Is TikTok ruining the music industry? (Our interview with AJR)

23:35The Week was also part of like David Dobrik's vlogs as well, right? Yeah, he used a lot of our music, I think, including Week in his intros. Was it when he was first starting out? He definitely wasn't as big as he is now, but he definitely had a significant following. And I didn't know who he was when he first started. I was like, oh, it's a YouTuber. And then I realized. Yeah, because he was pretty selective with music. And there was like playlists of David Dobrik vlog music, which was a really interesting era. And you think about it, like, you know, some of those videos were doing 10, 20 million views.

24:09Again, when you bring up licensing, it's interesting that in the past, if someone was making a show that that many people were watching, they wouldn't pay to license the song. The end-all be-all was always Grey's Anatomy. If you had a song in Grey's Anatomy, then it was going to be a hit, especially if it was the end of the episode when they were doing like a montage of everything that happened, that song was going to chart on iTunes if you got that sync. Interesting. I remember there were songs on like Entourage when I was growing up, and those were the big ones. Or even like the OC. Yeah, yeah.

24:39His favorite band was Death Cab. Oh, right. Totally. Yeah. So the pie chart, is it what you just broke down of like touring's number one? It depends on the artist. It really depends on the artist. For us, touring is number one. Once you get to a certain size in touring, then you start to make significant more money. So it's touring, merchandise, licensing are the top three. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. Interesting. That David Dobrik thing was funny. I think it was an interesting lesson because he was a fan of us. and then he said, can I put your song in the vlog? We were like, yeah. That would have done okay, but we were then in his video in like, it was someone's birthday party, he invited us to a party.

25:17Yeah, he invited us over. Okay, yeah, he invited us over. And we had just met him. But I think there was an understanding from the video that we were all friends and we're at his birthday party performing. He does a good job of that. He does a really good job. And then I think all of his fans then felt like they were friends with us and we were like part of the family. And he's super nice, but we just met him that one time. I think the conception was, They're in the group. They're in the crew. Let's be fans of them, too. Just kind of an interesting lesson in that. Boy, did we have the most friends I've ever had reach out after that video.

25:45Like, not when our song went number one here. When we had a big song, it was people that I went to school in fifth grade with. I just saw you in the David Darby video. Congrats. I was like, wow. Okay. That's super interesting. Yeah. So if a band, like, if you guys didn't like touring, it would be kind of a, like, that's a hard thing to do, right? then financially it would be really tough because even the merchandise which is the second biggest category we sell almost all our merchandise on the road touring like the digital business is is minimal um so by by taking touring out of the equation you also take merchandise out of the equation i was watching one of your tour vlogs and in it uh there's a couple things there's a vip dodgeball game which i thought was interesting and then you give a master class yeah to fans about how you make your music.

26:32Yeah. I want to know first, like, is there a formula for touring that you guys have figured out that is a little bit different than other bands? No, definitely not a formula. We literally thought in the simplest way that dodgeball with fans would be fun for both us and them. I think if I got to play dodgeball with my favorite artists, it'd be the story that I would tell forever. And it's actually literally just fun to do for us. And we get our whole crew involved. So that's number one. The masterclass thing is also, so we play dodgeball with the fans and then Ryan does his masterclass. That is just like kind of a cool alternative or cool kind of opposite to what people just did.

27:07They had this fun physical experience. Now they can have what a lot of people seem to like, which is like Ryan himself, you know, getting to answer questions and break down what's happening. Those two things entirely just come from us and a fun experience we want to give to the fans. But I would recommend that to other artists come up with something super cool and personal to do for VIP because it has worked so well for us. It's like, it's just offered an amazing connection we could have with some of our biggest fans. The amount of storytelling of the song that's a part of your guys' brand, I find to be so interesting.

27:35Like, it's so important, so much so that you will storytell the making of the song on stage. Sorry, we needed a really catchy chorus melody. Oh my God. Oh my God. Jack, play that back again.

27:56And Chris, the drums.

28:00But I'm ready. Yeah, so that came probably eight years ago or ten years ago, and now it's become like a staple of our thing, of our live show. I saw a video of the Beach Boys, I think it was on Ed Sullivan's show in the 60s, doing some version of that. Like Brian is going, so first we started with Dennis on the drums, and he's playing a basic beat. Then I came in with the bass. And then it's like that long. It's like 20 seconds, and it's surfing safari. and I thought that's really magical. Like my feeling of I wonder what song this is going to be as they add more and more instruments. I loved that feeling.

28:36I felt like I was a kid again, like guessing the mystery. And so we kind of thought, how about we bring that into the 21st century and add crazy graphics and go into our brains and into a Pro Tools session as we add more and more instruments and throw fans off the scent. Maybe it's going to be weak. No, we're going to slow it down. It sounds more like bang and then finally explode into the song. We had to do it in such a precise way that wouldn't lose people, right? People are looking during a concert for every reason to go on their phone, you know? And especially when, yeah, oh no, 100%. If something interesting is not happening on stage, right to the phone.

29:08We all do it. It's just, my hand just goes there. And a person doing it, the artist doing a TED talk for 10 minutes, phone. Like I'm on the phone. So we very carefully put these things together to make sure people need to know what's coming next. There's a way we could definitely fail doing that. Imagine in a place where they don't speak English too. It's like they design it in a way where it's so visual but also auditory. So at some point, almost what they're saying doesn't even matter if you don't understand because you can still understand it. Yeah, I saw a clip of Matt Healy from the 1975 talking about something he was interested in and have a big visual of Subway Surfer.

29:48Oh, my God. Just playing. Oh, just totally unrelated. He did it intentionally? Yeah, he was like, I'm just going to put this on so I can talk about this topic I'm into. It's literally that thing on TikTok that I see where people have a video game underneath the podcast. That's so wild. Like gameplay of a video game so you can keep everyone's attention. It was obviously a commentary on attention spans. What do you think about it? Do you swipe right by that? I'm not going to fall for this attention. Look, I'm 34 years old. I have experience with attention. You know, like, so I am. I've kept attention.

30:23Yeah, I've kept attention. I'm not like, I'm not an expert at keeping attention, but like I've done it. So I'm familiar. Yeah. And when it comes to like artists that I'm into, I, I am very willing and happy to give a hundred percent of my attention. I can't imagine being at a concert and taking out my phone. That's like very hard for me to imagine. Those videos too, with the split screen, I feel like it's just screaming. Like, it's like cigarettes to me. Like it's like on the label. Like this is not good for you. Yeah. And I just know it. If I'm looking at that, I'm like, yeah, I don't need this.

30:55So you swipe by it. Yeah. Or I'm just like, I don't need to even swipe on this app. I try and— Oh, the app goes away. Yeah, I try and put myself more so in like long-form video experience. I think the stories are just better, and I guess we're a little bit older, so. Yeah. Yeah, I imagine, though, for the—you know, there's a crowd that— like, we grew up with television and pre-internet. So, like, there's just familiarity with other forms of entertainment. I think for this current crowd, there's not. and also when it comes to like touring and being at concerts one thing that we've noticed is that some artists that have you know caught something on on TikTok they become known then people go out to their shows the challenge is everyone's just waiting for that 15 second hook they sing that hook and then they kind of are just like what else what is all this other stuff yeah I saw that happen with Steve Lacey Steve Lacey that's who I'm referencing he seemed like he did not like that at all right he was he was getting who would like that yeah who would like that right?

31:52Is there any thought to, I know you guys have said that like the chorus comes easily to you guys typically. Do you today, whether it's consciously or subconsciously on the new album, like do you guys write a chorus and you're like, that one would probably hit on TikTok or is that just not even, yeah. Or like, you know what I mean? Like, oh, that kind of has a feel. And whether or not that is a desired outcome, is there just now naturally that thought when you're in the writing process? Yeah, no, it's a great question. I think we explicitly said before we started writing the album, let's not do that.

32:28Yeah. Because what we're doing already is working, right? So like we wrote World's Smallest Violin. We wrote the good part. Those are doing great on TikTok. Obviously, something we're doing naturally from our brains works on TikTok. So I feel like as soon as we start trying to analyze why it's working, we're totally going to blow it. It's totally going to go away. I think also we're still evolving and songs that we wrote in 2015 or whatever. We wrote the song Netflix Trip about The Office. And at the time, I remember feeling like it was really groundbreaking. Who would write a song about The Office?

32:59And now I could imagine any TikToker going, I wrote a song about The Office, like pointing to the like, do you want a song about Jim and Pam? It's just like my love life. Here it is. That kind of grosses us out now because there's no three dimension to that. I'm going to spoon feed to you what the song is about. Now I'm going to play you the song. So we, I think, very particularly said, is that the kind of song that we would see on TikTok? Is it too obvious? Okay, let's add a new layer. Let's add a new dimension to it to try to be ahead of that. That was a lot of the difficulty of writing this album.

33:28It's like, wow, everybody kind of caught up to what we were doing like seven years ago or so. How do we then expand a little bit? Interesting. There's like a deep honesty and vulnerability in your guys' music that I really enjoy, especially in your lyrics, that I think when we talk to a lot of creators is what has developed the, for some creators, who are willing to be that personable and that vulnerable, it develops that deep parasocial relationship with the audience. A creator we had on the show recently was Emma Chamberlain. And she's, if you're familiar with her vlogs, she's very deeply vulnerable and personal and kind of connected to her fans in a way that we hadn't really seen before because of her vulnerability.

34:12is that something like do you guys ever think in your writing process or as you're sharing is that like at the forefront of like this is us or yeah I think that we all are kind of messed up in our brains as humans to try to think that we need to present the best version of ourselves to everybody like when you tripped out there you just naturally like I didn't trip we're going to cut that cut back flashback to that we have final cut on this we have footage yeah we're our own guy yeah but like not that you're doing anything wrong but like that's kind of human nature to be like, I didn't trip, what are you talking about?

34:44But like what's actually really likable is what you did that you kind of made fun of yourself and you admitted it. And like I think that that's like a weird thing. It's like when you're going on dates, actually the most attractive thing is when someone goes, yeah, I have IBS and you're like, oh, I like that person. I like that. And we kind of realized that, that you shouldn't want to present the best version of yourself because what a boring date that would be. And so we kind of got addicted to revealing on the last album, I wrote a song called Joe. And I literally name-checked a guy that I went to high school with.

35:17And it was about how much I admired him and how much I still weirdly think about him. That was really embarrassing. And all my friends talk about it. But there's something about that song specifically too. And there's something about that though that pulls us, it pulls a certain group of people in and probably deters another group of people, right? And that is the moment in time we're in of, there's not as much monoculture, right? Maybe there's like top 40, I guess. There's like in music, there is maybe more monoculture in music than there is in other media. But it feels like we're in the land of incredible subcultures where they're kind of somewhat polarizing.

35:56It's like either you're really in or you're completely out. And you guys feel like you represent that to me. Correct me if I'm wrong. You're 100 % right. But I'm saying that because it's the world of everyone we sit down with on the show. It's like either they have a diehard group of fans or other people are like, I don't get it. Or they've never heard of them. Right. I think we are the ultimate example of that. And to the point where people yell online about how much they don't get it and hate us for it. But then there's the opposite where people are like, how do you not get this? It's exactly how I'm feeling.

36:27But that's what makes the fans stronger. Do you think it is the accessibility versus the sensationalism of some artists? Like some artists, it's like, I can't, I don't know what they're about. I can't touch them. Like they are up on this pedestal. Do you think it's like - We say that on stage. I so don't want people to think just because I'm 12 feet higher than them, it means that I do everything right and I'm perfect. That's just, we've lost what we're all about if fans think that. And I think that's just why we have such a unique fan base. If you go to our show and look at our fans, you're like, okay, yeah, these people are all super nice, have gone through a lot of shit and just want to talk about it and be together and, wow, you like them too, I love you.

37:08And it's just, you know exactly where fans are. And a lot of people on the internet hate that. So many people hate that. Yeah, they really do. Maybe that also has to do with the accessibility of what you're saying about letting people in so much with the making ofs and this is how we write a song. I think the natural reaction of some insecure people is like, I could have done that. Why are you up there on the stage? And like, then they naturally think, it's so easy to write a song about The Office. I could have done that. And that's where a lot of the hate comes from. It's not. it's easy to write a bad song about The Office.

37:34It's really a tight wire act to write a good emotional song that makes you cry about The Office. And any song we throw out that doesn't make the album, that's what it is. It's, okay, no, the concept's cool, but I'm not feeling a single thing. We're just saying words, you know? Yeah, when I think back to myself in high school, like I was actually a music and theater kid, but I pushed that away because it wasn't what was widely accepted as cool. And played sports. Because that was what was accepted as cool. But if I could go back, I would... Were you his high school bully? I'm sorry. You're apologizing.

38:10You've been better. Did you? Okay. That's the reveal. I appreciate the apology for not allowing me to be myself. I just thought it was funny. Like, give him a noogie. Like a Billy Elliot kind of thing. Yeah, he is bullying me about this whole tripping outside thing. He is Billy Elliot. Yeah, yeah. He is. That's Samir Elliot right there. There he is. Yeah. But now I'm in improv class, and in my 30s, I'm like, wait, I really liked theater, and I just didn't do it. And now I want to perform and express that part. And I think I'm drawn to you guys, because it feels like if I went to one of your shows, it's like a bunch of those type of people who are 100 % accepting of the fact that they're theater kids or enjoy summer camp.

38:51You know what I mean? Those are things I like. Yeah, of course. And you know what makes us kind of invincible to the hate is seeing all those people. Right, of course. Like, what we did for those people, like, if you were transported back 20 years. Well, I would have beat some kids up. No, I'm kidding. Maybe you would have been okay, like, being a theater kid. And, like, if we get to do that for people, your hate just bounces right off of it. We don't care. There's this feel of, like, for me, as a first-generation Indian-American kid growing up here, I was like, there's no one that looks like me.

39:23So I need to, like, look at the archetypes of what's acceptable and cool and just gravitate towards that. But now with the subcultural movement, it's like, wait, I can actually go on the internet and find people like me. Right. You felt you had like an extra hurdle almost. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And now there is like, oh, there's like tons of these pockets of people like me. And without the criticism or hatred at times, it actually doesn't allow for the like tight-knit niche tribe to emerge. I believe at least on the internet right now. Oh, you think that the hate makes them stronger? Yeah. And bonds them.

39:55I actually think people who don't get it makes the people who get it feel more passionate about getting it. Oh, I have this little secret you don't understand. Yeah. I hope that's the case. I'm constantly nervous that the people that hate on us and write comments underneath positive comments are slowly convincing our fans that they're right. That's a weird, irrational fear of mine. Because I have actually seen a couple comments before that are like, oh, I used to love your music until I saw this. because we get some like long form reviews that like kind of go through how much people don't like our music.

40:28And until I saw this and then I realized they were right. I'm not a fan anymore. I was like, oh no, my fears are coming true. I doubt that's a large group of people, but it still is, it's an interesting thing. That's the fear of every creative person. Like at some point, someone's going to be like, I figured it out. These guys aren't great. And everyone's going to be like, you're right. You're right. These guys shouldn't even be there. They shouldn't be doing what they're doing. The stakes in my mind are so high, but they're so low because I go through different phases of bands. There's a band.

40:53I liked in high school that I don't like anymore. Which band? It's as simple as that. Okay, us! It's us. No, but no, but it's just, I'm making it into such a bigger deal in my head than it really is, you know? Do you guys internalize criticism differently? Or do you handle it differently? From each other? Yeah. Or from fans, yeah, or just the public. I mean, I speak from Samir and I, like there will be comments and sometimes it'll hit one of us harder than the other. It so depends what they're saying. It just so depends. So much of the, what's great is like the big, you know, big, like the YouTubers with a little bit more of an audience who don't like our music, it seems like they resort to two things.

41:31They use words like garbage and trash, which makes me feel literally nothing. That's nothing. You got to give evidence of why. I would respect them so much more if they had evidence. And then when they start to kind of get into it, they're literally critiquing everything we really like about our music. If we are writing an album and we're like, I think it'd be really cool if we suddenly switched the time, had a time change here and went into banjo they'll go they switched it and went into banjo and I'm like oh but I that's what I like about it that's not really doing that's not really affecting me right now because I kind of like it so that's when it doesn't really do anything for me I'm trying to think of a situation that does affect me can you think of anything?

42:05For me there are two kind of different ways of thinking about this one is the fans when I see the comments on social media and I just keep saying in my mind that it's the vocal minority because if you look at the number of people who are engaging in it and actually comment and compared to the total number of people who are engaging broadly and listening, it is such a tiny percentage. So that's one thing on one side of it. The other side is when we were first starting out, we met with a whole bunch of people who said they were in the industry. They weren't really in the industry, but they said they were in the industry.

42:38And every single one of them said, your music is too theatrical. Every single one of them. And that kind of lives in my mind in the same place as the vocal minority. because if we had moved away from the theatrical influence, we wouldn't be doing what we are doing right now. And it's the people who, at that point, when you were 10 years old or 12 years old and when you were doing those meetings, if we had listened to them, we wouldn't be doing any of this. And they were so wrong. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. I think, this has been said before, but social media definitely rewards the biggest reaction possible.

43:14And I think a lot of these YouTubers realize that. and if they have a thumbnail with fire in the background how much they ate Andrew, it's just going to get more clicks. Shit, that's the thumbnail for this video. Thank you. You guys over us. Oh, it was that kind of interview. Not going to do as well, but we'll take it out. It was a takedown interview. Got it. Yeah, but you have to realize, like, you almost have to think about what you're saying. Like, that's not even a real person. Like, if you talk to them, they'd probably be like, yeah, I just, for the views. You have to, like, separate reality from that.

43:42I'm curious for you, Adam. I've heard you talk about like community building and also the measure of influence from like a celebrity. Like how you influence their, or how you can understand their influence and their ability to impact. And make actual change. And make actual change. Do you think about that with your own band of like how do you measure your ability to make impact? Or how do you measure your own depth of connection with your community? Are you talking about impact in terms of like advocacy broadly or impact in terms of the fans and what our music means to the fans? I think there's one step prior to advocacy was just like they even have to be willing to listen, right?

44:25And like that is in this in today's world, like if you say, hey, we're playing a show and people buy tickets, that's an ability to impact a community. And then if you have them there and they have that connection, you can make that next step. Definitely. And one of the approaches that we've taken over the last 12 years or so is really focusing on our biggest fans and making sure that everything we're doing gives them what they need in order to take that out into the world and then share it with other people. They're like evangelizers, you know? Interesting. and one of the ways we do that has been through Instagram like in particular Instagram has been that place where we're always going to put stuff out for the biggest fans we're never going to share we're doing all of these radio things check out all this stuff it's not like the promo piece of it it's how can we do the things that they care about continue to give them the tools and then allow them to become our you know soldiers out in the field that are then trying to convert other people.

45:27Because I think that's the real way to build a community is if you empower all of these other fans to build the community for themselves. When we first started, we were a secret for a lot of people. And Ryan was mentioning this before. People like having a secret than that they can tell just a couple people about. So if we empower those fans with that secret, with the new content that we're just sharing with our text list, or the way we did, we released a song by giving them just the sheet music. So they needed to figure it out for themselves. We've done the same thing. One of my favorite ones was we did a jigsaw puzzle for our last album where we sent out pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.

46:05Some went out on Twitter, some went on our text list, some went out via email. And we kind of made the fans all work together in order to build the jigsaw puzzle, which was the album art, their album art. They made the album art and were able to reveal it to the world instead of us. Great point. I think you also can't underestimate the value of time. You were saying that you've done this for 12 years. You can't fast forward that kind of thing. It's really true. The sooner you come, the sooner you go. And I think the fact that we never blew up, we were always something to be found, very slowly, just gives people so much more investment and I want to see where this band goes.

46:43I'm sure you guys resonate with this too, but I don't even think we could sit in this seat and have these conversations had we not been a secret for our fans for a long period of time. Had we been kind of like failing in public, getting small wins here and there, you know, like we couldn't even sit and do this had we not had 10 years of that. Right. You know? You think fans have more investment because they watched, oh, that video flapped this. Yeah, I think fans, there are a certain group of our audience who have more investment because of that. And even just from a skill set and comfort in the seat, ability to even sort of like talk about what we've done creatively.

47:17Yeah. We needed that. I still have the ticket stubs from almost every concert I went to growing up from when I was like 13 to 18. And I always thought about that as we were growing our brand of like, that mattered to me a lot. You know, that I was, that I could reference and be like, I was there when there was no one else in that room, right? Like that, I feel like in music and as a fan of music, that mattered to me a lot. And I think that's like a similar experience of like that secret and the ownership over the momentum, right? of like, wait, no, but I was there when they were playing small venues.

47:53It's easier said than done because we had to fight against everybody on our team. No, guys, we have a business plan that's going to take 12 years where we're going to lose money. No one wants to sign up for that. But it just pays off so much more. I think if you reach the six or seven year mark, that's someone's teenage years. That's now an era of their life that forever you will be the music of their teens. And they'll never forget that. But it's also, I think particularly with us, we've just kept so many fans because we're growing with our fans, but also writing exactly about what we're going through, which also happens to be exactly what the fans are going through at age 14 versus 17.

48:29It's like they've kind of trusted us as like, okay, their next album is going to be exactly what I've gone through at 25. They're probably going to nail that, which is kind of like what we try to do, which I think is why we've retained fans. And the Mean Read, they'll be like, you know, I've been following you for 12 years since you were putting out your covers. And we just see that so often because they can rely on us to just sort of like be there with them growing up. Our goal is longevity. Like that really is our goal. And we've seen now fans who came to shows years ago, met each other online, came to shows together, didn't know each other before, got married, and now have kids and are starting to bring their kids to the show.

49:01That's crazy. I love your perspective on community building. Like I think that we're in an era right now where there's a lot of artists and creators who can, where the understanding of validation or success is based on like a quantifiable metric, whether that's viewership or streams or, you know, and like that feels like success when they actually, it would be a struggle for them to fill a room with people because they actually don't have a community, right? It's like, I know how to make something that will be rewarded by the platform, but actually I don't have a connection to these people. And it can be misinterpreted as a connection with millions of people when it's actually just an ability to capture attention in a very specific way.

49:44and I love the discovery like the ability for the the most passionate fans to discover because I think as creators we oftentimes think about the audience we don't have more than we think about the audience we do have right there's like a disappointment sometimes as a YouTube creator where you're like it's got half a million views sucks and you're like wait but if we reframe that and go there's 500 ,000 people that just watched that you know that's like you're just totally right yeah but it's just the danger of just the music industry the YouTube industry Everything has just been made into so much more of a competitive thing, I think, as time has gone on.

50:18I don't think, even when we were kind of coming up through the radio world, things were this competitive. But when you're all so close together, and literally I see a number here, then I see the next number, then I see the number, I'm just, my brain is just wired. It's like you can see everyone, like the scoreboard. Yeah, right next to each other. I don't, with radio, I didn't know how many spins, you know, Meghan Trainor's song was up versus our song. And I got to catch up. We were all just on our own path, and we got to hang out at shows together. But now I know exactly how much more popular the next person is.

50:47And you think everybody's looking to, oh, that was a flop of a post. Like that people-pleasing thing gets activated. Because a lot of them do. A lot of these fans like kind of make it their mission to be the social media patrol. And you know, that one didn't do as well as this one, which didn't do as this, which is not, that's not what a fan is. You know, just enjoy. So here's a good example of this. On Instagram, we have around 800 ,000 followers. Every single time I talk to somebody in the brand space or labels or whatever, you need to get your Instagram number up. You need to get your Instagram number up.

51:18We have probably the highest percentage of people who follow us on Instagram who come out to shows of, I think, any artist. Maybe Vampire Weekend beats us. Maybe Vampire Weekend beats us. Not counting artists that have developed fan bases like Alar and C. No, pre-social. You're right. I think approximately half of the people who follow us on Instagram are going to come out to this next tour. That's an insane percentage. But all the brands are saying, oh, we can't get you big deals because, you know, you don't have enough followers. But they just don't understand that we have followers that are so much more engaged, even though it's an overall smaller number.

51:58So outside of fans, does music industry validation matter? In what way? Other artists, people in the industry. It used to matter to us more. Honestly, this is getting a little bit dark, but in the last year, our dad passed away. He got sick and passed away. And just like, it was incredibly sad, but also like you just reevaluate everything. Just like you're looking at him like, you know what he didn't talk about on his deathbed? Social media likes. And even his career, like he was an architect, didn't talk about that at all. He talked about the vacations we took and all his childhood friends that were there.

52:29And it just, in an instant, you're like, I don't care how this post did. I care about the legacy we are leaving in the world, which is our music and our weird POV that's going to last way longer than us. And I think just the death of creativity is comparing yourself to other people. I think just every time we looked at, oh, but this artist is going in this direction, either you want to copy him or you want to stay with him, immediately you're not doing what your heart wants to do. So I think with this album, I don't think we really listen to pop music at all. We listened to like Broadway music and 70s music and old country and just got inspired in just a weird random place.

53:09Yeah. A reminder of like what really matters most is are you enjoying what you're doing with the people that you're doing it with? Yes. Like as number one. Number two, are you like proud hopefully of what you're putting out there? Totally. And every time we go on tour, we kind of look at each other after the first show and just we're like, like, that's why we do this. Okay. Wait a second. We just needed like a year to reset and go, okay, there it is. there's an incredibly sweet video that you guys uh tweeted of your dad watching you guys play and i fully teared up yeah watching it last night like it's it's to me it felt like that's even for me as a as a creative in in the past 12 years those are the moments that that mattered to me so much you know like that's where um the the the validation and just like the internal feeling comes from is in those small moments.

53:56So. Thank you. It's really sad to say that most of the validation was from him, actually, that we wanted so badly. We used to say the best moment of like our life is when we wouldn't tell our dad anything about the tour, about like the show. We would keep it all a surprise. He would want to know the effects. We'd be like, no, no, just come see it for the first time. And then he would come and then he would always, we'd see him back at like the sound booth. We could always see him. And then at the very end when we bow, he would always like, he did in the video, I think. He would always go like this.

54:25And we always said to each other, that is the best moment of our year. Like, okay, we just had it. That's the best moment ever. Now we feel just so incredibly loved and validated and we're so proud of ourselves. So that's the role that he played. He played the ultimate validation for us. Yeah. Yeah. How do you guys separate the two? Because it feels like your whole job is to get a lot of views, right? Like we have the music, which is just kind of a little bit more qualitative. And you're, unless I'm wrong, unless you kind of are able to separate the two. I think, you know, it was something that I was trying to sort out in the past couple of years.

55:01And we sat down earlier this year with Tim Ferriss. Do you know Tim Ferriss? Podcaster. Yeah. And he said something to me that has changed my entire perspective. He said, you have to separate the two rewards. The first reward is this, the conversation. And when that reward is done, like when you guys get up and leave, that is complete. We had an amazing time. Hopefully you guys had a great time. It's been okay. But like, we have a good time. Why don't we get to start? We get to have this experience of a conversation. That's done. That is decoupled from the performance and the other reward, right?

55:38Which could be the financial reward, the exposure, whatever other rewards are tied to this are separate from the presence of this moment. And that has been something that is really, you know, that framework has really supported me in recognizing the thing I love doing is sitting down and having conversations with creative people that I respect. If we weren't recording this, this would still be a reward for me. This would be unbelievable to sit down with you guys and have this exact conversation. So that is not connected to how many views this gets or how other people interpret this. I get to sit in this seat and have the conversation with you guys.

56:15That is the reward. I'm also extremely grateful that we started 12 years ago and did not even know what it meant to be a YouTube creator or even the word creator. Right. Like we started because of a love for video making. Yeah. So that's like where our friendship started. That's where our collaboration started. And so it's, I think it's probably uniquely easy for us to root it in that because we didn't start three years ago with this idea of, oh, this is a business. Oh, we can make a lot of money. This is metrics. Yeah, that wasn't the, you know. I mean, we didn't make any money for years. And so if you go through the time, and I'm sure you guys can connect to this, where you don't make money, but you still wake up every day and do the thing, then it's like, that's the thing, right?

56:58Because you're just like - It was irrational. It's completely irrational. You do the thing for six years with no financial reward. Funding it in totally strange ways. Yeah. I truly think that that's kind of the only way to make it, though. I think fans are so smart that they can easily see who actually likes what they're doing and who's just trying to do it to get famous. And so many more people these days, I'm like kids out of high school are just like, I would like to get famous, whatever it takes on TikTok. Those kids are not going to be, unless they find something they like, they're not going to be around next year, even in six months.

57:28You guys are obviously going to stick around for, because you have first of all, because you genuinely love it. People can so clearly see that. That's the only way to do this. Right? Yeah. Adam, you said the goal is longevity. I'm curious with that being the goal, where are you right now in the spectrum of confidence that this is. Wow. Because I remember for us, there was like a tipping point of, oh, I think we could do this for the next five years, ten years. When did you know? It was moving into this space and having stability in the type of format that we make, enjoyment in it, and people around us that we enjoy.

58:03Plus, obviously, there's a business element to it. So it was looking at those two and being like, oh, okay, I think I could do this. If I'm granted the opportunity, which I am being granted, I could do this for the next 10 years, 15. Who knows? Isn't that the best feeling in the world? Having that stability? It's crazy. It's like a weight sort of. It's actually a confusing moment though because you're fueled by the fear. Like that is actually what, there was an element of fear that drove me for most of the decade that it wasn't going to happen. Totally. And that's actually like the scarcity drives you.

58:34And when you arrive at the moment of like abundance, when you're like, wait, I think things are actually pretty chill right now. and this is working, it actually was a really confusing time for me. I could totally, totally relate. I was like, what? I'm not like sprinting away from something. Whenever, I truly, totally relate. Whenever I get on stage, even still, it's less now, but it used to be, I was so convinced that no matter how many people were there, they were all there to make fun of us. And they were all there to go. I truly, literally, although they were cheering, I saw their arms crossed, like in my weird mind.

59:08And my mind went to, I got to freaking go way over and above and put on the single most energetic show ever so I can win over each individual person. Even though they already bought the ticket with our name on it, I could not think that they all were there to make fun of us. So that's kind of, it's the exact same thing. It's like that fear of losing everyone there is what makes you do better. Yeah. Well, that also might be because you were pretty young and there was, from what we read, there was a anti-AJR club at your high school, right? That's right. So there might be an element of like, wait, they did hate it.

59:40No, no. I know what you're saying. Yeah, 100%. I just can't imagine if there was like an anti-Colon and Samir club. If there was an anti-Colon and Samir club, I'd probably be like, I don't need to do this. History is not for me. That's a wrap. At lunch, there was a teacher involved. There was a chaperone. That's crazy. That feels crazy. That seems too far, right? It was true. They fronted it as like a history club, but it was the anti-HIR club. History of these three brothers. Oh, my God. I know exactly what you're saying about the confusing time of like once you feel stable. because I had a conversation with my fiance about like, I think my work ethic is going away.

1:00:12I used to spend all night working on songs, nonstop producing things year after year. And now it's like, now I just do it like twice a week instead. And it was a really great conversation because she told me like, you don't have to do that. Like, that's okay. Now you're starting to focus on the other stuff in your life. You don't have to kill yourself over work anymore. And that's healthy. The fuel is confusing because also when I was in high school and I was going through a ton of different emotions and primarily heartbreak, I was probably at my most productive and creative when I experienced heartbreak.

1:00:43And as things stabilized in my life, I had the same thought of like, okay, things are going well. Am I still creative? Do I have that fuel in me anymore? I have nothing to run away from anymore and distract myself. What am I trying to prove now? Yeah. Am I just happy? Sometimes I'm like, do I have a podcast because I don't have ideas anymore to make videos? Like documentaries are more intricate. videos that we used to make. I'm like, is that why? Right. Totally. Podcast because we like to talk. Yeah, we like to talk. We like to talk a lot. But I think I similarly have like gotten to a place where I'm like, do I not have the same creative fuel and energy because my inputs are different because I am more stable now?

1:01:25And is that a problem? I don't think it is a problem. I think like, doesn't Bill Gates, like he came out like regretting working so much and wished he spent more time with his team? That's the ultimate example. Isn't it funny that we hear that, but we are just like, yeah. We know that. Yeah. But we're still going to work. I'd rather regret it once I'm Bill Gates. I'll find that when I'm his age. Exactly. But I think you guys, not you guys, all of us are maybe confusing like, I feel stable with I freaking made it. I'm all good. Those are not the same things. You're allowed to feel that. I don't think that it's healthy for anyone to get to I made it.

1:01:57I'm good. See y 'all later. I can do no wrong. And none of us are ever going to get there because we have the drive, you know, instinctually in us. So it is all right. You know, you're totally right. Yeah. I think for our career, defining longevity is something that we're going to need to figure out for ourselves. And it's going to be over time because ultimately the goal has always been for us. Can we tour forever? Can we tour at a place where we don't need to put out an album in order for people to get excited to come into the room? Can we end up doing the thing that Phish does where they put on a crazy, amazing, not the kind of music that Phish does, with the kind of touring that Phish does.

1:02:38And I think that we are probably, like just switching to my math side of my brain, I think we are probably two tours away from the place where we'll be able to tour at the arena or amphitheater level for quite a long time. Including this one that we're about to go on? This one, and then one more, and then we - This is news. Yeah, news. Breaking news. Breaking news. Two tours away. And this is confirmed real, okay? Like you just stake your reputation on it. Right. But like in my mind, that's enough time for like what we were talking about before, people to have grown enough with us and also to have experienced all the different kinds of shows that they build in a way that they're going to want to come back to see what the next iteration of the show is at a time where we're going to be using not necessarily new songs, but older songs to tell new stories.

1:03:31Cool. And I think for them to feel nostalgic about the music and at the same time have something new, I feel like this next tour plus one more is enough time for us to feel that longevity. Again, it's going to be something that we keep evaluating over time. Maybe we'll put out a new album like once every two tours instead of every tour. But that feels like, from the industry side of my brain, that feels like the right amount of time. I feel like, too, you're embarking on playing Madison Square Garden and The Forum here in L.A. And when I think about those two venues, I think about, like, actually the biggest artists in the world.

1:04:03That's, like, all I think of. But then at that moment, like, that's always been our dream, to play Madison Square Garden and the Forum. But then once we play it, what about if we got to Citi Field, you know? Or MetLife Stadium? Or, like, it keeps going in your mind because you're addicted to this idea of growth. And when do you feel satisfied? I think also because, and correct me if I'm wrong, but when you arrive at some of those destinations, it also is a level of that abundance mindset catches up too. And you're like, it doesn't feel as impactful? Or have there been some of those moments that, like, was there one specific moment for you guys where you were like, oh shit, we made it?

1:04:45We played Red Rocks Amphitheater. and that was, I guess, it's very specific to us because our dad used to literally say it was his dream to go see a show there and he would say, if you guys can sell out Red Rocks, you've made it. So that was his, like he could have said any venue and then we would have just been like, that's the venue, but it was Red Rocks for him. And two tours ago, we sold it out and he came and he was there and that was, we felt that night that we made it. That's cool. There's a lot of footage of us crying that night and hugging and that's what the tears were about. The tears were like, we made it tears.

1:05:18But to your point, that's a huge thing. I think with everyone, if you hype something up in your head, you get there and you go, wait, wasn't this supposed to be a parade? Like, it was supposed to be lifted up on someone's shoulders. Where's my trophy? Or like, yeah, is there something? It's healthy. And I think even what Adam's saying is like, continue to try to get to the next thing is, it has its upsides and downsides. I guess it's only had our, at upsides for us so far, right? Yeah. Yeah. I really like the phrase, there's no there there. I heard that. Like, it's like, there's nothing on the other side where, isn't that great?

1:05:47We should do it. We should put that in a song, but there's no, exactly what we were saying, big celebration. There's no there there. It's just about recalibrating your brain to like, it's really healthy to have goals, but you just have to keep remembering, look how far I came from. Young me would have been so proud. I mean, it helps to just say that as a mantra. There's just enjoying it. I look at, I saw Bruce Springsteen at MetLife Stadium. He doesn't need to do that show or as many shows as he does. Yeah. Like he sold his catalog. He's made a ton of money. clearly this guy has to be up there.

1:06:18Yeah. Like, loves it. He's having the best time at his age. I think no matter what size of stadium, it's like, you better be enjoying it because it's kind of the, I would imagine, the experience of a smaller venue or a massive venue, it's still you guys on stage doing what you do. I think for him, and I'm just guessing, I think for him, it's probably just as much him performing in addition to the capital of seeing the fans enjoy it, right? Because you could sell your catalog and make hundreds of millions of dollars, but there's something that you can't monetize about seeing people enjoy something.

1:06:53And if you step away from music or whatever it is that you do and you don't have that for a while, you miss it. When we go on tour, I miss it so much after spending a year and a half or two years not touring and having that relationship with the fans. So no matter how much money you make off of it, that's never something that you're going to be able to put in a bank account. What about songwriting for other artists? Does that play into enjoyment, longevity, business? Where does that? Because you guys have written songs for other artists. Yeah, we used to a lot more than we do now. It's kind of slowed down a little bit.

1:07:28But where would you put that? I've never thought about that before. What was the question? Where do we put in our amount of enjoyment? Enjoyment, longevity in the career, and also just the revenue of the band. You know, it's one of those things that I thought we would enjoy more than we actually do. I think we get so much enjoyment out of writing AJR songs that are really personal we're also like scoring a Broadway show right now which gives us so much enjoyment we could talk about that more later but the writing for someone else getting into their shoes also just the rat race of like write 50 songs and maybe one of them will be cut by Meghan Trainor whatever I don't know it doesn't bring us I like that we keep bringing Meghan Trainor we've written some beef with Meghan we also are friends I guess she's a safe name to bring up.

1:08:13Yeah, it just, if it happens, if our paths happen to cross, and oh, wow, we have something in the catalog, let's give it to her, great. I don't know if it gives us as much enjoyment as other things. Yeah, we don't, there's two things. We don't love songwriting that much, actually. Kind of like a screenwriter doesn't, I mean, not all of them, but many of them don't like what they do. They like the finished product, it's after. Writing isn't enjoyable, but having written is enjoyable. Exactly, so that's how we feel. Second, we have a really unique, isolated writing style that no one else really has.

1:08:43And I actually can't even articulate it too well. But it's just the way where our minds are so connected at this point that I kind of, we kind of don't even need to speak before we know that the lyric is wrong. And again, like when we're in a session with someone else and we know this is so obnoxious, but I'm going to say, but when we know this, the lyric is right or wrong and this is it, but they're like, no, it's not right. we're like, God damn, we just missed out on something really magical that we know. And again, no one knows for sure, but there's certain moments where we just, with experience, know that this was the right choice.

1:09:14By the way, that is the reason creative partnerships last so long. Right, yeah. The commonality of the vernacular and even the ability to not speak and know is why a creative partnership works. A hundred percent. And it took a really long time to kind of build that muscle, but it works now. Unnecessary friction. when you're like, that doesn't work. And they're like, it does work. And then it's like, there's no right or wrong answer. It's just that it's not flowing. Yeah. Right, yeah. No, sorry, was someone trying to talk? It reminds me a bit of just, as we were growing, we would do a lot of video work for other people.

1:09:49And we would be taking creative choices. But at the end of the day, that person who was paying us gets to dictate, no, cut that part out. And you're like, no, I'm telling you, that's the good stuff. Like, that's it. So maybe it was just kind of a part of us growing. Maybe it was, I actually think it was. I was on Twitter all day writing, DMing artists and management if we could write songs with them. And I remember it being like a hustling state of mind. Like, can we have the AJ Airsoft? It's trying to go. Maybe we could have this other side thing that's going, just trying to get ourselves into the industry.

1:10:16Was that because you were looking for a way into the industry or looking for money? Like, I think we thought we were going to enjoy it. Oh, interesting. It's just one of those things like, wouldn't it be cool to have written that Jason Derulo number one song? Yeah, it would have been. Yeah. Yeah. Cost-benefit analysis, writing 200 songs that all fail in order to get to that one Jason Derule, just not worth it for us. Can I ask you guys about, this is a bit of a pivot, but what advice do you have for artists and creators, I guess more specifically in music, with the rise of AI in songwriting? I don't know.

1:10:50We should talk about it, but I'm pretty terrified of it. I think that it kind of has no place in music. I think that AI is going to be really helpful for solving climate change. I think security, there's a lot that AI will really do better than humans. Why is it in music? Do fans want an AI Drake song? Does Drake want that? If fans like it, do they kind of dictate, right? The consumer base right now dictates a lot of where commercial art is going. Yeah. Right? having a fan of something is different from somebody who will have it passively and listen and have it be in their world. And I think some of the AI stuff is much more background.

1:11:37Like, you're never going to get people who are going to be really actually engaged fans of something that AI is creating in the music space. I hope so. I hope you're right. Yeah. I think that music and comedy are the two things that I really want AI to stay away from. And I think it will never capture, we have this conversation all the time, the imperfections of humanity. I think that if, you know, there's Adele's voice cracks in such a beautiful way in this song. Yeah, a machine can copy that, but it's not a mistake anymore, right? It's now a chosen thing that it's analyzed data to find that voice cracks work.

1:12:16So we're going to, AI is going to write this song that has voice cracks that is no longer a human to human beautiful mistake and that's what makes music so great that's what makes comedy so funny it's John Mulaney cracking up at his own joke or it's crowd work crowd work it's like nothing that I think AI could ever chat GBT could ever write out write a monologue in the style of John Mulaney like yeah it's gonna use stuff that he's written before but it's not gonna make you laugh and I think eliciting a human reaction an emotional reaction from a song is the equivalent of that and yeah i'm a little scared by it um in the beginning of writing this album actually we were going to use some ai tools this was 20 way before it was the thing yeah 2021 when we thought we were like on the cusp of oh what about if all the backing vocals were made with ai and it's like we that was like the tagline of the album and then it got really scary and then all these now there's like ajr ai songs of us doing covers of hey there or Delilah or whatever.

1:13:11And so we ditched that and we decided like, if anybody can do it, we're not going to do it. I also just think there's this like, un, like you, un, an, a, you, you, what am I trying to say? There's this like DNA that within a song that no one can analyze that is, why is this violin with this note and me saying this word together a hit? Right. Like you just, and it's constantly changing. It's changing monthly. And I don't think, I think AI can maybe use examples that month, but they will never be able to predict the next thing. Like Hozier, right? When he came out with Take Me to Church, that's Take Me to Church.

1:13:47It was the only thing that sounded like that on the radio, and that was the new thing. AI can never do that. They're not going to be able to predict what's next. Or like somebody I used to know. Right, exactly. Why was that a hit? Why was that a number one hit? That was super strange. I just think as hard as scientists dig into this, they just can't figure it out, and that's what's so cool. I think, though, there's an element of, yeah, AI won't be able to make a hit, But what it seems like platforms want is AI as consumer creation tool. Like you were saying, sound like Drake. I may not even be a musician, but the same way that I can dance to a 15-second portion of your song, oh, maybe I could just also speak like you.

1:14:25That to me is fine. That to me is a fun game and a tool. That's not art, right? That's like, we all got EQ. Now we all can sound like Drake. But that's different than, what's Drake's point of view now that he's had a kid and he's rich, but he's still sad. Like, that's Drake, not his voice. Totally. Rich and sad is Drake, right? Do you guys have an openness? Like, if platforms are actually like, hey, we want to let everyone sound like you with a tool. Yeah, to me, that's a little benign. That's like where the world is headed. That's where it's headed. Yeah, it's not the most ideal thing, but whatever.

1:14:54It'll probably happen. Because YouTube is rolling that. YouTube's rolling that. Maybe, really? Or they're working on it. There was a headline about it. The headline was about letting users, I would imagine of like shorts, sound like Drake. Like, if AI is writing a lot of these songs and it can write songs that sound like Drake, what does that say about Drake? I don't want to, like, you know, bash him, but, like, that kind of tells me that Drake has sounded similar for the last decade or so. And I think that maybe we're about to see a rise of creativity if now the new baseline is if AI can make your song, it's not creative anymore.

1:15:28Maybe we're going to see a lot of artists that are like, I'm going to go above and beyond to do three tempo changes in my song. combine these weird instruments, talk about this to stay ahead of AI. And maybe we'll see an amazing surge of creativity like we saw in the 60s. I also think it values the live show. Like the live show will become increasingly more valuable. Definitely. Because it's the collective human experience and it's the like, you guys do it. You know, like do the thing that I'm here to watch you do, which only you can do. Yeah, right. I went to go see John Mayer play his acoustic show recently.

1:16:00and I went to this concert and I was like standing here like going to the forum doing the parking thing like it's it can be a hassle you walk in John Mayer is playing a song and he's not playing it in the way that if you just listen to it on Spotify so it's like this is the least efficient way to listen to John Mayer but that's why I like it yeah totally that's what I want I think I want him to play it different than how he plays it on the record you want those little imperfections I think also like what does it say this is an open question, but like the fact that we have AI right now in a capitalist world in 2023, it means AI is going to do the values that are important to us.

1:16:38It's exactly what you're saying. It's efficiency and convenience. What if AI existed in the year zero in biblical times? What like, let's say their values were more like Christian values and respecting your brothers. And it was less about how much money can you make? What would AI have looked like? Like what values in human nature would they have really put up top to have AI work towards? Just a question. But like it's really interesting. I have no idea. Yeah, right? That's a question for everyone listening and watching. Yeah. Put that in the comments. I think you're right. It's convenience. It's how fast can I make a song instead of how well can I make this song?

1:17:13I think there's like opposite side technology that kind of furthers your point and that the fact that the growth of the metaverse is happening at the same time as AI is growing allows for people to actually be themselves or another version of themselves in a live-ish space that can reach more people. So I think that as we get better and better at building out whatever the metaverse ends up being, and yeah, to a lot of people it's a joke right now and it's not like anything real, But if we can create those kind of more real experiences like you had with John Mayer in a live performance, that's the kind of like opposite side of the digital version of how can we grow imperfection in the digital space.

1:18:02So you guys are interesting to us for a lot of reasons, but one of them is also your connection to YouTube and your commitment to storytelling. I did want to bring up like, you know, you have Austin here on the camera who's filming right now. He's always filming. Yeah. He's always filming. And that's something that's really special about what you guys do. You storytell a lot, whether it's in a style like this, or you're looking at the camera and showing us the hundreds of layers of your Logic project. How do you recommend to other artists to find a creative collaborator like Austin? Because there's a lot of trust in that.

1:18:40And there's a lot of, again, that unspoken creative vernacular that you kind of have to have because he's presenting you to the world. I imagine there's people in our audience who that would be the dream job. Yeah. No, 100%. We've worked with other photographers and videographers that were super cool. They did a good job, but we didn't keep in touch just because we didn't share the vision, I guess. It's friendship meets vision, right? It's like we're great friends. We're so comfortable with him being there for our absolute worst moments, which he has been. Yeah. And he has footage of all the worst moments that have ever happened to us.

1:19:12And when we pitch him an idea, he's going to go, oh, that's so sick. and we could also do this and blah, blah, blah. It's just finding the person that will build you up instead of tear you down, I guess. Yeah, that's what we realized he was really good at. I think a lot of artists tour docs turned into commercials for the tour. Yeah. And as soon as we showed Jack breaking his ankle and, you know, feeling sick on stage or some background stuff, it didn't feel like a commercial, it felt like art. And that has been his vision all along of let's show you guys as real people. Yeah, it feels like when I watch your tour doc and then all of a sudden it cuts back to 2020, there's a point where you're talking to people like in the crew and it cuts back to 2020 or 2019.

1:19:50Yeah, yeah. And then all of a sudden there's a clip of you doing a similar type of thing in 2020 and then in 2021 and then in 2022. And I was just like, oh, this is going to be the best band doc of all time at some point. I don't know when it's coming, but these guys have the footage. We're also just such film fans. We write and we just like mess around. We've always been huge film people making home videos and we try to make each of them as filmy as possible. We had one with like a Birdman homage in the beginning of it. We have like weird, like Coen Brothers-y style soundtracks in the background.

1:20:24I think you just mess around and get excited about film too. There's an honesty to it. Like your guy's most recent music video. There's an honesty to like, hey, we didn't really like what it was. Yeah, yeah. So here's this. That is 100 % true. I know a lot of people were like, oh yeah, good story guys. That's not, that was true. Right. Yeah, that's super cool. is YouTube any level of like revenue source for you guys because like that's a it is a good amount of viewership on the channel I'm looking at you Adam you should be you've learned you've learned who knows the numbers I'm assuming I think it's the blazer yeah the professor let me see if I have my numbers yes but not not a huge amount if it were to be it would be if there were brand deals but no one wants to do brand deals with us because our Instagram is too small okay brands watching right now, they're open for brand deals.

1:21:14We are open for brand deals. We're going to get the weirdest clue of DMs of the strangest brands ever. Meghan Trainor calls. She's, yeah. I'll sponsor you guys. I'll work with Meghan. What are you guys most excited about with the new album, the upcoming tour, just like this next chapter for you guys? Yeah, it's really just playing arenas. That has just been the number one goal of the band. The fact that we're playing Madison Square Garden and The Forum. And it's just like, this was the goal. And I think that now we also have the canvas and the budget to create what we've always wanted to create on stage.

1:21:49That was kind of like when we were playing smaller venues, it was like, what do we have, like a fabric backdrop that looked like a sample machine? And that was really cool for a 500-person venue. But now we're at the point where we're playing 20 ,000-person venues and sometimes two arenas in these cities. What is the biggest arena show anybody's ever seen? That's the most ambitious goal ever. So that's our goal. And what do you hope that fans and interested people who come to the show get out of the experience? I think we might have touched on a little earlier, but what we've always said was we try to go as personal as possible.

1:22:27And this is by far our most personal album in order to get people to speak up about their own stuff. That's the most, at the end of the day, forget everything. the most gratifying moment of our career or my career is when we wrote a song called Karma two albums ago. And it was about my experience in therapy. The whole song is kind of like me talking to my therapist. And a girl came up to us and said, hi, not only did I start going to therapy because of that song, I'm actually in school to become a therapist now because of that song because I want to do for other people what that song did for me.

1:22:57And I was like, I don't remember where we are. I don't remember what songs we're playing tonight. That is why we do this. and if that can happen from the next album and the album after that or the show that's the win that's it like that's why we do this can I ask her like what does it feel like to be a rock star type of question um it's it's and then hold on I'm gonna go further not just in general like what's it like but I was watching The Making of Week on YouTube at a live show and there's a moment at like 350 when everything comes back in the song finally comes in in full force you start Jack's legs are going Jack is just like freaking out.

1:23:35Your legs are above your head on both sides. It's chaos. I didn't think people would see that. The whole crowd, like the shot of the crowd, I can't even imagine what it's like to feel that type of energy at once. Like what does that feel like for you guys? And is that like, is that the vision of what you sort of thought would happen? Yes, in a way. What's so much cooler to us than just like people screaming in general is that in that particular instance, we just talked for eight minutes about weird musical ideas, about like the nerdiest, least cool thing ever. And then it came together and people are going crazy.

1:24:13That's so funny to us that that can elicit, like it's the equivalent of like a super hot rocker taking his shirt off. We just made the math equation happen. It equals this song, let's go. Maybe that's why it resonated so much with it. So that's, I was gonna say the word rock star is totally the incorrect word to use. Although that moment is extra special because that doesn't really happen a lot. And we're able to kind of do this cool new thing, which is like unite nerds and uncool people and allow them to enjoy a rock star. But I think that's internet kids. That's what I mean by internet kids.

1:24:43It's like every artist in today's world who has made it by way of the internet, there's a level of nerdiness to all of us, right? Because we had to get obsessed with like computers to edit and to use the internet. And I think there's like in listening to the new album, like getting to just listen to it, I almost like closed my eyes and just wanted to hear the intricacies and think about the Logic project, you know, of like, what was that sound? Searching for the weird sound. You're like searching for how it was edited. And I think there's, you guys have introduced that in a really cool way. Oh, that's cool.

1:25:17When I was watching that video, I was picturing myself like at an edit timeline with Adobe Premiere up being like, and watch this cut. When is it going to cut? and then everyone's just like, wow. We do, like that is our experience too. Like when we make a video, we all huddle around a premiere timeline. Like if Jesse did something really cool, we're like, play it again, play it again. We're like, wow, what a great cut. Totally, yeah. You know, and there's like a, it's nerdiness, but it's also a dedication to the craft and the enjoyment of the actual craft of making. You just love it. You just love it.

1:25:45Yeah, I think that's also a new internet kid thing because like Kurt Cobain or whatever is like, yeah, can we curse? I forget. Yeah, yeah, do it. You guys are... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Ryan. You. I'm gonna just smoke cigarettes and work on the music and then the label will take care of everything else. Like, not that he wasn't passionate, of course he was, but, like, it's a whole new level of passion that you need now to make the music, then spend two years marketing the music, figuring out creative ways. I think that that is a good thing that happened with social media. It's, like, weeded out the boys from the men a little bit.

1:26:22well we'd love to come to your show like I'd love to to see a show on this tour and I'll send you the link to buy tickets yeah I would love to buy tickets no no no we're gonna put you on the list I'm happy to buy tickets but thanks guys thanks for hanging out with us I mean this is again like we said like the reward is just getting to have these conversations totally great this was this was a really great one for us so really appreciate it thanks for coming on thank you guys

1:26:53Thank you.