And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 68: Sam Nelson Harris (X Ambassadors)

Episode Date: September 16, 2019

This week our guest is a songwriter and the lead singer of the band, X Ambassadors. X Ambassadors’ debut platinum-selling album ‘VHS’ saw the band transition from Ithaca alt-rockers and Brooklyn indie scene outsiders, to Billboard stalwarts. The album was an intimate insight into our guest and his brothers’ youth, studded with audio snippets from home movies, and early recording sessions and sound checks. With it, came the genre-defining, multi-platinum hits “Unsteady” and “Renegades,” a three-year global touring odyssey and a string of high-profile festival performances. His songwriting became increasingly personal resulting in the shattering, shimmering 2018 singles “JOYFUL” and “Don’t Stay” followed by a North American headline tour. With X Ambassadors our guest has co-written and featured on songs such as “Home” from the Bright Soundtrack with Machine Gun Kelly and Bebe Rexha, “Transmission” with Zedd and Logic, and the 3x multi-platinum song, “Sucker for Pain” from the Suicide Squad Soundtrack with Imagine Dragons, Lil Wayne, Logic, Ty Dolla $ign & Wiz Khalifa. He has also co-written songs for other artists and projects including, “American Oxygen” by Rihanna, “Bad Husband” by Eminem, “Jerome,” “Cuz I Love You,” and “Heaven Help Me” by Lizzo. Additionally, he co-wrote 8 songs on the 2019 album, ‘For The Throne (Music Inspired by the HBO Series Game of Thrones)’ which featured artists such as Maren Morris, X Ambassadors, SZA, The Weeknd and Travis Scott. Always looking to give back to the community that raised them, X Ambassadors returned to Ithaca for the second annual Cayuga Sound Festival this past September creating and curating two days of musical performances and raising money for local charities. In 2019 X Ambassadors released “BOOM,” a quick-fire anthem for emphatic recovery and personal revolutions from their new album, ‘ORION’. This episode features two parts; an intimate discussion with Ross and the other a live audience interview held at the Deutsch agency in Los Angeles. And The Writer Is… Sam Nelson Harris! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Season 5 of And the Writer is with your host, Ross Golan. Before I get my spiel, I want to acknowledge the music army that listens to this podcast every week. Since starting this, the And The Writer is community has literally changed the history of the music business by helping pass the music modernization act, gotten songwriters added to album of the year for the Grammys, and still is advocating for positive changes for our industry. industry on a daily basis. So thank you and congrats. Now, as you know, I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs. I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, Big Deal Music Publishing, and

mega house music management. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special live events, or buy that merch, aka that hat I always wear, go to our website www. And The Writer is.com. Today's podcast is brought to you by our friends at Banzugal. Though for musicians by musicians,

you can use Banzugel's tools to design a website, EPK, sell music, merch directly to your fans' commission free. But Banzugal just recently launched fan subscriptions, which lets fans pay a monthly fee in exchange for exclusive rewards and access to your music. Like all Banzugal sales tools, fan subscriptions are commission free. Just go to banzugal.com to try it free for 30 days, and be sure to use the promo code ATWI to get 15% off the first year of any subscription. That's Banzogel.com. Use the promo code ATWI to get 15% off the first year of any subscription.

Songwriters, think about your favorite hit song and what makes it in earworm. You could be the writer behind the next song that goes viral. Enter the 20th annual NSAI song contest presented by Martin Guitar's Nstrings and CMT. You could win several prizes, including the one-on-one mentoring session with El King, myself, and fellow and the writer is producer Joe London. The lyric-only winner will score $2,000 cash and mentoring session with award-winning song or Tom Douglas, as well as other coveted prizes. Send in your best songs now through October 31st at nsaI.cumt.com.

Hey, guys. I was over by the snacks, because when in doubt, that's probably where I am. I was peeing. That's also probably went and down probably where I am most of the time. Listen to your voice. It's deep. It's resonant. Mine's so Jewish. It's so Jewish. You love it. You hear it. You know it, baby. Hold on, those are directions to get to where I am at right now.

You guys doing all right? Yeah. Good, good. This is my day off. All right, so here's actually what's happening. Sam and I are friends. We did a version of Ann the writer is about a year ago. So I think what's kind of fun about this is that you can see how much happens in a songwriter's

life in one year of life. Last year, yeah. The last time we spoke, I think I was like fully, I remember talking and I was like, I'm in crisis mode right now. My album's not done. I have no idea what I'm doing. It was like, you're like, it's fine. You're going to be all right.

Well, that's what, when you hear it, you're going to hear this. And then you're going to hear the, you know, the conversation from a year ago because I think that's part, that's actually kind of interesting. It's what we're always so used to now, now, more, more, more. And we're in these crises modes all the time. But it doesn't really, it doesn't work that way. My wife is here, and I'm sure she's laughing, being like,

I should listen to my own advice. So I'm going to read the interview, or the intro that I did then, so you guys can experience the joy. Okay. Welcome to Anne the Writer is. I am your host, Ross Golan. Today's multi-platinum songwriting frontman. and philanthropist is as versatile as he is talented,

having worked with everyone from Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Logic, Imagine Dragons, and Thai Dala sign. All on one track, by the way. All in one song. To Zed, and the writer is alum, Bibi Rexa, all the way from Ithaca, New York, it's gorgeous. This singer doesn't just say he'll be a philanthropist, he puts his money where his mouth is.

And the writer is ex-ambassadors frontman Sam Harris. Hey. That gorgeous line is still funny. It's still classic. Those of you who don't know that, anybody who's been to Ithaca. Or been to Urban Outfitters and bought a t-shirt that says Ithaca is gorgeous.

Yeah, it's like gorgeous, like, spelled like gorgees like land gorgeous. It's okay. It's an inside joke. Forget it. Look it up. Don't worry about it. Okay. Oh, really? You're from Rithica?

All right, okay, so you know what's up. So, should we start with the X-embassers? Or should we start with all the other writing? Because like you were saying, let's pick up. You can fill them in a little bit just before. We'll start with X-in-Bassar. You can give them a little cliff notes of other stuff that we've done. Let's start from the beginning.

Where are you from? I'm from Ithaca, New York. I'm from upstate New York. And who taught you music? you know it was it was a little bit of my mom so my mom was a singer she was like a jazz cabaret singer um and you know around the house like we had a piano in the house and she was every once in a while going out to do gigs and you know when i was really little we did you know a couple songs from oliver the musical together like you know it was cute she'd bring her kids out and we'd sing

so that and then just like which songs um I'd do anything for you, dear, anything. Yes, I do anything. Anything, anything for you. Yeah, that was the classic. That was the hit. That was a moneymaker, you know. So good.

So good. So you start, you know, skip forward because we got a lot to go through. I mean, you're in a band with your brother. Yeah, yeah. That seems like either a really good idea or a really bad idea because I would imagine that people get really competitive with their siblings but somehow you guys are on stage together on a nightly basis.

How did it go from you guys growing up in the same house to being in a band together? Well, I had my first band when I was like 13 I think with, it was my friend Noah who was originally in ex-embassers playing guitar for us and then two of our other friends and it was like my thing right my brother's my older brother he's older by two years and and we're young kids we got along and then like as teenagers we just hated each other so I didn't want a thing to do with him I was like you do not this is my band he's hey he was playing piano already at that time but he would sneak downstairs when I wasn't there because the rest of the guys in my band were friends with my brother

and so he'd come downstairs and be jamming with them and I'd come down like Casey we got to practice man like please can you like leave and then he'd leave and they'd be like yo your brother's really good like you should we should play with them and I was like no no and finally they convinced me and in high school we started playing me together

and that was genuinely what brought us closer together and brought us back together was playing music together and uh yeah i mean you know our relationship is is a very different dynamic you know my brother was born blind for those of you who don't know so growing up you know he'd depend he would depend on me for a lot of things and there was you know i i would say he would also agree with this there was resentment that built and and it was like you know it was tough it was tough on both of us but then here was something that came into our lives that was really unifying and that we both kind of had such a passion for and and were on the same page about and uh yeah it was it was just like just made sense as a writer

when do you when did you start writing your own music was it in high school in this band we were only doing original songs the entire time from the beginning the entire time i was in bands as a kid we were only doing original stuff. What's the first song you wrote? A song called Lead Rose. And it was like very like How does it go? Kiss me my Red Rose.

Oh. Cold enchantress. Oh, hey. Yes. Kiss me my lead rose. I'm a hopeless romantic. That's all I remember. Yeah. That's all you remember. It's the whole chorus. That's the entire voice. I think mine was called Steve the Dog. And I don't think, I know it was called Steve the Dog.

Do you remember any of it? Can you sing it? Yeah, for sure. Well, it works in three parts. It's really anthemic. And we're going to see Paul McCartney on Saturday. I know. I'm so jealous. And, you know, it's like those Beatles songs where it was sort of, you know,

you'd have, you know, the long and winding road that would be a multi, you know, three songs put together kind of thing. Or a day in the life, I should say. You know, where it's three parts. Yeah, Steve the Dog was a lot of that. And there's like, Steve the Dog, at the end. We would get everyone to do this and sing, whatever. Oh, that's nice. I'd say we get everyone, like there was anyone else there.

It's like your parents and your cousin. This is just, this conversation is going the wrong direction. Oh, my God, no, I love it. I also love that you're, like, influenced by Paul McCartney, and I'm, like, singing a song that was definitely influenced by, like, a creed song that I heard on the radio that I really loved. Was it, it was, right? Absolutely.

I had no idea. I mean, I'm a little Jewish kid from upstate New York and listening to this, like, heavy-duty Christian dudes, like, singing these songs that I just loved. I loved. Have you ever met some of it? Scott Stepp? No. I know cash worked with him. We were on a...

That's a whole different. We were on a panel for... It was in D.C. It was for a bunch of legislation stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's just strange when you're, you know, as you get older and you look over to your right and like, that's the guy from Creed. What do we do on the same panel? This is getting weird.

So, you know, ex-ambassadors, you were called ex- ambassadors in high school, right? Or no. No, no. In high school, we were called, first we were called Pocket because we ate a lot of hot pockets. And then we were called subject to change because we couldn't come up with a name

and we thought that was clever. And then we were nameless for a while. Once we made the move to New York, that was me and Noah and Casey and then that's where we met Adam. We started playing together in 2006, 2007. and didn't have just didn't have a name. I think we were called like,

called ourselves like the weight, like the band song. And then we were like kins, like your brother, like your kin, but kins. And there is maybe one other name. And then we landed on ambassadors because we were, for, you know, for the, I don't know if anybody here has ever been in a band before, but it's the worst part of being in a band

and the hardest part in being in any band is coming up with the name. and we were in our rehearsal space looking at objects in the room and being like, what about table? What about chair? What about tripod? And Adam, he plays like, Rimo-coated ambassador drumheads.

So he's like, what about ambassadors? And we were like, yeah, that's fine. Just move on. And then it wasn't until we signed with Interscope that we changed it to X ambassadors because the label wanted to put a song of ours on the soundtrack and they were trying to clear the name and there were so many ambassadors of or ambassadors

and they were like you're going to have to pay a lot of money or change his name. So we put an X in front of it. That's literally that's right. And it becomes, you know, it's like your gravestone will be like front man of ex-ambassadors. You're like, no, it was because it was formerly a drum cover. it's ridiculous

I was in a band called Sacrilicious and we were like What kind of music was it Is it like jam bandy? No no my My The

You ever in like a jam band We I mean I was in a Dave Matthews Fish cover band Dough of course I was once at a writing camp And we were like What's for lunch And someone said fish

So we put fish on the radio And we had that for the whole camp We just put fish on I mean, that was, yeah. Oh, my God. But, yeah, even Sacrilycious was, you know, that was taken. It's incredible. That's crazy. Sacrilycious was taken?

But, I mean, the songs, whatever. I mean, you would think that, I feel like when you, when you, if this is 1960s and you can be called the band, because it just wasn't taken yet. Right. I mean, this, people don't realize how young the recording industry is that, you know, publishing is only really. vastly since 1909. I mean, copyright law from 1886, not going all the way back to that. But, you know, recorded music is mostly from the 50s, from Elvis, is when we start talking about, you know, serious money. And granted that there's recorded music all through the early 1900s and 1917's jazz and you get through, you know, radio. And by the time you get to the recording music industry,

it's really only the 50s and 60s. So there was a time where you could have names like the band and they just weren't taken. Right, which is so great. Now it's just that you have to like spell your name in a crazy way and has to like have it's numbers and periods in it to like, you know, it's wild.

Sure. So how do you get your first publishing deal? Our first publishing deal, well, so we were... Or did the Interscope come first? No, the publishing deal. came first. That was in, I think, 2012 or 2011, we signed with Songs Publishing, which is now Cobalt. And that was like, I mean, we were a baby band. We had self-released our first EP, which was under ambassadors. And I think when we signed with songs, we were still just

ambassadors. And so we had these 10 songs of ours that we had written and recorded on our own and taken out of like a loan of like we somehow convinced the studio to let us record this record for for free essentially but we signed a contract with them that was like we're going to bill you for it and you're going to eventually have to pay us back and it was like $50,000 and I think we I don't know what our advance was it was like not $15,000 or something I got from songs not a lot but it helped pay for some of that and it helped pay for some touring stuff and we needed the money you know like it was so it's so funny because this this industry it's so hard to navigate even if you know it and have been in it for so long

and you know I had like my you know my dad's and works in the film industry and he had some people who were in music and they would all say like never sign never sign away you're publishing like hold on you're publishing and and here we were like you know it's in the infancy of our band, like, signing away. Take it. Just like, take it. Like, enough money to, like, live off of for a month. That's great. Okay, cool. We'll do it. We just had to, you know, and that was...

But also, songs were... They were a great group of people, and they really loved the music, and we're passionate enough about us to offer us a deal, like, right away. Well, not to skip forward, but the importance of licensing and for companies like this one. Yes.

You know, you guys are evidence of the value of a company like Deutsch because you end up with your first real hit is Renegade, which ends up being licensed everywhere. And we're always fighting for these slots for radio chart positions and whatnot, But, you know, it's ex-embassarers versus Taylor Swift, Drake, you know, Adele, Ed Shearin, and you're trying to sneak in and be like, check out my song.

And if it isn't for, you know, people willing to take a risk on seemingly unknown artists at the time, and we don't really have a shot, you know, unless you're writing with those people. Yeah. So what's it like when, you know, something like Renegade. takes its shape. Well, that song, I mean, like, God, that one really was such a perfect storm of, you know,

having the driver of the Jeep campaign that it started in, us being, excuse me, us being in the commercial ourselves. And then on top of that, you know, it being catchy enough for radio to want to play it too. And radio also looks to that,

I think with, especially in alternative, and they look for other drivers now. Now they're looking a lot at streaming. Like if a song is really streaming, at the time, like if you had a million streams on a song, that was fine. But if you also had a commercial behind it, that was great. Now it's like you have to have, you know,

like your song has to be, you know, 20 million streams, you know, in order for radio to start playing it. But it was the perfect storm of all those things of us being in the, the ad and then picking it up and at the ad being they had a like a multi-million dollar ad buy uh and uh it changed everything for us that that was our our first like foot in the door you know and you always need that and uh if it hadn't been for the song being in a jeep campaign like that i don't i don't know if it and it's funny because we had actually prior to that had the song Jungle come out,

which we did with Jamie Ann Commons, and that was on an EP, and that song was in a Beats by Dre Headphones ad for the World Cup, which was a huge spot, and it was like, Nabil directed the commercials, this gorgeous commercial, and the spot was big,

and the song was being played everywhere on television, and radio didn't pick it up, so it didn't do anything. So sometimes, so sometimes it, like, you can have everything going for it and it still doesn't pop but this was just one of those lucky situations where the driver

was there with the commercial and then radio did pick it up yeah this is your story not mine but when when Atlantic went to radio for my house radio said they didn't like it and they didn't play it

and it just happened I just heard that on the radio the other day Hell yeah. Chachin. But they went and they, just because fraternies and sororities started using it on Fridays and Saturdays, it would spike up on iTunes.

Shout out. You know, it would spike up on iTunes. And then all of a sudden everyone was like, it just stayed there. But it was really because of that fall, even though the song had come out before. And then because of that, then it got into like a domino.

those commercial and it started getting, it's the same sort of thing where licensing just kind of forced it into the guy. It has to be, it has to be so forced into the rest of the world. And to like everyone's, you know, a sphere before it can go to radio. It's, it's very rare that like it starts at radio and then kind of builds from there. So you rate a bunch more hits on Steady, Sucker for Pain. That one, Steady was also a one. that took, we talked about this a little bit, that one took two years. It had been out, or three years. It had been out already before Renegades. Oh, wow. I didn't realize it was before Renegades on an EP. So crazy. Yeah, and then after, you know, Renegades came out and people started caring about what we were doing,

we ended up going to radio with Unsteady and that was a slow, slow build, but that ended up, I think that ended up actually, like selling more than Renegades did. I mean, we're all, we're all expecting. for when we release songs for them to have a really big impact week. We're taught to think like that because the metrics show and I'm sure that people in the advertising world can relate to this.

You're looking at its immediate impact and sometimes these things have that growth is what we're talking about. It's enough impact over time and to have the wherewithal this stick with something no matter where it is and for a company to say,

no, we believe in this, even if it isn't reacting today, that it will react over time. That takes, you know, a whole community to make that happen. Yeah, that takes a lot of chutzpah. There you go. I like that.

Sucker for pain becomes, you know, that feels like the first time where you really wrote for somebody else. Yeah, which is so funny because this song comes up all the time. it comes up all the time with us I lit this was most of it was written by Dan Reynolds from Magic and I got the song

sent to me from Alex and he was like do you want to try writing some like a verse on this or something and I came up with a little bridge thing at the end crazy that's it that's all I did on it and they tacked my name on so the like you've heard Ty Dolla you've heard Wiz you've heard Loe Wayne

you've heard Dan you've heard logic and then at the very end the last like 10 seconds are of me singing it that my little section it kind of fades out. And then this song has just like become ubiquitous with our name which is so, it's just so funny to me. It's great though. I had to bring

that up. Yeah, it's a great one. When the first time I met Flowrider was over Good Feeling. And I wrote the bridge when it was good feeling with the Avichy track. And then they sold the track. They had to redo it. They cut out the

bridge. But for for a while, two and a half percent of a worldwide number one song. Yeah. Which was totally fine because then it would have been like,

oh, it's written by this guy, even though it's like, let's be honest. I just, I was next door. I think I have like 1%. Cool.

I'm going to, I'll make it sound like at 90. So then, you know, that's sort of where we left off before. Yeah. I don't know if we have any more time,

but I'm going to go anyway. Let's just go. We're just going to go. So, you know, at that point, you're working on another album that seems like it's taking forever. Yeah. Last time we talked, I was like in the midst of it. Because, you know, also like we were just going through a lot of changes. One of the members of the band, we had kicked out of the band, and, you know, we had stopped working with Alex.

We were working with other producers and the label was changing. Songs got bought by coal. There was lots of stuff happening, lots of things changing. What was it that all those seem like negative transitions, the way you're talking about them, but all of those turn out to be positive? Oh, yeah. Yeah. When did you realize those were all positive? I think it had to be when we finally were able to like stop and look at where we were.

We stopped touring. We had just been on tour and thought we could make a... record while we were touring, which we had done on the first record, which was crazy. But we, I think, had to take a breath. We looked at all the songs we had written. I think it was reflected mostly in the songs that we had written up into that, up to that point because they felt so, they felt so raw and felt so genuine. and we had really leaned into this,

this idea of, of, um, vulnerability as a, as a band and as, you know, me as a songwriter, you know, I, I, I, fully leaned into that. Because I had found with Unsteady, a song that was very personal, a song about my parents' divorce, you know, and, and about, like, that, that kind of, that feeling of, of helpless isolation as a kid. And it was weird to write about because I was like, who cares? Who's going to care about this? This is like, boo-hoo.

but it really affected a lot of people and had fans of ours coming up to us and talking about that that type of vulnerability through all of this kind of struggle we were able to really turn into our weapon

and I think it just it fed into everything else that we did too with collaborating with other people too sure boom comes out and it has like

you know you and I Ricky Reed brothers where we share the same producer. Yeah. You do that, that song comes out and it has this urgency to it. Having been going through this time of like waiting for music to come out, was that by design to go with that song first because of that urgency? Well, originally we were going to go with a different song first.

Label wanted to go with a different song. They wanted to go hold you down, which we ended up putting out last. And I loved that song too. At this point, I was kind of like, when it comes to picking singles, man, you know, I know we've talked about this a little bit. There are a lot of songwriters that we know and artists that we know who are like,

I know what that first single is. Like, I want to go with this. Like, let's go. Sometimes in our experience as a band, the songs that have been the ones that have gone, like Renegades, we didn't think was anything special when we wrote it. You know, like I just don't.

have that in my brain, you know, to like be able to be like, that's a hit. You know, I will, I will pour my heart and soul into these songs and make each of them feel like they could have the potential to be hits. But like at the end of the day, I don't think any of us really know which ones are going to be like the ones that pop. That one, boom, in particular, was we got a, we got a really big sync for it. We got a really big sync for it with NBA. And we had to shift gears completely. And also, I had kind of been leaning,

I had been kind of leaning towards that one personally as the first single just because like, you can tell, like, I don't know, when I was,

when I would play it for people who had nothing to do with the music industry, I play it for like my friends who have, you know, a seven-year-old and an 11-year-old

kid, and the kids would be like, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's when I knew, like, oh, this one's really, this one's cool. So, you know, last time I saw you in person was at South by Southwest. Oh, I saw you. I don't know if you actually. Did you see me up in the balcony there at the church?

No, no, no, no. I'm talking about your show, not my own. Oh, right, right. Yeah. We both played at South by Southwest this year. But I saw you, you know, just to paint this picture where in Austin, Texas, it's a beautiful, like, stunning night. Lots of stars. Really pretty. skyline's incredible, illuminating behind this stage where there's a river and then there's this stage. And most of us who, when you're talking about the beginning of your band, you're talking about you play

into rooms that if you can bring 150, you play into a capacity for like 100 so that way it looks crowded. And you do that for years and maybe you go to a capacity of 100 to 300, maybe 300 to 1,000.

and that place was packed and there had to be 10,000 people there. Yeah, man. And to see you on stage and to let loose, it seemed like you're more comfortable in front of 10,000 people than, you know, than where we were when we were

even talking in an interview last. So to see us having this interview a year ago where you're not sure about when the album comes out and then you're performing in front of 10,000 people. I was just sure about anything. I was like literally. literally having a full-on crisis when we were talking about. What's what it's for? It's like therapy.

It was great. It's kind of what its session is anyway, though. I know. Yeah. It's true. It's true. But yeah, that was great. I want to talk about your other writing because I think this is important. In the songwriting community, and if any of you know any songwriters, there's a guy named Jay Cash, who's probably, you know, one of the smartest, one of the most accomplished guys in the business right now.

A guy named Ricky Reed who produced his album and my album, also one of the best. And behind your back, you are their favorite writer to write with. Oh, shut up. That's not true. No, I mean, look, you wrote almost all the songs on the Game of Thrones soundtrack, which happened since we last hung out. And then you wrote three of the songs in the Lizzo album,

which is another situation where patience does wonders. Because now she's one of the biggest artists in the world, and out of seemingly nowhere. Out of nowhere, man. Well, not out of nowhere. I think she was just getting ready for it for a very long time. But both of these things, you know, if you list the people that you worked on here, whether it's Siza, the weekend, Travis Scott, Merrimorris, Chloe, and Haley, or Hallie, sorry,

Ellie Goulding, Aesap Rocky, James Arthur, Lenin Stella, and Lizzo, all this stuff happened since the last time I saw you. Yeah. How? It's so crazy. I don't know. I think. why is it all happening now?

I wish I could tell you. I wish I could tell you. I think that it had to do, a lot of it had to do with just like practically being here, being in L.A. Because we had been on tour,

as I said before. You know, we had not stopped touring. We toured from 2012 to 2000 to like the halfway through 2018. Pretty much. That was like this, we were on, We were gone.

And then I called our manager, Seth, in a full panic. And I was like, we're touring right now. We don't have a record done. And we're just touring off of new singles. I feel like I'm going crazy. So we got off the road. And, you know, I'll be it. The couple of the Lizzo songs, Jerome had been written prior to this.

I think we started writing Jerome, like, at the end of 2017. But yeah, you know, we had been writing a little bit, but just being in LA allowed for me to finally like hang out with people and write with other songwriters and meet with Ricky and like play Ricky like all of the stuff that we had been working on and build a relationship with him.

And a lot of that stuff also really came through my relationship with Ricky Reed. when we met, we had just gotten off tour and we're looking for somebody to help us finish this goddamn record already. Like, it had been so long. And we sat down with Ricky and, again, as I said, we played him like 40, 50 songs.

This guy, this is a testament of this guy. He listened to every single one. And right off the bat was just like, okay, this is what I think about this one. This is what I think about this one. This is all just kind of like first. instinct and not in a way that felt um that felt like too harsh or too um dismissive or or like uh not harsh enough you know like he he he's very good at finding a balance and talking about stuff and uh

then we were he was also working on the Lizzo record at the time and uh that's how we initially met uh because he had heard this song Jerome that we did with Lizzo and And then we finished our record together, the ex-ambassadors record. And when we finished that, by weird, so we had this song called Baptize Me that was just an early demo. I had sent to someone at Columbia, this guy Greg Johnson at Columbia. And Greg had passed that on.

Because I was trying to, you know, chop, you know, we all do this. I'm like, hey, would this work for this artist? this song could be good for this person and I was just sending it out to a bunch of ANR people that I knew and Greg showed that song to Imron Imron heard it, thought it would be great for Game of Thrones showed it to Ricky and Ricky was like

oh I'm making a record of this guy I know this guy so he calls me up and just like hey I know we just finished making an album together but do you want to essentially make another album together and I was like yeah so yeah I mean it's seeing Game of Thrones and the success of that and putting out these sort of first official album with those artists,

do you feel like there were certain expectations, certain pressures, and are you satisfied with the process? I had such a blast doing it. I think when it came out like, look, I try, I really try not to like read too many reviews or, you know, once something's out,

I just kind of let it go. What does that mean you try? I try. look it and you're like, I'm not going to type this in, but then you do? Every once in a while I do, and I just immediately regret it. And then I never, then I don't do it for like a year. You can catch up real quick. Oh, my God.

It's like, even if you wait a year, you're still going to catch up on a year worth of. I know. Oh, my God. I just try to avoid typing my name or my band's name into Google ever. But, yeah, I mean. Why? Just because I think it's like. well I think to a degree

it can be so subjective you know people's opinions about the music and I also don't want to be that guy who like reads a bad review of my of my shit and then goes on Twitter and like gets mad at like some you know some person who wrote this review and it's their job like I

it bugs me a little bit that now this is becoming like a common occurrence you know with with people kind of going at journalists or music journalists or whatnot for their reviews unless it's something that is inappropriate

if it's, you know, if it's sexist, if it's racist, if it's really like awful comment that is being made, then that deserves to be called out. But if it's just a bad review of your... I mean, like, just...

It's fine. Do you get nervous when you release music? Yeah. I like go through the biggest emotional roller coasters. I'm like... I'm so, I mean, this record of ours came out a month ago now and we worked on it for four years and I've been so exhausted.

I haven't written anything in like a month and it feels so great. I'm just like I just have had to just step away from it all because it's just, you know, it's been a culmination of so much and I was, I was, by the time the record came out, I don't think I was nervous anymore because I had already gone through waves of like being so nervous and then just like, you know what, whatever, it's fine.

I can be a teacher. I'll be all right. I'll be all right. I'll figure something out, you know? Like, people are going to hate this and I'm just going to move on. And, you know, like, it's fine. Why do I care what other people think? And like, you know, so at that point, I had just gone through just so much, I was, I felt

nothing when. I mean, I was. But other than, then we started touring and started playing shows. So that, that helps. And then you see what it looks like when people actually are there. And that made all. the difference and I'm so grateful that we've started this tour when we have which is like right after the record came out we started playing the songs live and you see how people react to it and

it's totally different having released this album are you already I know you said you're taking a break from writing but I'm feeling the well right now that's that's what I'm doing feeling the fill in the well yeah what about writing for other people we've started doing a little bit of that again we do have some songs though that we have kind of a sonic direction

for the next record which is surprising yeah during the writing process of the Game of Thrones record I landed on this one song that we did

and that we started with Ricky that felt really cool and different I don't know if it's like a single or anything but it just felt like a cool vibe and I think we're going to chase

that a little bit over the next couple months so there's there's a direction. I'm just at a point where right, right at this very moment, I want to give my, I want to take the pressure off myself of like, for most of my career as a songwriter,

I've really taken to heart that approach of like, you treat it like a nine to five. You go to work every day and you put your hours in. Even if you don't feel like doing it, you go. You don't feel like writing. Tough shit. You got to go right. song today. Sorry. It's your job. And I think that the reality is a little, it's not so black and white,

because you are, after all, dealing with emotion. You're dealing with something ephemeral. You're dealing with something that this can't be. It's not, it's not, you know, like, you know, working on a factory line. It's different. And you do have. to take moments to allow yourself to just like be a human being because that's your job is to like reflect what it is to be a human. I like that. I think they, I don't know how much time do I have. Do I have to, can I keep going or do I have to like stop this thing? We were talking how we were just go to like six in the morning because we're friends. And you guys would just have to like kind of hang out of here. Wrap it up a little bit? Are we getting that? Okay. Fine. I do want to

finish on saying that you know the reason why you're successful is because you're a good person and people look forward to seeing you and you show up and everyone smiles and it's always like hey guess who's here or guess who I'm in with and it's like an excitement when you're in town so people know when you're in town so I'm sad that you're leaving tonight I know tomorrow night tomorrow night jeez man but next time you're here you know we'll get back in or in New York when you know when you when you come see the show. Yeah, we have to. Thank you.

It means a lot. I think that's something that is definitely always been my ethos with this industry. Like, you look, it's hard enough. It's hard enough to just, like, be in it. You don't have to be a dick. Yes.

You know? Great words of advice. You don't have to be a dick. Ladies and gentlemen, Sam Harris, from ex-ambassadors. Thank you. I'm Roskell. this is an episode of

and the writer is those who don't know that's our theme song not literally that songwriters you could be the grand prize winner and squirp to $5,000 in cash one of 12 marring guitars as well as a mentoring session with El King, Joe London, or myself the lyric winner will win

an opportunity to be mentored by award-winning songwriter Tom Douglas as well as other coveted prizes. Enter the 20th annual NSAI song contest presented by Martin Guitar Strings and CMT, now through October 31st at NSAI.com. NSAI, the National Sares Association International, is one of the biggest supporters of songwriters

and played a major role in helping pass the Modernization Act, a historical piece of legislation that allows you to have a future as a songwriter. This is your opportunity to experience industry access, one-on-one mentorship with hit songwriters and fun your creative passion, songs, song, and lyric only categories are open now for submissions. We can't wait to hear your songs. Today's podcast is brought to you by the musician website, Banzugal.

And for regular listeners, a van the writer is you already know. You can use Banzegle to build a website, EPK. You know you can sell your music merch, commission free. You know, you can promote your shows, collect emails from fans, and professional newsletters, all that stuff. But Ban Zougal, since season four of, and The Writer is, has now added a new crowdfunding feature that lets you crowd fund your next project commission-free.

That means you don't need a record deal anymore to pay for your album. You now can do pre-orders, you can do your own bundling with digital music and CDs and vinyl, you can report sales to sound scan, you can create custom merch bundles. I mean, it's really an all-inclusive website. It's really impressive.

So you can go to Banzoogle.com and try it free for 30 days. Or you can use a promo code ATWI to get 15% off the first year of any subscription. That's Banzigle.com promo code ATWI to build a website for your music. Welcome to And The Writer is. I am your host, Ross Golan. Today's multi-platinum songwriting frontman and philanthropist is as versatile as he is talented. having work with everyone from Little Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Logic, Imagine Dragons, and Ty Dala sign, all in one song, by the way. To Zad and, and the writer is alum, Bibi Rexa, all the way from Ithaca, New York, it's gorgeous.

Hey! This singer doesn't just say he'll be a philanthropist, he puts his money where his mouth is, and the writer is, ex-ambassadors frontman, Sam Harris. I just got so nervous hearing that intro. I'm like fully, oh my God. Also, I've been getting texts from every single one of, like, my manager and my, like, A&R being like, good luck today. This podcast is great. I listen to all the time. Really?

Yeah, I'm a little nervous. I'm a little nervous. Shout out manager and A&R guy. Shout out. Suits. That's really cool. So just to give the it's gorgeous thing. Oh, my God.

Explain that joke. Thank you for making that joke. So I come from Ithaca, New York. There are lots of gorgeous in Ithaca, and there's a t-shirt that's, I think it was, like, sold at Urban Outfitters. Ithaca is gorgeous, and you see people wearing it, and it's, yeah. It's gorgeous. Spelled like gorgeous. Yeah, sorry, I should clarify that, G-O-R-G-E-S.

Yes. That's the pun. But I have friends that went to school in Ithaca. Yeah. And, because there are two schools there. Yeah, so Ithaca College is there, which has the great music program, great acting program, and I think a really good communication school. And then there's Cornell, which is Ivy League, you know, frat houses and that whole, that whole business.

Why did you grow up there? That's a very good question. So my folks moved. I was actually born in Seattle in Green Lake. Do you know that kind of area? No, but it's one of those cities. I grew up in Riverwoods and Green Lake.

It's just like you kind of get the right idea of... I don't have to describe the town from Riverwoods. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a river and there's trees. Well, the lake is not green in Green Lake, but I was born there. And my parents, my dad is a publicist. for for for in film and uh they had moved from l.A because he was like I got to get out of L.A he grew up in L.A and met my mom here uh she was a singer and they moved to Seattle you know

it's northwest it was like calm peaceful he could still commute easily uh and he was always on set too so uh they figured it was a close enough to L.A did he work on anything we know he has worked on so many crazy movies like he worked so the first thing he did was Gremlin Wow. Then he did Goonies. Oh, my God. Then I know. And then he did the sand lot.

So, like, all of the movies from our childhood, like, I don't know how old you are, but I'm almost 30. And that's like, those are all the movies from my, from my childhood. And he worked on them. And he also worked on, he worked on Gladiator, Thomas Crown Affair, Crazy. Perfect Storm. So does he have Oscars then?

He doesn't have Oscars. So he's a unit published. A unit publicist is basically his job is the guy on set to be super friendly and like convince the actors and directors like to take five minutes and do an interview with, you know, entertainment weekly like in their trailer, you know, and get and get photo approval from people. That's his job. And he hangs like, my memories of hanging out with my dad on set was him reading a paperback novel like sitting on the curb somewhere. Like just saying hi everybody. Yeah, yeah, it was amazing. It was so cool to grow up with that. But anyway, so they moved... They moved to Seattle.

And then they decided that that wasn't calm and peaceful enough. So they wanted to go even further away from everything. And they moved to Ithaca. Because my mom is originally from Rochester, upstate New York. Eastman also good music school. Yeah, yeah. Rochester's great, man. You know, it's all those cities and upstate have kind of gone through. Why are there good music schools? Because Syracuse has a good school and NYU is a good school. I mean, it's an interesting area to have, I mean, NYU makes more sense than. Right, because it's New York. Right. Yeah. But I don't know. I don't know.

Did your parents play music? Yes, so my mom was a singer. My mom was a, a, a, She did like cabaret jazz kind of lounge stuff. She worked as a musician for her entire life. I mean, she still sings a little bit every once in a while now. But she, yeah, she, right after college, she started working full-time as a freelance musician in L.A. She worked in Atlanta. She worked all over the place.

Did you, did they teach you instruments? So, not really. I mean... Because you're in a band... I'm in a band, yeah. Let's give the story of your band because you're in a band with your brother. Yeah, yeah.

Which is super unique to get that. You know, I imagine that that means that you guys were in a band together when you were three going on. You know what? Actually, no. We didn't start playing together until we were in high school.

So my brother and I have had a... We have a very complicated... Yeah, I love him. so much. We have a very complicated relationship. Why? Well, because growing up with me as his younger brother and him, he's like two years older than me. He's blind. He's born blind. And so a lot of our childhood, I kind of looked out for him, took care of him. But I was his little brother too. So there's like a little bit, there was like a little bit of a contentious kind of like, you're my little brother. You shouldn't be taking care of me. But I have.

rely on you for certain things. So there was a lot of tension growing up until we started playing music together in high school. And that kind of like melted some of that tension away. Is that why you guys started playing music together? No, we started playing music together because everybody else in my band knew how good my brother is. Or knew how good my brother was.

He would like sneak down to the, we'd have rehearsals in our basement and he would sneak downstairs while I was like not there. and jam with the rest of the band and when I'd come down he'd just be there with his keyboard He plays keyboard, yeah, he plays keyboard Yeah, yeah He calls it the stereotypical blind man

Insurer, yeah Why is Because it's a complicated instrument Maybe it's because you don't see white and black keys He has a little bit of his vision So he has like 10% of his vision It was the easiest thing for him to see Because of the contrast of the keys

And then he yeah and he realized he could pick stuff up pretty easily by ear he did have a great teacher this woman mollie macmillan uh in ithaca and she's an incredible jazz pianist she actually accompanied my mom uh for for most of the time that my mom is a uh a working musician and so he learned from her and yeah just loved it like just became completely obsessed with it did you ever find that being in a with your brother was that was that ever a thing where it's like i want to do my own thing i mean there has to be a point where just that's why i didn't want him in the band yeah i was like i was like no way are you taking over my this is my thing yeah like you know you can play music on your own but like let me have

my own thing so it it definitely took just everyone kind of in my band at the time what was that band called We were called the Fuzz Brothers At the time, yeah I don't know where that name came from You have a beard? Maybe it's from I had a beard back then Yeah, I was an early bloomer

Yeah But I don't know where that name came from We've, I mean, God Were you releasing music at that time? We were, we were When is this? High school? This is high school, yeah

Yeah, yeah So I started I started recording myself and writing songs I started writing songs when I was like 12 And because I started my first band in It was sixth grade, I think What was your first song called?

One of our first songs was called Lead Rose Lead Rose. Yeah, yeah Was it like Pro Jamstown? Kiss me my lead rose Cold Enchantress Kiss me my lead rose I'm a hopeless romantic

It was great. It was full, like, 90s, alt rock. Oh, my God, it was amazing. Did, were you cool in high school? I was so not cool. Like, did people like, wow, he's a singer of a band? No. No.

I was like a musical theater geek. Oh, nice. Yeah, I did a lot of musical theater. I did acting stuff before I actually got into music. So I was very not cool. And then in high school, I just fully embrace the not-combed. cool and kind of became cool because I just embraced it so hard. In middle school, it's like that weird transition where like I came from, I came from an elementary school and all of, I was really

close with all my friends and it was a tight, tight knit community. And then you come to middle school. And like, I remember, oh my God, the first day of middle school, I walk in and I'm wearing my, I'm like so proud. I'm wearing, I'm so excited. There are all these new kids. I'm wearing my favorite t-shirt. and so it's got a whale on it and I this is this is fucking this is real this is real I was walking down the hallway like you know just strutting my stuff

and this kid passes by me he's like nice t-shirt whale boy oh no and from that point on just my my soul was crushed it was like fully crushed and it took me until high school I think to regain some of my confidence

for real that one is oh my god it was it was I was I mean, I'm exaggerating a little bit. I mean, obviously not. You remember the moment. I fully remember this moment. You know who the dude is. I know who the dude is.

Yeah. I forget his name now. No, you didn't forget his name. I know, I forgot his name. Yeah. But I don't know if I ever, he was like two years older than me. I could also be confusing him with a different person.

I fully, it was a very traumatic experience, obviously, because I've blocked it out of my memory. other than the words that echo in my head. I remember once in high school walking through the halls and my sister was visiting and I walked by my sister and I don't even think I said hi to her. Like I just gave her like massive shade. Yeah.

She's like, don't ever. She's older and she was just like, don't you ever do that again? Oh, wow. And I was like, oh, this is really interesting. Like there's repercussions with like whether or not I interact with humans in a hallway. and like how I interact with people.

How much older is your sister? Four years older. Okay, cool. And then Kusha Gudrati, who is my year in Deerfield High School, who is 100% not listening to this. Yeah. When we were like seniors about to graduate, and she was like, you know, you weren't very nice when you started high school,

but you're much nicer now. And I just remember that and being like, huh, I think it might have been the moment where I don't know if I was, was nice or not, knowing me, I was probably just writing in my head, like, walking around like, mouthing things. Yeah. You know? But I think that moment was one of those things that I was, oh, yeah, I should, you know,

I should be a nice human. Not that it was a dick, but I think I was, I wasn't particularly nice. I think I was just, it was just always on myself. Yeah, yeah. I didn't call anybody whale boy. Yeah. Oh, my God, man. Sorry to bring that up again.

Really messed me up. I know. I'm like, I'm like feeling. panic just thinking about it talking about it it's weird how music sort of inspires people to

I don't know it is it is an outlet for us and whether you mean to do it or not you kind of the idea of being in a band I know my I know a couple of my bandmates yeah so you were yeah you were in my band's

in high school for sure they're listening a couple of them are listening to this like right now and they you know that was the thing that that was my activity that I like. Because I don't think I liked a lot of my relationships in high school.

So I think that was my sanctuary. You know, it was covering third eye blind in a basement. Oh my God. I definitely, yeah, definitely doing third eye blind covers. I was obsessed with the red hot chili pepper. I was like a huge, huge red hot chili pepper fan growing up. Was that influencing how you were writing? Of course.

Absolutely. None of my lyrics made a lick of sense. It was just like all about melody. And, like that that kind of like breakbeat thing and yeah I mean

some of my it's it's do you ever do you ever go back and listen to your songs from from like high school and middle school

I can't do it I also was musical theater and so it was somewhere between Ani DiCranco and musical theater which by the way I love it I'm like I'm doing an album right now

that's coming on in Interscope. And it's like this musical that I started like in a way before I knew what I was doing as a songwriter. Right. And it's gone through these processes. But to me, it's like

it's the closest thing to me being my natural state. That is so cool. That's so cool. My natural state of a musician is somewhere between a more urban,

Ani DeFranco. It's so weird to say that. Like a cool Andrew Lloyd-Weber kind of, yeah. Sure, I'll take that. Oh, my God. That's that, yeah, that's like my... I'll take that.

I mean, I'll tell you, the first... The first, like, piece of music I remember falling in love with when I was, like, a kid, when I was, like, four, was the Phantom of the Opera. Yeah. Theme. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It was, like, done, dan, dan, dun, dun. It was, so just arresting and amazing. I was, yeah, I was fully, I was such a musical theater geek. Not to go off in this tangent, but the most

valuable... Let's go off on all the time. I want to go off on all the time. The most, the most valuable songwriter in the world is Andrew Lloyd Weber. Yeah. And second is Stephen Schwartz, who did Wicked. Wow. Not including people like Alan Mankin who did Beauty and the Bees, plus many others. Like those people are worth way more than the Jay-Zs.

Yeah. Which is shocking. When you do the math, I've been kind of learning about the economics of musical theater, which they don't discuss in L.A. very often. Yeah. But the value of a hit musical is worth more than the value of a hit movie. That the largest,

The largest selling, there's one movie, I believe, that has surpassed a billion dollars, maybe two with Black Panther in the U.S. Well, that's the new Avengers movie, right? Didn't that movie make the most money ever made ever? All I know is that there are three musicals that are over three billion. And, you know, Lion King and maybe it's Les Mis, maybe Phantom kind of thing. And then worldwide, I think there's one movie that surpassed. 3 billion and that's Titanic or Avatar, one of those. And there are two musicals that are over 6 billion.

Double that. Over 6 billion? Worldwide. Over 20, 30, 40 year period. But this is the thing is that we're, the songwriting community discusses, you know, pop music and flashing the pans. When you talk about evergreens, you're still talking about songs that have a value of, you know, the biggest songs, let's say beat it.

Maybe over its lifetime, maybe that's 50, maybe it's 100 million. Maybe let's go crazy and say it's worth 500 million. It's still not near the biggest, you know, when you're saying, when you're saying Phantom of the Opera, granted that it takes way longer to get up on a show and then it has to be licensed like crazy and it has to be, you know, it's rare that we have a Hamilton. Most Tony Award winning shows you don't even know the songs of, you know. Yeah, but it makes sense because those are shows that are going to just go on. I mean, like, Phantom, I think, only just stopped, just ended its run on Broadway,

but it was on Broadway for, like, I mean, you're not going to see it. Avengers is not going to be in theaters for the next, like, 20 years. That's the thing. You know what I'm saying? You're making its revenue in a short period of time. And then now because of syndication going down, you know, it's rare that you have, you know, a Seinfeld are friends mostly TV shows go straight to Netflix

and then they buy rights up front so they're not paying residuals the same way as they used to the real money in the music industry if you can ever get it is a hit musical it's just really hard to get okay I'm shifting gears I'm gonna fully shift gears

I don't think you should do that but you know honestly no I think everyone should do whatever they As a songwriter, I think everyone is so used to chasing the same thing. And it's a weird battle out here for radio, and it's a weird battle for New Music Friday. And a lot of those things, even on any level, it's fleeting. But for sure, it's fleeting if you're aiming small. So if the goal is to try to create something that lasts a long time, and for you, it's more.

like creating a brand with a band. Right. That has more value than individual songs. Yeah, that's something that's a little bit of a bigger scope. So let's go back to that a little bit. Yeah. Let's go to ex-ambassadors. So you go from Fuzz Brothers?

Fuzz Brothers. Oh, boy. Yeah, I know. It was so bad. It's so bad. I don't know what was going on in my brain. Mom and Dad come and see my band. Come listen to my band, Fuzz Brothers. You had to have a sense of humor about it. And in Ithaca, my assumption. I was so serious about it.

I was like, this is the coolest name. Were you guys massive stoners? I wasn't, but everybody. So I started the band originally with my friend Noah, who I knew when I was like, since I was five. He was a massive stoner. My brother was a massive stoner. I was always around it.

So like, I would just kind of end up just being, you know, blazed out of my mind with everybody. But I would, I was kind of the one driving the train a little bit. so I was the one who would get annoyed. They would play like polka beats, you know, just to annoy me. It's like being in a band is so, it's amazing. And when you're just starting out, it's just like a lot of just like noise, just chaos, full chaos.

We used to write songs. And I'm so glad that we don't do this anymore. But like when I started out writing songs, it was like, everybody in the room all at once I would try to convince everyone to start some sort of like a groove like a jam

and then once we found that I would be sitting there trying to write lyrics and come up with melodies while there's all this noise going on and while like they're messing around and like playing an urban session it was oh my God

oh my God it was crazy when you show up and there's 15 people talking and you're like the one guy that are trying to write lyrics just fully distracted all the time. And

yeah, yeah. So when did the band start as ex-ambassadors? We started as ex-ambassadors when we all moved to New York. So we, Noah and I moved in 2006

met our drummer Adam who's still playing with us. And Casey moved a year later. So Casey had graduated and went to a piano tuning school specifically for the blind in Washington State, like right kind of on the border between Washington and Oregon, right near Portland. And he went to this technical school for two years, moved to the city, got a job within the first

week that he was there. And so he was working at this piano store on like 50 Second Street. and 7th Avenue and we were in college and yeah that's where we started that's where it all began 2007

did you go to college? Yeah I went to new school university Oh Did the other guys? So my brother didn't go to college You just went to that technical school And Adam we met in the dorms I slid him the Fuzz Brothers

demo And he's like we're changing that name He was like no way No he loved it He loved it. He's like Fuzz Brothers Forever. Fuzz Brothers for life. For life.

How soon from when you started were you recording music? Well, so I had started learning how to record myself when I was like 13. I got an internship at a studio in Ithaca that was this little rinky dink thing. And me and my buddy, we were in like a hip-hop R&B duo at the time. I was a singer and he would rap. So kind of Lincoln Park-ish? Not even more like Jurassic 5. Oh, sick.

I used to open for them. Really? It was like my first band I ever. I mean for like three weeks, but that was, I opened for them on my first record. That's crazy. I was fully. Charlie Tuna. That guy was amazing.

I was like a real backpacker. Yeah. hip-hop dude when I was in like six and seven to live and all those guys oh my god yeah yeah um but uh i had started learning i kind of like learned a little bit recording technique from from that internship and then just started like with every every paycheck that i got uh because i started working at you know restaurants and stuff as soon as i could as soon as i could work i was i was working um and every little paycheck that I'd get or any bit of money I'd get I'd put towards just like buying a bunch of really shitty gear like I'd get like those Berringer mixers I got the TASCAM USB mixer thing so I like

started I started kind of learning how to record myself and and our band very early on because we just had no money to go into a proper studio and that was like that was so out of the question but I knew that other people were doing it. Were you playing in New York? No, this was back in Ithaca, and then in New York, I continued kind of that same process, but I didn't have any of my crappy gear,

so I had to relearn how to do everything with plugins and digitally, and I started working on... That turns out to be more valuable. Oh, yes. Yeah. Now my setup is so streamlined. What is it? It's a duet and an SM58.

that's so say that's it and i i've recorded vocals for renegades for unsteady for jungle all those vocals are just from that sm 58 in my duet from my backpack uh the vocals for jungle were recorded in my uh fiance's uh kitchen in her tiny apartment in brooklyn renegades was in uh also in my fiance's my fiance's childhood home that she grew up in uh because i was staying there. I was homeless for a while so I was always at her place. Why were you homeless? I'm not homeless. I mean, homeless in the sense that like

I was broke and trying to be a musician and I couldn't afford rent to my apartment. That's called, I mean, that is sort of homeless and like it's legit, like, you know. For about a year plus, I so I

quit my job and decided I was going to really like if I was going to actually make this band. This is around like 2010. I know I'm jumping all over the place right now. But I, yeah, quit my job. I got like a lucky tax refund. I got like seven grand. And I was like, I can live off this for a full two years. And that didn't, that didn't happen. But I subleted my place in New York and just stayed with my, my girlfriend. Did she have a job? She was working at a school. She was working at the Brooklyn Waldorf School.

And I was just like, you know, I squandered that money away. And I lived off of, I got one year, I got like a, from three different relatives, I got $100 Starbucks gift cards. So I lived off of Starbucks like breakfast sandwiches. Sure. Sure for a while. Yeah, I feel like I'm perpetually paying my wife back for her. Yeah, I know.

I know. I was first mad and it's like I'm broke, so broke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Giving my place back to a bank and she's coming home from a real job and would pick up, takeout from real restaurants, you know, real food. And I was eating. Those corner store sandwiches I lived off of in New York from the bodegas that were like four or five bucks. And, you know, that was two meals right there. They were big enough that you could have one half for a long.

launch one half for dinner. But she was supportive of you that you got to say, I mean, shout out to your girlfriend. Yeah, exactly. Shout out to my, shout out to Tess. There you go. But anyway, so I was recording, you know, that's, that's, uh, I was recording when I was a kid, and I learned how to do that and carried that through.

So how does it give to, I mean, you get, you get discovered. Something happens between when I read that you've been, you were discovered by Dan Reynolds, you know, Imagine Dragons. Something happens from corner shop sandwiches to Imagine Dragons, seeing or hearing you. How does that happen? Myspace? No. So what happened, it's even crazier.

This is why I feel like a bunch of, a lot of our career has just been based on, you know, if you can stomach it, do everything that you possibly can. Play every gig you possibly can. because this they heard of us through a we did like this there was this blog

called Alter TV in Pittsburgh and they would do acoustic performances and we were on tour opening for lights do you know lights Canadian? Canadian She's great so she's amazing she was the first person

who took us out on like a proper tour so we were opening for her we were in Pittsburgh and who connected that our manager, Seth. So you had a manager? We had a manager starting in 2011. So to back up a little bit, once we graduated in 2010, a friend of ours was working at like a real studio.

And he was a great engineer and wanted to record us. So we were like, we found a way to convince his boss who owned the studio to let us record an EP on spec. and that once we put it out, we would pay back the money. And it was like a lot of money for the time. It was like $50,000 the studio bills that we racked up. Yeah, and we were like, we really don't know if we're ever going to be able to pay this back, but let's take a chance. And so we recorded this EP.

That was what we were out on the road supporting when we did this, this blog performance the guys from Imagine Dragons saw that performance how did they see it why were they watching that they were in no offense

but like that's such a strange thing to just happen to well this is why this gets even crazier so one of the songs from that EP had made it onto a Spotify playlist Spotify was like just kind of like starting

made it onto a Spotify playlist from some a blogger fashion blogger. A person from a radio station in Norfolk, Virginia, heard that song, played it for the program director. Which one was that? The song called Letoast. Okay, yeah.

This acoustic ballad. Played it for the radio programmer there. That station, 96x in Norfolk, Virginia, always show love. They started playing this song. 96X. I'm just kidding. That would be incredible, though. That would be amazing.

Yeah. Keep going on. They started playing the song, and the song became their number one played song of the year. Wow. It was insane, and we weren't signed. And they were the only radio station playing this. But when the dragons were in town playing a show there, the guy driving them around, they were like asking this guy question. It was like, what kind of music are you into?

Like, what are you listening to? And the guy was like, this band, ambassadors. We weren't even ex-ambassadors at the time. That was that illegal? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Formerly ambassadors?

Yeah, formerly ambassadors. Smart. Yes, yes. So he was like, I'm listening to this band called Ambassadors. And he played them the acoustic performance from that alter TV session of a song called Unconsolable. And they loved it and showed it to Alex a kid, who then signed us to his label, Kid in a Corner, which is with Interscope. And that's kind of where it's. And so goes.

And so it goes. So most of us find out about you through Renegade and through the Jeep commercial. And what's interesting with our listenership is that a lot of people are trying to figure out how to get songs placed in commercials, TV, film. And to get that kind of placement is so sacred. Yeah. and it's potentially more valuable than radio play because you get the full attention of the listener and whatnot how did you get that being an unknown band

man it was I mean a lot of credit a lot of credit goes to um Alex and the Interscope team uh you know we had we signed them in 2013 that's that sync happened in 2015 we had already had a you know a song that was in a big campaign jungle which was with Jamie N. Commons it was in the Beats by Dre World Cup commercial

and that was that was massive and again I think that was just like right timing and Alex had a good relationship with Jimmy Iveen who was running beats obviously and showed him the song and Jimmy really liked it and put it in the commercial. So that kind of put us on the radar

as a band that worked well with sync. And yeah, you know, we... I was, you know, we were trying to write a song. We were at a point when we wrote that song, we had written... We had completed the record, our album, like two different times. and scrapped it two different times because, you know, we had,

we thought we had momentum with Jungle, wrote a record, and then Jungle didn't take off at radio. So we had to kind of scrap it. This is all having been signed to Interscope. It's all having been signed to Interscope and putting out two EPs with them. And then, you know, and so we wrote another version of the record

and played it for everybody, and they were just kind of like, yeah, okay, but let's wait until we have more momentum. And so we scrapped that. and then renegades came at the very last minute and the song very quick like as we were writing it Alex was like I'm Alex and Interscope were working with Jeep on trying to create a song because Jeep had had some success with like another song that was linked to like a car one of the their campaigns so they wanted to try and do that again. with like simultaneously having a hit song that was like in their commercial and drawing that so that drew people back to the car and blah blah blah so we were writing the song and he was like I think this will work for the campaign and the song was number one on alternative radio for 12 weeks yeah yeah like 11 yeah like 11 I think you're being generous I think it was 11 weeks 10 and a half weeks 10 and a half weeks

Do your parents at that point understand why you've been pursuing? I mean, what was the vindication when your song reached to that? To be honest, man, it was really weird for us because it felt really great to finally have people paying attention to us. But, you know, the song itself, and this is what I'm struggling with now, writing the second record, is that the song didn't feel it felt very different from all the other stuff that we had been writing. We had been writing these, you know, like kind of R&B-infused

like alternative, dark alternative rock songs and or these like soulful kind of like songs like Unsteady which had been written before around the same time we wrote Jungle. So to do this like kind of kind of, folky thing. It just, it felt very strange to us. But, you know, we kind of, I mean, we just went with that, obviously, because if it's a hit,

it's a hit and it's going to go. Sure. So it was a weird space for us to be performing a song where we're like, okay, like, I didn't think, to be honest with you, I was like, I don't think this song is that great. I don't know why everyone's freaking out. I don't think it's that great. Why is that, that story happens all. All the time.

With the first song being, this isn't, you know, there's another band I know that just released a song, the label was an album, and the label felt like they had the single, and they decided not to release the single or put it on the album because they felt it was too hit-ish. Oh, see, that's dumb. And they felt that, and then you hear stories about, you know,

Cheryl Crowe, who didn't want all I want to do to come out because she didn't think. that was very good. And this story just happens all the time where the first single somehow doesn't represent the band. And as a songwriter, that makes all the sense in the world. Right. Because we're constantly trying to give the song that separates itself from the pack.

Yeah. So it should be an outlier. Right. If it sounds like the pack, then it's just one of 12. Huh. See, I never thought about it like that. That makes perfect sense. So many artists have.

they can write that 12 over and over and over and over again. But they can't write that one. And that's where it's better to aim for the song that's so outside of the sound. And naturally, in my opinion, just when the singer starts singing it, it sounds like the band. Right. And no one cares one way or the other, whether they don't hear the same difference as you hear. Right. But it makes all the sense in the world as a songwriter.

as an artist I could see that being so confusing because then you have to try to replicate a sound that doesn't feel natural we just did an interview with this guy this DJ and I'm not I don't remember his name and if I did I would I would call this guy out because he asked the worst question what is it he was like he said did he have an accent no no he was a national No, not. I think it was in Texas.

DJ Texas. He was like, so how do you feel about your song Renegades? That song was a massive hit. How do you feel about that song defining your band for forever? I wanted to strangle this guy because this is what I've been, like, writing the second record, this is the question that I've been asking myself, because we're still kind of like searching for that, what's going to be that foot in the door for the same. next one and it's been driving me crazy it's been driving me absolutely insane because that song was so

different and when it came when we finished it i genuinely was like this feels kind of corny to me i don't really know you know so so from that point on i've like it's been hard to to regain any sort of confidence in my own taste still still yeah yeah still with like songs i'm always surprised. I'm always surprised by the songs that I play for, you know, A&R for whoever. And someone says, that's, that's a hit. That's the one. I'm like, really? Do they tend to agree? Or do they all say, that's it? And they're all different. Well, there's a lot of that. But like, you know, for... Is there one song that bubbles up to the top? There's always songs that bubble up to the top that lately it's been

songs that I also think are really really great. Cool. But those songs haven't Right, but those songs haven't done as well as Renegates commercially. Yeah, but you can't judge it by that. I know. I know I can't. But I'm like still, it's hard because we can't we're in this process of getting this next record together and we're waiting for that momentum that we need from a song

that does as well as something like Renegates. I mean, there is something we talk about a lot where the hit song is sort of your tour. It goes around before you ever can keep up with it. You just can't keep up with a hit song. A real hit song is a worldwide thing that you're not traveling that fast. Yeah. And those are obviously very difficult to do because otherwise everyone would do them. I think one of the things you mentioned that's interesting is in a band,

and I'm sure there are a lot of people who can relate to this is creating your own momentum and adding the adrenaline to the conversation. Yeah. How do you get someone, if you're sending in 60, 70, 80, 100 songs, skipped a couple there. But if you give 100 songs, why would this one stick out to a label

or to a licensing person? And also trying in, you know, in this, world trying to simultaneously like create a song that is a hit that that also feels unique enough that everyone else in the world is going to be like

who wrote this you know right because with a song like renegades that song took off and no one knew who we were I mean like people barely even knew that it was it was a song by ex-ambassadors they just knew that they just knew the song. Do you resent that?

No, but I, you know, like, what I would like to try and do is, you know, like raise ourselves up to the level of some of the songs we've written. It was the same thing with Unsteady. And what was weird about those two songs coming out and being,

both being successful, is that they sound in my mind, they sound like two different bands, but I guess I, you know, I can't be objective about it. They don't. Yeah. Because it's the same singer. Yeah. I mean, nobody can tell the difference. Yeah.

No one would listen to those two. Oh, yeah, those are two different bands. Yeah. That's just not how that works. If there's two singers, then maybe. But even that, you know, it's still Oasis. You had two singers. You knew which songs were Oasis.

It's all in my head. I'm an insanely neurotic Jewish person. Join the club. Runs in my veins. Runs of my family. Are you scared of the sophomore album? I mean, it's not, we'll go, with the sophomore major label album

I wouldn't see scared. Are you scared of the sophomore slump? I am refusing to let that happen. That's why it's been taking so long for us to write this record. Do you feel like you're in a rush? I don't. I don't feel like I mean

a little bit. I mean, look, we're all going to die someday. You know, like I don't want to put this record out before I die. That would be nice. That'd be nice. Yeah. But... What if it was the last... I mean, I guess there's something with very few people can look back on their life and say, I released multiple big things.

So is it worth taking your time and releasing something that you know is bulletproof just to make sure it's out and just releasing one more thing? You know what I mean? When you say, oh yeah, but we die, so it would be nice for it to come out. I think that's fair because you're thinking of, still releasing this one body of work and not multiple bodies of work and you're still focused on this one.

But I think a lot of times people are in a rush oh, I need to get this out right now. I don't know. No one's waiting for anybody's album. It's so rare that unless it's Beyonce, which no offense. Yeah. You know, it's Beyonce.

It's Beyonce. Yeah. But even that, it doesn't necessarily mean it moves units. Yeah, I think what's great about the current, climate is that you can be releasing a bunch of singles and you can get as an artist as someone who is inherently the most impatient person on the planet you know i i of course i i'm i feel like i'm

in a rush i'm like this has to come out now this is a great song why is this not out now why do we have to wait um but you can you can you can put songs out see if they work and then if it doesn't work you can put another song out we could continue theoretically putting you know like four songs out five songs out a year

and keep that momentum going until we find one that like really sticks and then put the record out what does venues do you play we're doing we're doing theaters we're doing I mean we just we just sold out red rocks

which is amazing that's huge yeah how many is that? That's a 9,600 view Wow. Yeah. Are you doing that in every city? No, no. We're doing like, I think on average, like 2,500, which is...

How much were you... How many were you playing for before Renegades? 25. How many people before unsteady? Before unsteady, maybe like... Did that change the number of people? Yes, yes. So that it works exponentially.

It's more songs that they can... Yeah. no yeah right yeah yeah i mean for us i don't know about for for other artists you know like we also prior to but that's a difference of a hit song i mean there are a lot of great bands out there have never had hit song and they don't that hit song is the difference of playing this size room versus a double or triple size room or 9600 people is a huge difference yeah you know it does work exponentially. Yeah.

If you have recognizable songs. Yeah. So, you know, in my mind, and that's, it's kind of like why, so we just got off of a tour, we had booked a tour around Red Rocks,

assuming that the record would be out, assuming we'd be done with it. And by the time the tour came out, we came up, we were like, we're not done. So we were out there supporting this, we were supporting singing. essentially, the singles that we put out like ahead of myself and joyful and don't stay.

And it was great to play those new songs in front of people and older stuff too. But for me, that's why we've kind of left the rest of this year open to just finishing this record and figuring out what that first foot in the door is going to be for this next or what that next hit is going to be. You started co-writing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh man. It's like changed my whole life and changed my whole perspective. on songwriting. Why? Because for the first, you know, since, from the beginning and then through our first record,

I was the only one working on lyrics and melody. You know, I was, when we were working with Alex, I would be just like writing stuff on my laptop on the road, texting it to him, and he would say, nah, nah, nah, that's cool, Nah, nah, that's cool. And just that was the only feedback I got. It wasn't like ever a conversation or like, you know, what if we try, you know, a melody like this or something simpler or like, what, I love this word, you know, let's kind of go off this.

It wasn't really that much of like a conversation. And so it's very isolating, very isolating and very easy to just be so, so discouraged because you know and I get into this this all the time with with writing stuff on my own where I'm like alone in a room and I'm hating every single thing that I'm coming up with you know but just to have another person there

who is also a songwriter who's also listening who's hearing stuff that you're not to be able to have someone say no no no that's actually that's kind of cool and what if we what if you spin it like this or like I love that melody. I love that melody and it could work if you said this word. It's so, I mean, like, just the old saying.

Two heads are better than one. Sometimes three, I mean, sometimes there are too many cooks in the kitchen, but for me, I love it. I love it, man. And we've been really lucky on this record to write with some incredible people. Most of the collaborations and people that we've worked with, I've never met in real life. Like I met Ty Dala.

We actually just did a session together the other day. People say he's the most talented guy in all the. He is so talented. It's nuts. And so nice and just we wrote this. God, I really hope this song comes out. It's always so hard with, you know, writing with other people because you write a song and then like two years later,

you know, it comes out. or kind of makes the light a day. But I really hope that he puts the song out that we wrote together. But I've met him and Dan, obviously. I haven't met Logic. I haven't met WIS, we've collaborated with twice. Or Little Wayne. Yeah, I haven't met any of the other ones.

But that song... Are you singing on it also in there, or is it just Dan? Dan sings the chord. So I came in at like the very, it was so funny how I got in the song. I just sing the bridge at the end. I just wrote the bridge at the end because Alex sent me the song. I think I tried writing verses for it too. I don't know at this point.

He was very cryptic. He's always cryptic with, you know, with me and the rest of his writers. And wouldn't tell me really what it was for, but he was like, can you try writing some stuff over this? and I think maybe he was like, just try writing a bridge. I need a bridge for this, write a bridge. So I wrote a bridge and I sang it. And then the next thing I know, I'm featured on this track with like 15 other artists.

And my part comes in in the last 20 seconds of the song. I think if you were to go back and tell that kid in high school who isn't cool yet, that those are the people you'd be featured on with. There's no way you could possibly believe that story. Well, that's not even the coolest one. The coolest one for me was Jay-Z getting on the remix of Jungle. Oh, wow. That was so insane.

And again, never met him. He heard it and did it? How do you get? This commercial campaign was so huge and the World Cup was happening. And they wanted to have a version of the commercial with a rapper on it. And Jimmy, Iveen, I think, and Alex, I don't know who, I don't know how this happened. But I just get a FaceTime call from Alex one day. day being like hey

guess what I got Jay Z on the remix for jungle and I was walking around Brooklyn I was like I think I was going to a session and still like still living at my girlfriend's apartment and it was the craziest thing in the world and to hear

his voice on it was so insane in our next segment which we do sort of a five for five where I just mentioned five people and yeah Oh, does this mean it's the tail end of it? Have we been... I mean, it's...

I want to just... We can't want to just keep talking. Yeah. It's been about an hour. We can keep going. Let's keep going. I'm loving it. Tell me a story.

Tell me something I don't know. Well, let's do the five for five and then we can come back to it, right? Or do you like to circle out with? Do you like to end? No, I don't really care. There are no rules. There are no rules. I would say that this is, if there's one thing I've gotten from, not only this, but in particular, you know,

the album I'm doing on Interscope is something. they have worked on for 15 years. I can't wait to hear this. I really want to hear this. I'm excited. I can play some stuff off. Are you looking for people to sing on it? No.

Okay, all right. No offense. Okay, so Ricky Reed's producing it. I was just, I actually just got in touch with him because he and I are working. We wrote a song with Lizzo. Yeah. That they're working on right now.

Did you do below, like in the studio below us? No, we wrote this song with her in a studio somewhere. else and he's A&Ring her project right now and heard it and liked it. But he's great, man. He's amazing. Family. I mean, it was at my wedding. You know, family. And so he's

producing it. Mike Alzando's on bass. It's the Dr. Dre rhythm session. Crazy story about Mike. So this is insane. This is, we had a session with Mike. We had been dying to get in the studio with him. This is kind of a fucked up story.

But we were in the studio with him, and his studio is amazing, and he's the nicest guy and the greatest guy. And it was our first day with him, and we're working, we're writing, we're writing and writing. It's me and Adam, our drummer, and my brother. And all of a sudden, I turn around because I hear something banging him. My brother's having a seizure. My brother had never had a seizure before in his entire life. and this is like two hours into the session he starts fully convulsing

and he's like you know I think he's dying and I am on the floor like trying to keep his mouth open if you've ever had seen someone have a seizure it's the most horrifying and helpless feeling in the world to have this happen

why did he have it they still don't really know has he had one since no the thing about what we found out from the neurologists that he saw and like every after the whole experience like and i didn't know this there are people who in their lifetimes have one freak thing where their brain their wires in their brain just like connect cross in a weird way and they have a seizure and they might never have it again um but it yeah so he hasn't had one since but it was so violent and scared

and crazy and came out of nowhere. And poor Mike just met us and is like in the hospital with us that day. It was the most like insane day my entire, one of the most insane days in my entire life. And going from like a beautiful creative space

to just horrifying like, oh my God, I'm watching my brother die right in front of me. and yeah it was it was nuts and we tried we've since tried like working with mike again and and you know we had it we had another day in there and and it was it was great uh we we haven't written anything you know together that's that's gonna make the record but uh the poor guy i just like i'm sure in his head he's like yeah ex-ambassadors that was a crazy crazy recording experience with them There's something about what happens in a studio

You know there's a little bit of the what happens in a studio stays in a studio Yeah Going on and and the stories that If you were to ask a songwriter or musician a story about their life I would imagine that 50% would tell some story from being in a studio with blank doing this or that and it's just Something happens in a studio that's Particularly weird

Do you have any like, wow, that was a crazy good story maybe to... I'm sure I do. By the way, my brother's fine. He's doing great. He's actually just got married. He's having a baby. Congratulations. He's on top of the world right now.

But that was, it was an insane experience. I'm trying to think... Yeah, I mean, the only experiences that I can think of, like, that are really amazing in the studio are when you write something that comes out of nowhere that's really great. Like we, um, this is very cool because I'm,

I was such a huge rage against a machine fan growing here. And we, uh, got to work with Tom Rello. Wow. And, um, he, we wrote a song together.

And just for me, like, I'll never forget being in studio and watching him go into the room, listening to a track that we had, we had created, we had already written this thing. And we were going in to finish guitars on it. And he just plugs his guitar in and starts playing.

And it just sounds like Rage Against the Machine. That was one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me in the studio. I went to go see. They did a reunion show for Coachella. Right. Yeah. Did you go to that? Yeah.

She was a huge fan. Of course I'm going to go see this. This is incredible. But then this, you know, I'm a 5-10 white Jewish guy. Yeah. And it's their first show in. years and they play and so many of their fans fluent from all over the world and are really aggressive looking humans and when you have lyrics like um for our listeners who are under 18 turn

off now yeah but if it's uh you know put a bullet through your mother fucking head yeah and hearing that with everyone jumping up and down i don't know if there was ever you know if there was ever show that I decided to leave early other than that. Really? I was so surround and it's so packed. There's 80,000 people and you're in the middle of this

and you're just thinking, if there's a time where someone's going to look at me like, I want to kill the Jewish kid. It's like, this felt like the moment. Wow. I kind of took off. But, you know... I would have taken the L.

I would have just stayed. Just gone. I would have just stayed, man. I will say that, you know, that band changed. how a lot of us hear what a band is. Yeah. You know, they independently had a voice, all of them.

Yeah. And I don't know, you know, that rap, rockish kind of vocals. He found a way to do it in a way that wasn't like everybody else, but still felt authentically street and urban. Yeah, man. I mean, urban in like the real, like, city sense. It felt like I was in a city. Yeah, really, like, did kind of a similar.

thing that like ill communication did you know like beastie boys like the it was it was rap and it was rock and it just yeah it just felt it felt authentic and it felt just that fucking anger

I'm sorry yeah no it's fine it's really just that my brother-in-law is in the other room was saying he said you know your niece and nephew every time you hear it there and why does he have to say those words You know what? Shout out to my niece and nephew.

I promise you I'm not like this. I got so... Actually, the thing is, I am. I'm just like this. It's just what it is. I got so nervous. I saw Zach Dilaroka like in the Apple store,

I think, in Studio City. And I have never been more like... I'm mad at myself for not just like even saying something about it was too afraid. Hashtag they're just like us. I know, hashtag they're just like us. Yeah, I hear he's a nice guy.

Okay, we can do the five questions. now or the five questions but yeah let's do that oh can I tell one other story I was gonna say this

I was gonna say this before by the way that the out of order thing and I started talking about the the album and part of the what I was gonna say

is that I think that art is better when you don't view it as completed right and I think that there aren't really

rules to it and editing later and we're putting this out and it's very exciting because we will lock in that album. And then we're working on doing the show in New York and that will also be something different than this.

But each thing is an evolution and viewing, to me I view art as an evolution rather than this completed. Here's the masterpiece. I don't think that's what art is meant to do. I think art is cooler when you can do Bob Dylan's all on the Watchtower and then Jimmy Hendricks is all on the watchtower and then Dave Matthews all on the watchtower and you can keep doing

all those are demos for the next guy and I like the idea to me the art is in the songwriting and the demo part of it but even that can change it's okay to have Jay Z come in and do a remix of your song

it's very okay that yeah it's very okay because that's to me that's art and so I don't you know the order of things and what comes first and what comes later and is this how it's supposed to go? I don't really care about any of that. That's how I view songwriting.

Yeah, yeah. And how, you know, as a band, too, knowing that the way that we're going to perform a record live is going to totally transform. And the show that we create around that record because it's not just going to be playing the record, necessarily playing the record through from start to finish, we'll be incorporating other older songs too.

So that makes it a totally different. show and what that shows. So, yeah, I think that's a good, healthy way of looking at it. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, so let's do these five for five. Just do it.

Zizzes. I don't know why. It's starting to stick, like, that's the name of this section. Five for five. Somebody wants to sound a really good one. Five for five school. Yeah.

It's fine. I feel like it's five for five. It's a little bit five for fighting. Super close to that. That's not what I'm intending. It's a good band and all. Anyway, irrelevant. Okay, let's go five for five.

I want to go with each bandmate because I think in your story, each one had a moment. And I want to start with Noah because, as you said, that's who you started this with. Yes. So let's start with Noah.

Dear friend. Adam. He's a motherfucker, but I love him. I love him. He's always the the one who's kind of the realist with me about everything. I send him stuff and he doesn't pull punches with me,

which is great. You need something like that in your band. Absolutely. Your brother, Casey. A hero, man. He's my hero. Like through and through, just always someone who I am constantly getting inspired. from and

who just lifts my life up on a daily basis just by knowing him and being around him. Amazing. Yeah. Dan Reynolds. Great guy.

Imagine dragons. The greatest guy. The greatest guy. And it's also like a role model. Someone I seriously look up to. He is an amazing songwriter, amazing front man for a band. And, yeah.

Alex's a kid. He's something else. Something else. That's all I'm going to say. That's all I'm going to say on that. That's so good. Well, thank you for doing this. Thank you so much for having me, man.

Like, seriously, I've been looking forward to this all week. We just got back from the tour, and the schedule's been pretty empty, and this is the only thing on my calendar. I've been very much looking forward to it. I appreciate that One of the things that we Obviously

We weren't meaning to do this as an advocacy For songwriters It just ended up being that Because naturally we're talking to songwriters And they need Advocacy Yeah And I think when

I think of People who are in bands and are insular I'm less interested In that as an interviewer than I am the guy who's starting to embrace the songwriting community. It's so, I think that any, if I could give any advice to anyone who's in a band,

is just do that immediately. Start writing with other writers because you will learn so much. It's so fun to just get, because again, like, you're in your own head like 99.9% of the time. Being in a room with another person, especially another songwriter,

it gives you confidence. It gets your ego out of the way. It's so, so great. And you realize we're all doing the same thing. We all, I mean, like, everyone writes differently, but we all kind of write the same. You know, we're all on our voice notes. We're all on our little memos,

on our writing weird words down and titles for songs that, you know, pop up or, you know, in a session or whatever, you know, we all kind of mumble our way through songs and figure out what those melodies are. And it's just such a relief to be able to know that you're not alone in your own little lonely creative world. Yeah.

Really, like that's all it is. That's all it is. And I, we have written some of, for this next record, as I said before, trying to find what that like first single, the first like big, you know, foot in the door is going to be for this next record. But we have written some of my favorites. I can objectively say that we've been writing some of the best stuff that we've ever written for this new record. And a lot of that is because we're working with other people.

And that collaboration just brings the best out of everybody. Good. Well, thanks for collaborating with us today. Oh my God. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer Is. If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist or visit our website at and the writer is.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer is, is produced by Joe London, edited by Miles Bergsmah, and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to David Silberstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. Until next time, this is Ross Golan.