John Mayer

25:56How are you going to call it? How are you going to, you know, put a stamp on it? On sale a week later, like eight weeks later, the tour started. And what was so brilliant about it is number one, artists plan things so far in advance. We want to do them, which is why we plan them. And most of the time by the time we get to the doing of the plan, we don't want to do it anymore. And the other thing that was fascinating was in terms of selling tickets, we don't know what we're going to be in eight months. So it's not that people aren't buying tickets to a show in October because they don't want to go.

26:29I don't know where I'm going to be in October. So something really interesting happened where in January, we sold tickets for shows in February and March or March and April. And everyone was like, yeah, still being school. And that just made more sense to me than booking things that far out. You know what I mean? I'm more into it by the time I do it. They're more into it by the time they go. You're just shortening that fuse between, that sounds cool. I think I'll do that and doing it. It makes sense that whole world has gotten more immediate. Yeah. You know, we live in an on -demand world. It makes perfect sense.

27:08And now you're seeing me in the middle of my initial desire, the excitement of it. And draw something. Yeah, the fire of the idea. You get to do it now and we get to experience it. That's right. And I remember saying just because it's fast doesn't mean it's bad. Not at all. I think maybe just the opposite. And my team is great. And I hate saying my team, sorry, but it's incredible. And so flexible and just so immediate and dynamic that I could say I want to do this in that. And it starts with a vision. You can't waffle. I mean, if I waffle and I go, well, it might not, then we're over. You can't do it.

27:44Right? It's just too short a period of time. But I'm pretty good at downloading a vision and not wavering from it. And so this tour just turned out to be way more special than even I thought. I thought it would be like an appendix to my normal touring. And it became weirdly like the centerpiece of all of it. So cool. Describe what it shows like. It is like taking a magnifying glass in the middle of the afternoon and trying to get the beam from the sun so bright into the one tiny, tiny, tiny part of the paper that can burn. Like, how do you get all of who you are? How do you get those lenses to line up so that you really can refract everything that's inside you and make it work?

28:31Now, that goes against a lot of the thinking of touring, which is repetition. Let's get doing these shows so it's muscle memory, baby. Up we go, down we go. Like a Broadway play. That's right. And this is the opposite. Cannot do that. You cannot do it. I've never in my life been more in tune with myself in terms of even living in my body of stress. I am in my physical body more than I've ever been before. If I don't sleep, I feel it. If I don't rest my voice, I hear it. If I'm stressed, I wear it. Okay, what do we do? We have to lay down. Put on music. You need an hour. It's all of this real objective.

29:12And it's a solo acoustic tour. A solo acoustic. It takes me forever to write a set list because I have to be honest with myself. What do you want to play? What do you want to play tonight? Who are you tonight? And what is the set list that you will have the most fun sledding down this perfect? How far before the show do you do the set list? About an hour. And I go through two pieces of paper. Because I'm always fighting with yourself. With my instincts. Because there's the one instinct in me that goes like, don't let them down. Give them the biggies. And I don't know if you've had experience with this.

29:53Sometimes the audience doesn't want the biggies. Absolutely. And both the artists and the audience. You can't even project what they want. I know they want it to be good. That's exactly right. And I know you want it to be good. That's exactly right. And I have a feeling if you're really good, everyone's happy. That's what I'm saying. And if you think about both the audience and the artists having the wrong idea about the other. And the audience would say, we thought you loved playing it. And the artist would say, we thought you loved hearing it. And if you come together, you go, well, I don't really need to hear that one all the time.

30:26I know you play it all the time. I thought you loved it. Well, no, it was just big. And I thought you wanted it. And I've started to learn that they don't need waiting on the world to change. Yeah. That certain songs are part of the rocket booster. And they fall back to Earth to get the other payload up where you need it to go. So I write the set list that's in impression of how I feel. And then I go up. And the show starts. And it's still organic. And it's moving around the whole time. And depending on how they make me feel or depending on what the signs say, what the song, I'll go off a little bit and go into some other things.

31:08And as long as it's honest and everyone's in tune with it, it's great. I still have to talk myself down from this idea. Like, we haven't played a biggie in three. John, you don't have to play a biggie in four. You don't even know what a biggie is anymore. Nobody's going to agree on what the biggie is. It's over. Just have fun. And there's a lot of learning and also reinterpreting the songs because you're playing on acoustic. That's right. So it's already new. It's already new. It's already new. So a song that may not have been a hit in its recorded version could be the best song of the night as an acoustic song.

31:46That's precisely right. And if that happens, then people go home and go, I like that song. That's what I want to hear again. And that is the power of a tour in terms of the water table of your work, is that you can actually sort of elevate songs that were seen as, quote unquote, deep cuts into being really important songs. I mean, I've seen Pearl Jam do that in real time. Democratize everything, you know, so that in concert, these things, they all have value. And I will say this to anyone who wanted to do that, get ready for two or three really uncomfortable years of touring because you have to push against that thing of like, where's the biggie?

32:27Yeah. And exactly what you're saying has to happen, which is trust me. You're going to like this more. Yeah. It's like, I know we had plans to go get sushi tonight, but I'm not really in the mood to trust me. I found a place where both going to love more. Yeah. Trade it in for something if you trust the person. Yeah. And if I take everything up there with me, you can't go into show mode up there alone. You got to take it up there with you. I have said to the crowd, my heart's in a different condition tonight. You know, I got a text before I went on stage about my dad's health condition that had some verbiage in it.

33:00You know, sometimes you get these texts that say what they may have to do for an older person. And the may have to do disappears in the words that they may have to do. Hit your heart, you know. And it was like two or three minutes before I went on stage. You cannot separate. You got to bring that up with you. You know, a therapist told me a while ago about anxiety, bring the little scared kid up with you on stage. So you can come along, change so much for me. Absolutely. If you're anxious and that part of you that's a kid is still anxious to go, do you want to come with me? You can come up on stage with me.

33:33And I've brought him next to me. You can come up on stage. There's a lot of people out there. I know. I know it's weird, but trust me, I got it. And then you can take care of yourself. Amazing. In that way, you know. Beautiful. And I said, my heart's in just a different condition tonight. And the moment I admitted it, the music went right on track and started healing me. And everything stopped being about whether my vocals were on pitch or whether I had the breath control. It doesn't matter. You know, it doesn't matter. How miraculous is music. It's crazy. It just gets deeper as you get older.

34:13And I'm going to make a bit of an admission here. I thought that I was out of road about six months ago. And that's okay to think you're out of it. I'm not talking about retiring, but just going, I might not be able to put the spin on the ball like I used to. Okay. That was a good run and we'll do some songs occasionally. But, and then I learned that the dumbest I'll ever be is in my own sense of myself. And what lies ahead for me. Because six months ago, I was like, I think that's probably it. I've never been more energized to right now. And I'm playing new songs on stage. Maybe that feeling, like let you off the hook to be yourself again.

35:02That's right. And it, of course you want to make things because that's what you are and what you do. Right. Of course. There's two places you write from. One will never work and one always works. The one that never works is the one that happens most often, which is wouldn't it be cool to have one like this? There's no way around it, right? Because the second way, which is this is just purely emanating from me. Just that train doesn't come through the station very often. So, spend a lot of time going. You can't count on it. Yeah, you can't count on it. Wouldn't it be cool if I had one that went like this?

35:37Probably what you're doing when you think you're writing those songs is you're assembling firewood for the moments where that second thing really does come through. And so, none of it's wasteful. But you cannot believe the narrative at any given moment that your creative youth is over. Yeah. And also, sometimes you've got to write some bad songs to get to the good ones. Absolutely. Just happens. Nothing ever happens on the spot. No. People I wrote it on the spot. You go. I will show you six or seven other demos that had that chord progression. Right. And I look at age, you know, I don't reckon with it, but I know it's in there.

36:16And I look at 45, I'm 45, I go, okay, I've been doing this for a lot of years. There is this impulse to want to put your hands on your kneecaps and bend over and breathe and go, okay, look. That was a good run. And I don't know where that comes from except from like the suggestion that that must be what it's coming down to. And then I went on this tour and it was like, where did this all come from now? You just have to wait till you pick up the right guitar or hear the right song. You never know. You never know. You never know. And so now, I'm going to do this tour as I write my next record. Great.

36:51Which is just the way to make me square up with who I am every night. John, these are the songs you write. And then I go, are you tired of playing all these songs? Write the next one you want. That's the best way to write music. Write the one you don't have yet. Absolutely. And after playing over and over and I go, I got a few I don't have yet that I want to write. That's great. You know.

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38:33How did you end up essentially becoming a lead singer of the Great For Dead? I was working on Born and Raised with Don Was. I had heard a live version of Althea by Grateful Dead. Then Don knew about that. Don handed me like, Working Man's Dead. That got me a little deeper into it. Then I remember getting really deep into the serious Grateful Dead station. Originally when we started talking about it, we know in school, dead was not for you. Now bring us up from there to... Grateful Dead out of my life for most of my career leading up. Most of my life as well. We have similar relationships to the dead.

39:27I love meeting people who have that same path. In a way... I didn't get it. You had to listen to everything else to be able to understand what it was doing. That the other stuff can't do. Because I always liked music based on songs, and I felt like that's not really what they do. Yeah, there are songs in there, but that's not why it is what it is. Until you realize there are songs in there, but you have to learn the songs via the best versions for you to learn, which take you a while to find. Yeah, they're albums. No. All it takes is for each song, one live version of a song when you're driving and you go, I got it.

40:06I now understand the language of the song. And then you can listen to any future version of that song as dilapidated as it might be, as fast as it might be, and you now understand the framework of the song. And I always say it's like your kid talking to you. No one else can really understand it, but you know, you understand the language of it. So once you have this defining moment with each song that helps you understand the form, how does anyone get into the grateful dead? I agree. I don't know how it's possible because it's not set up. It's inaccessible. It rewards the journeyman. It rewards the investigation process.

40:47And when you then peel back a layer, you're the one who found it. And it becomes personal to you. Yeah. It is a maze. But if you work your own way through it, you have your own hold on the music via whatever way you took into it. Right? Because if you take every live, grateful dead recording and divide that, really multiply that by the number of songs there aren't. And then multiply that exponentially by the order in which you might be able to hear them. Everyone's journey into it is completely different. No one says I now have three favorite grateful dead songs, and they're all the three same songs.

41:27They never are. You get a different fingerprint depending on where you were when you heard it. I did some great drives when I was first falling in love with this music. I was doing some camping. I was in Joshua Tree. I was in BLMland in Arizona driving through these great, you know, badlands and stuff, listening to grateful dead and discovering, oh, Saint Stephen's different than, you know, Jack Straw or something. These are different songs, you know. And the visuals of where you are when you have this music imprinted into you, stay in the music. Yeah. So it's really good in the car. It's really, really good in the car.

42:07I was telling you before. Yeah. It's all how you parse time. That's what I'm learning about life. It's all how you subdivide time. And if you get in the car to drive for 35 minutes and you just put the radio on, you're going to hear 14 different things. Commercials, announcements, songs, and it's going to litter your brain. If you listen to grateful dead channel, you'll hear the end of one song and the whole rest of one other song. And then you're to your destination. And you can just let your brain go and look out the window and look at the billboards and look at, it probably makes you a better driver in the sense that you don't get antagonized as easily.

42:45You know. And you get where you're going and you actually might have had an experience. It is moving music. Yeah. Like it goes with the drive. Yeah. It's traveling music. It is traveling music. You know, I've said there's no grateful dead songs that take place at home. You know, these are all people on the move all the time. The spirit, the world, if you put all these songs together and build a town, nobody lives there.

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44:53Not in any kind of a popular idiom at all. And I think it rewards the work you do in finding it. It's well worth the work when you finally decode it. And I also think people who don't get it are appreciated by people who do because it creates more value to getting it. I've seen people enjoy their wives not getting it because it allows them to have a place to go. It's something it's theirs. I've seen wives. I've heard wives tell me, I actually do enjoy it, but I want it to be his thing. I actually do like it, but it's so much of who he is that I let him have it. Okay, so you have the experience what Don was.

45:33So I have the experience listening to these songs. And what's so fascinating about the grateful dead, but moreover, Jerry's playing. Is that I cannot visualize it. Now I'm a good enough guitar player that I could close my eyes or not close my eyes and see what most guitar players are doing. And then pick it. I don't even need to have the guitar in my hand. I could just pick it up and do it because I can see where you're going. And I've learned that the music I love the most is music I cannot visualize. So I hear Althea and I couldn't play it for you if you just handed me the guitar. And for the first time in years, I hear a thing on the guitar that I can't place.

46:13But it's like I don't play the guitar and now I want to. Wow. Because I don't know what that is. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. So my brain goes, file not found. And all I can do is listen. Now, it's my favorite moments as a musician is when something is so beyond my ability to visualize it, I'm forced to just listen. I love it. And so I did. And at the same time, I had a vocal issue I couldn't sing. So I was forced to shut up at the same time. So there's this overlay of me not being able to say, what was the vocal issue? I had a granuloma in my throat, which is benign, but very nasty because it's basically proud flesh that keeps building up in your vocal cords because they won't stop moving.

46:59So all you have to do is get an abrasion in there once and you start this momentum of it not being able to heal and it just keeps trying to heal. And your vocal cords won't close. No singing or no talking or nothing. No, nothing. For on and off for a long time. Surgery didn't work. This and that didn't work. It finally got out of the woods on it. But in that period of time, I was just listening to the grateful dead, not really being able to go be a musician. I was just a listener. And then I started making a record again and I was a capital records. I was at the capital recording studios and Don said to me, hey, I'm meeting with Bob Weir and Mickey Hart today.

47:39You should come up to my office. And this was just when they announced the fairly well shows with with tray. And I went up and met them and I don't ever have anything in mind other than just like extoling the virtues of something to the person who made it. Yeah. I love telling people what it is they did even when they know. I don't know why I just want to do you have any ideas. It feels good, right? Absolutely. Do you do that to people? You absolutely. We just have to wait. I just have to go, do you understand that what this really did and they were like, you want to be our publicist? Because I really was in just the very moment of that explosion of understanding and loving the music.

48:22And then they said, what are you doing in March? Because they were going to keep going. And then at that point, that was my goal from that point forward was to be in whatever future version of this band that it was going to be. Because I got to be honest, I wanted to play on that jungle jam. Yeah. I just wanted to swing from those bars. Yes. Where else can you do it? This is why people have grateful dead cover bands. Not because they want anything else out of it, but to experience what it feels like to play that music. It is not a commercial endeavor. I got to know what that wind feels like blowing through my hair.

49:07And I have that same thought. Except now I had met the original guys. And they were actually talking about doing some other more exploratory stuff with the music and maybe going electronic with it. And I was like, guys, the most space age thing you could do right now is to keep doing this because as a de facto spokesperson of this generation, this is about to be the most space age thing that's ever existed is rediscovering this music. And I sort of impressed upon them like stay analog stay analog stay analog don't overthink this please, please, please, I've never wanted to do anything more. And I went up and we started I would say half rehearsing half auditioning those audition sort of.

49:47Yeah, and I didn't really have that many of the songs I maybe had three, but I made sure to try to grab at least the spirit of the thing. I want to ask you, are you playing as you or are you channeling Jerry? God, that's a good question. Let me break that down for a second. That's I am thinking about Jerry all the time. And I wouldn't say channeling, but I am making sure that it's being run through a little bit of that thinking there have been shows I've done where I decided to go straight rogue Brent like just me. And it breaks a little bit the tether breaks a little bit that doesn't mean copy.

50:35It just means get in the spirit of that spirit of that thing in the spirit of yeah, and again, like almost the way that my career worked as a guitar player where I took so I copied so many times from so many people that I forgot what I was copying. So I just started being myself. That's happening on this. In this band now, I mean, there's we've done so many tours now that I might just be copying what I did four tours ago not copying what was on a record. Yeah, which is always great when you start kind of spoofing your own stuff instead of just throwing other influences into the mixer. And is it an intellectual thing or is it a feeling thing?

51:18Are you thinking when you're playing? I am thinking to get myself set and then I pull the thinking away. So I'm very like I have a right brain and a left brain going at the same time. It's very sort of bilateral all the time all the time all the time. So I have a gymnastics coach in my head. I have a guitar playing coach and it's me. Stop it. It'll say you already did that. What are you doing? Come back. Hey, chill. Excuse me. What are you doing? Relax. Go back down. Go back down the neck. Go back to just hang out there. So I will get intellectual. Is it going the whole time or does that happen come up sometimes?

52:03Is there always a voice when you're playing? Correcting you. Yeah. It sounds like correcting is what that's that you're what you just described was not telling you what to do. It was telling you what not to do. Yes. Yeah. Okay. If correcting is not a bad thing, then I would say keeping me on track. Okay. The way there's always the scout next to the sniper who writes down the windage and stuff. Just your windage up to clicks to the left. It's a little more like that. There you go. There you go. There you go. And then it goes away. Lately, I will say... So there's this thing with guitar players when a solo is approaching.

52:46Where guitar players see the solo coming up over the horizon. They start thinking about the solo when it's eight bars away. Where am I going to go with this? Should I go up high? Maybe I'll go like up high and go rain and in and out. And lately, I just let all the music come. And when I start playing, that's what I play. That's great. Yeah. That sounds great. That's closer to mastery than... That sounds great. Okay. Here comes the solo. You can see that in a guitar player. Here comes the solo. It's coming. What are we going to do? I think we should probably do a major the boom and you get hit.

53:18Now you're not even in the moment because you're too busy thinking about what it was going to be. But for the first tours, I mean, there had to be curriculum and scholarship in it because I was taking all this on. And now there's a little bit of tenure where people know how I can play. So I don't quite need to prove anything. How long have you been doing it? Oh, boy, we started in 15. Wow. Eight years now. Amazing. We have our own band history. Yeah. Yeah. And how does that... Let's get decided. I get a text from Matt Bush who is Bob's tour manager and manager. And Bob and I look at it first. We go through it.

53:56I don't know if the rest of the band knows that. But they do now. We sort of go through it. Most of the time now, it looks good. Sometimes there will be a song that might be over my head. I need another day on. Yeah. So you might just say, I'd rather not play this one tonight because I don't feel like I'm ready to play. I need to do my homework on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a realistic. Yeah. That's right. That's a realistic concern. That's right. And I loved the prep work. I mean, I still love homework as a musician. Yeah. If I'm sitting in with someone. Keeps you off the street. Yes. Well, I think I've never gotten over the fact of how cool this job is.

54:30Yeah. That even if you have to do something related to music, it's still cool. Super cool. Sorry, guys. I got to go home and I got to learn the song for tomorrow. Actors kind of do that. I have to be up so early tomorrow. I have to go up to Santa Clarita at five in the morning. Like, there's still this love of getting to do it. Yeah. And I just believe in preparation because I'm not. And that it's work. It's like it's not you're not up there messing around. It's deadly serious. It's you create your own space to mess around and then you mess around. Yeah. And then you have to build another mess around.

55:06Yeah. And when I say mess around, it's not. I mean it like what you're doing is very serious. You take it very seriously. I take it very seriously. You're there to play. We're playing. Yes. It's play. So every night. The fact that you get to play is serious. That's serious. And you want it to be as good as it could be as the best. You can do it. Right. And I have these sort of shadows cast over me by giants. Absolutely. And you choose to impossible shoes. In possible shoes to fill in a lot of ways. Except you can give people the same feeling of being in the crowd. I've noticed we could do that.

55:53All you got to do is put on Jerry Garcia playing the guitar. And you go, right, right. There's the guy. But what I've noticed is that you can bring people to their desired place in their mind with different guitar playing. If the guitar playing is in the spirit and has the same intention, you know, I cannot play like Jerry Garcia. But I can watch Jerry Garcia play and try to learn sort of heart and soul of playing. If you listen to a guitar player play long enough, you'll understand them. Especially if it's a guitar player. You know, you can sort of reverse engineer who someone must be based on hundreds of thousands of choices.

56:34Right. And so if you take all those choices that he's making, a lot of times he's making the sensitive choice. Not the pelvic, not the sort of, you know, histrionic, incendiary, he's making the sensitive choice. That's changed my guitar playing. Yeah. You know, there are some bird -like things about his playing. He's not gripping the guitar. I came up listening to Steve Revaughan who gripped the guitar. Yeah. Opposite. And Jerry Garcia is like Bill Evans to me where they're both playing an instrument that if you didn't ever see the instrument, you'd think it looked different than it does. Yeah.

57:12Because of how they're able to coax it. Yeah. They're taking straight lines and making circles out of it. That's how I see great guitar players, great pianists. When I hear Bill Evans play the piano, if I'd never seen a piano, I would think it was circular, or that it was like a spiral or something, not straight lines. And the guitar, to a certain extent, is just straight lines. How much better of a guitar player have you become from being in the spend? Okay. This is an amazing question. A better guitar player in, yes. I've become a better guitar player but I make more mistakes. And here's my, it opened up all of the parts.

57:52Great. We play in boxes. Blues guys, we play in boxes. Yeah. We know three or four different shapes and we're in no man's land until we get back to a home base on the knack. Oh, here we are. Okay. I did it. Playing the music of Grateful Dead inside of Dead & Company. Opened up every fret. You're free. Free. Now that works for that music. Yeah. Then I go back on my tour. Yeah. I start taking the same kinds of chances and I get hit in the head. Sometimes. Sometimes. But I bet sometimes it's really good. Sometimes it's really good. And sometimes even the wrong note is really good. Maybe. I mean, that's the tricky part is coming back into my playing.

58:28Yeah. Now I can't revert. I can't undo, and I don't want to. No. So now I'm playing my own music that used to have a certain way around the neck that now the neck is brand new to me. It's wide open. Yeah. So I take all these chances. And I do think my music is less forgiving, harmonically structurally. That makes sense. Because it was written in a less forgiving way. It was written in a box. That's right. So I take these chances and I fail a lot more now on my own music. But I just can never, I just can't put the toothpaste back in the tube on that. I now have all the blinders taking off on the guitar neck.

59:06I love it. You know. I love it. I make a mistake every night now if I'm soloing and stuff. Mistakes I never would have made before because I didn't know they were out there. Yeah. You didn't know they were possible. Yeah, that's right. You're reaching now you're reaching for the possible. That's right. Before you were going to what was something known. That's right. Now you're reaching for the unknown. Which, and sometimes it's there. And sometimes it's not. That's right. That's incredible. That's right. I love it. And I'm learning to take the ego hit of that and go fine. Fine. Whoopsies. I mean, it's about a different thing.

59:41It's bigger than mistakes. That's right. But my music that's already existed pre -meaming and dead in company is less resistant in my mind. I'm a mistake. But maybe that's just in your mind. Sure. Oh, listen, most of what's going on is just in my mind. Yeah. But what's interesting is creating new music in the future that can accept it. Yes. Creating new music in the future that. Well, you will. And I will. You obviously will because now you have a whole new relationship to this instrument. That's right. And that has to be good. It's more fun than ever to pick up a guitar at home and play. Because I'm playing from a different place now.

1:00:18It's so cool. I'm playing from a different place. I don't have set stuff I play on the guitar. I don't have, I think most guitar players like have a thing they do. I have none. I have no, if I want to namb the music conference or something. And I sat down and there were a hundred people watching me pick up a guitar. I could suck for five straight minutes before I picked something up that was like all the sudden. Like, oh, he flipped a switch. He's found something. Yeah. Because I don't have like a thing I do. Yeah. I love to this day picking up a guitar. The volume is up. And I haven't played a note yet.

1:00:52Where do you put your hand? And it used to be about burning and blowing. And now it is about what is the simplest thing you could play that would communicate the most out of this guitar. And sometimes it's, I mean, really, really basic. But with so much depth or the attempt at adding depth into it. And when you do that, I almost want to get other guitar players around and go just try this. Just try this. Yes. Don't. Don't.

1:01:25And mean it instead of playing these shapes, you know. Yeah. It's like you're starting all over all over. I feel like you're your next project will be your first album. I've tried to make every album my first album. Yeah. And I've been obsessed with the idea of not youth. I don't want to hold on to youth. No. But I want to hold on to what I would call creative youth. Yeah. Which is. Yeah. And I even say that the child like wonder. Go grab it. Grab it. Grab it. Just grab it. Yeah. And again, I hinted at this before. It's like the older you get, everything else in your life suggests you stop doing that.

1:02:07We call it settle down. So settle down. Settle down with this person. Or hey, settle down. And you do give up things that promote excitement. I stopped drinking six years ago. I don't hook up. I don't run around the streets. I used to go out at night and bring sunglasses because I'd probably wake up somewhere in the morning. I haven't packed sunglasses going out at 8 p .m. And you know, years. Well, how do you find that still without that propellant of coming to the studio? You know, you know, having a couple drinks. How did drinking change? Stopping drinking change your playing. I became way more musical the whole show.

1:02:45When you get to the last three or four songs and you're drinking even a little bit on stage. I wasn't a lush. But even if you just drink a little bit, you're at the end of your show becomes a little bit of a carnival act. Is it interesting that so many people think that loosening up allows their creativity? Yeah, it, I don't think it's true. It'll give you about, it always gave me about 15 minutes. I used to pour a little bourbon in the studio and I just got you out of your head a little bit. I would think I was going to be there for three hours. You probably've seen this before. You know what?

1:03:14I'm going to pour a drink. Let's get deep tonight. And you get behind the microphone. You get about 15 minutes and you go, oh, it's past. Yeah. You know, now my commitment is to, it's hard to explain. Just consistency. Just consistency. And getting out, getting out of your head the idea that there's, how do I say this? Like, you've got to depend on magic to be good at something. You know, I think when I was younger, I was so scared I wasn't going to be good. That when I went up and I was good, I had to go burn it off because I couldn't believe I'd been holding on to all this time. I was so much more attention all day.

1:03:52I think when you see young artists they go, it's going to suck. I'm not going to do it. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. And they're in stress all day. They go to the show. It's predictably great. They get off stage. They're so relieved it didn't suck. They have to go drink. You know, and as I get older, I go, can I take these two posts and move them closer together? Do you know what I said the other night? I was in St. Paul. For the first time in my life, I set out loud. It's going to be a great show tonight. I had never said it. Wow. For fear of cursing the show. Yeah. Jinks. How many more years, John?

1:04:26How many more decades are you going to have to go on stage without incident, playing great music? Before you can say, it's not going to be a great show. That's another lesson on this tour I picked up. You know, it's going to be great. Go have fun. It's another thing that I would bet 99 % of the time. It's great for the audience. Yeah. And where may be 50 % of the time, it was great for you. Well, that's what I say is the difference between giving a good show and having a good show. Yeah. You're always giving a good show. Yeah. Whether you're having a good show is sort of up to you. Yeah. And because it's just in your head.

1:05:03It's just your own fighting the L .A. Why does everyone hate the L .A. show? It's because there are more moments of self -criticism in the L .A. show than any other concert. So that by the time you're in the second song, you've got a dozen notes for yourself. How are you going to play the third song and enjoy it if you think I already ruined it? Well, why didn't you think that way in Cleveland? Well, because you just weren't doing that to yourself. I always said, I wish that I could play a show that someone told me was Cleveland and they went, surprise, you actually just played L .A. Yeah. It's also like the difference between playing at the metallands versus Madison Square Garden.

1:05:40Some reason, the same people go to both shows. Right. Madison Square Garden is Madison Square Garden. Right. So it feels special. Right. It's the same thing. And you tense up. Absolutely. When you play the garden. Absolutely. You just, you tense up. You tense up. So there's like, you do a trade -off when you do those shows. You're getting 15 % more energy out of yourself and you're probably taking 15 % magic away in terms of what could be. But you're making this very calculated risk that I don't want to leave it so much up to the gods at the garden in case it doesn't work. So I'm going to mitigate that by a set list that's got bangers on it.

1:06:16I'm going to staple myself in a little bit. More protective. Yeah. More conservative. That's right. But we're going to make sure the insurance policies there that it's going to work. Yeah. It's just going to have a little bit less magic in it. Yeah. And I think artists take that deal because it's, you just don't want to go home into your hotel room and say that you had attempted something, you had attempted a leap at the garden that you didn't land. You know? Yeah. So the ultimate dream for me is to have a show at the garden and go to dinner while people are filing into the room. And just be cool.

1:06:53And just be cool. Yeah. Doesn't happen that way typically. Never. What's the vibe before the garden? I almost see going into the stages of nervousness as something like part and parcel to the show. Yeah. So what I'm talking about, I guess, so many words is like learning to let go finally. Learning to let go of all these things that I've been holding on to, like white knuckling. Yeah. Let go of the set list. And what you think they want to hear. Let go of holding yourself to these standards of pitch. I'm producing my vocals as I sing live. It doesn't do any good. You just sang it's live. Yeah. Why are you producing your vocals?

1:07:30You can't punch in. No. And then the ultimate for me, and I'll try to do this in the fall, is you don't have to do a sound check. It's just two lines. It's an acoustic and a vocal. Go to dinner with your friends. Go to dinner. And look at your watch and go, yeah, people are in the room. They're sitting down. They're getting food and drink. I'll be there. And walk in with 15 minutes and try to get the stage to be level with the earth. Yeah. And that I'm already announcing is like, that's the ultimate. If I can do that, I will have succeeded as a musician. Yeah. That will truly have internally succeeded as a musician.

1:08:08Instead of what I tell people, I have to go get nervous as if it's part of the assembly line. How much of what I'm saying is a shared experience across the board for artists? A million percent. Yeah, the almost. I have the experience every time I started a new project in the studio. I've been doing this for a long time. Yeah. Had a lot of success over a long period of time. Every time I started a new project, I'm terrified. Because I know ultimately for it to be good, that's not really in my control. You know, I know that something has to happen. It happens a lot. I see it happen all the time.

1:08:46Yeah. But I know it's not in my control. I know I can't make it. I can't will it to happen. So I show up at humble. Like, you know, like, I want it to happen. And I also feel like there might be some expectation on me that some might be. I might think I can make it happen. And I know I cannot. Does that then put more onus on the artist to make it happen? No, no, no. So you think that you're as response, the artist is as responsible slash not responsible for what comes as you are. Everyone's response. Yeah, it's that everyone's in the passenger seat in a certain way. Oh, absolutely. Do you ever feel the weight of pressure or disappointment if you're in the studio for a certain number of days and nothing materializes?

1:09:28No, it's a pretty patient. Yeah. I'm anxious. But I know it always works out. It always comes around. It's not like it never comes around. It comes around. Well, that's so funny because I've got eight records under my belt. And I think every record's the last one. And again, then I write a song that's made 200 albums. You know, I've done. Yeah. I've done so many albums that the experience is it just it. It always we always find a way. We always find a way. And sometimes I come in anxious and then right out of the box. It's amazing, right? You know, it's not unusual for it to be great right out of the box.

1:10:03It's I always call it's like gambling with self -esteem. Yeah. And that's that's the part I wish I could impress upon other younger artists. That's really songwriting. Yeah. It's not how you're doing when, you know, the spirits in the room. How do you live off of crumbs for a long enough period of time that you can wait for the next moment? Because you have to. You can't depend on the magic. And we got to show up. Yeah. We got to show up and make something happen. And sometimes you need to make something bad happen to get that's right. It's part of it. That's right. It's just part of it. But when you're young, especially young in this day and age, you really take it personally.

1:10:42I see. And you can't have people in the room with you that you consider an audience. You might want someone in the room with you that you want to sort of impress. I agree. But people in the room, and then you're going to go home and going, they came in here to watch me write, and I haven't written anything in four days, and they think I suck. Now you're multiplying your disappointment by what you think other people are thinking. Well, the idea of having someone watch you write isn't insane. There's only a few people who can do it with me that I can do it in the room with. But you're a great writer in my book.

1:11:15If you can drive home with the radio off, knowing you didn't get it today, and showered off like a great basketball player who didn't win the game, and wake up the next day and go, let's hit it. Let's go again. And I can live between the kills pretty well. And the other thing that I think young writers need to figure out is like, it's always going to be code cracking after you have your fun of bringing the song to life. Bringing the song to life is always the fun part. It's the best. But it doesn't finish the song. Now you have to put on a lab to do. And you cannot go to dinner. The craftsman comes into the room and cancel everything.

1:11:56Yeah, there's work to do. Where's work to do? And that is my favorite moment when you know that I got something. Yeah. And you know that what I just came up with in 15 minutes has inside of it all the information for the verses, the codes, the choruses, we know what it is. We know what it is. We just have to make it. But we know what it is. And that's a big difference in looking at a blank list. And that's my favorite thing. It's the best feeling. It's the best feeling. And you know, and I always say this about days that are long, you got to go to bed sometime. Yeah. Days going to be over at some point.

1:12:28Yeah, yeah, yeah. So even if it's three days of massive excavation. Yeah. Of 800 different takes on the verse. It's going to be over at some point. Yes. And when it's over, you never have to write it again. No. But you will always have it for the rest of your life. And I see young artists sometimes with a hard drive full of minute and a half ideas that were just the spark. Yeah. And they move on to another spark. And they move on to another spark. And they move on to another spark. And I'm like, day two and three and four. Yeah, you don't leave the room. You put sweat pants on. You're in a hoodie.

1:13:03You're in a hoodie. You're not going out tonight. Your friends are going out and you're not. Why? Because the greatest thing is about to happen to you. You know, and all these songs that I play on stage now represent a night I went. Shut it down. We got work to do. It's my favorite and like least favorite. It's just this wonderful torture you know you're in for. Your iPhone is going to be on all night. You're going to be just walking around aimlessly typing in your iPhone. I use a whiteboard now that I swear by. I have this digital whiteboard. That sounds great. I swear by. There's a way to write songs now for me.

1:13:38That's very mathematical in terms of making it easier on yourself to understand. What's left to write in the song. So I go, okay, if you have a verse, you have a rhyme scheme, you have syllables, you have the Spirit of what the song is, that's 15 % of the song. If you have a chorus, that's 50 % of the song. You do that three times. As soon as you have a rhyme scheme, you now know exactly what your second verse has to do or not do. So everything you come up with is just take it off of what remains that you have to do. And the less you have to do, the easier it feels. Because you feel like you have momentum.

1:14:16I have sold a lot of people on the whiteboard idea now. It seems silly at first, but you get to see it right up there. And the closer you are to the end, the easier it is. When you're looking at, what am I going to do? I don't even know what it's about. It's impossible. But then when it's almost done, I have a slightly different version of this than you do in terms of needing to finish it. I like to get as far along as possible when that spark arrives. And if there's like in the context of working on an album, I don't think of working on a song to the end necessarily when working on a body of work.

1:14:58Like we might work on all of the songs at the same time, getting them as far along as we can. And then a different momentum happens. When you, like if there's one song, it's just hard to crack. It's easy to crack it when you've got 12 other songs done than when, oh my god, and how are we going to get to the rest of the album? We can't even do this one. I agree. Like there's just tricks of momentum. There are tricks of momentum. You're absolutely right. The combination here didn't work. Wait till a new combination falls into place. That's actually the secret to life now is if something's not working, just wait until the sequence changes.

1:15:41And it'll open the door. Yes. It'll open a different door or open the same door a different way. But there's always a way to wait. It's okay. Yes. It's okay. Now what I will say is as a writer for me, the reason that doesn't work as well is because the concept of the song is only 2020 vision for me the day I have it. Of course. I understand. And if that portal closes, I have to scratch up the hill to get back to what I, you're a whole new person. Whole new person. So there are times I forget the thrust of the song that is so immediately present in the first verse and the chorus and the second verse I go, I forgot what I was really thinking.

1:16:20So I'm a big fan of cancel everything. I don't care if I don't eat. I don't care if I don't sleep. What equation of like work to result is better than if I work these next three days. I can play this song the rest of my life. And something John London talked about is like as soon as you have the beginning of a song, even if it's just a rough draft, right to the end. Yes. Don't let that moment pass because you will never come back to that. So again, you know, I don't know if you have to refine it, but you have to really get as close as you can to a great first verse. Yes. Yes. Or maybe this line is not as good as it could be.

1:17:00That's right. But get to where it's like I see this whole song. I couldn't agree more. Just get a circuit going. Yeah. Get the light bulb to light up because all the wiring is in there. Yes. And then it's so much easier to change it. Yeah. And then you realize most of it didn't need to be changed. Absolutely. I mean, there are so many songs I have that have what I thought were and I call them placeholder lyrics. Yeah. And they're not placeholder. Yeah. Because as writers, we hold ourselves to this line by line standard of impressing ourselves. I have a song. I can't say we've been holding on for years.

1:17:31That's just boring until you sing it. Been holding on for years. Kiss and love. It works. Not every single line has to flick you in the forehead. Yeah. But you think that when you're writing it until you go play it. And sometimes the simplest line, the most ordinary line, ends up having a life of its own. And we can't even know. Well, that's what I was going to say. That's what I was going to say. It doesn't make you better the more you do it. No. It makes you better in one way. A, not panicking. Yeah. So you have the experience of knowing that you land on your feet. Yeah. And B, when you're in the trance, you can't extend the trance.

1:18:10No. But you can make the trance more efficient. So when I'm in the trance, I can grab more out of the dream. It's almost like imagine that you could dream. And for a certain part of the dream, you could wake up with money. You stole out of a bank in the dream. Yeah. That's what songwriting is. You could actually wake up in bed with a sack of money that you stole in a dream for the 15 minutes in dream time. There's nothing else on earth. I mean, I know there is an art. But other than art, there's nothing else on earth where imagining it creates it. Yeah, you're starting with nothing. And then you have this thing forever.

1:18:51Forever. And people could sing along. And it couldn't change their mood. It can change their life. It can set a memory when they hear that song of an experience that they'll remember their whole life. Yeah. And it took you 72 hours of real hard work just to get the idea out of you. And sometimes. Sure. It's five minutes. That's right. Sometimes when we're lucky again, we don't control it. But the fact that it takes however long or short doesn't really matter what matters is, there it is. Yeah. Yeah. And to go home on a Wednesday where when you woke up, the song didn't exist. And when you go to bed, this song exists.

1:19:33It's the best feeling. It's the greatest feeling in the world. And that drives writers crazy because they get hooked on that feeling. It's the best feeling in the world. And you can't get it sometimes. And what do you do in between those feelings? Well, a lot of people go, I'm a piece of shit. I'm a giant. I suck. It's gone. It's gone. And I think the better you get is like saying, it's not gone. Yeah. It's off doing something else. Yeah. And wait until you get any great performances the same like when you have that song and then you record it at its... You know, sometimes you'll play a song and it's good.

1:20:01And then you'll play it again and it's good. Play it again. It's a little not as good. And then you play it one time. It's like, hmm. It sounds like a different song. You play everything the same. And like, now it sounds like it's the greatest song. Yeah. But nothing, what's different? See, that's different for me as a solo artist because we don't have takes really. Yeah. And I've always wanted to be in a band that had takes. I've done it sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do know the magic of it. It's ridiculous when you see it happen going from pretty good to stunning. Yeah. And no one knows what changed.

1:20:35Yeah. Yeah. You know, no, I want to be a part of that. It's like everyone's doing the same thing and it's like, boom. I want to see it. It's so cool. I want to see it. You know, Porton was sometimes who's so good at sitting in the room taking his hat off and putting the headphones on and driving that stuff. Yeah. Like I know you are. I don't give him as much to work with as I know bands do because so much of it is layered. You know, and that's another reason I love Dead and Company. Yeah. To be in the community. Yeah, you're in a band. And music. We rise together. We fall together. Yeah. You know, there are nights I want to, I'm ready to take off and the band isn't and I go, okay.

1:21:12And there are nights the band slingshots me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, takes are always interest. Full band takes are always, that's out of my comfort zone and I don't want it to be. I really, maybe the next thing for me is like the new wheelbarris or something. Do you have something to do? You know, just to be a part of that again. Yeah. Let me ask you a question if I can. Yes, please. Is Rick Rubin opinionated about music? Do you have hot takes on music? Do you sit around with friends and go, that's bullshit when you listen to it? I mean, you shouldn't. I wouldn't use that word. I would probably just say that doesn't speak to me.

1:21:44You know, that's not for me. Got it. Is that is that an effort to look at things that compassionately or you've just never been the type to. To be critical? Well, I don't think that there's good and bad music. You know, I think. I like some things that nobody else likes and. You know, like I. So that's not a practice to think that way. No, I think of it so apples and oranges to think that people make. Mm -hmm. That any idea of like comparing which is better than someone else doesn't make any sense. It's like. Jimmy Hendrix makes the best Jimmy Hendrix records. I agree with that. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

1:22:20No one else could do it. But you can't say that that's better than a Jeff Beck record. You know, because Jeff Beck is better at being Jeff Beck. That's right. Then Jimmy Hendrix is at being Jeff Beck. I saw fish and I went these guys are the best fish I've ever. Exactly. Yeah. That's the idea. It's like if they're good at what they do and the crazy thing about music is someone's good at what they do, they don't even really have to be good. They just do the thing that they do. I'm trying to grow old gracefully and not be, I don't want to wag a finger at Elvis. Yeah. That always, even when I was a kid I was like I just don't want to be count.

1:22:57It's like the bad guy to me. The bad guy in the movies, the one who shakes the finger at Woodstock. Yeah. But what I found is really helpful for me because I like being critical. I think it's a fun way to pick things apart and interact with things is to criticize it. You know, when you get me home alone, I'll get deep into stuff. I also like defending things that are criticized a lot. I enjoy being equitable with that stuff. But what I like to do is split it. Like I call it like split the stock. If you think that something's gone so downhill, then split it and call it something else. So if I were to say I don't get today's music, I don't want to say that.

1:23:36So what I say is, well a lot of what I'm hearing is social media soundtrack. And if I say that, now I can say that's really good social media soundtrack. Instead of that's bad music. And I do that with a lot of stuff. So that if I redefine it, I give it the dignity of calling it something a little bit different. I just think about it. It's not for me. That's how I write about it. And there'll be something. I'll hear something new where I have that same experience that I have when hearing the dead when I first got it. Like, hmm, what's going to happen next? Right. This is different than things I've heard before.

1:24:11And you're saintly. It's such a great feeling. No, it's just I love that feeling. I'm always looking for it. Always looking for that feeling of just like, whoa, that's really cool. Yeah, that's really cool. I am too. It's just sometimes I don't go looking for it in music. Like lately I don't listen to anything in the car. I don't listen to anything. Do you listen to podcasts or talking or anything? Just silence silence. I don't I just love it. Especially if I've just been working on something like silence. But I enjoy like the active drive. I like, I don't know if I'm quiet, I'll hear things or I'll think things.

1:24:53And there's again, there's just this built in sense of time and elapsed time in my head where I say to myself, I've heard so much music. I've heard so much. And by hearing it, I digest it pretty quickly. Yeah, so you want to break. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so I'll go in and something else completely different than music. Yeah. And then that hits me like music. I listen to more, I will say, I listen to more audiobooks and podcasts than I listen to music now, which is a big change. Yeah. Because I listen to music pretty constantly before that. But I like the auditory experience. And if I'm, let's say I'm exercising, walking on the beach or swimming, I might do like a chant or a mantra in the routine of what I'm doing instead of just wandering mind.

1:25:49I put on like a rain noise in the dressing room. Nice. I have these blue lights. I just put a put on rain. A lot of my favorite music is theoretically like nature sounds. If you think like grateful dad music plays like nature music. Absolutely. It just plays and rolls like rolling thunder. It just, you know, and Bill Evans who I listen to constantly is, might as well be forest rain or something because of how sort of glacial it is. And it just makes you feel something more than, again, like intellectualizing it. And then you come back to it and you go, ah, this is great. But I have to take a little, little break.

1:26:25Do you think of yourself as a guitar player or do you think of yourself as a singer songwriter? I don't think of myself. Wow. Wonderful. There you go. I'm going to say what you were sort of hinting at, which I think, I think of myself like my name. I think of myself like I do John Mayer. I do this thing. Okay. Okay. So inside of that, it's 70 % guitar player. No, maybe it's 50 % guitar player. 35 % songwriter. 15 % singer. Singing is last for me because I really do not believe that I have an objective leaf like fast -ciled, great voice. As a lot of singers don't, I have to always write for my voice.

1:27:16It's like there's two people. It's like John, you're stuck with this guy. He sings pretty good, but he can't really reach a lot of notes. How can you compose songs that sound like they're high, but they're not high? Because this guy can't get above like, you know, a high E on a guitar string. And so if I were able to sing with incredible range, I would be able to write 10 times as much music. I'm limited by a voice that's technically a baritone. If pop music venerated the baritone, I would be a mega star, you know. So all my songs are actually pitch pretty low. They're meant not to sound that way.

1:27:54How do you do that? How does that trick work? I don't even know. I don't know. Maybe the harmonic of it is bright. Sort of the harmonic movement is bright. But Daughters is like, I know what girl. That's the note. Fathers be good to you. That's talking almost. You know, I really wish I could do, you know, if you love someone, set them free. I would be able to write something like that. So as a songwriter, I'm a little hemmed in by the vocalist. And then, of course, being a vocalist, you have different conditions every night as a singer. Different conditions in the studio every night. Who knows why?

1:28:38So I don't love that. I feel betrayed by the voice. And I never felt the most vulnerable part of the operation. Yes. We are mid -evolution between screaming across a jungle and singing arias for an entire lifetime. We're in the middle of it. And we're sort of using it in a way that it's not quite meant for yet. It's like a misappropriation of a part of your body to be able to sing and then decide you're going to do this consistently over a bunch of years. So I find the flimsiness of that to be sort of emotionally betraying. The fact that we don't know if my show on Friday, if I'm going to have a clear voice, or if I'm going to have that other little second note in there for no reason.

1:29:27But on guitar playing, it's never let me down. Guitar playing is special for me. Singing is an application of a thing on top of it that I have to work to make special. And so when I access both those thoughts in my mind, the guitar playing is the walk down, or just a beautiful beach. And the singing part is a little neurotic because you just don't know if it's going to be there. And so singing goes on top so that it expresses all the other stuff that's in my head in a language people can understand. Because I wouldn't really want to make instrumental guitar music. So we write around it. And now I'm writing much more in a zone vocally that's really fun to sing it.

1:30:13I'm the boy in your other form. I'm going to ask for an acoustic guitar just because I just realized, be really nice for your guitar in your hands. So singing in dead and company. Yeah, let's talk about that. That's different. That's different. And I try to make it work. I try to make it work. I feel good about it. I don't feel good about it. I have a good ear. I have a really good ear. I have an honest ear. A really honest ear. Like I cannot bullshit myself. And the tricky part is that, uh, and Jerry was the exact opposite. Jerry could sing really high and make it sound like it wasn't high. Because he's saying so relaxed.

1:30:56He's almost on the opposite end of the spectrum vocal range wise. And I am singing some of these songs. And not only, by the way, this is not just pitch. This is about vowel sounds. We write the vowel sounds that work for our voice. So all of a sudden, it's not that I can't do, da, da, da, da, da. It's driving the train. I would never write that for yourself. I would never write it for myself. I'd go, tell me, na, na, na, na, na. That's what I would do for the shape of my larynx. So to squeeze it into, dry, it's not a very, uh, automatically pleasant thing. I know this. I have an ear. I can hear it as I go.

1:31:43My job is to find a way as best I can to shape the note. That sounds as close to what the spirit of the song. I can do that on the guitar way easier. Yeah. And there are times where I know that I'm not quite the exact tonal color that I'd want to be for the song. But I can't swap a vocal cord like I can in guitar. Yeah. So that's an interesting lesson in embracing my limits. Hey, man, I'm just John. Yeah. I know I try, man. I try. I try to relax. I try to sing, tear up in it away, that communicates the same thing. But I'm just, I have me. It's still me. And I can only operate within the parameters of who I am.

1:32:30So I'm going to do the best job that I can. Try to relax. And some people like that. And some people don't. And I agree with them both. But in fact, I'm relieved when someone says they like it. And I understand when someone says that they don't quite think it fits. How different in all of your study of Jerry from both guitar wise and vocally show to show year to year, year to year. I think I've gotten smoother in both my playing and I've gotten more language. I've gotten more relaxed. There's only one way to start something. And that is to drop into it. And the only way to drop into it in a gig like that is with confidence.

1:33:14So okay, we're going to drop in and we're going to try our best. We're going to take our first shot at the target. And the first shot at the target was a bit verbose. As I was learning to really work down all the layers of Jerry Garcia's playing. My first interpretation of it had to do with sort of the number of notes. And as I kept working it down through more and more tours. One thing I'm talking about is embarrassment. Listening back and going, no, no, no, no. And the joy of this band that's about to end sadly is that I've always had another tour to get it right. Get closer. Yeah, get closer.

1:33:55Oh, when we go back out, wait till I figure this part out. And I would do that and get closer and get closer. Tour three. Now we have like most certain nights there's a whole song. And not the next one, but there's a whole peggy. Oh, wow, that made sense. And then I started to get into the earlier grateful dead stuff that was less guitar hero. It was just less, no, fewer notes. And that started knock me out. So I was taking pictures of the serious station on the dashboard when I heard something I love. I do the same. And that's 72 or 74. Yeah. 72, 73, 74. That's the stuff when you move through all the other stuff.

1:34:36That's what made me find them after not understanding the most of my life. That was the point of entry. It was the reckoning. Yeah, that was the way in for me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's a folk band. They are folk band. And what I had thought, they're on there an R &B band. They're a country band. I don't think they're a great R &B band. I don't know if they're a great country band, but they're a really good folk band. Well, again, they're a really great, grateful dead because what I figured out, I thought that they were purposefully landing just south of R &B. I thought they were purposely doing that.

1:35:20Yeah. And then I learned they were really trying to nail it. Yeah. I usually when an R &B song comes on on the dead channel, I usually change channels. I go to Sinatra when they start doing R &B. Interesting. R &B, like a cover of R &B or R &B flavored. I don't know if there are any of their R &B songs, so more the covers. Right. Which would be like midnight hour or something, you know. Yeah. There's a lot of them. Yeah. Maybe the Motowny type of stuff. Yeah, dancing in the streets and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's a reductiveness to it that I sort of enjoyed. And what I thought was that they had aimed for it.

1:35:56And what I found really exciting was that they hadn't aimed for it. They aimed for the real thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's the case with most bands who miss what they're aiming for, but end up on something else. Yeah. You know, that's when I loved it. That's when I really got it. And actually, there's a couple of versions of songs. Not that I'm going to start sending you dogs. No, please do. But where Billy Coitzman is playing like Clive's double field. And there are a couple of times you go, who's on the ju - what? Yeah. There's a couple of things. When I mean a couple, just magic nights, I've even thought to myself, like, is everyone like perfectly slept and like freshly showered on this version?

1:36:37Did everyone just take a nap for the same length of time and woke up and had the same meal? They're playing perfectly, you know? Yeah. And then really what it is is like musical aquarium. You just stare at the fish go by. And it's, once you learn the form, it all makes sense. It all makes sense, you know? It all makes sense. So, but getting back to like why it's so fun to play on is nobody's writing those song forms. So you can only, a solo is only as good as the courts, which is why people love little wing. Because it is like 23 bars in the progression. And so people can't stop playing that because each court progression takes your guitar a different place.

1:37:21And there's so many versions, or there's so many examples of that in dead music, where guitar players just want to be able to jump around on all those chords. Even if the actual zone of guitar soloing is the same, you know? And I know we're on an SM7, but it's like, it's like even if the guitar solo was like...

1:37:51Well, it's really.

1:38:00Which is super cool. Who wouldn't want to play on?

1:38:07You'd plan it all day because you've never heard... The guitar players aren't really there. Guitar players are, you know, in the panatonic blues stuff. So all of a sudden you get to... it changes your whole ability to play guitar because these chords are so great. You know what's writing that stuff? Yeah. You know? I got to make an album with ACDC. And one of the secrets I learned about the way they did it. So when they tracked the song, they didn't do the solos. They just played the rhythm section of the solos. And when it was time for the solo, they wanted the solo section of the song to be the most exciting part of the song before the solo happened.

1:38:46So they would play... They would speed up on purpose. They would like lift off. Great. And you never even had to hear a solo. It was just in the DNA of a track. Yeah. To just, they often, you know, changed chords to not what you'd expected in a song that felt like it was lifting off. I mean, it's... It hit it harder and sped up. And it was all intentional. Like, even before the solo, it was the most exciting part. That's amazing. It's so cool. It's so cool. I've never seen anything like changing these versions. Leave space for it. Hit it harder. Unbelievable. Wow. They were really like... Wow.

1:39:25They really knew what they were doing. Like, they knew how to do ACDC so good. Sure. It's unbelievable. Yeah, and it still all works. Yeah. The best loud sound I ever heard in my life was ACDC in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And it was the greatest... I mean, it hurt. But it hurts so... It was the best sounding hurt in my ears I ever heard in my life. Ever. Yeah, they're amazing. It was like, okay, you can have these little hairs in my ear. Yeah. Because I'm... Are you pretty hearing protective? I try to be. I try to be too. And I just want... This one's worth it. Oh, absolutely. This one's worth it.

1:39:57I usually will listen loud for 30 seconds or so to understand it and then I put the earplugs in. Oh, so you don't turn it down in the room. You would put earplugs in. Well, I'm giving the example of... Oh, at a concert? Sorry. It'll lie of something. Yes. I might want to like... That's right. Get the full experience for a moment before putting the earplugs in. Do you have synitis? Any ringing? I don't have ringing, but I definitely have lost some high -end. I see. And you work that into what you're doing. You compensate while you're... That's for the audience. And so you do compensate. So you...

1:40:33I don't know. Right, right, right. Yeah, I can't say. I always worried about how would I adjust if I lost high -end? Would I have someone else be my high -end concierge? Yeah, I'm hoping that I'm hoping that the mastering engineer deals with that. Right. Okay, got it. Yeah. But I also feel like you can feel it. Like I could cover my ears and listen. Yeah. And I have a pretty good idea of what the mix is doing. Right. I could listen from the next room. Yeah. And have a pretty good... Like it's either working or not. You know, you can... I think that the energy of it is less about that detail and more about this feeling.

1:41:11So you have fewer parameters that you're looking through when a song's coming through. You sort of... I had a doctor tell me one time. He was a lumper, not a splitter. And he really was. He didn't subdivide every last thing. Yeah. He had ten -minute visits. Yeah. So there's probably something there that a lot of people could take from his not having so many sliders in your head of parameters. Is it this... Hey, it's really one big ball. Yeah. Does it feel good or doesn't? Because that's how it is to the audience. Right. The audience hears it as a ball. Right. There you go. And everyone starts hearing it as a ball when they're a kid.

1:41:47And as they get into the life of music, they start to isolate and they can't go back to hearing it as a ball. This is a brilliant conversation right here. This little nugget because I still have the ability to what I call like take my ears out of focus, like crossing your eyes, just cross your ears, and check it. You know, just how is it as a ball? Because I didn't even... I was in Berkeley College, music months into it, weeks into it before I could isolate a kick drum, which is funny because then I go back to these songs I loved as a kid and I go, oh my God, this is the recording. But that's great.

1:42:23That's great ignorance. Yeah. That's great ignorance. I mean, I don't pick things apart necessarily anymore. But when I'm writing a song, I have a very distinct vision of what I want the thing to sound like. I had a song on my last record and it was a song called Why You Know Love Me, which is so funny because people just did not love it. And I loved it. I thought it was great. Yeah. But I love thinking something's great and finding out I'm wrong. I just think it's wild. Well, you're not wrong. You love it. I love it. You loving it is never wrong. Yeah, I guess you're right. Well, no, I was wrong in thinking they would.

1:42:58Yeah, you can never know that. That's something that you could be wrong. But I love it. That you'll always be wrong. I love it. I love it. I love the gamble. And I wanted this sort of Steven Bishop on and on really sensitive. And I had to keep, we did the drum track three times. And I was trying to explain what I wanted the drums to do. And I said, you know what? I finally got, I said, you know what? I want the drums to go fit. I want the snare to go fit, THIT. And then we got fit. And I remember feeling like with Don, that I had gone past my line of credit a little bit with going for a third drum take.

1:43:38And when we heard it, it was like, that's what I'm talking about. So I do get into that. But in terms of, tell me how do you make your records? Well, you're describing this is far into me. So that's why I'm asking. Oh, is a solo act? Yeah. Tell me what you do. I'll write a song. Yeah. I demo it pretty well. Most of my demos have the DNA of the song. And will that be with like machine drums or what would be? I'm a big NPC guy. OK. I decided I was going to get really good at one platform. And so I'm really good at NPC. It's clunky, but it allows for these other great opportunities to happen. So because it's not streamlined, all these cool accidents can happen.

1:44:18And I will sit to your hip hop producers. In a way, I mean, I've been on people's records through playing into an NPC. Yeah. Because you can use plugins right then and there, which is wild. It's like, I almost don't want to give away the secret sauce. But you could use your guitar as a software instrument. Wow. The guitar can be a software instrument. And then you can use all the effects that a software instrument would use. But your guitar becomes a Rhodes. What's a guitar if you pitch it down? It's a Rhodes. It's just a time. It's just boom. And you can do anything with it once you put it into an NPC.

1:44:51So I would be on people's, I would go to play on people's records and then not make the cut. Because I'd bring a basement and a strap. And it wouldn't fit in the record. And it wouldn't make the record. And so I started bringing an NPC and playing straight into the NPC and just taking the left and right out. And it would sort of put it in a context of the rest of the record and then it would start fitting records. And it was on like Travis Scott's album and just showing up on people's records with a guitar finally again. But for the most part, I figure something out. I'll take, so the rule is no writing over loops.

1:45:28Don't just loop four chords and write over it. You'll get stuck all day. Don't stack a loop so high that you just have a great sounding loop and nothing else. I say the song is upstairs. It's from the neck up. I'm always bringing the song back up above the neck. It's in your head. It's in your voice. Don't make a beat. Make a bass line. Make a chord thing and go to lunch. You've done nothing. You've just made a loop, you know? And I'll do a little drum loop, but nothing that takes away the sound field. So it'd be like a rhythm tone, ace, you know, those little things. But people, just little things.

1:46:04But you're starting your demo from the drums, typically? Just a little bit of something. Something to play too. Something, just a little bit. So the more rolled off and small, just a pulse. And then I'll take one. So essentially a click track, but something with flavor. Something with a little flavor, so you're not alone. But you don't want to weigh down the space so that you've got nothing else to add to it. Sometimes I'll take a little ostinato pattern or just a B3 pad, just something. Just to take away the white canvas. And that way, you know, different chords will all of a sudden just pop a little bit more.

1:46:42And then I'll just sing. And I'll sing and I'll sing until I hear myself say the truth. You haven't played guitar yet? No, I'll play guitar. I'll play guitar. I'll just do a little more. And sing or you'd all the same time. Tarantising. I'll just move around. You know, or normally something has to feel good on the guitar. Like, has to feel good. Now are you describing writing or demoing? It happens the same time. Always. I don't sit in the room and write alone with it. It's happening. You don't write alone on the guitar. It's all building up at the same. I have to think about the song. So by the time the song's done, there's sort of the records there.

1:47:22You know, and I just go until I hear something truthful and I go, wow, it's getting harder to impress myself because I've got to have a catalog of things. I go, did that. Yeah, did that, did that. But when I catch a spark, I just stay and I go and then I have a demo and then I bring the demo to other people. And it's the demo pretty close to the demo to the final one. They're all pretty close. They're all pretty close. The drums can be, but now what's great is Aaron Sterling was a fantastic drummer who's playing on a bunch of my stuff, lives in Nashville and just cuts drums at his house. So I can text him and go, can I get a loop, like a two bar loop at 95 BPM just going like duke, duke, duke, duke, duke, duke.

1:48:08He's got it. An hour later, I've got real live drums I can write to. That saves me all the time. It's just to have something real there. I'll pick up a bass and do something. I don't really know how it works, but it works. And why is the demo not the record? Because they're two -dimensional. The bass loops, the drums loop. I do think there will be things coming up on the next record that are looped, that just have magic in them. I have a song where the acoustic guitar parts loop, but it doesn't feel looped and it hits perfectly every time. It just, it changes. And I might even be better. You never know.

1:48:45That's right. And I go, I'm going to leave that alone. You don't know. I think I'm going to leave that alone. There's a drum loop that's so good on this other song. I think I might just have Aaron play fills over it. Yeah. It's no right way. Yeah. I see the thing. There's no right way. But it's harder as you get older to find parking spaces in the lot, songs that you haven't touched on before. So that when you do, you go, oh, that's one. And when you don't, you go, yeah, I've done that. I've done that. I have so many parts. And sometimes you come up with a thing that doesn't have words and you already box yourself in because you've written so many syllables.

1:49:23You ever have someone do that? You're going to go write those syllables, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it's two. Sometimes it's two -boxed. Yeah. I mean, I have so many ideas.

1:49:43If you don't have any words, not even anything to go on, when is the day you're going to wake up and go, oh, that's the word. You have to, a great idea can just stay a great idea for the words or what you're going to spin you into the next. So I have so many songs. I could have this beautiful piece of music just now. That was great.

1:50:08So do the same thing again now and just don't make sense or anything. Just put words in. Right. When it's always going to be so slow and I take it a time and go. Right? And you do that. And you keep cutting in and over again. And over and over again. And over again. You notice I'm not scared to do it. I will do it in front of it. Well, you. But I will do it, you know? It's great.

1:50:44I'm not good with words.

1:50:48So I have all the, it's like imagine a guy with a garage full of cardboard boxes. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. It's almost like if they don't blast off the moment you have the idea, they just become parts. So my new, my suggestion to you, this would be my message for the day is every time you do this exercise, never do it without words. Oh, I, yeah, I'm with you. I've never done that. No, I've never done that. I'm just showing you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Always they could be bad. The wrong words, but there's always words. I agree with you completely. Sound to the word.

1:51:23That's my rule with other people when I work with great don't there's no harm. Just go. Go. And if you can train yourself, I do that. I was different every time. And you find it comes from subconscious. It's not intellectual. It's not intellectual. And when I think I'm highly let it go, then the truth comes out. And then I go, there it is, but it's not what I'm thinking about it. No, you sit and you get your thoughts. No, we, we're our own worst enemies in that respect. And you're, you're right. And the longer your jags can be, the better you are. Yeah. If you can sit behind the microphone for an hour and then get up, you're good.

1:51:57Yeah. Lately, sometimes I go 25 minutes and I go, John, you got to get your numbers up. If you're sitting back there for 20, you got to be back there for an hour. I mean, I used to walk in the room and go, it's all there. Let's listen back and circle all the stuff that's there. And that process is a little harder as you get older, that dig, that excavation. I'm trying to still, I used to open channel and you go, how do you do all that? And you go, just do you get older and maybe notice that a common thing with artists that the artery just squeezes closed a little. I know it doesn't have to. I'm sure it doesn't have to.

1:52:36It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to. I spend a lot of time, I don't know if you do this or have done it, measuring time metrics between my career and other great artists careers. It sounds like a terrible idea, but it's interesting. It's interesting. Have you ever looked at other people's careers and sort of chronographed it? No. No, I'm not competing with anyone. Why would I do that? I don't want to compete. I want context. Yeah, I don't care. I want to know less. That's so funny. I know. I want to know. I want context, context, context, information. It's so funny. Information, information, and I go, I want to learn something I'm interested in, but I'm not interested in that.

1:53:21I'm just fascinated with time and opportunity and time and what he's, who gets what for how long? It's amazing. Who gets what for how long is an interesting idea? It's an interesting song idea. I hear who gets what for how long? Who gets what for how long? I can hear it. One of the chords. Who gets what for how long? Who gets what for how long? I'm a winner and you love strong. Who gets what for how long? I would do that. I go, I could figure that out. You could say, coming out of the change, when you went back in, it sounded like the chords wanted to be different than what you did. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:54:10But the chords that went, the first set of chords made sense, but for some reason when we came back to it, it was some mountain. Isn't it fun? Yeah, and I would back now. Now I can reverse engineer. If I said, who gets what for how long? That's a question. What's the question before that? Why do some people win and some aren't so strong? And who gets what for how long? And why me? Why me and you? Why me? You know? Tell me why, some won't be so strong. And who gets what for so long? It's great. That's the thing. Great. And then I would take that. That's information. If you said, let's write, who gets what for how long?

1:54:54I would say, close the doors, whiteboard, center goes, who gets what for how long? Why am I asking that? Well now I'm thinking about winners and losers and blesses and career. Why do we get what we get? Why do we win what we win? Now we get specifics, you know? Nothing special about me, nothing we eat about you. And I ain't no reason I should've been born this way. United States is a lucky game to play and I want it. I got the number and I don't know, and I know, and I know what I'm. And maybe I would take the chords I just showed you. So that I bet, but but but I don't know. Why just in the way strong?

1:55:41Why do we wait? And some are strong and who gets what for how long? That would be, no, they write themselves. But, well, they do when they don't write that. No, I know. I know, I know, I know. And I'm responsible for now, this is my favorite thing. This is my left brain goes, if this is all I have. I have a murder weapon and I have them the detective. I don't forget where the murder was committed, who did it? What's the motive? Yeah, Colonel Mustard in the dead. Yeah, that's right. In the dead. That's right. That's right. And that's really fun for me. Yeah. That might be a thing. And then we get into the thing where, well, how long do we spend on who gets what for how long?

1:56:23What's the appropriate amount of time to spend on that song before we both look at each other and go? That was nice. Yeah. What else? Yeah. Yeah. Do you co -write necessarily with me? Try not to. Yeah. I mean, sometimes I'm forced to, but I don't. Yeah. I'd rather not. Yeah. Rather not because it's, is it fraught with peril in terms of splits and you don't think about that. I don't think about any of that. I just would love somebody to be able to do the work and I mean, not think about it. Seriously. I'm happy to help in whatever way that's the most honest thing. It's real. I don't want to do it.

1:56:56You go to war. I don't. Yeah. Yeah. My interest is in the thing being as good as it could be and the less we have to kill ourselves for that to be the case, great. We have to kill ourselves. We do, but okay. So if you know in your heart that something wasn't as good as it could have been, but the artist is happier, you happy? No. And that's a conversation we have. At the beginning of the project, I always say, let's work on this. Let's work on whatever it is we're making until we both love it. We make that agreement. Great. And it seems like if I love it and they don't like it, that's a failure.

1:57:27That's right. Either way, it's the same. That's right. And the same, when it's a band, we all have to love it. Right. Because I guarantee you, if we both love it or if we all love it, it's better than when just one of us likes it. Yeah. Has to be. Has to be better. So have you gone down the road of retracting something just because one person in the band needed to hear three more days? And you know already it's not going to be, I never know anything. I have no idea. So you've never demonstratively done something in the studio as a favor almost to show someone in real time that you don't write it.

1:57:59Maybe the first time I ever did it. And then as soon as I had one experience where something that every day someone says, I have an idea, let's do it like this. And I hear what they say. And I'm thinking, I imagine it. And it's like, that sounds bad. Is my conversation, self conversation. I say, okay, let's try it. And then we try it. And it sounds good. And it happens all the time. And you can't imagine the results. So then it's always has to be demonstrated, demonstrate it. And I'll tell you what if it works from here now, I see, okay, then there is that. Administratatorial in there. Oh, absolutely.

1:58:35Absolutely. I'm not sure you've given it the chance. Yeah, we have to give every, we have to give the worst idea chance because you never know. Right. And you can't know. Yeah. Can the artist know if they know themselves enough if you're working with? No, you can't know. Yeah. Or maybe you know, but it's you're putting, again, putting yourself in a tiny little box. Yeah. There's so much more possible. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm learning now. Yeah. As having my head opened up for me again. Yeah. Because six months ago, I went, well, that was good. Like, okay. And this tour has proven to me that the dumbest I'll ever be is in my sense of my own capacity for things now.

1:59:14You just don't know. And then if you don't know, if you follow that thought, it gets really deep because that goes into people's sense of despair and their sense of hopelessness. And it would make sense in a way. I defend the thought in so much as it would make sense that you're you and based on your experience and your grasp of things, you would base your hope off of that. But once you realize that your own take of yourself is just that, everything changes. Everything changes. Yeah. Your own take of yourself today is not the government of who you are. No. Your take on yourself today is very, it's just a story.

1:59:59It's just a story. It's just a story. It's a made up story. It's a made up story. Has nothing to do with you. Yeah. Has nothing to do with you. That right there is the deepest pearl I could dive for or thought I could have ever reached is you're telling yourself, it's not necessarily psyching yourself out, but it's telling yourself the story and the voice that's not yours and the voice from above. Well, that's just the way it is. And I went on tour to be like, okay, let's just have fun and play some acoustic songs. It'll be fun. And this audience every night has just been a mirror for me and saying, go, do this.

2:00:38We love this. This is who you are. So I want to go right back in the studio and make more songs like that. Of course. Not reinvent the wheel. No. More songs on the guitar. Of course.

2:00:57I want to do that. Fun. That's a lick. Absolutely. Absolutely. Not. I want to work with this person, take this technology and then it's because that's where your mind wants to go is how do I stay in that world and you go, no, no, no, the best thing you can do is let go of that world. Absolutely. And drift into your world. That's it. And that's what this tour has shown me. That's the future. That is your future. That's the future. That's the future. Yes. And so to have that shown to me when I am such a know it all. Yeah. Yeah. It's shocking. It's great. I just had the next 10 years. So happy for you.

2:01:34It opened up to me. Yeah. You know, probably the next 30. Okay. Now I don't know anything. No. Back square one. Yes. Back square one. And it feels great. It feels great. Yeah. And the wonder of discovery when it happens, it's thrilling. When you don't know how it's going to go and something good happens, it's incredible. It's not. I just do in the thing that I know that I know how to do it. I just get gets old. And that makes sense. That a couple of years ago, you had that feeling of like, I think I might have done it all that I could do. Like I might have gone to the bottom of the bag. Maybe you got to the bottom of that version.

2:02:11Yes. Right. Yes. You did that. And now it's time to reinvent and make something completely different. Well, you have this too. There's you have no proof that you can't do this forever now. Absolutely. And once you now, once you once you're once you can say you have no proof, you can't do it forever. That's the glory. Yeah. That's where you go until a doctor sits you down and goes, look. You know, this is what I feel in my life now. It's this until a doctor sits me down and goes, look, when I first became a doctor, I go, oh, shit, tell me. You know what I mean? Yeah, I just have this. Okay. It's because everything else is worked out.

2:02:44All those things that gave you so much anxiety and stress and worry and you had to build a person around that as you were doing it in front of everybody is nailed down. And even that can sometimes feel like a loss because a lot of what gets celebrated is that young fiery sort of hit the scene. Well, they're not nailed down. When you finally get nailed down, it's actually a beautiful feeling and it's going to be there until I'm not unearth anymore and until that moment that I'm not unearthed, it's going to be there. And I'm getting used to that now as the trade off for newness. Yeah. You know, you have to let go a little bit.

2:03:24Yeah. People will come up to you and say, my high school self is freaking out right now. How do you feel about people coming up and talking to you about records that you remember making 30 years ago? It's amazing. Still as good as a record you made last year. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. It's all the same. Yeah. I don't listen to any of them. You know, it's like, yeah, that was a great moment. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad you like it. When someone talks about one that less people talk about, that's really cool. It's like, wow, no one's ever said that about that out before that. Right. Yeah. I'm embracing all of it that you have people saying my middle school self is freaking out right now and they're in their 30s.

2:04:08But also where I'm headed now is someplace that I only have to think about music. I don't have any expectations. Fun. I have no expectations. I'm just going to put music out now. That's great. Just to do it. It's great. So what am I? It's like expanding into more music. John, what are you going to, how are you going to roll this out? What are you going to do? Just more music? Well, you've done music. No, but I've not done the music I haven't done yet. Yeah. And the world of music is big enough to just keep expanding. It's endless. Yeah. And the way you describe the way you write and make your demos, that's one way to do it.

2:04:48Yes, the way you've always done it. But that's one way. You're right. There's a million ways. That's right. Right first. Right first and then read them out. Absolutely. Yeah. Jam with a band, write songs with a group of musicians there playing together. That's never done that. It's interesting. It's different. Get a task and four track cassette. It's a million ways to go about it. Yeah. There's a million ways to go about it. But the thing I want to say is that writers get tuned in. And I'm not even talking about like tuned in to like the divine. Just sometimes you just feel tuned in with your tastes and what you know it takes.

2:05:24And especially what little you know it takes. Right now I get my hometown by Bruce Springsteen. I get how you could write it. I get how I could write something that simple because I'm lined up with it. Whatever that thing is by playing these shows, I'm lined up with it. That's why I want to go right as soon as I can. When you're not lined up with it, you think it takes 300 pivot points, right? That you just psychus right now. I fucking get it. At your best you go, dude. Pick a line that matters. Make it the center piece of your song and sing how you feel about that line. Do it in four to six chords and roll the tape.

2:06:07And it sounds so easy to be aligned with that. And it is so hard to be aligned with that. When you're not aligned with it, you go, where am I going to get words from? We're going to get words from. Can't think about it. Just got to do it. You cannot think about it. It just has to make sense that something that strange could happen. It happens all the things that happens every day. It wouldn't happen for me if I didn't think it made sense that it could happen. It's hard to explain. No, I understand. You just have to see down the road. Yes. You see down the road. You go like this. It takes four things.

2:06:39Yes. Take a sentence that matters to you. Now there are months of time. I go, where am I going to get a sentence from? All right. Right now, if we sat here and did, I would come up with something and it would be direct and powerful. I don't know if it would be great, but you'd go, and it doesn't even matter. No, it wouldn't happen. Because it's a process. Yes. You do that all the time. Yes. Sometimes some come out really good, some come out less good. It's okay. You've got to get through the not so good ones to get to the good ones. Yes. Part of the process. Yes. And it's just like an eclipse.

2:07:15When everything lines up in front of everything else and you go, oh, you just pick a line that feels like something and you sing it and then you're done and you sing around it and the verses and then you got it. Or you overhear someone say something. That's someone says something like that. That's a good phrase. That's right. Done. And I can still go, who gets what for how long? I can still sing it. That's also a test, too. If I go home after writing a song, if you can't sing it to yourself, it's not good. You've worked on it for four hours. You can't sing it. Doesn't mean anything. Not good. You can sing it while another song's going.

2:07:47It's a big one. That's a good rule. Yeah. So as you know, as we talk about this, we think we're closing out topics and we just keep opening up. Oh, absolutely. Just absolutely. And things to fill and it just keeps going. It's infinite. It's infinite. Yeah. And so much fun to talk about. Fun to think about. Fun to make. Fun to do. We're so lucky that this is our lives. We get to basically play and these things appear that weren't there. Yeah. And then we get to share them with people and they get to have an experience. Yes. And it's amazing. Then like you were saying, they catalyze it and return it to you.

2:08:26It's different. It's different. It's different. I play a stop this train every night. It's not a song from a record anymore. It's a feeling for people. It's a feeling for me, I think, about my dad. And I look at their faces and I know what's going on. I know that they're thinking about people who might not be there. People. No, I'm not caught up in. I know the world is black and white. And that's the song. And I look out and people have this look on their face that's like, it's like a pout. It's like an adult's, this vulnerable pout, they're taking it in and it's melting them down. And it's like, that is a universal way from I want to make it as a musician.

2:09:19Universal way. And I should have thought that. But once you do, what are you going to do with that? Make it more. What's your experience? I'm going to eat the world anymore. You go like this? Any people go, I feel so good.

2:09:44I can't take the speed. It's moving in. I know I can't, but honestly, won't someone stop this train? And I'm only doing it to bring those colors up in their head and bring the colors up in my head and think about my dad and think about how I thought about that. And it's way beyond, if I do this, they'll know my name. Or I'll prove this person wrong. It's not showbiz anymore. It's not showbiz. Showbiz has ended. Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. Pleasure speaking to you about this. Showbiz has ended. Yeah. That's the perfect line to... That's brilliant. I'm not going to forget that. You nailed that ending.

2:10:37Wow. Thank you. My pleasure. Showbiz has ended. Showbiz has ended. Showbiz has ended. Thank you for playing music for us too. It's so great. No, thank you. I... Isn't it funny to talk about the process and you get instantly... I get... Concurrently inspired and frustrated. I just get excited. Yeah, I get inspired and frustrated. I get frustrated because you want to do it right now. Yes. That's right. I feel. I feel... Well, you're welcome to say I'm leaving, but you can stay and do it. Thank you. No, thank you for the opportunity to talk to you too. I just knew that your ability to understand things would allow me to explain them with more sort of bandwidth.

2:11:14So this was really fun to have. Beautiful. And we'll definitely do it again. Just fun talking to you. I'd love to. Go ahead.

2:11:51Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.