Tanya O'Callaghan - How To Change The World Through Music

34:52Like, so they have to put all this flashy marketing. But that's also like, I don't think that it's necessarily, oh, it's so nefarious. It's some evil empire. It exists because we pay for it to exist as consumers, right? If we shifted our consuming habits, then they will shift because they just want to make money so the optimistic side of this and in the work and the people that I work with on these types of projects we already have the answers and solutions I mean it's incredible we have like precision fermentation we can have milk now that's not from cows we can have meat that is meat cellular agriculture is here but we're so attached just psychologically to how things always are and how like the food system has always been that it's hard for people to shift to this new because it's seen as a technology which can kind of freak people out but now we've gotten because we don't have time to fight about like everybody go vegan everybody do this it's like you need the this the critical mass to shift is it like 25 percent of the population has to shift in order for something to become the norm so we have all the solutions with all these brilliant minds and technologies here in front of us.

36:01But we have to, you know, sort of wake up and understand we're being lied to every day on labels and just ask for better. Like it's not fair because again, like I always say, take ethics out of it. I can't, I'm exhausted debating why we shouldn't be cruel to animals. It should go without saying. Just because something is smaller or weaker does not mean we should rein dominion over it. This is ridiculous. And until we treat our most vulnerable better and that people and animals like I just don't think we're going to get anywhere because you know it goes both ways so one staggering statistic is that now of the all of the animal mass in the in the world is it 78 percent is cows and sheep right so not only are we enslaving that mass amount of basic food for us basically we're also killing the other ones totally right it's like you know humanity is so arrogant but so dumb i know at the same time we're so brilliant but so stupid it's amazing yeah but it's so true because all our arable land is being taken up for mostly like fast food factory for like every you know again back to this whole consumerism thing unless you literally have a farmer you know or you're raising and killing your own meat and that's you know I talk to I have friends who are hunters and I have much more respect because I'm like I don't want to see it I still don't want to kill animals but they agree it's not okay to support this mass animal agriculture and it's like 99 point something percent of meat comes from that there is no way around it because we are using we're literally knocking down rainforests to either grow soy to feed cattle cattle can't eat soy like the ruminant animals they can only digest grass yeah so we're not only clearing land to grow crops to feed animals who are then sick their entire lives because by nature they're not designed to digest it so we're now ingesting sick animals so it's like you're not you're not doing the best for the planet obviously your body and if you saw what was happening and the math as you would be phenomenal at the math is insane and so sad it is like we are now feeding because a by-product runoff of say the fishing industry and this is so screwed up like cattle are fast becoming one of the biggest consumers of seafood and i know because the industries are constantly finding ways to cheaply feed and mass produce animals because the demand it's interesting like veganism is growing and plant-based this that but it's also like meat consumption is growing as the human population grows and that's terrifying because now we're starting to see vertical factory farms and that's like terrifying and I always say okay back another reason take the ethics out of it we're going to see the end of antibiotics like antibiotic resistance is like just that far away because we're pumping all of the antibiotics into the animals we eat so suddenly you know we fall and graze our knee and get a basic infection and antibiotics don't work if you really want to scare yourself look into the end of antibiotics because we're just you can't you can't expect any life animals in these situations to be healthy because it's so unnatural so we pump them full of steroids hormones antibiotics um in order to keep them from being too sick until you kill them and that's just screwing with antibiotics and like modern medicine development so there's just there's endless reasons it's like we're killing the rainforest to grow the and it's really funny because vegans always get this like yeah but you eat all the soy it's like this percent all the soy is going into the cows so if you really care about rainforest you shouldn't be eating you know this beef from and living in the US it's so interesting because you know the bacon thing is a big thing like most of the bacon is not it's not coming from where you think it's coming from and it's not some cute like farm story it's coming from some horrible horrible situation and it's and or coming in from China and the food is coming in from Brazil or whatever it's probably the most un-American thing you can do is supporting these industries because it's they're they're owned by overseas conglomerates so there's so many reasons and obviously I could talk about this for days but the base is coming back to like and a lot of the the work that I try to do is just individually although it's hard to change individually it really does have a profound effect if you just make a little bit of effort like if you consciously consume different for a few days a week it's pretty staggering because that sends a market signal yeah that there's more demand for this and less demand for that and then the system changes with the consumer because at the end of the day they just want to make money and why wouldn't we want to live in a cruelty-free world it just baffles me because you know paul mccartney said it well if slaughterhouses have glass walls everyone will be a vegetarian.

40:56So you see, I'm with you in terms of how far humanity has gone and that we will pay back for all of this for sure. I don't want to make anyone feel bad. So I do eat chicken occasionally, maybe two times a week or so. And most of my food, I don't call myself a vegetarian or a vegan. I call myself a motarian. I eat what's good for mouth. But most considerate about what it is that I eat. Now, the idea of you showing up, because I think feminists are destroying the feminist movement because of how overboard they go. Vegans are destroying the veganism movement because of how overboard they go. But you, as you hinted in the middle of the conversation, you have friends who are hunters.

41:48You speak to hunters. You basically are saying, look, it's not a black or white, you know, if you're not with me or against me, it is a spectrum of we can have improvements on the way, right? Now, there is that blame that goes to vegans that sort of, are you trying to make me feel guilty? Are you trying to shame me? This is not what you're trying to do. No, I believe wholeheartedly, you know, and it's, we have so much more in common than we don't but just human nature being what it is we focus on the one thing we don't have in common and we forget so if you take like whatever it is a hunter and a vegan and what are they going to focus on you kill animals and you love animals oh you listen to zeppelin or your kid goes to school here oh you know i like plants like there's probably a thousand things you agree on and one thing so i love people i love travel i love meeting different cultures.

42:46I love learning why. I love learning why not. I love all of that. So I think that it's just so much more powerful than whatever it is. And this could, you know, apply to politics. It can apply to anything. If we stop focusing on that one thing we're held out and bent on, because most people want to live more consciously, for lack of a less hippier term. And there does nobody any good to bombard anyone with your opinion. Because like, you know, as they say, opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one. But it's like I see it in the vegan movement. It's so funny. I didn't know I was a vegan until I met a vegan when I was, I don't know, I think I was 17.

43:24And I met a guy in Dublin who was like the depiction of Jesus Christ, the long hair, like just essentially almost like levitated towards me. I was like, oh, and he started telling me about the in depth of the dairy industry. And then I because so for me, I didn't want me. And then myself, my mom have like a same thing with this dairy taste sour. So I naturally didn't eat dairy. So I was just kind of an accidental vegan. So I get this label in my teens. And I'm like, oh, I guess I'm a vegan. And immediately, you know, I'm looking for, and I was a full on activist. So frontline, like anti-fur campaigns.

43:58I'm barred from the fur shops in Dublin. I'm like, you know, out on the frontline against all the, you name it. But I got that out of my system younger, thankfully. So I completely understand and empathize with the aggressive activism. because I know what it feels like and the pain of like, why won't anybody listen when this is happening? Why is nobody looking that this is how, you know, fur coat is made or this is where your pork comes from? So I understand the frustration, but it never really works in the delivery of opening people's hearts or minds. So you're better off focusing on common ground and solutions, which now, again, like I just can't believe here we are.

44:42if you would have told me when I was a teenager that a we'd even have decent veggie burgers let alone be able to literally grow meat oat milk who knew you could get up and oh my god people are like how do you milk off you you you but you every morning on the tour bus guys oat milk yeah and and honestly I mean like I never understood how I drank milk after I had oat milk it's so much nicer when we look at like i always say milk is a funny one because you know i grew up as most of us did where in school you're like they're trying to force feed you the warm cartons of milk because you're that's where you get your calcium from you're like oh i don't want to drink this gross but like we are literally that's another we're the only mammals that continue drinking milk after we're supposed to be weaned so because it's a huge industry and what people don't you know because if you just look back a step at a time into like why these things exist like a lot of times as a activist over the years people are like but why dairy like how is that cruel because did you know in order to have milk they take the baby calf away and I know some farms will always debate me on what we don't or we don't do for a certain time but just like take the ins and outs out you have to have a female cow lactating in order to have milk that we can consume which means like continuously impregnating a cow who gives birth and then you take the baby away so that the humans can have the milk i mean when you just break it down and look at it it's pretty weird and then not only that another industry pops up off the side of that which is veal which people are like oh how's that related it's veal because the baby calf is a byproduct and then they're like oh if we put them in enclosures and don't let them move their muscles stay soft and don't let them have their mother's milk and then it's some like luxury meat veal we're like we're just just to step back and look what it is and i know people have a hard time I'm hearing a lot of this, like foie gras.

46:36Are you kidding me? Like, it's just insanity what we do as people, but it gets a fancy name. Why is it called veal? Why is it not called like completely neglected baby calf meat? Why is foie gras got some fancy French name? Like at least label it what it is, you know? But again, so I also like to use humor because I like taking the piss out of myself. I'm an Irish person. and I have no problem with like being what we'd say like slagged and you know as you know I have this show coming out now Highway to Health and Myself and Derek we really want to play into that because we've been doing this our whole lives every joke every every prod that's been ever made we've heard yeah and we want to kind of question the status quo we want to push and have fun with it and we don't want our guests to all be vegans and think the same that's boring we want to look at a why people can if they are vegan or not like how they got there we also want to talk to people who are behind these incredible innovations like it's the future's right there i can see it like sir why aren't we all looking at this so using our platforms which music gave both derrick is derrick is a singer of sepultura yeah so brazilian heavy metal band for any yeah really heavy yeah when you hear him sing and then you're talking and be like is that the same person so Derek's also like a lifelong activist basically and he's big old dude so he's great so we're really having fun because our personalities both work in that sense that we can we can have those middle ground conversations we're not going in as like spearheaded like this is the answer I have all the answers I'm right and you're wrong that's ridiculous I don't have we all have blood in our hands it's impossible to live in like if we have phones we have blood in our hands you know it's so impossible to live a fully cruelty free life but why if you if we have the skills and the knowledge do we not live in the least cruelty cruel way that we we can by just reading labels and looking a little further into what you're buying because if you buy it it is holding up an industry as our subsidies which is a whole other spiel we could go off on but people ask for change or when you become the change and that that's it's a little frustrating because we live in this kind of uh what's the word it's almost like a it's activism but it's it's like a performative activism on social media where everyone's like be the change you want to see in the world but then continues to do exactly like it's hard tanya like you know if you like cookies.

49:11I like cookies. I just say eating cookies. You know, if you like certain cookies, I'm saying this not as a joke. Like, you know, I can tell you, I would probably have a six pack if I didn't like my cookie with my coffee in the morning. And I know that my belly is cruelty to others. Like, you know, people shouldn't see that. I don't think cookies are causing that much harm. I'm not, but I think the point I'm trying to make is that people find it hard to change. And one of my unforgettable experiences is I watched Seaspiracy. Phenomenal. I'm like, I watched that and I watched what was the other one that was talking about the fish and the birds ingesting plastic.

49:50And, you know, there are so many good documentaries that are basically talking about how we are affecting the world. And I think the message to me was very straightforward. It wasn't, look, I'm going to change the world. I don't think I will. Even in my own mission, one billion happy, at best, I'm going to affect the lives of a few millions or tens of millions of people. I'm not going to change the world, right? And the trick is, do I want to be the one doing that to that poor fish? Do I want to be that one? And if you suddenly, one of my turning points in my life was when I was grumpy as a young, aggressive business executive, and I hurt my daughter basically with my grumpiness.

50:35that was the moment where I decided you know what I really need to invest more in my happiness it's it's not you know it's not that difficult when you make the choice but you had to have an incentive right now in a very interesting way I think I don't want to be the one that is causing animals to be treated that way okay and it's a choice that I make at least because I'm human and I have protein needs and I have, you know, I am traveling sometimes, I don't have access to all the food, whatever, right? I can give myself a million excuses, but at least consciously every time. You know, one of the things I do is every time I would order chicken, I would eat every single part of that poor thing.

51:18At least, at least, you know, I honored that, you know, she gave her life for me, right? Now, the thing is, it's that incremental tiny bit of move that I think makes all the difference and if people have that incentive that I am the one causing that harm yeah an arm's length but I am the one that's causing that harm by buying that thing maybe people will start to find enough incentive to change well that's the like making just that more direct connection because that's what's happening and outside of just animal agriculture you're like you're just paying someone else to do the work that you would never do yeah and you're right like we'll that's what we do as humans we make excuses and it's too hard to change it's too hard but at the same time like we have it in us to run marathons and climb Everest but we can't not eat a piece of meat like I think we can make that decision but it's so ingrained in us culturally and food is part of our identity but that's also like such a great powerful tool of nowadays we have these amazing documentaries what the hell see spiracy the game changers you name it like if you then you just it starts to get in your head more and more and the information is there and then what you do with it obviously is your choice it's unfortunately not the animal's choice it's also the people working in these situations like it's so it's so complex it's unbelievable because you can start you can really dive into the fact that this is a human rights issue as well because as someone who worked very, very hands-on in these spaces, we've interviewed workers in factory farms and in slaughterhouses, and the amount of human rights violations that's happening is shocking.

53:01So again, as a consumer, whether or not you really care about animals, that's not always the case. It's so bad for the planet. It's so bad for the people working there. It's obviously not doing us any good health-wise. I've been alive my whole life without meat, protein. The protein thing is an industry protein is a strain of amino acids that your body doesn't care if it comes from nuts seeds soy vegetables starch or meat it just recognizes it when it comes into your body and it needs it it's i'm not here to debate nutrition because it's not my expertise but i am a lifelong non-animal eater alive and well running on stage don't supplement i don't take anything and i've kept check of my bloods and everything over the years and as like a kind of walking advocate for you can be alive and well because people get very concerned they're like where do you get your protein it's like i'd be retired if i had a dollar for every time someone asked me that question but where do you get your protein like we literally the world is suffering what doctors call like a like a massive the fiber gap people don't get enough fiber we're not talking about that because protein was marketed as this very very important thing and it must come from animals and animals get their protein from plants all protein comes from plants originally so it's so interesting that again we just i mean modern industrial farming and animal agriculture just became so big so fast that it kind of got it got out of hand and now we're at a tipping point with the planet where if we don't change or start to look at not just animals like even how we crop the land like mono cropping is destroying our lands and there's again there's all these beautiful technologies happening and all these amazing amazing foundations and groups doing work that's It's like, here, we can literally have utopia and not have food insecurity, which is the other bizarre thing.

54:48Like, we waste so much food in the process of keeping these antiquated systems alive. It's really frustrating because when you look at how much it takes to, you know, grow a cow to its slaughter age, to get X amount of meat, like all the water, all the grain, all that. And then you're destroying the land. there's people hungry in these the places we're going growing the crops instead of giving crops directly to the people we're shipping them so we can have cheap meat the far side of the world it's just so out of whack nobody in 2023 should have food insecurity that really really grinds my gears there should nobody should be hungry because we are throwing I mean I can't remember the last time I checked the stats it was up on the 40 percent of food like it was it's very high like of how much we waste it's shocking it shouldn't even we shouldn't waste one percent let alone be in the 30 or 40 percentile of food wasted because we've just become so used to having everything like that we live in an amazon prime world like no offense based us but it's everyone got too used to that it's like i remember when i first moved to the u.s and the difference of like i grew up in a small town in ireland and i remember you would go to the little grocery store when I was a kid and on a Monday they would have the shelves full and then by Friday they'd be kind of empty and then on Monday I'd be restocked again and something that really stuck out when I first started living in LA was I go to you go to like a Whole Foods or whatever and it's just constantly perfect it's like a movie set for vegetables like how is this possible we're just in this we just want all the time it's like it has to be perfect and on demand whereas I mean In an ideal world, obviously, we would try to grow more of our own food, try to be a little bit more self-sustainable.

56:33But even just a step up in consciousness as consumers is so, so powerful. Yeah, I have to bring us back to that idea of it's not only possible. I think most people don't realize how enjoyable it is. I mean, you as an advocate, rock star, like you're a rock star, but half of your Instagram is basically food. It's just food. Right? So my personal experience, so this is the month of Ramadan in Dubai. And, you know, in Ramadan, I tend to keep a very minimalist diet. I attempt very hard. So the spiritual significance of Ramadan is that you get to feel the need of others, right? So you get to feel that others actually don't have food every day.

57:21They don't have water every day. And believe it or not, it's quite an experience. Because the idea of 30 days of fasting, the first few days, it's like a little bit of intermittent fasting. It's good for you. You feel healthy. Everything's wonderful. And especially because we fast and don't drink water as well. By day 20, your body goes like, holy shit. Do people live, like there are so many people in the world that are so poor, right? That are below the poverty line. They have one meal a day, not by choice of fasting, right? And suddenly your body goes like, hello. Like suddenly empathy surges through you.

58:03Like I am not relating to another person feeling what they're feeling. I'm feeling it. I know what that is. So I try to really mimic that experience. every year. I've done it for, you know, since I was eight. And part of that is I have a very standard diet. So I eat almost exactly the same soup every day for iftar, for breakfast, as we call it. And it is a vegan, you know, style, Asian flavored soup. I eat it exactly the same way every day. And what will shock you is this. I go out twice a week and I buy a carrot, a broccoli, cauliflower, like not a broccoli, like a bit of broccoli, a bit of cauliflower, a box of mushrooms, and, you know, tiny things that cost nothing.

58:56And they last me three to four days. Fresh, enriching, wonderful. Like really, I feel nourished. I feel amazing. I feel light. And it's an enjoyable experience. It's not like I'm forcing myself to eat something that is horrible because the reputation of, you know, vegan food is like it's cardboard flavored with a little bit of Himalayan salt, right? That's not the truth at all. You know, after that, I have my wonderful oat latte. I make myself with oat milk. And I'm like, how did I ever, ever drink milk? I mean, honestly, after a week of getting used to oat milk, you go like, what was that taste in milk?

59:37So weird, right? And I'm not, again, I'm not like you, I'm not an advocate for anyone to change their diet aggressively. But I'm asking people to also explore. If there is an alternative that's better for the planet that has less cruelty, why don't you give it a try right it's and food is humanity's greatest uniter or divider in certain debates but it's so true like it's another real misconception of like vegetarian veganism plant based whatever you want to call it oh that's like someone said to me recently that that is a privileged diet i was like well for starters veganism is a social movement yeah it's a lifestyle veganism to me is like everything reading your labels i don't want to use products that were tested on animals.

1:00:23I don't, I choose not to wear leather, blah, blah, blah. But plant-based whole foods is a diet and it is not expensive. I am an independent musician who's been touring her whole life. It's like, I'm an artist. I'm not a multimillionaire. I've been living on tour buses and on low income since I started. It's not expensive to eat whole foods and plant-based. It's just not. It's probably cheaper. Obviously to some people in the world, anything is expensive but as far as like the western working world is concerned it's not expensive to go and buy a head of broccoli cauliflower carrots make a soup you know lentils one of the most beans chickpeas all these the most incredibly nourishing foods that go way back to ancient times of being so are cheap and accessible everywhere and if I can do it as literally an eternal nomad anybody can do it half the time even you know what I mean and I think that because we have and it's great that we have all these cool foods that come in like we vegan burgers and we vegan cheese and we vegan that's fun and it's a novelty and I say great transition food that's not what anyone in the like the plant-based health world is advocating where it's simple it's your healthy whole foods and whole grains which is accessible and affordable to most people and it's that getting to like get getting it out of your head that it's expensive or it's some i hate the word diet i mean it literally has the word dye in it which is not it's ridiculous like you know from following any of my stories like food food food everywhere color like eat the rainbow it's right there the food tells you this is good for me it's like if it's this and i don't mean like you know injected colors and dyes but if you have a plate full of different colors you know that that's your multi-nutrient right there you don't need to be taking all these supplements and all this it's it's pretty straightforward but we like to over complicate things as people like and we I think we like to label ourselves and you know we like to be in these like I'm a this and I'm a that and I mean we're just all humans and we're at least like we we can't necessarily change the world but back to your point on sea spirit so you can change the world for that one fish or that whale you can change the world for the animal and by sending that message it might it might seem so big that it's impossible but it's it's happening and that's what i try so hard to stay optimistic in a world where you're seeing like ridiculous ridiculous behavior that we do to animals and why we do it and we come up with a thousand excuses why this is all how we always did it whatever why don't we just do it a different way and celebrate that because now we don't even, this is what I get so excited about because we don't have to fight anymore about this and that.

1:03:13We have now figured out how to have essentially a utopian food system for everyone. Now, granted, some of it's an early stage, scale up is a whole other thing. But if the consumer supports this positive shift and it's not some like frankenmeat franken, I wish people didn't have such an obsession with I need to have meat. So we have to then develop how to literally grow meat in a lab. You can just eat whole foods. But, you know, people are attached to meat and that's fine. Now we have it, taking out all the cruelty and the waste of land and the waste of water and the thousand things you could feel out.

1:03:48So, like, why wouldn't we all start heading in that direction? Because it's beautiful. It happens only when the economic model is aligned to it. Yes. So I have one more thing to add to this, by the way, which is not about the type of food that you eat, But something that I would encourage our listeners to also think about is the source of the food. Okay, so I'll mention this and then we'll talk about Highway to Health. So one of the things I do very, very attentively in a supermarket is, I mean, I love New Zealand, but I wouldn't buy an apple from New Zealand. Okay, I love South Africa, but I wouldn't buy a mango all the way from South Africa.

1:04:24If I really crave a mango and I'm living in Dubai, then India is a closer transport to get here. And I don't think, again, people realize that this whole globalization of the market of food from one side is making us eat food that is stored in ways that are actually not natural at all. That apple that you're eating has been picked weeks before. Potatoes that you eat might have been picked months before because shipping is cheaper that way. But at the same time, all of the pollution that results from that entire shipping line is just unbearable, honestly, for the planet. Now, let's talk about highway to health, not from what you're attempting to do, but how are you able to do this?

1:05:11You're touring all the freaking time. I haven't been off the road since I met you. Exactly. So when do you have time to record this, to film it? And why did you make the choice to put it on YouTube and not go to Netflix and others? Those are all very good questions. So yes, I am pretty much on the road all the time for one project or the other. It is very hard to juggle because both Derek and I are touring musicians, but the project itself comes from just pure passion. The whole team, like my best friends in Dublin are the production team. Everyone's surrounded by it. Everyone who supported it since the beginning is what you call like mission aligned.

1:05:50So that foundation that it's not some egocentric thing where Derek and I are like, we want to have a show and we want to be the hosts. That's not what it's based on. So that is a great start. I think it's the opposite way. It's basically, we have followers, we want to give them something to think about. Totally, and I was stoked with Sean and Lucy and our team. It's like, really, I don't even want to be on it. But like, we have to be on it. Yeah, I know what you mean. But it's been such a wild ride because we started filming about, I want to say six months, four months maybe before COVID hit and the world like shut down yeah you told me yeah so before that it was all like you know a lot of r &d like what are we doing developing the idea raising funds getting the team together and there was a year or so that maybe a year and a half of that and then it's like okay we're ready to go we have the team we have enough funds to start this and we hit the road really hard and i i basically just tour manage it so i take everyone's schedule like you manage all the other tours because i'm I don't know, a lunatic.

1:06:49But it's like, okay, here's everybody's passport details. Here's everybody's schedules. Let's line them up and see where we are. You know, the biggest thing being like, where's Derek with Sepultura? Where am I with whatever band I'm with? And find little pockets and then reach out to guests in those regions. So we tried to really have guests that were relevant to where we were. So this week we just put out some stuff with Cleo Perez, who's a Brazilian superstar. And, you know, when we were in Ireland with the happy pair, of course. Oh, did you? Oh, yeah. I love those guys. They're the best. I was so glad when I saw you.

1:07:20Because I was going to connect to you and then I saw you post. I was like, oh. The soul is always finding you. Yeah. I mean, I have to say the best thing about this slow-mo thing is I meet the nicest people. And I tell you, they are sweet, sweet people. Like, they're really wonderful, very special, very kind. We have that episode coming out soon. Yeah, that'll be out in the next few weeks. They're 100 % aligned with you, huh? Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember like coming across the happy pair, Steve and Dave, if you know them, the lads, maybe five or six years before I moved from Ireland to the US and started really heavily touring because for the longest time in my life, I felt like I was the only veggie in the village.

1:08:01Like I'd never met anybody else because it wasn't really a common thing. There wasn't, you know, many other veggies around. So I started hearing about their work over the years and, you know, came from such again this thing like we're trying to do with the show just a pure place they want their community to feel healthier so they open a fruit and veggie shop and then this like empire just started to happen so of course I get to know them because you know your people find each other like they're magnets and they're just great lads and how they use their platform so one of the things we wanted to do on the show as kind of an explainer as to who and Derek and I are because not everybody knows or not everyone's interested in the music so we went to Cleveland where he's from and we do a little episode in cleveland even though people think he's brazilian because sepultura are brazilian but he lived there for 20 years and speaks fluent portuguese but he's from cleveland he's from shaker heights so we wanted to do a home story so we went to ireland to my hometown to talk to my parents and of course while we were in ireland we went to the happy paris so that's its own episode but um but to your question yeah managing it is um is interesting and madness but I love it like I thrive in chaos maybe that's one thing we should change but the chaos is all truly stuff I love like I get really really excited about even the idea that it could change anything or something or just one person's world because we get lovely messages we just started the channel so we decided after so we film intensely and we have we have 22 terabytes of footage from around the world and I was just saying on my Instagram the other day for people to like bear with us because at the beginning it might seem like a couple of nice sit-down meals with people we know and we're chatting about plant-based and we've Kevin Smith and we've Kat Von D and all these like names but really the big view of it is is so hard to explain because we do everything from like we were on board with Sea Shepherd doing an ocean conservation episode and we were with Ford Motors talking about solutions in the automotive of industry like what like really is like electric cars a thing we want to kind of prod into everything material innovations like future materials like taking animals out of the material chain and precision fermentation and future food technology like we want to go everywhere because it's it's kind of all connected right but we decided to do the youtube model in the end because after all this filming and getting stuff we were starting to get offers of these you know mainstream media deals.

1:10:27And I always go with gut instinct. As far back as I remember the moment that I refused to meet, I had the same feeling when I left school. I had the same feeling with music. I had the same feeling with these deals. And we were seeing contracts and people come in that were like, oh, this is great. And we can give you this and we can give you this. But what they were really wanting to do, which is just the nature of the beast, is to own the IP. exactly they don't really have this is a mission aligned project as hippie as that sounds it's philanthropically funded to as far as we've got it the team are people who just are doing it for all the right reasons nobody's here to be like i want to be on tv not at all and so the more we thought about it and the more we looked at these mainstream offers the more we realized that they just want to own it as as crazy as like they want to own merchant bands we're in all this ridiculous of stuff into perpetuity and we may release it next year or in seven years we're like no this this needs to go out so when COVID happened in the world whatever that whole two years was it's just madness it's like a lot of we did a lot of the editing and we were getting ready to release it in that tv format and then we were just getting the heebie-jeebies with all these agents and I was like I don't know they don't it just doesn't feel right yeah we have enough of a platform not that we're megastars or anything by any stretch of words but we have enough of a decent following and passion that why don't we just do this ourselves because it's the age of the digital creator so we're like let's chop it up a different way so we went back to the drawing board and we took the 14 minute one hour episodes and we started slowly hacking them down into tens of hundreds of shorter form videos we're like okay let's just put it out are you not going to put the the the long form as well or maybe if that's what people react to wanting we're we're truly testing the waters to see where it sits and it's it's been uh like the team were laughing at me the other day because talk about having to just give up control which i love to manage and control the project and make sure everything is in order and make sure everything is perfectly aligned um there's there was a lovely just sense of let's put it out let's just put it So see what happens.

1:12:49I had the same experience when I was writing Solve for Happy because publishing industry, very, very little known, but they're very, I mean, they're dictators, I think, in a very interesting way. So not my current publishers. I love my current publishers. But when I started originally, there was my very first publisher on Solve for Happy insisted that my book would be written in a language similar to Deepak Chopra, right? and I adore Deepak I had the chance to meet him and you know it's humble wonderful human being but I'm not Deepak Chopra right and my first book was very very personal to me it was Ali's story it was my son and I wanted him to be written in a certain way and my rule opposite to a most mystical you know well-written spirituality driven books was to write a book that was to be understood by eight-year-olds, right?

1:13:45And so literally the rule I gave to the editors is if it cannot be understood by eight-year-olds, it's not going to go in the book. And that tug of war, basically, and I see you're doing the same because in my choice, eventually, my choice was, look, I don't care if I get the support of publishers and sell a million copies or, you know, not get the support of publishers and sell 10 copies. I just want to sell the right 10 copies, right? And that basically, I think is what you're going through. I heard this before. I heard the idea that the industry will take something and say, we'll publish it within the next seven years, which is, you know, for someone who's as passionate, I don't know if you notice what happens to you when you start to talk about veganism.

1:14:28You should watch this video. I never watch interviews myself, so that's funny. It's quite interesting, actually. So when you were talking about music and rock and so on, you were very chill, laid back, telling stories. My job, which I love. And then when we started to talk about animal cruelty and violence and veganism, you leaned forward, okay? And you started to speak faster. And like bullets, bullets, bullets, bullets, bullets, bullets, right? So clearly, we know that this is very, you know, a passion project for you. How do you... Yesterday, we were talking about... So yesterday, I took Tanya to an Egyptian place.

1:15:06That's amazing. Which is, yeah, which is, I think it's the origin of veganism, honestly. You were so right. Yeah, the peasants of Egypt that were building the pyramids and so on only had access to vegetables and, you know, beans and so on. So our core cuisine in Egypt. And they were building very heavy structures. So I think they were getting enough protein. They were doing fine, yeah. So the original Egyptian cuisine is mostly vegan, actually. Maybe vegetarian because I think milk was included, but very, very small amounts. Anyway, so we were talking about the fact that you're after Brazil. You're going to have a break.

1:15:45Well, you were telling me I should take a break. Yes, exactly. What's happening with that? So what happens when you're not touring? The next idea comes into fruition. There you go. Or it comes into fruition while I'm on tour. I mean, the thing is, yeah, I am usually go, go, go, but I truly am passionate and I love everything I do. So I do find it hard to totally stop because even if I'm physically in one place, my mind is in 42 other places. So how do you get all that energy? Like, but I think what I guess whatever you just pointed out is it comes from a source of passion. And I think, well, the short time we have here on this planet, it excites me to at least try to be part of a positive change.

1:16:32So I think that that is my charging and sun. I need sun. That's why I love Ireland. I love Ireland and I miss Ireland, but I need sunshine. So, you know, it's partially weather and partially just the excitement of I love connecting people and I love connecting dots. And that's why travel is so great, because, you know, I meet someone like you and then I have a friend in this whole other industry and another friend. And I'm thinking, wow, if I could bring these people together, we could have the most incredible think tank in the world, which you were talking about last night. But to your question slash point of slowing down, I don't know.

1:17:05I mean, this is slow-mo. You tell me how. You're challenging me to take a break. Well, you're right to sit in contemplation. I think I do do that more than it may seem because I become quite the solo nomad on tour, even though what people see is lights and stage and people every night, I'm very much a loner outside of that. And I think I do a lot of my self-contemplation and thinking and being on my own on the road. So when I go home, I sometimes switch back into work gear, even though I've just come off work. So I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. So the deal I asked Tanya to contemplate yesterday, and I'm going to ask all of you to do that sometime, is when you go home, keep a notepad next to you.

1:17:54And whenever you decide you want to do something, write it down and say it will be done in two weeks. In two weeks' time. I told my friend this morning and he said, you're going to spontaneously combust. Exactly. But I find that to be quite interesting, actually. So I separate the doing and the being with a notepad. And I simply sit down and I tell myself, yeah, I know there are lots of things to be done. And, you know, we tend, I'm a doer as well. I wake up in the minute. I wake up, I'm doing things. But, you know, sometimes I tell myself, I had this very unusual series of things breaking in the last few weeks.

1:18:35Everything I attempt to work on sort of resists a little. And I was asking a person who's very, very dear to me. And she said, maybe the universe is sending you a message. And the message clearly is maybe stop doing. Stop kind of fake stuff. Yeah, stop doing for a while. Because, you know, if my aquarium is wonderful and I love my aquarium, but I want to make it extra perfect by adding A, B, and C, if I don't add A, B, and C, nothing will break. When I start to add A, B, and C, things start to break. So I separate. When I decide to do that, I separate the doing and the being by basically writing down what I'm going to do and then slotting them in the right moment of my life.

1:19:16having said that I can definitely not blame you for the passion Tanya I think it's what gets us close you know makes us close and it's what I adore about you and yeah I encourage everyone listening to us to actually go and check out the YouTube channel of Highway to Health while you're doing that listen to ACDC's Highway to Health and yeah and yeah and follow Tanya's work, whether her music or her projects. It's always been a joy for me to see all of the fire and the passion, trying to make things different. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. It's a wonderful conversation. And for all of you listening, don't do what Tanya does.

1:20:01Slow down every now and then, because it doesn't really matter how busy you are today. There's always a tiny bit of time to slow down. I love you all for listening. And I will see you next time. Thank you.