back to indexDan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons | Lex Fridman Podcast #290
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when you imagine a song, is it the opening you imagine?
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No, it's kind of a, I never think opening,
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I never think final, I think soundscape
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of how I'm feeling right now.
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So it could be the middle of the song
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for all I know when I'm doing that.
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But my process for me is very much lyrics and melody
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and music really come at the same time.
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Like by same time, I mean, as I'm expressing maybe,
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Puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh.
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Like it's not that simple, but it's like,
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I'll hear it like, it's like, here's all the orchestra
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and you're kind of just pressing all the buttons at once.
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And melody and my voice is just one of those instruments.
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The following is a conversation with Dan Reynolds,
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the lead singer of Imagine Dragons,
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one of the most popular bands in the world
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with over 75 million records sold and with four songs
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being streamed over a billion times on Spotify.
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Given all that, Dan is one of the most down to earth,
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kind, thoughtful and fascinating human beings
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I've ever met, grounded in part
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by his lifelong struggle with mental health.
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The darkness, the love and the creative brilliance
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are all there in this one humble mind.
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For this reason and many others, we became fast friends.
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Plus, he recently started his journey in programming,
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which funny enough is where we start this wide ranging,
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deeply personal and fun conversation.
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This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors
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in the description.
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And now, dear friends, here's Dan Reynolds.
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So, we were talking offline
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that you're not just getting into programming.
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What's the most beautiful program you've ever written?
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Something that brought you joy?
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There's something, I really love completion.
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It's the reason that I'm addicted to songwriting.
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I like there being nothing and then having some blocks
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or tools and building them into what you want it
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to look like and then I find it incredibly rewarding
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to stand back and look at what you did at the end.
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It could be anything.
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For me, it was as simple to begin with
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as just because it's object oriented,
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like making a cube move.
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As simple as that, understanding that
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and knowing that I built that and made it do that
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is really rewarding and I think it's the thing
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that drew me into wanting to learn more.
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But as far as what is some big piece of code
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that I've done, absolutely not.
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I'm still at a level where it's more like
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what is a tutorial that I followed and got,
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and then, yeah, so I couldn't say I'm at a level
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where I've done anything beautiful at all in code.
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But you're also interested in potentially,
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like your heart is drawn to creating games.
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Creating anything.
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And completing it.
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To feel good as it's done.
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Yeah, I mean, I've been working over the last two years
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with actually a team out of Kiev on,
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and we can get into that, it's a whole other story,
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but on a computer game.
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And really, I've kept that kind of under wraps,
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but yeah, we're kind of getting to a point now
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where we have a prototype that we can play
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and it's a lot of fun and thankfully,
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all the team members are in safe places now.
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Things have obviously been on hold for a little bit,
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but when that started is when I really decided,
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okay, I need to understand base level coding in C Sharp,
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so I'm not an idiot talking to these people.
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And so it's, yeah, we've been doing that
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for a couple of years.
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Is there any parallels between the final completion
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that you feel with programming?
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Which I think is a little bit more definitive.
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Like there's debugging, the code doesn't work,
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it's messy and so on.
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There's the early design stages,
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you're not sure how to have functions and classes,
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how it's all gonna work.
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And then it comes together and it's really done
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because it works and there's a cube moving on the screen.
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Is there any parallels between that and music?
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Because are you really ever done done with a song?
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It's exactly the same thing for me,
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just in that it's art.
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I really believe that we have not fully encapsulated artists.
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Like when we say art, I think most people think,
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okay, the medium must be painting or drawing
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or music or writing.
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But I really believe anytime you're creating some things,
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engineers, for instance, you're creating something
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with tools that you have and it can be incredibly beautiful.
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And so yeah, I think, and it's never done.
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I feel like I look at songs that I've done
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and I never felt you have to let go or I have to let go.
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And that's all I've,
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I'm just continually making myself let go.
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But I look at songs that I've done
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and wish I had done more or kept going down that road
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and what would have happened.
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And I'm really contained to, because of what our band is
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and what our fans expect and there's so much more to it
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that it's like I'm fitting in a box always.
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And it's like, this song shouldn't be longer
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than three minutes and 30 seconds.
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And I don't know if I remember the chorus after I heard it.
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Maybe I need to hear the chorus three times
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instead of those two times.
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It's like, there's certain, especially in pop music,
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it's really hard to,
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yeah, it feels like there's confines,
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even though people are like, well, there's no confines,
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but still everybody's writing a pop song
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that's a few minutes.
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And are those explicit in your mind
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or are they just kinda, the gut is, like you said, chorus.
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Should you have chorus once, twice or three times?
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Is that a gut thing or is that a rule thing?
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You know, I think it's a rule.
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I mean, it's obviously a rule I impose on myself.
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Nobody's in my house saying, hey, Dan,
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if you don't do this, I'm gonna punish you.
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There's no major label president that's like,
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Imagine Dragons needs to make pop music, Dan.
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You know what I mean?
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My manager doesn't even tell me that.
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I do it because it's what I perceive to be enjoyable.
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I grew up listening to a ton of pop music,
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and then I ended up being in what is quote, unquote,
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a rock band, which I've never perceived it as that,
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but that's kinda what the world has called it,
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and that's fine, but.
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So you're a prisoner of a prison
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that you yourself constructed.
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Well, I'm a happy, I guess what I'm trying to say
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is I'm a happy prisoner of the prison
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that I have created for myself,
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and I made that prison thinking that it was a mansion.
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So you worked with Rick Rubin.
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What does Rick think about your prison?
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Rick was, you know, it was interesting to hear
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his outside opinion when we first met,
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because my biggest focus for so much of my life,
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my biggest fear was, and this stems from, I think,
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middle schools when it started,
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but everyone being in on a joke except for yourself.
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I really, like, the thought of thinking
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you're good at something, and really, you're terrible at it,
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and you're surrounded by people who are saying,
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yeah, you're good at it, and then by themselves,
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they're like, he's terrible at this.
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Just kind of, and not just in regards to music or art,
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but anything in life, and I think maybe
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from having six older brothers, it stems from that too,
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like, always feeling inadequate,
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and like, the annoying younger brother, you know?
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But anyway, so Rick's, and that's something
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I've learned to let go of as I've gotten older
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and had life experiences, but one of the things
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that Rick said really early on that has stuck with me
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was he said, yeah, you know, we're resuming
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the first time we met.
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He said, I'd really like to work with you
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because I feel like you're not confined to a sound.
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You've done a lot of different sounds,
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and so it's exciting because I feel like your fans
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are forgiving more than other rock bands or bands,
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because most people, when they hear a band,
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it's like, there's a very specific sound with it.
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It's like, they do folk music, or they do, like,
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California rock, or they do surf, or they do, you know,
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like, there's, and your fans kind of want that.
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Like, they want them to do that thing,
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and then they don't do it, and sometimes that goes well,
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but a lot of times it doesn't, and people, you know,
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critics and everybody is like, go back to the thing
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that you did good and do that.
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Rick was, felt, whether he was right or wrong,
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that we could do, we hopped genres so much,
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and that's been to our benefit and detriment, I think.
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Because people want you to be something.
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It's more, you can believe it more.
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I, you know, it's like.
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It's more authentic if you never change.
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I guess, I don't know.
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I mean, certainly it's not something I subscribe to
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because I create music, but I also grew up listening
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to a lot of different genres, like, cats,
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I would listen to, like, Cat Stevens,
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and the next song would be, like, Biggie,
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and then the next song would be Nirvana,
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and it was like, I like a lot of,
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and then Billy Joel, and then Enya.
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It was like, you know what I mean?
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I was a product, and I was a product of the 90s,
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which, if you listen to 90s music, it really was all,
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a lot of reason that people say, well, 90s were terrible.
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Like, a lot of people say that.
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I love the 90s, they were my favorite decade of music.
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It was, there was a lot of genre hopping,
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and I don't know, I love that.
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She had the, 90s had the boy bands,
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and it had Pearl Jam, and Nirvana.
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And it had a lot of, like, women of the 90s
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was probably, is probably my biggest influence,
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like, kind of that, like, angry rock women of the 90s,
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like, Lannis Morissette, Jagged Little Pills,
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one of my favorite records of all time.
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The lyrics were so intimate,
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and I don't know if she was angry or not.
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Sorry, if she wasn't.
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Yeah, but there was an anger to it.
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There was angst, yeah, it was like angstiness.
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And that in hip hop of the 90s influences me,
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So, anything my dad listened to,
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which my dad didn't listen to any of that.
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My dad listened to, like, Harry Nelson and the Beatles,
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Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Billy Joel.
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It was very much like singer, songwriter.
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Do you mind if we, throughout this,
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listen to a few songs?
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Because you mentioned Harry Nelson,
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and I was actually, yesterday and the day before,
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listening to a lot of his stuff,
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and it's just like, damn, he's good.
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And not as known as he should be.
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Like, I was getting, do you mind if I play?
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I don't know, not to open this conversation
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I would like that, actually, Lex.
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But Without You is an incredible song.
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Oh, man, that's, yeah.
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And the heartbreak and the longing.
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No, I can't forget the feeling of your face.
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He's the best to do it, in my opinion.
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In my opinion, he's the best to do it.
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But I guess that's just the way the story goes.
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And just the sadness of, like,
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there's something, I don't even wanna talk over him,
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because this is one of my favorite songs, too,
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but I think people have a really good bullshit indicator.
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And music, in my opinion,
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whenever I meet a young artist and say,
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well, I'm trying to make a new band,
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and I wanna do something like how to be successful,
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I really think understanding
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that people have a really good bullshit indicator
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is the most important part of being an artist.
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And I'll explain what that means, at least to me.
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I think that in order to have success
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or be a leader or whether it's an art or anything,
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people need to believe that you believe what you're doing.
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I think the best actors,
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really, when they're doing their thing,
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it's like they, it's not acting.
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They're in it, and it's how they feel,
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and they're expressing that sorrow or joy or whatever it is.
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Harry, for me, Harry Nilsen, I just believe it.
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He sings that, and I feel it.
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And whether he's the greatest bullshitter of all time,
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I don't think that's the case.
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I think he probably was singing that song,
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and he just could transport himself to wherever he was.
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It's what makes a great live act.
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It's what makes a great song.
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And someone could be the best actor
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and sing that in the same timbre, same EQ,
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same compression, same everything.
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And there's some unknown there that I,
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I think, hopefully, it will be known at some point,
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and it's some scientific thing,
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but there's something there, the energy or something,
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that people can perceive it and say true or false.
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And if it resonates as true, it's so much more meaningful,
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And if it doesn't, that, for me, is what is good art or bad.
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For people to dispute over,
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well, sonics should sound like that, silly to me.
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It's like a song or even a painting, like,
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it's just the truthfulness of it.
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Yeah, the truly great art goes,
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has to go to that place where you really are feeling it.
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Like, you forget that you're being recorded.
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You forget there's an audience.
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You really are feeling it.
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Yeah, which I totally agree with you.
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One of the things that I love about the internet
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is it's brought the bullshit detector of the masses
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to power, which is beautiful,
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because then the masses uplift the really authentic.
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And even if you didn't write the song,
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I think it helps a lot, probably, if you wrote the song.
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But I was a little bit, maybe a lot,
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since we're in Vegas, a little heartbroken
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that to find out that Elvis didn't write his songs.
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But I like, for example, Rocketman, Elton John,
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like, to find out that Elton John didn't really know
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where the words of Rocketman came from,
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meaning, like, the depths of it, it's interesting.
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But nevertheless, he's super authentic,
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because for Elton John and for Elvis,
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there's something in the fun and the darkness
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and the entertainment of it.
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Like, he goes to someplace in his mind
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that might not be deeply connected
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from where the lyrics came from.
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But he relates it.
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He relates it to whatever is in his mind
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and goes to that place emotionally.
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Yeah, and that's what I think it is.
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And that's why an actor, like I said,
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can be completely honest to me.
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Maybe they didn't write the script.
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But I write, like, I've always written all my own lyrics.
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It's a really personal thing to me.
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But I will say, I see people all the time
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who are performers like Elton John, for instance,
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who didn't write the lyrics that I believe
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that it means just as much to them as what I wrote,
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because they find the meaning in it for themself.
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At least the greats do.
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And I think that's the difference maker.
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And I think you can perceive,
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and I'm sure you've seen art that doesn't move you,
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and maybe it moves someone else.
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But for you, for some reason,
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you perceive it to be uninteresting to you.
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And I feel like a lot of the time,
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I'm saying that it's, of course, sonically,
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maybe it's uninteresting to you.
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But I think the majority of the time, for myself,
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I can find inspiration in any sonic value or painting
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as long as I see it and I feel truth
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from the person that created it.
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Yeah, and for me, the lyrics,
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maybe not the entirety of the lyrics,
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but a few words can do wonders to take you to a place.
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And sometimes those words don't need to be connected
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with the other words.
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That's the beauty of music.
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They're allowed to float in the space of mixed metaphors.
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They're allowed to just jump around,
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and somehow it paints a picture without actually,
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what is it, glycerine by Bush?
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Right, but it's also how the person says it, right?
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It's like, it's the feeling of exactly,
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and the same person could say that word 10 other ways
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and you don't care.
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But someone says glycerine or whatever it is,
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and it's like, oh, you know what?
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I feel that for some reason.
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The way he said that, he meant it to me.
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You know what I mean?
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No, I can't forget this evening
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or your face as you were leaving,
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but I guess that's just the way the story goes.
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You always smile, but in your eyes, your sorrow shows.
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Let me ask you to analyze this song.
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Do you, so there's a lady possibly who's leaving him.
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Do you think he's leaving her or she's leaving him?
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When I think of all my sorrow, and I had you there,
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but then I let you go.
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And now it's only fair that I should let you know
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what you should know.
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And then the chorus says, I can't live
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if living is without you.
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I can't live, I can't give anymore.
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He's got a voice on him.
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And if you really, there's been some incredible
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documentation on his life and the end of his life.
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And so my answer to this is probably skewed
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based on what I've seen about his life too,
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but he was a real alcoholic at the end of his life
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and it destroyed his voice and ended up killing him as well.
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And so when I hear that, I perceive it as
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someone who is destructive and in a destructive place
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in life and can't love someone properly.
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And so they can't live with them,
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but they can't live without them type thing,
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which is really something that I really identify with
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and I think is one of the struggles of life
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is loving yourself enough, forgiving yourself for things
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and letting yourself love someone else.
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And at least when I listened out, I hear Harry being like,
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and maybe I'm wrong, but this is how I perceive it at least
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is not loving himself and feeling like he's deserving
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of this person, like I have to let you go.
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I hear that, of course, and people always say,
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oh, well, he's breaking up with her,
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but there's so much more complexity and nuance
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to relationships than that and my wife and I
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went through really difficult separation
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and that's a story for another day
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or different question or something,
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but the nuance of it makes me think of this
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when I hear this, which is there's just more
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to being with someone or not being with someone
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than hey, I think that person's really attractive
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or hey, that person makes me laugh or not
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or I love them and now I don't love them.
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Love is such a complex, nuanced thing
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that a lot of times, there's just more going on
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behind the scenes, I think.
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Yeah, and a small tangent on that,
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just as a curious question, have you paid any attention
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to the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trials?
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I have watched quite a bit of it
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because my wife really loves it
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and she watches it in bed at night.
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So it's raw, to me it's really,
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because you've mentioned how complicated love can be
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and it's, I've never seen, I don't care
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about the celebrity nature of it.
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I don't care if it was, I don't care who it is,
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but it's just laid out in such raw form.
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For the world to see it.
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For the world to see the toxicity,
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but also the passion and clearly the drugs
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and the drinking, but also like the longing
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and the dreams and I will always be with you,
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I will die for you, the places, the rollercoaster of love
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and it's all there at the end, past the end.
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So it's like, I've also recently reread
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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
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about Hitler and Nazi Germany.
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It's the rise and the fall and it's interesting
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to look at the entirety of that process
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after it's all over, many, many decades after it's all over.
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That book in particular written by the person
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that was actually there and so here we're seeing
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two people in the context of the courtroom
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analyzing this rise and fall of a love affair.
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You know the truth is, I was telling my wife this actually
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just the other day because she was asking me
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what I thought about it.
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It makes me really sad.
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It's humorous, don't get me wrong.
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There's a lot of parts in it that are just really funny.
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But I look at it and I also see the internet
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and someone's always the villain and someone's the hero
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which is such a funny thing and we talked a little
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about this offline before we got on this
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but I have a real firm belief in life
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that it's just more complex than you think, always, always.
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Johnny for instance is very charismatic
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and you love him and he's funny and the way he does things
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and he looks certain ways and he says things.
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You really love him and I feel like,
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and maybe I'm wrong on this but it looks like
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the internet is really, Johnny is the winner,
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Amber is the villain and I kind of look at it
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and I feel like, were any of you in their bedroom?
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Were any of you there for these things?
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And I'm not saying one way or the other.
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All I see when I look at that is two people
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with a lot of deep seeded hurt, anger
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and that anger is so poisonous to both of them
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and they're getting through it in the way
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that they only know how and I'm not saying
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we shouldn't be able to look at parts of it
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and laugh about it and stuff and be virtuous or something
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but just that there's not a hero.
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It's more complicated.
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Yeah, I think unless you've been living with Amber
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and Johnny, you don't know and just because
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one seems more charismatic in the moment
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or funnier or more believable even,
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doesn't mean that their truth is the truth.
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And I feel like there's still love there too,
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which makes the whole thing.
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Oh, that's the hardest part.
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He won't even look at her.
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He looks down the whole time and maybe people say,
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well, it's because anger or hurt or whatever
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but the way that she looks and stuff,
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it just feels like there's so much hurt there
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that it hurts me to watch it.
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I just feel like, oh, my heart just aches for them
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and for both of them and I don't know either of them
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personally and I don't know, just hurts.
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I've never seen love laid out in this raw kind of way.
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It makes me feel better about,
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it almost gives you, seeing people have gone through
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a struggle in this sort of mundane kind of way,
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gives you room to struggle yourself
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about the messiness of love.
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Like you're supposed to,
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like relationship is supposed to be simple and whatever
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but this like, oh, man, this.
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And for the record, I don't feel like it shouldn't be shown.
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I think it's actually really beautiful art
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and I agree there's gonna be a lot of people
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who walk away from it and are changed in certain ways
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or look at things different.
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I'm not saying it's changed in the whole world,
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the Johnny Depp trial, but it's art.
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It's just like you would look at a painting
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and it might affect you.
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My only commentary is more that there's not,
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I think it's silly when people say who's right
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and who's wrong and who's the clear villain and who's the,
link |
like we love as human, we have to have an answer for every,
link |
we have to put everything in a box.
link |
And it's like, well, we're looking at this
link |
and we're deciding you're right and you're wrong.
link |
And I just think it's silly unless it's your life.
link |
So speaking of heroes and villains and highs and lows,
link |
you grew up in Las Vegas.
link |
And you said that Vegas is a performing town,
link |
a town of high stakes, drama and eccentricity.
link |
It's a town of high highs and low lows.
link |
And I'll be damned if my therapist didn't point out
link |
that correlation out to me personally a long time ago.
link |
So to me, Vegas from the outside is romanticized
link |
by certain movies.
link |
The lows define the beauty of this town.
link |
And certain movies, so to me, Casino with Robert De Niro,
link |
Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone, leaving Las Vegas
link |
with Nicolas Cage, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
link |
with the Johnny Depp play, Hunter S. Thompson.
link |
First of all, what's your favorite representation
link |
of Vegas from a darker side?
link |
And do you draw any wisdom insight from the darkness,
link |
the lows and the highs in those movies?
link |
Or is it over romanticized?
link |
So I grew up in a really conservative Mormon family.
link |
And Vegas was established by the Mormons and the mob.
link |
Those were like the two very different worlds
link |
that created what Vegas is.
link |
And if you live in Vegas, it really shows in a lot of ways
link |
because Vegas has the strip and the parties
link |
and the craziness.
link |
But it also has very neighborhoods and big families
link |
and conservative people and liberal people living together
link |
in a really interesting way.
link |
And for me, growing up here, for instance,
link |
was a lot of driving on the freeway,
link |
my mom being like, children, close your eyes.
link |
There's a naked woman on that billboard and everything.
link |
Okay, mom, on our way to church.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
It was like, but also being like, whoa, this is crazy.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like taking in whatever I could when I could.
link |
So I saw, and I'm grateful for that.
link |
Like, I really love that I didn't grow up as a Mormon
link |
in for instance, like Utah or something,
link |
like the typical place, because I saw both sides
link |
and I appreciated something from both sides.
link |
And now as a person now who's not religious,
link |
but just spiritually minded,
link |
you know, I'm grateful for that divergent character,
link |
that juxtaposition, dual edged sword that Vegas is.
link |
And I try to apply that to everything in life,
link |
which is like Johnny Depp and Amber.
link |
It's like, there's two sides to every story.
link |
There's always two sides to every coin.
link |
There's always, and there's something to be said for both.
link |
Like I try to see people and even if, you know,
link |
it's just, yeah, I try to apply that to life.
link |
As far as a movie that personifies Vegas
link |
or something in that medium that personifies Vegas
link |
in a way that resonates with me.
link |
Don't say Hangover.
link |
I also like, I wasn't even allowed to watch
link |
PG 13 movies growing up.
link |
So a lot of the movies that you're saying,
link |
like I either didn't see, I didn't have cable television.
link |
You know, I wasn't like a pilgrim,
link |
but I had a really, really conservative upbringing.
link |
So it didn't define your intellectual like development.
link |
No, no, I just, I can't think of any movie
link |
that comes to mind where I'm like, that's my Vegas movie.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like, I'm sure I've seen some of the movies you've said now,
link |
but I don't, I can't think of one that I'm like,
link |
actually personifies Vegas in a way that feels honest to me.
link |
Like, or like, wasn't there a Chevy,
link |
was there a Chevy Chase?
link |
I think that's maybe the only one I thought of
link |
that came to mind where I was like,
link |
cause I love Chevy Chase so much
link |
that maybe it's one of his Vegas vacation or something.
link |
Yeah, so, but that's more like lighthearted surge,
link |
that kind of stuff.
link |
Right, it's not like, I guess what I would say
link |
is there's no truth that has been, that I've seen of Vegas.
link |
Cause what I see of Vegas is,
link |
there's obviously like the parties and stuff
link |
and the nightlife, which I'm not big party person.
link |
So it's, I haven't really experienced much of that,
link |
but there's also drugs and I have a strange relationship
link |
with drugs because I've lost a few friends
link |
to drug overdoses.
link |
And so I don't, that's not romantic to me,
link |
but there's also like, yeah, I mean,
link |
you asked for a dark reflection of it.
link |
I guess I certainly see a dark reflection to Vegas.
link |
And I don't, I feel like Vegas is typically personified
link |
as like at the tables and everything.
link |
But it's also like, I have like friends
link |
who've lost all their money to gambling addiction.
link |
And so it's like, what I guess the whole thing.
link |
Yeah, somebody maybe needs to make,
link |
maybe that's an open spot.
link |
There needs to be a dark side to Vegas.
link |
Well, it's about Mormons in Vegas,
link |
dying to drug overdose or getting shot by the mob.
link |
So you mentioned your spirituality.
link |
You've, you said that having a crisis of faith
link |
or just the philosophical question of asking who is God,
link |
Or in thinking of the flip side of that,
link |
of mortality, what happens when we die?
link |
Those kinds of things were extremely difficult,
link |
deep things for you in terms of your development,
link |
the whole process of figuring that out.
link |
Why does it hurt so much to lose faith in God?
link |
Yeah, I would say that the seeking of God,
link |
let's say that, is an obsession for me
link |
and has been since I was young.
link |
I really feel that I'm a deep, deep,
link |
deeply committed to finding answers in life.
link |
And there's some answers that I don't think
link |
there's an answer to.
link |
And I'm also very OCD by nature,
link |
so I just don't give up to that.
link |
I'm like, well, there must be somewhere in Tibet,
link |
there's some teacher or there's somebody out there
link |
that has the answer,
link |
or maybe it's yet to be found, I'm gonna find it.
link |
I'm really, my life has been to date
link |
probably unhealthily committed to finding answers
link |
about God or the lack thereof and mortality.
link |
It's all I sing about.
link |
It's all our records have been about.
link |
Who do you think is God?
link |
Have you ever gotten a glimpse?
link |
You know, I will say the closest I feel like
link |
I have been to experiencing God is,
link |
and this sounds so, maybe, I don't know.
link |
I don't know how it sounds,
link |
but it's through ayahuasca for me.
link |
That's my honest answer for you.
link |
I feel like I had pretty much given up all hope
link |
of there being anything greater than, you know,
link |
us being, you know, evolving and being here and then dying
link |
and you're gone and that's it and nothingness
link |
and from nothingness we came and nothingness we go.
link |
To where I am now, which is there are answers to be found.
link |
I don't know them.
link |
Like, I don't know what God looks like
link |
or if God has anything to do with the word God
link |
and the way that we say it,
link |
but I do believe pretty fervently
link |
that there is more to be found.
link |
Is it motion sensor or no?
link |
I don't know what that was.
link |
Looked like they've all died, actually.
link |
Do you know which one of it?
link |
Is it this one right here?
link |
Why don't I just take it out, but then it'd be too dark.
link |
Do you want to hold this chair?
link |
See if I can get it like this.
link |
I really don't know how I'm gonna catch this though.
link |
It's gotta be like something saying about this.
link |
It's my Chinese proverb.
link |
How many people does it take to,
link |
what is it, unscrew a light bulb?
link |
It was like I was doing the two finger technique.
link |
Well, I'm glad you survived that.
link |
That'd be pretty ironic if we're talking about mortality
link |
and then this would be it for you.
link |
I've never done ayahuasca, so it's a mixture of two plants.
link |
One of them is DMT, but a lot of people I really respect.
link |
Very, very intelligent people had profound experiences
link |
Where does the mind go?
link |
What the heck is up with that?
link |
I'll first say that I can't even smoke weed.
link |
I really do not enjoy it because I hate to let go of control.
link |
If I feel out of control in life,
link |
it's like one of my biggest weaknesses.
link |
It's like very scary for me.
link |
And some people really enjoy letting go in that way.
link |
So I was pretty terrified to make the jump then to ayahuasca.
link |
But my wife who I deeply respect
link |
made a profound change through ayahuasca.
link |
And it wasn't a strange, like I think most,
link |
we have a thing in America that's like a misconception,
link |
a stigma on psychedelics where it's like,
link |
it's a drug and it makes some people crazy.
link |
And then you're gonna be on the street
link |
and you're gonna be out of your mind
link |
or you're gonna become like a crazy person basically.
link |
And I think I really bought into that notion
link |
because again, I was raised,
link |
I wasn't even raised with cable TV.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like ayahuasca is very, I didn't, you know.
link |
You can imagine what that was like for a Mormon kid.
link |
I didn't know anything about it
link |
and I never touched drugs at all
link |
and never even touched a cigarette, you know.
link |
Anyway, so I think we have this misconception about it
link |
where Americans are quick to go to their doctor
link |
and take any medication or drug,
link |
but you know, whoa, when it comes to like psychedelics.
link |
Anyway, that being said,
link |
so I had that trepidation going into it,
link |
but I really love and respect my wife
link |
and I saw it make a profound impact in her life
link |
where she suddenly was able to heal
link |
from a lot of trauma that she had.
link |
She had a really, she went through a lot in her life
link |
and it really helped her heal,
link |
but it also set her in a new path spiritually
link |
that seemed really like a place that I wanted to be.
link |
So I did it and I did it twice.
link |
The first time it didn't really have an effect on me,
link |
which happens to a lot of people, I guess.
link |
I drank this little thing
link |
and there was like this shaman who came over from overseas
link |
that was really, had been in the plant world for decades
link |
and was a really incredible,
link |
I don't even know if he likes to be called shaman, but.
link |
So it's supposed to be like 30, 60 minute to take effect
link |
and a few hours, the journey lasts.
link |
About four hours. Four hours.
link |
Yeah, so the second time I took it,
link |
I took it in, I would say 20, 30 minutes in exactly.
link |
I started to feel like I was like the dimension
link |
of what is reality, the curtain was pulled open
link |
and there was a lot more to discover
link |
and it really blew my mind in a way
link |
that I think it would probably blow anybody's mind
link |
if for instance, God descended or some Christian God
link |
or whatever it is.
link |
We all think it'd be this beautiful thing,
link |
but in reality, it would probably make people super fearful
link |
and think that they've lost their mind.
link |
Like I've always, yeah, I've always like joked
link |
that if the Mormon God came down and told my mom like,
link |
if God himself came down and told my mom,
link |
Mormonism is incorrect, she would say, Satan.
link |
You know, it's like, we're never,
link |
I think our minds are just not prepared
link |
for a lot of anything that's really extreme
link |
and it was very extreme.
link |
It was like the curtain of life was cut open,
link |
which scared me, but then I felt very much
link |
and a lot of people that I've talked to
link |
have a similar thing where I felt very much
link |
like I was either communicating with something
link |
that was perceived as God to me
link |
or highest sense of self or mind or mother earth
link |
or you know, it's called so many different names,
link |
but it's really, it's very, a lot of people
link |
have a very spiritual, similar experience with ayahuasca.
link |
And just in that, it's like this kind of profoundness.
link |
It wasn't like, there was nothing at least for me
link |
that was, that felt like just like psychedelic,
link |
funny cartoons or something.
link |
It was like, I'm about to go on a journey
link |
and I'm gonna communicate,
link |
I'm communicating with something that feels incredibly wise,
link |
showed me a lot of things in my life,
link |
kind of almost like from a bird's eye,
link |
almost like I was looking through a video camera
link |
There was a particular thing that it communicated to me.
link |
I really have a hard time with accepting success
link |
and not feeling like feeling undeserving or something.
link |
I can't quite put it into words,
link |
but of my position and what I've been given,
link |
I've been given so much.
link |
And it showed me this thing from when I was young
link |
and explained to me why I am where I am now.
link |
And I, to this day, it did not feel like myself
link |
telling myself that.
link |
That's the only way I can explain it.
link |
And there was a lot more that it showed me
link |
and that was incredibly healing for me.
link |
But just to be like, to put it into a short thing
link |
because there's so much to this.
link |
It felt, I walked away feeling very convinced
link |
that there is more to be known, for sure.
link |
And a lot of my deep things that were traumatic for me
link |
didn't feel traumatic anymore,
link |
specifically crisis of faith.
link |
I was very angry at my parents and my community
link |
for raising me in what I perceived to be falsehoods.
link |
And that, I felt like the bedrock of everything I believed
link |
was ripped out for me in my 20s.
link |
And then it was like, good luck in life.
link |
But really my parents had given me everything
link |
And they believed that very much so, still.
link |
But a naive young me was angry
link |
and felt like they had been duped
link |
and thus I had been duped.
link |
But Ayahuasca really showed me this roadmap of like,
link |
this is truth and you're concerning yourself
link |
about a grain of sand, which is Mormonism or whatever it is.
link |
And there may be some truths in that tiny grain of sand
link |
and there may be falsities.
link |
But so is all these other grains of sand,
link |
like focus on the truth.
link |
Stop focusing on these little details that are meaningless
link |
and forgive and let go of people believing
link |
in those things to begin with.
link |
I don't know if that makes sense,
link |
but that was like the core thing I was taught
link |
and to let go of control, stop needing to control everything.
link |
And it felt like the wisdom was coming from elsewhere.
link |
Like it's really, I do not believe,
link |
at least in my current self, I don't have that,
link |
the mindfulness that I believe that exists in me
link |
to reach a lot of the conclusions that I did.
link |
And there was a lot more to it
link |
that would be for like a late night conversation with you.
link |
But it's so hard to put it into,
link |
you feel like a crazy person.
link |
Any, at least anytime I talk about ayahuasca
link |
to someone who hasn't done it,
link |
I'm like, I don't even know where to begin.
link |
Like, how do you explain to someone
link |
that you felt like that a multiple dimension type thing
link |
happened in a way that like putting it into words is,
link |
and none of it was words, by the way,
link |
that was communicated to me.
link |
It was like, you know how people talk about telepathy.
link |
And if it existed, it would be like,
link |
I could communicate to you in such a deeper way.
link |
I'm so confined by me having to articulate these words
link |
and put them in a sentence to you, Lex,
link |
and then tell you like, if only I could just be like,
link |
and emotions do that sometimes, right?
link |
You could see my emotions and be like,
link |
oh, that communicates a lot.
link |
So that's what it felt like to me with ayahuasca
link |
is it felt like it was communicating to me very clear things,
link |
but it wasn't like, Daniel, it's me, Mother Earth.
link |
Let me relax, sit back, let me show you.
link |
But it was very clear to me what was being said.
link |
And no, it did not feel like me,
link |
but maybe smarter people than me who've done it would say,
link |
well, it was you and blah, blah, blah.
link |
I don't know, but it was very convincing.
link |
There's a lot of stuff in that subconscious
link |
that we haven't explored.
link |
Like we haven't explored the depths of the ocean.
link |
We haven't really figured out what's that,
link |
the younging shadow, what's going on underneath
link |
the surface of our conscious mind.
link |
And what is that connecting to?
link |
Is that just inside our mind or is it some kind of,
link |
is there some kind of collective intelligence going on
link |
where all humans are connected
link |
to one kind of greater organism?
link |
Like what is consciousness?
link |
We have a lot of hubris in thinking we understand
link |
any of it, like how the mind works at all.
link |
Like what is it, like where,
link |
what is the origin of consciousness?
link |
What is the origin of intelligence?
link |
There's a lot of hubris about this.
link |
We give each other PhDs and Nobel prizes
link |
and congratulate ourselves as if we figured it all out.
link |
But humility is helpful here.
link |
Nevertheless, that is the question
link |
that humans have been asking for
link |
ever since humans were humans,
link |
which is the question of mortality, the question of God.
link |
So whether it's Hamlet to be or not to be,
link |
I think that's the hardest, the most important question.
link |
Albert Camus asked, why live?
link |
So in terms of crisis of faith,
link |
in terms of your search for truth,
link |
in terms of some of the dark places
link |
you've gone in your mind,
link |
what's a good answer to this question?
link |
So for Camus with Mithos Sisyphus,
link |
it was the question of suicide.
link |
Is, what's the purpose?
link |
Like, what's a good answer to why keep going,
link |
especially when you're struggling,
link |
especially when you're not,
link |
when you're feeling hopeless,
link |
when you're feeling like a burden in this search for truth,
link |
where you feel like you're surrounded by lies,
link |
what's a good answer to why live?
link |
You ever found one?
link |
Well, the simple answer right now is to say for,
link |
it's very easy once you have kids to say,
link |
the right answer is you just,
link |
of course you brought these kids into the world,
link |
so you have a responsibility that I feel deeply as a father
link |
to them to always be there for as long as I humanly can
link |
and to take care of them and protect them.
link |
It's the most innate sense in me,
link |
just, it's wired in my animal existence.
link |
So if I take that away, right,
link |
because that's kind of cheating.
link |
Let's put that aside because it is cheating.
link |
There's still some fundamental way in which you're alone.
link |
And to that, that actually has been a real struggle for me
link |
I had a real turning point early in my career
link |
where we were flying somewhere overseas
link |
and we were in a really small plane
link |
and the lights went out
link |
and like all these red lights were flashing
link |
and the plane just started to dive.
link |
Completely like scariest plane experience I've ever been in.
link |
My manager was next to me, who's my brother.
link |
He was crying and texting his wife a goodbye.
link |
That's how like crazy this moment was.
link |
Was it real like genuine?
link |
Like genuine engine went out, plane is going down,
link |
pilots looking like crazy in the front
link |
and it was a really tiny jet.
link |
And like I said, my brother next to me crying,
link |
typing a text to his wife.
link |
Really, really scary.
link |
And I felt nothing.
link |
I genuinely sat there and I was like,
link |
this might actually be nice.
link |
Like I really felt like this goes down
link |
and like, ah man, life sucks and it's hard.
link |
And that sounds so ridiculous I know to say
link |
because again, I'm in a different place now
link |
and I see my life for what it is.
link |
But at that moment I did not.
link |
So life was primarily defined by suffering,
link |
It was, I felt I was incredibly depressed.
link |
I had been trying different medications since I was young
link |
and I just had not found anything that was working for me.
link |
And then I was in a faith crisis, lost all my faith,
link |
started a band that's just became,
link |
I wasn't ever thinking that this band.
link |
I was like, when you call your band Imagine Dragons,
link |
you're not thinking that band's gonna be big, okay?
link |
It was like, I was like,
link |
this was like a side project that was fun for me.
link |
It was like art in college.
link |
I was in school and I was like,
link |
man, I hate this biology class.
link |
I'm gonna write down band names.
link |
Like, you know what I mean?
link |
Like it was not, hey, put everything aside,
link |
this is my career, let's go.
link |
Like it just, it happened.
link |
And I'm an introvert by nature.
link |
I'm really not an extroverted person
link |
who likes to go out and like,
link |
I like to be at home with a couple of friends
link |
and have a late night conversation over good food.
link |
Like that to me is a perfect night.
link |
Read a good book, listen to a podcast, go on a walk.
link |
You know, those are things that I really, really enjoy.
link |
And suddenly I'm in this life where I'm like
link |
supposed to be something that I really don't wanna be.
link |
Except for on stage, which is a really fast,
link |
like strange thing to me, which is on stage,
link |
I feel so free and exuberant and like an extrovert.
link |
And then I come off and I just feel like
link |
shrivel back into a shell.
link |
Like it's, music does that for me
link |
and performing on a stage does that for me.
link |
Can we take a small tangent on that?
link |
Yeah, yeah, of course.
link |
can we go through that the introvert
link |
that wants to cuddle up and read a book?
link |
You're the front man of one of the,
link |
if not the biggest rock bands today,
link |
playing in front of huge crowds.
link |
What's the high of that and how can you land back on Earth?
link |
it's incredibly beautiful
link |
to walk on a stage,
link |
sing these songs that you wrote
link |
and see it resonate with people around you
link |
and sing with them.
link |
Different cultures, different places,
link |
It's suddenly the world seems like a fantastic place.
link |
It feels like we're all on the same team.
link |
It's like one big hug.
link |
Yeah, it's like everybody in that room gets it
link |
and they all, like it just,
link |
it feels like what you want the world to be,
link |
which is just like this coexisting unit of people
link |
and it's not even about like,
link |
it's incredible, for sure, it's incredible
link |
and I love it and I wouldn't do it unless I loved it.
link |
And then you walk off stage and you turn on the news
link |
and it's like, you see, we're all against each other,
link |
everybody hates each other
link |
and it feels that way in the world.
link |
So music really, that's why live music is so important
link |
to people, that's why music is so important to people.
link |
Because even if it's just you and that person
link |
that wrote the song, you're listening to it
link |
and the two of you feel connected.
link |
You know, it's like you're hearing Tracy Chapman
link |
sing like Fast Car or something,
link |
you're just like, oh my gosh, like yes, I get it.
link |
And you feel connected to that person, you don't feel alone.
link |
So that's the high of it, for sure.
link |
And then you get off stage and then, you know,
link |
as my, like my uncle is a heart surgeon,
link |
incredible heart surgeon who like writes the book.
link |
Like he's like the guy that the heart surgeons talk to,
link |
he's out of Nashville, Tennessee,
link |
he's just an incredible genius man.
link |
He always worries and always reached out to me.
link |
He's like, musicians die all the time
link |
and the reason they die, you know,
link |
is because you're getting on stage
link |
and your heart's doing this
link |
and your cortisol levels are doing this,
link |
you're getting off stage and then you're just doing this.
link |
And it's a really real thing.
link |
Like you get off stage and you feel like you need drugs
link |
because you're like, the world feels like,
link |
oh, incredibly daunting.
link |
And it's also, I'm sure, has to do with like
link |
some like health things in your heart
link |
and the cortisol levels that are so crazy
link |
and then you come off and it's like,
link |
I know people are like, well, then nothing's enough,
link |
except meth, you know what I mean, right?
link |
Nothing's enough except heroin.
link |
And that's why a lot of artists turn to that stuff.
link |
And I don't say it in a preachy way,
link |
like I've struggled with drug abuse in my life.
link |
And I really, I understand why artists turn to it.
link |
But also the fact that you're an introvert.
link |
So the other side of it, the fame.
link |
That's something that you also said
link |
is a double edged sword for you.
link |
The interesting thing about fame,
link |
is that you also mentioned,
link |
is it something you can't take back?
link |
It's the thing, you can't just like go on vacation
link |
in Hawaii and it's like, consider, do I like it or not?
link |
No, you're staying in Hawaii for the rest of your life
link |
and you've never been there before,
link |
whether you like it or not.
link |
So what's that like being loved by millions
link |
and millions and millions of people,
link |
which is perhaps the best kind of fame
link |
in terms of if you have to choose the kinds of fame
link |
And still being an introvert and all that kind of stuff.
link |
So what, do you feel alone?
link |
More alone being famous?
link |
Is there a loneliness to it?
link |
Yeah, I mean, it's such a funny thing.
link |
Okay, if you had asked,
link |
if we were having this conversation a couple of years ago,
link |
I'd be incredibly guarded about this
link |
because the last thing I wanna ever do
link |
is sound ungrateful or unaware of how much I have
link |
and woe is the famous celebrity with money.
link |
Oh, is your life hard?
link |
Is it really telling me about how hard it is?
link |
But I'm also at a place in life now
link |
where I just like, I'm gonna always just speak my truth
link |
because that's the only reason I'm here
link |
is I'm here to speak my truth to you.
link |
So I'm gonna tell you my truth,
link |
whether it's whatever it is.
link |
But you're human and feelings are real.
link |
And so, and that's the interesting thing.
link |
You win a lottery, what's that gonna feel like?
link |
It's not about complaining, oh, it's so hard to win a lottery
link |
because you get a lot of money.
link |
No, it's still, you're human.
link |
You get to experience these feelings and it's fascinating.
link |
You put humans in different situations.
link |
And it's also fascinating because a lot of people think,
link |
well, I would like to be famous.
link |
That's a big thing now on social media and Instagram
link |
The whole world wants to be famous.
link |
Or rich or famous.
link |
And then it's very interesting to think, all right,
link |
well, once you arrive, are all the problems solved?
link |
So I will tell you, according to me,
link |
what the pitfalls are, whether it's true or not.
link |
And there are certainly some pitfalls.
link |
One, it's once you're there, you can't go back.
link |
Whatever, maybe that's fine.
link |
Cause maybe you love it.
link |
But the real pitfall for me is that you're now you're Lex
link |
and you're what everybody's perception is that Lex is.
link |
And that's what you are.
link |
Now Lex is probably a lot more complex and complicated
link |
and has a lot more to Lex than the Lex
link |
that is the celebrity.
link |
So, but anybody who meets you, that's who you are to them.
link |
And you may, you may not feel this way,
link |
but you may feel confined to actually have to be that person
link |
Like I've early in my career for a long time,
link |
anytime I met someone, I suddenly felt like I had to be
link |
Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons.
link |
Anytime I met someone, including my family now,
link |
who are also like, whoa, this is crazy.
link |
You're like Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons.
link |
And I wanted to just be the goofball
link |
that I have been my whole life with my brothers and family.
link |
But suddenly I found myself feeling like,
link |
no, I have to be this.
link |
Like, cause that's who, that's who this is.
link |
So you're almost like playing a role.
link |
And it's like, I've heard a lot of actors talk about this
link |
where they'll take on a role and then it's like,
link |
they feel like they have to, they like become that.
link |
And it's a really scary thing.
link |
Like you alter who you are almost
link |
to fit the notion of other people.
link |
Cause especially if a lot of artists are empaths,
link |
it, you know, a lot of people get into art
link |
in a deep way are empaths.
link |
And so you feel a lot of what people are feeling
link |
and you're never wanting to burden people.
link |
And you're always wanting to deliver to that person,
link |
you know, what they want is like people pleasing is very,
link |
goes hand in hand with a lot of like these famous people.
link |
And they get to where they were
link |
because they know how to do that.
link |
They know how to be in a room with someone
link |
and look them in the eye and make them feel
link |
like they're the only person in the room.
link |
And then now they got that role in that movie
link |
because they sat with the casting director
link |
and they were like, oh, you're so funny.
link |
Oh, has anybody told, like put on the charisma,
link |
And it's like, anyway, I'm like,
link |
I'm going on a different tangent here,
link |
but long story short, there's a lot of things
link |
that are really unhealthy about it.
link |
And then a lot of people who want the fame,
link |
then the second it starts to go away,
link |
then they're like, who am I anymore?
link |
Like that was everything.
link |
And now I'm like on the down
link |
and now I'm not a famous person anymore.
link |
And now I hate myself and I'm going to do drugs.
link |
And it's like, it's like this vicious cycle,
link |
like you could never be famous enough.
link |
You're always going to get like,
link |
there's just so much to it that I've just,
link |
and again, like I've lost friends
link |
in this career to do that for sure.
link |
And there's a certain element to sort of just
link |
on the losing fame of interacting with a lot of folks,
link |
especially young folks like on YouTube.
link |
So fame is a thing that has levels.
link |
You're always trying to be a little more famous.
link |
A lot of folks who are chasing fame,
link |
it doesn't matter how famous you are,
link |
you're always trying to chase more.
link |
And when you start to lose it,
link |
interesting things can happen if you're not self aware,
link |
which is like, like you mentioned,
link |
you might be trying to grasp back at where you were
link |
by leaning into the formula that got you there.
link |
And so the constraints of the image that you mentioned
link |
becomes the thing that you're now trying to lean into.
link |
And that's actually walking away from who you really are.
link |
Like you lean further into being that person.
link |
That's true for acting.
link |
That's true for even on like YouTube,
link |
which is people acting, they have a role.
link |
They got them to the table somehow.
link |
Yeah, it's dark, but I think those are,
link |
that's just put for everybody to see,
link |
but that's a very human struggle even when you're not famous.
link |
Finding yourself, being yourself,
link |
of not letting, not doing the people pleasing at any scale
link |
and being trapped by that.
link |
Yeah, and also feeling like it's never enough.
link |
I think that's something all, like it's not just
link |
a famous thing, but it's like in the whole,
link |
like everybody deals with feeling like
link |
when I'm here, I'll be happy.
link |
When I get that job, I'll be happy.
link |
When I have that money, then I'll be happy.
link |
When I get that surgery and my nose looks like this,
link |
I will be happy then.
link |
It's like a constant chase of happiness instead of happiness.
link |
It's like the opposite, it's opposite of self love.
link |
It's the opposite of happiness.
link |
There's no presence to it.
link |
You're constant, you're never going to find it.
link |
You're never gonna arrive and you're just gonna
link |
live your life and then you're gonna be on your death bed
link |
and be like, I was chasing the wrong thing my whole life.
link |
I should say that podcasts are interesting in that way.
link |
So for me personally, because you just talk a lot,
link |
you can't, people that meet you, they know you
link |
and they know the evolution of you.
link |
And that's the same thing for like you right now,
link |
Dan of Imagine Dragons, just being on a podcast
link |
like long form reveals a side that liberates you more
link |
to be yourself, to like, people see, oh, there's a human.
link |
They, cause they, music, they have a deep connection
link |
with you, they have experiences with you
link |
the way they experienced it and that's who you are
link |
with them through the songs.
link |
But now you get to see, oh, that's a human being.
link |
He probably gets angry, he gets sad, he's excited,
link |
he's hopeful and there's a core, there's a good human being
link |
with the whole roller coaster of emotions all there.
link |
It's a giant, beautiful mess.
link |
And podcasts reveal that, that's why I love podcasts
link |
like long form, you get to hear some artists and actors
link |
and so on and some of them you get to see, oh,
link |
you've lost yourself in the surface.
link |
That's a tragedy with some actors, some great actors.
link |
They've left so much of themselves in the roles
link |
they've played that they can no longer be the thing
link |
they were before, those great roles.
link |
That's for sure, it's hard, it's hard to see.
link |
So you get to see that with Johnny Depp with,
link |
I don't know, Pirates, he was talking about that
link |
with Pirates of the Caribbean, that was a shift.
link |
Like he's not that guy, he's forever, forever that guy.
link |
But the point is to remember that you're not
link |
into your family, which is interesting you said
link |
with your family, when I see people close to me,
link |
they also, there is an element like that
link |
while you're that, they start treating you
link |
like the famous person.
link |
Yeah, I'm fortunate to have my manager who's my brother,
link |
my older brother, and my lawyer is my other older brother.
link |
And that's been helpful because it's weird,
link |
it gets weird with everyone no matter what.
link |
One of the best advice I was given was by Charlie Sheen.
link |
You got advice from Charlie Sheen.
link |
Yeah, we were playing.
link |
The wise sage of our generation.
link |
Wise sage Charlie Sheen, but it was, it was really wise.
link |
I was sitting next to him and we were playing
link |
some late night television and he said,
link |
this was right at the beginning, and he just said,
link |
boys, just mark my words, your life is about
link |
to get really weird, that's all he said.
link |
But it stuck with me forever and it's Charlie Sheen,
link |
so of course it sticks with you.
link |
And I remember being like, right, okay, Charlie Sheen,
link |
I'm not Charlie Sheen, it's not gonna get weird,
link |
But it got really, really weird, really quick,
link |
because suddenly you've existed your whole life
link |
in this way where everybody just,
link |
everything you get, you achieved,
link |
it was because you got it.
link |
And every conversation you had, like,
link |
if someone liked you at the end of that conversation,
link |
well, it's because they liked you.
link |
If they didn't like you, it's because they didn't like you.
link |
And you can make complete peace with that.
link |
At least I could my whole life.
link |
I was like, life is a challenge.
link |
And be myself and I'm gonna go through it
link |
and find some people along the way that I connect with
link |
And that social integrity is so important to us.
link |
And we think it would be nice to have this,
link |
and this is going back to the pitfalls of fame.
link |
We think it would be nice to walk into a room
link |
and have everyone be like,
link |
and you could be like, dumpster fire.
link |
And everybody's like, oh my gosh, dumpster fire,
link |
Well, you said dumpster fire was amazing.
link |
It's like, it's incredibly, incredibly lonely.
link |
And it just breaks everything that you knew about humanness.
link |
So then you're seeking out people who,
link |
that it doesn't exist with.
link |
And family is the closest you can get to that for sure.
link |
But even your family, it's gonna take a little bit
link |
where they're like, oh, this is a little weird.
link |
Like all my friends at work are now asking about you
link |
and you're my young, stupid brother.
link |
But now you're suddenly like the young, stupid brother
link |
that they want an autograph from and stuff.
link |
And it still makes, like they have to get over that
link |
and figure that out.
link |
And then you meet people too
link |
who know about this whole concept and they're like,
link |
well, I'm gonna be an asshole to him
link |
to show him that I don't subscribe.
link |
And you're dealing with like people who are like,
link |
dumpster fire, the person who's like,
link |
you could say something actually profound and nice
link |
and they'd be like, that's stupid and you're an idiot.
link |
Cause it's like an actual attempt to like show you
link |
how much they don't care.
link |
So you live in this very, like this.
link |
Still, nevertheless, even when nobody knew you,
link |
you were seeking for deep human connection
link |
with a small number of people.
link |
And now when a lot of people know you,
link |
you're still looking for deep connection
link |
with a small number of people.
link |
The struggle is the same.
link |
cause you mentioned some of the dark moments.
link |
What advice would you give to people
link |
who are struggling with depression?
link |
And maybe for the people who love the people
link |
who are struggling with depression.
link |
So what I have found to be most successful for me,
link |
it's back to the basics of everything
link |
that the therapist or psychologist will tell you,
link |
psychiatrist will tell you right when you meet them,
link |
which is exercise every day,
link |
eat healthy for sure,
link |
find time, make time every day to do something
link |
that you love, whatever that may be,
link |
whatever brings you joy.
link |
And when you're really depressed,
link |
that actually feels like nothing.
link |
Cause the things that brought you joy,
link |
don't bring you joy anymore.
link |
When I'm really in the thick of it.
link |
But for me, like this is the cycle
link |
that I'll go through is I'll look at my life
link |
and I'll say, okay, what can I clean up?
link |
All right, well, for me it was cutting out alcohol
link |
actually helped me a lot.
link |
I know that sounds like a big,
link |
I'm not judging anybody for that.
link |
And I still drink on occasion,
link |
but I felt like alcohol has been very unhelpful
link |
to my mental state.
link |
Feel less drive and less happiness the next day
link |
for things that I wanna do.
link |
I feel like it plays a lot with your serotonin.
link |
So look for stuff to change.
link |
Clean living, yeah, clean living,
link |
but also understanding that sometimes it just is,
link |
and you just keep breathing
link |
and it will get better with time.
link |
This too shall pass.
link |
This too shall pass.
link |
Like I really think that in the winter,
link |
I'm pretty sure, I mean, I've had a lot of,
link |
I've seen a lot of therapists
link |
and all of them say the same thing,
link |
which is like, you have major depressive disorder
link |
and this is what it is,
link |
but it's certainly worse for me in the winter months.
link |
So I know there's like, I can't think of the term for it,
link |
but there's a term for like seasonal depression.
link |
So I'll get to the winter and suddenly I'm like,
link |
geez, everything really sucks on a deeper level.
link |
And then, so it's like this too shall pass is another thing.
link |
It's like, just practice those things.
link |
Absolutely see a therapist.
link |
That's my biggest, like my biggest emphasis of life
link |
is to like on stage, like my goal,
link |
like I have a few things that I really, really care about.
link |
One is mental health and destigmatizing therapy.
link |
Cause for me, I didn't go to therapy for a long time
link |
because I felt that it would be admitting that I was broken.
link |
It'd be admitting that I was weaker than Lex
link |
who doesn't have to go to a therapist
link |
because Lex is stronger.
link |
So be strong like Lex.
link |
I would like look at all my older brothers
link |
and I looked up to them so much
link |
and they're all these incredibly successful people,
link |
plastic surgeon, an anesthesiologist, a dentist,
link |
two attorneys, Stanford, NYU,
link |
like just like incredible high standards,
link |
Eagle Scouts, you know, like they valedictorians,
link |
like they just did it all.
link |
So for me, I was very, really did not want to admit
link |
and none of them went to therapy.
link |
So it was like, what are you going to be?
link |
Are you, oh, you're broken.
link |
Are you like the weak one who can't hack life?
link |
And I think that's incredibly dangerous.
link |
And I feel like it almost cost me my life
link |
because I took so long to finally go to therapy.
link |
So I really want kids to know,
link |
hey, like the great people that achieve great things
link |
that are doing amazing things,
link |
they probably have help, almost all of them.
link |
It's like going to the gym, but it's a mental gym.
link |
What, so I, unfortunately,
link |
I wanted to be a psychiatrist when I was growing up.
link |
Maybe that's why I like podcasts.
link |
I think you'd be a good one.
link |
I think you are a psychiatrist, pretty much, right?
link |
Sounds like you're a psychiatrist.
link |
I think I need more.
link |
I think actually, to be a good psychiatrist,
link |
you also need to be seeking therapy from the,
link |
like you also need to be,
link |
have some stuff to work through in your mind.
link |
I think, yeah, you have to have gone to some dark places.
link |
It's the ability to empathize,
link |
and especially if you've directly experienced it,
link |
you can go to those places in your mind.
link |
Like you said, it's with the music,
link |
to be authentic, you have to really go there.
link |
What, why did therapy help so much?
link |
What is the process of therapy,
link |
if you can just educate a little more?
link |
Is it, are you basically bringing to the surface
link |
and talking through things that you,
link |
because of the momentum of life,
link |
you just never allow yourself to speak through,
link |
Is that what therapy is?
link |
Or is there some more systematic thing?
link |
So I've been to a lot of strange,
link |
different kinds of therapy.
link |
So I'll tell you my first therapist.
link |
If I could sort of interrupt,
link |
how hard is it to find a therapist that connected with you?
link |
It is, it's actually pretty hard, I think.
link |
I think, I think it for,
link |
well, actually I have a skewed view of that,
link |
because going back to the beginning of my therapy
link |
was with a Mormon therapist.
link |
So it was very much like,
link |
well, are you reading your book of Mormon?
link |
And are you praying at night?
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like, that was a big focus of my therapy
link |
And you're having a faith crisis in the distance somewhere.
link |
Yes, I was like, well, and then.
link |
You're making it worse.
link |
Yes, the next therapist I went to
link |
was a Scientology therapist.
link |
I met my wife and she was Scientologist at the time,
link |
and she's not anymore.
link |
She's like, it's such a funny thing to look back on,
link |
because we met, and I was like this Mormon missionary
link |
who had just got home from his mission,
link |
and I met her, and she's a Scientologist.
link |
I was like, wow, that's batshit crazy.
link |
Like, that stuff's crazy.
link |
And she's like, what are you talking about?
link |
That's your crazy, you're a Mormon.
link |
That's batshit crazy.
link |
And the two of us were like, huh,
link |
maybe there's something to this, to both of us here.
link |
Yeah, the tension actually forces you to think through,
link |
oh, well, what is true?
link |
Yeah, and we really fell in love through that,
link |
which was like, maybe we're both on the wrong track.
link |
Let's figure this out.
link |
But before that happened,
link |
we went to a Scientologist therapist,
link |
who that therapy consisted of,
link |
what have you done wrong to Asia?
link |
And they would ask me that question
link |
over and over and over and over,
link |
until I'm like thinking of the deepest, darkest things
link |
that were in the recesses of my mind.
link |
This was marriage therapy.
link |
Anyway, I'm not gonna get into that,
link |
but it was Scientology therapy.
link |
So that was a different thing.
link |
And then I went to therapy therapy,
link |
like no, not attached to any religion.
link |
And that was a really great experience for me.
link |
And since then I've been through
link |
a couple of different therapists,
link |
but that was more because where I was
link |
and moving and things like that.
link |
So is it that hard to find a great therapist?
link |
Probably not, but maybe don't go
link |
to your Mormon therapist
link |
versus that Scientology therapist.
link |
Or maybe that's the route for you.
link |
Maybe it's the route for you, I don't know.
link |
Yeah, but what is, so is it bringing stuff
link |
to the surface, basically?
link |
Oh yeah, sorry, I didn't even answer your question.
link |
What's the effect, why is it so effective?
link |
Just, is there something you could put words to?
link |
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, obviously,
link |
there's the common things you would think of,
link |
which is like, oh, I've been holding these things in
link |
that I don't wanna tell anybody,
link |
and then I tell this person,
link |
and oh, there's relief in that.
link |
But that's really not where the real work comes from.
link |
I think the real work is meeting with someone
link |
who is well versed and educated and understands.
link |
It really is, it's like someone who,
link |
they listen to you, and they're like,
link |
well, that was a trigger,
link |
and then this became this trigger,
link |
and you're probably, every time you're hearing that,
link |
thinking of this thing that happened earlier in your life,
link |
and they just will walk you through scenarios,
link |
and maybe some of them aren't right,
link |
but some of them, you'll be like,
link |
it'll resonate sometimes, you're like,
link |
wow, I am feeling that because of that,
link |
and that did happen, and maybe if I call my mom
link |
and say this to her, it will make me feel,
link |
hey mom, this happened, it's like work.
link |
You put in work, and you have hard conversations
link |
and do difficult things,
link |
and if, so if your therapy's not difficult,
link |
I actually think that's not good therapy.
link |
Good therapy is, it's gonna be a little difficult,
link |
Yes, like I had this incredible therapist who was,
link |
I told him when I was gonna do ayahuasca,
link |
he was like, geez, you know,
link |
he had actually was a doctor before
link |
and a really well educated studied person
link |
who had walked away from brain doctor,
link |
what's the word for that, brain doctor?
link |
Brain surgeon? Neurologist.
link |
Oh yeah, neurologist, yep.
link |
And he said, well basically his belief was that ayahuasca
link |
was like basically doing therapy like 50 sessions.
link |
He was like, it's like really intensive.
link |
He was like, I don't know if you wanna do that,
link |
if you do, you can make some big steps forward,
link |
but I prefer just to do one session at a time.
link |
And so yeah, it's hard work.
link |
And that, I typically like,
link |
it's really hard for me to even talk about ayahuasca
link |
by the way, going back to that,
link |
because I'm not looking to tell everybody to go do ayahuasca.
link |
It's incredibly hard.
link |
It was the scariest experience of my entire life.
link |
It felt like I went to heaven,
link |
but it also felt like I went to the darkest, deepest hell
link |
that was incredibly scary, incredibly scary, yeah.
link |
So you told the story of how you wrote the song Believer
link |
or like your childhood friend, I guess, Donald,
link |
like bullying and that kind of stuff.
link |
This song, I mean, a lot of your songs
link |
are super interesting sort of in terms of percussion,
link |
super interesting, super interesting lyrically,
link |
just how it flows and also pain is at the center of it.
link |
I mean, a lot of, like you said, the crisis of faith,
link |
some of these existential questions
link |
are basically behind a lot of your songs, funny enough.
link |
Maybe they're covered in metaphor, so it's hard to see,
link |
And this song is really interesting in that way
link |
that it puts pain, you made me a believer.
link |
You break me down, you build me up, Believer.
link |
That's so interesting.
link |
Maybe can you tell the story of how the song came to be?
link |
I'd love to listen to it too.
link |
I have some questions musically about it too.
link |
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's exactly
link |
what we're talking about with therapy.
link |
I just feel like the greatest things in my life
link |
have come from the deepest hurt, like losing someone,
link |
that you love is maybe the hardest part of the human path
link |
for me, at least thus far.
link |
When I think of, okay, what was the hardest thing?
link |
There's like, you think of physical pain
link |
or maybe like going through financial pain or whatever.
link |
I think losing someone that you really love to death
link |
is one of the hardest, for me,
link |
I would say it was the hardest.
link |
But it also makes you look at your life
link |
completely differently and alter your life,
link |
at least for me in ways that were really healthy.
link |
Being more present, letting go of things
link |
that were meaningless, trying to control
link |
what other people think about you,
link |
like wasting your time on things like that.
link |
And you suddenly see like, wow, like time,
link |
I got small amount of time, like how do I wanna spend it?
link |
I'm gonna spend it in the best way I know how and that's it.
link |
So, yeah, I mean, it's a basic concept
link |
that's been said a million times over
link |
in a million different ways.
link |
But that's pretty much what I was trying to say with Believer
link |
which is like, I've lost faith in everything
link |
at that time period or previous to that time period.
link |
And then I was rebuilding my faith
link |
or my spiritual thought process.
link |
And it was after ayahuasca and it was like, finding,
link |
being a Believer and that's not necessarily like
link |
a Believer in God or a Believer in heaven and hell
link |
or anything like that, but a Believer in more.
link |
Believing in goodness, believing in that there is some light
link |
like, and again, those words like, they're just words
link |
and I wish there were better words to formulate
link |
the thought that I'm trying to express,
link |
but just more, like the thought of me dying,
link |
for me, I don't fear it, I don't fear it,
link |
but actually I really fear not seeing my kids again.
link |
I'll say that, that is fearful for me.
link |
I feel like I love so deeply these children
link |
that the thought of like leaving them
link |
for me is a scary thought or something.
link |
They're kind of good reminder
link |
how much you love life actually.
link |
And you don't always remember that.
link |
Yeah, and I think having kids is not for everyone
link |
for absolutely for sure, but for me,
link |
and especially you shouldn't be having kids
link |
to give yourself a reason to live.
link |
I feel like dying, I'm gonna have a kid.
link |
You might feel more like dying after having a kid actually.
link |
It's pretty stressful, but it is a place to like,
link |
I've changed a lot of people that I've known
link |
that it gave them a new intensity
link |
of gratitude for life, for sure.
link |
Guy, do you mind if we, I'll return to the pain
link |
and the belief, do you mind if we listen
link |
to a little bit of songs?
link |
Do you write the music first or the words first?
link |
Uh, the same time, which is very typical for me.
link |
By just the way it opens, intensity of openings.
link |
You ever think about what the first few seconds sound like?
link |
Is that something that, like when you imagine a song,
link |
is it the opening you imagine?
link |
No, it's kind of a, I never think opening,
link |
I never think final, I think soundscape
link |
of how I'm feeling right now.
link |
So it could be the middle of the song
link |
for all I know when I'm doing that,
link |
but my process for me is very much lyrics and melody
link |
and music really come at the same time.
link |
Like I, by same time, I mean, I'm,
link |
I'm, as I'm expressing maybe, you know,
link |
Like, it's not that simple, but it's like,
link |
I'll hear it, like, it's like, here's all the orchestra
link |
and you're kind of just pressing all the buttons at once
link |
and melody and my voice is just one of those instruments.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
It's just utilizing one instrument.
link |
So you've seen the landscape and that landscape
link |
includes melody, includes percussion, lyrics a little bit,
link |
I will be words to begin with, like a word here and there.
link |
Like, I'll be like.
link |
You know, I'm like, what's a word that I'm thinking of
link |
when I'm feeling this soundscape?
link |
And I always create with no theme in mind.
link |
I'm never, for better or for worse,
link |
just my process is I'm sitting down
link |
and I'm writing a journal entry.
link |
It's like, when you sit down to write a journal entry,
link |
are you sitting down and you're like, Kev,
link |
I've had all these words here that I'm gonna put on the page
link |
and I'm gonna order it in this way.
link |
And my theme for my journal entry today is gonna be this.
link |
Maybe some people do, but I don't.
link |
My journal entry is, I don't know what I'm gonna say.
link |
Oh, how was today?
link |
Well, man, today was this and feeling this.
link |
And now that I think about that,
link |
I'm really angry about that.
link |
That hurt my feelings when this happened.
link |
I mean, you're like, you're formulating it as you go
link |
and that's the joy of it.
link |
And for me, that's what music is.
link |
So I'll sit down, not thinking,
link |
hey, I've been wanting to write a song that has a hard beat
link |
or I've been wanting to write a song that's anthemic
link |
or I've been wanting to write a song that's,
link |
it's like, how am I feeling right now?
link |
Is the feeling joyful to you or is it struggle?
link |
You just made it sound like it's joyful.
link |
Or at least fulfilling.
link |
I wouldn't use that.
link |
Yeah, fulfilling is the word I was kind of looking for,
link |
There's a lot of artists talk about really struggle,
link |
like you talk about writers.
link |
Cathartic, that's the word I was looking for.
link |
It feels like having a good moment with a therapist
link |
where you're like, okay, I'm expressing this thing
link |
that I just need to express.
link |
For whatever reason, I need to express this.
link |
The majority of the songs I write,
link |
for the record, are never heard.
link |
I write over 100 songs a year.
link |
I release 20 songs every three years.
link |
So, I don't know, what's that percent?
link |
It's less than 10%.
link |
Less than 10%, yeah.
link |
Eight, seven or something?
link |
And then getting together with the band
link |
and getting them selected down
link |
is really what the process has.
link |
So you're really writing a song per one to three days.
link |
Three days, maybe a song that you can't quite figure out
link |
the puzzle of that's gonna last a little longer.
link |
Is it worth the struggle?
link |
I finish every idea.
link |
Yeah, you finish every idea.
link |
I do, I finish every idea.
link |
So it's not just like laying completely unfinished.
link |
I could open my computer for you right now
link |
and I would show you hundreds and hundreds of songs
link |
that you would listen to and think,
link |
that sounds like a song.
link |
It's like there's rhythm, there's melody,
link |
there's multiple instruments, there's lyrics.
link |
Like I, it's the same thing as for coding for me,
link |
which is music, which is I can't walk away
link |
until I've completed it.
link |
But it's finished.
link |
Well, finished is.
link |
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it sounds like a song.
link |
I certainly do a lot more with it after,
link |
with the band, we'll pull it all apart.
link |
It'll be like, you know, you'll listen to it and say,
link |
okay, that was a song.
link |
I get, you understand what it is, for sure.
link |
Do you think, this is a painful question
link |
from a fan perspective.
link |
Do you think there's genius on your computer
link |
that you walked away from that you just didn't notice it?
link |
Like, do you think there's truly great songs
link |
that you've written that you just didn't notice
link |
how great they are?
link |
I think greatness is something that I feel I'm,
link |
I don't feel like I've achieved greatness.
link |
Genuine, I'm not saying that to you
link |
in a way of like humility, falseness.
link |
Like Michael Jordan type.
link |
No, genuinely, I feel like I am on a journey right now
link |
And I'm 34 and it's like, I don't even,
link |
I haven't begun that journey.
link |
I feel like I'm just starting that.
link |
But that being said, I certainly don't know
link |
the right answer to what songs are, you know,
link |
beloved or good to the masses.
link |
Like Imagine Dragons is such a massive entity.
link |
It's like, there have been a, I will say this,
link |
there are a couple of times where I fought really hard
link |
to decide on the single, really hard.
link |
Or I always fight for what goes on the record, always.
link |
I always put the record together
link |
and that's the record that I wanted to be
link |
and me and the guys come up with that.
link |
And it's nobody else has influenced, no manager, no label.
link |
The single, everybody wants to have a saying.
link |
Your label wants to have a saying in it.
link |
Your manager wants to have a saying in it.
link |
And I have fought really hard over that.
link |
And I've been wrong before and I've been right before.
link |
But as far as songs that I haven't put out, I mean.
link |
Because you can imagine so many songs,
link |
you think of so many Beatles songs
link |
that are like some of their greats,
link |
while my guitar gently weeps.
link |
I'm trying to imagine weird sounding,
link |
not that interesting possibly songs.
link |
The majority of what we put them.
link |
Honestly, it may be our best stuff
link |
is that we don't put out for instance.
link |
Because our band is such a, it's such a complex question.
link |
I really don't know actually.
link |
I don't know, maybe one day I'll die
link |
and people will look and be like,
link |
I hated Imagine Dragons, but now I listen to that song.
link |
I really liked that, wish they would put that out.
link |
Or maybe they'll be like, oh, it's all sounds like shit.
link |
I don't really know.
link |
Well, that's, sorry, it is a tragic thing.
link |
That's why I asked it, which is like,
link |
there could be some great, incredible things
link |
that will take you a long time to rediscover,
link |
to realize how great they are.
link |
And it's also the tragic aspect of being an artist
link |
is you don't know, forget fame or all that kind of stuff.
link |
You don't know what's going to really move people.
link |
Cause ultimately what you want is to connect with people
link |
and you don't know what that's going to be.
link |
It's hard, I mean, to me it's tragic
link |
just as a fan of yours to see,
link |
maybe I wonder if there's like incredible stuff there.
link |
Just as it is tragic to see great artists throughout history
link |
who didn't get recognition until they died.
link |
It's like, cause they basically held on,
link |
Franz Kafka was extremely self critical.
link |
A lot of these folks had an idea of what's good and not,
link |
and they were wrong.
link |
They had genius, they weren't entirely wrong
link |
cause they became sufficiently popular,
link |
but it's interesting.
link |
I try to genuinely to release the songs
link |
that move me the most.
link |
You're your own audience.
link |
Yeah, I try to put out the songs that make me feel the most.
link |
Like I feel that, that's my only gauge
link |
because it's so subjective of like, what is good?
link |
Nobody knows the song the masses are going to like.
link |
Nobody knows that formula, nobody knows it.
link |
So for me, it's always what makes me feel something.
link |
One of the main lessons Rick Rubin taught me
link |
when we worked with him on this record
link |
was he would say, his main point
link |
that he would continually bring up when like,
link |
cause he's not the type of person to be like,
link |
that's a bad song or that's good.
link |
It's just not who Rick Rubin is.
link |
It's more like, there's more nuance to it.
link |
He would say, I don't really believe you on that song.
link |
That's what he would say.
link |
He would say, and I knew that was like,
link |
that song's a no go.
link |
He would say, and I would genuinely,
link |
there was a time he said it and it was about a song
link |
that I really like, I really felt it
link |
and meant it when I said it.
link |
But he didn't believe it when he heard it.
link |
And that was enough for, I was like,
link |
man, well, at the end of the day,
link |
like I can believe it all I want,
link |
but if the listener doesn't feel the honesty in it,
link |
just like we were talking about earlier,
link |
I think the most important ingredient is,
link |
is this truth, perceived as truth to someone else?
link |
And if it's not, the bullshit indicator goes,
link |
and you're like, I don't care, I don't throw it away.
link |
I don't care about it.
link |
You said that he made you go through, like line by line,
link |
Every single, it was excruciating for me.
link |
Why was that excruciating?
link |
Well, first of all, it's Rick Rubin.
link |
So you're in the room with like Rick Rubin,
link |
who's done a lot of the greatest of all time.
link |
And so I had to first just put that aside
link |
and be like, okay, well,
link |
you've done a lot of my favorite records,
link |
but still you're human and not everything you say
link |
is gonna be right.
link |
And I'm a strongly opinionated person,
link |
And so when the two of us were sitting down in a room
link |
together, it was, you know.
link |
But the lyrics, which is interesting.
link |
So it's not the entire composition,
link |
but just like, let's look at the lyrics.
link |
What do you mean here?
link |
Yeah, oh yeah, cause he would look over every,
link |
there was like, and there were battles he won,
link |
battles that he didn't win, and maybe he was right.
link |
I mean, there was, for instance, I'll give you an example.
link |
There was a song on the record called Number One.
link |
Rick will probably laugh when he hears this.
link |
Cause this was a big one that we kept going back
link |
But this will give you a good insight
link |
of what it was like.
link |
And there's a line in it that says,
link |
I don't know, the chorus is,
link |
I don't know what I'm meant to be.
link |
I don't need no one to believe.
link |
When it's all been said and done,
link |
I'm still my number one.
link |
And he was like, nah, it just makes me cringe
link |
He's like, I just, like, do you have to be like,
link |
can it not be like, you're still my number one?
link |
And I was like, no, it's not about anybody else.
link |
Like, you know, it's about like self love.
link |
He's like, yeah, but like, do you need to like talk
link |
about self love like that?
link |
And I was like, well, I feel like I need to.
link |
He's like, well, maybe, you know,
link |
there's something else we could say there.
link |
Like we just kept, you know,
link |
we kept coming back to this song, okay?
link |
I was like, and I changed it.
link |
I tried changing it.
link |
What did I change it to?
link |
It was like, it wasn't you're still my number one,
link |
it just made no sense.
link |
It wasn't about some love thing or like someone else.
link |
I changed it to something else.
link |
And it just, it was the one thing that I was like,
link |
I'm really sorry, Rick.
link |
And if it sounds cringy to you,
link |
it's definitely sounding cringy to other people too.
link |
But I don't know how else to say this
link |
in a way that I want to put that song out anymore.
link |
But there were other songs for sure
link |
where Rick was like, that or this,
link |
that word feels a little trite.
link |
You already said that once.
link |
Can you say it in a different way?
link |
It was really helpful.
link |
It's really interesting
link |
because you're trying to say something so simply
link |
and yet not make it cringe.
link |
And that's really hard.
link |
That's a strange art form
link |
because you want to say some of the greatest love songs.
link |
I mean, we looked at the Without You song.
link |
I mean, that's the whole thing is cringy.
link |
If you just read it on paper, like it's a court report
link |
or something, but yet it's not,
link |
especially when sung maybe.
link |
But no, there's something about, yeah, maybe.
link |
Sung in a way you believe it.
link |
When you believe it,
link |
but also written in a way that's singable
link |
in the way you believe it.
link |
It just comes out in a way that just feels like silky.
link |
No word catches your mind as cringy.
link |
But then music, I think great speeches are like that too,
link |
or just conveying, communicating ideas simply.
link |
That's the art form is to not be cringy.
link |
And then yet, because like when you're raw and real,
link |
it might at first feel cringy.
link |
So the battle there,
link |
and that's where you see people fail.
link |
Like just regular artists.
link |
Like, I don't know, at open mic,
link |
I got open mic, so I just listen to musicians.
link |
Like when they write songs, like they fail that test.
link |
They write simple stuff, but it's cringy.
link |
I wonder what was that?
link |
Like, what is that?
link |
I'm telling you, Lex,
link |
I tried to explain this to my brother the other day,
link |
because it's the same thing with a live performance.
link |
If I'm not in my right head space and I walk on stage
link |
and I walk up and let's say I say something and I do this,
link |
because I'm like, this is the move, right?
link |
I'm like, this is the move.
link |
The crowd doesn't care.
link |
In fact, the crowd's like, that's cringy when you did this.
link |
But if I wasn't thinking about doing this
link |
and I went up there and I said something
link |
and I really meant it and my body was like,
link |
I can't explain this to you,
link |
and it's so silly to say out loud,
link |
but people will resonate to it when it's real.
link |
And when it's acted, it doesn't,
link |
you could do it the exact,
link |
the motion could look the same, your eyes look the same,
link |
but there's something about the energy that people know.
link |
They know if it's real or not.
link |
Yeah, people have, like you said,
link |
incredible bullshit detectors.
link |
That's why I love people. A hundred percent.
link |
I'll go on a stage and if I'm not in the right head space
link |
to be real, it won't be a good show.
link |
If I'm real, then it's a good show.
link |
It's as simple as that.
link |
Let's go through the song.
link |
Like I said, great opener.
link |
So you had this in your mind,
link |
The beat was first on this.
link |
What about the first and the second,
link |
like first thing's first, second thing's second?
link |
The first line I wrote was first thing's first.
link |
I don't know why, it just was like,
link |
and then I was like, oh, that principle of, you know.
link |
Second thing's second.
link |
Don't you tell me what you think that I could be.
link |
I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea.
link |
I'm the master of my sea.
link |
My dad had that in his office.
link |
He had this saying that was something about the sailor
link |
and being the master of his sea that I always loved.
link |
There you go, simple statement.
link |
Zero cringe in it.
link |
I'm the master of my sea.
link |
This whole song is just trivial,
link |
but in terms of lyrically,
link |
but extremely powerful and original, unique sounding,
link |
something about the words.
link |
Just even, you don't have to actually sing them,
link |
you just read them.
link |
And then raw, I was broken from a young age,
link |
tuck myself into the masses, writing my poems for the few
link |
that look at me, took to me, shook at me,
link |
feeling me, singing from the heartache, from the pain,
link |
taking my message from the thing.
link |
I can't, why am I reciting your words to you?
link |
But the percussionist throughout it,
link |
and that was there in the beginning.
link |
The percussion is almost in the lyrics, yeah.
link |
And I'm a very percussive singer
link |
because I was a drummer first before I,
link |
I think same with Dave Grohl, probably a similar thing,
link |
which is I think in percussive sense a lot when I'm writing
link |
and I also was, before I could play an instrument,
link |
And I think Michael Jackson did this too, actually.
link |
I've heard in the studio that he was very similar,
link |
but a lot of what I do is percussive
link |
because my brain thinks in percussively first.
link |
A little more, because it's so good.
link |
It's almost like a drum, like,
link |
dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka.
link |
And then you lay words on that.
link |
Tuck myself into the masses, writing my poems for the few
link |
that look at me, took to me, shook at me, feeling me,
link |
it's almost like drums, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka.
link |
It's all building to the chorus.
link |
Hey, you made me a, you made me a believer, believer.
link |
What about the word pain?
link |
When did that come to you?
link |
Pain, you made me, you made me a believer.
link |
Yeah, just the idea of,
link |
I just wanted to, I really,
link |
one of the things that a lot of the songs that I like,
link |
I like divisiveness, for instance, not always,
link |
but there's times where I want someone to hear a song
link |
and I want them to either love it or hate it.
link |
I really don't want them to be in the middle ground.
link |
A lot of the songs that,
link |
like a lot of my favorite songs are divisive songs.
link |
And so for instance, with pain,
link |
I want you to hear that in almost like, it's like, whoa.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
It's something either somebody is going to hear
link |
and they'll be like, man,
link |
I just don't want to hear that like that.
link |
Or it's like, oh, I felt that so deeply
link |
when he said that in that way, because it sounded like this.
link |
And when you think of the word pain, it's like,
link |
that's a, at least for me, when I hear that word,
link |
it carries a lot of weight, carries a lot of weight.
link |
So I wanted to sing it with a lot of weight
link |
and to come into that chorus with like,
link |
like it's a striking moment.
link |
And I'm also a tenor singing as,
link |
sorry, I'm a baritone singing as a tenor.
link |
So that's where that natural,
link |
like gruffness comes from is that I'm singing
link |
out of my range really, up in my head voice.
link |
And it carries a lot of weight with it
link |
because of the baritone.
link |
Can I ask you a specific sort of the pause before the pain?
link |
It's really interesting.
link |
Cause it's like a double.
link |
What is that, how much work does that take
link |
to get that right?
link |
That's incredible.
link |
Cause it's like a, so you're kind of seeing the beauty
link |
through the, and then that, whatever that sound is.
link |
Right, the bass being rolled off.
link |
Yeah, I actually, when I first was approaching the chorus,
link |
it was actually seeing,
link |
taking my message from the veins,
link |
taking my lesson from the veins,
link |
seeing the beauty through the,
link |
seeing the beauty through the pain.
link |
You made me a, like it came in on one.
link |
I'm not seeing it right right now, but it did not wait.
link |
And it felt like it didn't hit
link |
in the way that it was supposed to hit.
link |
Because the, you predict that, right?
link |
You're like, you're waiting to see the beauty
link |
through the pain, you made me a, right?
link |
It was like the beauty through the pain.
link |
You made me a, made me.
link |
So I wanted to feel a little more like striking,
link |
like, again, it's like that thing that makes you
link |
kind of do this a little bit.
link |
But once you hear it a few times, you're like, ah, ah.
link |
And you predict, you know what I mean?
link |
It's like, I'd rather someone hear our song the first time
link |
and be confused by it.
link |
So they play it the second time.
link |
And then they're like, oh, okay.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like, I really don't want, you know,
link |
I'd rather turn some people off along the way.
link |
And then the people who come along for you
link |
are gonna feel more committed, I think.
link |
It's just an interesting, like,
link |
it feels gutsy to insert silence, you know?
link |
Yeah, that's what makes it, you know,
link |
it's like the greatest speakers of all time are like,
link |
You would know, I mean, it's like, you're like, oh.
link |
Yeah, what is that?
link |
Yeah, that's so interesting to do that
link |
just at the right time.
link |
And then, and then pain, right?
link |
Man, it's a brilliant song.
link |
Did you know it was a good song when you wrote it?
link |
Out of the thousands of songs you've written?
link |
You know, it's always the same thing for me,
link |
which is like, if I wanna listen to the song
link |
and I wanna listen to it a lot of times,
link |
then those are the songs we put out.
link |
And I only wanna listen to the songs
link |
that make me feel something.
link |
Whether or not it's like,
link |
our single that did the very worst of all our singles
link |
was the song that I wanted to listen to the least,
link |
but it made the most sense as a single,
link |
which was all the wrong reason to choose it, right?
link |
It was, I Bet My Life is the single off our second album.
link |
And that song was originally written,
link |
it was just a guitar and a vocal,
link |
and it was very just quiet and laid back.
link |
And we were like, well, let's try to dial it up,
link |
let's try to produce it.
link |
And we overproduced that song.
link |
We self produced it as a band and we overproduced.
link |
And that song, I mean, it did good in terms of a song,
link |
but for us, it did not do good compared to other songs.
link |
And I really look back at that
link |
and learned a lesson from that.
link |
It's like, if I don't wanna listen to the song,
link |
that's a sign already.
link |
If you don't wanna listen to your own song,
link |
it's probably not a good song.
link |
You said your dad, elsewhere and today,
link |
just said that your dad early on was a kind of the early
link |
So when you were starting out, he gave you feedback,
link |
What did you learn about music about life from your dad?
link |
My dad is a really quiet farm, grew up on a farm,
link |
And I think he starts every sentence by saying,
link |
this is just my two cents, pretty much.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
It's like, take it or leave it.
link |
Like, you know what I mean?
link |
He's that kind of a sense, like there's humility
link |
in everything and it's real for him.
link |
It's not like false humility.
link |
I really feel like when he's saying things,
link |
he really is like, maybe this isn't any worth to you son.
link |
And he means it, but here it is.
link |
And it's always gold.
link |
And I'm like, wow, dad, that's incredible.
link |
So what, in those early days of you like,
link |
so you were like 12 or something like that,
link |
like starting to write songs.
link |
I was 12, I wasn't showing my music to anyone.
link |
I started writing right when I was 12
link |
and I probably wrote for at least,
link |
let's say six months or something.
link |
And I had written probably, I don't know,
link |
like a lot of songs during that time.
link |
What was the topic by the way?
link |
No, it was, the first song I ever wrote went,
link |
and it was like a bluesy thing.
link |
It was like, there was my voice doing that.
link |
And then it was like,
link |
all by himself, no other one around.
link |
And he stood all alone.
link |
When would he be found?
link |
Did he want company?
link |
Or was he fine on his own?
link |
Everyone needs a friend.
link |
So why was he all alone?
link |
You know, it is like, but I was like a 12 year old with,
link |
I just felt like depressed for the first time.
link |
And I was, and I just was like, so.
link |
I think he discovered the blues as a 12 year old.
link |
Yeah, right, right.
link |
It really was, it was like my sense of the blues
link |
at that time for sure, like bad version of the blues.
link |
But it was like 12 year old kid with a bunch of acne.
link |
And like, I just like, I hated going to school.
link |
I felt like that I just had not found myself.
link |
Sounds like a great song, by the way.
link |
But anyway, I wanted to keep listening.
link |
Yeah, I don't know about that, but yeah.
link |
Yeah, what was your dad,
link |
at which point did you begin to share it with your dad?
link |
A lot of the songs that I wrote in the beginning
link |
were very much like Bobby McFerrin like that,
link |
because our, Mike was in a part of the house
link |
where I couldn't bring over the piano.
link |
And the only instrument I played at the time
link |
So I would do everything with my voice.
link |
But then I started teaching myself the guitar
link |
in those, in that beginning, like six month period,
link |
just watching my brothers play in their garage bands
link |
And then I started to write songs
link |
a little bit more like Enya vibes,
link |
like stack my voice like 20, 30 times.
link |
And like Enya meets like Jaray,
link |
which is who my dad would listen to a lot.
link |
John Michael Jaray, he's an incredible synth genius.
link |
But anyway, so I finally got my like gall up enough
link |
to show it to my dad one day after work.
link |
And I got very little of my dad
link |
because there were nine kids and he worked
link |
from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m.
link |
We'll come home very tired.
link |
And here's nine kids that are like, dad, you know,
link |
and you're the young one.
link |
You're not, you're just gonna miss.
link |
I was in the middle kind of too.
link |
So it's even, you know, middle child thing.
link |
But I sat him down and I was like,
link |
hey dad, I just wanna like kind of show you a song.
link |
And he was like, oh, you know,
link |
he didn't know I was writing anything.
link |
And I showed it to him and he listened
link |
and he took it off and he really looked at me.
link |
And he was like, that was really good.
link |
He was like, I've thought, and this,
link |
when you said this, it made me feel this.
link |
He was like, and that did it.
link |
I probably would have given up music.
link |
Like I look back, that was a very pivotal moment for me.
link |
I was like in a place where I was like, is this good, bad?
link |
I don't know, maybe it's so embarrassing and terrible.
link |
And I was already writing lyrics
link |
that were a little like overly metaphorical to hide
link |
that I was dealing with faith crisis.
link |
Cause I thought, okay, I'm gonna show this to dad.
link |
I don't want my dad to know I'm like questioning
link |
the truthfulness of Joseph Smith.
link |
So I'm not gonna be like, is Joseph Smith a real prophet?
link |
Is Mormonism true?
link |
I don't really know.
link |
Like, you know what I mean?
link |
I was like writing way overly metaphorical,
link |
but because my dad really validated it
link |
and he was a no bullshit person.
link |
So I knew when my dad said that, I was like, you know what?
link |
At least my dad really actually thinks this is cool.
link |
And I really trusted my dad's taste
link |
and thought everything he listened to was cool.
link |
So I was like, wow, I'm gonna keep doing this.
link |
And I just showed it to my dad for years and years.
link |
And still to this day, I send every song to my dad.
link |
So he underneath it with the feedback is always like,
link |
Ooh, I like this idea.
link |
It's just a positive, like a.
link |
Not always positive, no.
link |
But like underneath it, do you sense the positivity?
link |
Cause I think that's. Always.
link |
Never mean, never malicious.
link |
You know, there's like, there's two types of criticism.
link |
There's like criticism that's just like,
link |
you're looking to be hurtful to someone.
link |
And then there's criticism that's like
link |
really important for art.
link |
It's the type of criticism that's like,
link |
you see the value in what's happening.
link |
And if it's honest, then you can,
link |
you maybe communicate with that person.
link |
Like I, I see what you're trying to do with that.
link |
You know, it's not even like you have to say that
link |
or whatever, like butter it up.
link |
But it's like, my dad would just give me the,
link |
this honest criticism that would be like, you know,
link |
it certainly wasn't always good,
link |
but I knew it was always well intentioned.
link |
I guess that's, that's how I would say.
link |
You mentioned, made me re listen to it.
link |
I'm a big fan of Cass Stevens.
link |
You made me re listen to father and son.
link |
I probably all sons have issues
link |
to work through with their fathers.
link |
And you said that you connect with this song in particular.
link |
I think, so you're a father now.
link |
What is it about the song that connects with you?
link |
For people, let me play it, let me play a little bit.
link |
People should educate themselves on Cass Stevens.
link |
Right on the peace train.
link |
The best, the best, right on the peace train.
link |
You think this is a hopeful, a sad song?
link |
I hear it as hopeful.
link |
I hear it as a loving father saying
link |
just what his son needs to hear.
link |
It's not time to make a change.
link |
Just relax, take it easy.
link |
You're still young.
link |
That's your fault.
link |
There's so much you have.
link |
It's like that calm wisdom.
link |
If you want, you can marry, look at me.
link |
I am old, but I'm happy.
link |
And just the way he says that,
link |
like that should be a corny line,
link |
but it's not corny at all.
link |
Once like you are now.
link |
Look at me, I'm old, but I'm happy.
link |
It's not easy to be calm
link |
when you found something going on.
link |
Yeah, I mean, the simplicity there,
link |
and it's such a contrast with, what's his name?
link |
Harry Chapman with the cats in the cradle,
link |
which is like the sadness of,
link |
so this feels like there's a wise,
link |
calm connection between father and son, right?
link |
With cats in the cradle.
link |
I don't know if you remember that song.
link |
He learned to walk while I was away
link |
and he was talking before I knew it.
link |
And as he grew, he'd say, I'm going to be like you dad.
link |
You know, I'm going to be like you.
link |
And the idea of that song is
link |
that he does become like his dad,
link |
which is funny, you know, something you've said.
link |
But in a different way,
link |
you become too busy to make that connection.
link |
His dad was too busy to make a connection with his son.
link |
And in a, not in a dramatic way,
link |
in a very kind of calm, natural way.
link |
Like you don't, you just don't have time.
link |
You're busy at work, you're providing for the family
link |
and so on, there's connection.
link |
But if you don't really get,
link |
form that like depth of connection.
link |
And then the father, when the son shows up from college
link |
and all that kind of stuff,
link |
he doesn't spend any time with the father.
link |
All that, and just the calm sadness of that,
link |
that we live, we can live parallel lives
link |
and never quite connect.
link |
And there is a little bit of that in father and son
link |
with Cat Stevens too, you know,
link |
like when the son is saying,
link |
from the moment that I could talk, I was ordered to listen.
link |
I always remember listening to that line,
link |
feeling like that really moved me.
link |
But the beauty of that song is it shows,
link |
it's kind of like the theme of what I feel like
link |
we've talked about since the second you got here,
link |
which is something I really like.
link |
I don't know why it's such an important theme
link |
in my life right now, but the duality of just understanding
link |
that you don't understand someone else's situation.
link |
And there's truth to both sides.
link |
Like there's truth to what the father is saying to the son.
link |
He's like saying these things and he's like,
link |
I'm looking out for you, I love you.
link |
Take your time with these things.
link |
If you want to get married, you know you can.
link |
Like these things will bring you up.
link |
And then the son saying, listen,
link |
like I want to pave my own path.
link |
I want to do this.
link |
Like, why are you telling me this?
link |
Like the son's not wrong.
link |
Cause there's a lot of parents who tell their kids
link |
what to do and they're wrong, you know what I mean?
link |
Like, and they don't let the kid form the path
link |
that they need to, but should you not be a parent?
link |
Like, you know what I mean?
link |
There's just two sides to it.
link |
There's a thing, it is annoying when you're older,
link |
you get to see people do all the same things.
link |
You could say, well, this is a phase and you'll see
link |
that this actually will end up in this way.
link |
You can like predict how the life unrolls.
link |
And it's very annoying for young people to hear,
link |
especially cause it's probably going to be true.
link |
It's like, no, it's not going to be like this.
link |
No, I'm going to be different.
link |
But then you become that person.
link |
But that doesn't mean they also let them live that life.
link |
Let them make the mistakes,
link |
but they're not mistakes actually.
link |
They're like beautiful deviations
link |
from the path that they end up on.
link |
And those make the path.
link |
Do you have advice for young folks today?
link |
You've had like an incredible dark journey
link |
and a successful one, a loving one,
link |
and one of the most successful artists in the world.
link |
Is there advice you can give to young people today
link |
that would like to find themselves to that way,
link |
especially if they're struggling?
link |
I thought you said device at first.
link |
And I was like, honestly,
link |
I feel like that device is not helping.
link |
Maybe everybody should get away,
link |
throw away their devices.
link |
I would just say like what I emphasize to my kids
link |
is I really, really want my kids
link |
to just learn to love themself.
link |
It's easier said than done.
link |
It's really easy to pick on yourself in life.
link |
It's really easy to look in the mirror
link |
and wish you looked different,
link |
wish you were more successful like that person over there,
link |
wish that, you know, wish a lot of things.
link |
And people that I see that really succeed at life
link |
really succeed truly.
link |
And that doesn't mean they're making money necessarily
link |
or they're succeeding.
link |
And, you know, they're talking to a lot of people
link |
like their success, success to me is like happy
link |
and real, they have real self love.
link |
You meet, you know, when you meet someone,
link |
you meet Rick, for instance, you meet Rick Rubin.
link |
Rick has a calmness about him.
link |
And it's funny because everybody sees him
link |
as this like Zen master.
link |
Like Rick is just a really loving person
link |
who also loves himself and has self confidence
link |
because you just see it and it resonates.
link |
And that's why he draws people.
link |
And that's why he's so great in the studio
link |
because you know his intentions, always.
link |
As an artist, when a producer comes in, you're like,
link |
whoa, whoa, whoa, what are your intentions?
link |
What are you trying to do?
link |
Are you trying to get a hit out of me for the label?
link |
Are you trying to make me something?
link |
Are you trying to like make me this
link |
so you can prove this about yourself?
link |
Like there's a lot in that dynamic.
link |
And the reason that Rick is so good is because
link |
you know his intentions and his intentions come
link |
because Rick has that self love.
link |
So for me, find the things about yourself
link |
because they're there that you love
link |
and really focus in on them.
link |
And it's not selfish.
link |
Like I feel like I was brought up in a family too
link |
where it was like, never look inward, like be selfless.
link |
Like serve, serve, serve.
link |
Which by the way, is a true principle of life.
link |
I think you love yourself more when you serve more.
link |
I think that's really evident in life.
link |
But also spend time doing the things that make you happy.
link |
Take time every day to go on that walk
link |
that you need to go on.
link |
Listen to that book tape that you need to listen to.
link |
Like for me, that's something I need.
link |
I know if I do that, I'm gonna be a better dad
link |
because I gave myself some love back in life.
link |
And just forgive yourself.
link |
I think forgive yourself because everybody messes up.
link |
Everybody hurts others.
link |
Everybody says unkind words at times.
link |
Everybody fails all the time.
link |
And if you think that you're gonna not, you're wrong.
link |
And you're eventually going to
link |
and you're either gonna punish yourself for it every day
link |
and be a lesser version of what you could be
link |
or you're gonna forgive yourself for it.
link |
And if you learned that that's not something you want
link |
then try not to do it again.
link |
If you do it again and you're probably gonna do it again,
link |
whatever that is, you're gonna gossip about that person.
link |
You're gonna feel bad
link |
because then you gossiped about someone.
link |
Is there something you could say in terms of self love?
link |
Is there a role for being critical?
link |
Like those demons of self criticism,
link |
do you need a little bit of that?
link |
Tom Waits talks about,
link |
I like my Tom with a little drop of poison.
link |
Need a little poison?
link |
Or a mental situation of poison?
link |
Look, my biggest thing in life that has been
link |
the thing that I've worked on the hardest
link |
for the last few years is to not be overly critical.
link |
And to let go of control.
link |
I think it's really easy to kill an artist.
link |
It's really easy to kill an artist.
link |
Like if my dad would have sat down with me that day
link |
and even if he would have just sat down and been like,
link |
good job son, okay.
link |
It's not silly, right?
link |
Like I didn't, not everybody has a dad
link |
who's gonna ever do something
link |
or put in the time or whatever.
link |
But that might've altered everything for me.
link |
Like my dad taking the extra time
link |
to just give me a thoughtful response opposed to,
link |
kids know, kids know when you're just like
link |
trying to get out of the room or whatever.
link |
I knew he wasn't and that did a lot.
link |
But is that a huge, isn't that what makes the artist?
link |
It's the fragility of it that like,
link |
would you have it any other way?
link |
No, no, I agree with you.
link |
I think that that's what, that's the beauty of art.
link |
But I think also on the same token, it's like,
link |
I went to Music Cares recently,
link |
which is a charity for musicians
link |
that are down on their luck.
link |
That maybe were successful at one point
link |
or have never been successful
link |
and they can't even pay the bills
link |
and this charity contributes money to these artists,
link |
aspiring artists or artists who've had drug issues.
link |
And like, there's a lot that they do,
link |
but, and there was a statistic
link |
that they told it was staggering to me,
link |
which is, I think it was 75% of artists, musicians,
link |
say they struggle with severe depression.
link |
That's really high.
link |
I don't know what the national average is,
link |
but I would guess that that's higher than national average
link |
So I just think there's a tricky balance.
link |
There's a tricky balance in art.
link |
So yeah, of course, like it's a necessary thing,
link |
the fragility of it all, but.
link |
Yeah, I wonder, cause I'm extremely self critical
link |
and I sometimes ask myself the question,
link |
I've romanticized it or rather I've learned to be,
link |
for it to be productive, to channel it into productivity.
link |
But I wonder if there's better ways to do that.
link |
And I also wonder if it's eventually the thing
link |
Like if longterm, if it's a healthy thing,
link |
it might be useful when you're sort of
link |
actively fighting the battles of the day,
link |
for me it's engineering challenges
link |
and all that kind of stuff.
link |
But then when you're sitting back and enjoying life
link |
with family and so on, is that going to be,
link |
like, do you need to find that self love,
link |
like ability to kind of silence the voice of criticism
link |
You know what, I really, there's a good,
link |
you're making a good point.
link |
And I think that the middle ground is you need,
link |
you need self doubt to push you to be better.
link |
I do believe that like, for instance,
link |
if I believed I've hit my, like when you're like,
link |
is there a song on there that you think is genius?
link |
If I think I've written a genius song ever,
link |
I think I'd probably stop.
link |
I think I'd be like, you know what?
link |
Did it, I wrote, what's that perfect song?
link |
If I'd written imagine, I'd probably be like, that's it,
link |
did it, all right, perfect song has been written.
link |
That's the best thing I'll ever do.
link |
So the fact that there is like self criticism
link |
and criticism outside, I think is necessary.
link |
A hundred percent for sure.
link |
It pushes you, it pushes you, it pushes you.
link |
It's just finding the right middle ground
link |
for that young aspiring artist to also not feel squashed
link |
and to be heard and to love,
link |
just to not even to feel squashed, just to love themself.
link |
So that when they're in the room playing the song,
link |
they'll believe it because they believe themself.
link |
They love themself enough that they believe it
link |
and then they'll do a great,
link |
and then the song will come out great
link |
and they'll do a great performance.
link |
I have to ask, it's one of the very interesting aspects
link |
of your life of the way you put love out there in the world.
link |
What is at the core of your support for the LGBT community?
link |
A couple of things.
link |
So one, growing up in, from a young age
link |
in the artist community,
link |
a lot of my closest friends were LGBTQ,
link |
starting in middle school.
link |
And I think a lot of the best artists in the world
link |
are LGBTQ and that's just, it's not a secret.
link |
Like it just is, like the artist community is filled
link |
with lots of LGBTQ people.
link |
So I think being raised in that community
link |
in that my friends struggled with their faith
link |
and their sexuality really opened up my eyes
link |
to how incredibly hard that path is.
link |
For instance, okay, when I was in high school,
link |
there was someone who went in front of,
link |
who was LGBTQ and was Mormon
link |
and felt like there was not a place for them in the church.
link |
They felt like the path, when you're being told
link |
that it's evil and you believe it
link |
because you believe in your faith
link |
and you feel like it's unchangeable,
link |
you're putting a kid in a situation
link |
where there's really no good resolution.
link |
It's either be alone for the rest of your life
link |
or marry outside your sexual preference,
link |
which I don't wanna marry a man.
link |
Like if I was forced to marry a man,
link |
I'm like, I don't want to marry a man
link |
because I'm heterosexual.
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So you're forcing a kid into a situation
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where it's very dangerous.
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Long story short, this kid went in front
link |
of the Las Vegas Mormon temple and shot himself,
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That impacted our community.
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Like, and not just that, but it was like severe bullying
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to LGBTQ kids in the 90s, it was especially different.
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Like there's still bullying, don't get me wrong,
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but man, like bullying in school,
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I don't really know actually what it's like in schools now.
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Maybe the bullying is just as bad as it was in the 90s,
link |
but there was like, it was like,
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I would hear all the time, like the F slur being slung out
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at people who were LGBTQ all the time
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and I wasn't even LGBTQ.
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So I, you know, it's just seeing that,
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I think that every, any social justice issue
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It takes all pieces of the puzzle.
link |
If only the pieces of the puzzle contributed
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are from the side that is affected,
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I don't believe that we'll ever have resolution.
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We're doing a shit job and we need to do better.
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And that's just, that's the reality of it.
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So that was part of the reason I also have family
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who's LGBTQ and it's just something
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that's been part of my path.
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And I feel like I'm a big believer
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and take the path that is presented to you.
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And this was just something that came up in my life a lot.
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When I met my wife, she was living with her two best friends
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who were LGBTQ who really didn't want her to marry me
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because I was Mormon.
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And at the time it was prop eight,
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which was Mormons were fighting against LGBT gay marriage.
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And so that, then they didn't come to our wedding
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and that really broke my wife's heart.
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So it was just like, because Mormonism represented everything
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that was against their community.
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So you felt you had to say something.
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Yeah, I felt like by not saying anything,
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I was saying everything.
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I felt like by not speaking up and being like,
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hey, Dan Reynolds is Mormon singer.
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Here's this new band, Magic Dragons and they're Mormons.
link |
It was like, okay, well, what do Mormons represent?
link |
They represent prop eight.
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What does prop eight represent?
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Bigotry towards the LGBTQ community.
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Okay, I can speak in every interview and be like,
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well, that's not me.
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I don't believe that too.
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Or I could just be more active about it.
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And especially when it's affecting my family
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and friends throughout my entire life, it was like,
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all right, this seems like a path that you need to go down.
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So long story short is a path that just presented itself
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through things in my life.
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So just on that topic that religion and God
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give a lot of meaning to a lot of people.
link |
It gives a tradition that brings people together
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across the generations, but it also can hurt people.
link |
What do you make about that tension?
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So source of meaning, but also a source of pain for people.
link |
The reality is, at least to me,
link |
again, this is just my reality.
link |
I feel like I'm doing my dad's thing
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every time I'm talking to him.
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Or I'm like, I don't really know, here's my two cents.
link |
You have become your father.
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The reality and it's my reality and it is the reality
link |
for sure is there's, I think that religion
link |
has brought a lot of hurt and pain to a lot of people.
link |
Absolutely it has.
link |
I don't think anybody can dispute that on either side,
link |
whether it's war, whether it's slaughtering
link |
of entire peoples, there's been a lot of pain
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and suffering that has come from religion.
link |
So my little thing that has been hard for me
link |
is a faith crisis, right?
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I had religion and then I lost it and then I had nothing.
link |
So that's for me, I was like,
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well, religion did that to me, right?
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But then at one point it's kind of like,
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how much of my life am I just gonna complain
link |
about being raised Mormon or being depressed?
link |
As I get older, I'm like, okay, so what?
link |
Okay, it's really hurt me,
link |
but were there any good things that came out of Mormonism?
link |
Well, yeah, there's a lot of good things
link |
that have come to my family through Mormonism.
link |
Closeness, we're really, really close.
link |
Mormon culture is that you live together forever, right?
link |
The teaching is that your families are forever.
link |
We die and then we go to heaven together
link |
and we're together forever.
link |
My family really believes that principle, all of them do.
link |
And that instills a certain way of living
link |
that's kind of beautiful, even if it's naivety.
link |
There's something kind of beautiful
link |
about believing that we're forming these bonds together
link |
as a family and that like,
link |
we're gonna be together forever.
link |
It brings a lot of comfort to a kid too.
link |
When I was little, I was like, wow,
link |
it's gonna be okay if I die
link |
because I get to see my mom again, you know what I mean?
link |
I really believe that.
link |
Is the right answer that you tell that kid,
link |
actually when you die, you're not gonna see your mom again.
link |
Maybe, it might be, I don't know.
link |
And anybody who has a kid is gonna face that moment.
link |
I've already faced it where you sit down
link |
and my kid was like, hey dad,
link |
when you die, am I gonna see you again?
link |
That was actually a really hard moment for me
link |
because I was suddenly faced with,
link |
okay, do I give the answer that I thought was bullshit?
link |
Or do I give the answer of what I think it is?
link |
Or do I give the real answer, which is, I don't know.
link |
And that's what I chose,
link |
which as a father, that's not always the easiest answer
link |
because your kid, it's a wonderful thing
link |
that you feel like you can give your kid the comfort of like,
link |
hey, your parents are gonna take care of everything.
link |
We know everything.
link |
We've been around.
link |
My kid's always like, are you the strongest?
link |
I'm like, yeah, I am the strongest.
link |
I'm stronger than everybody.
link |
Yeah, I'm stronger than everybody.
link |
So when you're faced with that moment,
link |
it's like, it kind of sucks to tell your kid like,
link |
I don't know if you're gonna see me after I die,
link |
That's why I said, I was like, I don't know, but I hope.
link |
because that would be awesome if we can hang out forever.
link |
And if there's any way for it to happen,
link |
I'll make it happen.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
That's kind of what my answer was.
link |
So long story short,
link |
sorry, I know that I'm being lengthy on this.
link |
Is there like, what is my thought on religion?
link |
It's been here forever.
link |
Maybe it's, I can't say whether it's true or false.
link |
How the hell am I supposed to know?
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like I've lived 34 years on this planet.
link |
A lot of people have been around a lot longer than me
link |
and they really believe very deeply.
link |
And a lot of them are smarter than me.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like I look at my older brothers, for instance,
link |
who are very practicing Mormons.
link |
These guys are hyper intelligent.
link |
My younger sister, hyper intelligent.
link |
All of them start smarter than me.
link |
They all believe it still.
link |
So what am I supposed to say?
link |
Well, you're all stupid.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like you're all wrong.
link |
Like maybe it's the South Park episode
link |
where everybody dies and then they're like,
link |
well, the right answer was Mormonism.
link |
And everybody's like, aww.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like Mormons love that moment in South Park.
link |
They're like, hey, that day may come.
link |
That day may come.
link |
Yeah, so maybe I don't know is the honest answer
link |
for everybody around the table.
link |
But the biggest question
link |
for which I don't know is the right answer
link |
is what's the meaning of this whole thing?
link |
What's the meaning of life?
link |
No, you're not allowed to say I don't know.
link |
You can be just like your dad and say,
link |
let me just give my two cents.
link |
Take it or leave it.
link |
Whatever it's worth, take it or leave it.
link |
It's probably worth nothing.
link |
It's piddled on the ground.
link |
I mean, why are we here?
link |
It's just busily creating all these kinds of things,
link |
worrying about things, having kids.
link |
My purpose, at least right now,
link |
is to wake up and try to
link |
to bring light love to the world,
link |
light love to myself and have integrity.
link |
That's my purpose.
link |
The ultimate purpose of life,
link |
that I guess that's my ultimate purpose of life.
link |
I don't know what happens when I die.
link |
Ayahuasca gave me some sense that there's more to be known.
link |
I'm sure there are other things in life
link |
that would give me that, and I'm looking for it.
link |
I'm always looking for the next something
link |
to give me hope in something more,
link |
even if so, I could just not bullshit my kids
link |
when they ask me that question and be like,
link |
you know what, I really don't know.
link |
I wanna not know more, if that makes sense.
link |
I don't wanna, I want to see things that make me confused,
link |
that make me question what I already knew.
link |
Like I am like, when I meet an atheist who comes up to me
link |
and they're like, atheism, atheism, atheism.
link |
It's just as laughable to me as when I meet the Mormon
link |
who comes up and they're like,
link |
Mormonism, Mormonism, Mormonism.
link |
I'm like, how do you, how do anyone, how do you guys know?
link |
They'd like, like, you know.
link |
So you feel like you're doing some, through all your travels,
link |
through all the people you meet,
link |
you feel like you're still keeping your eyes open
link |
and your heart open to sort of discover something new,
link |
like the ayahuasca experience,
link |
that there might be deeper truths out there.
link |
Yeah, and I wanna find them,
link |
and I wanna surround myself with people
link |
who are just looking for it.
link |
I'm not interested in people who are just looking
link |
to point fingers at each, like life is so short.
link |
I'm looking for, it's one of the reasons
link |
that I wanna meet with you is I was like, wow,
link |
Lex really seems like he's on a journey to find truth.
link |
And that humility for me is same thing with Rick.
link |
It drew me to Rick.
link |
It was like, I really, I see that and identify with it.
link |
And that's what I'm looking for.
link |
There's the final song on our record,
link |
our new record that's coming out.
link |
The chorus goes, and this is like,
link |
this is my best answer to what you're asking.
link |
So the chorus goes,
link |
take it easy on me.
link |
I need some lullaby.
link |
They tell me heaven's just a lie.
link |
Well, I'm not surprised.
link |
Tell me that you know.
link |
Yeah, you're just like me.
link |
Can we just all hope for the best?
link |
So that's it for me.
link |
It's like, I'm in a place where I'm like, I don't know.
link |
Tell me, I'm not gonna believe you.
link |
I'm not gonna believe it,
link |
but let's just be easier on each other
link |
and try to find truth wherever it may lie.
link |
But above all, know that we don't know jack shit.
link |
I think that's a mic drop moment.
link |
Dan, thank you so much.
link |
You're an incredible human.
link |
I love that you share with the world
link |
the darkness of your mind, of your life experience
link |
and the beautiful light that you've shown to the world.
link |
So it's a huge honor
link |
and thank you for spending your valuable time.
link |
Good luck on the tour.
link |
Thanks for having me.
link |
Thanks for listening to this conversation
link |
with Dan Reynolds.
link |
To support this podcast,
link |
please check out our sponsors in the description.
link |
And now let me leave you with some words
link |
from Aldous Huxley.
link |
After silence, that which comes nearest
link |
to expressing the inexpressible is music.
link |
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.