Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - The Chainsmokers

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

The Chainsmokers are musicians, DJs, and producers. Alex and Drew join the Armchair Expert to discuss their anonymity as DJs, how they have maintained a successful partnership, and where they get creative inspiration from. Alex & Drew talk about why they became interested in venture capitalism, their love for performing live, and how they balance who they are on stage versus real life. They explain what their experience has been collaborating with other musicians, how they handle reading misinformation about themselves, and what social media has done for young creators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome. To Armchair Expert. To Armchair Expert. Were you going to try to sing it? I'm going to sing. Oh, I'm going to look away. We ain't ever getting older. The Chainsmokers.

This was so fun. It was fun. And I had my opinions before we interviewed them. Alex and Drew, they're so fun. But they were great. God, they're wonderful. Yeah, I had a blast talking to them. I mean, if I've got to explain who the Chainsmokers are to you, you don't own a radio.

You have not been on planet Earth for the last 10 years. My dad probably doesn't know. He does. Well, he does, but he doesn't know he does. Exactly. And we get into that. Yes, he knows, but he doesn't know he does. Exactly. And we get into that. Yes, he knows, but he doesn't know he knows. You can't know what you don't know.

That's the message. I guess the message is you can know what you don't know. That is the message. This guy kind of disproves that. The albums, Memories, Do Not Open, Sick Boy, World War Joy, So Far, So Good. Also, and this will blow your mind, they run a venture capital firm called Mantis VC. They are involved in everything. Yeah.

And they're so fun. They're nice. Please enjoy The Chainsmokers. I want something just like this. Hi. Wink, wink, wink. Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to have strong opinions about sand.

We were made to help you and your friends find a place on a beach with a pool and a marina and a waterfall and a soaking tub. Expedia. Made to travel. He's an entrepreneur He's an entrepreneur I have an AMG station wagon, which I fucking love. It's like my favorite car. Drove that for a few weeks. I was like, I might have to get this thing. You love them too, right? Yeah.

But I did just recently see at the gas station the EQ series. So that's electric. Mercedes electric. Okay. And it's gorgeous. Yeah. Yeah, they're nice. How old are you? 33.

33. 33 is really young. That's rough, isn't it? It's really young. I'm so happy now people are starting to be younger than me. A lot of them. I don't like it. Five and a half years ago, no one was younger than Monica.

And now many of our guests are younger. And some of them are multi-billionaires, too, which is smart. Okay. Okay. I'll get there. I'll get there. Are you a multi-billionaire? Not yet.

Okay. Okay. He's trying. The thing with a lot of the young multi-billionaires is if you wait a couple years, the market's correct, and they're not multi-billionaires anymore. That makes you feel better. That does make me feel better. Oh, God. I like like that they'll lose everything don't worry they'll lose everything what did you drive he isn't a g-wagon i just have an audi you're in the house yeah okay both are

great options yeah i used to have a jeep wrangler which i honestly i loved why did you get I just have an Audi. You're in an Audi. Yeah. That's great. Both are great. I used to have a Jeep Wrangler, which honestly, I fucking loved. Why did you get rid of it? Well, the lease was up and, you know, every car is like ridiculously expensive now. So I was like, I'm paying way more than what I'm getting the value out of a Jeep Wrangler for. So I might as well just get an actual nice car at this point. Yeah. We both got like really nice cars at one point.

And they just like sucked. And you're just like, this is such a waste of of capital and i feel like such a clown in it i'm the guy who like pulls up the craigs though and they're like there's no parking because you're in a wrangler yeah i'm like no no no you don't get it you don't get it don't judge this book by the cover of this wrangler i'm trying to remember immediately what comes to mind is Sean White, which is really funny. He went and bought a Lamborghini when he was like in high school at some point.

A track. It's kind of like to his parents, a declaration like, this is my money. I'm going to have fun with it. Totaled that car really quickly. Got another one.

He totaled the car? He totaled it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he was like 15 or something. Maybe 18. As long as no one got hurt, good for him. If you're Sean White, go ahead and throw a Lambo away.

It just happened. Somebody else just recently. Someone was just in here talking about the same thing where they got some money. They bought a ridiculous car. Oh, it was Jason Derulo. Oh, yeah. I tracked him. I have a really funny story of a friend that runs a tech company.

And I guess he was like staying at Jason Derulo's. And I guess Jason was, you you know doing his thing with somebody but I guess the way his house designed like he had trapped my friend in a certain part of the house he couldn't get out of but also

he apparently has a python that just like roams around his house wow why didn't we get that out of him oh man I mean unless my friend's full of shit and he was like

I'm trapped in this room with a python oh my god I don't want to blow Derulo's opportunity, whatever. Sure. He seems so unlike that. And our friend's really awkward, too.

I would just be, like, banging on the door, like, cut it out. Well, you said attack friend. You know, he's like, oh, fuck. You know what I mean? Like, I might get eaten. I'm going to have to look this cobra in the eyes at some point. I'll have to call him on the fact check. That's wild.

Yeah, he bought a crazy car. He did, but then got rid of it in the same fashion of like, I look dumb. I know Drew bought a McLaren. What did you buy? I'm a big James Bond fan,

so I got an Aston Martin. Which one? Vanquish? No, it was like a DB7. I want to say it just sucked. Like, it was just an absolute shit car. It broke a lot?

Broke a lot, and you want to connect your phone, just doesn't connect. It would be great if in one of the James Bonds, though, they did show 007 having to connect to the Bluetooth. That's great. Every time I rent a car, I just did in Oregon last weekend. I'm in the parking lot.

I'm in a BMW. I've never really connected my phone to one of those. Tricky. 12 minutes I'm sitting there. And my wife's just like, you know, just go. You're not going to be able to listen to your music for the 12 minute ride to the airport or to the hotel. It's funny you say that. I'm watching this Linus show on Paramount.

I love action movies. We're not allowed to. It's a movie. No one can watch it, but we will continue to talk about it. Okay, yeah, yeah. They did a great job. But it was funny because they're watching these special operators. You know, it's like a show about seals and all that stuff.

And I was like, wouldn't it be funny to make a serious movie, but it has these honest moments where like the guy just has really bad gas. You know what it's like a show about seals and all that stuff. And I was like, wouldn't it be funny to make a serious movie, but it has these honest moments where, like, the guy just has really bad gas. You know what I mean? Or, like, you know, they don't ever show those moments where it's like, we're about to go, you know, kick in this door. Should I take this shit quickly, though? You know what I mean? Like, they're always just, like, so ready to go.

It'd be funny to add some, like, humanizing. Well, you should watch Chips. I was going to say, it's full of those human moments. Yes, yes. So I'm a cop in it, but I'm also a pill addict. And I also am really sensitive to smells. So when going to certain people's houses, I'm starting to get kind of sick. And it's not a right time for it.

But don't watch it. Definitely don't watch that. We've met before really briefly. Where? You wouldn't remember. We were at some airport in, I don't know, could have been Atlanta. And we were both sitting at the same food court table. Okay.

And you were like into some Chick-fil-A or something. Oh, right. This was like years. This was probably like seven years ago at least. I was like, oh shit, it's the Dax Shepard. That's incredible. I can almost promise you it would have been like eight years and two months ago. Because I was in Atlanta a bunch because Kristen was working there and we had a two-month-old Delta.

Monica was there as well at that time. Oh, another thing we probably can't support, but they have a great Chick-fil-A at the Atlanta airport. Yeah, the Atlanta airport is stacked. Right? It is. It's really stacked. Like I don't love it as a connection just based on where it is in the country. Almost worth the pit stop. Actually, yeah. It's really stacked. Like, I don't love it as a connection just based on where it is in the country, but. Almost worth the pit stop.

Actually, yeah. It's huge. I'm from there, and so I take a lot of pride in how good the airport is. Yeah, that's amazing. Every time you go to the airport, you just have options. So many. That's something I look forward to. I appreciate there's a big military base.

We see a lot of military guys. I'm sure, like, a lot of connections go out of there. And it always kind of makes me, you know, God bless those guys. Yeah, yeah. You might have even seen me because in that spell i went home really quick got a vasectomy and came back so you could have seen me right that's a really pivotal moment yeah the end of my fertility you might have seen me in my last fertile day actually it's like funny when you're sitting there and you're like gosh you know like we're both just

like eating and you know you respect the rules of the traveler so that's a fun question right out of the gates which is there's i would, an asymmetrical anonymity to you guys versus how enormously ubiquitous you are. It's awesome. A thousand X people are aware of something just like this. Then they are me. Right. I just looked this morning, 2.3 billion times it's been streamed on just Spotify. So certainly every single person in that airport had heard that song and maybe one in every

50 people knew who I was. But is that golden? That seems kind of groovy. They know the stuff we've made, but like we are out there and it's awesome. Look, when you're on the side where you're getting your picture taken a lot, you envy what you guys have. But I could also see where if I'm you guys, I'm like, motherfuckers, I've got the biggest 26 weeks in a row.

I've been top five and no one, you know, they tell me the restaurants closed. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely prefer it this way. I think we have great lives, but I couldn't go to Erewhon and no one gives a shit. Literally. I was in New York last week and it was like the VMAs did not go to the VMAs, but I went to like one of these lounges that I'd have to party.

And it was like late. I'm not going to lie. And like, definitely they'd to like one of these lounges that I have to party. And it was like late. I'm not going to lie. And like, definitely they'd been dealing with like Taylor and Selena and all these people. I'm like literally lowest packing order. And I roll up. There's no door people. It's just like the security guards were so mean. And they were like, no.

And I was just like, got it. They didn't even try. In those moments, it has to kind of suck. Well, I don't mind, honestly, because I'm like, maybe my shit wasn't together enough. That's like past trauma of being a New York City kid and just not getting into clubs and just be like, you know what? It was my fault. Yeah, yeah. You know?

And it's like a sign. You're like, it wasn't meant to be. I'm out of here. As long as I'm not like pandering. Because I was like, do you know who I am? And they were like, no. You can't do that. Then you're like, really?

You should feel terrible. I love that attitude. Getting stuffed at the door is important for everybody every now and then. Yeah. We always have that one friend that's like, we're good now. And I'm like, what'd you do?

And it's like, I gave him a thousand bucks. You're like, no, that's even worse. But if I was with you guys, I would feel like that was an injustice. An injustice. I probably would be like, hey, no. They're bigger than those people. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. To Drew's point, you need that. They're bigger than those people. Yeah. Yeah. To Drew's point, you need that sobering moment. And again, I really like it. We do a lot of calls with tech founders and stuff like that. And, you know, some of these people are much older and they're just like, I don't know anything. And I'm like, you've heard it. And they're like, I don't think so. I'm like, you have for sure. Even against your will, whether it was a Walmart or Whole Foods or CVS. You've heard it. And then they're like, oh, yes, I am familiar with this song. You could not have been alive in the last decade and not at least closer or, I don't know, you name it. You just have to hear it.

Music can be so omnipresent everywhere. You can be in your car. I've turned on the radio and I've heard the same song playing on all six stations once. And I was like, that's badass. But also, I hate this song now. You know what I mean? Like, I hate this artist and this song, even though it wasn't their doing. I will say, though,

if we compare it to some other breakout hits, this weird thing does happen with some of them, you hear them four years later and you're like, oh, God. Right? I'm not going to name them because I don't want to shit on anyone's stuff.

But there are ones that are mega hits. You hear it and you're a little embarrassed for yourself that you liked it. There's songs that don't age well. I guess it's as simple as that. Our first hit was Selfie, which I hope you forgot about. But now that we're talking about it, I guess I'll bring it up. I didn't even know Selfie. My introduction to you guys is Closer.

And I have little girls. And that was probably the first song that Lincoln and I would sing passionately, very loud in the car. And she was probably five years old. How old was that song? How long ago was that? 2016. Oh, my God. She'd been four.

She knew the words to that song as a baby, basically. That's true. It's so cool when you hear those text stories. You're like, oh, nice. She might come to a concert someday. If we can get that next wave. Yes. Totally.

Okay, so there's so many things I find interesting about your pairing. I think first and foremost is just simply you guys didn't know each other. I think most of the bands that we interview, Jonas Brothers, like they're family or all these people have known each other. Chili Peppers, they fucking knew each other

as kids, you know, in high school. But you had this dude, Adam Alpert. Yeah, he's our manager. And you're at the time, how old are you? Yeah, I'm 21 or 22. I'm finishing school at Syracuse. What did you major in? Music business. But you too? No, I studied art history. And business, but not music. Well, I was in like Gallatin. You kind of can do whatever you want. Oh, Gallatin. Gallatin comes up all the time on here. It's

like a non-major major. Yeah, yeah. It's like the greatest thing ever. It's a college experience without the work. They're like, do whatever you want. You're like, I don't know anything. I came here for you to tell me what I'm supposed to do. Okay, so you were at CEREC because you were just graduating. You were an intern at Interscope. So how do you come to know Adam? How does this union start?

I go to school thinking I wanted to be like an agent. I was so into dance music, but I didn't think being a DJ, like it wasn't big in America at that time, but I didn't think that would be a possibility. So I went the more practical route, go work at a label, management, agent, something like that. And then kind of my senior year, America came around to dance music. And so this thing that I had been spending all my time in my bedroom trying to make beats and be relevant in that scene, it was becoming the big thing here. And so that kind of gave me the courage to be like, I could actually do this. And I remember I had this pivotal moment. My program in Syracuse had a program in LA where you'd go and work in the entertainment industry somewhere. And so I'm

interning in Interscope Records and the kid who had just gotten hired there was managing this DJ that I had heard of. I won't name his name, but he was kind of bottom of the totem pole. Okay. And I remember I was like, how much does that guy make? And he's like, he makes like 700 racks a year. And I'm like, so you're telling me. Like, I don't know if I can be Avicii, but like that guy's making

almost a million bucks a year and I'm here trying to get a job for 50. My passion is to do that. I think I'm all in on this. I didn't realize it was a possibility to actually do for a career.

And I was obsessed with it. I was spending all my time. You were putting music up. You had a SoundCloud. I had a SoundCloud. I had a different name. What was the name? You have to tell us. I hes spending all my time. You were putting music up. You had a SoundCloud. I had a SoundCloud. I had a different name. What was the name?

You have to tell us. I hesitated even like a second. Not that bad. All right, so I was obsessed with this book called Atlas Shrugged. And my favorite character was Francisco Dunconia. Why not John Galt? That's too hardcore. That's too like I'm making a statement with my name.

But Dunconia sounded like a cool thing. No one knew how to say it. It was actually a horrible name. But I had some songs that were on SoundCloud that I guess you'd know if you were paying attention to the blog scene. And I started ghost producing for some kids and doing my thing. I graduated college. I had like $150,000 in debt, which I just didn't realize. I was getting myself in that hole going to Syracuse.

But I moved back home to Maine. So I'm kind of in this point where I'm like, shit, I got to until the end of the summer to make something work where I got to get a more practical job and then this kid that was interning for Adam who's our current manager was like hey have you heard of the chain smokers and I was like yeah of course I had never heard of them right right and he's like oh this is DJ duo in New York City it's a duo but one of the kids is leaving the other kid wants to bring in some kid that makes music and he lied to me he's like they make this much money a year at this point I'm like 150 grand in debt and i'm like i need something well i hope that what people are gleaning from this the advice here is like just lie across the board yeah this is like the fourth lie already and then we're getting closer to start let's check in with you alex because you already

had chain smokers with another person i would save this normally to the end, but just we're here right now. That guy is bummed or he recognizes, he recognizes that Drew was part of. He was pissed. He left on his own. He wanted to leave. And honestly, like I actually give myself like credit because I was like very, you know, like most people would just be like, oh, he left.

But I was like, I want to find someone else. I believe there's value in this brand that we've built, at least like locally, you know what I mean? To sustain something and maybe make it bigger. And I was like, I got to get him to sign something. So I had, who's still our lawyer today, went to college with Drew, dropped a one page piece of paper. And I was like, I'm going to pay you, I think it was like 8,500 bucks to be gone. All your money at the time. Yeah. Like I was so broke after this, especially on just paying a guy to leave. But what was weird, it was like, you already left.

I think he was like, what's up? Why are you giving me money? And I was like, I want to make it just official. You did help build this. So I feel like I should give you something, but I don't have any plans. So $8,500 seems like a very fair over the top thing for something that has no direction right now. I just want to know that it's mine and I can do what I want with it. And he was definitely fishy for a minute

about it and was being like stubborn and then I can't remember the conversation but finally he must have just been like yeah $8,500. Sounds great.

Nothing's happened with it. Yeah this valueless thing. Yeah yeah and he signed it and then literally the next day we changed everything and he was like

what the f- you know but it wasn't like we got successful the next day either. I think he just kind of realized we had a plan in place. I don't feel bad for him because he left.

What was crazy is he went into our Twitter the day we had our first gig, I don't know if you remember this, and started blocking everybody. And you can't see who you blocked. For us, as a new artist, he was blocking club owners and this and that. Oh, because he's still in control of the account. Yeah, I mean, he went on really nasty Twitter tirades. Even racist

and homophobic things about our team, and he really did not Yeah, I mean he went on really nasty Twitter tirades even racist and yeah They were like things about our team and you really did not handle it gracefully Yeah, and his defense is your team super black or gay? Are you over indexing? Yeah more Jewish? I don't know what he's doing right now last I heard he was a dog walker in the city that adds up If you're spending your time just wallowing and being rageful. Dogs are probably the best person to spend time with. But I mean, dog walkers, they make crazy money.

They make like a 200 grand in New York City. What? No. There was a whole New Yorker article about it. That's a career. Yeah. Oh. I was like, shit.

Maybe one day when I'm fully done, you know what I mean? I guess. Just like walk a couple of dogs for 200 grand a year. I bet, though, you're going to have to walk more than two dogs to get to that 200 grand. I bet you have 10. One dog per each chain smoker. We guarantee each dog will have his own chain smoker. The lesson with this whole thing for me in joining Drew was I think people often surround themselves with negativity.

I remember being with the other guy and blaming everyone around us for our lack of success or progress. It was constantly like, that guy's an idiot. He doesn't understand shit. And the second that negativity was out of my life, first, I personally just felt different. There was more opportunity and I was more motivated. But then obviously once we linked together, it was like, it's on us. No one's going to do this for us. Let's empower each other and work. We always mark it as like the luckiest thing that ever happened too, because we literally met one day and the next day was crashing with friends, walking two, three miles to get to his house

in the middle of the winter and just grind it every day. And it was like fun. It was fun. Obviously we weren't successful for a while. But I want to know about the first meeting. Did you meet a bunch of people? No, I didn't. I think Drew was really the only guy.

And did you guys immediately feel something or was it a slow? That's what's so lucky because we were just like, yeah, you seem cool enough. You know, like, you know, we are here 11 years later. We've had an amazing music career. We run a venture capital fund together. We own a tequila company and we're still best friends. So it's like, yeah, what are the chances? Well, I almost think it might be easier to do it the way you did it.

Because I think what can happen is if two people are best friends all through childhood, and then when the spotlight's on you, and let's say they are drawn to Timberlake more than whoever, that can be stressful and it introduces a new dynamic that didn't previously exist. Where this one is like any dynamic that arises is the dynamic because there's no prior history. That's a really good point. I've never thought of it that way. You think of the Jonas brothers, the older brother, he's the boss. And then the younger two get more popular. That's an insane dynamic for brothers to handle. Well, it's funny in investing. One of the rules is don't invest in teams that don't have experience

together. You want that rapport to understand the other one's strengths and weaknesses and fill in the gap. In some ways, this was the complete opposite of that idea. But I agree. I think we wanted the same thing more than anything. It was surprising how aligned we were in terms of the work we were willing to do to get there. I didn't know how he was really raised by his mom or I was raised by my mom. Are you both kids of single? Just me. I don't know. I just say mom naturally from my background. But you're just always putting the bigger picture first and not yourselves. To me, if they're like, hey, we're going to throw Drew on the cover of Vogue, but not you, and it's going to be about the Chainsmokers. I'm like, great. We get more shows.

Really? Your ego is very in check. How do you explain that? You would recognize that's abnormal. I don't care. I mean, sort of them calling me like ugly or something, you know what I mean? In the email, where they're like, we don't want the ugly one. Then I'd be like, that was just nasty. It's not like I had a personal aspiration my whole life to be In the email, where they're like, we don't want the ugly one. Then I'd be like, that was just nasty. It's not like I had a personal aspiration my whole life to be on the cover of Vogue. Anna, if you're listening, I'll totally do it.

Were you on the cover of Vogue? If you listen to this. No, what? This is all hypothetical. But what's great is I was going to walk away had you not asked that follow-up question that he had been. This is a real example.

No, we're more likely on Fishing and Outdoorsman Weekly. But just conceptually, to me, it's just cool, whatever. As long as we're pushing our music forward, I don't really mind. But would you recognize that's kind of abnormal? Because let me just say, I'm you, and I don't know how it would break down if AI analyzed your guys' creativity and productivity. But let's just assume you guys are 50-50 contributors to the music. Yet one person is 85% of the face of it. Innately there, it feels like this feels a little unjust.

And I respect someone like Chris Martin for this. Clearly Chris to the world is Coldplay. Coldplay, yeah. But he is so diplomatic about how he handles everything split down the middle. The band is the most important thing to him. And I think for us, that's always been the initiative. But let me just say something.

That's lovely. And I've hung with Chris Martin. He has the luxury of doing that because he's fucking gorgeous. He's gotten so much attention. He's so talented that he can be so benevolent and gracious. You and I are not Chris Martin. Like I want, I want some recognition. We got advice the other week from someone who's very wealthy that was like, at the end of the day, money isn't what's important. It's about the experiences that you have. And you're like, you're a rich person saying that, though. You know what I mean? I know.

You're not wrong. It's like when you're sick, all you want to do is be healthy. You're not worried about money. There's definitely validity in that. But also, it's much easier to say that. In their defense, there's quite a bit of social science, lots and lots of studies that money does make you happier to a point. It's been decided in America on average at like 160.

It plateaus up to about 2 million. And then it goes, so there is data that says that's actually not just this whimsical observation. But I know what you're saying. It's much easier to have that look on life if you have the money to be able to be like, yeah, it actually doesn't matter that much all this money I have. All right, well, then get rid of your money. And it's like, oh, no, I'd rather not. Money obviously creates the freedom for you to hopefully pursue the things that you love and care most about. But also it has created a lot of friction for people because we have a lot of friends that are successful and they can't find good relationships because I think they're too distracted and have too much shit going on.

And I was joking with one of them and I was like, why don't you put your money in escrow with like a lawyer for three months and live off $2,500 a week, which should be enough. I guarantee you in three months, you'll have like a girlfriend because you'll be focused in on things differently. That's a good point. You'll go to different places. That tells me you do believe in what they're saying. Because what I've seen is we've interviewed a ton of these tech billionaires and it's insanely isolating. Everyone around you is so conscious of what you have. Even myself,

it's hard for me to not think about the fact that Brian Chesky has $12 billion while he's across from me. I'm just like, I mean, if you have 12, if you give me 500 million, you wouldn't even notice that. Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm thinking of these dumb things. I'm distracted by it. Brian's interesting. We're friends with him, and he's very motivated by not money. You know what I mean?

Right, right. Like, the dude still sleeps in Airbnbs. He's in pursuit of something larger than that. I agree. So he's like the least flashy of all the billionaires. That's true, but the actual acquisition of the money changes the dynamic with everyone around you. I agree. He's like the least flashy of all the billionaires. That's true, but the actual acquisition of the money changes the dynamic

with everyone around you. For sure. Which is no fault of the person who made the money, but it's now an enormous element. Yeah, yeah.

I've also been around Brad Pitt. No one in a 20-foot radius can think of anything other than the fact that Brad Pitt's in the room. Because he's hot, though, not because he's rich.

Yeah, that is true. He's Brad Pitt. He transcends hot. He's so hot. He's still so hot. There's the cool. Because he's hot though, not because he's rich. Yeah, that is true. He's Brad Pitt. He transcends hot. He's so hot. He's still so hot. There's the cool factor. There's so much. But the point is, is like,

I can't blame that guy for anything because he's living in the most altered reality where everyone around him's thinking about him 100% and like worrying about how they sound and self-conscious. And then it's infectious, that self-consciousness. To deny that it comes with this enormous price or that he probably wouldn't maybe be happier being just wealthy, maybe.

It's like everything, you know, the good and bad of these different things. Like you can talk to the most beautiful person on the planet and they would say, that's probably a huge burden and stressful. And inside they feel super self-conscious. This is totally strange pivot, but my dog just shit all over one of our carpets.

And normally this would have like ruined my day back in the early days. I love that carpet. I would just like throw it out. There's shit all over it. It's not worth it. And I just like move on with my day. I'm so glad that I'm in a position

where I can just chuck out this carpet versus going back and scrubbing it for 17 hours. I totally agree with you. So that is the beautiful thing of having money is that there are certain problems I totally agree with you. So that is the beautiful thing of having money is that there are certain problems you can solve with money. The problem is you can ultimately solve nearly every problem other than health issues with money. And people obviously do, because what's the point of it if you're not going to do that? And I do think it does something to

not be stressed, to not have to deal with these burdens. I don't think people are at their best when they have alleviated all the stress from their life. Well, you're not living in reality. You can't really connect with other people because they're living in reality. You know those people too. I can think of like eight of them that just came into my mind.

We were like, this dude's out to lunch. Because everything's handled. And even like, okay, so the shit on the rug. I too, I would have been like, hon, get it out of here. Now we saved ourselves that cleaning experience. But what we robbed ourselves of is we've cleaned it. It's back.

We pop, for me, an NA beer and sit on the couch. And that enormous sense of self-esteem that comes from having dealt with the thing you didn't want to deal with and having completed it and now kind of rejoicing. So you also rob yourself of all the satisfaction of solving your problems. Yeah, I agree with that.

I feel like we've always been really grounded. Part of that is that people don't recognize, you know what I mean? I feel successful, but I have imposter syndrome for sure. I take a lot of joy in those little, small, like building something or not outsourcing everything that you have in your life. And for us, I think taking ownership in the work and that part is really the rewarding part. And when I think back of our Chainsmoker career, it's not the big pinnacle moments that I remember. It's really the nights grinding in our little apartment.

Yeah, I would imagine receiving the trophy on stage isn't nearly as fun as you two actually finding the song. 100%. The moment of invincibility, we'll it where you're like I can do anything holy shit I have no more worries pure Serotonin release is in making a song that you believe in and then when we learned that closer went straight number one on billboard Or we won a Grammy or really awesome Achievements just kind of felt like oh cool. I'm glad that happened Yeah, like we were ready was more money and I can do more.

I want to not lose that, but that pales in comparison. But still to this day, I'm not as happy of a person if I'm not actively in the studio. Finding that thing that makes me be like, wow, this song just makes me feel like anything's possible. I can imagine playing it here and there and all these people reacting to it. It's a really magical thing that no other achievement or whatever can supplement. And that's interesting because everything's analytical today. And that's not like an analytical thing. That's really just an experience.

Yeah. Magic. Whereas like everything else, you know, you wake up every day, XYZ has number one here and this person has this many followers. Everything in our life has been quantified. Totally. Which kind of robs people of some of the magic that makes things special. Well, creativity can't really be measured.

And that's what it is at the end of the day is that sense of achieving the creative. Well, tapping into something that's maybe beyond what you thought you could reach is also an incredible feeling. I just had the simplest experience with it. I haven't edited video in like eight years. We've been busy. I've been busy. And I shot something that I wanted to edit. I relearned how to edit on a different program. I put together the fucking first two days. It sucked. And then Friday, it totally worked. And I just watched it like, I don't know, 12 times in a row, just make sure there wasn't one frame I wanted different. And then when it keeps landing

perfectly, I don't want to remove a frame. No, I still don't. That is so intoxicating. Totally. I have to imagine, however it works, like the final mix or whatever, and you can listen the closer. I would be able to listen to that song 30 times in a row just going, no, man. Yep, it's everything we want. Yeah.

It's also a really hard thing to chase. And I've been thinking about this a lot recently because we just put out the song last Friday called Summertime Friends. Watch the video this morning. Well, it's hilarious that that's the video. There's a lot of hesitant making that the video because it's just me and my girlfriend blacked out on this boat this summer. And we were like, let's shoot the video right now. And our friend Spencer, who is also blacked out, also shot it three times, and that's now the video. I was in my room being like, they're shooting a video upstairs.

Yeah, I could hear the song again and again. Anyway, but that's one of those songs that it's about something very real and personal to me. It has this moment of tension. I think if you've been a Chainsmokers fan since Don't Let Me Down or Closer or Roses, it really captures that nostalgic feeling that you kind of come to us for. And it's funny identifying all of those factors. Like, it's about something real.

It's got these types of chords. It's upbeat. It makes you feel something. I can give you a list of what makes a Chainsmokers song, but doing it, even being the guys that just have done it and the only guys that can do it, it's still hard to do on command. You're not AI.

Yeah, I mean, well, that's interesting to get in the eye. We'll throw that in the queue. But, you know, it's interesting. We put out eight songs and only till this last song this year, we're like, oh, wow, this one's really getting reaction. And you're like, duh, this has all the things. But why weren't we aiming for it before? And it's crazy how you kind of step in your own way as an artist.

We also relearn the same thing over and over again as a human, don't you? I have the same epiphany every three months. It wouldn't feel good if you could do it on command. It wouldn't feel good if you could just churn it out. Yeah, it's because it's hard to do. To bring up Chris Martin again, he's given us a ton of great pieces of advice over the years. And he would always say, I don't write these songs, they're sent down. Right. Which I thought was like a really kooky piece of advice at the time. And the older I get, it's good. The more it makes sense to me. Sometimes this song

is just sent down and the words, what you want to say exactly how you feel and say them in a way that people resonate with and you want to hear over and over again.

You can't wake up and do that. I can't trade it like an office job and get that shit every day. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. Sasha hated sand. The way it stuck to things for weeks. If you dare. you were made to follow your whims. We were made to help find a place on the beach with a pool and a waterfall and a soaking tub

and, of course, a great shower. Expedia. Made to travel. I will say the way Chris said it does to me sound kooky. I've also heard him on Stern explaining that whole experience. But then we had in Rick Rubin. Have you read his book on creativity? The way he actually articulates it sounds much more grounded in reality to me, which is an artist is just observing what's around them and allowing that to come in.

And that makes sense to me. Not like some spiritual being in the heavens sent down the song, but just that if you look around you and you pay attention and you open yourself up to it, these things do come in. That's a really hard thing to do too when you get to our level where we've been doing 150 shows a year for eight years. When am I supposed to have those experiences again? You know, and especially now with our VC fund is pretty much our main job too now. And it's like, fuck, you got to remember

to get some inputs in here so I can make shit that feels like something, you know? I wanted to talk about the VC fund at the end, but now it's the second time I've resisted. So from the outside, what I would say is why on earth have a VC fund? If you think of like David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, who you guys have performed with, wants to be you. He wants to be a DJ. If you're mega rich, what you'd praise that you were a chain smoker.

I don't understand why you would be focusing on venture capital when you guys are two artists who can do what you have demonstrated you can do so many times. For the David part, I haven't hung out with him a ton of times. I don't know him, by the way. I just know that he's a DJ.

Greatest dude ever. Desol? Desol, yeah. He unfortunately doesn't really do it anymore because everyone's so open arms about the idea that he likes playing music. But it's his hobby. It's his passion. Same way that people would play golf or guitar or anything,

and it just happens to be this. I love him for that. He really enjoys it and took it seriously whenever we played. We've been asked the same question. No one is trying to go that way for the most part. Exactly. You're like a salmon swimming upstream. Everyone's trying to go your direction and be a musician and travel the world.

I think for us, it kind of goes back to even the first day that we met. When we met, obviously our intention was hopefully to become one of the more influential electronic acts. We wanted to be up there with the Swedish house mafias and get us and Tiestos. But also from that first meeting, we were very clear that we wanted to use whatever platform we created to branch out and explore other opportunities that were exciting to us. And obviously, unbeknown to us, we're just meeting, but we've both been pretty entrepreneurial in our own ways throughout our lives before we even met, Drew used to ship Timberlands to like China. I had eBay businesses when I was like 14 and that kind of little hustle.

And your dad's an art dealer? My dad was an art dealer. Yeah. So my dad was a car salesman. If you're into sales, you inherit that as well. I mean, we could talk all day long about the idea of what you're exposed to as a kid and how that shapes your actual identity. Cause that really like threw me for a loop as I decided I wanted to go in on music I never even considered it because you were working at an art gallery when you guys met exactly and also it was all I knew I didn't know about becoming a doctor or a lawyer it was just like art dealing yeah sure I love art hard to hate yeah and then as you you know get more into it and my dad passed when I

was younger I only had like the good truths probably not the stuff where he was like this is what sucks there's so much nepotism you're dealing with really really rich assholes a lot of crimes too yeah a lot of crooks money laundering yeah tax evasion heists yeah heist all sorts of people yeah that's a fun part i like that they have it as collateral thieves steal you know like mafioso bosses will steal fame so that they can barter if they ever get arrested well i'll return the Mona Lisa yeah yeah yeah I mean that like nine million dollar gold toilet

thing was just recovered or something what's that there's some heist in London where they stole like a nine million dollar gold toilet from a museum

or something right like some king's toilet and I was like what a great story I would love to just know everything from A to Z

you guys hear about these people in LA that are going around to liquor stores and cutting open the roof and dropping in. They've stolen like $750,000 worth of wine. No. No. How cool is that? Like, I hate to endorse this. Yeah, yeah.

No, I love Heist too. That wine's got to taste real good. Oh, my God. You can't bite into some gold, but you can just like, you know, take a nice sip of some Burgundy. Anyway, Heists are awesome. Going back to the original point. So once we had built our platform as the Chainsmokers and we had some success, we had this platform

that people were beginning to reach out to us about different opportunities to invest. And most of those opportunities were consumer-related stuff. But what was really eye-opening was just we really enjoyed bringing the experience and network we had to these different companies and opportunities and helping them succeed in different little ways. So someone might be like, damn, if I could just get into Whole Foods, that's the inflection point for me.

And you're like, oh, well, I know the CEO of Whole Foods. We played a show with him or he came to Vegas. Do you want me to connect you? And it changes the whole direction of this company. You're like leveraging your vast connectiveness. I think what was funny is musicians, there's some great ones out there, but it can be like pulling teeth. Getting someone to respond to a simple text about a mix can take four months. You just raised your hand.

And it drives me crazy because I'm very much like, if we can do it now, let's do it now. Are we not all trying to go to the same place? Yeah, yeah. So let's do it and let's all work towards that. And I felt like in the tech community, those types of founders,

that's all they were doing. They were like, I'm working 24-7 on this ambitious idea. I think we found that really creatively inspiring and exciting to be working alongside those people, helping do those things and hopefully bringing something to the equation that they were missing in terms of how they could get to where they wanted to go. We began to just keep pulling on that thread. And the more and more we pulled on it, the more we kind of enjoyed and were fascinated by what we were discovering. So if I could just ask you guys to compare, maybe it's not comparable, but let's just say for a second, you guys have found some company. You like it.

You connect them with the right people. You bought a stake in it and then it wins. Can we really compare that to the joy of creating Closer or that feeling? No is the short answer. There is a similar high to it where you're like, wow, we found this company, we invested time and effort and connectivity with this team and help them achieve something and it's working and anything's possible for them now.

You're connecting to them, like you made a difference and like you made something that like people are now relating to. That's a big part of the high. With music, you're always just trying to communicate in a way that you can't do through conversation or i mean it is conversation another way but it's a higher art form that allows you to have a deeper connection with people you're transferring an emotion and a feeling right in a song and when people get that that feels amazing and when you're bringing that not in the same way but to a company and finding

out what their needs are investing time with them making their belief in idea, hiring the right team around them, all of these things that we like love helping them to do. And then you see it work. That's very gratifying. I could turn the same question onto myself, which is we have a diaper company and I have an NA beer company. I could imagine being critical of me going like, why do you need to do this thing? The beer company is like me and my two best friends from childhood. I named it. I write all the copy. I write the commercials. The thing I was editing was for that. I'm like, oh, it's actually not different at all from what I've already done. In fact, all I'm doing is bringing this thing that I've already done into this new kind of space. And it's almost more fun just because it's now novel. I already did the other thing.

And like going into the store and seeing that for the first time or seeing a kid, you know, at a park and the parents are changing the diapers. You know, companies like Uber or Airbnb with Brian Chesky, he's bringing a level of connectivity to the world that certainly didn't exist. I think also we're very competitive people. I think venture is like music

in the same way we thought about our career, which is like it's lots of small victories that hopefully one day add up to this IPO moment or acquisition or something like that. That's really exciting. You know, it's not just about like raising the fund. It's about finding the great company or founder to invest in.

Then it's like winning into that opportunity. Then it's adding value so that someone else has now seen what is happening here is special and they put more money. And it just kind of keeps going in this way. And each milestone feels like this huge validation and success in terms of how you

think about the world. You can probably imagine those for the people that love you both. They want you to focus on music. Like I don't want Daniel Day-Lewis per se to become the great computer programmer of Scotland. He might be the best AI mind in the world, but when you love an artist, you just want more of what they put out. Can you see where people would be like, I don't want you focused on anything but this thing I cherish? And has it taken an impact on how much time you get to spend creating music together? I think it's been equal parts difficult and beneficial. The thing is, making music or any type of art, it's not an office job. Yes, you get more output the more time you go into the studio, but great songs like the ones that we're really trying to write,

that we've done a couple times in the past, those don't come every day. Even when we were working on the fund, it was like 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. raising our first fund, and 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the studio. And this is during COVID, so we didn't have shows. So that was every day. If you look at all the time that you spent making music

and how productive you actually were versus how much time you were in the studio, it's like pretty whack. Very low percentage. Yeah, we spent that time, like the inputs thing is the thing you need to be conscious of. Like, am I having experiences? Am I watching movies? Am I talking to interesting people? A lot of the fun does that for us, puts us in new rooms, gets access to new information.

New points of view, new ways of thinking of things. We've always been cerebral in that way. It does satisfy a part of us, which is we like business. We like reading the news. We're very curious people. And I think having the opportunity to channel that into something

that's hopefully meaningful for the world and for certainly other founders starting things, that's exciting to us. Definitely life is all about finding that balance between these different things. I think that's something we do extraordinarily well in terms of not having ego.

If I got to go do this meeting, I'm not pissed if he's in the studio. I trust that he's going to be handling that. And then when we come out, he's not going to be like, this is my song. I'm not like, this is my investment. We're a team. These are true partners. Yeah. And so I think that allows us obviously to cover more ground. And then Drew mentioned it, but we tour a lot. We're not married yet. We don't have kids yet. That's probably not too far in the distant future. And having a opportunity to continue to build something that allows us to be a little bit more home potentially is an exciting prospect. And both

of us have been musical in different ways for our lives, but there's so much time in the day. That's something that I really put a lot of value on is just your output. How productive can you really be if you want to be productive? And the answer is really fucking productive if you care about the things you're doing. And we also really love this stuff. You don't feel like you're working. Yeah, I don't wake up at seven and I'm like, God damn it.

I like to complain, so you probably will hear that. Like I'm just a complain-y person. Well, you're from the East Coast. Exactly. Is LA wearing you out? Because it slowly infected me. I'm from Detroit.

Yeah, I'm a Lions fan. Newly? No, no, for a long time. Oh, wow. You got in at the ground floor. Yeah, yeah Detroit. Yeah. I'm a Lions fan. Newly? No, no, for a long time. Oh, wow. You got in at the ground floor. Yeah, yeah. And we haven't really gone up much. I'm from New York originally, and I finally have a place back there, and I love going there.

And everyone's like hustling and moving. There's shit going all the time. It's frenetic. It's also fucking exhausting. We have a couple of buddies who are successful tech people that are like, I'm going to go to New York. And I was like, dude, how are you liking it? They're like, I'm so tired. I'm so tired here. I'm having so much fun, but it's so tiring. And here, I'm going to go to New York. And I was like, dude, how are you liking it? They're like, I'm so tired. I'm so tired here. I'm having so much

fun, but it's so tiring. And here, I don't do shit. I think the thing in New York is when you're there, you're out. You don't want to be sitting in your apartment because you're hearing it all out the window and you're like, I need to be out there. Well, so your apartment's this big. Even a nice apartment is this big, so you have to go somewhere.

Yeah, exactly. You got a bathroom. With no door. A hot plate. Two different coffee devices. I was going to say, though, I think there's a new generation now. You can't just be Daniel Day-Lewis,

or I kind of feel like Taylor Swift and Beyonce were like the last musicians who were just musicians, and that's it. That's all they put out, and that's all. I mean, even I think Taylor had like a perfume or something. I don't know. But now you have to be involved in multiple things. I was just listening to something about Olivia Rodrigo and it's like, yeah, she's involved in this and she's an actor and she's this. And that's sort of the new know, going back to your points about taking in the world, I keep bringing this point up. We just had like a meeting yesterday where I mentioned this, but if you want to become a great actor, you shouldn't just like sit there

and read the script thousands of times. It's about going out, go to galleries, go to theater, go watch movies, go hang out with friends, go to concerts. And then you become the sum of all of those pieces. And you're able to kind of like synthesize that into whatever this role that you're supposed to be in a really interesting, captivating way. And I think that is a similar point of just how you're out here experiencing the world. You're meeting all these people. We've played shows for every fortune 500 company on the planet, every wealthy guy's daughter's bar mitzvah, sweet 16. And we've never been transactional. We're always collecting these amazing friends and personalities. And so much of our lives, they were like, what can I do for you guys? And you're like, just be our friend. We love hanging out with you. We love hosting you. And then finally, we'll find this thing in venture

where we're like, wait, maybe we can weaponize this all and take all this value in these relationships we had and channel it into something that's meaningful, not just for ourselves, but other people out there, hopefully. And that might be exciting and interesting. And it's hard. Venture is not for the faint of heart. Well, even Brian said that Kutcher had called him like 25 times before he finally got on the phone with him. Oh, yeah, probably. Shout out to Brian.

He's done so much for us. This isn't a negative. But I mean, I was like, Brian, will you invest in our fund? He's like, no, I don't think so. And you were like, what? You know what I mean? So his point, and he was right. He was like, my value isn't capital

for you guys. It's my resources, my experience. This guy's done a lot of great, really helpful things for us. But it's funny, you know, at the time I was like, you're wrong. This is what I need right now. But it's like a parent giving you a lesson. Also, we don't know what we need. We think we know what we need. A hundred percent. Until we get it, we're like, huh, guess that wasn't it. Cause I still restless, irritable, and discontent. But music is the sun of our solar system. I mean,

there's no doubt about that. Like, music has given life to everything that we've been able to get involved in. If we have, you know,

another successful record, that makes everything else infinitely easier. Priority will always be Chainsmokers. Golden Goose. So can I ask some really dumb basic questions?

I probably should ask them at the very beginning of this because I'd imagine some of our audience is equally ignorant. So can I ask some really dumb basic questions? I probably should ask them at the very beginning of this because I'd imagine some of our audience is equally ignorant. So when I think of a DJ, I think of Grandmaster Flash. Like I think of someone

spinning two vinyl records. Obviously, if you guys both DJ, like what's physically happening when you two are both DJing? Because you do these insanely huge shows. You did a stadium tour.

You had a residency. When I come see you guys, who's doing what? We have different insanely huge shows. You did a stadium tour. You had a residency. When I come see you guys, who's doing what? We have different formats of shows. When we do big festivals, it's both of us DJing, but mainly Alex because I'm singing a lot. And our drummer, Matt, is playing with us too. So Alex will DJ and play a couple of live elements to like add to the songs.

I'll be DJing and singing. It sounds like kind of a crazy show. That's fun. I know, it's really fun. And then Matt comes out and he's the most talented change smoker and just makes us look amazing. If he gets sick, I do drum. That would be fun.

At a two and a half out of ten, I'd say. Okay. So we can keep it simple. We'll just have you play over track or something. It'll be cool, yeah. Or I'll just mime and you play a track. Then Vegas is really fun. We've been at the Wynn for six years now.

Oh, that continued. I know you guys had a three-year deal. Yeah, we have like two more years with them now. And are you guys there every weekend? Is that how it works? Basically. Every weekend. Basically.

It was like 50 shows a year for the first four or five years. And now we're down to like 35. You're broken. You are. Which actually feels like a lot less, which is amazing. Well, it goes from every single weekend to... Sometimes twice a weekend. It was like crazy.

We're there tomorrow night and then we're there on Saturday. okay so here's the thing i know you guys fly there you can just take me one yeah yeah you guys can both come we love bringing new people too we have our consistent friends they're like dude i'll come with you right now and you're like all right we have but like bringing new people i like how that was a sergio impression that was a sergio impression djing isn't so much about yes grand, Grandmaster Flash, A-Track. There's incredible turntabless. Is that what we would call them? Turntabless?

I would say that that's probably the official type. I think we're even dated. On the techniques. Yeah. 1200s. Unbelievable. I mean, I started on 1200s. It's hard and it's an art form.

But what experience we're bringing is very different because you can go to one of those people's shows. And some people can have a great time. But there's all the times where you're like, I'm just kind of trying to hear the track and enjoy my time yeah that's like the biggest realization in vegas because in vegas this club hawkasan brought and this is like 2012 probably 2013 they brought like calvin harris and deadmau5 and david getta and every big dj at the time avicii and it became this like big edM heavy thing and then we just played so many shows there that we just forget about this whole EDM format thing and just started

playing throwbacks and shit that we grew up on and we were like one of the only American DJs so we kind of tapped into that whole thing and so now our show is just like a party Are you guys old enough to have ever seen A.M.? Yeah, he was incredible I mean he was probably the best first example of that guy that took Elton John records and mashed them up with a dance track or a hip hop song. And I mean,

I saw him a bunch of times, actually. He was really special. Yeah, he was a friend of mine, and he was so on another level musically. The act of DJing, it's like you're hosting people. You're coming into the world of music and energy that we're trying to create for you. So it's almost less the musical act of DJing and more the experience. Yeah, you're putting on a full thought out show. Or sometimes not as thought out, but you know who we are, the energy that brings, the vibe that brings in like, I want to go see that. That was like Chainsmokers pre-Drew. If we're playing at One Oak, it's going to be probably like when everyone else DJs there, it's high end club. But then you start adding in your own music to the mix. It really adds a dimension.

What's interesting is we probably DJed for four or five years, pretty much straightforward. Drew didn't really start singing probably until the third or fourth year. Yeah, Closer was weirdly the first song I ever sang on. I know. You had only done background, right? Yeah, I did background vocals on Roses for the deep in my bones I can feel you. That part?

Yeah. And then Closer was the first. So, yeah, that was one of my questions is I had to imagine taking that swing. for the deep in my bones I can feel you that part yeah and then closer was the first so yeah that was one of my questions is I had to imagine taking that swing I want to know what kind of internal conversations there were about it there was never like okay one day I'm gonna sing there was never that prophecy you weren't pestering uh Alex fine singers are annoying you know if we can bring this thing in house it's easy I'd say the evolution of our career in terms of going from producers to writers to perform like all that i mean we started doing remixes we'd go

on hype machine which is this vlog aggregator and beg all the artists that were on the chart to like give us their vocal stems so we could make our version of the song and that's kind of how we cut our chops as producers and figuring out what would be a sound that was replicable that would be the chain smokers that felt like us that no one else was doing and then we got to the song roses where we wrote it with this amazing songwriter roses and she sang it i did background vocals and there were a couple songs around that time where we graduated from just making the music to writing the lyrics to you know and there was don't let me down and then by the time closer happened we were on tour me and this kid freddie who's in this band called Louis the Child,

were super drunk one night and made the beat for Closer on the back of the tour bus. I had written out lyrics to a song that I thought were very kind of like dashboard confessionally, like very visual, Death Cab for Cutie, my favorite band of all time, love, slash postal service. I had this story that I was really excited to put over this beat and so I was kind of writing lyrics to this beat and then my friend was like, you should just sing this song. I was really excited to put over this beat. And so I was kind of writing lyrics to this beat.

And then my friend was like, you should just sing this song. I was like, I can't sing. And he's like, trust me, I'm going to show you this little thing called auto. He finessed my vocals, say that. And I think the vocal on Closer is still the demo vocal. And the whole intention was someone else is going to sing this. I'm not a singer. Someone else is going to do this.

This is a temp. Exactly. We're like, we need a feature. What guy could sing this or whatever. And then in the time that it took us to get off that tour, enough of our friends had heard it. And we're like, this shit is fire. You got to stay on this song. Halsey was on it yet or not? Halsey wasn't on it. She wasn't on it. But we're like, we should have a female singer do the second verse. And we actually had Camila Cabello sing the second verse before her. She just left Fifth Harmony. We had become friends and she wanted to do the track and it was crazy. We had the

whole thing kind of done and thought she was going to be on it with us and then I think she just figured it wasn't the right move for her. Oh, we know who convinced her. Anyway, we've heard through the grapevine who said to not do it, but whatever. That shit happens all the time in the music industry. Is she dog walking? No, she's doing great.

Yeah, yeah. We're trying to have her on, so. But that's a bummer of a song to have turned down. Oh my God, yeah. That's your biggest song, right? When we do have her on, we will be asking her about that moment. Because that sucks. I would be interested to hear her perspective on this story.

That's basically like you stepped up and you said, I'll take a random pick super lotto mega ball. And then a guy behind you was like, I was in line before you. Oh, yeah, then take this ticket. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll take a random pick, super lotto, mega ball. And then the guy behind you was like, I wasn't lying before you. Oh, yeah, then take this ticket. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get the next one. But it's really weird because who knows what would have happened if Camilla stayed on it. Right. Palsy was perfect.

It was the perfect timing. Chainsmokers had two hit songs out. It was Rosen, Don't Let Me Down. She had a hit song out, and everyone was very excited about it. It was a really cool, you guys should do something together moment. That was what it was supposed to be. That song was life changing and career changing, obviously, because of the success of it. And then for me personally, I was like, oh, shit, now I'm a singer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's got to be another lovely layer of like, God, not only is this thing the biggest thing we've done in record setting, like second longest song in top 10 ever, 33 weeks or some shit. And it's you and you didn't even plan on it. It was also really crazy because then I had to figure out how to be a singer. And I have tried to get most of the videos taken down on the internet, but there is some pretty painful moments still out there. Well, you're also very young to be going through all this.

Yeah. This wasn't the plan. Like there's so many things in our history i remember when we got our number one for closer females were coming up and they were like you guys have the biggest song in the world are you not going to perform at the vmas right now like you have to do that we should not have performed at the vmas this is like two weeks after i was a singer i know you guys know this so well and i'm certain you guys think everyone knows this but i did not know this whole thing you're about to say until I read it this morning.

Okay, yeah. So, you know, you get the call and everyone's like, you guys will be idiots not to do this. And we're like, we have never performed on anything like this. We have no experience. All we have is a childhood reference of like, oh, the VMA, this is a big deal. Right. Yeah. You were like, we're DJs.

Yes, Drew sings and Halsey sings, but where is the music coming from? Are there dancers? Are there not? We didn't even know about the concept of in-ears. In-ears, for those of you listening that don't know, when you're playing a big room like an arena or a festival or whatever, you can't hear yourself in real time without monitors. And so you wear these in-ear things, which this is my preamble to if you ever go watch the VMA video, you'll see what I was suffering from.

Fucks up your timing, yeah. Yeah, totally. You can't sing on time without them. You have like professional modes. It costs like $2, yeah. Yeah, totally. You can't sing on time without them. You have like professional modes. It costs like 2,500 bucks. And they were like, here's my ear pods. What they give you on airplanes.

You know what I mean? So stressful. I know, I'm having a panic attack just thinking about being in this situation. So I get up there and I'm trying to sing through them, which sounds so bizarre. I've never done anything like this.

Also, I'm not a good singer. So there's like two really big hurdles. Big hurdles. I can't hear myself and I can't sing brought in to sing a couple issues i don't sing so you didn't have the thing and i put them in i was like this is weird took them out but didn't really understand this is so idiotic they were like it's tomorrow and we're like what and they're like do it and i'm like what am i doing they're like just stand in front of a keyboard it's not even gonna be plugged in and i was like uh is that unusual they're like nobody do it. And I'm like, what am I doing? And they're like, just stand in front of a keyboard. It's not even going to be plugged in. And I was like, is that unusual?

They're like, nobody plays it. Everything's fake, which is partially true. That is true. That was one of the most eye-opening things in music business for me was learning how to play piano really well and then being like, we don't actually want you to play live. And you're like, wait, what? It's a variable they don't want. Well, I might hear it.

You know what I mean? Like, I'll just show up at 8 p.m. They should put a standees of you. Yeah, it's just like most of it is bullshit. Unfortunately, the policy with singing was not that. I think everyone sings pretty much. A lot of these shows, they don't. I can't tell.

My wife can tell. She's so good. And even been at a concert where the singer was singing lots of the song, but they were fading beautifully in and out of different pre-recorded stuff. And they're a master at matching that. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, it's about the experience for the fans. And a lot of these shows, like the Super Bowl, you don't even think about who's in the arena.

You're thinking about everyone watching on TV. When I was at it, I was like, damn, this is not fun to watch live. But at home, you're like, whoa, this is nuts. So it's all these different considerations and trying to figure out who's the target. Exactly. And I think that's the main point when we think about it a lot. Who are we trying to connect with at our shows

or through our music? What is the experience we want to bring? Like we became a live band for three years there. Literally, we were playing live. Like I was on synthesizer and keyboards. She was playing guitar and singing, our drummer. Did you enjoy that more or less? I hated it.

I liked playing the music. You're locked in. I'm not like Elton John as, you know, so I'm not like fucking Freddie Mercury or less. I hated it. I liked playing the music. You're locked in. I'm not like Elton John. So I'm not like fucking Freddie Mercury or whatever. So it's like I don't have the chops to enjoy it as much as they look like they're playing it. But you can't throw it away. Like an actor who learns their lines and they can throw it away. Exactly.

It's really cool that we can do this. If we want to go on a late night show or PMAs, we can play live and it will be really good. But do our fans come to this show and say, I prefer that experience to the experience I was getting before. And that's kind of where we landed this hybrid show where it's like, this is us. We create a certain type of energy and environment through our music and through our performance. And it's unique to us. And that's what we should be delivering. Okay, I want to ask you a grody question. I think it was 2017 or 19. Forbes listed you guys as the third highest grossing DJs at $38 million that year. And I want to know, A, who was number one and two? And fucking what did they make?

Calvin probably made a lot that year. We eventually got to number one. I know this. I know this. This is my reverse way. But also, they're like way off. We have a great business manager and everything's very much in check. I can imagine certain people that are getting audited.

They're like, I didn't make that much. Friends are like, yo, what's up? Let me get some money. And you're like, no, this isn't right. I've had it on both ends. I've had it where they were way high. Didn't like that because then I thought, my family must think I'm so fucking cheap. Why haven't I bought everyone in this family homes?

And then it's been too low at times. And then I'm like, my ego's bruised. There's no winning it. And then if it's right, you're like, fuck, everyone knows. You can't win. Yeah. It's just such an American thing. It is, yes.

But tell me what you think the number one person back then was making. Calvin was just unstoppable. He was doing the biggest shows. Every three months, there would be a new Calvin Harris song that was like the biggest song in the world. He has the biggest residencies. He's killing it. Calvin was like our idol. But it's not crazy for a DJ

to go make a million dollars for a night, right? I mean, it's pretty crazy. I mean, it's crazy, but it happens, no? Yeah. Because I just know what AM made 12 years ago, and it was shocking to go to Vegas and play for the night, or anywhere, really.

So it can be that much, though, right? It can be a million bucks? Yeah, it can, definitely, but it really just depends on the event. You know, we just played this crazy show in Brazil called the town massive festival, like a hundred thousand people to put that on costs. I don't even know how much fucking money. And they had the craziest line of it. Like Bruno Mars, Post Malone, Foo Fighters. Everyone's got backline and gear and travel and managers, agents, business managers. There's hundreds and hundreds of people getting paid all around. 100%.

The periphery of the office. But DJing does have the best margins. Yeah, yeah. That is a consideration. You don't have a ton of equipment. But we do also put on a very elaborate show in terms of pyro. I would imagine the residency, yeah, is easier for you guys to develop a really complicated show. Having a residency is the most fun thing because you get to build almost like a branded party that kind of builds on itself over time and it's super fun you

also get to know people that come back to experiment with the show and just do weird ass shit like we make up the set every single time and it's so crazy and every now and then i'll be like that was our best effort and people will still come up and be like that was the sickest show ever and you're like damn i don't know if i'm jaded or what it is, but it's always fun. The other great curiosity I have other than my greedy pig money curiosity is as an addict, I always think if ever there was a job that would lend itself beautifully to being fucked up all the time, it would be that one. Maybe above all.

Well, it's taken down a lot of them. Yeah. What is the pressure? What's the experience? What's your own personal journeys on that front? Drinking, especially. That's the place you go. You're breaking down a lot of them. Yeah. What is the pressure? What's the experience? What's your own personal journeys on that front? Drinking, especially, that's the place you go. You're at a nightclub most of the time, right? Being in Vegas, it's like even people that don't drink all the time, they're drinking that night.

You're in that environment, which is really tough. I've really struggled, especially with the balance of who I have to be on stage and who I want to be on Monday morning, like rested, present with my family and our companies. Not in a serotonin depletion state. Exactly. And honestly, when you're younger, that's really not an issue. But like this past year, especially,

has been really hard. The right bull at the age of 33. But you know, like I can't recover as quickly as I did before. And you have to kind of weigh it, but those habits are so ingrained. It's less of like, damn, I want to drink and more of, I just flew across the world and I have three hours before this show. And then I'm getting back on a plane after, then I'm doing

this five nights in a row in five different countries this week. And every time I get on stage, I gotta be the man and I gotta be happy and have fun. And like, that's one thing that kind of gets you through it. There are other ways. And there are a lot of DJs, especially now. One of the beautiful things about this career is there's a lot of guys that are a lot older that are killing it again. They're awesome. You have to be really conscious of how you're treating yourself.

And you probably can't do what you were doing when you were in your 20s. Calvin is one of those guys. You know, he's like, I just wanted to stop drinking. And you can tell he's super healthy and he values different things. And he's putting on six shows and making bangers, you know? And it's like, okay, so it is possible. So I think that transition is kind of where I'm personally around. It's like, I don't want to be drinking this much anymore. And I want to be focused and I want to do this and I want to be happy. Well, it starts taking more than it's giving. Totally. I mean, it's a bad vice, not as bad as drugs and other things, but cigarettes,

literally called the chain smokers, obviously. We know your position. And I too was an ex-chain smoker, so I'm with you. But I would smoke while I DJed. The two were very connected. And I remember one day I was just like, I'm done smoking cigarettes. It's a disgusting habit. I'm getting sick all the time.

It's too expensive. Like in New York, it was like $25 a pack. You smell your apartment smells. Everything. I remember DJing and it was so weird in my head. I was like, what am I doing up here? There's no cigarette. You felt naked probably.

Now I don't even think about it. And it's weird how you have to break those habits of those things because it could be fucking sex. It could be booze. It could be drugs. It could be cigarettes. These certain things that you're like, oh, I can't do that unless I'm like this or unless I have this.

And it takes like a reprogramming in some ways of your own mind to know that you can kind of get past those things. I feel really fortunate because I don't have a super addictive personality in general. I love to drink, but I also like will not drink during the week at all. I don't come home at the end of the day and think, oh, I just want like a bourbon right now or something. I'm the opposite. I want to watch like an action movie and pass the fuck out or something. I'm the opposite. I want to watch like an action movie and pass the fuck out or something. I do. I like smoking weed sometimes, but it's hard. I mean, and you see a lot of that in our culture. You know, luckily for us, we're not deep house guys. Those guys are

playing four or five, six hour sets at the craziest hours of the night in the craziest places. And everyone's rolling. And everyone's like really fucked up. And you see some of our friends that are really top of their game in that space. They got to take you to another planet for six hours. A hundred percent. It really will get you. It gets everybody. If you're not careful, we're lucky we have these other businesses and things that we're excited about because it kind of keeps you honest. If your whole life only revolved around that, you didn't have any sort

of interactions with people outside of that where you get to meet a Brian Chesky and be like, damn, this dude is like operating right now. How do you maintain your creativity and that je ne sais quoi that makes you special, a great performer, but also grow up and handle your business the right way? And it's tough. I mean, I don't think there's a right answer. I have a cousin who grew up in New York and he's an amazing guy. He was sober by the time he was 16. And I was like, dude, that sucks. I do believe that some of my best memories are nights that I was drunk. Sure. But I also think that's not the truth.

Especially if you're super successful, you can justify it away. Like, well, I'm doing great. I have this much money. I have a girlfriend. I have all these things. Like, why would I stop? Like, there's absolutely no consequences for stopping. And you have to look internally.

I'm currently not drinking and it's really hard. Yeah. When did you stop? Like six days ago or seven days ago. And it is hard. Thanks for the honesty. It's a very honest space. And you do realize how often you're pairing it with something.

Do you like wine? I love wine. I love red wine. I love wine. That's my biggest vice. Should you guys maybe go grab a glass of red wine? No, I'm not drinking right now. I think you guys should go grab a glass of wine. No, and I just got this plaque made at my favorite wine bar. It has my name on it.

Oh, you really like wine. I love it. You have like a chair? Yeah, it's this little plaque by my bench. She's Norma from Cheers. And it sucks. The adjustment in realizing what you're doing. And I recognize that I need it to play with time.

It both slows down and speeds up time. Well, it punctuates as well. There's a moment in the day where you switch. You're like, I'm going to have this thing. My thinking's going to shift. But I mean, I'll edit and have a glass of wine. And for me, that makes that thing I don't really want to do go faster.

Totally. Or if I'm with friends, it makes it go slower. Vegas for that, it's like, if you don't drink, I feel like I'm letting people down in some weird way where they're like, you're not going to have fun with me? I'm here to have the most fun night of my life. And you're like, fuck, all right. I wish you could step out of your body in these different instances.

So I think that's the context you get when you see someone that's like your friend that's drinking too much and you're like, this dude is annoying. And then you're like, am I like that? I never noticed he was annoying until I wasn't in the same situation well guys so a couple things 19 years without a drink totally disappears like you were saying when you first quit smoking it's like every movie you watch you're like oh he looks incredible smoking when i first go i'm like you're never more than 50 feet away from alcohol anywhere in the country anywhere you stand it's like that store's got it that restaurant's got it that house has it you stand, it's like that store's got it, that restaurant's got it, that house has it, that cupboard has it.

It's fucking everywhere. And you can feel it. I haven't felt that for 16 years. I don't even see it. Obviously, I'm not insane. I know it's everywhere, but I have no awareness of it. And it's only the things that I have more recently done where I'm like, hmm, that guy just broke his arm.

I bet he's got Percocet. I'll be thinking about that because I haven't had the six years away from it again. But it took like three years. I know, that seems long. What was that? It's a long hunt. It's like six months.

Sounds like a long time. Seven days. I just did 19 minus 16 and that's three years, my guy. Hold on, brother. That was just a random guess. I can tell you the first year was fucking rough. Okay. And I can tell you that I feel like from about year

two and on, it hasn't been rough. It really hasn't at all. There was one time I had diarrhea in an airplane. Food poisoning in Kuwait. 18 hours of flying, throwing up, and puking, and shitting. And the final leg from New York to LA, I was like, we might have to drink. I mean, I really don't know how I'm gonna

get through this without something. But that's the only time. And that really would have been medicinal. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. The context of this is like the surroundings we're in, but how much of your lifestyle changed out of that from like a friend group perspective? A, you stop thinking about it and you start recognizing that I'm having as much fun.

And in fact, I have more fun. I'm more like a 12 year old sober because I have to make myself have fun, which means I have to have hobbies and I have activities. But there are places that it's kind of a wrap on. Like Vegas for me, I'm monogamous and sober. What a fucking drag that place is. I know everyone's got coke in their pocket.

So yeah, that's no longer a place that I'm dying to spend a lot of time at. But that's okay. And then yes, people who I found engaging, I realized I can only be around them till 10 p.m. At 10 p.m. I got to bounce because everyone's going to start repeating themselves. I'm not down for that. Oh, that's the worst.

Oh. The drunk repeaters or the ear talkers. Oh, yeah. Oh, the worst. Okay. I had a couple of quick questions. You referenced Blink-182 and Closer. So I was super in hardcore when I was a kid.

I never really was wild about any of the 90s, 2000s, the ones that got popular. But Blink-182 for me is incredible. That was like the only pop hardcore band I loved. Why not do something with those guys? We have. You have? Yeah. We have a song called...

I'm embarrassed. We have a song called P.S. I Hope You're Happy. It's actually a great song. I always joke that one of us is going to have to die for some of these songs. So like... You see the light of day? Yeah. These are good, well-written, cool songs.

Like if you wanted a Chainsmokers... I'm excited. Blink song, this feels like, see the light of day. These are good, well-written, cool songs. Like, if you wanted a Chainsmokers blank song, this feels like a really solid version of it. I mean, that's the crazy thing about music or any show. You just don't know.

Wow. So for the rest of the day, I'm going to get to enjoy that. How many songs did you guys do together? Just one. Just one. They're awesome.

Oh. Travis came and did like Closer With Us at an award show at one point. He came to our tech party and played. Yeah, it was so crazy.

He played a party for our VC fund like three months ago. Oh my God one point. He came to our tech party and played. Yeah, it was so crazy. He played a party for our VC fund like three months ago. Oh my god, cool. He seems very, very special and generous. We had Machine Gun Kelly on and just watching that relationship too. He seems like such a cool mentor to people. And he's so calm and like

knows his craft and is kind, open-minded to everyone. Mark is just also the biggest sweetheart. One of the times we did the song with him they weren't back together with Tom, but I did meet Tom at our show. He brought his daughter to our show in San Diego one time. They're all just awesome. And have you been to the show? No, I've never seen them. They're new to us. Awesome. And Tom and Mark are just ripping on each other the whole time. Talking about fucking each other's moms and just doing like, what do you want them to do? Childhood friend stuff. Exactly. It's awesome. I'm really happy to see that.

Couple of things that I thought have helped you. I already brought up one was the fact that you guys actually didn't come into this with all this history and baggage. And it seems to have really liberated you from some of the, like the blink thing. I'm sure that's rooted in so many things that are interpersonal before the band. Do you think that you have benefited enormously from collaborating so much? have benefited enormously from collaborating so much? Because I would imagine as well that such a great new source of energy, point of view, makes you want to impress the person you've invited in.

Do you think that collaborating for you guys has been really useful? Absolutely. We're so lucky to have existed at a time where people are down for this much collaboration and have been in a genre where that was almost the norm. You're this producer and you make the song or write the song and then you get to have these fantastic other artists that bring in a flavor that you never get to have in your

band without them. At the end of the day, Alex and I are just massive music fans and this is all just an adventure for us. That's what the Chainsmokers career as an artist is, is just Alex and Drew's great adventure. That's what the Chainsmokers career as an artist is, is just Alex and Drew's great adventure. And we've gotten to work with some really incredible people and we will continue to do so.

I think more recently, the best thing for us is maybe less collaboration, really tapping into that emotion that people really want for us, or as long as we make sure that's the core. Because sometimes you do a collaboration, you're like, this person's a country artist and we're going to write a country-leaning song. Now where we're at is to do collaborations, but they need to be Chainsmokers songs. Do you have any outstanding dream collaborations? So many, a million. Everything he said is true, but also collaboration. It's like high school. Cause you're like putting yourself

out. Yeah. It's like a first day. Here's something that I really love and can be great on. And they're just like, nah. You know what I mean? Or like they don't even answer. It's like passing the note across the table. I think that's the know what I mean? Or like they don't even answer. It's like passing the note across the table. I think that's the issue. I mean, the music business truly sucks. I'm not talking about

so much the artist now. I'm talking about the business itself. It's a rough business. Awful people. Like everyone is taking credit for everyone else's shit or thinks they're the best

or doesn't even bring opportunities to different people. We all want the same goal. You know what I mean? We all want to tell our story to as many people as possible in the most authentic way. And it's tough because you have these songs that you're like, this person's

so perfect for. How do I engage them to share that experience with them? And then you have 25 people on their side whose job it is to like not let anything through. That part can be really stressful. And we've had things go to the one yard line and then fall apart for different reasons. And these are songs that are so important to you or to us in different ways. And that part makes it hard, which is probably why it's like, yo, let's not taint it all the time with that stuff. All the heartbreak. Sometimes these things just happen.

And also, I think this is why it's such a cool opportunity to come on a show like this. You have such a wide base of listeners that really enjoy the conversations that you have and learn about the people that come on it. And I think we're constantly fighting like a disinformation war about who we are. And I think whether it's the fund and people are like, what the fuck are they doing over there? You can't really blame anyone. You go on Instagram and you're like, oh, look, there's them recreating the Mark Wahlberg, Kate Moss photo, but it's them too. You know what I mean? And then you're like- We did that last week. It was a big, big hit, big controversial hit.

And then you're like, are they serious? Are they not? Are they cool? Are they close? Are they fucking with us? Yeah. And so it's tough. I really obviously love who we are as people. I'm not an insecure person in that way.

But I find myself doing it all the time. I'm like, that person's a fucking loser. And then you meet them and you're like, damn, that person was really cool actually. That's his job, by the way. Yeah, yeah. Which is so great. I'm such a fan of this format because we've done Brit and Preston. That's his job by the way. Yeah, yeah. Which is so great. I'm such a fan of this format because we've done

Britain Press and it's never worked because they just fill in the cracks or fill in the Grand Canyon with stuff. At some point in our career probably around 2017

it felt like we were completely not in control of who we were from a public and there was like two realities we were fighting

which was like I know who I am and my friends seem to know who I am but everyone else thinks I'm this and how the fuck do we consolidate these two things? Well, you're going to inevitably be a victim of the narrative that everyone loves, which is we're trapped in a, we love a come up story. We love to watch people rise. And then next chapter has got to be destruction. We're just so hardwired for story. We interviewed Ed Sheeran and he's like,

oh yeah, I'm hated here. And we're like, how could that be? You're the biggest tour of all time. Where is this man hated? We were in England. People are brutal.

It's like the tall poppy syndrome. It's anyone that's number one. Eventually the other thing comes. It's kind of unavoidable and a total bummer. Anyone who knows Ed can't hate Ed. I know. He's the sweetest. He who knows Ed can't hate Ed. I know.

He's the sweetest. He's like, you're saying Travis. He likes to be around other musicians. He likes to help people. He likes to reach out. People like Travis. People like Drake. They just keep parlaying the cool somehow.

They just pivot. And you're just like, damn, how's that fucking so easy? It looks so easy for y'all. Jay-Z, yeah. Jay-Z, same thing. How's Jay-Z just still apex cool after 30 years? And I guess it's just like kind of settling into yourself. I don't know if Travis cares that much about that stuff.

He's just like, I am who I am. And I think that is part of just our own growth. I think we had the fortune of going through college and becoming successful later in life. So we had experienced a lot of things that I think have made us good people. But also with that, we can't like lean on into the like, I was 17, you know, and now I'm 20. But I feel like we have like matured so much.

We were fully adults when it all went down. Fully responsible, can go to jail adults. You guys took a hiatus for, I don't know how long, but you took a hiatus from social media. A, how long did it last? B, what was that period like and what did you glean from it we wanted to do it because we just had been doing so much touring all day every day just having to put stuff out and then i guess it was january of 2020 we're like all right let's take everything off social media and then two months later everything shut down yeah yeah and some people

say it's our fault but oh god no fault but it was actually pretty wild timing we needed to take a break and then everyone took a break but we did get off social media which is actually when we started our first fun when we worked on our album So Far So Good and it was a very weird time for everybody it was almost good because if you posted on social media doing anything fun people were like

hell no! everyone was so angry but it was really freeing I enjoyed the non-responsibility of having to participate. I mean, it is a real feeling. When you post something and it does well, you're like, I'm having a good day. When you post something that doesn't do well, you're like, I feel like shit. I'm no longer relevant.

Even though two days before something worked. You're like, how do I middle ground this? Where you're like, I'm just going to throw it up. Obviously, you can get rid of the likes and stuff. But inside, you're still thinking. I guarantee those people who like remove the likes and comments or whatever are still like, did it do well? I know. I know that shit didn't pop.

Yeah. Social media sucks. TikTok was a phenomenon in the middle of all of this that has changed music and culture and relationships and the creator economy and ability for anyone to have success overnight potentially. Forget about us. I don't feel bad at all for us ever. But imagine being like 16 and having a video that has 25 million views.

I know. I think about it all the time. What a mindfuck that must be. I would have driven a car off a cliff. Yeah, or you've been like, this is my destiny. I am going to stop focusing on any other skill because I've just done something that validates my 16-year-old mind. Yeah, because I got struck by lightning.

Right, exactly. We grew up on Jackass. They were like the Pena Colo. I don't know if I want to be like them, but really hard lifestyle. But I love them. You're just doing dumb shit as like a 14-year-old with your friends on a VHS camera. And I'm like, those tapes better be destroyed. You know what I mean?

Like, I'm so glad there's no footage of this stuff out there. And I can't imagine, like, everything's recorded. And then getting validation for a dumb thing you do. And then like, oh, I guess I got to lean into this. Be misled. I've read that kids are less sexually active now than in the past. Which is interesting. You would think it would be, like, nudes flying around all the time

and inappropriate stuff. And now it seems like it's kind of had the opposite effect in some way where you're more discreet. You're isolated. You feel more connected because of these likes, but you're actually more isolated. I mean, we're always like, who is the public high school next door? Who are the babes there? I have no fucking idea unless I went to Borders in our town and walked around for fucking

three hours and maybe spotted one. But now you're just like on and off. There she is. You can get some satisfaction through sexting, through sharing pictures, and that can prevent you from pursuing the actual thing

because it's satiating. Whereas I was a kid, I was like, I need to get to your house and see you take your bra off. You're not going to be able to send me something. I got to ride my bike over there ASAP. Yeah, I mean,

we were like lost in the woods after Keggers. Looking for K-phones going to be able to send me something. I got to ride my bike over there ASAP. Yeah, I mean, we were like lost in the woods after Keggers, looking for K-phones to call my mom to pick us up. There was this real survival instinct that kicked in there. Okay, well, I just want to say for the record, when I pushed back about your VC fund, it was under none of the story of you guys shouldn't do

it or your hacks. It's more like I love artists and I want you guys to make sure you remember. By the way, I didn't interpret that. I mean, we just finished raising a new fund and the conversations that you have, I always say I started out with, you're thinking two things right now. Why the hell are we doing this?

And how committed are we to doing this? And it's a super fair question to ask. Maybe the two most fair questions to consider as you think about, you know, becoming involved in the work we're doing. Is it Mantis is the name of it? Yeah, Mantis is the name. For us, it's always been all or nothing.

I think this is something that we're going to look back on really fondly in terms of hopefully have success through it. But even just the journey of people we've been able to meet, the world of people that's opened up to us. I was on a jet with a bunch of private equity guys flying back from New York. They were kind enough to let me. We get treated like hot girls sometimes.

You know what I mean? Join us on this plane. You don't have to pay anything. Yes. And we were talking about artificial intelligence and obviously their perspective is what they read about open AI and the news and Bloomberg. And we're like ground level seeding these companies

and meeting these founders. And I was like, wow, this is so crazy. I know way more about this stuff than they do at this point in time. I'm not saying I'm smarter than them. That's certainly not the case. But maybe more informed. But more informed. That was like an interesting feeling to be at the ground level of a technology that could

change everything as we know it. Yeah. And so it's cool to be a part of those. You know, it's like a fountain of youth for us. We're not motivated by the money. It's really the opportunity to be a part of the disruption. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to give a compliment before we wrap this up.

Final compliment. We had somebody on, I forget who, I think it was the disruption. Yeah. Yeah. I want to give a compliment before we wrap this up. Final compliment. We had somebody on, I forget who, I think it was the guy we had someone on who worked for the CIA and like get into mind reading. He would like be able to understand what's going on in people's minds. And he said something so specific about relationships that you can kind of tell how good a relationship is or how healthy or how committed one person is to another in the way they speak and if they say we that's what you want you're a we and if you hear a lot of people saying i or me that's indicative as well and i feel like in this whole conversation you guys have said i like four times and everything you have said is a we. You guys are such a partnership and it's awesome. You guys are really

beautiful soulmates. Honestly. It's a respect. It's obviously a respect for one another and feeling very equal and I think it's awesome. Just don't start fucking.

It'll ruin everything. I think everyone's confused about that. They're like, are they brothers? Are they lovers? Are they friends? Are they brother lovers?

Right. But it's really admirable. Ego is a poisonous thing. And I think if you can just push it aside and take ownership when you fuck up too, I think that's important. And we fuck up a lot, especially me. We all do.

We all do. We fuck up a lot. Alex and Drew, so fun. I had zero opinion of you. I didn't know about the VMAs. I've never read anything negative about you. I just love your music. My daughters and I. He is awful at research.

No, today I learned of some stuff, but I just want to say sitting here, it's been such a delight and I like you guys so much. You're so wonderful. It's an honor for us. You guys have so many amazing people on this show. I can't believe you chose to talk to us. We've been throwing our hat in the ring for a while. We're like, whenever you're ready.

You're ready. What was the blast? We're going to rudely insist that we join you on a flight to Vegas and go. I would love that. I mean, we've had lots of, you know, sober. Chris D'Elia doesn't drink at all. He's calm. He really lets people know, though.

You know, he's a comedian. He's always like, come on, have a shot. He's like, no, I don't drink. I think he has a whole bit about that. They're like, never? He's like, no, I don't drink. I think he has a whole bit about that. They're like, never? He's like, no, I don't drink. He's like, not even one? I'm sure you have to battle that all the time.

You're like, I am sober. Like, I don't drink. There's not a caveat. I love it because I have so many go-tos over refining them. We were flying back from England and this stewardess was just so bummed I wasn't having any of the many refreshments that she was offering. Do you want the champagne right out of the gates? No. Would you like this wine for dinner? No. that she was offering, right? Do you want the champagne right out of the gates? No.

Would you like this wine for dinner? No. And she's like, you're really not going to drink. And I go, I will drink if you know someone's got cocaine on this flight. And then she just looked at me like she got it. Or I'll say like, I'd love to drink, but we'll probably have to ground this plane early as well. For me, it's just a setup to say something funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I come from a culture in Detroit where it's like, I'm way more embarrassed about not drinking. So I would way rather you know I'm a fucking alcoholic than just someone who just isn't interested in drinking. My own ego needs you to know like, no, I'm a junkie. I used to drink so much. Yeah, I spill more of my shirt than you've drank. Hold on, hold on. I have a little thing I want to show you. Watch this video of me right before I got sober. You think that guy should drink?

No. All right, guys. So much fun. And we are 100% coming to see you play. Excellent. All right. Looking forward to it. Thank you, guys.

Stick around for the fact check. Because they're human, they make lots of mistakes. Chain smokers go, chain smokers. What are your plans in New York City, Missy? You piece of fucking shit. New York City,

the land of skyscrapers. Do you know how you get to Carnegie Hall once you're there? How? Lots of practice. Oh my God, I've never. Yes, you have. I've never heard that. I think I've told it to you before. I've never. Yes, you have.

I think I've told it to you before. I've never heard that. I learned it from Sean Hayes. I want to give all props to Sean Hayes. Wow, that's really funny. I have some dinner plans. What restaurants? Are you going to go to Emily?

You're not going to go all the way to Brooklyn, are you? I do want to go to Emily. I haven't been in a few trips, so I need that. I'll probably try to do that when I'm closer, when I'm on the Bowery side. Yeah. So I'm going to shop. I'm going to eat. Are there any items in particular you think you're going to buy?

No. Like are you going there like I'm on a mission for a purse? Do we even say purse anymore? A bag. Oh, you can say purse, I think. I don't think it's canceled. Oh, okay. I want a camel colored coat.

Camel hair? No, camel colored. I don't know yet the- Fabric? Yeah, the materials. My dad had quite a few camel hair coats. Those were very popular. Okay, and was it long?

Long coat, yeah. Was it long hair? God, no. Like a muskox? Just like, no. Like a muskox? Just like long strands. Like a bear pelt? Kind of imagine it with like long strands. I can understand where you would think that, but just imagine your normal coat, but it's made of camel hair.

Was it scratchy? It wasn't, well, in the way that wool is. Okay. It's not alpaca. No, or cashmere. Or cashmere. And then I want to go to this place, Thai Diner. It's not alpaca. No, or cashmere. Or cashmere. And then I want to go to this place, Thai Diner. It's also cool.

Why didn't they name it Tyner? Well, I'll ask. That would have been way better. Okay. Thai Diner, you're almost there. Thai Diner. Tyner. It's a hot spot.

Okay. CNBC? I don't know. I bet. If you heard about it over the transom and you heard it's a hot spot, it's got to be a CNBC. CNBC. CNBC. MSN CNBC. heard about it over the transom and you heard it's a hot spot it's gotta be a cnbc cnbc cnbc msn cnbc and then molly's coming which i'm so excited about for a couple days which will be

really nice she doesn't eat burgers though that's the only that's my only criticism of molly as a human being yeah she doesn't eat cheese but i we went to emily burger together i took her there there's pizza. It's a pizza place. Delicious pizza. Yeah. And a really incredible broccoli salad, too. So she has stuff to eat.

Okay. Plus, there's a cake in New York that we love. It's heartbreaking that someone wouldn't be experiencing the burger. Because, great, I've eaten all the other food. It's fantastic. Everything on the menu is great. The burger's in a whole world onto itself. She can't appreciate it. We have to accept that.

It's like Cherries Garcia. When we were on that flight, we were discovering the pleasures of Cherry Garcia. Can you imagine if someone couldn't? They were allergic to cherries. And Garcia. More likely they're allergic to dairy, which is a lot of people. Yeah. In fact, for a long time, me. Oh, my God. This is a ding, ding, ding.

What? Also, if anyone from Thai Diner also... Tiner? Nope. Okay. Via Carota. I don't know if I'm saying any of these right. If they want to like, I'm saying it now, I would like to come in. Oh, okay, great. So if you see her,

invite her in. Let me in. Wave her in. I think it's hard with reservations. Oh, and Molly and I have this special cake we love. You're not gonna like the sound of it. Okay, it doesn't pitch well. The sound of it is vanilla meringue. Yeah, the meringue's a little off-putting. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's what I said when she first told me about it. She's like, we have to go to this place. They have this cake. It's so good. It's this meringue. And I was like, oh God, all right, fine. I guess I'll sacrifice one. This one dessert. Yeah. Yeah. There'll be others. And then it was so good. She was right.

It's not the type of meringue you're thinking and that I was thinking. Big yellow eggy meringue. Yeah. It's delicious. So I'll be having that with her. I don't know, but this is a ding, ding, ding because the chain smokers, we talk about Craig's, the restaurant in Los Angeles, Craig's. Which I don't know about. I know, which I find shocking. Because? Because I'm just... Is it like

Chateau or something? Yeah. Okay. It's a CNBC. Okay. Big time. Big MSNBC. And I thought you would have known it in your days when you liked to see ABC. Oh, it's been around forever. It's not new? It's not new.

Then maybe I've been there. I wonder if I should look up a photograph. Let's see. Craig's Restaurant. In West Hollywood. Craig's Restaurant, Hollywood. You sound like a funny dog. What if that's how I always talk to my photos?

You know what? You've been there with a fancy pants person, I'm it's gonna be worse than that for you i think i went there with ashley is that like maro's in la siena guy ish area yeah i think i think i went there with her did you have the honey chicken this is 20 years ago ago. In a pancake? I can't remember. I just know. Like, I don't know. I'm uncouth. I don't know.

And she knew. Oh, she knew? Of course she knew. She's stylish. Yeah. I was just along for the ride. I didn't have any style. What was she wearing to Craig's?

I don't know. I can just tell you what her face looked like. Brown features? Very brown features. Undeniably beautiful. Looked like Mary-Kate. Wow. What did she look like? Have you ever seen that actress Mary-Kate Olsen?

Um, yeah Okay Craig's, I went Well, I've been now twice, sort of Oh my god, you're there all the time Sort of I went to this bad event And it was across the street

I was with, ding, ding, Molly. Yeah, we're back. And we wanted to leave. It was not a good event. Right. And we weren't eating enough food there. We weren't being served enough food. That's a sign of a bad event when there's not enough food for the guests.

Correct. Craig's is across the street. Molly said, we could try to go to Craig's. Uh-huh. I was like, oh, my God, I want to go. I've been wanting to go there. I mean, I had never been there. We leave and we decide to try and we figure maybe we could just sit at the bar. It'll probably be way too hard to sit at a table. This is like 8.15 on a Thursday-ish.

Prime time. I walk in, I walk past an insane amount of paparazzi. I talked a little bit about this on So I walked past an insane amount of paparazzi and I talked a little bit about this on sync. So I walked past an insane amount of paparazzi and I was really confused because they were talking to a person and I didn't recognize the person at all. Right. Didn't ring a bell at all. No, but the paparazzi was excited about him. Perfect. So I walk by, walk in, ask her, is there any chance you have a table for two? No way. For non-pop-a-roncy people? Yeah, exactly. Do you have any tables for some non-pops?

She said no. What if she said fuck no? She kind of. She did. She didn't, but she did with her eyes. What if she said, come on. Are you serious? Come on.

But I looked cute because I was at this event. Yeah. So I was. D dressed to the Niners, but on top of it, I had a ding, ding, ding row coat on. Oh my God.

I symmetry right now is outrageous. It's too much. Really? Yeah. So it's getting suspicious. She's like, you can try the bar. There's a,

probably a wait list there. You can put your name on the wait list. Make sure you talk to a bartender to, to put your name on the wait list. Make sure you talk to a bartender to put your name on the wait list. Make sure you make contact with them. I was like, okay. I turned towards the bar. It's packed. It is so insane. I can't even

get to the bar. Do you think it's a fire hazard? Would the fire department say there's too many people in there? I don't want to sense. You're trying to get in good graces of Craig. Yeah. Okay. Sounds like it was dangerous, but continue.

No, it's all on the up and up. All right. I'm like kind of trying to get in. Excuse me. You know. Hi, I'm a mouse. Do you have mouse food? Can I come in?

I have human money. Don't worry. A lot of people were, what was funny, they're all faced out. Oh. All the people at the bar are facing out. Interesting. They're not facing towards the bar. Do you know why?

How are they eating? CNBC? Exactly. CNBC, MS, CNBC. Yes. They're trying to see who's coming in and out. Yes. They're not eating, those people.

So there's people sitting at the bar. Then there's like- Rows of people. Exactly. They're not eating those people. So there's people sitting at the bar. Then there's like- Rows of people. Exactly. CNBC. And so they also are seeing me trying to get through because they're facing me. You're being seen.

But they don't give a fuck. And they are not trying to let me in. No one listens to our show, obviously, at Craig's. And so I was like, fuck, this is not going to work. So I texted Molly, hey, it's too much. This is a pass. Oh, because she was putting money in her car. So I said, forget it.

Get out of here. Yeah, hurry. This is embarrassing. Let's go, let's go, let's go before someone sees us. So, you know, I hang my head down low. I was- Hold on a second, though. That's worth exploring.

Yeah. This is the tricky thing about being, I don't care if anyone knows who I am. Yeah. I don't. Yes. And if I go somewhere and I don't get any preferential treatment, I don't care. It only gets embarrassing if someone does know me there. Oh.

A bystander is like, that's Dax. And then they see me get turned away. Then I get self-conscious like, oh boy. Oh, that's Dax. And then they see me get turned away. Then I get self-conscious like, oh boy. Oh, that's funny. They're going to tell people like, oh, Dax Shepard, they wouldn't serve him or whatever.

That's when, again, if no one knows me, great. If everyone knows me, fun. It's when the right people don't know me, but a couple people saw me get shut down. I can get embarrassed by that. That's interesting. I like your honesty.

Okay. Because I don't have that. That's interesting. I like your honesty. Okay. Because I don't have that. If someone is noticing me, I'm like, oh, this is great. Maybe then- Tell the bartender. Yeah, maybe they'll get me on that list. Because I want to eat the honey chicken that Molly has been now talking up for two hours at the- Oh, getting your-

You know how my taste buds react. That's right. Once I get it in my head— You're probably drooling all over the place. I have to have it. Yeah, insatiable. Yeah, there was drool on my row coat. So I was like, I really want that chicken bad.

And so that was really driving the ship for me. You can't rest until you've eaten. Yeah, but I knew it was not going to happen. Yeah. It wasn't your night. So I. You don't win them all. I don't like that phrase.

Oh, okay. Because I like to win them all. That's true. You have won them all. That's what's misleading. That's how that your life kind of got fucked a little bit. It's not your fault. So as I'm walking out, the guy who's being photographed is walking in.

We're literally crossing paths. He's opening the door that I'm then about to exit. In disgrace. You're leaving in disgrace. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the paparazzi is all right at the door and it's flashing, flashing as he's coming in. And then I step out for them. And then all the cameras just.

Went dark. Yeah, they drop and they run away. Guys are gagging and throwing up. Hate this girl. She's not who we want. She didn't even eat. I saw her just walk in. She's starving.

she's not who we want. She didn't even eat. I saw her just walk in. She's starving. So I, and I still didn't recognize the man, which I think it was shame on me. I'm sure I would have recognized him,

but I also didn't want to stare. And then your eyes are so bad. Yeah. And I thought it was really funny. Right. You had a little laugh. I did. And I really felt grateful that I could laugh at it because I do recognize at another stage in life, I would not have been

able to. It would have ruined your night. It would have hurt my feelings a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably. Or just like, oh, I'm just not, this is never going to happen for me. Can I tell you though, this has been a curiosity of mine for years, which is when I couldn't get into places, I never put myself through that. Like there were nightclubs and stuff I wanted to go to as a drunk before I was on TV. And I was like, I'm not going to go stand in this line and get rejected. Like I just would never do it. I'll only go if it's going to work out for me. It's curious to me that people have such an appetite to go and get rejected, you know?

I barely did that. Only if I was with friends who were doing that. Drug you there, yes. Yes, because I hate that feeling. Yes, like no place is worth that feeling of getting rejection or not good enough to get in. Yeah, and you know what's worse is women have a different thing going on. Oh, yeah. Believe me, as a dude when I was young and I did try to do that,

the girls are just blowing past. If they're hot, they're getting in. But I'm not. You're hot. No, no, no. I'm not getting in. Therefore I'm not hot. No. I'm telling you what's happening in my brain and what the reality of what the series of events was. Right. So you're dealing with two things. One, you're not, you're not, I feel you. You're not famous enough to, or like, you know, worth this- High status enough. This fucking restaurant because you don't have a job that people like here.

Right, you're a piece of shit. And two, you're also not hot enough. Like there were two options and you don't have either. I see, I see. This is, I'm gonna, I see this is very painful and hurtful. Yes. Yeah, so- You're right, because they weren't letting hot do, I mean, they either. I see. This is, I'm going to, I see this is very painful and hurtful. Yes. Yeah. You're right, because they weren't letting hot do, I mean, they do let.

Exactly. The guys that were getting in that weren't on TV were exceptionally hot, but I think they were also rich and they were greasing the guys at the door. Yeah, that's a different thing. No one needs hot guys in a bar. Exactly. Right. You need hot girls.

They want the hot girls for the famous people there. Yeah. Famous boys. You got to get the money with the honey. You got to get the honey with the money. You got to get the honey with the money. Oh. Yeah. So anyway, I felt.

I don't know where we're at. We're at a nightclub somehow. Well, I was just saying at some point in time, I would have found that experience very demoralizing. Yes. And I. You shook it right up. I didn't because I feel good about my place in the world, which is really lucky. And I recognize that as being lucky.

That kind of thing can't knock you down. Yeah. Yes. I'm so happy for you. But I still was upset about the chicken. That's right. It was just based on wanting the chicken, not the CNBC part.

No. So then I made a reservation for some weeks later so that I could have the chicken with Molly and two of our other friends and Kristen, but now she was too tired. Right, too sleepy. So it was early. It was like 5.45 maybe, our reservation. And we got in and we ordered the chicken and it was so good. It is as good as she had advertised?

It was really good. Really? Craig, send me one over. Yeah. Send a car. Send some chicken to as she had advertised? It was really good. Really? Craig, send me one over. Yeah. Send a car, send some chicken to the attic. Send a bunch of chicken here. Yeah, tons of the chickens. It has pancake underneath.

Oh, you can't eat that. Oh, fuck. Save the pancake. No, still send the pancake. I'll eat that. Okay, it's so- That sounds so perverted. I'll eat your pancake.

Craig- Sometimes when you're in a reverse back, you end up eating some pancake. That's what they say but craig craig comes by i don't know if there's a real craig yes come on yes oh my gosh and i don't know if he goes by to every table i think he does well probably the popular ones for sure well we weren't craig came by craig is a hoot. Oh, great. He talked about our dessert choices. Hey, how you doing, Craig? No. Well, kinda. Did you try the dessert?

Yeah, I see you just had the chicken. Did you like it? It's a popular dish here. He's not. He doesn't. Yeah, maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. We'll see and be seen. You guys like a lemon meringue? A little vanilla? Stop! Okay. You ever had Vaughn's cake? Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Stop You ever had Vaughn's cake? Oh my god So he was talking to us And I felt that he was Paying a lot of attention to Molly Okay Molly's for people who don't know Incredibly gorgeous She's beautiful

And so my feelings were her a little bit. Okay. Okay. Like old feelings were popping up at Craig's. This is a minefield, this place. I don't know why you are there. The chicken, the chicken. Maybe damn good chicken, okay.

So I didn't know that was going to happen. It was like, everything was great. Everything's good. We're at Craig's, we're eating the chicken. Here's Craig. The that was gonna happen it was like everything was great everything's good we're at craig's we're eating the chicken here's craig the dessert was great craig comes by but he's really focusing his attention yeah what's your name he didn't ask and he's not italian okay that i know of i don't want to offend him okay so uh he talks to her, or he talks to us, but mainly her. But her, slash her. Mm-hmm.

And keeps it moving, whatever. We realize there is a celebrity sighting next to us. I think this is relevant to bring up. The celebrity sighting? No, just to pause you for one second on Molly. Okay. To soften what your experience was. Okay.

As you recall, Molly and Kristen were in France together, and they were taking this bicycle cab around everywhere. Uh-huh. And the bicycle driver completely ignored Kristen and was like, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, holding up condoms to Molly, like, you know, just to put it all in reference. Molly, I would say this is true. Two out of every five times I'm out with her, some stranger comes up to us and tells her how beautiful she is.

Right. Can you imagine? No. I can't imagine. No, I cannot imagine. It must be so fun. Although I bet if it's happening to you, you're annoyed by it. But for me, I would love it. I don't think she's annoyed by it, but she also always blushes and it's really to you, you're annoyed by it. But for me, I would love it. I don't think she's annoyed by it, but she's also always blushes and it's really sweet

and cute. It looks like it's the first time she's ever been told. Exactly. Which is so eye-rolly for me. But it's very sweet and endearing. But it does lower my self-esteem. Celebrity sighting.

Yeah, then there was a celebrity sighting next to us. An old friend of yours. Who was it? Justin Theroux. Jay Theroux. Best style in the biz. That's funny. I know. I know. You love his style. That's incredible. And he was next to us with a big group of

friends. He's got like motorcycle street wear look. But it's like elevated. Yeah, he has greathmm. But it's like elevated. Yeah, he has great style. Yeah, really good style. And he was there and then we left, you know. He didn't say anything to Molly? I don't know.

I'm sure he was thinking. We get up and get ready to go and we stop by the bathroom. Then Craig stops us by the bathroom. Oh, wow. Round two. Yes. Molly, Molly, Molly. He's mad for us that we're waiting. For the bathroom. Then Craig stops us by the bathroom. Oh, wow. Round two. Yes. Molly, Molly, Molly. He's mad for us that we're waiting.

For the bathroom. Yeah. Well, then Molly's waiting. And he's upset for her. And then that was that. That was that. We left. Again, we walked by a whole bunch of paparazzi.

I was told that they give cookies at the valet, but we didn't get any cookies. You know what's interesting, though? I've been in your situation more than I've not. So all my times in LA, 80% of them were with Scotty. Yeah. And Scotty was just hands down. Everywhere we went, every girl was in love with him. This is a fact.

Then I was with Kutcher for a long time. I get real. No one's, you know. I was fine with it. I kind of liked. But you have also had lots of girlfriends and lots of female approval. That's very true. That's very true.

Very true. Yeah, that's very true. The fear and insecurity is about not getting hit. Noticed. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fear and insecurity is about not getting hit. Yeah, yeah. I do feel fairly confident that once I'm in with a person that I have things to offer them. Right.

But it's that initial thing. Initial turn your head. That I don't have. Okay, anyway. I don't accept that. Well, you're going to. Do you have it on the same level as Molly? Nope. Yeah. I totally agree with you. Are many dudes turning and Well, you're gonna. Do you have it on the same level as Molly? Nope. Yeah.

Totally agree with you. Are many dudes turning and looking at you? Yes. That's also true. Okay, great. Okay. I'll accept it. Okay, great.

We both accepted stuff. That's great. All right. So, Craigs. Craigs. It was just so great. Craigs, Craigs, Craigs. Because.

Chainsmokers. Chainsmokers can't get into Craig's. Yes. Which is funny. I have a weird update. Tell me. So my friend Vincent's staying here. Yes, Vincent D'Onofrio.

Yes. Friend of the pod. Friend of the pod, friend of the family. Yeah. I love him so much. We've had such a fun time on his visit. We hiked. Do you know, we hiked.

This is insane. We go hiking, me, him, and Jake Johnson. Do you know me and Jake Johnson now are like hiking buddies. Once a week we go. That's fun. It's so fun. And so D'Onofrio's in town. He's like, why don't you come hiking with us?

He's like, okay, where are we hiking? I go up to the observatory. D'Onofrio, you've seen him since you've been here. He's in insane shape. He's 64. And he fucking jacked. He's in incredible shape. And he and he fucking jacked in his incredible shape and he said um last time i tried i didn't make it really and i go okay he was like but i'm in better shape so let's go okay he went right up to the observatory no ish and then jake was like let's

just walk across the parking lot to the other trail take a look let's see we don't have to walk far we ended up walking to the very do you even know where the very peak is up there? It's above the Hollywood sign. It's two X of the hike up to the observatory. The observatory is one third of the way there. It was a three hour hike. That sounds impossible. It was awesome. Great. And we got to the very top and I got to tell you, I know it's not your thing, hiking. You should put it on your bucket list. The view from the very top is the craziest view. It is, you see everything. You see, you know, normally you can either see,

you can see Hollywood and downtown LA. Maybe you get a bit of the beach in the west side or you're on the other side and you see the San Fernando Valley. This is every single thing. You see the San Gabriel Mountains. You see Glendale. and you see the San Fernando Valley. This is every single thing. You see the San Gabriel Mountains. You see Glendale. You see the entire San Fernando Valley, all of Hollywood, all of LA, Long Beach, the Catalina Island.

I'm like, if you could have a house at the peak of this, what a privilege that would be. That's the point of my story. It was a great hike. So his daughter, Layla, came over, who's a great actress as well. And she brought her friend, Ben, who she was on a show with. This dude is radical, rode up on a motorcycle. I'm like, God damn, this fucking guy. He's here to take over my life.

Oh, wow. He's going to beat me senseless in front of my children and run off with everything. Wonderful dude. We were talking about Vegas. And then I said, I interviewed the Chainsmokers recently. And I shamelessly asked if I could join them. And he said, oh, I'm very good friends with both of them. And I've done that trip a bunch of times.

Oh, fun. He described it. They were downplaying it. He said it's the most magical evening you can have. It's the most special. I'd love to go. Oh! I so want to go.

Yeah. Very cool. I really like these guys. Me too. They're lovely. Okay, a couple facts, though. They told a story that Jason Derulo

had a python. Were you able to? I was really not able to corroborate that. I'm shocked you left it in, actually. Well, because I thought it was true, but I don't, okay, here's the thing. Jason Derulo, I guess, had a quote scandal. Oh.

He showed an Instagram picture, posted a picture showing off his dick print, and joked that his penis is the size of an anaconda snake. Okay? Okay. What's a dick print? That's what I'm a little... The impression of his penis in his shorts. Oh, in his shorts. Yeah, like in his box or something.

Okay, so a bulge. Oh, see? Can you hand it to me? As big as his dick is, I can't see it from there. It actually looks big. I mean, they're black panties. Yeah, okay, yeah, that looks great.

I'm going to zoom in. You know, I love a penis. So then, I guess his... His penis is lawyer? His girlfriend or something suggested that he then do a post with a snake. Okay. After this whole thing. And so he did.

So I wonder if that snake was there. For this photo shoot? Yeah. Okay. That's quite a theory. That's the only way it would be real. Because I don't think that's true. Okay.

How much does a dog walker make in New York City? They said- There was an article, right? They said it was in the New York Times. They said $200,000 a year. As of October 4th, 2023, that's a mere few days ago. Yeah. The average hourly pay for a dog walker in New York City

is $19.28 an hour. Right, but- I wonder how often. If they have 10 dogs, that's $200 an hour. You think, though, that they let you do that? Oh, yeah. When I see the dog walkers in New York, they have so many fucking dogs. 10's nothing.

So you think they're doing 10 an hour for like eight hours? Well, let me do the math. Let's see where that takes us. Caller, what's your question? If a dog walker made, what did I say? 1995 times 10 dogs times

8 hours times... 365 days. Yeah, they could walk dogs all day. $582,540. Okay. Okay. If you did 10 dogs a day, every day for 8 hours. We'll make it like 5 Okay. $582,540. Okay. Okay. Okay. If you did 10 dogs a day, every day for eight hours.

We'll make it like five dogs for 300 days. Okay. And not eight hours. They're not doing eight hours. Divided by. All the neighbors just lined up with their dogs. Two times. Eight hours would mean 80 dogs.

How many days a year? 300? 300, yeah. Okay, that would be $239,400. Five dogs. Five dogs. 300 days a year. For eight hours?

You got to walk them long and hard. This is not. I don't think so. Can I tell you what I would do? Yeah. I would get a humongous van. Oh, God. I would drive around the city and just keep collecting dogs.

And I'd tell these people they're on walks. Okay. I'd just fill the van up with more and more and more dogs. There'd never be any walks. Just I would have the dogs in a van for an hour. Okay. And then I would like make my run and then I'd turn around and then I'd start returning the dogs. And I bet you could get like 60, 70 dogs in this huge trailer.

And never do any dog walking. Just pick dogs up and drop them off an hour later. That's your master plan. Yeah, because then you're- Just put them in the car. That's 100 dogs an hour for eight hours. How many dogs do you think in New York? It's not, you have to be able to get these clients.

$2,000 an hour times eight hours, $1,600 a day. You have to get enough clients. You have to have 80 dogs a day as your client. No problem. There's this city of 12 million people. No. Every one of them has a dog. Oh, my God.

Okay. The UK heist of the gold toilet. It was a $6 million toilet. Ooh. It was once displayed at the Guggenheim. The Gug? Yeah. I've shot in the Gug. You have? Drove a little yellow displayed at the Guggenheim. The Gug? Yeah. I've shot in the Gug. You have? Drove a little

yellow car up the Gug. Went in Rome. And it was swiped nearly four years ago from Winston Churchill's childhood home, Blenheim Palace. That's where it was. And that's where it was stolen. And that's where it left. Okay. Also the... I wouldn't love

a gold toilet. You want to know why? Why? If you peed in it, you'd have no sense of how dark your urine was. That's a good point. I love to know. I want it clear. Yeah.

You need to know how hydrated you are. And you'd have no clue. Yeah. You wouldn't know. Two, I like to also be able to see how much duty I have. And that wouldn't stick out as much against the white. That's more about the water, though. No, but the white background helps.

Oh, you like that. Like if it's a brown toilet, it's harder to distinguish. Actually, that makes me want one. So that no one can see the call of duty? Yeah. Okay. That's what you're going to name your dog walking company. Call of duty.

Oh, yeah. That would be good for that. That'd be really good. Yeah. We can't. It's already taken good. Yeah. We can't. It's already taken as... A dog waste management company. Oh, is that what it was?

Oh, yeah. Okay. Professor Duty. Okay, the thief that broke into California Wine Shop through the roof and steals rare expensive bottles, Storr says. They knew about all the heists. They did. They stole around 600 bottles of wine and liquor worth over $500,000. Okay.

That's a lot. Well, not as much as a dog walker would make if he did eight dogs an hour for 365 days a year. It was Lincoln Fine Wines in Venice. You're not going to like this opinion. What? You're not. You're going to hate it. Okay.

And people will point the finger right back at me and they'd be right to do so. Say, why is that car worth that? I think this whole thing with wine being worth a bunch of money is absolute horseshit. I think it's a bunch of people sniffing each other's asses. Yeah, I don't think it's fair.

I mean, I think up to $100. Sure, you could justify why the expense of getting this certain grape is such. From another country. Right. up to $100, sure. You could justify why the expense of getting this certain grape is such. From another country. Right, but not $48,000 and all this. Sure, success. It's just, it's like, God, I hate to say it, but it's the equivalent of people driving Bentleys. Bentleys, it's not as good of a car as an S500 Mercedes.

It's just not as good of a car. I'm talking, it's not as good of a car as an S500 Mercedes. It's just not as good of a car. I'm talking literally it's not as good of a car. Longevity, performance, all this stuff. It's 5X the price. It's solely to say I got money. I don't love that. But the wine is better. The good wine is better.

I mean, they're more expensive. 48,000 times better? I've never tried it it so I don't know I will though you should steal some and see if you like it as much I will it is similar to

cars there are some cars that I have the same opinion about and then there's other cars that's like no you can see exactly like it costs them X amount to make it

but you know about cars I sure do and you don't know about wine I know enough to say that no bottle of wine should be 50,000 no you don't because I think people would say no car say that no bottle of wine should be $50,000. No, you don't. Because I think people would say no car should be worth blah, blah, blah.

If the grape was grown on Mars or the moon, I would maybe believe it. I think you should accept that you don't know. Know about wine. About wine. Okay. And you don't have to because you're sober. Right. So you don't have to learn about it, okay?

Okay. Right. So you don't have to learn about it, okay? Okay. I think I said something like, I said something that Taylor Swift had a perfume at some point. It was a throwaway, but she did. It was Wonderstruck Taylor Swift. It's on Amazon. And she's had other endorsements too.

Oh, used by her. Which is 48,000. Yeah, as much as that wine. Okay, Calvin Harris, you were asking greedy questions about money. Yeah, they never did tell me how much money. I applaud them for it. Me too. I liked that.

Yeah, but I did want to know. Still want to know. Between 2006, again, this is on fucking celebrity net worth, which is a lie. It's a lie. Yes, it is. Between June 2016 and June 2017, Calvin earned $49 million. Between 2017 and 2018, Calvin earned $50 million. But we don't, that's made up.

So he could buy, just really quick, he could buy a hundred of those wine thefts. How long would a dog walker have to walk in New York to make $50 million? He'd have to walk 100 years. No, yes, 100 years. Because each year he's making $500,000. So every 10 years he'd make $5.8 million. He didn't make $500,000. Yes, at 365 at eight dogs an hour.

Ten dogs an hour. Yes, that was five. The first number was $540,000. I know, but that's so inflated because that's unrealistic. No, that's eight hours a day. Eight hours a day, 10 dogs. Yes. For every day.

That's right. Okay. So what would that person, that person would have to walk dogs for 100 years to get to 50 million dollars. Okay, that person. Great. That particular dog walker. Not net though.

They've got expenses. Not if you're using the van technique I'm proposing. So bad. It'll be nice for you, though, to have me take some heat about the dogs for a second. Just enjoy. Yeah, just so people know, I would never do that if I was a dog walker. I'd walk those dogs. I'd hate it.

Yeah. But I'd walk them. They'd bite you and stuff. They would. They do. They bite. Some of them bite They'd bite you and stuff. They would. They do. They bite. Some of them bite. One bit me.

Okay. You said money makes you happy until 160,000. That was before you learned the new number. That's right. 500,000. Man, 500,000 keeps coming up. Yes, these dog walkers nailed it. Although that does not sound like a good life.

Eight hours, 10 dogs a day, every day. They don't have a day off. They're not going to be happy. Unless they get an immense joy out of walking dogs, which I think a lot of people do. I think they would need some human companionship. Well, they have 16 hours a day left. 16 hours is a lot. I mean,

it is, but you have to sleep. Yeah, you sleep for eight. You have eight full hours to drink wine. Expensive wine. The wine you stole. Yeah. Well, have a blast. I'm very excited for you. Thanks. wine. The wine you stole. Yeah. Well, have a blast. Thanks. I'm very excited for you.

Thanks. Kiss Nermy for me. Oh, I will. Okay. Hug Daddy for me. Kiss Neil for me. I'm not gonna. Why don't you kiss your brother

on the lips for me? No! It's for me. It has nothing to do with you. Gross! Alright, love you