#1024 - Jon Bellion - The Art of an Authentic Comeback

45:48it's just much different. It's just much different. it almost comes to you when you let it ugh I hate being the like guru guy you don't I don't I just I'm just not chasing much now I just know that if I fish and make father figure some artist out there it's going to be a commercial for myself and some artist is going to hear it and then ask me to go work with them I just I just know that I know that in my two-year plan of spending all this money or whatever it's like when you fish you just you fish you can't get into water with goggles and like start swimming after the fish most motherfuckers want to just like i really much early 20s i was like in a speedo with the goggles in the school but trying to trying to get a bass i'm like and then someone's on the dock like young man young man just grab the pole and just hang out well i can't see the fishing what if they don't show up as they might not but you're not gonna catch shit from forcing the universe i don't know i don't know it's so countercultural because most people will tell you it's not wake up and force the universe no no no no no you're dude you should not be doubting anything that you're saying i i thank you coming from you get a lot of uh you get so many rounded polished perspectives of like good information so i appreciate that i believe it you're you're tapped in there's two types of people in the world there's people that are tapped in and people that are and um when you think about that you know when you're talking about it and you're saying like you can't stop me you're not going to stop me i'm just doing what i want to do you know that feeling that you get that's like a birdcage opening in your chest yes that yeah like that's what people should be chasing that that is honest to the lord i think a lot of successful peoples myself included i swear to you that that is the superpower of whether it's production or podcasting or whatever is accessing the thing because once the thing is seen by people they say that's the thing that i have hid first like there's a freedom in the birdcage opening up and if you can access the birdcage opening up i just feel like by the grace of god i've been able to open my birdcage on record so many times that i've learned to be okay with the fact that i'm emotional that i'm okay with the fact that like things can wreck my day and seeing one thing on social media will fuck me up so bad that i have to get off of it for for six years i i'm okay with those things because i just think my birdcage is is uh i'm sensitive there you go all that all that talking to say no dude i uh i i really really appreciate you saying that i think sensitivity is your strength with regards to this oh my gosh i did i've been wearing this i guess that the audience might not have noticed but i've been wearing this little piece of red uh for about six weeks now and uh it's got the letters ilm on the back and it's got an infinity symbol on there i went and did a retreat um in sonoma county about six weeks ago two months ago it was 12 hours a day from 9 a.m till 9 p.m wow uh a very deep emotional work intensive incredibly sober non-psychedelic stuff and uh the ilm on this stands for i love myself and it was the thing that you wanted to take away uh but in it what you were talking about that i need to send that version of me off to see yeah so many of the fears and doubts and patterns the patterns that people have especially the ones that you don't like they're there to protect you they're there to try and keep you safe because they get you validation from the world and even my work my work when i was 14 years old was every night i was lost in that screen creating and living in a world that was not reality.

49:29It's what helped me grow as a man. It's what helped me stay alive. Like music is literally something that I held on to, like a life raft. And it was so embedded in my, but then at what point when you're a grown man, you say, is this escapism? Is it easier for me to be listened to in the studio all day long than go home and actually have an interactive marriage where my opinion doesn't actually end all be all of everything? There's a, it's a very very very very interesting thing like you said saying goodbye to that person is saying like i know i was put on this planet and i've been given gifts to make music i'm pretty sure of it at this point but i always have to take inventory on whether it's escapism or not sometimes it's healthy to escape as men i think there is a something very valid on a man who goes fishing on a saturday there's something very valid about your own time your solace your whatever but you always have to take inventory on it's like dude are you fishing on a saturday or are you not able to stomach the idea of the normalcy of your life which is always that's another thing i have to take inventory on with my job yeah yeah you're on that balance board dude totally totally i have to always take inventory of saying let me let me see what this feels like to me is this a post just went viral about me doing something that makes me look talented how am I hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey calm down bud hey and it's still it's a lot of that but I noticed that that's been the biggest blessing in my life some people will be like she's ripped the door open man like you just did 26 ,000 people at Forest Hills we're going on the road yeah whoa yeah and when I drove home my wife was being Michelle Obama all day she was tired as shit she was taking care of the kids all day long there was a playground in the back so about the time that the show was over my kid my son was like dad i didn't my son was like the other day sits me down can i talk to you i'm like yeah he's like i just i didn't like your show i was like by the way the whole thing sold out the whole thing topped the bottom he's like yeah and he's dead pan i'm like oh i thought he's gonna be joking so like my ego he's four my ego is like like everyone told me i killed it that thing was sold up i said buddy why didn't you like the show he goes you know you sang the first song then you just kept singing and singing and singing and i was just like when's he gonna be done singing he's like i wanted to go play with you in the playground at the at the back of this thing so it like puts the whole even that my son trusts me enough to tell me that i'm like oh my gosh thank god thank god the trip back in the minivan that because we have too many kids now we used to have a navigator and a ranger over and now i'm ripping the kia carnival wonderful product by the way i'm driving home in the kia she forgot to get gas i'm in the middle of bumblefuck brooklyn trying to get gas after i'm like yo i'm rich i don't need this shit but then it like it just was like no this is the this is the good this is the shit is this i'm annoyed i'm tired my wife's over it but you would look at me at the end of that show that day at the after party of everybody coming up to me my daughter needs this and my cousin and listen to my demo and you're the man that was the best show i ever seen they don't recognize that there's this other thing i'm just like thank god i didn't spend my whole life pretending that that other thing just never never existed because i'm way more in that other thing than i am in stuff like this not saying the value in it oh my god oh my gosh it's so scary dude and then you build a kingdom that's predicated on the idea that you never have sludge or you never have mundane shit.

53:07Then you're fucking toast. You're trapped. It's not a kingdom. It's a prison. Bruh. The amount of records I've written for people that by the end I've walked away and been like, I'm all the way good on everything this dude has ever. By the way, my heart breaks for them. That doesn't mean that, hey, like I said, I ain't Johnny Noble. I'm not like so much better than them. I get on my knees I get on my knees in my closet and I say thank you you didn't give me everything I ever wanted oh my gosh oh my gosh if I got everything I ever wanted at 20 I might not be alive and then you bring it back tenfold for me to look at it like I'm not even I'm not even in this tomorrow I will wake up and I will be with my children and I will be in the studio making something maybe for me or for somebody else doing the same shit I did every single day it's not this the fourth of july every day ain't the move man the fourth of july is great because it happens once a year if monday through monday it's fireworks alcohol and craziness but our job i don't know society's it's just very much like if it ain't fourth of july every day then you are not accomplishing what you and then the motherfucker who's got to sit in traffic on tuesday is like my life sucks it's like dude no it doesn't no it doesn't because we're all living the same fears, the same validation, the same way you want to be looked at when you walk in a room and you wonder what other people think about you.

54:34We just spend a lot of time making sure that that's not obvious. But the more time you get away from the machine, you're like, I'm in my chubby phase. I'm a little bit of a dad. I'm making music as a dad. Like, thank God. Dad music. Because that's what the fuck I am. If I spent half my life trying to pretend like I'm not, you get a lot of these artists I work with I'm like man why you want to say that that's not your reality yeah you've got kids at home but you're still playing the baller up front man what do the kids think you know a lot about a man about what his kids think about him I don't need to know what your fans think about you I don't even I don't need to know my fans how you got never speak to to someone who adores somebody from a distance on a character judgment that you can make about them you will know the fruit if you know the person that's the only thing you can count on so for like you want to work your whole life for a bunch of people that don't know you to think that you're a good guy and then when you go home everyone's like this guy that's what that's what most of the album's about you've traded the validation of the people who would love you for who you are for the validation of people who love you for what you do it's like and then your identity becomes what you do so you can't do what you do your whole life is just shattered it's taken away from you so now you're locked into the and that's how you get locked into the prison bro i've noticed that in in recently 10 years of some some kind it was almost like like even i looked at my dad my dad's job didn't it he wasn't trying to get like his whole community from his job and his whole purpose from his job it was almost like you made money to than like go to church and like have another life of I don't really know what I'm saying it's probably not going anywhere but like what I'm trying to say is like the job is just the job it's it's not the definition of what you are and slowly but surely given our like whole lives being commercials which is what social media is you have to turn your job into your and I've like law I'm just It's like, man, it's like, this is just something I get to do.

56:45It's not me. It's a facet within the other things that feed me in my community. Spending time with my wife, going on vacations with my friends, spending time with my family, eating a good meal with somebody. It's the little things. Well, imagine if you had an investment portfolio and 95 % of your investments were in a single stock. Insane. You would be very, very careful and very, very anxious about the progress of that stock. what you have is a distributed portfolio of investments oh my gosh amen it's like i even think sometimes too it's just like this probably and again i'm just speaking from i'm here and it's like someone wants to hear me talk i guess it's like i might as well throw whatever out there it's like i've also noticed just like living under my means and not living to the thing that i am has made me an also wildly happy bar beyond most once me and my wife stopped with the house additions and the hot tub and the pool and the yada yada yada pivoted to the kia what'd you say a hard pivot to the kia bro i'm in the kia and they got these little nature sounds that you can put on in the car and shit i'm like i like this just as much as my 175 000 tesla that i got neck pain from ripping on the highway on i'm like oh thank god i got the kia so then it really started opening up in my life to be like what if i just live completely under my means i'm rich forever if i live like a motherfucker who makes the type of money that i make i'm gonna have to be on the wheel forever to keep that moving but if i just make the house smaller and accomplish huge things and just don't make a big deal out of the accomplishments and just keep it kind of low key and then just tuck it away somewhere that if anybody ever needs it it's there but i'm here on the grass with my ass on the grass with the kids just hanging out and doing the thing that is like bring you to tears levels of like thank god i did not keep chasing whatever because the money ended up coming and it ended up working out and i got enough of it to go around so i'm it's so weird it's like it's like frog in hot water i i would have been the frog in hot water if i didn't find out how shitty my touring contract was and and artist contract was for sure what an odd gift bro i'd be looking at people sometimes and i'm just like man

58:49says the guy with a bunch of money that money's not important i know i know i know we've been down that road i understand but it's like i'm telling you man It doesn't The money

59:12Me and you are still here no matter what's in your bank account and what's in my bank account because the only thing you can be is present. So if you're never present with yourself and you're never living your life, what the fuck? Who cares? Motherfuckers out there in Thailand just on a boat happy as a motherfucker and they're not. The hot tub broke. It's like. Dude, we went for breakfast yesterday at Red Diner, downtown Manhattan, like 43rd Street or some bullshit. We sat in there and our server came over, a Mexican lady, and I can't remember what happened. She asked some sort of question. She said, I just finished a night shift.

59:48It was 11 a.m. And she started at midnight in her other job. And she's at the diner at 11 a.m. And I'm sat next to Zach, who's warming up for me on tour. And immediately we start going like, ironically going, wah, the ambient water in the dressing room was supposed to be chilled. Wah, I'm not happy about the particular fruit and veg platter that we were supposed to get backstage. stage wow the cat five cables that we were supposed to have triggered and it meant that i had to do an acoustic performance for five minutes on stage like yeah it really puts you in fucking high yeah i did dude wealth is what you have minus what you want and by that definition some billionaires are broke wow wow yeah i'm taking that one i'm tucking that one in the back pocket it's morgan house all he's fucking phenomenal wealth is what you have minus what you want and by that definition some billionaires are broke but it's crazy because the things that you need that you find out that you need don't bring immediate gratification and sometimes they're not pleasurable and sometimes you're not even happy which is the changing it's the unhappiness yeah i don't know man it's like you have kids and then you learn to die.

1:01:09And when you learn to die, you actually get your life in your death. The giving up of oneself by saying my dreams, my millions, my potential, my MVP, my Olympics are dead because I brought a life into the world and I am everything in my body will make sure that this child is okay. And if that means me reducing myself to make this child, to give this child even maybe what I didn't have. When it's not about you, it's so much more enjoyable. If everything is about you constantly, and I don't want to get too deep into just what I think is wrong in society. I ain't Jordan Peterson. I'm not educated.

1:01:49But there seems to be this, it's all about you and Chase, what you want. And if you don't get what you want, your life is a failure. but I found so much freedom in it not in me just not if we don't have to go down that road with me I if you want to go to your friend's house I will if you guys have to go to school today I will wake up early despite being in the studio late and I will take it and I'll feel like shit but I'm gonna take you to the studio it's probably gonna fuck my day up in the studio but I'm gonna make sure you get to school kids shift your perspective on a lot and I mean it's so deeply to the point where I say people who don't have kids, that's another thing.

1:02:28I look at my children and I say, thank God I had you to refine me into someone I didn't even know I had the potential of being or grabbing a level of patience or exposing how impatient I actually am. I thought I was this patient, level-headed guy until I had kids. Oh yeah, very patient when you only have to look after yourself. Oh yeah, your patience is really being tested. Even now, I wake up with the kids, I don't have time to work out. I should make time to work out so all I gotta do is get up at 4.30 because so and so on Instagram told me I almost feel myself becoming softer around the edges because my concern is the life of somebody else so kind of me is to some degree don't get me wrong I'm in a studio seven hours a day I live a great life you know what?

1:03:14no I'm not going to what's the word? validate everything that I'm saying or there's a different word that my therapist tells me not to use I constantly try to like justifying and i'm not saying yeah yeah yeah well just on that you have done it a few times today and i think it speaks to the fact that you don't want to come across as preachy and the fact that you're saying hey look i'm an idiot too but the disclaimer the reason the i have the compulsion to do that as well part of it's a protection mechanism because you don't want to be called out by somebody for saying this guy doesn't know what he's talking about and he's still he's still proselytizing Totally.

1:03:49That being said,

1:03:54not saying a thing that you believe because you're worried about the criticism of people who are going to hear it and misunderstand it. You really should not be worried about the criticisms of people who don't understand what you're trying to do. Absolutely. If people misunderstand you, that's a them problem, not a you problem. And it's like something to try and overcome that is really tough. That being said, in the music studio, we spent the first half of this conversation talking about taste and about how like, I just know that it's good, but you're in an alien environment here. And you're thinking, well, I know that this is good, but I'm not sure whether or not I'm allowed to think it's good.

1:04:33So this is you at the beginning of the music career going like, well, if I can prescribe and I'll hedge and caveat and I'll litigate my way through this thing absolutely and so it's just a new and if you put me if you put me in the music studio you're like i have a fucking touch maybe we need to can we like roll that off on the kick i'm not saying i'm a guitar player yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's amazing yeah that's amazing yeah it's just it's funny people even this a usual comment my whole career has always been people thinking i'm on drugs when i'm in the studio i'm a different person a different person like he's whacked out he's cracked out to see footage of me in the studio what's your demeanor in the studio so I'll sing something and it'll like be freestyled but then I'll listen back to it like I didn't even make it like this is the best part of my day I'm having so much fun right now I light up it's like it's the thing that like my whole being feels like I'm supposed to be doing that I just tell them like I'm a little it's like a little screw loose or something it's not necessarily that and I think I've done it long enough now where I'm like max martin rick rubin pharrell every time i'm i'm around the other day i was in the room uh working on bts with and max martin was in another room and it was i was in la i took a quick trip they're like finishing up their album blah blah they asked me to come out there work on on stuff for them um max walks in the room we're working on something and i'm not like creatively like whatever I'm not gonna go there Max Martin walks in the room and he listens to what we do Max is uh just 20 years older than me you know I'm like all right here we go I've never seen him work before I'm like on the couch and I'm looking at him and he like he's like can I give some notes and he's in a room full of like eight people I can't explain it and producers and writers will know what I mean this motherfucker in 17 seconds it was like he listened to it one time and he was like oh your intro is your pre just take your intro and make it your pre because that's your best part he's like and then bring it back in 30 seconds later we were like we moved it all and we all looked at it and i was like oh man like only time can make someone that fucking cold it's the same thing with pharrell pharrell be walking in the room after working on something all day he'd be walking in and just be like no no just move this and do this here i know that the wall looks like it's 5 000 feet tall but it's only five feet wide just walk around it I'm like god almighty there's a motherfuckers be asking me how do I get good and I'm like yo it's just you gotta just do it for 20 years because the 20 year motherfuckers are so cold Pharrell's so so cold Max Martin's so cold they're so good and then I thought when I got with them they'd give me the keys but then I realized they just didn't get off the treadmill for 20 years I'm like oh that's true mastery like Picasso doing like a drawing on a napkin when he's 80 and it's just a stick figure after all that shit it's like the wall was only five feet wide i really look up to those five feet wide motherfuckers but they're there's it's amazing to watch i don't know how i went on that tangent i get i get passionate about music i'm interested in what gets in the way of talent creating amazing music if your sleep's been off you're taking ages to fall asleep waking up at random times feeling groggy in the morning Momentus' sleep packs are here to help.

1:07:46They are not your typical knock-you-out supplement overloaded with melatonin, just the most evidence-based ingredients, perfect doses to help you fall asleep more quickly, stay asleep throughout the night, and wake up feeling more rested and revitalized in the morning. That is why I take these things every single night when I'm on the road and when I'm at home. It's why I trust Momentus with my life, or at least with my sleep, because they make the highest quality supplements on the planet. And if you're still unsure, they've got a 30-day money-back guarantee. So you can buy it completely risk-free, use it for 29 nights.

1:08:17And if you do not love it for any reason, they will give you your money back. Plus, they ship internationally. Right now, you can get 35 % off your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com slash modernwisdom and using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S.com slash modernwisdom and modernwisdom at checkout. out we spoke before about the most talented people don't necessarily cut the best songs yeah how is it not the case that the person who has the most talent doesn't make the best music what is it that's getting in the way there there might be a talent of making things that people enjoy to hear like tame impala like uh kevin of kevin parker he's like i think he just like has a talent in making things that people enjoy to listen to this is soothing to my ears and i want to play it on the way to the beach at the club it's i don't think he's like the third chair at the fucking ragmanovich orchestra in australia or some bullshit or maybe he he might be a savant in making the thing that yes yes yes you know what i mean in delivering instead of that i've had this thing so i was thinking about um most most sorry to cut you off most of the the bigger producers i've been around i've recognized that they don't really have any technical ability.

1:09:34None. Some of them can't even play an instrument. Like an impresario. No, they're just like, I don't care that it's the third harmony and that's not in the chord. The chord just feels good. And that's how I've kind of been blessed enough to kind of be. I can't tell you what I'm playing on a keyboard. I can play the shit out of the piano, but I can't tell you what key I'm playing in. Any of it. I just know when it comes back to me, I go, I would listen to this in my free time. Taste. I I'm like sometimes riffers just be riffing too much I don't want to hear you it's like and then you want to play me the song and you just shitting all over the song riffing it's like I don't even know what you're trying to tell me let me sit in the let me sit in the room for a bit and at least look at the wallpaper before you invite me in the den I gotta if you're trying to take me on a house tour and then you gotta when do you take them out when they're bored to take them into the next room.

1:10:27Not just, look at this house and there's purple walls and there's blue walls. Some talented motherfuckers would be trying to, you'd be trying to just give them the whole house tour on the whole shit. Can talent be an obstacle in that way? Of course. Talent, self-belief, that's a whole other deeper conversation. What is talent? I mean, we could spin our wheels all day into the digression of what the basis of the root of the whatever, but talent is like, I've just noticed it's just like that and a dollar gets you to ride the bus like it doesn't it doesn't some people are talented at just working the system I know a lot of writers that can't write a song I never mention their names I never whatever I know a lot of writers that have no business no business being in a room writing songs but damn you know how to go to the bar mitzvah damn you know how to talk to the CEO and get the dinner but some of the guys in the back be like okay if you're gonna get me to the bigger artist and you're the social bridge that i have to tap dance to get to all right listen i'm just i'm far be it from me to whatever but but that's a talent to say that because you play the guitar better than everybody else makes you successful in a musical industry that's more fucked up than you could ever imagine.

1:11:51What's a talent, bro? Talent? Like, I play the greatest piano in the world. It's like, yeah, but do you know the radio programmer or what's on the... It's this big, weird, coagulating thing. That's where the artistic purity versus the game playing sort of comes back in again, right? And I think there's always going to be a sense of elitism in if he's so artistically pure. Absolutely. If only he was prepared to lower himself to the standard of view to have to go to fucking the dinner, the bar mitzvah or whatever. And he's above that. There's people, it's funny, it's like, you know, for me in a time in my life, for those six years, I was so removed from being an artist that I just wanted hits.

1:12:34So my brain wasn't geared toward like, in six years, I'm going to go on a podcast and talk about some of the biggest songs I ever wrote. for me to go on a podcast and talk about all the giant number one billboard songs I have, for the comments to be like, here's why I hate every single song. I can't prove to you that I'm talented. Some people don't even think I'm talented. Some people think I'm the most talented to ever grace the fucking... Didn't need to use the British accent, though.

1:13:05I was just thinking it came out of me. I said, oh, shit. i don't know why remember the audience i don't know why the british has to fall into that well i have to remind you that we are on stolen land right now specifically stolen from the british should have started with a fucking land acknowledgement before we began this podcast i'm getting way too comfortable with you right now we're gonna get a beer after this um what was i don't even remember what i was saying i want to tell you i want to tell you this thing that's been in the back of my mind i was thinking about this conversation and i wondered where you were going to go when i said what what i've realized that people that are very very talented don't always make that sell the most records be the most popular or whatever even be the most liked like yes um one of the things that i've noticed since being around musicians more over the last couple of years is that artists tend to fall into two categories or there's a spectrum that they're moving in and on one side is create like an artist that's artistic purity uh that's skill that's like are you an impresario what's your ability to play scales and also to create the music like on your side like i just know what's good and i can put it i can put it into a track on the other side is operating like an athlete so create like an artist operate like an athlete absolutely and it's okay how many repetitions are you doing are you in five days a week from 11 till 7 yes are you spending your time drilling and working and looking over game tape and working on your mindset and nutrition and you know whatever it is like all of the individual components yes especially after having kids you have to be so can't be olympic without a an olympic approach one way to look at it would be uh you have to ship at a pace required to work out what works and that's a ship what do you mean ship ship a product oh god send it send it it's like okay dude we could just we could keep fucking trying to record this riff yes for the next three weeks send the fucker off to get mastered yeah like mix it master it yeah let's get put it let's see what happens yes and um just a lot of the time what i've seen is that because artists tend to be like away with the fucking fairy you know like it's just a cigarette butt and a fucking afternoon i'm in a hammock i'm gonna have a walk it's like okay dude can you sit down and do some work please yeah and uh i'm interested in what you think about the value of consistency might be a way to to look at it yeah yeah for sure you're you're i've noticed in my older age that you can't will it you'll walk away from if it don't work because again if you're just the instrument if the player doesn't show up that day you're not going to be played a trumpet can't play itself a trumpet alone without the player is like some some like a metal but the second the player the second god comes in or inspiration or the muse or the whatever comes in and and plays through you it becomes this thing.

1:15:55The issue is that when the trumpet starts to believe that it's playing itself and then you wake up every day and think you can wheel this into existence and I'm going to, and then you're like, why hasn't it came in a bunch of years? It's because you didn't let the thing bigger than you come in the room. If the thing bigger than you doesn't come in, you will never have energy. We're not getting energy from ourselves. You're getting energy from this, like, I don't know how that song was written that day or when that came or whatever. So you're a little less, I'm a little less hard on myself sometimes when it doesn't come out the way i want it to you can't white knuckle creativity you can't white knuckle creativity and you can't control culture some things you'll drop and it will not be the right time and 10 years later this shit will look back on and be like what an amazing piece of art and so prescient he was able to predict where the genre was going to go a decade before it did yeah and a lot of people in the beginning they just say is that i've dealt with that my whole career whole career every album six years later is like the new one sucks but the old one was the one then six years later the new one sucks what are you gonna do man it's crazy talk to me about the story of the new album yeah man um

1:17:06get a phone call one day it's a new regime over at the old label that I had there like three presidents removed one of them's a fan why aren't you putting out music on our label uh you guys are fucking me on the contract What would you do if we gave you your shit back? Let's have that conversation. Talk to my lawyer. He's like, you know, we might be able to get your whole, the reason why you walked away, we might be able to reverse it. I'm like, I ain't an artist. Well, go find out. Go see a fiddle. Calls me back. He's like, you now have X percentage of yourself. What are you going to do? I was like, yeah, I'm not.

1:17:41I already pushed that down the river. And then over time, it was just kind of like working on songs for really, really big artists. and then being like, I don't have to write about the experience. That's not mine today. Like I could. Felt like the door was just opened a little crack again. And then it started to turn into me telling like my buddy Pete Knappi or my buddy Ten Rock or whatever like prolific, prolific musicians and producers. Like ridiculous, like ridiculous. Only reason why the album sounds as good as it does. Yo, how do you not throw that on? It started turning into that. It was like you play a bunch of records for like this huge artist and there's these millions that could possibly come from them taking it.

1:18:17And then you get to the playlist and there was one I'd be like, hit the next one. Hit the space bar. That's so fucking funny. And I found myself telling my wife, like, I'm not having a blast right now, but you know what would be fun? If I went and wrote about da-da-da-da-da-da-da and she's just like. It's happening again, isn't it? And then one night she randomly out of nowhere right before we went to bed. She, my wife's amazing.

1:18:45She goes, I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. She's like, you got to go do this. She goes, you won't, you're not going to be, you're going to be regretful in many, many years if you don't come back and do this again. She goes, and I don't feel like dealing with you. I'm joking around. She's like, I don't feel like dealing with you in 20 years when you say you could. She's like, go spend the money. Go risk it all. Go back into the world. Go do what you got to do. She's like, I'm telling you to. I'm not asking you to. I was like, okay. And then I just, I had a battery in my back. For some reason, when she, when my when me and my wife are on the same page life decision making a lot of stuff is easier especially when she puts the battery in my back she puts the battery on my back i'm like i'm like drool out the mouth gorilla beat on my chest don't get in my fucking way that's how i feel when she's so the second she was like literally like awesome like they need whatever you need to say i believe in my heart that the world needs to hear it.

1:19:43And your fans have grown up and they've matured with you and you have accomplished so much self-worth and you've put yourself in the background for so many years. She's like, it's okay to accept what's going to come from whatever's coming here. And I just went nuts. And in like six months we had an album. Five months we had an album. So that's the story behind it. Bro. Crazy. Crazy. And then fast forward. There's a bunch of stuff I can't talk about that's coming out, but like I thought of this album in my mind as like I told my business manager I said I'm burning x million of dollars of my own money and I don't expect to ever get it back this will be only pure exactly who I am artistry I'm not concerned about hits and I want to shoot the biggest videos and be like super creative on it and I don't expect to get a return on my money yet this this money won't come back culturally for another 10 20 years because I can't I'd have to get back on the road and then start to schematisize how to make my money back, which will dilute the process.

1:20:44So like in myself having money, I was able to do a pure process of burn money by working on art that was just for art's sake. And I think that is a reason why I came across as potent to bigger artists that I'm working with now or shit that's coming out soon or thank God. I treated it like a many million dollar commercial. This is just like a commercial to stir the soup and remind the world that there could be other opportunity for me to go work on music in other areas. It's the greatest advertising campaign of all time. Exactly. It wasn't the definitive thing that's going to make me the greatest in the world ever.

1:21:18It never is. It's just always these constant, it's a new lure in the ocean, fishing for a new type of fish because I want to just keep it moving. But when you want to keep things moving, sometimes you got to do the thing that doesn't make sense. The machine's not going to help you. Then you fast forward and we're at Forest Hills, 26 ,000 deep. And I laugh about it because it's fucking hilarious. Fucking hilarious. The grateful thing changes a lot of... I'm sorry if I'm rambling. No, I'm loving it, dude. It's been a...

1:21:53My friends be coming over and they'll be like, dude, can you believe you fucking... And I'm like, I know. They paid me for it. Like that's where I'm at consistently in my older age. I can't believe it. Yeah, it feels to me like mostly artists get split into two camps. Artists that have beef with other artists and artists that have beef with the industry. You fall into the latter camp. And also too, I was also, I also signed it at a young age. I also like look at my publishers who signed me early and only gave me a$10 ,000 advance that I was in for 10 years before I signed my second publishing deal.

1:22:33Like it was all anger and it was blame and it was never, and then you get older and you realize like they were just trying to do what the, it's a reflection of the norm of the industry. It's a reflection of people's greed. It's a reflection of whatever. And it's my response. I don't ask for the trauma, but it's my responsibility to process it. I don't ask for it. And that's not fair. That's the injustice of life. That's the thing. Why'd you put me here if you were going to, that's your fault for making me. I didn't ask to be born. It's like, we don't ask for the traumas, but it's our responsibility to process them because your life's going to be fucking miserable unless you don't.

1:23:02So you have to take responsibility for even the things that are out of your control, which is tough. But I'll tell you, at the other end of it, we are simultaneously living where everything is the most important decision we've ever made in our life, leading toward this amalgamation of our work forever, and COVID could, like, happen again. It's like this thing where, like, nothing matters, but everything matters, but none of it matters. So, like, shit's working right now. I want to know how you want Father Figure to make men feel who listen to it.

1:24:06It's funny, like, we were on a vibe and a feeling that I don't want to speak from that feeling. I almost have to, like, recenter myself to open the birdcage to get to the general pure intention of what that was.

1:24:32if I could soothe the guy who has lost sight of the fact that fathers are important and your role in your children's life is more important in the lineage of your family from a thousand years back to a thousand years in the future. Your job as a father will do more than anything you could ever do in this physical world. It will echo and reverberate further than you ever could because you're downloading and imprinting into something that came from you. My son is me and his son will be him and we will live forever through each other. You're the most important job you could ever do. I hope for 47 minutes or however long my album is that you can be reminded you've never lost a path far enough where you can't return to your kids you're not damaged you are not damaged so badly that you can't return to your children because your children need you whether you like that fact or not so if I could put a little espresso in your cup in the morning to go and be whatever that figure is which is different for all men and whatever but somewhere along the way we threw the baby out with the bathwater and I don't know what I mean by that I just mean culturally somewhere along we've lost the thread of fathers we've there's a thread that is like I cannot put my finger on it artistically it just

1:26:04no no no no it's important man keep going clock in don't have that drink don't pick up the pill bottle. The child needs you and your role is important. Just because you're not on the radio or you're not making hits, no. Fathers are a bedrock, a pillar in something very, very important. We can't lose that. If I could bring some attention to that with another man who's struggling with that, I don't think a 12-year-old is going to relate yet. But if a guy my age who's like, man, I'm thinking about leaving. I'm thinking about just fuck all. I'm going to just go back to the bar because I'm not good enough to take care of my children.

1:26:44I'm not perfect. And that's what I want that album to just speak to. Now, I don't know how the ending finish line will be, but if you could just pop that on. And even if one day it prevents you from choosing something that's not going to feed you for the rest of your life, that's what I genuinely at the bottom of my heart hope that the album speaks to. and I wanted to make the music and the cut so

1:27:10Balmain that it made you proud to listen to because there's a difference between an after school special and

1:27:23Goodfellas Goodfellas, the lesson that you learn you're not feeling like you're being told something because it's in this messy, murdered Italian heritage thing. It's in this thing. But then you go, be careful what you wish for. Be careful who you trust. Being the top dog sometimes is not even what you might want. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. But it's wrapped up in this thing. Like I wanted to make good fellas. I didn't want to make like, being a dad is important. Like, so I felt there was a responsibility there morally for me to creatively attack it to the best that I could in that direction.

1:28:01it's a very long winded answer but was that a fear that you had what not being able to live up to the your own standards for a father it's a fear I have every day you don't know I don't know how I'm

1:28:19I want my kid to know what working for money is like but I don't want my kid to be like this like starving like because I know some kids that grew up and be like my dad was rich he didn't give me a cent fuck my dad and then there's another kid in rehab who's like my dad never let me make any decisions on my own and gave me all my opportunity so every day i pray to god there's a balance and a patience with my son all three of my sons to say i know i'm like lightly messing you up somehow i just like don't know yet and hopefully it doesn't like topple your world before we continue i've been drinking ag1 every morning for as long as i can remember now because it is the simplest way i've to cover my bases and not overthink nutrition, and that is why I partnered with them.

1:29:02Just one scoop gives you 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food ingredients in a single drink. Now they've taken it a step further with AG1 NextGen, the same one scoop, once a day ritual, but this time backed by four clinical trials. In those trials, it was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels in just three months, and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times, even in people who already eat well. They've upgraded their formula with better probiotics, more bioavailable nutrients and clinical validation. Plus it's still NSF certified for sport so you know that the quality is legit.

1:29:33Right now, when you first subscribe, you can get a free bottle of D3K2, an AG1 welcome kit, plus bonus AG1 travel packs. And for a limited time, US customers also get a sample of AGZ and a bottle of omega-3s. Just go to the link in the description below or head to drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. Every single dad that I've had on the show who has achieved a level of wealth that's significantly greater than they grew up with has this exact same problem. They know that most of the things that they value in themselves were the byproduct of the struggle that they had to go through as a child.

1:30:19Yep. Yep. And they think, I don't want to rob my child of the opportunity to learn those lessons for themselves because I know how important those lessons were for me. Yes, yes. And at the same time, what the fuck was the point of working so hard if I'm not going to give them the opportunities that I didn't get? It's like the term nepo baby. People would be like, oh, like you're a nepo baby. It's like, but when a man like comes from nothing and makes something of himself, the second he makes something of himself, you become, it's like they exalt you to the, to the want you to chase after your dreams.

1:30:53But then when you get your dreams and you have kids, that kid's just the product of a man who reached his dreams. It's like, bitch, you told me to chase him. Now I'm in trouble for the fact that you, it's like, it's, that's like Nepo baby to me. Like I hear that term being flown around with like kids who have parents who are in the industry and this, that, and the third. It's like, what do you want their parents to do? And if you are a Nepo baby, what do you do? You fucking wear a dunce cap and sit in your closet every night and just be like, I'm too privileged to have an opinion or make art. What are you supposed to do?

1:31:23I don't know. Interesting. You know Fred again? Yeah. You know, he, I think, comes from at least a little bit of wealth. I have no idea. I didn't know that. I found that out this week. I think family comes from at least some degree of what people would call privilege, I think. i get the sense looking at the way that fred presents and looking at the sort of shows he did do you see that he did a miniature tour around the islands of scotland no i did not he played 200 person cat working men's pubs sick and clubs sick right and it was love it storn away these tiny little fucking islands or the hebrides or some shit off the top corner of of scotland and uh the way that he presents online with his social media very sort of anti-marketing marketing type thing um i get the sense that a lot of that will be an additional burden that fred has to pay in order to like wipe the potential accusation of nepo baby say it again rework that last part he needs to what's called counter signal okay um that uh i'm playing these tiny shows i'm not flying at this ridiculous like i'm a man of the people okay in an attempt this is an additional burden that he has to get over just so that people see him as someone that is remotely fucking resonant as a normal human got it got it got it got it and because the accusation is so and i mean that's also by the looks of things like who he is like a pretty nice chill down to earth dude uh and the way that he wants to live and all the rest of the things as well but there has to be in the back of your mind this weird scenario where you go the privileges that i was afforded are a burden that i have to get over as well i have to work harder or count a signal in this weird way or a downplay that's i would say the last the last two years have really started i feel like he's on an ascension and his his moment is like happening and it's all this stuff So he's going to figure that.

1:33:24He seems like a very brilliant, bright guy. So I'm sure here. I wish him the best of luck on that journey because you're right. That is something that you have to deal with in the public eye. It's like it's so fake that it's not fake that I'm making fun of it for being fake. And by the way, go buy my album. It's like we're all on that. But I recognize there's another thing where it's just like something or at least I'm trying to work on creatively is just I am not apologetic for any space I'm in anymore. It's a waste of time. It's a creative waste of time. I can't. I can't. I have to believe I belong in a space in order for something to be believable.

1:33:59So for me to posture my whole life about making sure I'm accepted in the space creatively, again, as I talk within the music stanza, I have a much more direct whatever. It's just like a waste to posture. That's another reason why I say social media. It's like, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'd rather just not be on it. I don't, I did. All of the caveating dilutes down the purity of what it is that you're trying to say. Again, dude, it comes back to you're trying to justify yourself to people who don't understand what you're trying to do. Oh, you don't get it. Well, that's a shame.

1:34:33But if you tried to litigate your way or caveat or create in advance some odd disclaimer that front runs the criticism that you think most people are going to have about. What are you saying? Welcome to politics. It's so arduous. Dude, I had Bernie Sanders on the show on Sunday. Really? Yeah. That came out two days ago. It's really good. It was really fun. In the space of, a couple of comments that I saw. One was, this is absolutely unspeakable. I can't believe how judgmental you are. You are always shilling for the right. And it's obvious that all you're doing is pushing these hard right right-wing views and then the next comment that i saw was you only interview liberal you only interview liberal guests it's evident who's paying you off i screenshotted both of them and put them in instagram stories side by side i was like a story of the internet in two slides literally literally sometimes i feel like why do i even like i'm being spit roasted by two people pointing in opposite directions you can't be both how could you be both villains well apparently i am unbelievable and this is the point if you try and please everybody you're going to end up pleasing nobody and if you fucking caveat you're going to dilute your work down so much double down double down double down until you really in your soul realize the error of your ways if you don't feel like there's every ways you're going to turn into a super angry person you'll be angry at yourself for kowtowing to the thing that you've like the uh the rehearse speech you're supposed to give everybody before you go into a uh a space it's a waste of time it's a wasted time art is art suffers through that art suffers in the um the validation some of the best art comes from the people who were never supposed to get their hands on music equipment some of the best art comes from but to say you haven't paid your dues in the sense of blah blah blah blah blah blah it's like man i ain't i'm not you're barking up the wrong tree with me the wrong tree at least in the studio everyone else in my life i don't know but i would never be able to go into to the places I'm going into on the album without me being like, I am not by no stretch of the imagination asking for your opinion on that.

1:36:47Your opinion, asking for your opinion on whether I deserve to go into that space or not creatively. Where do you think about self-belief coming from? Because that sounds like an awful lot of self-belief.

1:37:05It probably has a lot to do with my father telling me I'm great constantly. constantly my whole life, even when I wasn't. He was so proud of me, playing songs for my family in the backyard. My son made this. And I'm like, dad, it's not good. I made it. Stop embarrassing me. But looking back on it, it's like, you are spectacular. You're spectacular. Like I was told that for so long that I think your brain just snaps in and wires at a certain point. And you go, I'm spectacular. And someone says, no, you're not. You say, no, the man who made me told me I am. So fuck off. And then you look back and you're like, thank God I believed it even when it wasn't true.

1:37:45Because that's what got me to the place to be like, I've got really, really good because I thought I was good, but I wasn't in retrospect. But maybe that's the whole equation. It's just like even when you're not, yeah, that gets really convoluted with self-belief. But I do think a lot of it has to do with both of my parents telling me I was great. you know what's strange and some people to this day don't believe things that anything I've ever done is great dad does yeah exactly and I've noticed that a lot of my actions or my things come from

1:38:33a trillion fans are not worth dad saying you did a good job. I put my money, I put all the money I have on that. And it's tough for some people. So I'm not a big, like, a privilege and thanks for letting me in the cool house. I'm not that type of guy, but I can't imagine. That's why that album's important. I can't imagine. I ain't nobody's daddy, but if I could play an album that just tells you Stay the course And you're not broken Cause everybody's broken Like that's the That's the album It's funny that they just got back to that But yeah Without I couldn't imagine Couldn't imagine Yeah

1:39:29Silence on the podcast Crazy we were saying before about the challenge of growing up with an big pair of shoes to fill uh financially uh in terms of corporate success dad was a doctor mom was a pharmacologist and you're going to become a lawyer or whatever yours were no no no like you could just imagine we talked about the kind of nepo baby expectation yes uh i think it's one of the reasons that kids from wealth are more likely to use hard drugs, not just because they can afford them, but secondly, because they need to find a way to be able to cope with the expectation. Wow. Another reason why, this is a great insight, dude.

1:40:12I learned this on a great Substack post. We look at the kids of high-performing parents are more likely to go to college. You say maybe that's because of advantages, maybe it's because of private tutoring, maybe it's because of whatever, whatever whatever what if it's because they have such a fear of insufficiency if they don't meet the minimum standard that their parents set for them they are driven by the fear of insufficiency so all of that is to say classic if you come from privilege there is an expectation that you live up to the opportunities and also the standards of your parents right um objectively what you have which is really interesting is what sounds to me like a really wonderful father and you have the obligation to try and live up to the standard of fatherhood that your father set for you yep and this isn't you cannot fill this with the number of records you sell you cannot fill this with the size of your bank account or the house or the fucking however many keys you have does not matter yes and that's a unique kind of pressure and expectation that's holistic and beautiful but is still going to be there holy fuck i had i had like an olympian level father and i now need to try and be that for my sons yes is that a a pressure to sort of fill the shoes of dad for your sons that you fell?

1:41:56Wow.

1:42:13Yes, in the beginning. And then it slowly turned into...

1:42:25Understanding that my father...

1:42:31Is me. And it's like... Okay, we're going to have to chop this up because I don't know how I'm going to even get to what I'm trying to say. If we don't ask for the trauma, we don't ask for the trauma, but it's our responsibility to process it, right?

1:42:54If you take the time to process it, the mountain of a father starts to look different. It's not a mountain anymore. It's another human being that worked three jobs to get his ice cream shit off the ice cream truck, off the thing in Brooklyn for him to move his family out to Long Island to give his son pro tools and to be able to afford it by the time. He's a guy that, like my dad be telling me stories about his father and his grandfather that I'm like, my father is a miracle. A miracle. I think it has to do a lot with Jesus in his life, but my father is a miracle.

1:43:36all the good things I want from him in droves and more good things than bad things with my father. Because my dad was amazing. He was around every corner. I have good, I have, my father did the right things around it. And especially having children now, I know what he sacrificed to be present with me. I want all that stuff. And then the other stuff that I didn't ask for, that's deep rooted all the way into the grandfather's grandfather, grandfather, grandfather. I didn't ask for it, but it's my job to process this. So I don't look at him as, an unattainable thing, the reason I am successful or not successful, a figure that I can't mold myself into.

1:44:12I look at him as somebody trying to figure out just like I am. And with the tools he was given, he did a pretty damn good job. Because when I go to retreats and I'm around people that have made mistakes in their life or accomplished incredible things and won the PGA tour and yada, yada yada it all lines to daddy there's a weird there's a really strong sick through line of men with their fathers and what it ends up being what it doesn't end up being and whatever but like

1:44:53i don't even know what i'm trying to say i just say i guess what i'm trying to say is i look at my father now, right now, like today, and there's no like, thank you for everything, and I don't blame you for anything. thank you for what you did give me and it's 90 % it's all good it's all good it's like

1:45:43the biggest lie of it all

1:45:49is that you go you can't connect back with your father. Your father might be too successful, you can't connect with him. Your father might be too much of a drunk, you can't connect with him. Your father might be, it might not even be healthy for some people to actually connect with their parents because they're in such fucked up positions and whatever.

1:46:08You will never be able to figure much out without going headfirst into uncovering what the story and lineage is with your parents and facing that, whether you ask for it or not. That might not involve you even seeing your parents, but I can tell you that your life will open up if you can process that. I don't even know how I got to there from the question that you asked me, and we're going to have to edit all that space out and whatever, but... No, no, no, the space is going nowhere, sorry. Like, the...

1:46:40I just think fathers are very important. I think that... I might think that there's not much more importance than a mother and a father. Whatever we have to do culturally I ain't no fucking politician None of that shit but whatever we have to do culturally To reestablish the importance Of that is important to me That doesn't leave me on any side of the political Special I would go to war for the idea that fathers are important I mean Cosmically DNA From Saturn to here and back Levels of since the primordial Soup of cavemen fathers It's and it depending on how this, depending on how this goes, is where this whole thing will fall or stand.

1:47:27I'm speaking very symbolically, but I know how we treat the unit, how we treat the leader and micro leader of every home culturally across the thing, what we do with this will will determine what it all looks like top to bottom because it begins and ends with that

1:47:52that's why it's tough for me to go on podcast i don't really even know what i mean i just know what i mean by that whatever that means is what it means everybody knows what you mean yeah it's gonna get tough man it's gonna get tough you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater in the process of trying to get justice don't don't burn you can't burn the whole fucking thing down parents are important you can't you can't burn the whole thing down in the pursuit that you believe to be righteous it's it's and i don't know what i even it's not left that's not right i'm just saying in the pursuit you can't fucking burn the house down in the winter you still gotta have a roof over your head since there's a hole in the wall in a room and cold air is coming in and people are trying to go fix the hole you can't just sit in the house all day and say well the hole wouldn't be there if you didn't fucking da da da da da i know but there's still a fucking hole so can you come with me to come and fix the hole if we don't fix the hole it's gonna get cold it's gonna get cold in this motherfucker cold and there ain't no uh not a lot of amount of millionaires are gonna change that i brought this up with bernie on sunday it's my second time in new york in a week and um he's big into inequality uh as am i i grew up working class i grew up as working class as is possible and i wanted to get his thoughts on a few statistics that i'll say to you know as well.

1:49:23I basically put forward the idea that fatherlessness is the real inequality. Boys who grew up apart from their biological father are about two times more likely to land in prison or jail by age 30. Fatherlessness is a better predictor of incarceration than race or growing up poor. Young men are more likely to end up in prison or jail in the US than they are to graduate from college if they are raised in any non-intact family setup more likely to end up in prison or jail than they are to graduate college if they grow up in any non-intact family setup and that's like across the world just the u.s just the u.s wow regardless of family income children in intact families are half as likely to be diagnosed with depression and girls who grow up without fathers are 10 times more likely to be diagnosed with depression.

1:50:26What do you gather from that? It's politically very unpalatable to talk about fatherlessness because it feels like you are putting blame on something very intimate and very closely associated to people's sense of self-worth. I think that there are probably some breakouts by demographic here too, which are politically unpalatable for people to talk about too, that there are going to be subcultures and areas of the country in which this is worse and better. And that's also something that people don't really want to point the finger at because it sounds a lot like blaming. It sounds a lot like, it's like, it's a slippery slope to get toward a type of conversation that's not too nice.

1:51:07Absolutely. And yet, exactly as you said there, we cannot deny the raw reality that growing up without a father in the home is not good for daughters and sons and mothers and the local community. and the fact that people are so unprepared to be able to hold two facts in their mind at one time, which is fathers are important and mothers can be independent. Absolutely. You know how there's an uncertainty principle in quantum physics. You have what's called a superposition. the particle can be in two places at once essentially thinking in superpositions allowing yourself to hold two thoughts in your mind at one time yeah and unfortunately we have a world that refuses to think in superpositions and it collapses down the space if you're in this that means yes yes yeah if you want to give uh empathy to men that means you're taking it away from another more deserving group if you're saying that fathers are important you're implicitly saying that mothers are incapable, if you're saying that, you know, pick your one-dimensional argument of choice.

1:52:30And I think that you are right. I think that there are many things that need to be looked at. Inequality is a big one of them. Poverty is a huge one. Class, the focus on the diversion away from the focus on class and into other, in some ways, more arbitrary ways to delineate people from other people is a big problem. But removing focus from the family and from fathers and their role in the home in the hopes that what, by reminding people, but by trying to convince people that fathers aren't important, that somehow pedestalizes women, that somehow makes them more independent. Yeah, like there's no one, like you said, like the super, yeah.

1:53:24We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can have a superposition in terms of our thoughts. And I think it's very prescient, dude. I think this weird position that you're in where you're talking, your album is a tribute to your father and an offering to your sons. Yes. At the same time. Absolutely. It's going in both directions. Absolutely. I don't think we need to be ashamed. I don't think we need to do this fucking land acknowledgement each time before we do this. I talk about men and the problems of men an awful lot. And it will never not fatigue me to have to do, well, we must remember that women have fell behind for all of this time.

1:54:05And oh, it's also important to remember that it's only been not been long since da, da, da, da. Like, guys, I get it. I get it. I wish I could just say it once. Or like have a disclaimer on my website and be like, I understand completely the challenges that we're talking about. I am not saying any of this huge list of things. Remember what we were talking about before? If you have to try and justify why you're in the room in order to be able to do the thing and you water it down and you have the caveat, which is exactly what I'm doing right now. No, no, no. You'd never get yourself. Yes, no, no, no.

1:54:35I don't see this as caveat. This is like the excavation of the thing. Yeah.

1:54:43I think people are deathly afraid of the excavation because you just don't know what the fuck you're going to find. So it's a lot safer to just not excavate it. You say this, you mean this. If you say this, you mean this. And now I get to go home and live my life and whatever. Because if we were both to excavate, shit, I might actually like you. I might actually agree with you. We might actually be on the same page. Then I'm going to have to revert everything that makes my life easier. It's easier to not excavate. It's easier to not excavate. If you have to excavate everything, That means you might have to really face yourself to find out what you truly believe at a gut level.

1:55:18Most people, I don't think, I just don't think people, it's just a lot, it's a lot easier to just not, to excavate the problem. If you excavate the problem, you might have to rub with some feathers. It's like, oh, I'm dealing with abuse in my family. Abuse runs in my family. We just don't talk about that. It's like, might be a little bit easier for now to not excavate it. Because if I excavate it, I might die facing that type of... But the only way you get anything is the... You gotta have the discourse, I guess. And I guess discourse is not... It's just risky, dude. It's risky. It's becoming increasingly less risky, which I like.

1:56:01Yes. And I think that this doesn't mean we need to have mask off, you can shitpost whatever you want. Totally, totally. Obviously. um it's just okay yeah yeah god damn it yeah we should call each other out every time we do it yeah yeah absolutely um but i uh it seems to me like the trend is moving in the right direction now i think people are prepared to say what is accurate and and caring and holistic and um makes the world a better place just with less of a concern about how it's going to land. That will help art greatly. Why? I mean, if there's no...

1:56:52It's just like when the Italians and the blacks and the Jews get together, it's magic. It is. It's just like we're all... You can learn... Art is like... you take the Africa with the Europe with the thing to then make the thing that says, this is the most newest European African thing I've ever, like, you gotta be able to like, you know, but I think it's all, it's like tribalism, and to be honest with you, I have taken the stance of kind of like, I gotta make sure like my house is clean, like, I don't know what I mean by this, but like, I have to make sure that my, like, shoes are lined up at the door and my underwear is in the hamper for my wife before i'm like because there are all these voices that's like how dare you make an album about your father when you about being a father figure and trying to be better when you lost your patience with your kids yes this is like but it's humility though there's grace there has to be some sort of grace to be able to make to be able to stumble into art there's grace and stumbling it's grace it's stumbling it's a it's it's uh learning what you did wrong or refining the product or whatever but if there's people who are you're not welcome in a space to create we've already cut the art at the legs so like you said if there if as a cultural whole people are more excited about i'm just going to do what i feel and let the chips fall where they fall the potency of art will 100 change it won't be watered down or homogenized or whatever but i'll tell you what I don't know how much time we got I'm having a blast not to just like expound on expounding but like you know what the last conversation with my wife for the last six days and my therapist this morning was just like I also just like don't like I don't want the smoke I don't need the smoke I don't care like I don't it's not even my when I go on social media I'm like whipped up into this frenzy to believe that like it's my role to speak out to join the ranks of the thing I'm just gonna shut social media off today and make sure I threw my underwear in the hamper for my wife like let's just like start there let's just like take a fucking second to I have strong beliefs about a lot of things and a lot of things that I'll expound upon with people in the studio for four hours people who lean super left and people who lean super right and people who don't believe the government's real all of those things combined i will have the nuanced conversation with i i struggle with just like i have a moral obligation in my art to like say what i believe in but i also i don't need i don't need it to like i like i like going to the store and just like fucking like hanging out buying my shit going home eating dinner working on music coming back well you have to remember i i struggle i struggle in that that's that's the best way to put it i have no answer i i i struggle deeply with who i'm called to be it's the balance again dude it's the balance board it is wow it keeps on coming up and the reason that it keeps on coming up is that you have no obligation as a recording artist to do anything that you don't want to do yep you have worked this hard to afford yourself the opportunity to not have to do anything that you don't want to do and say anything that you don't want to say yeah i even think sometimes i say you may have been conditioned by too much content to grow to be angry at me for expecting what you think my output should be that's not my fault like it's like somebody being like well you don't get good ticket sale uh ticket sale splits on your money because that's just the way the industry works She's like, that's not my issue.

2:00:42Don't shit on me because that's just like, the artist is just, it's just a weird, it's weird. I want to. Like I owe you my music. Maybe. If that. Kind of. Yeah. If you're lucky. The gratefulness that pours out of me for people that like look back at me at a stadium is like a whole other level of appreciation. You took time out of your day and you spent money to come and do this. And I am so deeply thankful for that. but

2:01:13It's not my I don't

2:01:19whatever you've come to expect from artists I'm not going to be unhealthy to fit myself into that if it just doesn't work for me if my pace is four albums one album every four years and you get the best of me and I'm like a healthy father because of it and whatever like I you might have to like sorry I'm not going to be doing two albums a year double-sided deluxe with the thing with the performance at the thing with And I also don't need to be right. I don't need to prove to the, I do the thing I love every day. And in that service, it's between me and the creator. I create with collaborators and it's between me and him.

2:02:00And as long as I'm here and I'm doing the thing and I'm doing the crayon and giving it to my daddy for him to put on the refrigerator. Oh, look at this little creator thinking he made a masterpiece. and it's like I made the whole universe. As long as I'm here saying, hey, daddy, I made this for you, there's not much else I could give to you. Because anything else beyond that to me, it's not in my alignment. It's not in my, like, it's not in my, um, the deeper I am in my purpose, I will provide more utility for the long term of the world. and I can only determine what I believe my deepest utility to be so I have to operate within where I think I'm humming at my highest frequency of utility for someone to say you're not you're not utilitizing the way I want you to utilitize it's like well like what are we it's a rough it's a rough go of it for artists right now it's a rough it's a rough go of it it is it is it's insane analysis paralysis i don't know how i do not know how they do it kids i have no idea the motherfuckers out here 11 years old talking about so blessed to win the athlete of the year award commas he ain't someone sold from houston it's like you're 11 dude some they're gonna look at this like cigarettes and artists are the main smigaret smokers because we got to use that to get streaming services is shitting on us so we have to double down by using the platforms that only need us to use it because it makes users use the platform they don't actually care about the artist so then we have to change our behavior as artists to succeed on a platform that only cares about the platform getting eyes so then we turn to like stupid monkeys performing for instagram you motherfuckers doing a call tent out on tiktok to be like listen to my song do you think motherfuckers 20 years ago were like this is where it's gonna go but it's like once you invent the thing, TikTok just needs you to act like TikTok and needs you to act to get the most eyes to keep the most people on the app.

2:04:01TikTok's not helping you get your fans to you. They're helping you keep fans on the app. I don't know how to navigate it. I wouldn't know how to navigate it if I didn't have money. I'm just making an album, putting it out. And again, caveat, I ain't pure. I ain't the most, I only make music because I'm the most moralistic. Like, no, it's like, I don't, I mean, we're done. We're supposed to talk. It is what it is. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't know how to, you're just going to have to create really thick skinned motherfuckers in the future because it's only going to get worse.

2:04:40So maybe this will breed a bunch of people who like naturally in the response of over criticalism by every comment, maybe the generation next to her, they'd be totally fucked from social media with self-image and all that stuff. or it would breed like really resilient. Like I don't give a shit that you said I was, that album sucked. They follow the culture or they're the counterculture. You drop a song and a motherfucker is filming themselves as someone is watching them film themselves to react to them filming themselves. Why are we making music? Like it's almost as if the people trying is just raw content for these people who just want to be seen on the internet to use as a tool for their channel to blow up it's a human centipede where everyone's attached to the person before them it's like a you drop a song and a motherfucker's like watch me listen why the fuck would I watch you listen I don't even I don't know dude I don't know you know what I could be wrong sometimes I like watching people listen to an album that I love because I'm like wow you're gonna experience it the way that I did and I'm like this is a great album I can't wait to see what you think about it dad listens to Nirvana for the first time like those are cool I don't like mind them but in general though the whole over scrutiny of like a hundred comments and twenty of them are bad and then it did you not always used to have this though with music critics but it would have been in magazines and stuff like that for my shit or just like in general you go back a couple of decades Yeah, but it's like if the newspaper of the New York Times just says like, The Beatles, Sgt.

2:06:20Pepper's overindulgent and slap of a mess and whatever, the New York Times said it, people read it. It wasn't like, Taylor Swift, Life of a Showgirl. Okay, now it's not just the New York Times and then people talk about it for two days. it's here's the dissertation as to why that this album felt redundant and malignant and not in the decision i found it to be the exact opposite given its sweet nature and by the way by my protein shake it's like it's everybody is like a people are weighing into such a degree that artists have to become a sensei at just being like the chips are going to fall where they fall i cannot be affected by that everybody needs a mindfulness practice what did you make of the reaction to Taylor Swift's album.

2:07:08I don't think that I've seen a public reaction to the political commentators giving their thoughts. Were they? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was no one that was beyond. Honestly, the fact that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump didn't do reaction videos to it. In fact, did Trump say something about Taylor Swift? I feel like he did. I feel like he did say something about it what was the general gist of the the the discourse was it a split discourse oh i do certainly split i think a couple of things that were interesting that people picked up on one was you used to never be able to criticize a taylor swift song or album without swifties calling for your head okay and the fact that this time criticisms were put out and the swifties didn't do that was seen as indicative that even her most ardent fans realized that this might not have been the thing whatever it's like the the inside of the box is the inside of the box which brings the inside of the box it's like christmas yeah the fans non-response to the criticism was indicative of what we might believe to be i'm not kidding that was that was like a big that was a big talking point well three levels of derivative away from what the actual initial piece of content is now um fully vulnerable and transparent the only clip i saw was over my wife's shoulder it she was scrolling through and somewhere on some sort of entertainment tonight or something it was her saying i'm not the art police and i like it and like kind of just like leave it at that and i thought that was pretty cool that was the that was the whole my level of receiving discourse of like what that was i listened to it i listened to it and i have my opinions musically on I can get into the minutiae of what I really thought about the wine as it was being stomped on the grapes, for sure.

2:08:56But I don't know how a 14-year-old feels about it or how it relates to the zeitgeist of her applying to her relevancy. I don't know. I genuinely did not take enough inventory to know. I just know what I thought about the album when I listened to it in my car. What did you make of the album? I liked it. I enjoyed it. I think she's a great songwriter. What a great opinion. I liked it. I don't know. Or you could have said. It wasn't for me. Some songs were, some songs weren't. Like 100 % of the albums I listened to. Very rarely across the board am I like stopping an album and I'm like, dog shit. The whole thing was, Taylor Swift must be kidding.

2:09:36Like I'm like, no, like the second pre on that third song was pretty sick. I could probably take something from that. And that's it. Oh, Max Martin's a genius. Man, Taylor Swift knows how to write the shit out of a song. I wonder what she means by this. I don't agree with that. I'm not like I don't agree with that Max Martin's a genius make sure everyone knows how I feel about it I know how I feel about it because I fucking listen to it myself I don't need you to know that I thought that I listened to it it's like but that's something I think Tess has been Olympic for a long time and the crazy part is she's writing them too she's writing them she's good and that type of run what am I going to be like her fall from grace should be studied if people don't like the album.

2:10:16I don't fucking know. I don't look at her that way. I look at her as just like a very high-level force Olympic creative that's just like, like, wow, she does that at a really, really high level. And a lot of the songs I end up liking. Like, these are catchy. I like this. Catch it on the way to drive my son somewhere. In a Kia? Kind of going. What's the sound system like in a Kia? It's pretty great. Is it? I paid the extra 15 grand for the... This is deluxe Bose sound system. This is turning into an ad rate for fucking Kia. I want to talk about the direction of pop music right now. I've seen those videos of Ed Sheeran playing 50 songs over four chords.

2:10:52You know, it's the same chord progression of whatever. Ed is like mind-numbingly talented. It's crazy. Does that suggest that pop music is formulaic now? Where are we at in the arc of... What do you consider pop music? I guess anything that hits the charts yeah formulaic in the sense that

2:11:25bro sometimes I literally just be like like literally in my head I just be like nothing means anything like it's like what do you it's like defeats the whole purpose of the podcast but you're just like what do you mean like pop music formulaic it's like the bass that's going to pop music is looking to be fed in a way that is not that might not even um necessitate breaking the mold right it doesn't need to be experimental it can be predictable another way instead of formulaic might be predictable yes and some of the best people in the world are the best at taking something that's completely experimental and still creating like if it's we're all trying to make bikes you're still trying to make a bike that will last long for you to do the marathon in the country.

2:12:09Pop music, I guess, is just like the most people can ride the bike and enjoy it and whatever. And then there's some people will be like, can I drive a motorcycle? You don't even know what biking is like. And it's like, I just like my huffy, dog. I don't give a shit that you're so angry at the fact that I don't have answers. The older I get, the more I'm like, this is like a whole fuck ton of everything matters and nothing matters. like everything matters and nothing matters like those six years while I was gone I was like I want hits I will tap dance for whatever guy that's best friends with the artist that the da da da da da and tell them they're great to just like sneak in and do what I gotta do because I don't know how where this money's gonna come from like I need hits because songwriters do not get paid songwriters do not get paid they are at all the way, whatever the bottom of the barrel is, ask who's in the basement and who's got barrels in the basement.

2:13:08The bottom of the barrel. So I was like, I need hits in order to really make a living to still do what I love to do. So my focus is hits. I wasn't, I had to kind of shut off the reverberation of like, maybe in six years, I'll do a podcast and talk about it to the top comment to be like, he made a bunch of shitty songs that were number one because pop music sucks. It's like, dude, I don't know. I was trying to make some big songs and I tried to get in the best rooms to make a living for my family and the repercussions of that and what i did with pop music now because i have money i'm able to drive my taste more and a lot of the shit i'm making is just like cooler and harder and more like fuck you if you don't like it type of shit because like you said i'm not as rehearsed i'm not as whatever i'm a little bit more on autopilot i could take a bit more risk dude what what is the point of having fuck you money if you never say fuck you There's no point.

2:13:57There's no point at all. So you say like, would you say, you're asking a musician, like you're asking a musician on why pop music, can it be formulaic? It's like, yeah, formulaic in the idea that one day when we get to heaven, we're going to find out that the wall was only five feet around. What does that mean? Like when we get to heaven, like all of our lives, like in this realm of trying to make music, like all of us, like in our flesh these magical things happen and god enters the room and you make like john and makes imagine and like these things happen and they change generation and bob marley happens and it's it's this this thing that seems bigger than what our flesh is capable of and as music creators like we're gonna find out that the wall we're in the wrong like dimension of it and we keep trying to pretend like it's not five feet around and i think a lot of the greats are somewhat have an understanding that's like you don't have to climb so high to try to like hey man people just want to feel good you know like like when we get to heaven and we have the perspective that's outside of like the body trap get to heaven next plane whatever the fuck you believe great we'll we'll um i don't know if pop music's formulaic i think the world is searching for a lot of the same thing you know and then there's the young kid who says i'm gonna change that thing up there and then they get too much money and they become depressed and they have to find out who they really are without the success it's the same uprising and falling the same shit over and over and over again oh man i look the reason i keep laughing we've we've all that from you says me is pop music formula yeah yeah you're the best sort of guest dude i flick you once and you're a fucking infinite content, an infinite fucking perpetual motion machine that just ticks away, it ticks away, it ticks away.

2:15:50Like guys like Max Martin, they're concerned about it feeling really good. I don't think they're in the room with The Weeknd. Max can correct me if I'm wrong. I just don't think Max in the room with The Weeknd being like... This is too formulaic. Yeah, I think he's like, this will keep them listening because it feels good to listen to it. And sometimes that might come off as formulaic. Sometimes it might be groundbreaking. Sometimes things work because it resonates within... Like Olivia Rodrigo driver's license. That's not formulaic, but people would consider that somehow pop garbage. I don't understand how you would.

2:16:22That's one of the best, to me, that's one of the best written songs in a very long time. It's so antithesis of what pop is, whatever, but you're still going to get people being like, because she's in this sphere of artists, it's pop and formulaic and whatever. Let me give you a, what is pop? What is cool? What is not? I'm not, I don't know. Let me give you an insight that I've played with for a long time. There's a guy called Jack Butcher who made visualize value. He was a graphic artist for a very long time. And then he started creating graphic representations of quotes and concepts. Now you think as a graphic artist, what you traffic in are fonts and colors and design.

2:16:57There's a million different degrees of freedom, but he put constraints in. He said, it's only ever going to be white on black. It's going to be geometric shapes and it's going to be one font. What that meant was his constraint bred creativity. And I think about this. which is why to me like ocarina of time or toy story or like the staples of creative genius were because of the constraints of what it was like now they drop games and it's like it's too good like i don't even want it to look this real and i don't want to like pay my taxes inside of a video game it doesn't need to be like life it's it was so removed from life that it yes yes the constraints that the nintendo 64 had is what burst ocarina of time because they had to trudge through the limitations that they had which forced them to do really smart things to make the mountains look bigger in the background without doing bandwidth and shit what is it that people care about the most right and yes for instance yeah like the the analogy that we're talking about here when it let's say that you could only use four chords for the rest of time Let's say there was some weird other universe.

2:18:07Only four chords are allowed to be used in every song. Okay, well, what do we start to play with then? Well, we start to play with the arrangement. We start to play with the complexity. We start to play with the lyrics. We start to play with the musicality. It's a never-ending, unfolding, coagulating, resurfacing thing that just keeps eating itself into just everything. What you can end up with, the reason I thought it was real interesting, constraint breeds creativity. So if you do have inside of pop music some constraints, some regular formulas or levels of predictability or expectation or whatever it might be, it means, well, perhaps people begin competing in the area which is the highest contribution.

2:18:46And maybe that's the resonance, how much of the artist's soul is put into it, what's the message of the song. And I thought that was really cool. I was thinking about this on walk through Manhattan. I'm like, fuck, like, wow, that constraint that Jack put on himself where he said he wasn't going to allow himself to use different colors, different shapes, all the rest of the stuff. It meant that the only two things he thought about was what was the quote I'm choosing and how am I representing it? That's it. He had two things to play with. I'm like, well, those are the two highest points of contribution.

2:19:14So perhaps unlimited degrees of freedom result. What do you think are the two highest points of both points? For him, it was what is the quote that he was choosing from a gazillion quotes that he could choose. What's that? And then the second one was how is it going to be represented graphically? And he believed that to be his highest point of contribution. Those were the highest points of contribution. Like I can have all the colors in the world and the different fonts and all the rest of the stuff. And I think the same thing can be true of something like music, where you have an infinite number of ways that we can represent this.

2:19:46But perhaps if you bring the constraints in, you focus on what do people care about the most? And where do I get lost in the source? Utility. Utility. What's the utility of this? Are we making a song? Sometimes it'll be an hour in. and you'd be like, are we just making a song because we're making one? What are we doing here? What's the purpose here? Where does this get played? Who's going to listen to this? Who's going to like that? It does come into your mind. Lately, lately, I've just been, I can only stomach making something that I'm just like, I will listen to this in my free time. There's been other times where I haven't.

2:20:20There's just other times where I just haven't. I've just gone along with who's in the room. Whatever gets to cut, and their fans will like it, and it's big, and it's just like whatever and I can use my talents to kind of treat it like a day at work and making X amount of dollars off of just me spending eight hours by helping this person do this thing it's like cool but lately it's tough for me to feel for some reason six years ago when I was making hits I just wanted hits and it excited me didn't I just wanted to figure out the code to get to the top of radio with the biggest artists with the thing and then that becomes just like everything else it all becomes disenchanting it's like the artist thing I'm walking away and then I just want hits and then when I just want hits I made enough money to where I'm like I'm not interested in making hits right now I want to make an album and make an album go play Forest Hills and that's really interesting so now what's interesting to you now

2:21:12shutting off as many things on the outside world as possible and making something that I am 15 year old John going batshit crazy about in my car and then maybe maybe again bringing that to the world one more time. That's what's really interesting to me right now. It's not, it's just like shutting down. It's like open eyes, wake up, coffee, music, music, music, music, music, kids go to sleep, wake up, music, kids, music, music, music, music, music, kids go to sleep, wake up. And it's been an interesting, it's been interesting to see what artists have just like came into my universe from me just doing that.

2:21:49Cause now I'm sending out songs that I'm like, I didn't even consider this, this, this, and this, but somehow that somehow makes it more interesting for artists of different artistic calibers and how the world views them and blah, blah, blah, blah.

2:22:04I don't know shit about shit. I really love what I do. I really love what I do. So right now, taking the necessary steps, whether that be living healthily, living olympically, processing drama in order for my balance to not take too much out of me. that's what I'm what I'm enjoying right now is enjoying myself I'm so happy for you man thank you I'm so fucking happy for you thank you I really I appreciate that deeply and you did it all from fucking Long Island yeah and are there days

2:22:41where you want a strong on the perspective and you don't feel like you're getting the just do it comes and goes it comes and goes but but

2:22:54a normal life is a great life I'm positive of it because in the details is where you find infinity infinity is in the details it's not in the it's just like not in the headline it's just not so you see I live a very odd me and my wife talk about it a lot we are smack dab in the middle a little regular life, and we're also smack dab in the middle of not. Like, there's no, uh... And I'm not even sure that what I'm doing is the right way to live. I just know that I'm happy. Uh, in an overarching sense. Not every day is perfect at all. But...

2:23:46When you almost get wrapped into something and almost lose it all, like, going to get smoothies with your kids is like, it's hilarious. The jokes, the development, the way that they see life, the things that they trust you to say, that it's just like, man, if I would have just like, lived for me, what a bummer. What a bummer. I know a lot of motherfuckers that got it.

2:24:12Didn't turn, didn't fill the hole. but the industry I know it's the age old archetype but you'll be different because your message is the most important so of course you're going to sacrifice a little bit of family time and a little bit of social time and a little bit of health right now and of course you're going to do that because what you have to say when you get your message out into the world and that's what they tell you and that's the temptation that's the thing and then when you get there you've made so many fucking sacrifices to get there that you're not even the person who began to be in the first place it's like i have to become the i don't know like metaphorical president but in order to become the president of course i'm gonna have to slide some money here and do this in here because my my life down my goal is the noble one so me doing the wrong thing what's immediately wrong in my present to get to there is the sum of all games it's like that was something that i considered you had this eye-opening moment when you realized how much you're getting screwed on your deal and from that I don't want to tour anymore but would you actually even want to tour as a new father if a touring deal was the most perfect you can do no they put it on the table right after Four Sillars they were like they the proverbial they were like holy shit we didn't know he was going to sell it out in three hours we didn't know that it would stream this way it would chart on Spotify blah blah blah We had no idea.

2:25:45They put in front of me, they put in front of me like multi, multi, multi million dollar, 40 day, just in case you want to see it. And I just looked at it as like, I looked at it like a joke. I just looked at it like, no way. Why?

2:26:02It's like a guy like Ed or like certain artists you have conversations with. They live to be on stage and it brings them a lot of joy, bringing people joy in that way. you know like like ed is just like he lives and breathes by playing his guitar and singing and being like playing stadiums and that that brings his life so much joy that it's worth putting in the effort with his children to do that because it's so important to him it's just not that important to me people like the shows and they like when i'm on stage and i have fun and it's my adrenaline pumps but i don't like the calm down i don't like the two days of staring at the ceiling of being like, what drug did I just take?

2:26:42I don't like the drug. The drug's not, it's not, it doesn't feel normal for me. And I don't know how to regulate that. You do enough shows and you learn how to like not give it everything. I'm on stage losing my fucking mind. And then by the time I get off stage, I'm reeling for two days. I don't enjoy it. I barely enjoy the album release process. I don't like going into this thing where it's like, you're about to release this thing and this podcast is coming out and will you get clipped and will it become this thing? I don't enjoy any of that that's not none of that is like it's not exciting to me but i'm lit up when someone plays i'm uh just a mean honking chord over just some ill fucking drums and i'm just like i could just do this for the rest of my life this is great there's other stuff that comes with it because you have to make a living and your relevancy and play the game play the game to some degree because you can't abandon the game completely that's just like a young again that's me at a young age i'm burning the whole thing down it doesn't work that way for me at least nice pipe dream nice pipe dream not possible but yeah it's uh I love what I do I really do love what I do the touring to answer your question

2:27:54I don't enjoy it I don't even enjoy I don't even really enjoy it's like the fanfare or the praise I don't like it how's it feel?

2:28:13you know it's like a selfish thing you want it how you want it it's like dude listen to my music and be affected by it and like think i'm the greatest but like don't like put too much pressure on me because like i'm not that like it's not that serious but it is very serious but it's not very serious but it is very serious and i'm like what how to even um

2:28:32how to even operate in it i still have no idea no idea well I have an idea because I know that if you put a 7 million dollar tour in front of me it ain't 40 million or if you put a 7 million I'm like I'm good because I just know myself at this point I've walked away long enough to be like finally I'm back and they're accepting me and I can go on this sold out tour if they want me it's like dude I made an album about being a dad to three boys like I wasn't trying to apply to everybody can you imagine I've been playing that live, being like, I'm working really hard as a dad, but not for the next 39 days.

2:29:11Thank you. Coming to the opening night. Honest to the Lord, that is the conundrum of my existence. That is the conundrum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just to give you a little bit of insight there, you know Aaron Gillespie from Under Oath? He's the drummer and singer from Under Oath. I know Under Oath. Yeah, yeah. So he's the drummer and singer from that. uh he struggled a lot struggles a lot with uh performance anxiety anxiety generally i think he said on the pod that he's been to like fuck the emergency room hundreds of times while he's been on tour he's adamant he's having a heart attack health anxiety stuff and as i was sort of listening to him talk about it and i'm hearing sort of you say the same thing he has a particular type of obsession which has caused him to get some outcomes that he's not happy with having to go off tour to go to an emergency room and telling the nurses what scans to get because it's the same scans that he know that he got last time because he's been so many times like like going to a pub and ordering the usual despite the fact that he's never been to this hospital before but he already knows what he needs to prove to himself that he hasn't got the thing and i'm like you do understand that the level of obsession that is tormenting you with regards to your health is the reason that you're in one of the most famous and successful battle bands of all time and the same thing for you with this yes i i i run into all of these reminders every day that don't that feel counterintuitive to ambition success whatever it's almost like this john guy's crazy he's coming here preaching mediocrity there's times in my life where i say i could finish this song today and I know that so-and-so needs it and I know I could, this could really be a big win and da-da-da and it's just, it's just a graduation.

2:31:02It's, it's just Christmas Eve. It's just a random day in July going in the pool and my kids are going there. I'll be three hours late. I run into that a lot where I'm just like, this feels unimportant, but the thing I tell myself in my head, I just go follow that. And a lot of times I'm doing things that don't feel, as a father, a lot of times I'm doing things that don't feel, they don't feel fun. They don't feel important. And I don't realize their importance until like six, seven, eight, nine, 10 months later. So a lot of it's just like kind of feeling out in the dark to like, I'm actually walking toward the exact opposite of a self-help podcast.

2:31:39I walk toward mediocrity very aggressively because I find that the nuance inside of the mediocrity gives you a stronger baseline for a longer level of happiness. When your ambition is so like,

2:31:57I'm not gonna throw any names under the bus of like giant athletes or whatever, but the ambition is so obsessive and so whatever. Just look at the fruits of the, look at the fruits of the thing. Dude, ultimately your career is a marathon, not a sprint. It has to be. And why do you think every fucking artist goes on a podcast over and over and it's the same story. It's the same story. I was at the height of my career and the loneliest I've ever been. It's like at a certain point, someone, I might be mildly not too dumb to look at that and just be like, I'm gonna believe all of them and never look over the fence and never chase after the thing that, no, if I got it, because enough people have told me that it's not the end all be all.

2:32:42I'm gonna have to do this. I didn't want to have to fucking pull this one out, but I'm going to have to read you an essay. I'm sorry. I'm in. Okay. I'm so in. Okay, here we go. Such a good conversation. I came up with this insight about a year ago, and it's exactly what you've been talking about, and I called it unteachable lessons. Basically, what I realized was that there is a certain category of lesson that no matter how often people learn it, we refuse to be able to hold on to. Yes. I've been thinking about a special category of lesson, one which you cannot discover without experiencing it firsthand.

2:33:27There is a certain subset of advice that for some reason we all refuse to learn through instruction, unteachable lessons. No matter how arduous or costly or effortful it's going to be for us to find out for ourselves, we prefer to disregard the mountains of warnings from our elders, songs, literature, historical catastrophes, public scandals, and instead think some version of, yeah, that might be true for them, but not for me. Absolutely. We decide to learn the hard lessons the hard way, over and over again. Unfortunately, they all seem to be the big things, too. It's never insights about how to put up level shelves or charmingly introduce yourself at a cocktail party.

2:34:04Instead, we spend most of our lives learning firsthand the most important lessons that the previous generation already warned us about. Things like money won't make you happy. Fame won't fix your self-worth. You don't love that pretty girl she's just hot and difficult to get. Nothing is as important as you think it is when you're thinking about it. You will regret working too much. Worrying is not improving your performance. All your fears are a waste of time. You should see your parents more. You will be fine after the breakup and be grateful that you did it. It's perfectly okay to cut toxic people out of your life.

2:34:34And even reading this list back, I'm rolling my eyes at how fucking trite it is. These are all basic, bitch, obvious insights that everyone has heard before. But if they're so basic, why does everyone so reliably fall prey to them throughout our lives? And if they're so obvious, why do people who have recently become famous or wealthy or lost a parent or gone through a breakup start to proclaim these facts with the renewed grandiose ceremony of someone who's just gone through religious revelation? It's also a list of very contentious topics to say on the internet. If you interview a billionaire who says that all his money didn't make him happy, or a movie star who said that her fame felt like a prison, the internet will tear them apart for being ungrateful and out of touch.

2:35:16So not only do we refuse to learn these lessons, we even refuse to hear the message from those warning us about them. Even more than that, for every one of these, if I think a bit deeper, I can recall a time, including right now, where I convinced myself that I'm the exception to the rule that my particular mental makeup or life situation or historical wounds or dreams for the future render me immune to these lessons being applicable no no no my inner landscape would be fixed by skirting around the most well-known wisdom of the ages no no no i can thread this needle properly watch me dance through the minefield and avoid all the tripwires that everyone else kicks and then you kick one and you share a knowing luck between another person the kind that can only occur between two people who have been hurt in exactly the same way and a voice in the back of your mind will say i told you so to the t we could have saved ourselves a whole fucking conversation i love it that's exactly bro i could never have related with something more in my entire life it's like the grass is it the day man the grass ain't greener like hey man being present is really good like you don't know until you gotta like i give up artistry and i'm walking away from it to be it's like wow that i didn't even need it in the first place thank god i stripped out of myself dude i love the fact that you're a this weird role model for both ends of the fucking extreme, for the complete dedication, purest art form going forward, and also winning in the weeds of taking your kids to the ice cream to get a fucking, like, what's that fucking ice shit that everyone on Long Island eats?

2:37:08Italian ice? Yeah, Italian ice. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Why'd you gotta throw Italians in there like that? He did the British thing before. You the fuck did it, dude. You're talking to me. He did the British thing. Oh, well, I'm gonna tell you about this. I think it's like a French ice or something like that. Yeah, exactly. But I think it's really cool, man. I think that you are, without knowing it, like very on the nose of the zeitgeist of where people are moving. You said before, I think that fathers are important. I think that fathers are going to be increasingly important as we move through the future.

2:37:38And also might be one of the most culturally out of touch people that's been on the podcast. and you know when two of your different friends tell you hey man you got to watch this new series and they don't know each other and they didn't coordinate to do it and you go whoa or two people say have you checked out the new fucking sleep token record or whatever the fuck and you're like I should probably pay attention to that because a lot of people are telling me two independent people came up with the same realization you came up with unteachable lessons you had some other name for it in your mind I wrote that essay a year ago So there's probably something there.

2:38:16I feel like there's something there. The fact that you, Mr. fucking Faraday Cage, sterile laboratory of music production and child rearing, arrived at the realization, I think fatherhood's important. I think you win in the weeds of life. I think that normality and boring victories and mundane successes day to day are where the juice is to be squeezed from. Absolutely. I think the fact that you have done that, and if you look at the zeitgeist, that they're pointing in the same direction too, that people are like, dude, the glitz and the glamour and chasing all of that stuff is becoming gauche. It's becoming cringe.

2:39:01It's becoming an ick. It's becoming shallow. It is. In a way that maybe it didn't previously. Yep. I think that suggests that you're under something, man. which also takes me like and again last things just i totally agree the zeitgeist is the there's just a level of consciousness that seems like if i if i'm conscious like that then we're all connected then like if i feel that way chances are a lot of other people might feel that way in the depths of myself it was songwriting i recognize that when i identify something deep inside myself i say oh hold on to that one and try to always hold on to the way that that felt because you might be able to put that in something to then deliver it to the world because you're human just like everybody else.

2:39:43That's why when you start to doubt yourself, it's so dangerous. If you start to caveat for other people, that little whisper, Rick Rubin calls them whispers, right? Or my therapist said, pay attention to fleeting thoughts. You're like, oh, hold on. Yes. Come back. Yes. Let's have a little listen to that. And that's where, oh, he sees me. Yes. He sees me. Yep. Holy fuck, dude. Dude, the consciousness of it all, it almost feels like the times are coming to a tie, a tied up end. I don't know what that means. And maybe, you know, nuclear war was always a threat and all this different stuff. But deep in my gut somewhere, it feels like the bedrock of reality is starting to crack open.

2:40:33Like, is school good? What's college? Who's the president? what's going on do we trust the government I don't know but it's like coming to this thing because everything's being recorded and truth is quickly getting you know thrown to the top of the pile because of our access to it that you're right there is some sort of consciousness that's moving in a direction that I don't know hopefully it's toward a honestly dude as long as you know what I want to return to I appreciate you giving me the freedom to even feel this comfortable to have this conversation by the end of our conversation but I almost like want to go back to being stupid because the dumber I stay the larger and more aware I am of like in my happiness to some degree and I don't mean willful ignorance I don't mean ignoring problems and not addressing things and pretending like things don't exist just I don't know it felt good to make it to make that song or I don't know like one song one show it's like I don't know it just felt right with me.

2:41:34It felt right. Well, you're stupid. You didn't get a$7 million deal from your 30-year back, dude. People are listening to you. The whole world wants you. You're dumb. It's like, I just like, I'm thinking, I'm like, I'm dumb. I'll just be over here just like in my dumbness, doing nothing, having a popsicle on a Tuesday with my boys. I'm just going to stick to dumb because I think dumb's been working. Mundane and dumb has really saved my life. It's really helped me out. Sitting with the uncomfortability of the things that you don't want to touch, slowing you down, and in the dumbness, you end up coming into grips with that monster.

2:42:14You end up, you end up, things kind of just worked out. I've smarted myself into being so stupid. I'm like the smartest dumb person ever. I'd rather be like the dumbest smart person. willfully letting go of like the wisdom i feel like the more like insane wisdom i get the more i'm like okay i i need to i need to do a bit on you that most people on the internet will know but given you're not on the internet you wouldn't have seen it do you know what the midwit meme is midwit midwit meme okay so imagine a bell curve that you've got here and on the left hand side you have a meme of a guy who people not believe that i don't know what that is like is it that popular?

2:42:53Probably not. No, I think it's a justifiable level of ignorance. Okay. The rest I can't speak for. No, no, no, no. You're hopeless outside of that. Left-hand side, guy that looks a little bit like a caveman. Big brown, he's sort of stupid like that. And then at the top of the bell curve, which is where most people are, you have this sort of screaming, raging, overcomplicated optimizer person. And then on the right-hand side, you have this guy that looks like a Jedi with his hood up. And the meme, the joke, is that the guy on the left and the guy on the right always agree they always come to the same conclusion and it's the person in the middle who overcomplicates everything i love that so for example i love it um uh how do i build muscle eat protein lift weights eat protein lift weights i must ensure that my pre-digested weight is consumed within a 30 minute window from a grass-fed grass-sourced non-gmo like right okay And for this, everybody that is, every guy in the middle is a guy on the left trying to be the guy on the right.

2:43:53You cannot be the guy on the right. Okay? There's no way to become the Jedi. You can only be the guy on the left. So a question to ask yourself is what would the guy on the left do? The guy on the left, Tuesday afternoon. We should get lollipops. As opposed to what is the most optimal way for me to ensure it? because that is you trying to be the guy on the right and ending up being the guy in the middle. Chase, have you still got that? Can you lift it up? Okay, so this is what we're talking about. So guy in the left.

2:44:30Guy in the middle, guy in the right. You can't be the guy in the right. It's only possible to be the guy in the left. Yeah, and it's almost like the more you're okay with being the guy on the left, you're kind of like, it all just ends up being all right. hey I don't know man I love it John Bellion ladies and gentlemen dude I've enjoyed today so much that means a ton to me over the years like I try to give people their flowers if I ever meet them and say if I ever come across that guy I'll let him know first day whatever I just think it's very very noble I think it's very

2:45:04I wish a lot more people thought the way that you did in what they decide to help people with and how they decide to help people and i've seen you refine it over the years because i've been a fan for a super long time so i'm in man i appreciate you i appreciate you having and thanks for dude thanks for doing this all the way where i live i got you man i got you until next time yes sir rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door expertly cleaned and folded so you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you.

2:45:35Mmm. Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you. So did you hear about Dave? Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you. Mmm. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great.