Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - DJ White Shadow

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

Listen in as DJ White Shadow joins Joel Madden on the latest episode of Artist Friendly. DJ White Shadow is a producer best known for working with Lady Gaga, including the 2011 pop blockbuster Born This Way and its follow-up ARTPOP.  Additionally, DJ White Shadow worked on the soundtrack for the 2018 film A Star Is Born alongside Gaga, ultimately winning a Grammy for his contribution in 2020. ------- 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 Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Video Editor: Ryan Schaefer Sound Engineer/Audio Production: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Social Media: Sarah Madden Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Anthony Lauletta, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up? I'm Joel Madden, and this is artist-friendly on today's episode. I'm talking to DJ Whitechadow. Let's go. Do people know your real name? Like, as in Paul? Yeah. I hope so. People say, what do you want me to call you? And I'm like, absolutely do not call me White Shadow. I feel like it's a weird. It's a weird thing. I actually think White Shadow is such a cool name. I mean, yeah, I guess. What a cool moniker. It was gift. It was gifted to me. I didn't make it. it up. Who gave it to you? So I'll give you the shortest version. Yeah, please. When I was a kid, I was the only white kid like in the whole club. Like I was the DJ and I was the only white kid in the whole club. Okay. So back then it was like a DJ wasn't the centerpiece. You know what I mean?

Like now it's like everybody's the DJ's in the middle. Like back in the day you were like jammed into the tiniest corner like you know what I mean? Yeah. To be a DJ now it's really like a prominent Yeah, more. Certainly, like, there's the levels of success you can reach as a DJ now, it's prominent. Yeah. If you make it to the top of a DJ, like people aspire to that. Yeah. But back then, it was a background role of support.

Well, yeah. No, honestly, I got into it because I wanted to go to parties and didn't want to talk to anybody. You know what I mean? I want to stand in my own space. It's how I can be in the room. Right, yeah. And I love music. It was whatever.

But like people would walk by me and I'd be like banging hip hop and like it would be like a double take because like who's this pencil neck geek back there all white looking, you know, play it, playing all these records. So the promoter started calling me white shadow because it was like a basketball show

from the 70s where a white coach like taught inner city basketball team. Right. And you just started white shadow, white shadow, white shadow, white shadow. And then everybody started calling me white shadow and then it ended up on a flyers and then I just kind of stuck. And it stuck.

And it stuck. Yeah. And, okay, so your Wikipedia. Oh. Is your Wikipedia correct? Generally? I don't know. It might be.

Is Wikipedia correct? Based in Chicago, Illinois. That's true. That's part's true, yes. He is best known as the producer for Lady Gaga's albums, Born This Way, and Art Pop. I did both of those, yeah. Okay, huge accomplishments.

Yeah, thank you, buddy. We'll go back to that. Okay. He also produced and wrote songs. with Gaga on the soundtrack for the 2018 film, A Star is Born. That's also true, yeah. Okay. So we could, you know, because Wikipedia can get really wrong sometimes. Yeah, I've had people. You know what's wrong on there is my age. It says I'm like three years

younger than I am. Born September 20, 1978. Yeah, no, it says 1970. Yeah, it's born in 1975. Wow. Yeah, I'm older than I said. A man who is proud of his age. I applaud you. Yeah. I don't lie about my age. I was born in 79. But like my boys always hit me and they're like, why are you lying on your Wikipedia? I'm like, I don't write the Wikipedia. I don't write it. Right. No, that's the thing about Wikipedia is it does get things wrong.

And that's where everyone tends to go when they need to find out like, how old is that person or whatever. Blair has played in numerous cities throughout the United States and has toured as a headliner. That's true. DJing? Yes. Okay. He also toured with Lady Gaga International. Is that true?

That is true. Okay. And you have two kids. I do. All right. So you're a dad. Man. Look at that, Wikipedia.

Just the age. In addition to his writing and producing, Blair has released three EPs as part of a trilogy through DeCon Records. He was featured in the Anheiser-Bush Pac-Man commercial for Super Bowl 20-something. The song, which he remixed using the original Pac-Man music. Is that true? it is sure that I actually did music for a commercial of some variety in the Super Bowl for seven years straight oh wow yeah so like that was that was one of them but yeah that's kind of prestigious I had like I actually

won like like Cleo awards like a bunch of like oh wow words for like advertising even know what that's a big deal was but yeah but a Cleo award in the advertising world yeah is a huge you know you could yeah you could put that on your resume as if you were going to go out and just look for correct uh commercial gigs. Yeah. That's a, that's a major accomplishment. But the Bud Light thing

was really fun. It's like a crazy, did you know what it is or no? No. Oh, they set up a live action Pac-Man in downtown L.A. Oh, wow.

And they had a kid that they like, surprised, like he was at a bar. His name was Riley. And he was at a bar and they were like, take this. And it was like,

what is this? It was like a hidden camera thing. It was like a giant quarter. And I don't know, put it in the thing across the street. So the kid walks across the street with this giant corner. and throws in a slot and all of a sudden, I mean, it was like two city blocks in downtown

like. And the Pac-Man comes to life. Yeah. And then all of a sudden he had to run through the sheet to do the streets and through Pac-Man and ghost chase him or whatever. And it was like some big thing. It was really cool actually. But I got to go to Japan and like meet the dudes from Namco and like they're serious about Pac-Man. Yeah. It's a culture. And they didn't let, they wouldn't let anybody like touch it or remix it or do anything. So it was like, that's why that one's a big deal. That's a huge deal. And your remixes have a piece. And your remixes have a in other television commercials, including beats by Dre? I guess.

Okay. You won a Grammy in 2020 for your work on a Starsborn soundtrack. That's true. Congratulations. I don't have a Grammy. You don't? You want mine? No.

I don't know where it is. I want my own. Outside of music, you're an NFT enthusiast and collector? No. That's not true. Okay. That one's wrong. Okay.

See, this is why I do this. let's see you spent your younger years on a farm in Ohio and started collecting records when you were in second grade that's true well that was true i wonder how they knew that his family moved to Detroit michigan when he was in fifth grade and he purchased his first set of turntables at the age of 16 dang that's on Wikipedia yeah oh wow is that true it is true okay 16 yeah maybe even earlier than that i would have guessed 14 but yeah um you know 16 seems old but uh for for that music discovery age. But growing up in Detroit, he used to sneak out of his house to go to techno shows when he was 15 years old. This is crazy. This is on Wikipedia? Yeah. I've never read

Wikipedia, dude. That's actually true as well. That's why I'm reading it to you. I know. Thank you for that. Blair learned Japanese when he was younger and attended Western Michigan University where he studied international business. His first year at WMU, he entered a Japanese exchange program in order to study a broad. It's kind of true. Yes. I went to Michigan State first and that's where I went to Japan and then I transferred because I didn't want to do international business anymore. I wanted to teach. So Western's got a good teaching school, so I switched schools. So you are a bit of a teacher? I grad, that's my, that's what I graduated with. So you have a degree in teaching? I do. And Japanese, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Blair was 17 when he held his first residency playing at the

Delta Market while attending college in Takamatsu, Japan. That's true as well. Did I say Takamatsu? correctly? You did. You did. I know a little Japanese myself. He crushed it. He got the residency by asking the owner to play some records one night at the bar. The owner invited Blair back to play every Thursday night, which turned into his official residence. Do you think I tell people these stories and then people pick them off off the internet and like aggregate them? Yeah, you likely had an interview somewhere.

Okay. Because that's all pretty true. That's pretty accurate. And likely from this interview, maybe they'll correct some of these discrepancies. despite performing as a DJ earlier in his lifetime, it was in Japan that he started getting paid to perform. That's true. All right, first check.

DJ Whitechato. That's it. Paul Blair. That's me. Welcome to artist friendly. Thanks, baby. Thanks for reading that all out. That's a breath of fresh air to listen to you, tell me my story.

Well, so sometimes I think in the creative world, we don't necessarily check in with our resume. Yeah. And when you think about any other career path and any other serious career, people tout their resumes. Sure. And they say, this is what I've done here and this is what I did there. And it's not so accepted for us to put our resume on paper and then hand it to someone.

Yeah. And we're going in to have a conversation. Well, it's interesting. Like, you're a creative. So you're producing records. You're writing with people. and you're finding new talent and you're doing all these creative endeavors. But there's certainly like if you walked in a room with any of the moment success, what I assume is, you know, you've had a long

career and you've had a lot of success. I've had a pretty long career. And yet sometimes in this industry we're in, we can walk in a room and be made to feel washed up. Yeah, yeah. We can be made to feel like, oh, our last success was our last one. We were literally talking about this right before you walked in. Yeah. And I was just saying, like, didn't Quincy Jones made thriller when he was like 52? Yeah. I mean, like so it's like, and honestly, I don't care if I'm making cakes, like, or whittling wood. I was saying this, I'm making totem poles with a chainsaw out of a tree. I don't know. Being creative is being creative. You know what I mean? So at the end of the, day you're right the two reasons for that is probably sometimes people don't give a shit right like

they just everybody we're in a business where everybody thinks they're cooler than the next guy a lot of time which is tough to or at least they have to put the front on yes exactly stay in the room yeah yeah so but for me it's like i grew up on a farm in ohio right so every day i get to make something i don't care what it is it feels like a good day to me so like i don't i don't really i don't really lead with like this is what I've done. It's kind of like this is what I'm doing because like, you know, you know, does that make sense? Absolutely. I don't really, I don't really think in terms of resume too often. So it's actually kind of weird, not in a bad way or good way, it would just like to have somebody read that stuff to you as. Sometimes I'm like, I did that. I did that. Oh, wow. Oh,

I have a Grammy. I don't know where it is. But I'm not even saying that to be cool. Like I honestly mean it's like I don't hang up plaques or like. But also you realize the important part of the work you did wasn't necessarily the token award you were given. It was the work you did. Yeah. I think. Dude, 100 times out of 100, somebody hitting me on a DM on Instagram and saying, like, this is the song I dance to at my wedding. One of those is worth a hundred fucking Grammys. You know what I feel that way, doesn't it? Yeah. I feel the same way. Yeah. I think it's important to say that because more artists don't win Grammys than do. Yeah. All right. So when I try to to encourage artists who are making what I think is a really important art, I try to take the,

the idea that we live in this token economy in the music industry, is I believe, right? And again, I have to underscore the idea that I'm not disparaging the music industry. I'm definitely not. I'm not shit talking to music energy. I've been in it for 25 years. I love the music business. I love meeting artists and and people that work at labels and management companies and all the different music attorneys. I love them all. I love meeting them all. Certainly there's some bad actors or some bad people, but that's the world. That's not just the music industry. 100%. So I underscore that so that I can say these things to not dismiss the people that have won Grammys. Yeah. Because it's a huge accomplishment. But more of us will not than will. Yeah. And I don't feel any

different pre or post. Right. The only people that care, I don't care at all. Like, I mean, I'm very thankful for it. Right. I mean, I did the work and I went and I was, I mean, gracious, whatever the word is, like, I mean, holy cow, I won a Grammy. You know, I've said this before as well, and it's not on my Wikipedia, but, you know,

they got to put you up on the screen when you die after it's over. That's probably the biggest, coolest thing. Right. So, like, let me put you on a screen at the day in the broadcast. But at the end of the day, it's like, what? this is how human beings are. We need to categorize things. We need to say, this is what this is.

And with any kind of structure, there's always some sort of like back end mistakes, you know? Like, it's like nine times out of ten you go in and somebody wins the Grammy. There's equal as many people that are like, that shouldn't have won, this should have won. You know what I mean? Why did Nikki Minaj win and Bon Iver didn't or whatever?

I don't know. It's everybody's got a different taste. It's music. It's taste-based. It's like, you know, so to give one, yeah, you give one thing to, there's lots of other accomplishments that are equal or greater than winning that award. And we got, we all got into this business because we're weird. Yeah, we're weird. So like every day you get to be weird and somebody hands you a dollar or somebody hands you a hundred dollars or somebody just says

good job. Like that's a win. That's a great day. You know what I'm saying? So fuck a Grammy. I mean, like I love, I take another one. if you want to give it to me. I'm 100% with you. I'm not discounting the amazing feeling of standing up there and getting an award, but also recognizing that why you set out to make the art was different than the awards that come when the art does well. Now, the art, the recognition of the award is that it resonated on a cultural level with a large group of people. Sure. And it was undeniable, right? Yeah. The work that you did with lady gaga that would love to hear about that experience of that uh roller coaster ride i'm

sure yeah uh or maybe it wasn't maybe it was a super calm center uh where you were making the these this little tinkering with this little project sometimes it's like that and then sometimes you come into uh a creative tornado of of you know all this this this this this what i would imagine And I don't know Lady Gaga, so I'm not speaking from any knowledge of her. From what I imagine is a big life full of her probably maintaining all these, this massive kind of career she's built. Yeah. So it's probably just full of craziness and my understanding of success and what it takes to be successful at that level. Yeah.

And from my own experience, I only experienced it probably in the world of where she got to. I got to see a little bit of that. You know what I mean? I mean, you were in a giant band, dude. I mean, you had to be it. In our time, you know, to have that experience, though, and understand what that takes. Yeah. Did you like it?

I have to say I didn't like it. Yeah. I think you have to love it. There has to be something inside of you that loves it to get. to want to continue it because I couldn't do it. I think it either yes, you love it, or I do think that there's these beings that don't know any other way.

Like I feel they were born Oh, sure. To exist in this space. Sure. That I respect, but I, because it's extremely isolating. Sure. And lonely.

Yeah. And from my experience, ways I felt it was really hard to find footing and to be grounded. It was really hard for me. Yeah. And at the same token, I love making the art. I loved a lot of it. Yep. But not at some point I got to go, well, not at any cost. And I felt like I couldn't sustain what you had to do to be that big forever. There's a real sacrifice that you give. you give up the space in your life to have some kind of relationship with the world and with other people that like you just feels like you to me anyways like now maybe someone's cracked it i haven't

and i didn't and that's why i don't think anybody has dude i think like what you're saying it's universal like for every person that i've ever known that have gone from point a to to the moon to the moon it's a sacrifice. It's not just a sacrifice, but it's like mental illness, gasoline. It's like everything that you have in your being that makes you a normal person is either stripped away from you or it's a, it's constant, you're under barrage all the time. I feel it. You live in a, you live in a zone where making decisions and choices like a person, like a human being, is almost nearly impossible. Yeah, I think that. So I look at huge success differently than like maybe the average music fan, right?

Yeah. When someone makes it to the moon, I don't go like, oh, wow. Yeah. I go like, ooh. Yeah. Man, that looks like it's going to be a wild, hard ride, and it's going to hurt, and there's going to be a lot of bumps and bruises and damage. But not to say the artists that are experiencing that kind of success can't take that

experience and work all the way through it and and be healthy people on the other side of it. I'm not saying that at all. Certainly some people have and some people haven't. We've seen them literally die. So if we don't recognize that part, then we're not really recognizing what it means to be the biggest thing in the world. Yeah. If we don't recognize like some of them survive.

Yeah. And they make it through and they get on the other side of it. And then some of them die. Right. And when you think about that, you kind of have to like, stop and go like, are we not all going to talk about this? Like, yeah, the biggest global success stories, there is like the small percentage you might die. Yeah, for sure, dude. They're like, do we want to talk about that? Yeah. That's always, always feel like when people

are celebrating like the biggest artist in the world, the global sensation. And you're like, okay, but did anyone tell them that there's like a 10% chance? Yeah, maybe higher. Or higher that they're going to be riddled with mental illness or attention. addicted to drugs, or they're going to die. Yeah. Right? Yeah, because like, I mean, like, listen, there have been. And I'm not talking about Lady Gaga at all.

No, no, no, no. I know you're not either. I'm just saying the size of that for you to go into it and make music and experiencing, it has to feel like a pretty crazy thing to get a look at. Let me talk about Lady Gaga for a few seconds. Like, when we first met, we could go to a pool hall together and, like, shoot pool and, and, you know, drink beers or whatever. Like, nobody cared.

You didn't have to take seven security guards with you and blah, blah, blah. But we were still, when we met, we were still selling CDs. Right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. There was no Instagram, you know what I mean? Right. Like people were walking around.

Yeah, flipping phones still. So, so times change, people change, whatever it is. I can tell you honestly that to this day, like she's remained of completely incredible incredible person, like just a wonderful human being. Yeah, it seems like it. I love her very much. I think she's a wonderful person. But I've also seen through that 10, 15 years span or whatever it's been.

What she's had to deal with. The incredible amount of challenges. Do you know what I mean? Right. To stay that person. Exactly what you just said. Like, you're surrounded by people nonstop, but it's like the loneliest thing in the entire world sometimes. Because it's like you can't, like, listen, you forget what a joy it is to go buy beans at Trader Joe's.

Yeah, to go buy some groceries. whatever. Yeah, go get a coffee. Yeah. Go sit and be alone. You can't do that. Like, you take it for granted. I take it for granted.

Well, that's what I kind of missed when I was going through my ride. Yeah. And I think, and now even so I've been able to relate to the world and like, you know, there isn't a day that goes by where someone doesn't come up to me and say like, oh, I love your band or I listen to you. But it's a little removed. So it can be a passing. It's very easy.

It's a passing like, oh, thank you very much. That's nice to meet you. Yeah. maybe they want a picture at worst. Yeah. And then it's like, okay. And then I can go back to staring out the window and having my coffee and zoning out and doing whatever.

Yeah. So you made it over the hump. I made it over the hump. And I don't think I could. I don't. And I think that is, that was a clear choice. Yeah. It was at some point we were like, this ride is, it's been crazy for about 10 years.

It was kind of a crazy ride. Yeah. And we all actively were like, well, we found. people we want to be married to. Yeah. And some of us had kids. Yeah. And we were all like, which one do we want more?

Yeah. Because we could see the fork in the road. Yeah. And the world has gotten substantially crazier with like, you know, what I was just all of yesterday, you know, somebody walked up and threw a glass at Cardi B when she was on stage and like, you know, people trying to tackle. It's crazy. It's like the world is a lot different place.

And it's a cynical world where people go like, so what? Yeah. That's what you get being up there. And you're like, no, that's. that's not actually what you get. Cardi B is a real person. She's, she's,

uh, mother. Yeah. You're going to throw something at someone's mother. Yeah. No. And it's a bad idea all the way around. You're going to just,

uh, you're just going to, again, like we go into the world we live in. It's, it's a cynical place and they objectify women with ease. They don't even, there's no like,

no like calling anyone on like, oh, so you're going to comment on what she's wearing or what she's, oh, bro, don't even give me started. Like, I would rather, I would rather sit in a barrel and go over Niagara Falls.

than be a woman in the entertainment business. I mean, I agree. It is rough. And I'm married to a woman in the entertainment business. And I have to keep my mouth shut most of the time because I'm married to. Because I don't want to draw more attention to some bullshit. And she doesn't either. And so she's classy.

She moves through all. She always has. She's a woman who in her early career was objectified all the time. People commenting on everything. When she was a 21 year old going through the experience, that a college kid goes through and they're commenting on it and every you know and and and you're too fat you're too skinny all that looks wrong or dress is wrong like whatever yeah and everyone's an expert yeah everyone's weighing in on on what you should do you walk you can you can put on on what i'm

putting on in five minutes walk outside of the house to get pictures taken on me everybody's like i can be as fat as i want to be yeah and nobody says anything ugly as i want to be you know i've sat there for two or three hours watching God, I get ready just to go get a car and get out at a meeting. Because the world puts so much pressure. Yeah. And it's

not fake. It's real. And that's why they'll even pick apart that. They'll say, well, you tried too hard. And you're like, well, which one is it? Yeah. I wasn't trying. Yeah. And now I'm, now you've hurt my feelings enough because I'm going to admit that like it hurts when people are sitting there constantly making comments about me. And when I start to try and there's no right or wrong,

and that's why I say, like, we live in a world where the objectification of women is completely okay. We never even comment on how wrong that comment was. We all just either ignore it or we comment against it or we comment with it. And like, I don't, I made a decision a long time ago when I remember when I first got with my wife and

And I realized like, holy shit, like, you can't do anything without people picking it apart. Right. And being in the center of it with her, I realized how she's literally just a person who was living a normal life. Had none of the problems anyone was saying. Had definitely like, like I thought grown up in front of everyone and done the shit that we do when we're young, right? Like we all fuck around and find our way.

And had to kind of like placate everyone. by giving a little, like, almost like, letting their narrative be true. Yeah. In order to get through it and get by it. And like, again, like, I think she's a really, she's not a confrontational person who is also, she's got a lot of class.

Yeah. She's not gonna argue with people. She's not gonna. Because it's just gas on the fire. No matter what you say is, it's wrong at the end of the day. Like if you're arguing with whatever, just adding more stress into the situation. Exactly. And she was always like, what am I,

what are, what am I going to do? When I'd get upset, she'd like, no, please do not. And, and, and she was right. Yeah. And so I've learned to like, not say anything and just like, and certainly at this stage of our life, it's different than it was. Yeah. But it's crazy because we, we don't talk about how freely people can just criticize and objectify women and certainly in entertainment. Yeah. And, And we're not supposed to say anything because they should feel lucky up there. Yeah. And so you shouldn't go on stage if you don't want things thrown at you. Yeah.

Tiny. Like you're talking about women who could get hurt. Yeah. I mean, dude, they just knocked BB Rucks out with a phone. Like, what the hell, bro? Like, it's insane. It's wrong. Yeah.

It's just wrong. It's crazy. And we don't want to talk about that relationship that we have as an audience to women. We don't want to talk about that. We don't want to talk about that. how okay it is that we all comment on how they look. Yeah. Or how they, you know, what they, what they, who they slept with.

Yeah. Or what they chose to do. Yeah. Like, and if men, that's the thing too is like being like a girl dad. I think about it and I'm like, what kind of world is my daughter growing up in where, like, guys, we can be as fat as we want. Yeah. As disheveled as we want. Yeah, take a look.

We can lack style. We can. And if we have money. Yeah. then we have something going for us. I guess. And you're like, what is the value of this, the value system in this world? So, God bless all these women.

Oh, man. I'll tell you over and over again. What they are up against. Tough, tough, tough job, bro. Any of these women deserve, whatever, we got to make, we should make a Grammy. What can we call that award? Just get a hand them out. It's insane.

The only reason I talk about the size of the career. And in relationship to Gaga, is because you got to get a peek into it. Yeah. Right? Not to say that either one of us could pretend to know what it takes to succeed at that level again and again and again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the sacrifice that I think it takes to have that size of career is one that I don't

think I could make. I definitely could not. I'm not that strong. And it takes to me, I think of like the level of the pop success. When I think of pop, I say not pop in the sense of style, but in the sense of like the global accessibility of an art project. Yeah. Warhol, Bosquiat.

I could name a bunch of artists that I think of, you know, Damien Hearst, people that have succeeded at a global level and built. And also created billions of dollars. of value in the world for people, for other people. Yeah. Right? That's what an artist does when they succeed at a high level. Yeah.

They create value. Especially a music business. For other people. For other people. I don't know how much. I don't get to keep very much at all. And some get to keep some, but at the end of the day, the world's participating in that market.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. People are buying and selling art and all kinds of things. Well, dude, I mean, look at, look at, when you go through the top 10 musicians, like, oh, these are the top 10 richest musicians in the world. None of them got rich because of the music. You know what I mean? Like Rihanna's a billionaire. Well, it's not from her records with David Gedda.

It's because she started Finty. Puff Daddy started Surrock and Jay-Z started title. And you know what I mean? All the revenue comes from physical businesses. It's true. And sad. And so when I look at like the size of a career. And the only reason I say like earlier in this conversation,

I said, yeah, well, they don't tell them that one of the possibilities is you could die. The only reason I say that is like it is what I think a really virtually impossible job for someone to not only make it from zero to the moon. The odds of that were you had a better chance of being an athlete. Yeah. You had a better chance of doing a whole bunch of other things than making it to that level of success. So it's like one in a billion. Yeah. Right. And then like if you use Lady Gaga as an example, she's a perfect example.

I'd say it's one in a billion that you'd get to that level and then be able to maintain that success. Yeah. Do it again. Yeah. Get inspired and do it again. Yeah. And then also go through all of the trials and tribulations of what it takes to live in that life and actually live in it. Yeah. And the sacrifices you make in your personal life, you're not at anyone's birthday. No. You're not at anyone's wedding. No. You're not. And, you're not. And, you're, And, you know, contrary to anyone else's belief, you're not living in a life where you're choosing, like, it's not necessarily all about you and what you want in any given moment. It's keeping all these obligations up to keep this thing going.

Yeah. And so. I mean, we went, we went, we were in Park City one time together and I wanted to go snowboarding. And she was like, I can't go snowboarding. No, you can't do anything. I was like, why? She was like, because it's in my contract. I can't, I can't ride a horse.

I can't. Can't physically get hurt. Yeah, because if you get hurt, it costs whoever this for the bill for the concerts or whatever. And that's it. She went snowboarding, anyway, by the way.

But that's so, but that's interesting because like that is someone who's actually looking at like, fulfilling their obligations. Yeah. And that's what you become is obligated to all these things. And it's not like you're like going like at that stage. It's a sacrifice for the art. Yeah.

Because I'm sure. her mind it's I want my art to continue to live at the highest level because it deserves it or I believe in it. So I think about it and I'm like, the sacrifice it takes for these artists that have these all-encompassing careers is so beyond that I didn't even have the stomach to get it. I made it to their first level or second level. And then I no longer had the stomach. I mean, that is a, listen, everybody's path is a different path. For sure. And like, it's, it's kind of kooky that like we're in the music business.

Like, you either become the weekend or you're not, you didn't do it. Or you're not successful. You didn't do it. Right, right, right. That's true. To me, personally, and I guess, like, there's been a couple shots like over the years where they're like, you know, whoever from whatever record label. Come in, we're going to, we want to put together an album behind you as a DJ and

or whatever and I'm always like, no, I don't want to do that. And it's because I don't want to, I've already gone on tour, I've already wrote songs. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's like, it's, I don't want to subject myself to that thing. But when I was 21, if you would have been like, would have been like, we want to put an album behind you when you're 21. I would have been like, tell me where sign. You know what I mean? Like if I got to jump through a fiery hoop every day, I'll do it. And I think if I could get on the train and then, you know, it's tough to know where to get off because you think you have to make it all the way to the weekend status. And, and, you know, sometimes like it just takes some time to say what you said. I want to start a

family or I want to, I want to be able to go to Starbucks and Trader Joe's and I value that more than this. And so it's all a personal decision. But I know people that are happier playing the piano and singing at Maestro on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, that are better musicians than people that I know that sold a million records last year. Do you know what I'm saying? So if you boil it down to the bottom level, we're weirdos that like music. And if you're, if you like what you're doing in that space and somebody's writing you any check at all, you should be grateful and keep, you know what I mean? Like tune it to yourself and realize that you're a success because there's 500 million other people that didn't have the balls to do what you're doing. And I, and I,

think also like coming to some understanding of what success feels like and means to you is going to be a big part of feeling successful. And I think that we none of us do that enough. I think one of the goals of this, these conversations when I say the people listening are likely trying to achieve some version of success for themselves because we all are. So maybe it's their building. So maybe it's the building a business or they want to be in music or art, an art for a career. Or maybe it's personal health, right? Maybe whatever it is, though, if we don't define our goals in a more kind of real way than just some object, like, I want to sell a million records. I understand that to you, that sounds like that's success. But like, could you imagine a little bit more of

what that life feels like, is it going on tour? Well, of course it is. Yeah, I want to go on tour. And I'm like, okay, but like these are real, like, what does success mean to me? Well, some people, it is going on tour and, you know, selling a bunch of records. That's okay. Yeah. Totally. But like, there's a bunch of layers to success that we have to kind of try. Yeah, I think that like what you, I think that what you're saying is the same thing that I'm saying. It's like just because if you're starting here and you want to get here and you're only using the goal as the success thing, then you're bound to this line goes like this. You get to five and then you got to back back to three. Yeah.

You got to go to six. Then you back down to two. And then you go, you know what I mean? So it's like if the actual act of making music for other people, whether it's one person or five, five is the success, then the whole time you're riding that rail to get to the 10 and you keep working. working at it, you're successful the whole time. So you don't need to sell a million records to be successful. And even if that's- You don't need to sell 100,000 records to be successful. Even if you, if you could say the million records is a huge milestone, all the steps before that should be somehow waved into the success idea. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So it's like, it's like we are hard on

ourselves a lot of times, especially as artists, and especially today, because you're watching everybody else through the lens of Instagram where everybody's just posting their awesome success. successes, right? Right. So it's like, oh man, I just sold out the will turn. It's like you're not Instagramming all the times you had to cry or the nine other shows that didn't sell out, right? Which is okay.

Your manager stealing money from you. I'm not going to be like, oh, dude, I'm so stupid. I let my manager steal money from me. Check it out on Instagram. You know what I mean? It's like, but it happens. Check out this fight me and my wife got into this morning. Exactly.

Exactly. So it's like we just need to broaden the definition of what the success is. Because to me, dude, like, I was a good shot fan. I love music. Sitting here with you today, just talking shit is like a monster fun thing. It's a success. What? Oh, that's cool.

People don't get to do that. You know what I mean? Yeah. People don't get to come here and do that. I feel very privileged to be able to come to do it today. I feel privileged. I'm privileged to have you. To hang out.

Yeah. You know? So, yeah. But that's the thing, too, is though, is that, you know, I got to have the band experience. But it's funny because you've you've written some big songs. Yeah, I think so. A couple of them. Proof, right?

Proof is in the pudding. I mean, it's true. You've done it. We couldn't argue with that. It's a fact. To me, that's something that, like, I could say I just am in awe of because, you know, and I've written some songs for other people, too, but, like, it's something that I've always been in awe of is someone who's written a big song that I didn't write.

Well, I feel the same way, too. There's a lot of songs to come on the radio. I'm like, fuck, I should have wrote that. God, that song's good. But it's cool. It keeps you, you know, you can't do everything. Artists, I feel like they always think they can do everything all the time, too. We want to.

Yeah, you want to do everything all the time. We want to do everything. You don't have to do everything all the time. And honestly, I could have written those songs in my bedroom and it would have been just as good. If I had to have the, you know, the catalyst of God to put them out, nobody would ever hurt them. Do you know what I mean? So it doesn't mean that I'm any better or worse. You know what I'm saying? Of an artist because they came out. My thing is, I'm very lucky to have, it's not, it's, I was prepared and like I worked really hard and I, I, I slept on a

floor of the studio for two weeks and, you know, many, many a time in a row. And it's not like, there's no work involved in it but there is a lot of like luck and that luck is from keeping a positive attitude and like showing up when you're supposed to show up being easy to work with easy to work with yeah being nice and and hearing people out like i tell people all the time that like 90% of my success has nothing to do with actual mechanics of like writing the song it's like you can write an awesome song and it can sit on somebody's computer for the next 20 years you know what i mean you have to like understand how people operate. So when I walk into the office at Interscope and start talking about a record,

I had to be passionate about the record. I had to sell, you have to sell that dream to somebody. You also have to be able to play well with others. Yeah, and you have to be able to know how people work and empower other people to do their jobs. And it's like if, right now,

right now, if I decided I want to be an artist, I want to sing, I want to start singing. I want to write some, sing some of these songs that I wrote. Right. I'd be starting,

up from ground zero. I would have to go back through the whole thing and say, this is the way I want to do it and know the right people. In order to do that, you had to be nice to everybody the first time around. If you wanted to listen. Yeah, right. Do you think that kind of files under emotional intelligence? It's absolutely the, it's the paramount. It's the top of the food chain. If you don't have like other people's like, if you don't have emotional intelligence enough to know how other people feel and how to best interface with people and get their ideas and implement and utilize their ideas, then like, you're never going to win. You understand what I'm saying? Yeah. And like, know when to give and no when to take. Like, people always freak out. It's like,

oh, well, I got to give up this to do this. Well, no shit. Like, if you want to run a marathon, you've got to change your diet. You know what I mean? If you want to, you can't just sit around eating pizzas all day and then you expect to get up and run the Boston Marathon. It doesn't work that way. So there's times where like you might, you're never, nobody's ever too good to, to change the way that they're scoping things out. If I want to start doing movie, music for movies, there's an entire group of people that have spent their life. Dedicated to that. Dedicated to just do a music and movie. So I might have to humble myself and go get coffee for a bunch of dudes that have been doing at their whole life to figure out what they're doing, show that

I'm interested in the process. Just to get in the room. Yeah, but yeah, just to show interest. And then learning. And learn and meet people and, and, show them that I'm a nice guy and I'm not going to screw up their program. So it's like if I'm a newcomer to this, if I'm a new artist, and I come in and I say to you, hey, I'd like to put out a record on your label. And you say back to me, great, we're going to do this and this and this, and this is how it's going to work. And I say, well, how do you get paid? Well, we take a percentage of the of the winnings. In success, yeah. In success. I'm going to be like, you know what, this first time, I got nothing right now. Take all of it. Just get. Just get

get me on the, put me in a, put me in the driver's seat. Put me in the game. Yeah, let me ride shotgun for a little while. Watch what you do. I'm going to learn something. And then tell me when it's my turn to drive. I'm going to show up every day. And I'm going to work tirelessly.

It does take that. Until I know what you know. Because listen, you just said you spent 25 years doing this. I want to know what you know. I actually want to know what you know now. I want to hang on with you more often talk about this kind of stuff. Right. Because you absolutely have a different set of skills than I have.

Yeah, we do. And for me to think that I can't learn from you or for you to think you couldn't learn for me would make us both dickheads. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree with that. So it's like you have to be around listening

to the person that works radio, the person that works playlist, and respect their job because they give a shit about it and they know what they're talking about. And you got to listen and you can't be, I'm the artist, I'm going to do exactly what I'm. You got to work with people, you know what I mean? Well, yeah, I think one of the things we've heard a lot

and I've said it myself a lot too is he's getting out of our own way, right? Yeah. What does that mean? Well, I think it's like not, I always go back to emotional intelligence and communication, which I think is a tool that you can only really have unless if you're emotionally intelligent. So I think that the more emotionally intelligent we are, the better communicators we are. Sure.

And the quicker we can process experience in real time. and then measure and relate to things and be better decision makers in real time. And so what I try to always encourage people to do is to examine their own where they feel they're at in their own emotional intelligence and their own communication skills.

And then if we do it when we're alone, therefore we don't have to share with anyone else, we can actually try and assess like am I do I feel like I'm emotionally intelligent enough yet do I need to gain that intelligence yeah and then how do I do that well there's a lot of ways you can start searching for I always say start with communication if you learn out of communicate you'll become more emotionally intelligent more emotionally aware so that idea right if we go back into the work part and we go how am I in the room yeah so emotionally intelligent people are good in the room yeah they know when to

say stuff when not to say stuff. Yeah. They feel their way through. Yeah. They understand like how to relate to other people. Yeah. And then I look and I go, okay, I'm obsessed with this idea. How am I teaching my kids?

Yeah. To be emotionally intelligent, to be good communicators. Yeah. And how to relate to the world. Yeah. Because we're lying if we say that we're doing our, I personally feel like our job is to get our kids ready for the world. Sure.

And it's not to scare them. it's to get them ready to be out there. And so what do they need? In my opinion, they need the tools to communicate and to be aware of the room. Yeah. And will they not have a better life if they perform in the room, if they're better in the room? Will they not have a better life if they can relate to people in the room? Yeah.

And if they know how to be better communicators in a group or how to get out of the way of the conflict that's happening? Yeah, I mean, like some people, it's more challenging than others. You know, for me, at least, like I grew up, I'm in a long, oh, like, I always keep, I'm like falling on. Oh, with the micwale. I always do that. Yeah, yeah. But now, I'm from like a long line of like very angry dudes.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. So am I. So, so am I. So for me, it's like a challenge is, is, that's the big challenge for me is like not taking things personally and being able to not say everything I want to. say until I've assessed everything. Does that make sense? It makes sense, but I'm going to tell you, I love the opportunity to talk to angry dudes. Yeah. Because what I find angry dudes, I'm not excusing

some of the actions sometimes when they can't control themselves. Yeah. Self-control is a real thing. Yeah. But I love the opportunity to get to the bottom of that anger. Yeah. Because a lot of times when we get to the bottom of that anger once or twice, or three times, it starts to dissipate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do think that everyone deserves the opportunity to get to the bottom of the conflict they're having inside. Sure. Well, I mean, I mean, it was, it was. I don't think you're angry to be honest with you anymore. No, no, no, no, no. I don't find you to be that guy. I'm definitely not an angry dude now. But I could see how you come from that. Yeah, yeah. I do too. Yeah, yeah. And I was actually angry. It's a learned behavior. For a long time.

That's been my biggest challenge is like a parent. You know what I mean? Yeah. As a teacher of the next group of people to take over things. The next humans. Yeah. So it's like, you know, I've tried my hardest to like not be impatient and not be angry. What are the things that have helped you?

Man, I thought therapy was for weirdos for like the longest time just because that was the information that I got. It was a different time. Yeah. So, so I really feel like I feel like I. fought. I wanted, I knew something that was wrong and I wanted to go, like, have somebody telling me stuff, but I fought it for like two years. I can't imagine going to like a pizza place. Again, I use a pizza reference, going to a pizza place and like paying for a pizza,

like, and then being like, get this out of my face. You know what I mean? That's basically what I was doing. Pay some guy and tell me what it was. And then as soon as he was done, I was like, no way, bro. Yeah. Fuck you. Yeah, I'm not doing. You're like, can I have a pizza please? Here's your pizza. Yeah, exactly. like, so, so after, pizza out of my face, you liar. So after I kind of like figured out like what he was,

what, what he or she after like the fifth one that I went to and they were saying the same thing, you know? Yeah. I was like, all right, well,

maybe I should, maybe some of this. Yeah, some of this is, the problem is you, to sink in. So anyway, I feel like examining why I reacted like a certain way to,

like, seeing it, like you said, getting to the bottom of it once, twice, three times for myself. oh my god I just did that again what what was that yeah what is that maybe it's me just being aware bro just being aware of again I learned early on to be like a group a grouper of people like I'm like a conduit of

people like what do you want to do this is what we should do everybody would be happy but I wasn't doing that for myself you see what I'm saying you're you're a leader yeah so you weren't leading yourself correct so I was like after a lot a lot of work bashing my head against the wall like a stubborn asshole. You know, I sat down and I tried to figure out like how to not do that anymore. Yeah, how to grow. Yeah. And yeah, man, I mean, it's not one thing.

It's like a combination of 800 things. But the one thing that's constant throughout it is recognizing when the, when the pot is starting to boil, like recognizing how to take it off the fire. You know what I mean? That's a great metaphor for what I have learned from my therapist, one of who I think has just, man, it's changed my life and so many years ago. He's a coach, really.

Him and a few other teachers that I feel like all in different ways had something I didn't have. The idea that we get emotionally flooded and then the water, the pot boils and it's about to blow. To actually be able to track that in ourselves is a real skill that we, that we can gain.

Best skill ever. And if we can gain that and go and then actually invite the idea of it into our relationships. Yes. Right? Because a lot of times our emotional traumas and are on the things we aren't aware of, they act themselves out in our love relationships, right? Our attachments. Friendships, business relationships, any kind of close relationships.

Close relationships. Because the mirror. Yeah. And so to be able to introduce that, idea to like say your your wife or your partner or your business close business relationship say hey listen so I don't know what it is but when we get into these conversations and they get heated because we're both passionate I sometimes can get flooded and then that's when I lose it. So I need what I really need is the ability to be able to tell you and walk away for a minute.

and then maybe come back and try again. And like if we can do that and anyone out there listening, the only reason I break this stuff down, because I always feel like people are listening and hopefully gaining like a tool they can use. Sure. Right, because we're all the same. Yeah.

We act out these things like. 100% all the same. When I learned how to do that and go like, hey, I'm flooded right now. I need a minute. Yep. I'm going to go take a walk or I'm going to go for a drive or I'll see you tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? And then actually have the space. there for someone for the partner to go okay and not try to pull you back in because they want to solve their feelings or whatever and like you get into that like where you can actually have that I found as soon as I was able to do that literally it stopped happening yeah that's crazy and that's to me is the powerful part of the human like psyche yeah and the brain is I think when we become aware of things they they change quickly yeah I do really that's all you got man

like back to the success thing to wrap it in like nobody's nobody's out there saying like you got to get this done by next week or you're screwed it's you in your own head making the whole thing up so it's you deciding whether to be happy or sad or like you can set your own markers you know what I mean and you can set your own you can set your own boundaries and we do grow yeah we grow like weeds but the more the more you do good stuff the more the good stuff replicates itself and you you're always going to have bad stuff creeping in because it's the nature of the world world. But like I was saying, I was actually talking about this earlier too. I stopped like, caring, not to be a, it's sound like a dick, but I stopped caring about things that don't affect

me. Like if a bunch of whales get slaughtered in China, that's obviously a terrible thing. Horrible. I don't want whales to get slaughtered in China. But you're not going to. Here's the second thing I don't want. Don't tell me about it. Right. I don't need to know. You know what I mean? If whales are getting slaughtered on the 405, then like maybe it's going to have more to say about it. But like, But like, you know what I mean? Like, I just got to, you've got to stop. Eager is bliss. Well, no, it's not just that, but it's like, it should not be my concern.

We concern ourselves. Right. With a lot of things in life now because of the flow of information and the way that we carry around these computers with all instant information that we should just shouldn't naturally care about. Do you know what I mean? Right. Like, it's important to care and people should care.

I should care about you. If you call me in the middle of the day, said Paul, I need your help, man, I'm on it. Right. You know what I'm saying? Right. Yeah. I believe that. I believe that. If a guy in China that I don't know, I'm just using China because it's very far away, India, whatever, Japan, I represent, yes, far away. Yes, correct. But if a guy in China calls me and says, I need your help right now, I'm going to be like, who the fuck is this? You know what I'm saying? I don't know you, bro. So, like, why do I care what's happening over? I do not want that information. It does not,

it makes my day bad. I think what you're saying, and I somewhat agree with you. you mostly I agree with you in the middle somewhere right I think what you're saying is you know the the state of the world has always been pretty bad yes the problems have have been there they're not new problems they've been there correct and there are people who take that on in a way that can make you depressed that can I'm that person yeah I do that I feel that from you yes that being said there are also groups of people that have committed there are lives to change. Sure. And they are just as, to me, we have to identify which person we are. Yes. I'm not saying you shouldn't be on the sea shepherd like watching. I care about the whales,

but it's not my job. It's not my thing. It's not what you've committed your life to. But it makes me sad, but I just don't want to know it. And so what you, which makes sense to me. And so what I, what I do think is important to pull out of that. is like if you're a sensitive artist, right, which I think you are. I'm very sensitive, yes. I think you are not going to gain anything from going on social media and looking at the state of... I know. It's only going to make you sad, angry, depressed, all those feelings.

Yeah. And to know that about yourself is really important. The most important. Right. Yes. Because you care about the whales. Yes. And when they get slaughtered, it makes.

you. It's the worst. And you can do nothing about it. Correct. And likely, if you changed your whole path and you decided I'm going to go save those whales. Yeah. Well, they're already dead. Yeah. Of those ones. Those ones. That's more that. Now, what you could do is you could subscribe to a group that is trying to save them. Yes. If you want. Now, that can also be. Where does that end? Because then there's cats and dogs and then it's like, you know, I got, yeah, then I'm saving a whole. zoo and then all of a sudden I'm, you know, Jim Carrey. So what I take out of that is, is that the overwhelm of the sad state of affairs

that is this planet is, it is so big, because it is and depressing. Yes. That your sensitivity to other people's pain and suffering. It's a blessing and a curse. It's probably likely why you also make great art. Yeah. And your contribution to the world is overtly your art. Yeah. And likely the people you're raising in the world are going to be contributors in a good way.

Yeah. So because I do think that artists, we have a different approach to raising kids. And I think there's an interesting kind of something to be said for that. Yeah. I think that we have a different approach. And I think it's important. It's an important one. Yeah.

But I think that like what you've learned. how to do is shut off all the pain and suffering that you see. Well, not all of it, but, you know, I'm not in a program or anything, but like there's a line in AA, right, like, accept the things I can't, you know, to take the things I can't, accept the things I can't, change the things I can. Right. Right. And the wisdom to know the difference. But like, we're not constantly fed information about things we can't change. Absolutely. And, and it's done for a reason. Yes. It's, it's, it's a consumer, like people, people love it. We get addicted to it. People love it. We get addicted to the suffering of other people. Yes. And and and and then

knowingly, unknowingly. Unknowingly. You have to be very careful. They say like, uh, um, garbage in, garbage out. Yeah. We get addicted to seeing that stuff and then commenting, commenting. And the truth is is that our comments are doing nothing. Yeah. Just in general, social media is a tough, tough one. Commenting in general is a tough thing to navigate. It does nothing. Yes. You're never going to gain from commenting. Yeah. No. Right?

I generally have no comments about anything anyway. I made it a practice and a policy of my own to only try and put out things that encourage people. And I've learned to kind of be vigilant about that. And am I only successful in it? I don't know. But in my own mind, I'm trying. trying to make that my. And for the most part, so I don't comment on things anymore.

Well, anybody that I have a comment for, like if you go out and post something that I think is fucked up, I'm just going to text you. Right. You're going to be. Yeah. What was that? Because you have a relationship with the person. Yeah.

But if I, but if I. But you don't know me. But this is what I'm trying to say. We're put in a situation where we're fed. You see too much. Yes. A bunch of people that I don't even really know that well. Like, you know what I mean?

Like if I looked at Cardi, if I'm following Cardi B and she got hit with the mic and I'm like, oh, I'm sorry that happened to you. She didn't give a shit. Right. She didn't care that I'm, and I am sorry. I'm sorry that that happened to her. But like, again, making like the extra shit your own because that's the way it's fed through your system.

It's, it's, you're in a, you're in a matrix where we're given more information and more people to deal with and more things than we're actually able to handle. And it's mostly. fear-driven, meant to scare us into clicking, meant to anger us into clicking. The reaction of fear and anger is much stronger than joy. Because it's an evolutionary. It pulls you in because you want to protect. You're looking for the threat and then you're going and dealing with it, right?

So that, it makes total sense to me. and certainly I think Cardi B would actually care to hear. Well, hopefully she hears this. To hear that we didn't, that we were both angered by the experience she had on stage. And certainly it probably wasn't her first time. To me, it seems like she's a really strong woman.

But to see that happen, I just thought immediately, I thought of my wife. Yeah. I thought of she's a mother. Yeah. And I think like, what the fuck, man? Why would you, who does that?

If somebody threw something at a girl or a boy and I was walking on the street and somebody chucked something at I would say something to him. I would punch the motherfucker on the face that threw it. And that would be my, that would be my first. You and me think similarly. Yeah. Because an unprovoked attack is an unprovoked attack. Yeah.

So somebody needs to get elbowed in the nose after that happens. And then maybe it doesn't happen so much anymore. But here's the angry, here's angry poll coming out at you. But that's okay. it's okay to be angry at things that are wrong yeah um but what we do with that anger is always kind of like up to us um and so like punching someone uh uh would would likely put us in in in i probably wouldn't do it is angry in the world we live in though that i have the same reaction if i see someone you know being aggressive or hurting uh someone i want to do something about it too

um and and i likely would if i was there yeah in real time yeah um I'm just not a tend to don't go to many places these days. Yeah, same. I don't get to be a witness or a bystander in that way as much as maybe I used to. But I think that like there is a part, maybe an interesting thing, angry, the angry part of you, the angry part of me that I grew up with from a long line of angry men that I had to work through and heal. there's still some value to that. Sure. There's still some value to me having that emotion in there.

And there's some value to me holding on to some of it in a way that I can control. Self-control. And then being able to have conviction and channel that. And it's a practice, you know. So I could say these days I'm not an angry guy. Yeah. But things angered me. Yeah. No, I mean, listen, I'll give you an example.

Yeah. I love examples. I was going to pick up my kids at school, almost the last day of school, and I was parked in a park. I have like a pickup truck. Okay. And I parked. What kind of pickup truck? It's a 2003 Chevy. Okay. So. Vintage. Yeah. Well, it's just a piece of shit. I love old trucks. Beater. Nice beater. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'm driving. I go to pick up the kids. I'm parked in the same. thing and this guy comes up to my car window. And I roll on the window, he goes, you can't park here. And they said, okay, like, are you the parking ferry or like a, like a, like, you're not a cop. Work for the city? Yeah. Yeah.

All right, what are we talking about here? Are you going to give me a ticket? Yeah. All right. You know, this isn't a place where you can park. I said, all right, well then, thanks for the info. You know what I mean? Can I get your badge number?

Don't see the sign anywhere, right? And so I'm sitting there and I just roll up the window. enough with that conversation. You know what I mean? Like they're coming out in two minutes. I'm not going to drive around the block. I've parked here every day for every time I picked him up. Yeah, for years.

Yeah. So whatever this guy, whatever your information is. And I don't know you. Yes. Not valid to me at this particular juncture. Yeah. So this guy comes back and roll on the window. So I rolled down the window again.

He said, did you not hear me or what? I said, I heard you. I just chose to disregard the information. Because I don't find that you're authority. out is here for you don't have the authority to tell me to move so I'm not going to move this dude starts pounding on the side of my truck door by the way this truck door has lots of pounds in it yeah it'll take the beating it's the one I drive for that reason and and and literally five years ago I would have opened that door and found the closest rock and just smash that

dude over the face with it. Like, you know what I mean? Okay. Yeah. And he pounded that door and I looked at him like this while he was pounding on the door. Like it was like a cartoon. You know, flame and nose flames. He was just so mad that I would not respond to his request.

Right. Boom, boom, boom. And I just looked at him like this in the eye. Yeah. And he was foaming at the mouth and going crazy. Spitting mad. I was like, have a nice day, bud. And then like you roll up the window and he just walked away.

And I was so, it was like winning. the lottery, like that I had overcome that challenge that I didn't get out and like just totally stop the shit out of this guy. Like, like, I was so proud of myself that like I've, I reveled in the glory of my self-control for like a week straight. It was a massive win for me. It was a real milestone, a moment of realizing how far you'd come in your growth. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. So like five years ago, if I didn't do it, I would have been like, God damn it, you should have got out of the car. You know what I mean?

Like to recognize your own personal growth and like the result of like, because sometimes when you do the work, you don't get it right away. You don't. You know what I mean? It takes time. You don't actually, you don't even want to be put in the position where you have to realize that you, that it's working. Right.

So when you do get put in the position by someone else's choice, not your choice, and it shows that you did the work, it was like a major major victorious moment for me was the parking spot uh at an illegal parking spot no just asking no it was it was so there's not the belabor not taking aside i just want no no no yeah as you should let's investigate yeah so so there's that's all i want to do so there's so the school's there right yeah and and as you can imagine the school is pretty busy right yeah yeah especially at the time yeah pick up time yeah goes haywire.

So I encourage my young men to not stand in the line where he's going to pick up. Come out to the parking lot. Walk down the street a little bit. And there's a parking lot that's like a dead zone, empty building, like dead zone. And apparently it was getting transformed from a non-dead zone to a dead zone.

So I've been pulling up there literally for the last two years. Same exact spot to come out, walk over there, blah, blah, blah. I don't know if somebody bought the parking lot. I don't know if somebody did whatever. None of that was explained to me. Right. You didn't say, oh, sir, I'm sorry to inform this. I own this parking lot.

I'm the new owner of this parking lot. I appreciate it if you didn't park here. I'd be like, oh my God, dude, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I've been parking here for years. What's your name? Nice to meet you, Joel. I'll never park here again.

Thank you. My bad. Thank you. But when you walk up to my window and you start firing up, I would normally tend to get fired up right with you. Like, let's get fired up. Yeah. But the fact that I didn't,

And I don't know. Here's the thing. Here's the whole nut, candy shell on the nut. It was like the last day of school. So I haven't parked there again all summer. You know what I mean? Like I don't know what it is now. I haven't driven by the school.

I have no idea if there's a mega mall there or it's church or whatever it is. So the next time we talk, I'm going to let you know. I want to know what now exists in that parking lot. Is it possible that that guy felt his own lack of power? Sure. and acted out of feeling small. Or maybe earlier that day, he heard about a bunch of whales getting killed in China.

Very posthum. And he was really bummed out. And he just, you know, you got another call. You know, kept going up the hill. And then here's this asshole. His dickhead walks and parks in this spot. In his Ford truck. I can't do anything about these whales.

Get this kid out of the fucking pot. So the only reason I likely would have handled it the same way. Yeah. Because I've dealt with the same thing. up and even like if I get a ticket yeah I'm happy to take the ticket yeah like I got I I I I don't really speed that much but like I'm trying to think of the last time I oh I ran a stop sign yeah in a residential area it was at nighttime I actually didn't see the stop yeah yeah until after I passed it no cars on the street it's late at night I dropped my daughter off at her friend's house

it was like 10.30 at night. And I was driving through the residential street. And the cop was waiting there. I guess it's a stop sign. A lot of people running. Sure. Didn't see it, went through it. Lights came on. I pulled right over.

Cop came up. Cops kind of make me nervous. Ditto. You know, was wearing like shorts. sleeves so I have a lot of tattoos and you know so I try to behave really with cops I just try to be as helpful as possible you know so that there's nothing to to get after me for yeah and he was a little confrontational about the the running the stop sign and I said I'm sorry officer I didn't see it

yeah and then he kind of wanted to kind of argue that I did and I was like I'm okay if to get a I really didn't see it. But I understand you have to give me a ticket. I totally. And then it felt like he was a little angry. Because you were okay getting the ticket. Well, or like I didn't, I don't know. I wasn't trying to say like, don't give me a ticket.

I was saying, I'm sorry. Yeah. I didn't see it. Yeah. But eventually, I mean, I just went through the process of dealing with it. And he gave me a ticket. And I was like, thank you. Thanks, officer.

I hope you have a good night. Yeah. And I think about like confrontation when I think of like any kind of confrontation where I feel the energy coming at me is is confrontational. Yeah. These days my main goal is to neutralize. Yeah. Diffuse it. Diffuse it however I can.

Sure. I guess I've become as a parent my, my, I say, I heard this somewhere. protect life at all costs. Sure, yeah. Right? So don't put yourself in any danger you don't need to be in. Sure. So if you're in a room and it feels like something's about to pop off, get out.

Yep. If you're in a crowded situation and people start acting crazy, just get away. Yeah. Don't stick around and watch to see what happens. Yep. And I try to teach my kids the same thing. I remember walking out to my car in a parking garage of like a target. Yeah.

And there was a guy breaking into my car. And my first response was his back was to me. So I felt like, oh, I should get this guy. But I had my, at the time, like four-year-old son with me. And it kicked right in. And I was like, I'm going to turn around, go into the store, tell the security to call the police. Yeah. Good choice, by me.

and I'll deal with whatever damage this guy does on my card. If he steals it, I care more about my son's safety. God only knows what this person has on them. And it's not that I, you know, I think as men, we kind of have, we feel like we need to defend our decisions when they're not confrontate being confrontational. But I do think that there's something about choosing the path. of least resistance at all costs. Yeah.

And, but then also, like, not, not letting someone take us to that level of, of that temperature. Yeah. So the guy's beating on your window, he's upset, and you're sitting there and you're going, no, I'm not going to move. And I think there was probably another, probably two more levels he could have gone before. He's like, all right, buddy. I'll move, which he didn't get to, right? Which my theory is he's probably feeling powerless.

And that was his biggest, you know, biggest move was to. Yeah, he's probably still thinking about it. Maybe, maybe. And if he is, that guy's problems are much bigger than where you park. But I feel like there is something to be said for like how we navigate confrontation. And we see it play out on the internet all things. the time. Yeah.

You see people get, get pulled into these, like, I used to all the time, like when somebody would be like, same to it. Same to it. Yeah.

When they first, when Twitter first came out, I felt like, I feel like I gained like seven muscles in my thumbs when that thing, because everybody, you know, everybody's like, this fucking song sucks.

You suck. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, fuck you, man, I don't suck. And then it's like,

you're sitting there and I was like, wait, I just wasted like two hours arguing with what it was probably a 15 year old kid. Yeah, I'm no idea who's on the other end. A lot of pleasure out of fucking with me. You know what I mean? So it's just, you know, you live and learn, get bigger.

I guess you tell these stories so that somebody out there that's listening that's like doing this at the time, maybe takes a second glance at like what they're doing and how they can use their power, power a little bit better. You know what I mean? Like use their computer to make better computations. Hopefully. That's what I hope. I mean, I hope that people are listening.

they take any of the stories that we tell here and they apply them to their own life in a way that's positive. Yeah. Success is funny. It'll amplify everything for you. Yeah. The good and the bad. Yeah. It'll amplify the best qualities you have. And it'll amplify the things you have to work on. Yeah. And if you don't work on, a lot of times, it's to your peril. Yeah, be undoing for sure. It would be something that would get you into a bunch of messes you didn't need to be in. Correct. And then, therefore, you're saying, success goes down because you're dealing with bullshit that you could have avoided. Yeah, I mean, like, I've, I've, I'm a hundred percent sure that there's a couple

people out there that I, you know what I mean? I would have done something different, like given like a different viewpoint. You know what I mean? Like, but again, like, you're all people, like everybody's a human being and we all are trying to figure it out. Like, we all, and you said, you said earlier that everyone's the same. Well, I think that there's like an overarching sameness about people. is it like the seven laws of like people's personality

which you need like you know what I mean to keep it moving but we all have these unique little nuggets that are fed into our computer that like one time when you were five years old something that you don't even remember necessarily happening affected like you for the next 40 years of your life you know what I mean like and it's just like

maybe not even discovering that one thing by discovering constant being as good as you possibly can be which is all you can do can't be perfect you can't be better than you can be just as good as you can possibly be

is a constant constant battle it's like a constant work constant work constantly being aware constantly making micro changes in order to hopefully make a macro change at some point but like you know

incremental yeah and back to like the success of failure if you are doing it and you are actively thoughtfully trying to do it, you are success, even if the actual result hasn't come yet. Yeah. Because when you start looking at things in a day period, you know, change doesn't happen. But if you look at it in a year period, you're more likely to see the forest instead of the trees.

You're looking at a decade. And man, like, I don't know how old said I was there, but I'm 47, I think, 48. I don't know, whatever I am right now. when I was saying this earlier too it's like I thought 40 was like 150 years old when I was 21 you know what I mean yeah yeah when you're 40 when you're 45 or 50 you still feel like you're 20 years old like but you just have more knowledge and more armament to like make better decisions and your friends have more armament to make better decisions and you get things done easier it's just like it's never too late to start bettering yourself

you know what I mean like because honestly like I didn't start doing the work until I was maybe 40 years old yeah what I mean and and wouldn't you say that the um or would you would you agree with um that the the wins so the success and the losses along the way because you've had plenty of those just like anyone that's been hugely successful has had tons of failures that oh man we have to remember the failures because I find that really success. people move, they move through it quickly. Yeah. And they get focused on the next, you know, task, right?

Wouldn't you say, though, that that kind of expedited the personal growth? So I'mana, and, like my music, my hair changed with me and has to be able to continue my rhythm. For so, Potion Nine, of Sebastian Professional, has all what my cabellio needs. Nutrition Profunda. Protection contraught. 99% less of rotura and puntas abirtas, under control.

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month for a euro a month on Shopify pointe bar records. Yeah, but that comes with

self-awareness as well. Like, you know, failures, like, that's the only way you succeed. Yeah.

You don't, people don't just keep handing you victories and you're like learn about life, you know what I mean? You can't write

a song about breaking up with a girl unless you've broken up with a girl you know you had to have the experience to be able to yeah to to be able and and and you know for for me at least i guess if there was an instagram a failure instagram like i would have a lot of posts me too yeah a lot of posts that'd be crazy looking instagram there should be a failure there should be a failure instagram um uh it's funny i i i think

that failure i always look at it now just as information just get more information you know what's Yeah, now that I'm thinking about it. I actually posted a picture of me crying on Instagram one time. I was having a hard, a hard, it was like at one of those moments where, what is it? You know, I think it, I realized that like my, like I wanted to end my marriage after like, I got married when I was 23. And I, and I, and I, we were dating since I was 18. And, like, I was, like, kind of like the crux where I knew that that was kind of at an end. And I didn't really know what I was doing.

And, like, I just gone back out on tour with God off like the third time. and the first date was in Detroit, like where I grew up. I was like in the hotel room, like, you know what I mean? Looking out at like where I hung out when I was 16, you got this overwhelming amount of emotions, like where my 16 year old self, like, I wrote in my high school yearbook that I was going to be like a giant rapper. Right. Like, you know what I mean?

Like I'm going to make it in the music business as like a giant rapper. Now my rap's suck terribly. You know what I mean? But if I could see what I'm doing, if this day, Right now, looking at you right across the table and eyes is a fucking miracle. Right. You know what I mean? Like legit, it's a miracle.

Me being in L.A. is a miracle. And sitting up there, looking out of where I grew up and just having, like, reminiscing about those dreams about being in L.A. and possibly sitting across the table from someone like you, it was like a flood of like overwhelming emotions. And I couldn't stop crying for like a whole, I had to go out and like, I had to go out and like, start writing songs or go out and DJ open. I don't remember exactly we were there for, but I was bawling my eyes out for hours, hours and hours. And for some reason, I don't know why, but I posted it. Right. You wanted to share it. And like 3,000 people were like, oh man, what's up? You know what I mean? So I think if you give people, a lot of times we don't

give people the opportunity to care for us. You get to know us. Yeah, or have like any sort of like idea about like who we are or like what we're going through because like I said you just it's the opposite we want to take in all the all the negative stuff but you only want to show people the good stuff because like people don't care about the good stuff you don't want to show them if i said today like yeah guess what guys i felt really good today i i binged 100 pounds i don't know what would people do to feel good people are like great for me it is about 100 pounds so it's like it's like it's like but if I said today, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, oh my God, my dad had a stroke.

You know what I mean? Everybody's, you know, whatever it is. It's like you, I guess we don't think that people care or like people don't care. Or like you're building up all the stuff in your head that like, and it's perpetuating. You know what I'm saying? Well, we're made to feel like we can't be vulnerable. Right. So I can't actually celebrate the little wins with anyone because they're not big enough.

Right. Right. So why would I say I'm so excited that that person called me and told me they liked this or some little thing that could sound trivial to someone because it's not me on like a private jet showing like where I'm going. And it's kind of funny because it's like, so the only things that we can share are completely unrelatable to 99.999% of people in the world. Right. Rather than...

Which was led to a booming Ferrari rental business. Yeah. By the way, great, great. Like, by the way, yeah, if, you know, but then I can't share like, oh, I lost a pound and a half over the last two weeks. And I got on the scale and I was like, yes, because it was really hard to do or whatever. and I can't share that because then people are just going to make fun of me or whatever. And it is funny because we're not allowed to be our true selves, which is like we celebrate

these little things like someone said something nice to us or we got a good little piece of news that was really important to us. It's funny. I fixed my washer this morning by myself. I was really stoked about that, but I didn't post about it. I was hyped though But it's cool I was mega hype

Actually that I did it myself It's funny how that works It was How old were you when you got divorced Well Technically I'm still going through it Okay so it's been long Yeah it's been a process

But It is what it is But 2018 I think was when we split up Okay Yeah Painful life changes are are tough yeah yeah yeah i just never thought i would ever get a divorce right

i just didn't grow up that way also i don't think that any of us go into marriage thinking that we're gonna yeah that that's gonna end but yeah and no but i mean like it's just like i i'm i'm 150 000 percent different than i was right as inside right like not the not the not the good things the good things are good i've always been kind and caring i've always wanted to to help people and do cool stuff. Right, but growth is a real thing. Growth is a real thing, you know, and like adjusting things that I just grew,

I just grew into a different person and I started realizing things like when you start talking, dude, if you, if I shut you in a closet, that's how big the world is. Right. Do you understand what I'm saying? If I give you a, if you're in this room your whole life, that's a long way away.

The lamp over there is a long way away. But like when you start opening up things and like start examining and start thinking, rethinking structure. Yeah, we grow and we change. And that's not happening, or there's no desire for that to happen simultaneously with the person that you're committed to,

then it just, it's a natural thing. It's nothing to be looked at upon as like a failure or whatever. I do. Married for 20 years, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's a long time. And like, we have two wonderful kids and we're pretty successful people and like everybody should be happy.

So, but I mean, of course, there's some sadness with it. Yeah, of course. You know what I mean? But like at the end of the day, it's a stupid cliche, but you just got to break an egg to make an omelet. And there's like sometimes that you can do things with your band. And there's sometimes you got to change your frontman or change the bass player.

It's like, you know, it's just to be better at what you're doing. Yeah, it's funny because my, my wife and me never really look at anyone else's marriages when they're going through these kinds of things. So certainly we, the different thing is when we were going up, divorce was kind of taboo. Now it's like actually a healthy thing people do. like it's better for everyone. Yeah. And we've certainly seen that like couples that their lives improved.

Yeah. Like in a major way. Yeah. But it's painful to go through because you built this life at the same token to see people on the other side when they made a healthy decision and actually see them thriving. Yeah. It is a beautiful thing. Yeah.

And I can't imagine what it's like to go through. But it's funny because being married. married for 12 or 13 years now and being with my wife for 17 years, we have done a ton of work and we both recognize how hard it is to build a family and have a relationship that's growing together. And it's funny because like we we never look at couples who are making that decision and think like we don't look at it in a success, the success idea, that's kind of an unfair label of a marriage

in defining what success. Because 20 years is success. Yeah. The fact that you move on from it and the relationship changes, because that's all it is is a change in the relationship, to become more functional and healthier. I needed to do that to become more functional.

And I'm telling you right now, right at this very moment, as we said across Seattle for months, my life is the most chaotic it's ever been, ever been. And I'm happier than I've ever been at the same time, which is like a complete juxtaposition of like where I would be at this juncture. But like it's, dude, I mean, it's crazy. But, you know, I got into a conversation with a woman randomly at a coffee shop a few weeks ago who just came up to me and was like, I used to listen to your band.

And I was like, oh, thank you. And then she said something like, yeah, lately I've been listening to it again. I was like, oh, that's interesting. That's cool. And she goes, yeah, I'm going through a divorce. And I was like, oh. And she was like, yeah, it was like 16 years or something.

And it's weird because I don't necessarily, when someone tells me they're going through a divorce, I only feel their pain of what I've heard it's like to accomplish that. because it seems like it's a long process and it's painful in the idea that you're like kind of untangling a bunch of things and separating a bunch of things.

Yeah. And then you're dealing, but it sounds like a healthy decision most of the time when people tell me why. Yeah. Right? And I'm always like, oh, that sounds like it'll be good for you guys. Yeah.

Right? And maybe I was the first person that said to her. She said, you know, this, she started talking to me and I was just listening like I do sometimes. I like to listen to people's stories. Yeah. And she was telling me about their, you know,

where their relationship had gotten to and I was just listening. And then I had gotten my coffee and I was standing there. You know, she went on and told me about all this stuff. And at the end, I said, wow, that sounds like you guys are making a really healthy decision. And she was like, you're the first person that said that to me. And I said, well, it sounds like it to me. Yeah. Sounds like you guys are going to be better off.

Yeah. Again, a tree and a forest. Is there a version of it where you guys probably, like become friends again and you co-parent and I hope so I wasn't saying to you no no I was saying to her I know I mean honestly I'm saying it for me like I hope I hope so yeah but it's you know the problem is like you don't you don't think about it at this point when you well when you're 18 it's all ideal idealized yeah of course when you're 23 or whatever you get married yeah we don't know anything it's like I don't know what I was doing I was I was making $27,000 a year being a high school teacher

You know at that point. So when you start adding stuff and... Oh, you were a high school teacher? Yeah, dude, that's what I started off. That's what I graduated with. Holy cow. taught English and Japanese. Yeah, I'm going to ask about that.

And then, you know, you go off and you're adding stuff and combining stuff and things are stacking and all this stuff that's around. And then all of a sudden, you got people that are making $800 an hour. You got to get your people that make $100 an hour. She's got to get her people that make $100 an hour. Yeah. And then those people... And they fuck everything.

Oh my God, dude. Man, that would be... Oh, my God, do they fuck everything up? And there's no way to slow that train down. Once it starts. Because it's like somebody praying on every insecurity you have about this thing breaking up. Because it is a separate... It's a dissolution of things.

So things could be chaotic. Things could be whatever. Right. And so if you have somebody behind you the whole time saying, oh, fuck, this is going to be bad. You've got to do this, this and this. and I'm going to charge you $800. You know, I'm like, I got to charge you for it. But like, it's going to take me about $40.

You're like, fuck, I got to do it. I got to do it. Right. Maybe he's got a bank account in Monaco, which I don't. I wish I did. But I mean, I'm saying, like, there's an exercise you have to go through to figure it out. And as part of the breakup, you know, you lose trust and you lose like the relationship that might have held some things together.

At least momentarily you do. Yeah. And I mean, but that's, we'll figure it out. Right. It has to come to it in. That's the thing with pain, right? Unless you die, it's got to come to an end. It will figure itself out.

Yes. So that's what you have to live in when you're going through some kind of chaos. And there is a version of this on the other side. Yes. When you get through this painful part where you come to the realization that you do like each other. Yeah, I do. I don't have any. I have like have zero problems with her.

Right. Like she's a wonderful one. We've known each other. We're kids. Right. I think she's great. I appreciate you sharing. because that's another thing

I'm an open book you can ask me anything at any time look actually though I've never talked about divorce on this show but there's people listening that have been through it or are going through it

or have been the children of people that have gone through it and I was and our relationship with that idea has been has never been healthy so I always try to like I come from the perspective

of I wish my parents had had a good divorce. I wish they had just been kind. Yes. I wish they had realized that I would have been okay with it. Yeah. If they hadn't made it seem so detrimental, if they just had talked to me and said, look, guys, it's not working. Yeah. We got to change this. Yeah. And this is going to be good for you and you and me and all of us, right? And we're doing this so that we can all live longer and happier lives. Yeah. And so I think we, again, I think it goes back to therapy, working on ourselves, being responsible for our own happiness.

Yeah. And then taking responsibility for that and then taking some action on that. And like, I think that not enough people share their experience around these painful breakups, right? It doesn't matter how cordial you're being, the idea that you're breaking up. up this and your your is painful yeah right and you got to go through that pain painful part but on the other side of it I have a friend who's divorced who I love them both yeah they're really good people yeah wasn't working for them yeah and they're

incredible apart and they're they've gotten to a place where they're like doing an incredible job raising their kids and it feels like the kids have gone through that experience and are really well adjusted to the idea that their parents still love them and still love each other. Yeah. But just had to make a change. Yeah. And like I've learned a lot from watching that go down.

Yeah. And could only hope that everyone else out there that's going through that could find that same space where they were like, look, we still love each other. Yeah. We still like respect each other. That's the thing. How could you not? after you share that amount of time,

you know what I mean. It doesn't matter how many mistakes she made, how many mistakes I made, what didn't land, what did land. The dumb shit we do. Whatever it is. In the middle of it, when we're trying to navigate

when it's not working, people make mistakes. Yeah. And at the end of the day, right now, either her or I could be making mistakes. I'm just trying to be as, first of all,

honest as humanly possible, open as humanly possible, listen as much as I possibly can. But like if someone's, if you're getting rocks hurled at you, like because of that's the way that the system works, the more that they say, this is what this is,

that it's a posturing thing. But they don't, they don't teach you. It's really weird because you're entering into the biggest business deal you'll ever do. Right. It's literally the biggest business deal you'll ever do. Right. And they put us in front of a preacher before.

You understand what I'm saying? Right. Put me in front of an accountant. And then a lawyer at the beginning. Let me understand how this is going to work out. We should have lawyers. Yeah, just to say, well, just to say, like, this is how this works. Right.

Because, like, I'm learning things now where I'm like, wait, that's how that works. And it's like, I wish I would have known that. Like, it would have been, you know what I mean? And at the end of the day, like I said, everything is a learning experience. I'm learning a tremendous amount about myself, about the way that I operate, about the way that other people operate, about the way the world operates, people view it, my kids, like how to best negotiate the things with my sons and make sure that they know that I love them, their mom loves them, you know what I mean, and that no matter what, that's the, they're of the

biggest. That's the priority. It's the only priority. You know what I mean? I'd throw myself in a fucking alligator's mouth right now if it meant, you know what I mean? Like, I don't give a shit. So going through it, it's another thing. Like I said, I labored over it.

I mean, when I say labor, bro, like years, going to therapy, quitting drinking completely for, like, you know what I mean, just to make sure that my head was completely clear. Like, I didn't have a sip alcohol for four years. Right. Like, you know what I mean? Like, didn't drink once just so that I knew that I was making. Yeah, eliminate that factor. Yeah.

Talk to one therapist, talk to one counselor, talk to this person and everybody, all the information I could possibly so in just to make sure that I was making the right decision for myself. because listen, if it's the right decision for me, it's the right decision for all of us in this case. If one of us isn't in it, if it's you, if it's me, you know what I mean? It's got to be the right decision. Do you understand what I'm saying by that?

Like, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like everything's okay. Right. Because it's not, and that's just going to lead to some sort of explosion at some point. So let me be very clear and honest with you and tell you how I feel. And like, let's try and get out of this shit. storm. With the least amount of damage. With the least amount of damage and then repair whatever damage that is as fast as we possibly can and get back on track. Because really, that's all she cares about too. She cares about the kids. Right. Her kids, as my kids, that's all we really care about.

Right. But when you got a bunch of dickheads sitting around you, dragging it out for $800 an hour. Right. Things become a little bit weird. It gets tough. Yeah. And it gets weird. And likely you get on the other side of that and you can acknowledge that as well. You can go in that fucking sucked. Yeah. It does. And sometimes things suck. That's all right. Yeah. If everything didn't suck, stuff never sucked, it would be pretty boring. Life would be pretty boring.

But like I go to the keep, I go to the optimist in me and likely in you, because I think artists, we tend to be at the core we're optimistic people. We believe things, we can do things. Yeah. I do think on the other side of all that messy pain,

yeah. Is this like possibility for both people to re-imagine what life actually I'm living. Yeah. So that's great. I mean, I appreciate you sharing. We've never talked about that here.

But I think it's really, really relevant for people that are listening to like hear someone that's going through it in the middle of it. You don't really get to hear that. Most of the time people share the after. And there's some version of the story that's like really kind of like painted in a way, right? But to talk to someone who's in the middle of it is really interesting because by no means

do I think it's easy or small or not painful. And certainly your wife will have her side of her experience. To hear that like someone going through it is interesting to me because like it's so real and raw in the moment that you're still in it. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. It's a really not cool in a way where I'm like, oh, like, wow. But like it's really interesting to me to like sit with someone and go like, oh, I'm going. You know, I got to talk to someone here battling cancer and to actually sit with someone is going through such a painful, hard experience.

We tend to like hear these stories and they're not real. Yeah. Right? Because we're not sitting with the person. Yeah. When you sit with the person and they're living their real life every day, we get stronger. Yeah. I really feel like we're all so afraid of that bad thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we avoid it. Yeah. And we avoid looking at it and we avoid talking about it. Yeah. And we don't talk about divorce. Self-defense. We don't talk about being sick.

Yeah. We just move around it and we just don't want to look at it. Yeah. And fingers crossed, we never go through anything bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a pretty dumb. way to go through life if you really sit back i mean it's natural it's natural but if you think about it like you know whatever but to sit with someone while they're going through something painful yeah i think we

gain insight that makes us more equipped yeah to deal with any of the pain of life that's little big failure um um any kind of the painful parts of life uh that make us more equipped when we have these insights to deal with it like oh you do you do you do you do you do you. just go through it and you get through it. You get on the other side. Yes. And you have new perspectives, new insights, and new strengths. Yes.

And yes, there will be some scars and there will be some things we have to clean up and repair. Sure. But like we have to go through the middle part. Yeah. The middle part is the thing. We can't zonk out. Nope. You can't song.

You know what I mean? Yes. Like, but some people. You can't skip it. You can't skip it. But some people will go through something painful like divorce. Yeah. And they'll drink their way through.

it. Yeah. They'll do drugs. Yeah. They'll run away from it. No, you got to, you got to plant your feet, baby. And you got to like, even though you may be mad at each other or frustrated or dealing with these lawyers or whatever, you kind of have to even hold hands through that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Well, everybody's doing their job. Yeah. Everybody's doing what they got to do. Is I into it? We'll see what happens at the end. Like, that's why the system's there, right? Like there's a guy like I can't my my story is not 100% true her story is not 100% true then you get a guy like sits down and tells you what what to do right after he tells what after that guy tells us what to do I'm going to be like yes all right let's let's let's

do that yeah right but it's like we we spent a lot of time arguing or guessing what we should do or guessing what was where and it's like oh man it's it's laborious right I've been like a full-time accountant for like the last year you know what I mean like it's like and I don't know about you, but math is like the lowest on the scale of things I want to be doing. I'm not. I'm not equipped for it, dude. I'm not equipped for it. My accountant sent me this thing.

It was like, this is what you've spent in 2020 or whatever, right? I had to like print it all out and like take magic markers and like, right, make the colors on it because I like physically could not look at the numbers on the computer. Right. So then it costs me. I don't know how much more that cost me to have somebody who wasn't stupid, like go through and look at all the colors that I drew and reinterpret it back to a computer language. But I had to take it back to Flintstone's era just to get through the numbers.

You know what I'm saying? So it's like, it's a lot of it's very challenging. And like, but like, listen, my taxes are going to be fucking on point from here on out. You know what I mean? We pay attention to shit that I never paid attention to before and like, oh man, I could write off that cup of coffee. Like, I'm going to start writing that cup of coffee off. I didn't realize I could do that.

A lot of stuff you can write off. No, but I'm just saying, like you, if you accept that as, as, you're going to start a a learning journey, then why you're doing it, you're learning. I'm like literally closer to myself than I've been a very long time. Why did I do this in the real world? How did it make me feel? Like, what is this about? Blah, blah, blah. And like you said, here's something, if you're listening. You have to make yourself happy before you can make anybody else happy. Absolutely. You got to be responsible for your unhappiness. Write it down on a piece of paper, stick it on your refrigerator in the morning, like we'll put it on your car window. You have to be happy. You have to be happy. You have to be

happy before you can make anybody else happy. Right. And so that moment of me saying, I'm not happy. Actually, I haven't been happy for a really long time. And I have to make a change. And then going and figuring out what that change was with a group of professionals over and over and over again has actually, I know it worked. I'm happy right now. I'm happy. And it's not her fault. It's not the situation's fault. It's actually my fault for probably not saying something about it or recognizing something about or having the capability to trust somebody else to actually have an open conversation in a room where somebody was knowledgeable about the human condition could give me information I was able to accept it. You know many things have to happen at the same time for the

first time for you actually to get that out? You got to lose your ego. You've got to listen to somebody that you've never talk about something you've never talked about before. You've got to examine like the choices you've made in your life and why you made them. Not just at that moment, but what caused you to make them when you were fucking five? And you have to stay committed to that work over and over and over. Which is hard. A lot of people quit. It's insane.

It's very hard to show up and they want to just, okay, I'm just going to zonk out. Yeah. And I'll stay in the same position. And maybe I'll wake up in 10 years. Yeah. And maybe I'll either be a worse person or I'll kill myself. Yeah. Or I'll do something crazy.

Yeah. And so the work part of that is really important. And, you know, I say this a lot to myself every now and then I'll remind myself, I alone am responsible for my happiness. Yep. So no one else is responsible for my happiness. It's not on my kids. No.

Do they make me happy? Of course they do. Yep. But is my happiness going to be tied to the decisions they make? Yep. It can't be. Right. Same with my wife.

Same with my brother. Same with my business partnerships and coworkers. Yep. I alone am responsible for my happiness. And when you relieve people of the duty of serving your happiness, it changes your relationship. 100%. And in good ways, but also it can also, it can unearth dysfunctional relationships as well.

And so that's like a whole process, like you're saying, it's years of work. Yeah. And, but if you really want to grow, you have to be committed to that way. And for my first action was to drink through it. Like you just said earlier, a lot of people drink through it. Like I was having, I was having, I remember the exact moment, dog. I was in Yellowstone with my kids. It took my kids on a road trip.

I was in Yellowstone. And my kid said something to me about being drunk. I wasn't drunk at Yellowstone, but like he had mentioned like before me being drunk. He had noticed something. He was like, fucking eight at the time. Right. You know what I'm saying? And I was like, uh,

you know what I mean? And it wasn't that I quit drinking that day. And it wasn't like I was like hiding vodka bottles in the shower. But it struck you. Yeah. And then I started noticing it. And then I started realizing that it was like an unstoppable force. Do you know what I mean?

And then I was like, oh shit, I'm abusing alcohol. Right. Why am I abusing alcohol? Yeah, why am I doing this? I'm a generally cool dude. Like, why am I abusing alcohol? Because I'm desperately unhappy in this particular situation I am. Why am I unhappy?

Can I change something? can I end this situation right dude I'm telling you like it's a journey well bro it's the worst and the best all at the same time yeah it's long well it's painful facing all these things but when you actually do and you excavate all that stuff on the other side of it is real freedom yeah and you know what people pop up I wasn't trying to like get in another relationship like at all And I ran into this person who's a spectacular human being, like just a like light, amazing, wondrous person that I learned from every day. And there she just presented herself.

The business relationships that I had that were kind of wishy-washy, out the door. Out the door. Right. Like everything just became clear. Right. Where it's like, oh, I've been working with this dude for 15 years. Holy shit, he's been a scumbag the whole time. I just saw it.

because I was so preoccupied with numbing my pain. I wasn't tuned into my feelings. I wasn't tuned into anything. Or my instincts. People around me like fucking chickens. It's funny. You know what I mean? So when you start making positive, like you can't, dude, if you're bobbing for apples

in a 80-pound drum, somebody drops one drop of cyanide in that bob, it's not fun to bob for apples in that thing anymore. Do you understand that one bad thing can ruin that whole experience? It's true. It's toxic. Yes. So once you start eliminating those things from your, you know, recognizing yourself and start working on them and eliminating them, everything becomes easier.

So all that bullshit work that you think is like for nothing, it's super hard or you're freaking out about, the second that it becomes a parent, much like the guy pounding on my car, you rel-you, you, you, you, I'm talking to you about it because I'm happy about it. Right. I'm talking to you about it because I want other people to feel happy about it. I want you to know, well, like I said,

you can learn from my journey. I'm sure people might tune in here to find out what kind of compressor I use on vocal somewhere. They may want to know that. What kind of compressor do you use? CL1B. Okay. Yeah. So, but you can't use a CL1B if you're a fucking miserable wreck.

No, you can't. It won't matter if you use that compressor because you won't be happy listening to it. Would you say that therapy is the number one tool? that you found that has been the most impactful? For me, at times, it's been, it changes. Right. It changes. Sometimes that's what I need.

Listen, I went to, I'm going to explore of like, when I figure out something, I want to know all the options. Right. You know what I mean? So what other things did you explore? I went to AA, I went to NA, I went to any. Yeah, there's some good, there's some really good kind of things. philosophies and in any idea i was reading books about zen buddhism right reading books about

meditation anything anything that i could possibly get my hands on that might have opened a window in the house like that's what i was trying to do that's so like there's times where i don't talk to my therapist for two or three months right and and i don't recall her because something's wrong i you you can't be in the blender all the time like you got to step outside the blender and use the tools and Yes, and actually put them to work and then go back and reassess. Some data. So you can't just think I'm going to pop up in a therapy session one day and all this stuff's going to be like free and clear.

I'm going to be good. It's like different things work for different people. Yeah. You know what I mean? And one day therapy might work for you and the next day something else might work for you. Like I've learned to rely on my friends a lot more. That's good. I've learned to talk to people about things that I never would have talked to them about.

Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it feels like that. Yeah, and I just feel like there's been a lot of, it's a lot of micro things that add up. Yeah, they all add up. Yeah. So, but I think a good start is realizing that you don't know everything. I think that's the, that's the pinnacle. Even though you're your own person and you have all your own thoughts and that's what you're

most, you're most familiar with yourself. You're able to tell yourself lies that you believe in pretty heartily. The information that you give yourself, that you really, repeat over and over again to yourself, that becomes your truth is not necessarily the truth. It's true. That is very real. Yeah. So once you can start undoing the things like yourself, however that is, if you need to use therapy, you need to ask in questions and getting real answers and accepting those real answers, whatever that looks like for you individually. That's what's the most important,

I think. For me, it was a therapist. Yeah. Therapist number eight or so. Yeah, yeah. It takes time to find the person that you feel is really helping you. I think therapy kind of helps. just put together like a roadmap and it opens our minds up to looking for other things we find help yeah um because it's not just therapy for me but i i i love uh my therapist i love going to therapy yeah um i don't think i'd be the same person if i didn't do the work there that i've done what's your favorite let's say success story or your biggest song that you've been a part of um maybe the most proud of or that's your favorite uh my favorite isn't the one i'm most proud of.

Okay, which one's your favorite and which one you're the most proud of? The one I'm most proud of is born this way for sure. Okay. It's not my favorite. It's definitely in the top. Great song. Song is a good song, but it's a, it's, it's, uh, it's, the song that had the most, it did the most good.

Had a lot of impact. Yeah, it did the most good. Gave people an anthem to. It was a song that, I mean, I have my own personal songs, I think, that, I think, that have given me strength through life to complete things that might not have been completable

had there not been an anthem to that completion. Every Rocky needs his theme song. Correct. And listen, man, coming out to your parents, figuring out your sexuality

when you're growing up. It's tough territory. Oh my God, man, something I would never want to experience. Tough territory. Yeah. And I got so many, still continue to this day

to get people that are like, hey, this album really helped me. Helped a lot of people. The song really helped me. Yeah. I could see that from the outside. That makes me very, brings me a lot of joy.

That's awesome. It brings me a lot of joy. And it was a complicated thing to get done. There's a lot of bullshit that went along with making that song, but you forget all the bullshit after a while. Well, when there's a lot at stake, there's a lot of voices weighing in

because everyone's worried that it won't work out. But when the artists are allowed to create, they usually get it done. Yeah. And whatever it was that you and Gaga did to get that done, it worked. Yeah. And it was an anthem for people. Yeah.

I think it was a really important song. I saw that from the outside. I saw how good that that moment was for so many people. Well, she just come off of like a monster record. No, no pun intended. You know, fame monster. It was a huge record. and she could have come back out and done a bunch of pop star shit.

Right. But she used her voice to highlight something that very much needed highlighted. But she obviously cared about. Yeah, we all cared about it. You know, and so while you're crafting it, you know, you don't know if people are going to be like, fuck this song after it's out, burn the house down, your career's over. Why would you just think about this? No, if anything, it's cemented her legacy as someone who,

standing up for a whole group of... We had a song that was number one for 11 weeks that talked about transsexual people. Right. You know, it's like that never happened before. Right. That's a big limb to go out on for her, especially. Ahead of its time as well.

Yeah. So when you walk in as a brand new, like, unknown kind of producer, and this is the first song that's like coming out. Right. Maybe this is my last song too. You know what I mean? But like it's worth it. Let's do this shit. So then when it pops off,

And it does so much for so many people. It's like what you were saying earlier, you're like good in, good out. Like we had, man, we sat there forever. I have 120 different versions of that song. Right. You know what I mean? Forever. How do we, how does, you know what I mean?

This has got to be it. Do you ever talk to her about letting the world hear any of those versions? That'd be interesting. I probably have more Lady Gaga songs in my computer than I have other songs in my computer. You know what I mean? Like we were on the road. together for 10 years. It's like, I have a lot of songs.

There's a lot of trust there. Yeah, I've never leaked a song. Yeah, of course not. That's what happens when you build that relationship with someone, that creative relationship. There's this, there's this sacred place you make this music. And then you decide together when the world's ready to hear. There's something sacred about that version of a song when you, when you've created with someone, I think that's special.

That's beyond trust. Yeah. I lost a hard drive one. and we were like in Poland or something and I was like fucking inspector gadget out there on the street I forgot a bag somewhere oh my god and I was like heart attack before there was the cloud before yeah we used to carry stuff around on iPods and then hard drives and like lock suitcases yeah handcuffed I just remember like just being devastated like running around Poland oh my god did you ever find it James Bond yeah I found it yeah where was it at the airport oh good okay yeah I actually

It was like one of those things where you put it in something and it didn't come out. Right. You know what I'm saying? So it was like I just walked with what I had. We were all carrying 80 cases of everything. Right. And like you put it in and like you're counting stuff and you're running and, you know, I just, whatever. They didn't know it was.

It was an indescript suitcase. I know what it was on. So if you're, if born this way is the one you're the most proud of, what's your favorite? So that's tough, right? It's like. Or your two favorites? No, it's not just that. It's not like my favorites.

are like my favorite songs have nothing to do with like the song really it's more of like the moment and like like when things were happening so it doesn't really translate into whatever so it's like you know i'm really proud it's the same thing with other the opposite way so it's like you do something and then something taints it and it's like everybody's favorite song and you're like oh fuck that song you know what i mean for a while at least until like it wears off but like you start to get attached to things that have nothing to do with the song at all. It's like how the sausage is made. Because sometimes I listen back to stuff that I made 10 years ago.

And all I can hear is the high hats because I had two choices. And I chose, you know, I chose this high hat instead of this high hat. What if I would have, God damn it, I should have changed that baseline or whatever, you know? So it's like, it's a different thing. Yeah, it gets a little bit wacky in your mind. But for me, I guess, like the art pop album as a whole is probably like my favorite, like thing, whatever. I mean, like, listen, I've made a lot of other songs with other people that, I did My Little Pony soundtrack.

I mean, that was super fun. And, like, I got to do cool shit with my friends. And, like, writing eight songs that are happy is a lot more difficult than people think. Like, you know what I mean? If you're like, hey, right, I didn't think it was going to be that tough. Right. And all of a sudden, you're sitting in there and you're talking about UFOs and, like, whatever happened last week and whales in China.

And then, like, you're like, okay, let's write a song about friendship. and it's like, wait, I've never even thought about a song about friendship. Like, no, what song is there about friendship? You know what I mean? I'm going to prescribe you stay off the internet. Yeah, exactly. Before making a happy album. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But honestly, like, so like, it's more about the experience, I think, than it is, whatever. I had a really fun time making that record and I challenged myself that whatever. I'm, like, for me, it's not even necessarily about, like, is a song going to do well or poorly? It's like, why am I doing this? When am I doing it? I just made a pit bull song last year that was probably like not the most

technically insane record I've ever made but it was really fun to make and people had a really good time with it and it like you enjoyed it. I think it's a, I made it with my friends. Like my buddy is like from Skokie, Illinois. It's like singing on a pit bull song, right?

Like he kept him on as the feature because he was so good at what he did. And then he went on tour and sang the song with him like on a whole tour. That's cool. And the name of the tour was the name of the song. We wrote it in my studio and like everybody had a great time and they play it still like before NFL game.

So like old dudes that like the Steelers are like listen to a song that I made with my buddies. That's like a cool thing. You know what I mean? That's cool. So it's not necessarily about the song being my favorite. It's about the moment. The moment. The moment.

Yeah. It's like it's cool. Where do you see yourself in like say the next 10 years and music? You know, I don't know. Music, well, first of all, it's been incredibly difficult. to be creative during this particular time. This period of your life. So like I've been kind of like almost, I tried and it was coming out poop.

So like I was kind of just like, I'm going to take a break breather on this for a minute just because it's like why try to ride a car with three wheels? Right. I mean, it's like you might get a couple blocks, but it's definitely not going to be your best work. So just put it on the back burner for a minute until you can get back to it. That seems healthy. Yeah. And again, a choice I wouldn't have made 10 years ago.

I just get put it, blah, blah, blah, blah, plow through it. Right. But, you know, now just like give it a breather. And like, I found a lot of joy helping my friends. That have businesses, either grow their businesses or like, how do you integrate, like, some culture into your, into your business or how can I help a young artist? Like, you'll come over and let's talk about what you're trying to do here or like, you know what I mean? like I just I want to be able to like kind of reset take a step back look at everything that's kind of going on

you know maybe play a conduit to two people meeting that turns out to be something great like later on spend as much time as I can with my kids over the next few years while they're in high school because I'm never going to get those years back ever ever so it's like I want to see them get through their junior and senior year that's smart and then after that you know work on a new good shot I'll let's do it We need to make one. Yeah, we need to make one, dude. I like that. Let's do it.

I mean, bro. Like, you know, I want to be tuned in after this is over and get these things done. And again, what you were saying earlier about being, like, the industry looking at you is being too old or, like, not present enough. Like, one more thing that I've, has come out of all of this is that before I used to kind of just feel lucky all the time. time. Right. And dude, I know I'm smart. I'm still going to be this smart in two years. I'm not saying that to be cocky. Like if I take two years off, the world's not going to be over. And if it is, it was supposed to be. Do you understand what I'm saying? So it's like, it's like, luck is a, is a, is an idea that we were, we've been kind of, um, spoon fed to keep us from, from maybe

understanding our own ability, power and our own capability, uh, to, you know, what I think, is when hard work and opportunity meet, luck happens. Sure. Right? So we get told we're lucky so that we're never too sure of ourselves to go forward without a bunch of people. Yeah. Not that we don't win in teams because we do, but everyone on the team has to respect that

each position is important. Yeah. And you know, luck is a, it's something we could all argue. Yeah. Did we get lucky or did we work really? hard and we show up for every opportunity. Kept us going down the road where we met that moment and it felt like luck. Yeah.

Because I say it all the time. I feel lucky too. Yeah. More than lucky, I feel super grateful. Grateful. So gratitude's important. Yeah. But I also have to recognize I work really hard.

And I try to be smart. Yeah. And I try to work smart. But luck is, yeah, luck is a easy way. way of saying like I took that opportunity, made the most of it at the right time. Yeah. But again, like you, I guess it's me telling myself that.

It's not, it's not even, it's like enough people saying it from the outside looking in it becomes ingrained into your system and then you start thinking of it and like, when's going to run out and then you get panicked, then you get fearful. And then all of a sudden, like, you're not doing your best work anymore. So it's like back to reframing the concept, right? today was a today was a monster success you know what I mean for me

I didn't make one song you know what I mean so what do you define as being successful how are you here how is it doing how are you making the most out of it out of that moment with the tools you have at the time

what are you going to do next to try and figure it out there's a lot of ciphering to be done and listen back to like whatever the divorce things like the lawyers on the other side were like this dude lives the life

he's on a plane he's hanging out in his place with this person he's in Mexico he's in whatever I'm like all of those trips that you just mentioned sucked I had to work so fucking hard and everything that you just said none of it was fun you know what I mean yeah it looks incredible but how we can frame things when we're talking about something that most people never get to do yeah is it's easy to say oh that was amazing and you're like well now that was really hard work actually. Yeah, sleep on a bus with like seven dudes for for a month and then tell me how much fun you were having. Like, you know what I mean? There's fun moments and it's great that you'd be able to deliver like a creative product. But like, dude, it is work. Like I mean like back

breaking insane. Mental, mental, like just mentally insane amounts of like work. Yeah. And then going back to where we started with the big career yeah right lady gaga huge career it's an insane amount of work that no one could handle i myself didn't want to be on that ride yeah me either the amount of sacrifice and work it takes is um it's it it if if it doesn't kill you um it it's going to require you to give more than most people are willing to give yeah and um and that's why i respect it um you have to listen when i i went out on tour for by myself as a dj first and then i went out with her while she was doing her shows and we were writing albums then she asked me to open for her on a tour so i went out as the opening act did you for like 45 minutes right like like i went out there's the turn tables

i play records i go back in i was fucking exhausted bro exhausted and then i realized for the last five years, this tiny little person was getting ready for three hours before the show, doing a show where she's jumping around like a bean for two and a half hours, burning like 7,000 calories, puking in a bucket, breathing oxygen, and then finishing the show and coming out and recording music with us until 4 o'clock on the morning. That's some hardcore. And you don't know what it is. Even when you're watching it, you don't know what it is. I was exhausted after 45 minutes. minutes of just going up and DJing, preparing, going up, DJ, standing in front of 50,000 people going back down.

I was like, whew. What it takes is. But that's what I'm saying. Perspective is insane. Yeah. So when you see this girl and she's got her nice car and she's a nice house in Malibu and like, you're like, oh, what a lovely life you must live. You're like, no motherfucker.

I burn 10,000 dollars and puked in a bucket. This is just where I come to sleep. I happen to. You could never pull this off. Yeah. No, you couldn't. Yeah. You couldn't.

Yeah. And that's why. And look good at it too. And do it gracefully. Yeah. Not happening. Not many people could do that. That's why I think that people that get to, like us that get to see that and understand

that, respect it. Yeah. And that's why we don't talk a lot of shit about a bunch of, you know, all the artists out there. That's why I always say, when I say, oh, my God, that looks painful. Because the work it takes to accomplish that is inhumane. and it's an all-encompassing sacrifice that not many people could step in those shoes and actually survive. Yeah. And it drives people to all sorts of ends. I think they're given a second run,

like if you were like, oh, Paul, if somebody told you you had to do all this stuff that you did, absolutely. But you know what the funny thing is? Somebody probably did tell me when I was 18, but I was too stupid to fucking take their advice. I was talking about, I was talking about, I was talking about that this morning. The naive part of us saved us from knowing too much so that we would go forward and go through that excruciating work. But if you said, hey, go back and do that again, I go, no way. Yeah.

I will not do that. Yeah. So, you know, God bless it. Yeah. Thanks, dude. No, man, it's awesome. Awesome. Love you a lot.

Appreciate it, bro. Yeah. Hey, thank you for checking out today's episode of Artist Friendly with DJ White Shadow. I hope you enjoyed today's show. If you really like the podcast, you can subscribe on Spotify, Apple, anywhere you listen. You can like, you can leave comments, and we appreciate it. We'll see you next time.