Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - 24kGoldn

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by 24kGoldn. 24kGoldn became a huge name after going viral on TikTok with “VALENTINO” in 2019. Since blowing up, the rapper has worked with several heavyweights, including Quavo, Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee, and Future (the latter of whom appeared on his debut album, 2021’s El Dorado). This year only got bigger, as 24kGoldn shared his introspective Growing Pains EP and is currently on tour with Chase Atlantic in support of their new album, LOST IN HEAVEN. In a conversation with Madden, he opens up about manifesting, navigating the release of a hit single during COVID-19, and how chasing success can dilute artistry. ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.⁠⁠⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up everybody. It's Joel. Thank you for listening to Artists Friendly. And you may or may not know, I host a TV competition called Inkmaster, and Inkmaster is back. A new season is now streaming. The OGs and Young Guns are going tat to tat in this epic battle, now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus. Go to Paramount Plus.com to try it for free. Hey, what's up? I'm Joel Madden, and this is Artist Friendly. On this episode, I'm talking with platinum recording artist, rapper, singer, and songwriter, 24K Golden. Let's go. I don't want no bad times.

I don't want to have bad. So let's talk about you. You're 23. 23. Okay, young as shit. Yeah. Okay. That's good, though.

Yeah, I think so. Because think about what you've accomplished at 23, which you may, likely your personality type, says to you, I haven't accomplished what I want. For sure. Right? I think, yeah, it's never, to be an artist is to constantly, like, want more, at least for me. Yeah. In a certain, that's part of it.

That's part of it for sure. Yeah, that's, I think, natural. Yeah. Because to also be an artist that survives. Yeah. Because that's another part of what it means to have a career is to be resilient. Yes. And just keep going forward.

You know, results are funny because we will judge results in any moment. moment and we'll kind of sum up everything by the result of that one thing we did instead of like zoom out. Yeah. And go like, look where we're at. Look where we were. Yeah. Right. Overall, we're successful. Yes. We didn't get the result we wanted on this album or this song or this whatever, this show, this tour, whatever. So we can measure all kinds of results. I always have to remind myself, and I didn't get good at this until I was older to not judge results. Because we don't know if they're good or bad, even though they may not be what we wanted at the time. They're is kind of like the spiritual side of what we do, like the transcendent side. Yeah.

Is there's the bigger picture. Yeah. Right. So it's like, I don't know if you're, if you're religious or spiritual, but God's plan. Yeah. Or the idea of God's plan if you don't believe in God. Like what if you did get that thing that you wanted and it ruined you? Yeah. Would it have been good for you? Yeah. Like I think about that all the time. Like, I'm happy with my career. I think you had a great career. I liked it. Judging by all the plaques in the magazine cards I saw walking in. Those are byproducts that remind you. Yeah.

They're like tokens. Yeah. But the natural drive that we have, because I think that, like, I think that artists that that choose to do it professionally, is it different than an artist who doesn't do it professionally? Yeah. I think anybody could be an artist. No matter if you sell zero records or if you sell fucking a billion records, it's just, as long as you're making art, you're an artist, right?

but like you said to do it professionally is a whole other beast in itself it's the difference yeah so we all knew the guy that was an amazing artist or an amazing ball player yeah and then he didn't become a pro yeah so what why

well we could probably break apart all the decisions he made and some sad stories and all kinds of things but there's a thing you choose you for whatever when you got started you were a teenager probably what like 17 Like, the first song I made, I was like 15.

Okay, 15. So that's the start. That counts. You went forward and you chose that over things. Yeah. Constantly. Yeah. And you could probably, you probably haven't even thought about it,

but you could probably look back and track moments where you said, no, I'm going to do this instead. No, I'm going to do this instead. And you wanted that more than any of those things. And it could have been, and I have the same experience. I started at 15. and constantly chose the idea that I could make it doing this over a lot of other things that could have sidetracked me.

They could have been good at too. Maybe. Or they could have just harmed me. Yeah, true. Because maybe they looked like fun or maybe it was what everyone else was doing. It's not all good, not all bad. But we chose that and there's like this internal drive that you have. So it's kind of like a baller mentality.

Yeah. What do you mean by that, baller mentality? Like I always say ballers, like somebody that wants, the ball. Put me in the game. Put me in the game. You give me the ball, I'm going to shoot it. And when I'm not in the game, I'm going to be in the gym. Yeah. And 24-7, I'm thinking about greatness. Yeah. And I think there's something whether we admit it or not, because we also, like, it's not always cool to admit out in front of everybody when you want something that you don't have yet. Yeah. We're supposed to pretend like we have it already. Or that I didn't want it

anyways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't know. I think, I think for a long time, for a really long time, there was always kind of this like people thinking that it's cool to not try. Right. I think trying is like one of the coolest things you could do, whether you get what you want in the timeline that you think you should have it or not. Like that resilience and that persistence, like, I really admire and respect that just as much as whatever result you might get from that. Yeah. So that's to me the like the drive. I remember when I was in college, I had like a bunch of friends that were pre-med and freshman year. And by the end of it, like 75% of them were like, fuck this organic chemistry class or like, fuck this calc three class. It's that same thing of like, yo, if you really want

it, all right, let's see. And that's how it weeds out the real ones who become the doctors and the scientists and the, you know, they had to show up to those boring or painful or classes and that's the same in music you could quit a bunch of times that you didn't get the the result you wanted but I would bet you got enough of a result that it kept you coming back that you're like because it wasn't a no it was a yes but it wasn't the kind of maybe the yes you wanted yeah you know I think that let me know if you disagree okay my personal belief is that it's very optimistic one is that if you keep learning and growing at whatever it is that you want to do, eventually you have to get some sort of like success from it, even if it's after you pass

like on some Van Gogh type shit. Yeah. Yeah, some version. Yeah, some version of it. Yeah. Where do you think you got that idea from? Hmm. Because I agree with you. I think I got it from my parents. Right. Like my dad especially, you know, he's, he loves writing, like screenplays and movies. He's been working at it for like 20 years of just writing and putting in those hours. And he's had like a lot of yeses, but not the yeses that he might have necessarily wanted in that time, but he's still doing it. And it's, like you said, enough to keep him going. Yeah. Because you do hear those stories of the guy who wrote his whole life. And then in an older age, it was like, it's like wine. Yeah. It like matured. Because you're only going to get better, hopefully, unless you're

like fucking off and not really doing the work. Yeah, it is. It's like the classic acorn becomes an oak tree. It's almost like sometimes with businesses, because me and my brother, we build stuff, it's more like an apple tree. It takes like five years to get apples. But then once you have apples, if you protect the tree, you let it grow, you have apples forever. And with businesses, I've found it's like usually it's like three to seven years, something in there. So five years is a good number. It's like a natural growth process. But it could be the same with music.

Like you don't know if everything you've done. to this point because you've had hits you've had big songs but you actually don't know if you've done the work you'll be remembered for yeah i suspect you haven't to be honest i've always had this feeling even before there was like a lot of success in music yeah that the thing that i'm ultimately going to be known for at the end of the day i have a feeling it's not going to be like music related at all necessarily you might be right i think that'll be part of the story and a big part of the story but like i don't know i always had this inkling of like a feeling like nah it's going to be something more yep i feel the same way yeah and i've lived enough of a career 30 years to know that like

times change things change and i've seen enough people i only knew them as the person that was trying to do that the whole time i saw them over there trying to make it and then they made it over here in some other way and everyone knows them in a different way and it's interesting because like It's the discovery process of trying, which is why trying's important. It's interesting. I think that's exactly how I feel about, well, it's not just me. It's my brother. We do everything together.

But about all the things we do, we don't know which one's actually more important. Yeah. They're all important to us. Yeah. But we've learned how to quiet all the noise. And 23 is old enough to have, especially for as long as you've been doing it since you're 15. eight years is like two, three lifetimes. Yeah.

This shit. So you're experienced enough to know what you know. You're young enough to maybe think you know more than you do, but you're also young enough to know that you don't know some things. Sure. Right? And you still have your whole life ahead of you in like making things. Which could be a little daunting too.

Yeah. Because having done so much at a young age, it's like I don't want to be the like metaphor Oracle, like, jock that peaked in high school, you know, I always want to do more and to get more and to be more. So it's like, it's a different feeling like, I think than if I had worked at this for 15 years and then had something versus like having that something come really early and feel like I need to keep one-up in myself. Yeah, like, is it, like, I look at like, you know who I love? West Side Gun. Yeah. Great. example, right? So he's older. He's mature. Like he's, I think he's like 40. He's in his 40s.

Yeah. So, and it's not that he wasn't working that whole time. He's not like he's, I would say he's successful for a long time, like levels of success. But I would say he's the most culturally relevant and important than he's ever been now. Right now. Yeah. Which is really sweet and cool to me. As a 45 year old, I look at another guy in my age range and I go like, man, you fuck. You and earned every ounce of your success, your credibility. You took a long road. Not to say you didn't have wins the whole time. That guy works his ass off.

And I'm not saying he hasn't had a brilliant career incomplete. But to look at the cultural relevance of his music today, I would say it's the most influential, the most relevant than I can remember. Because you got younger guys trying to jump on that style of beats or rapping and cadences. I just think it's amazing. And I see those and I, those stories and I just like, I celebrate them.

And I know it's probably been a long, hard road. Takes a lot of work. But could you have planned it? I don't know. I think that was his story. And that his likely, because he has so many fans, they're celebrating all the work he did back then, which is just as sweet. Yeah.

Because you know he loves those records that he made. That felt like maybe they were overlooked and they didn't get the amount of, I mean, they were cool, but they didn't maybe get the amount of. of recognition that he that they deserve they're getting them now so it's weird like how do you how do you can't you can't manipulate that yeah that's that's the oak tree yeah like that's a tree you can't shake no it's here the roots are planted it ain't going anywhere anytime soon like imagine how calm and i don't know him at all imagine how calm he is in all of it because he's been doing it for so long and at it for so long. I can, I imagine that he's a very, I imagine that he's very calm, very cool and very like

stable in who he is. Yeah. Because he's not chasing. No, he's just been him the whole time. Yeah. Let's think about that. There's a lot of stories like that too. It makes me think back to what you were saying earlier about, you know, fate, destiny, God's plan. And that's something that I like teeter back and forth on like, do I surrender to fate or do I say, fuck that I'm going to get exactly what I want? Or is it fate that I have that mindset of I'm going to get whatever I want? And that's going to be the drive that pushes me to get what was met from me from the jump. I think it's that. I think that you have to be the person you are. I think that you got to be careful to judge results as good or bad. I think you got to have a like wait and see approach. Yeah. The drive when you make the art,

that's where that should show up. Yes. It shouldn't show up in the judgment of the results. No, it's in the work. It's in the work. And then you win some, you lose some. You don't know if it's good or bad. I couldn't tell you that every move we made in our career was good or bad. I don't know. But I'm here right now.

I'm alive. I feel like I have a rich life. Yeah. And what I really discovered about, because I grew up poor, what I discovered about the word rich is it's not necessarily what you have in your bank account. quality of your life. It was one measurement. You can say that's a rich guy,

but I don't know if he's rich. Because I think there's a awareness of like what you actually have, knowing what you have and actually being able to taste the food you're eating. I kind of feel like if in this present moment you are happy with where you're at, like literally in this right now,

then everything is fine. All the decisions of the past were what they were meant to be. Yeah, I agree with that. And then I, I always want more. Yeah, yeah. It's always going to be. So that goes into the work.

Yeah. And then when, you know, when I go home, I enjoy my home. I enjoy my wife, my kids. I don't look at what other guys have. I don't want their house. I don't want my house. I don't want their car. I like my car.

You know what I mean? When did you kind of make that transition? Because I'm guessing there probably was a point where you were like, shit, I got a nice car, but. Look at what he got. Yeah. My 30s. took me until my 30s. I was lost a little bit.

But I think that's all self-esteem. I think that's just self-esteem. I think you grow up, poor, you struggle to kind of keep up with everybody. Everything just seems hard. Yeah. You're always like 50 bucks short. Yeah.

And the stakes are so much higher too. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get all the success and you suddenly feel valuable. But you're actually, you're kind of like, you're buying into the byproducts of the. The success is actually achieving, is putting your mind to something and achieving it and doing

something and then finding the like, can you feel that experience versus like the money you made from it and then all the new friends you get and all the new stuff you get. New stuff is great. New friends are great too sometimes. But they were all byproducts of doing something that was special and honest. And I think it took me years to realize like actually the. value of me is me. Yeah.

Not what you have. Not what I have. That was in my 30s when I figured like, oh, actually, it's not that I don't want stuff, but it flips it and you start to realize like you start to actually think about what you want and why. And then you enjoy it when you get it and you start to slow down a little bit and you're like, I don't need to have everything. Yeah.

It's almost like, it's an insane way to live. I remember when I was just like, everything, everything. It was like, hungry, hungry hippo. And you didn't enjoy any of it. No, I remember this was like summer 2021. Yeah. Mood was booming. Yeah, yeah.

And I bought my first, like, nice car. I got a Range Rover. Sick. And I remember I pulled it up to the crib we were staying at at the time. It's a good feeling. It was for like 15 minutes. And then I like sat outside on the curb and looked at it for like probably another 15 and was like, why doesn't this feel as good as I thought it would before I had it?

And it was kind of that recognition going back into self-esteem of like, oh, not. Even though I have this thing, it didn't feel that hole or like that desire that I was really looking for, which is feeling fulfilled and feeling, yeah, feeling fulfilled. Yeah, yeah, it's the God-size hole. Yeah. It's like the platinum record, same. You could have one. And it's a great accomplishment.

I'm not taking that away from anyone. But make sure that you're separating the achievement from chasing a feeling of feeling valuable or feeling good enough or feeling like fulfilled. All that. That's a different thing. That is a part of it. To achieve things as a part of it. You should achieve things if you can. Yeah.

I think that's like the calling. of light, like to be the best version of ourselves, I think that's what we're supposed to do. And look, some people, this is the thing. I always say stuff on this show. I'm being very vulnerable when I say what I think because I know that it's not necessarily the cultural, when you go on Instagram or TikTok and you see people showing you their life and their achievements like it's nothing or this is just how it's supposed to be. I get what they're projecting. I usually think there must be something going on with their own self-esteem. Not that I'm against anyone like flexing.

I don't care. We all have our own ways of flexing. It's natural. It's actually like a very natural thing. Like, especially for men. Like that's part of our process of like building lives. Yeah. We're trying to attract a mate and build a life.

Like that's survival. Here's my shiny feathers. Right. Exactly. It's like a peacock thing. Like that's in us. It's nature. And at the core of us,

we are trying to like evolve. We're trying to build lives further our, our DNA, our lives. Yeah, like whether we, whether we think we're in control of that or not, I think we're all literally just like animals, like looking for mates and doing that. You know what I mean? Like there's a part of that that's natural. But like, then there's a part where it becomes someone's identity. Yeah.

And I'm not even hating on that because it really works for some people. It's inspiring. It's aspirational. Yeah. Right. Like, I love that. So that's the best version of that, in my opinion. The aspirational side of things is achievement. The worst side of it is a culture that makes everyone feel like they're not good enough.

Yeah, that they never have what they want or they'll never be that because there's always more. There's always more. There's always more. But then you get older and you realize like there's always going to be a richer guy, a taller guy, a better looking guy, a smarter guy. guy, funnier guy, whatever. You name, the thing that you want to be, there's always going to be a guy who's does it more, does it better. Does it better.

I think, I think that's kind of like a stepping stone, though, to like the highest level of consciousness of like determining your worth based off of what you have. Then it's like determining your worth based off of what you do or what you did. Yep. And then the final level, the final boss is like determining it based off of who you are. Who you are. Yeah, you said it. I just thought that.

who you are. And you're right. At first it's what you have because it was the same. I did it. I got the stuff and I was like, oh, this is, if I get this car, if I get this, if I get the jewelry, I like jewelry. I like cars. I see. But if I get it, then you realize no. And then it's what I've done. It's platinum records, this and that. And then you're like, no. And then you realize, oh, it's who I actually am when you sit with me, when you interact with me or how I'm actually treating people when no one's looking and what I'm doing you know and and like how you treat your family or your friends or who you are to them or like who you are to just the guy at the coffee shop or the restaurant that's when you realize like that's the levels to it you have to go through it

I think every guy has to go through it yeah you can't really skip no steps you can get a lot wrong too along the way for sure I certainly have I'm saying I thought I was the shit in that moment when I got that first, like, big thing or that whatever. But you have to remember, like, the mistakes we make are usually us not living up to the fullest potential we have. Yeah. You know, they're just moments of elapsed judgment or, and hopefully we didn't hurt anyone in those moments, you know.

Opportunities to learn. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's cool. 23. Well, you were wise for 23. I got a lot more to learn. I was reading, you know, when I do this show, I don't really do a whole lot of preparation.

pairing, but like, I'll get some notes. And I was reading this. It says growing pains, the EP, the latest project, finds him processing his upbringing as a mixed kid raised in the notorious Lakeview neighborhood of San Francisco on top of reconciling the aftermath of mood. Tell me about Lakeview. It's home. It's this like San Francisco is, it's typically thought of as like this really diversity, right? Yeah. And it was for a long time. But with more money comes higher cost of living. Yeah, yeah. It comes a lot of people getting pushed out. Big separation. So Lakeview is one of the last like black neighborhoods of San Francisco. Right. And even now it's less and less of that every day. But that was the place where I first started making music. That was a place where a lot of first

happened for me. And despite all the challenges, that come with that neighborhood, there was such a strong sense of... So it's a tough neighborhood? Community, yeah, yeah. So it's a tough, poor neighborhood. Yeah. Okay. So there's crime and there's everything else.

But there's so much beauty in that too. There's like the people there have amazing stories and personalities. Like we have like a rec center that got refinished recently with like basketball courts. And there is like a lot of like programs to really try and lift you up out of that. Yeah. My mentor, his name is Paperboy, and he had this, he has a sneaker shop called Dream TeamSF. And on my 13th birthday, I'm a huge sneaker hey, 13th birthday, I went in for the first time and fell, I was like a kid in a candy shop. I fell in love with that place.

And I just kept going and going and interning at the shop after school, helping customers, until finally the point where paper was like, yo, you know, I got a studio upstairs. is like if you want to make music you can do that here that's cool that was the backdrop for the whole beginning of my my origin story as an artist but as a person too that's cool how did you meet paper boy i literally just walked into the shop that's it yeah that's dope 13 is my lucky number and i remember like thinking in my head like oh it's my 13th birthday like something crazy is going to happen i didn't have any crazy party nothing super obvious at the time but me just simply walking into that shop changed the trajectory of my life forever. It's funny because you can almost feel like the intention behind him opening that shop was good.

Yeah. And you're one of the benefactors. I'm sure a lot of other people have benefited in some way, shape, or form. Yeah, I bet you, and you guys close? Yeah, I talk to him like almost every day. That's cool. That's really cool. I love that story.

It's funny. You never think about like when you set out to do something good, what it's going to actually. set off what the chain of events is going to be for so many different people for so many different reasons if there's no shop we're probably not talking right now yeah i'd probably be fucking i don't know just working a job yeah went to college which is nothing wrong with that either but that wasn't what i really wanted it wasn't what you dreamed about no yeah wasn't on the vision boy yeah the career and the success so you have to look at it like the shop like you have to look at your career like the shop, I think, because it made me think about my career and it made me go, have I ever looked at

it like the shop that Paperboy started? Like, how many people have you inspired that you don't know because you showed them that you could dream about something and then you could go do it? Yeah. And I think that the, like, best version of life is when we aim up and we try. And then, like, we usually land somewhere on, you know, like, is your life going to get worse if you aim upwards and you try? Probably not. Probably not. And so people, People actually need to be shown that because most, I do think that the world has a way of boxing us all into groups and then like this is just what we're supposed to do. And I'm with you. I don't think getting a job is bad, but I would encourage everyone to look for a job they love.

Yeah. I always figure like whenever I have kids, I don't care what they do. If you want to be a doctor or a football player or like a librarian, just be really fucking good at it and make sure it's something that you love. Yeah, yeah, you love it every day. And that way when they're the hard parts of the job, because even your job, everyone can say, that must be cool. And you're like, yeah, it's cool, but there's hard parts.

Sure. And then also there's a side of it. You absolutely need to be confident and sure enough of yourself to withstand the criticism. The rejection. The rejection, the dismissal, you know, the hate. Whatever you want to call it, it's all in one big bag, right? because that will be present the whole way.

And no matter what you do, really. Yeah. Like, obviously with entertainment, with music, it's a lot more of those, those challenges are a lot more of what you said, but fuck, everybody's going to have challenges, no matter what it is you want. So it's like, keep dug it out long enough to get to that place that you're going to feel fulfilled and centered and whole. Resilience.

Yeah. Which is part of, and so you grew up in Lakeview, there were challenges, obstacles. You dealt with, you know, everybody's life's different, but I could imagine you probably didn't have a ton of money growing up. No. Okay, so money was a challenge. I always say, like, what we lacked in money, like we were rich in perspective. My parents, like, I give them.

They love you. I sing their graces. Yeah. That's dope. And they really, like, took care. They were parents. Real parents. That's dope.

Yeah. I had a different experience. My parents really struggled. to be parents. So we kind of were parents to each other, me and my siblings. How many siblings did you have? Two brothers and a sister. Are you the oldest?

No, I'm the middle. Okay. Me and my brother are twins. I'm the younger one of the twins. I have a younger sister and an older brother. Are you guys identical twins? Identical, yeah. Oh, shit.

Yeah. That's cool. Do you have like twin telepathy? Hair shoes. Like we fit. We're a match. Exactly. We do.

We're super close. I mean, we're as close. We talk every day, all day. We text, we call every day, all day. Like that's my, that's my, our wives had to really get used to that. Oh, I got another person, you know what I mean? Like, he comes over, he just walks in. There's no, like, but it's amazing.

We had to work together to raise each other and to really kind of navigate life. And it gave us a real resourcefulness, you know, like we were real good problem solvers. And it made us real close, all the siblings. So we've always had a support system that was like, because we had to, navigate together. We weren't impoverished because we didn't have money. We were impoverished because there wasn't a whole lot of love to give. And love is that your parents probably, you probably didn't feel poor because you weren't told you were poor. Yeah. Right? Like your parents were there. Yeah. And they were like figuring it out. And you saw two people win, loser draw,

because relationships are real. We're going to fight. We're going to work things out. But they were working together, they had a more important thing than anything else, which was the kids. And that's what I get the sense of when someone says, like, my parents loved me. Well, you knew it. There's something about knowing you're loved that gives you a certain confidence. It's a superpower. It is. And it keeps you out of danger. You know what I mean? What do you mean by that? Well, I remember being around and going, and in my teen years, when I left home, because we had to leave, we got evicted, and we were evicted for the last time and then we left home and um we just had to go out in the world and figure it out so we stayed with a friend and then we moved uh we went around like baltimore we were from

maryland so there was dc baltimore we were moving around and trying to find our way and i remember probably hanging out with some people i shouldn't have been hanging out with they were they were dangerous people but they made me feel safe they made me feel loved i felt protected and they looked like they had figured something out they had some money. They had locally, it felt like they had respect. And it was because of my brother that I think that we didn't go all the way that way. So we always questioned, is this the right? We always kind of questioned it because I think there's some morality there, issues there. I'm not saying it's all bad. This is not a judgment. But I'm saying you put yourself in danger. But if you really start to love

yourself and you start to put how you feel what you believe in, what you think is, you know, what your gut tells you on something, you can make better choices and move away from the dangers of lifestyles. Yeah. Because there are our lifestyles that are dangerous. Sure. In the way around it. What is the aftermath of mood?

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S bar records. Hey, what's up? Artists friendly listeners. As you know,

or maybe you don't know, I host a competition called Inkmaster, and a new season is now streaming. The OGs and young guns are going tat to tat in this epic battle now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus. Go to paramount plus.com to try it for free. To me, it was like, you give this 19-year-old kid the biggest song in the world. Yeah. All the money and attention and things that come with it, but it all happens in a pandemic. So there is that isolation and that disconnectedness from purpose and potential.

Because it's not like I'm going and doing these shows. It's not like I'm getting to meet my idols while all of that is happening. Which looking back, I honestly think was a good thing that I had those training wheels on. Might have been. When dealing with such a drastic change of life. And with that, like we talked about many times already, is that, I want more. How do I one up myself? why do it again, but bigger and better.

And it took me a long time to realize that there's certain things you can control and there's certain things that you can't control. You can make the best song in the world and nobody might. It might not get the attention or the recognition that you want. You can make something in 10 minutes that might blow up and be the biggest thing ever. And it took, I was just chasing that result and chasing that high for a long time. And I think it was like diluting a lot of the artists. Whereas I wasn't making music because this is what I wanted to say.

This is what I wanted to make. This is how I feel. I was making music because I wanted to get back on the charts. Yeah, replicate. Replicate. Yeah, not innovate. And with that project growing pains, that was me really like returning to my roots of not the how I'm making the songs, but the why I'm making the songs.

Yeah. I think like if you're called to do something and you have a vision and you see it, you've got to keep going. keep going. You're young enough to feel like maybe you haven't achieved anything yet because at your age, it's a good thing to not be satisfied. But I can say you've achieved a whole lot because there's a bunch of 23-year-old guys right now that have no idea what they're doing. They don't have a dream yet. Yeah. So it's a blessing to be your age. Yeah. And it's a little bit of a curse. Yeah. Because you'll never be satisfied, which is a good thing. It's just finding the balance of like, how to be satisfied, never being satisfied?

Yes, appreciate the successes you've had. Let your feelings be your feelings when you're not happy with it. Like not saying you shouldn't feel how you feel, but also like understand like you're still at the beginning and you have like decades of discovery. Yeah. And I would say like meditating on going from the work and the art back to the person and meditating on like,

what do I want out of life? because that comes back to the art. It feeds each other. Yeah, they feed each other. They work together. And then I was talking to my friend today because he's around the same age as me. He's actually younger.

He's like, he's in his like mid-30s. But a real close friend of mine. And we were saying how funny, because he's been in it in a long time. He's had big hits. He's a major songwriter, producer. He's a big, big successful guy. He's never satisfied either.

Neither am I. But if we can't be happy now, when can we be happy? Happiness is is a choice. It's not a destination. Yeah, that's it. Every day. Every day.

You got to find that, those gratitude moments. Yeah. You know? I remember just whenever I am most down bad, the thing that like pulls me back up out of that hole is like the discipline of waking up every day and writing down three things that I'm grateful for. That's dope. And it's so small and like seemingly insignificant or a low lift of an action. But it goes so long because you're planting those seeds to wake up every day and be like, happy that you're alive and like doing cool shit.

It's also how you manifest more. Yeah. More life. More of everything. Yeah. You know, like we think we want money. Of course, money, money is freedom. But it comes from doing things that are good.

And in turn, people participate. And it's an economy. It's an economy of like experience. The more you can offer the world, the more the world will offer you. It's true. Yeah, it's true. It's funny. What do you think gets you down the most?

Very, very thankfully, I've been feeling great as of late for this past year and some change. For me, it's weird because, yeah, most every day I wake up and I feel good and I feel happy and I feel like I'm chugging down that path that is carved out just for me. Yep. But some days you just wake up and feel like shit. Yeah. And it might not be something bad happened. It might not be, yeah, nothing bad might happen at all.

you just might wake up and not feel it. I find myself in the same exact circumstance. It could be the same situation. And at one time dealing with that, I'm like, oh, no worries. We'll get through that. Look at all that I have to be grateful for. And sometimes it just brings you down. Yeah.

So I don't know. I think it's just like what actually keeps me up is like doing the things that are for me. Yeah. As long as I check my boxes of, all right, I worked out today. I ate good food. I talked to my mom on the phone. I saw my sister.

She's doing good. I wrote a song. It doesn't matter if it's my favorite song I've ever written or if I'm never going to listen to it again, but that I was getting those reps in. That's what makes me feel good. When I don't do those things, I think that's when external factors like break through the shield

and like those things kind of affect me. Yeah, the stress of what we do because it is stressful to have to perform, you know, they have to get up and be on and perform whether it's actual performing or it's just... Performance of life. Yeah. What I learned was for a very long time,

I didn't call myself an artist. I did not feel like I was an artist. What did you call yourself? A rock star? Singer. Rock star, whatever. Band. I'm in a band.

But I never called myself an artist. I refused to believe that I created art. And I dismissed everything I did like it was just a function of wanting to succeed. And I never recognize the songs I made might have had more value than money. I realized, though, that I am an artist, and I got a big imagination. And that imagination drives all the success. We imagine things, and then we do them.

And we imagine that a building could be there, and then we build it. So all good things happen is imagining what's possible. It sounds corny to say, like, one day I'm going to be on a big stage. No, you have to imagine it, whether you say it or not. No one's too cool. If you're standing on stage, I don't care how cool you are. You imagined yourself on that stage. You just wake up and spawn here.

You played the little show. Yeah. Then you did the one that was a little bigger. And then now you're on this arena stage or whatever. If we do not direct our imagination at good things, we will let them go and attach themselves to the bad things. And we have very, very, you have a very powerful imagination. I know it because I look at your catalog. You had to see it.

So when I was like 15 and 16, I made this vision board. Went to fucking art store, got a poster board. Sick. Went on Google and printed out all these pictures and took markers and wrote down everything that I wanted. And in my childhood bedroom, I put it up and right above my dresser. And when I would get dressed every day, I had no choice but to look at it and acknowledge it.

And it's crazy like six, seven years later, 90% of those things I've accomplished. Even the things that I was too naive to know I shouldn't have been aiming that high. I put a number one record on there before I knew how hard it was to get a number one record. I put 10 times platinum before I knew how crazy of an achievement that was. But it all like came because I imagined it. That's had to play a role in the process. A hundred percent. And the naive part of you is the most important part.

Yeah. That's what I had to learn was go back. back to that kid and bring him along. Yeah. And not push him, put him in the corner or put him out because he wasn't dressed cool. He didn't know how things worked. He didn't know. That is, and it's not that cool to say that.

Just don't say that. We can feel that. Don't say it. Right. Like, that's what I'm on the constant journey in my life to get back to and be okay with it is say some stuff that's honest, regardless of like how cool I'm supposed to look or whatever. Like I spent my whole life covering myself.

up to not be that kid because I was like cheby little like nerdy kid who like didn't fit in and I wanted to fit in. And then I didn't fit in. So then I started going the other way and I started getting tattooed and wearing all black and doesn't mean I don't have like the taste I have. I prefer to wear all black clothes most of the time. Not all the time, but most of the time. And I like tattoos. It's become a part of my identity. But it doesn't define me. No. And actually the kid who had the audacity to say, hey, we should start a band. I think we could do that. We could be in a big band.

And I didn't know how hard that would be. Yeah. I need him to come along and keep pointing and shooting. Keep giving you ideas. Yeah, like, hey, we should start a company like that. And like, I think that whoever that kid was in Lakeview, who said, I think I could do that. And then all you needed was a couple people to confirm it. Paperboy said, hey, you want to.

to go record. Probably, you know, your parents were probably like, yeah, I think you could do it too, right? I actually didn't tell my parents I made music for like the first, like, three or four years. They found out because I was supposed to do a show one weekend and I crashed my car the day before. Like, I saved up my money. I bought my own car and I crashed the next day.

Oh, heartbreak. And they couldn't be like, bro, you telling me, oh, my God. Heartbreak. They couldn't be mad because it's like, well, you bought your car. so like we're not angry at you but you need to like sit down and like reflect on why this happened how this happened and I was like well how did it happen I was on my way to go do some dumb shit yeah and luckily I got into a crash which could have prevented like thank God much more negative consequences so it was a good thing it was a good thing yeah funny and I told him like yo

like I understand you want me to be inside the house this weekend and like you know reflect and sit with myself, but I kind of like have been making music the last three years and I got like a show and I had to miss out on it because because I wrecked the whip. But I forgot how we got to this point. I said there only needed to be a few people that believed in you. Yes. To keep you going forward and in that naive idea that you could do this very hard thing. And obviously Paperboy was one of them. My parents were once they found out, they definitely were supportive. Yeah. That's cool. cool and they still are and they still are yeah that's dope i think i had that relationship with my kids i got teenagers but if whatever they choose to do i'm gonna think it's cool yeah i get into whatever they're

into what kind of music do they like to listen to uh hip hop yeah strictly hip hop like new wave underground kind of vibes are like mostly new my son is a he produces he's pretty good um he's got talent um I try not to intervene at all. I just want him to like find his way on his own. Yeah. Until he gets to a place where he's like, all right, this is what I want to do. If he gets to that place, I'll get involved. Because I think he'll, I think he'd be very good at it.

But he loves, you know, he loves Travis Scott. He loves Metro. He loves Future. He loves Playboy Cardi. He loves, he fucks with that, all of it. He fucks with you. He fucks with. He loves West Side Gun.

He likes some old. stuff. He, you know, he really respects, like, we listen to Nas sometimes. I like Nas a lot. And he, he likes Nas. He respects, like, the craftsmen, like, like, the older artists that are just the best. Yeah. But he likes the new shit. And he likes to go to shows. And who did he go to? Ken Carson, he went to, you know, he likes all of it. Cool. Yeah. It's cool. He's a real, he's a real music head and then my daughter you know she's she bit more in it for fun so she just she likes everything yeah and with her friends hanging out listening whatever sounds good yeah yeah yeah yeah when they going out and getting ready or whatever yeah yeah he's like listening to the production he'll listen to it

he loves conier or or yay he loves listening to records listening to production breaking things down but um it's two very different ears yeah and like i try to like have one of both yeah because you know we're professional musicians, we want our music to reach the masses, and 97% of people are probably going to be more like your daughter of just... It's a soundtrack for the experience. For experience, yeah. And it's like, how do I... What can just sound good or make me feel good?

And then it's the other side of, what do these people, these songs that did achieve that, what did they do to invoke that emotion or that feeling? And it's part the performance, the lyrics, And then it's part what they did on the, on the music. And when it marries nicely, you got a piece of art that's just special. So it is kind of like, you're, you're always going to be chasing that. I still, I still am. Every now and then when I make music, I'm still chasing that magic.

And it's just magic. It's not magic in the sense of like, you could usually line up and go, like, I have a feeling that if I got with that guy, we'd make something special. Yeah. It feels like magic when you actually do it. Yeah. It's cool. It's, it's alchemy.

It's wizardry. Yeah. You're making something out of nothing. Yeah. If you looked at the next 10 years, 23 to 33, what does success look like or feel like to you? I think success would be knowing more than I know now. Yeah. Doing more than I do now.

And being more than I am now. Yeah, like the music would reflect that. Yeah. The music is always going to be a key component. Absolutely. for the rest of your life. It's the curse. It's all of it.

It's the blessing. It's the curse. It's, I still can't live without making some music. If I became the fucking president of the United States, I built a studio in the White House. Yeah, yeah. Like, I have to, you know? Yeah.

And I'm very, like, careful with how I define that, like, what is that success going to look like now? Because I'd be lying to you if I didn't say, I wanted to gram me or another number one. Yeah, yeah. Me too. Star and this kind of. a movie or this kind of TV show.

Are you going to do movies and TV? Yeah, I'm planting seeds in that. Cool. I really want to do that. Yeah, I think you'll do good. I wanted to do that before I even knew I wanted to do music. That's cool. And it just kind of ended up working the other way around.

But all those things, they're like, like you said, they're byproducts. And I could do everything right and not get those. Or I could do everything wrong or unaligned with my true self and get those. So I'd rather just like hone that. to focus on like, am I the guy that I want to be not, do I have what I think I want to have or did I do what I think I wanted to do? Yeah, I think you'll do those just by thinking about it. Yeah. And the focus is as you go forward and you continue to like grow in your life, you'll make decisions that align towards the things you're thinking about. Yeah. You start to

kind of acclimate your life towards. It's like the vision board. In your mind, you always have one. I love that you had a vision board because I write, I still write things down. Every once in a while, I'll remember to do it. And it's probably every few months. But at my desk, I have like a composition. I have like stacks of these composition notebooks that I, when I'm like in meetings or working, I'll just make notes. And then every now and then I'll remember to write down what I want.

And so if you flip through them every once in a while, you'll see a page and it's full on list of crazy shit. Yeah. that's a very physical way of reminding ourselves of like what we're thinking about and what we're acclimating our life towards like I love doing this show I don't know if I have an end game with this we've we're in like 100 episodes and um what I've always loved is talking to other artists and like kind of seeing how like there's a through line with all of us but then there's also differences yeah and it's cool you can pick up little little things I think it's really rare that artists get to have these kind of conversations yeah yeah because a lot of times when we're in the same space. It's like there's a million other people around or, all right, we're in the studio and we could talk, but that's not necessarily the focus or the intention of being there. And like, as different as we all see ourselves from the rest of the world and from each other, we are so much more similar than different. Yeah. And like someone's got to break the ice, which is really hard. Yeah, bro. It's so hard because they're like, that guy looks cool, but like, I'm not going to

go up to him. I don't know. Like, and it's fair. Yeah. It's fair, but it's hard. But here, the ice is broken. I'm like, come in, you see enough of the show, a clip or two. You know what we're going to talk about is probably going to be. We're going to promote an album or a movie or something, because that's the nature of talking about things we worked on that we care about. But we're also probably going to, like, get a sense of each other.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Where we wouldn't be able to if we were at a restaurant and was like, hey, I'm a fan. Or if we had an award show or if we had a festival. Yeah. Over the years, I've gotten to have some good conversations with people that were like nice surprises. You realize like we are all the same. We all started as like kids somewhere with imaginations. And we all had our own different set of problems. But for the most part, I found that most artists, number one, best problem solvers in the world, creatives. If more companies had boards of artists that sat and helped them solve problems. they'd get there faster. Absolutely. Because we're creative.

And we're, we thrive on thinking outside of the box. Exactly. And we've had to. Yeah, we've had to. That's something I really want to do too. I got a scholarship to USC for business. Oh, wow. So you went to USC?

Yeah, I went to SC for like eight months. That's cool though. It was. It was an amazing experience. Yeah. But I, like, even now as creative and like artist-minded that I am, like there's always just little like bird in the back yeah well that's because you're an entrepreneur that's what being a professional artist you're not just making music you're running a brand yeah so you got to think

about your merch you got to think about your you know your shows your experiences that's your you have a shop and this shop sells certain things so the more you look at your shop as your shop the more entrepreneurial you're going to be with how you run the shop and you have to own it I'm excited for you, man. Me too. Yeah, what's next? What's next? Just keep making music, releasing it.

Planning those seeds like we talked about in TV and film. I'm doing auditions and stuff like that now. Taking some classes. I learned how to play guitar. Dope. And then, like, in business, just I've invested in probably like 12 different VC deals. Cool. And just asking those motherfuckers as many questions as they'll let me ask.

Great. That's what I did. Yeah. And I did that for all through my 20s. Yeah. And then in your 30s, it pays off. It really does. You just have to like approach it like school, right?

And some of them will likely succeed. You'll start to see the patterns of success and the patterns of failure. You know, and then you'll make a few friends probably along the way that are like really generous with their information. And you'll end up like whether you win together or you just see them winning and they teach you like what they're doing but it's the greatest teacher is trying yeah it really does i was doing that through my whole 20s i was investing in stuff some of it worked most of it didn't but the one the stuff that worked it worked well but then in my 30s i got really good at at recognizing like the real opportunities

you know the the the wins they'd line up and you'd see them and and that's how it works it's just it's experience it's awesome do you have any like best friends in music most of my closest friends aren't other artists. Right. It might be people that work in music or like in and around it. Not to say that I don't have any artist friends because there definitely are some really,

really cool people that I've like been fortunate to meet in having this job and people that I like admire and respect and want to learn from. But I've always found it hard to like really develop that super strong close friendship with other artists because we're all like,

especially at this age, were all so early in our careers that were trailblazing down this thing. And if you got studio Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I got it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and it's hard to align, you know, and like spend that quality time together. Yeah, yeah, I feel that. I do really value the time that I get to spend with those people. Yeah. You end up becoming friends with, like, producers and songwriters and guys you tour with and all that.

Yeah, that is true. That's funny. It is true. And it's so weird. You get out there and you're just working. And like you said, when you go to all these places, man, it's hard for any of us to actually sit out and get a real sense of each other, you know, in all these places. Because in these places that we are, it's like you're on, your turn, your switch is flipped on.

And you're thinking about how am I going to be perceived is my jacket. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Straight up. You know? Always. It's a shame because you do have all these incredibly talented and sight. interesting people in the same room without necessarily having the opportunity

for everybody to connect. Yeah. Do you have any musical heroes? So many musical heroes, man. Who's your like, is there five, like five or six? Michael Jackson, yeah, Bruno Mars. He's cool. Have you met him?

Nah. He's cool as shit. I can tell. I love Bruno. I used to sing like cover songs of Bruno Mars to girls at like lunch. He's so talented and he's such a cool dude. I really like him.

He's definitely one of the people that I want to meet most. Yeah. So Mike, Bruno. I mean, even guys like Drake, like the length in the... Yeah. I mean, he's one of the greatest. For real. Yeah.

Who else? Yeah, it's probably like top three. That's good. I like that. That's a good list. Andre 3000? Oh, of course. He's one of mine, too.

I've never met him. But he just, he does his own thing. He's so good. He owns it. Yeah. I also really admire people that like, I admire somebody that's failed and climb back up the mountain. Yeah.

So much more than someone who's just been like coasting or like doing good the whole time because it takes so much. It's really a show of character and strength to like pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and like get back to it. Yeah. It takes heart. Yeah. But I would say that you're in a stage of your life where you're winning more than you're failing

even if it feels like you're failing sometimes. I know exactly what that feels like. And if you stay true, you just keep doing you, that you're going to continue. Like the successes, they do compound. Yes. When you put that song out,

no matter how it does, it's still going into the pot. Yeah. And it's all growing. Yeah. And so you just have to stay true, stay on the path. You know, let it all unfold,

let it all become whatever it's going to be. And I think the real focus of the artist journey that we're on is actually like one of like the who am I and not getting caught up in everyone else's idea of me. Yeah. You know what I mean?

But defining that, answering that question that only you can answer. Yeah, you're doing it. Good to meet you, man. It was good to meet you too. Thanks for coming. My pleasure. This is very therapeutic.

Yeah, me too. This is my therapy. It's great. Thanks, bro. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of artist friendly If you really liked it, you can follow, like, subscribe to the show, anywhere you listen to podcasts, Spotify, Apple, Amazon.

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