Kesha

0:00Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place. The show that gives voice to the parts of ourselves we're not always proud of, but that we need to embrace with kindness. Today, I'm meeting Kesha. Just someone that like validates. It's like, you're not crazy. I hear you. I see you keep going. And no, we're not putting autotune on your voice. You don't need it. Like I can't even tell you how many times I would beg for autotune. He was like, you don't need it. And then the engineer would be like, you don't need it. And that kind of blew my mind. It was about the same time I was like, huh, maybe I don't have to like wear wigs.

0:40Maybe I could just have my hair. Like it was an unraveling of all of these illusions and it was really cool. As the artist behind the iconic pop track TikTok, Kesha's aware that she's been known for being a brilliant burst of high energy for her fans. But more recently, she's been compelled to expose different sides of herself, including the ugly emotions and behaviours as she calls them. Her new album, Gag Order, sees her getting incredibly intimate with herself at a time when she's had a lot of outside noise to contend with, including a very public litigation. One of the really interesting threads in this conversation is whether art is art if no one sees or hears it.

1:28That concept brought up so much soul searching stuff about our almost obsessive relationship with feedback and external validation when really we need to get back to trusting our own gut. We also shared some painful experiences of eating disorders and panic attacks. And I was so grateful to Kesha for being so incredibly honest. I really, really hope you feel as connected with the real Kesha as I did during this chat, because I know it's all going to stay with me for quite some time. OK, here it is, this very beautiful and raw show.

2:29Hi Kesha. Hi, how are you? I'm good. You are jet-lagged but you're here. I'm here. I am jet-lagged as fuck. I can't even play like I'm not. It's the worst feeling. you know when you're so jet lagged you just start to feel like you're like floating around yes i know that feeling that's where i'm at yeah there's something quite nice about that because you're just sort of less bothered about things you just have to go with it yeah you can't fight it no so and it's been a flying visit because you've been here for a few days and you're back to the states in tomorrow yeah tomorrow yeah back to the states event back home event uh two days ago shot a music video it's been like bang on it's all going yeah it's so exciting but like after taking a couple years of not doing it I forgot how mental it is it's brutal it's mental having been in this industry as a person on this side of it for many years seeing how hard musicians work in terms of just there aren't days off and it is just travel and long long days it's full on well and I'm not even it's not me complaining I just didn't realize most people know what day of the week it is that was like I thought people were joking when they said they'd be like just call me Thursday and I'm like that's so funny but people like know what day of the week it is normally and the first time I ever experienced that was during lockdown so like what day of the week is it right now it's Tuesday.

4:03Yeah, it's Friday. I was going to say Tuesday. You're so wrong. You couldn't be more wrong. A Tuesday and a Friday, opposite end of the week. It's definitely Friday. But I get it. And it's also worth it because you've got a really big year, a really important year. You've got your album out very, very shortly, Gag Order, which I've been lucky enough to have a sneaky listen to. Did you hear the whole thing? Yes. Every damn word. Oh, my God. And I was goosebumped listening to the lyrics. I want to break some of the lyrics down in a minute. But obviously it's a punchy title. Obviously there are things that you haven't been able to say that you can't say.

4:36But this album says a lot. Did you get the feeling working on this album that speaking aloud or singing your truth and what you need to say sets you free? Do you think that's true? Absolutely. And I'm in a position where I have an ongoing litigation. so I'm highly aware that every word I ever say is highly scrutinized. And also just as the person that put out the song TikTok, I'm also aware that I'm usually seen as the party girl, fun, happy, dance. So this album represents a lot because Gag Order, the title of it, is just I'm talking about things and saying things that I never really thought I had any business talking about or saying.

5:31And I realised once I put words to all the emotions that were hiding in the corners of my mind, I do feel so much more free. And why, we'll say that block, why did you feel you maybe weren't in a position to say certain things within your music or there were areas that you would leave to other people? Well, I'm very grateful. I'm grateful to be a touring, working musician. Like I get to make music and that's my job. That's insane. I'm so grateful and I'm so lucky. But I also feel it was this self-imposed painting myself into a corner as to the kind of artist I was to other people. and in that catering to other people I kind of was doing a disservice to myself and also to my fans because I wasn't allowing them to get to know me really all the way until this album I feel like now people have a complete look you can go through all my discography and now you can have a really complete look at who I am as a person and before I'd kept a lot of these, you know, I talk about being insecure and embarrassed and angry and I just kind of thought that was not for me to talk about.

6:57Well, it's a scary thing to talk about. No one wants to talk about feeling insecure, embarrassed. We all have these emotions. We all feel a whole range of emotions, but we find it so much easier to talk about the good stuff, the happy stuff, the things that we're proud of. But you've said in interviews that I've read recently and you wrote that beautiful nylon article that, you know, prior to this, you'd pushed down, suppressed any ugly emotions. Yeah. And this has been a real release of them. But looking at that sort of suppression, did you feel scared to feel those emotions to talk about them?

7:28Did you just feel used to numbing them? You said that you kind of would dance them away, sing them away, shop them away, drink them away. Was it a fear or was it just got kind of in a habit of suppressing them? It was just a habit because, you know, I was so young when TikTok came out and people seemed to really like that song. So that indicated to me that that's what I was useful in is that arena, making people happy, making people dance. And I do love that. So that's where the confusion kind of came in is that I like seeing people happy. I like making people happy. But then there is a fine line between making people happy and then being like a people pleaser at the expense of yourself and becoming a caricature of who you are.

8:23And I just kind of had to take a step back and like reevaluate the kind of album I was going to make. And there were all these voices in my head that were like screaming inside of my head. And they were unavoidable during lockdown. You know, usually I'm so busy that I can just be like, oh, I'll get to you later. but in the silence I really felt like it was time to address and give voice to you know especially rage I grew up thinking women like we can be all of the things but the one thing I really cannot be there's nothing more unattractive than an angry woman and that was just this feeling I've had since I was very young.

9:16I don't know who said it or if I just like internalize that from culture or if it's purely just in my head but I always kind of thought you can be anything any kind of woman but not angry and I have addressed my anger on this album so I'm like wildly curious what people are going to think about that. Mm hmm. Anger's really brilliant because actually you can turn it into this fire. Yeah. And this passion. And I've probably come to a similar realisation. I don't know, in the last few years and have been wanting to release it. I don't want it in me. And I think that's what ends up happening when we have those.

9:57And they're very widely spread cultural beliefs that, you know, women should act a certain way and not show any anger. it ends up living in our bodies which is so so unhealthy for a star i've been doing these workouts where you make like wild animalistic noises and my neighbors think i'm being like murdered but i am wildly letting it out and at first i found it really excruciating to hear my own roar i was like oh it's horrible like mortifying and now i'm like goosebumped hearing it and making those sounds but we're taught to keep it in yeah i feel like don't you find that freeing it's the best it's the best because i think when you keep it in your body it does it manifests did you i mean i i probably had all the cliche things of just like tension but did you have any physical manifestations of keeping stuff in oh my god you're kidding like a few So many.

10:58The whole like there's the masculine and feminine side of the body and like my whole feminine from the bottom of my foot to the jaw, like all the way is just so tight because I felt like just so protective from like and then the masculine side would step in, which, you know, for me correlates with work. and that side's fine but it was more like the masculine in me was protecting the feminine in me versus allowing both to show and be balanced which is something I work on I do like acupuncture and that was actually where the anger thing came from as I was getting acupuncture and the doctor was like you have so much anger you need to go on a mountain and yell and so then when I was recording with Rick Rubin, I looked around and I was like, huh, I'm on a mountain.

11:56And so then I was like, get the microphone out. Let me yell. Yes. Oh, it's so good. Even just to make sound freely and not feel bad about it. Like knowing it's safe to make any sound you want and not care about that. I know that was a huge part of the process for you working with Rick was that he allowed you to be you and use your voice as it comes out naturally. And that's something that you were previously worried about getting used to using auto-tune and him encouraging hearing the scratches the imperfections and the real rawness to your voice how was that just that must have been quite an exposing process initially very uncomfortable it's kind of similar to like I used to wear so much makeup and again it was really fun but now just like I'm not wearing wigs I'm not wearing a ton of makeup, like just really showing who I am, presenting who I really, really am.

12:53It's so much scarier, but it's also very liberating. And I'm finding real power in it. So when you're working on this album and you're addressing all these emotions, things that you've suppressed, I've read that you've called them ugly emotions, things that you were worried about showing and expressing, which emotion was the hardest to tap into and to articulate? God, the whole thing was like, I went in with 70 songs and Rick kind of helped me handpick which ones we were going to put on the album and he like picked all the most difficult ones. Thanks, Rick. But I don't think he even knew that, But just each song was its own little journey through like, it felt like almost like a journey through the stages of grief.

13:46And this album really is an album. Like I know in today's culture, most people don't listen to full albums. Like myself, I'm guilty of it. Like I listen to a song on Spotify and then, you know, sometimes I'll listen to a full album, but we don't always sit and listen to the music like how one reads a book. but I'm really hoping people listen to this like reading a book because each song is like a little chapter. Each song is a little stage of grief and me overcoming it and kind of full circle coming to a place of love, self-love and hope. But I don't know which song was the hardest. The whole damn thing was hard.

14:25It was really hard. Where was your self-love at before this album? I think it comes in waves like anything else. some days it's I'm like the fucking queen and then there are some days I look at the mirror and I'm like oh yikes I hear you I know those days intimately yeah we all have it we all have it but addressing it in this album that must have been extremely cathartic to because I think we all like you said a moment ago go I'll deal with that later I'll I'll worry about that self-loathing or the rage or whatever it is down the line. I don't have the time. I don't have the inclination. And I'm sure the strange time out that we've all had, but certainly as a touring musician, having that static time allowed you to explore that because before the pandemic, you had your album High Road, which you planned a tour, planned travel.

15:22That got cut short. Don't get to do that. And you've got this body of work and you questioned during that time, is it art if no one hears it? What are your thoughts on that now? Do you still see it as art, even though it didn't end up going through that full cycle that an album would normally? I mean, it's also subjective, but I kind of realised in the past couple of years, for me, I make art because I have no other choice. The song is a prayer. and it really should be between me and the song and me and God. So I do. I do think it's art. You know, bad art is still art. Art no one sees is still art because I think it's art.

16:17If it comes out of you and you say it's art, then it's art. I absolutely agree. But we're so culturally obsessed with feedback. Oh, my God. You know, that's accelerated even more in the last 10 years. I think it was probably about 20 years ago. Before that, maybe not so much. People like David Bowie were creating because, again, they had to and they needed to and they wanted people to feel something. But it didn't matter about the reaction. We are obsessed with, like, controlling the narrative of what that reaction is going to be. And it's been normalized, which is the terrifying thing. So now we've started to feel a discomfort if things aren't received.

16:56perfectly which is impossible it's an impossibility to have all of your like this podcast or your albums or whatever art that you're creating for it to be received in one way it's impossible but I think that feedback loop has become something that's so normalized but that we don't really know what to do without it now I agree and like even just looking at how many people like something or how many people listen to something or how many people watch something, it shouldn't matter. It really shouldn't. Because I always think, like, if one line in one of my songs helps one other person, then I've done something right.

17:38So why do I need it to hit, like, X amount of thousands of people? Like, it really doesn't matter. but I also am a human with an ego and it feels good when a lot of people watch it. Yeah. And a lot of people like it but that's all ego. But it's seeping into all areas of, you know, whoever's got a phone basically is affected by this. It's not just people in the public eye. It's now everybody is trying to, I guess, quantify their self-worth. Yeah. Like there's a number that relates to my self-worth and we've got to eradicate that somehow. Well, because no number is going to be the right number. Nope.

18:15There's always a bigger number. There's always, how do I say this? I'm in recovery from an eating disorder. And if I don't anymore in my recovery, but it's like getting on a scale, there's never the right number. Like the house is never going to be big enough. Then you just want a nicer car. Like to me, that's seeking more external validation instead of going inward and making peace with yourself. And I think that we all are guilty. I'm so guilty of it, but it feels good. But it doesn't necessarily bring happiness. It doesn't. As someone who, like, my first song was, like, a massive song, the amount of plays it has, of course, grateful for it.

19:06God, fuck yeah. But does it fix you? No. I don't know if that sounds so cunty to say. Not at all. It's the truth. I don't think people like to hear it because we like to either assume our happiness is in the future when we have done the thing that we think is going to fix us. Or I think we find it very easy to look to other people who are seemingly successful. And I use that term probably not authentically in what just society believes is success. We look at people in that way and think, oh, well, it's all right for them. They've got everything. They're flying. and we are trying to validate our own pain by attaching it to things.

19:46But like you've just said, it doesn't equate. I think it's really helpful to have someone like yourself say, I've had a huge global hit, traveled the world, seen everything, but it doesn't fix the inside bit. I don't think it sounds cunty. I think it sounds absolutely honest and we should take heed of it. Well, just because we all go on social media and of course I post the pictures after I've done like three hours of glam and look fucking fabulous and I don't post the ones where I like kind of look like shit so like I'm guilty of it too we all want to put our our best face forward I think and I think that's natural but that's like kind of why I thought it was important to make the album I just made is because there are parts that are not totally sang great, but we kept them in because they were real.

20:41There are emotions I'm talking about that are embarrassing, but I kept it in because it's real. And I don't know right now, I just feel really drawn to show myself in a really, really real, vulnerable way. And the irony is I truly don't give a fuck what kind of shit people are about to talk because you always get people talking shit. It's like unavoidable. And because I did something that scared me so much, but I think was like the right thing for me to do. Nobody can touch that. So that feels real. the fact that I'm excited about I'm like I'm excited for you to go through that process that is like goose bumpy just not caring like don't care don't care what you say I've made art and that's what it is and I know I don't think I've ever said this before in my life but I know it's fucking great and like I don't know that is enough for me and also more people need to say that out loud when they're proud about something like I think what I've created is brilliant.

21:54We have such an aversion to admitting that. We're like, oh no, not me. I didn't, it's okay, you know. When inside, we actually feel really proud. I think it's a really, again, like, brilliant, culture-busting thing to say, I'm really happy with what I've done there and I think it's brilliant, thanks very much. Yes. Yes. I'm not trying to be a douchebag, I just, when you work really hard at something and you are proud of it, I do feel like you should be allowed to be proud of it. You absolutely should, regardless of what anyone else says. And I think, again, it goes back to our obsession with feedback and assuming that lots of people's opinions mean something, but their thoughts in people's heads that are now weirdly on a screen but 30 years ago would have remained in a head.

22:38They wouldn't have left that head. And they would have been completely irrelevant to you in your life. I used to do TV back in the 90s when I was a kid, and I would do a show, and if I thought it was good, I'd go, that was a good show, and I'd go home. Now if you do a show, you have to go, was it good? Let me just consult Instagram to see if I was good rather than using your intuition to think if something's good or not. Or like trusting yourself. Trusting yourself. It seems like that's not necessarily the prerogative of social media is to learn to trust yourself as we're talking about it. It's more like learning to trust the opinion, the mass opinion of what other people think.

23:23I don't suppose you could have made an album like this if you didn't trust yourself at this point in life because it's a vulnerable place to step into talking about these subjects and talking about your life in such a way. I don't think you could do that unless you were completely trusting and it's probably more of a gut feeling than like a list of pros and cons. It's a feeling that you've got to say these words. And I guess also extremely important that you work with someone that understands that. And working with Rick Rubin, who not only is obviously just renowned and respected and brilliant, but seemingly from what I've read about the process, someone that really got that and got you and was curious about you and who you were as a person.

24:11Yeah, it was like a very beautiful experience. I'm very, very, very lucky that he wanted to like dive in and work on this with me. Like it makes me emotional. I bet. Yeah, because it was just like so cool to have. Oh, my God. Get it together. It was just so cool to have somebody not only encourage you to be yourself, but through the process, I think he allowed me to love parts of myself that were imperfect. Yeah. Keep in mind, I'm sleep deprived. But like it was just amazing to have that. yeah well it's like therapy if you have a therapist say what you're telling me about these feelings your life is okay that's a huge a huge thing to happen and I think bringing music to the equation with that where you're you're creating something with the the darkness that you feel the heaviness whatever it might be that's an amazing thing that he a gift that he gave you it was and just someone that like validates and it's like you're not crazy i hear you i see you keep going and no we're not putting autotune on your voice you don't need it like i can't even tell you how many times we had to like i would beg for autotune he was like you don't need it and then the engineer would be like you don't need it and it was like that kind of blew my mind.

25:49It was about the same time I was like, huh, maybe I don't have to like wear wigs. Maybe I could just have my hair. Like it was an unraveling of all of these illusions. And it was really cool. Yeah, that's liberating. It's been like a very beautiful process. And I hope that that liberation is felt when you listen to the album. And I'm really curious, not how many people liked the album because again like that's not the point with this one but I'm curious if people connect and feel liberated after listening. I want to talk about something that happened prior to the writing of this album and something that actually probably was a bit of a catalyst certainly with one of the songs Eat Acid and this This was during lockdown.

26:39You, like many people, were finding it very confusing and discombobulating. And you're experiencing panic and anxiety, insomnia, all things that I'm intimately friendly with. And you had what you've described one night in the middle of the night, 3.30 in the morning, a spiritual awakening. Tell me what happened. What was the experience, if you can even articulate it? I can try and like I I tell this story also like I'm very aware that it sounds insane but let me take you through it so I was having a ton of anxiety just like probably a lot of other people not knowing what the fuck was going on collective trauma um not being near my family uh being in a relationship that just was not the right one sitting in bed like like you said not being able to sleep and i usually only pray when i'm desperate it's like the last resort like just in case this works i'm going to say a little prayer um and then i felt this like warm cozy golden blanket of light kind of fall over my body because previous to that when you have anxiety if anyone has anxiety right be familiar with the feeling but you kind of feel like you're internally buzzing and like just not balanced but also oscillating so quickly so this like calm came over me and all of a sudden I felt like as if I was being held and it was a really weird feeling to feel like like a baby or something in the arms of something or someone and and then I I just like let the tension go in my body and allowed myself to not be in control for the first time like maybe fucking ever and it just felt like this massive weight I've been lifted off of my chest and I this is the part that I know sounds like extra crazy but I this is true my cat put my headphones in his mouth and he like walks onto the bed and drops them on my lap which he's it's not like a thing he does it's the only time he's ever done it he's He's not a cat.

29:23He's not a dog. No, but he's a genius. Wow. I've got a genius account. You do? He's called Simon. Mine's Mr. Peeps. My little soulmate. But anyway, Hilo's like, they read the room. They know what is going on. They, like, get this otherworldly shit that we don't. So he drops my headphones. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to put the headphones in. And usually I put on a meditation. So I, like, open up my meditation, put the headphones in. and I listened to the same meditation a lot and all of a sudden totally different voices coming out of the same meditation I listened to saying just totally different stuff and proceeded to have like a full-blown conversation about like everything and there were like jokes being made.

30:12It was the weirdest fucking thing in the world and I know it sounds nutty. It sounds amazing is what it sounds. Well, I like, it scared the shit out of me, to be honest. And then I started seeing like visuals, which I've never taken acid, to be clear. The song is called Eat the Acid, but I've never taken it. And I kind of just saw how we're all connected and love was running through everything. And so the next day I woke up and wrote Eat the Acid and that was the catalyst for the whole album. It's so wild and so brilliant. It is so wild. I love it. I live for this shit. I love it. I absolutely love it.

30:52So you wake up the next day. You've got the feeling that you need to create. You've got this song that's forming. How do you then carry on with the rest of your life? Has it changed you? Oh, totally. A million percent. A million percent different person. Wow. Yeah. And, like, in a way that's, I have, like, nostalgia for who I once was. I have love for her. But I think sometimes people, I hear a lot like, we want the old Kesha back. And it's like, y 'all, she's fucking dead. I don't know what to tell you. The new one's pretty cool, though. But like, she, if you need her, the albums are there. They will always be there.

31:39But I'm on a whole different trip, man. I kind of love it, too. It keeps life exciting, right? Well, I really love it. And everyone changes. Everyone grows. And I think sometimes when you're in the public eye, there is an expectation that you have to be the person you arrived as. Yeah. And that you can't change. Like, well, what's going on here? Who's this person? Everyone's changing every day through experience and learnings and, you know, challenges, whatever it might be. So I think it's brilliant that you're just you're charging forward with these new ideas, new thoughts, new feelings. It's brilliant.

32:12Well, like what? I don't even know. I have no idea how I could ignore an experience like that. You know, and just be like, I'm going to write a song about going to the club. Like, that would be so disingenuine. Like, that's not art when you're just making something to, like, placate God only. I don't even know who. That's not art. The algorithms. Yeah, that's not art. And like, if I'm truly an artist, then I feel like it's my civic duty to make art. And that's like, you have to follow the callings. And the video for that specific song as well, it's so impactful to watch that video. It's really stressful to watch, but I couldn't take my eyes off it.

33:01It's a real close up of your face. and then you've just got hands grabbing at you, fingers in mouth, up nose, sort of pulling at your skin. And it's really like a claustrophobic but enticing thing to watch. What was the feeling you were trying to get across? Or was there a specific experience that you were trying to portray with that video? I think I wanted, I definitely set out to make the visuals as uncomfortable as the experience. because sometimes when you hear a term like spiritual awakening or something it sounds like kind of lovely but for me it was like very stressful and it was really uncomfortable I really wanted to make a visual that would be uncomfortable for people to watch uh just because I you know I want you to get the full experience when you listen to the song and watch the visual I want you to like be in my head for a minute.

34:00So sorry if it's uncomfortable, but it was intended to be that way. Yeah, it's all. You've got to feel something when you watch out. And so what was the discomfort? Is it knowing that you have to change everything in your life and saying goodbye to things? Yeah, there's a grief when you change. Like there is like a sadness when you start to be more aware of things that you're like, Like, fuck, I used to be so, like, young and naive and happy and clueless about so many things. And that was so nice. And that is gone now. But, like, do you feel like that with your, like, the span of your career where you were nervous to change and evolve and grow?

34:42Yes. Well, also, because I started out in kids TV when I was a child, now as a grown-ass woman, people sometimes still assume that I'm childlike in some way. I'm 41. I'm a fucking grown-ass adult. But I think that certainly, but it really resonates you talking about how you can look back and go, God, things were easy where I was clueless and I didn't care as much about the things that I should and I could fall back on wild behaviour, whatever it was. Whereas now, when you know so much or you know so much more, you have to be accountable. you have to make the right choice because you know where the bad choice is going to lead you and it will be the same place that you've always ended up it's it takes much more effort so I think it is it's a harder choice but a better one yeah and it's kind of like once you know better like you know better you gotta do better I know but like there are times where I'm like I wish I could just not know for just like an hour let me just make some bad decisions for like one hour but there's no going back.

35:48There's no going back. That's what ethyacid is about. Yeah. That there's no going back. Not only if you take psychedelics, that's like the surface level, the lyrics, but underneath that, it's just there's no going back in general. Once you grow, there's something you lose. And once you see things, you can't unsee them just in the world too. Yeah. There's other lyrics I want to specifically pinpoint. so when I was listening to Fine Line I had the biggest grin on my face first of all it was like I was trying to work out why I was grinning the whole way through not only is it a great song to listen to but I was feeling something part of it was this like absolute happiness for you I don't even know you that well I'm just like I feel so happy for you and sort of just knowing that you were liberated and that you just didn't care in the best possible way not in a nihilistic way in a way where you're like I don't care and I felt happy because I was like I feel all of I feel all of this I totally get it really yes and to break down some of the lyrics you're discussing the fine line between things such as hope and delusion genius and craziness being broken and breaking surviving and living and I wonder how much you care or worry about crossing that line now into the parts that are seemingly less acceptable on a societal level.

37:15That's interesting of course like I want to be functional but I think sometimes like you walk a fine line with some of these things like surviving and living there definitely are moments where I feel like I just got to get through the next, you know, 24 hours. And then you wake up the next day and you have really beautiful experiences. And then you're like, this is what living is. So it's not even that I'm living on one or the other side of this fine line. I think it's just knowing that everything is a tiny, like it's microscopic, the space between stepping over the line. And actually that song started because someone was telling me about like a romance.

38:02Someone was super in love with somebody else. And he was like, should I make a grand romantic gesture like flowers, tons of them go to the house middle of the night, the boombox, like do the whole super romantic thing. And I remember thinking like, there's really, really, really fine line between romantic and restraining order. So like everything, it's all dependent on someone else's perspective. Yeah. And that's really the commentary I'm making on fine line is, I can't really worry about your perspective. Like if you think I'm a genius or you think I'm crazy, maybe I'm a little bit of both. Yeah.

38:44Yeah. It's great. It's a thin veneer between all of it. And who's to say where the line is? It's all so subjective. It's a bloody good song. Thank you. Within that song, you also say that there's a fine line between being famous and forgotten. And I wonder how you feel about fame this far down the line. Well, it's weird because with being famous, it's like such a weird term, you know, because I don't know. It's just such a, I don't think of myself as that. But technically speaking, I don't really think of myself as a famous person. But then someone else will ask for like a picture with me and then I'll be like, but I don't know.

39:29Like sometimes I just don't really know if I'm famous or not. and I think that's where that line came from is like who's to say if I am but also now we all have these Instagrams and like TikTok so like who's to say who's famous yeah I know we almost need like a new word for it because if you look at like the 50s there were probably 20 famous people and everyone knew them and it was like Elizabeth Taylor like all these real sort of superstars and And now, like you say, there's people that are famous who have come through Instagram or TikTok or YouTube. And it's this there's millions of famous people.

40:11It's such a different like feeling to the word now. It's bizarre. Well, who's to say like how many followers equals fame? Is a checkmark mean fame? Don't you now have to purchase those checkmarks? Like the whole thing just sends me down like a mind trip. Yeah. But as someone that doesn't like necessarily identify as being a famous person, like occasionally I do, but like generally speaking, not. It's just like it's like a weird fine line. Like yesterday I felt famous, but not the day before that. It's crazy. It's brilliant. I played an art show yesterday. So I was like, oh, I'm quite famous today.

40:54Famous in this room for the next 30 minutes. It's such a weird thing. intermittent fame I like it it's really good and how have you found let's say let's use the term being in the public eye coming out of recovery from having an eating disorder I have done exactly the same as you and I have found it extremely challenging at times to see myself it's not normal to have yourself reflected back that much no I tend to hide away from that side these days I really really don't like it and I probably still could be quite triggered although I'm happily in a great space in terms of my physical body. But I do think it's a very treacherous path to walk being in the public eye when you are going through such a recovery.

41:42Oh, God, I agree. I don't think it's like a very like recovery conducive job, honestly. It's not. It's the opposite. bitch everybody has their opinion about which part of you should be you know fill in the blank yeah and the thing for me is I used to make comments about me my higher power and then I would like it would be like God's truth it would be like gospel it would be I would internalize it and it would be true and that's how I'd speak to myself now thank God after being in years of recovery i can see a god fucking awful picture it still makes me want to throw my phone across the room and hide under the sheets but like that period lasts for 30 seconds instead of four years yeah um and just kind of remembering like opinions are like assholes everybody got one so like let out a lot of shit but that's how they let out a lot of shit and you just have to kind of like know who you are i think finally i can say like i know who i am i know what i stand for i also know my good angles and that one's not a good one so like fuck you for hiding behind a bush yeah at a shit angle i hate it and we're moving on and we're moving on it's brilliant it's my sensible approach to all of it but it's hard don't get me wrong i have days that are like Yeah, yeah, yeah.

43:16Very hard, but I just try not to read the comments. Yeah. I've been doing a bad job of that in the past couple of days because I wanted to see if people liked my new song, so I've been reading too much. I'm cutting myself off. This is me saying no more. Yeah, you have to set rules and go, not looking, not paying attention. I think we all, I think everyone needs to do that. We all need to set rules because there aren't any. It's like the Wild West. It is, totally. So we need to put rules down. Other lyrics that I really wanted to pinpoint in the song Only Love Can Save Us Now, you say, I have no shame left and that's my freedom, which again, I was like air punching hearing you say that.

43:51Shame is a big one. It's a really ugly one. And it's one that completely just corrodes every bit of goodness in your body and you feel horrendous. And there are so many people who will probably be listening to this now who will either be feeling shame now or have shame about things from the past. How have you mitigated shame? Shame is like one of the darkest demons and it is a hard one. I'm not saying I have like the answer or anything like that, but I will say just even admitting to the shame and like giving it a place, giving it a voice like it's there. she has a seat at the table instead of just pretending I have no shame and I just feel like a bad bitch all the time which lord I wish I did but by giving her space actually has helped the shame chill out I don't even know if that makes sense yes because it's the um it's like the old adage whatever you resist persists so the more you shove something away the louder it gets So I guess that's the way to deal with it.

44:58Like, come on then, shame. Bring it on. Yeah. And I absolutely have moments where it gets really, really, really big. And honestly, I try to write. That helps me the most as I write or I like reach out to a close friend and just talk about it. Those are the things I do that help me with my shame because I'm not going to sit here and say I don't have any. I do still have it, but it just feels more manageable when you either, for me, share about it in my art or share about it with someone I trust or, like, share about it to myself. Like, the shame only gets worse when it's living just in my head.

45:39And it somehow, it chills out once I say it out loud to someone else or even out loud to myself. By giving it the voice, the demon, like, dissipates a bit. Yeah, I think shame breeds in secrecy. In silence, yeah. It loves the secret. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And once you say it, there's something about it. Watching someone else hear you and see you and allow for whatever you're shameful about. And you realize you live through telling someone about your shame. Yeah, you're still here. then it like it helps it just not feel as massive but it seems like the whole album is that with with lots of different emotions that and that's actually empowering and can be replicated in just everyday life in conversations saying this stuff out loud whatever it is shame self-loathing whatever the feeling is that you're uncomfortable with saying it out loud dissipates it yeah but also i think allows you to control your life because if you're saying it it's almost like you're protecting yourself from anyone else saying it yeah and you're controlling your own narrative which i'm a big fan of like and also i spent just like the shame aspect thinking about it like i spent so many years having so much shame about so many things like fucking every square inch of my body about my voice you know like every there was like no nothing was left untouched by the shame that you know between fine line like i'm sick of walking the fine fucking line and i don't have any shame left to give you i've used it all and there is a freedom in that there is a freedom and just like having nothing left in the well.

47:36Like it's weird because I give very much of a fuck about the album, but then like I told you earlier, then there's a side of me that has just like zero fucks and it feels really beautiful. There's a fine line to all the fucks and zero fucks. There's a very fine line. It's a new lyric you need to put in your song. Remix. Remix. Living in My Head is another brilliant song where, again, you're extremely open in talking about insecurity, self-loathing, all things, again, that sort of live quite secretly in our heads. What do you do or do you do anything to get out of your head, to get back into your physical body or to sort of stop that chatter?

48:16Yeah, I do. That song was actually written in the middle of a panic attack, which I unfortunately have grown accustomed to that feeling. Like I know when they're coming. Which is what? What happens? my breathing will get funny I get really super anxious my body gets really tense I feel kind of non-functionable I can't sleep you know get really hot all the all the things all the fun things that happen and I hope no one relates but if you do maybe you will know what I'm talking about I feel like I'm internally buzzing sadly it fucking sucks ass yeah it feels like you're gonna to die. And so I used to just sit there during them.

48:56And then in the middle of one, I wrote living in my head. And I was like, you know what, I can always just go back to sitting in my panic attack. But let me try writing a song in the middle of it. See what happens. I ended up playing that to Rick Rubin. He really loved it. Like it was the first song he wanted to work on. And I was just in the corner being like, fuck. Like, not only did I not really just that song still when I listen to it I just want to go like this because it's so intimate it's intimate and like such a not sexy not confident not badass way and I trust the people that I've surrounded myself with on this album that they have my best interests at heart and so I trust that that song is going to help someone because if Rick if it's one of Rick's favorite songs on the album there's a reason for that and even though it's I'm too close to it to see what that is I have already heard from just the few people that have heard the song had a couple fan like playback sessions and it seems it seems to stick out to them in a way it sticks out to me like I want to go in the other room when it's playing yeah but many people have brought it up to me that that has helped them not feel like they're the only one.

50:18Yeah. I think, again, that's when you're in a panic attack, you do feel like you're the only person in the world who's having one or who has ever had one. And actually, when you start to speak about this stuff openly, you realize, oh, my God, so many people feel like this. And it might manifest in a different way. But so many people are dealing with that out-of-control sensation. And I haven't heard a song with those kind of lyrics in before. I think it's really important. God, that's so scary to me. But isn't that the best reaction? Imagine if you were putting out a song that you felt numb to.

50:49Like, yeah, it's fine. I'm in the club. I'm doing my thing in the club. And you felt numb about it. You wouldn't be happy with that. No, I wouldn't. No, I'm actually really excited. The fear is brilliant. No, the fear and the fact that it scares me is such a good sign. The best. It's great, but it's also like so uncomfortable. Of course it is. but I'm just going to like marinate in the feeling because it's where we're at I do think the best stuff comes from discomfort honestly that's where you grow so I'm a bitch that grows you are and it's brilliant and I'm really grateful that you're allowing us to all be part of that experience and to hear you growing and see it and to you know for your lyrics to resonate because like I said I was just grinning throughout a lot of it were you grinning through that song Not through that one.

51:42No, through that one I was going, I hear you. I get it. You know, like I had to go and stay in a hotel on whatever night this week. And I'm not good in hotels. I'm like hyper aware of it's not my bedroom and things different and there's different sounds. And at about 10, I started thinking, oh, now it's too late for me to change room. And then the panic attack is like, it's there. We're in it because I'm trapped. I feel trapped. and mine is probably similar to yours in I'm very hot and I feel like I'm going to faint. I feel like I'm sort of floating out of my own body. And like you say, it's not sexy to talk about that stuff.

52:18It's not fun to talk about that stuff. It doesn't make you seem appealing to other people necessarily but actually I think the deepest connections come from the ugly stuff and the painful stuff and the discomfort. That's where you meet other people as humans, as two humans rather than as two egos. or two people just trying to show off their best sides. I think it's really important to talk about that stuff. I agree. And I was going to say, and then you said it, it's human. And like I even just after you sharing that, feel closer and more compassion. Like I had compassion for you before, but like I feel even more so connected to you because I know those feelings and they're so fucking uncomfortable and I hate that you experience them.

53:07And I've been there too. And you're not alone. Yeah. And you're doing that. You're doing that with your album. It's really brilliant. It's really brilliant. And just keep not fucking caring and making great art because that's all that matters. I'm going to try. It's brilliant. Thank you. I'm really excited. I'm really excited. I have no concept of how this is going to go. but it's something you've never heard from me and I don't know if I've ever heard anything quite like it. It's something. It's something and it's something brilliant and I'm really excited for you and just congratulations on all of it and good luck with the rest of your year.

53:50I've loved to, I could talk to you for weeks. Thank you so much, Kesha. Thank you for having me. Oh God, Kesha. I haven't stopped thinking about that chat since we met. so many things rumbling around in my old brain. It was just beautiful, joyful. If Kesha lived in the UK, I would try really hard to be her best mate. I just felt so brilliant after spending time with her and I really hugely appreciated how deep we went and I felt really happy in my own skin after having that conversation. I just loved it. I really, really loved it. That truly phenomenal album, which will change your life, Gag Order, is out now.

54:43And like Kesha said, do listen to it as an album in its entirety because it's incredible. It's a brilliant story. I'd love to know if any of this chat particularly resonated with you. We're on Instagram at happyplaceofficial if you want to continue the conversation there. Another place where gorgeous conversations are going to be happening is at the Happy Place Festival. God, I'm excited. We've been extremely busy organising all of the fantastic workshops and classes and the schedules are now live on the Happy Place website. There are craft workshops like pottery and painting, pilates and pilates, pilates, pilates.

55:21I don't know, but I love it. And creative dance will be happening in the energy studio. There's yoga, tapping, breath work, sleep workshops, God I need that, and astrology, plus so, so much more. If you've got your festival ticket already, you'll receive an email when the workshops are available to book. And if you've not got your festival ticket, well go on, get it now so you don't miss out on those classes with limited availability. Okay, the podcast will be back next week, so make sure you're back here by following the show wherever you're listening to this right now. A huge thank you again to the brilliant Kesha, to the producer Anushka Tate at Rethink Audio, and to you.

56:00I love you loads.

56:20Thank you.