know?

41:57And then when we start, like, instead of learning a song by the Beatles or Carole King or James Taylor, we would learn a song by Everything But The Girl or maybe Lloyd Cole or something like that, you know? and she just opened my world. But I was never a visionary with what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, except this, you know, distant thing of being an English teacher. And then we went to different colleges at first. So it was like, okay, well, whatever happens, happens. You, after graduation from high school, Emily enrolled at Tulane University, you were an English major intending to go on to grad school and become a teacher.

42:31And Amy, you moved to Nashville a year later also to study English. I'm also an English major. I joke that I have, we have degrees in reading. But you studied English and religion at Vanderbilt University. Neither were particularly good experiences for you, and you decided to come back independently without realizing it, you both applied to, got into, and then decided to go to Emory. What was happening that year that you both didn't enjoy where you were? You know, Emily was a freshman at Tulane and I was a senior in high school. So I just remember going to see Emily and playing some together on Bourbon Street and seemed like a pretty amazing environment.

43:15So I was psyched to go to college and my sister had gone to Vanderbilt in Nashville, too. And she had worked at this cool record store. And I was really, you know, looked up to my sister. And when she was at Vandy, she, you know, she lived in the philosophy dorm and everybody played Dungeons and Dragons and listen to cool music. And I was like, that's where I want to go to school. But I got up there and I got a job at that record store. It was called The Great Escape, you know, walking in my sister's footprints. And it had just shifted so quickly to this, from the school that would have Black Flag come play a concert to like, everything's all about sororities and fraternities and, and toned and like polite society and very kind of racist.

43:56And And it was like the Reagan era was starting. And I just was like, you could either be like a completely like stoned out person and not be involved at all. Or you had to be like completely engaged and all that stuff. And I just, I'm in between all that, you know. I'm like a very engaged person. I love student government. I love being an organizer. And I love all that stuff. But it was so heavy handed in the sort of the elite society kind of moneyed way that there was a big division between, you know, the international students and the other students and the rich students and the poor students and sororities and non sororities.

44:35So I just I had a girlfriend. I had fallen in love my senior year in high school. She was at UGA. We were constantly having trouble. She didn't really want to be gay. I was like thoroughly gay. And I was, but I was very self, I hated myself. I was so self-loathing and I was so depressed and just like, I mean, I hated myself. I wanted to be anyone but who I was. But I'm also constantly tempted by all these fun things like working at the record store and playing music and playing racquetball. And so it was like a weird combination of things. And my head was spinning and I just couldn't, I couldn't make it work, you know?

45:13And I was like, I just got to leave this place because there's too many. I mean, my favorite things were like, honestly, my religion classes were amazing. My English classes were amazing. I had a therapist that I discovered who helped me out of a really dark time. And I loved, loved, loved working at that record store so much. All that stuff was not enough to keep me even keeled. And I just, I was like, I got to go home to Atlanta and just be around my family, be in a scene where at least I feel like somewhat tethered to something, you know, to save me. So I did it, you know, and that, yeah, and Emily was, I'm not sure what her battle was, but then I found she was coming back to Emory too.

45:54And I was like, yes, we can continue doing our music. So it was a good thing in that way. What was the source of your depression at the time? I know that with your parents being so super conservative, you've written about, and I'm only going to use this word because this is the word that I read and found in my research, that you said that your parents were destroyed by having three gay kids in one family. You had come out, your two sisters were also gay. And yeah, it's I mean, I hate it. It's so hard now because my dad's passed away. My mom is so amazing. And they were both even before my dad died eight years ago.

46:34He was just he had come around to the place where you couldn't love gay people any more than they do. So it's amazing what happened. But they were destroyed in this way where we were so close and raised to be very community-minded and generous, and there were so many good values instilled in us. yet this one thing was so in opposition to their faith and everything they believed in, and they just couldn't picture it. And their friends rejected them in the church. It was a long, a very long road for them to get by. So, I mean, I felt like not only do I mean they were destroyed and like not happy for us, they were scared for what would happen to us.

47:20They were scared that they had done something wrong when they raised us because they were taught that this, what we are, was a perversion. So there was so much fear that it became anger. They were always a little bit left of the middle in other ways, you know, pro-choice. And my dad was like a feminist and all that stuff. This is like the one thing that just, so it just was a life shift for them that they couldn't picture, right? And then they saw us as being damaged and they were afraid that they were the ones that did it. And I think they had to come around to realize that it's not damage. You know, it's just another existence that's beautiful as everything else.

48:00But that kind of society thing. And when you are and then when you have self-loathing yourself, it's it's a recipe for a lot of terrible times and and ways that just reiterate how you already feel. Yeah. Now it's It's hard to talk about now because they're so great now, you know, that it's like I don't want them to ever feel bad about what we went through because they worked so hard to come out on the other side of it, you know. So it's one of those things that's it's a necessary conversation, but it's like, wow, you know, you can make it through this. I mean, I'm lucky like that they did really for me, you know.

48:41Amy Rae and Emily Salyers from an interview in 2023. You can hear my full interviews and hundreds of other interviews with some of the world's most creative people on our website, designmattersmedia.com or wherever you love your podcasts. We'll be back next week with another special episode culled from the many years I've been podcasting Design Matters. Yes, this is the 20th year we've been making this show, and I'd really like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I'm Debbie Millman, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

49:26Design Matters is produced by the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. the first and longest running branding program in the world. The editor-in-chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.