Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Lil Xan

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Lil Xan. It’s been eight years since Lil Xan’s Total Xanarchy cut “Betrayed” went viral, garnering millions of streams and going platinum. In the ensuing years, he has helped to shape the “sad rap” movement, collaborated with heavyweights (Diplo, Charli XCX), and released his sophomore album, 2024’s Diego. He’s also been living in a healthier headspace, celebrating three years of sobriety — which he credits to surrounding himself with the right people, including his partner, family, and new label 3rd Eye Recordings. In a conversation with Madden, Lil Xan opens up about his sobriety journey, his shocking rock-bottom moment, and making new music. ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.⁠⁠⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up? I'm Joel Madden, and this is artist-friendly. On this episode, I'm talking with rapper, singer, and songwriter Lil Zan. Let's go. If we're not smoking on gas, I'm smoking off, if that's my kind. I don't want no bad times. I don't want to have bad. Yeah, I love therapy. I think everybody should do it. Try it at least, yeah. Everyone should do it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, everybody should do it. I think we tiptoe around it sometimes because I think, I think, we tiptoe around it sometimes because I think we got it backwards. We're made to think that we're supposed to have it all figured out. And then I think it's scary to people to want help from other people sometimes. I think it's like a scary thing. And to face some things that are painful. So looking at yourself is painful sometimes. It doesn't

matter who you are. It's just painful. And then where can you, where can you do that and be vulnerable enough? Because we're not in a world where we can be vulnerable. So if we show any vulnerability, it gets attacked. Yeah, people also think like vulnerability is like a weakness almost, I feel like in that kind of sense. And that's why they're afraid to become vulnerable in those environments, like with therapy and stuff. Yeah, so vulnerability is actually letting your guard down and exposing something. And so if I expose something about myself that gives you a leverage in some way on me, or it gives you something that could be very sensitive. So if I told you something about myself that I'm insecure about, right?

So I let my guard down and tell you that. And then later on, you decided to use that against me to your advantage or to hurt me with it. Then that's how we get taught not to be vulnerable. Yeah, exactly. So as bad actors in our lives somewhere down the early stages of our life, They do things where we as children, we're all mostly all vulnerable. Like children are the most vulnerable. Oh, yeah.

So we're innocent and we openly share things. And then we give that to adults, essentially. Yeah. And then we get hurt by them. Yeah. Right? Our vulnerability, it does hurt us. Yeah.

Because of bad actors, bad. Bad faith actors, society, I feel like, once you're a kid, you know, you're not really exposed to society like that. But then as you get older, something. changes. Yes. So therapy for me is a must because when you get a relationship with someone that you, first of all, I think you got to respect them. You've got to admire something about them. They have to have something you don't have. So it's usually like if you find a great resource in person as a therapist in any capacity. There's lots of therapy. There's traditional therapy.

There's also like you might have a trainer who is a really good. Like fitness could be a type of therapy. For sure it is. Yeah. I count it as one. Yeah. Oh, definitely. So I work out now every day. I need to start doing that. Well, you look pretty fit, though.

Yeah, you're good. I can eat like... Naturally. Yeah, I could eat like a lot of McDonald's and still, I don't know why, but... Yeah. But like, get healthy, though. You know, yeah, I feel like that would benefit me so much. So physical health, but also for our head.

Yeah, yeah. So the number one, you know, when they say the number one, always on the top of the list of things you can do when you, when you, when you struggle with depression, physical first. Physical activities. It releases those natural. Endorphins and all that. So it's like almost naturally we know it.

And then obviously therapy. So I need it. I need to have a relationship with someone that is more work related in the sense of our person. So I look at therapy as personal work. So I have work work, but what do I want to build in the world? What I want to accomplish my life or whatever, and then there's inner work.

Yeah, internal. Internal work. Who am I? How can I reach my full potential? Yeah, and I feel like you can't do the other without first figuring out the internal. It's very hard to do well. You can have moments of greatness I found from my own personal experience. You can have moments of greatness, but if your inner work isn't great, your outer work cannot be great.

I love the way you described it, like moments of. greatness because I totally relate to that. Like you can have moments of greatness, very successful stories, but it'll never last long. If you're fucked up here. Yeah. Yeah. And the truth is we're all fucked up here and here. Oh yeah.

That's like life's work. Yeah. So your experience and pain may be different than mine. You're going through something different. But I did too. Yeah. Something else. We could compare apples and oranges and we could say like mine was harder or yours was

hard. It's all hard. But at the end of the day, it's like all the same. Humans, we suffer. I agree. Suffering is the through line of the human experience. Yeah. We also have joy.

We have moments of bliss. Yeah. Moments of enlightenment sometimes. So that to me is like the human experience is suffering. Yeah. And then what we want to do is suffer as little as possible. Yeah. So we want to only suffer when it actually, when we're actually meant to suffer,

which is we lose someone. Biggest suffering in life is death. So losing someone that you love, saying goodbye to people, that's like the depths of the suffering of life, I think is like the equalizer for all of us is that we will all have to suffer the loss of people and then in the end our own transition, right?

Yeah. But the other forms of suffering is heartbreak, is a loneliness. Yeah, being lonely. Loneliness, right? We become alone. Yeah. From birth to adulthood to beyond, we want to continue to grow.

Like, we're actually meant to grow. We're like organic. Yeah, like a tree. Like a tree. Yeah. We're meant to grow. We go towards the light. And then through experience and pain, we then we get traumatized and we get injured.

And then we start to cut ourselves off from growth. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? And it's like, because that's a good point, because I also feel like with the suffering, people suffer at things they're not meant to suffer at, right? And I've had that problem too where I, you know, you get mad or upset or anything that falls in the realm of suffering over little things that aren't even comparable to like the loss of somebody.

But maybe it might just be because I'm OCD or something, but I tend to focus on the negative from time to time and bring that suffering closer, but I know it's my own doing, like, if that makes sense. Like, I bring the suffering upon myself. Not all the time, obviously. I'm mostly speaking, like, in a past tense from when I used to be on drugs and stuff. A lot of suffering there.

But you're right, though. It's, I think humans in general suffer and make their lives a lot harder for themselves in situations where they don't really need to be. So if we look at it from like a compassionate point of view, I don't believe it's their fault. Yeah. I believe something happened to them that they're just repeating. And like with you, you said you were on drugs.

How long have you been sober? Three years. Three years sober? Yeah. That's fucking amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Three years is like nine years.

Yeah, it feels like nine years. Yeah, it does. Is it easier today than it was, say, like, year one? Yeah. Oh, it's so much easier. would say in year three than it was uh yeah year one was a very tricky time it was a lot of uh you know in the beginning i relapsed a couple times in the first months after getting sober um but after about like eight months to a year it really got easier and then hit two years easier now three years i really

i don't crave it i don't think about it anymore so yeah i'm very grateful for that i'm grateful for that too. Thank you. Thank you. That's great. Yeah, it was hard, man. It was it was difficult. How long were you on drugs? I was probably on drugs from, let's see, 2017 to 2020. Yeah, 2020. So like five good solid years of like drug use. Yeah, of just not not like a here and there like a real. Oh no, yeah. It was like every day, because if I didn't continue to consume all these substances, I would get sick. Like, very, very sick. So at a point, it just became, I wasn't even getting high anymore. It was just preventing the sickness from coming.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a horrible place to be at that time. It's a tough way to live. Yeah, definitely. But it gets to a place where you, I imagine, you don't know how to get you, you don't know how to climb out of it. it when you're in that cycle. I was, yeah, that's another good way to describe it because I felt like I couldn't be

saved at a certain point. Like I was, I thought I destroyed my body, you know. Right. There was days, like, I couldn't even pee because of how much acetamine in the pills or whatever it's called. Like, I was taking 60s annexes a day and like 30 per 30s a day. Yeah, and it got so bad. I haven't even talked about that, but there was a time I couldn't even pee.

Wow. And that was scary to me because that let me know, like, something is very wrong with my body. But I kept going because I didn't see a way out. I thought that I was just so far down the rabbit hole that I couldn't even be saved. Like even if I tried to get sober, I thought I would die, you know, from the withdrawals and stuff. I did end up having like a bunch of seizures too after I went cold turkey. And I think the seizures put into perspective like, okay, like if I keep doing this, I'm not going to be a around much longer. And I've seen, like, I'm from a generation, SoundCloud, whatever people call it,

like, where we lost most of the talent from that, you know, from overdoses mostly. And I kind of saw myself, like, going out in that same way during that time. Because I was like, well, if little peep died of an overdose and all these great artists that I looked up to, I was like, I just kind of felt like that was my way out in a way. Yeah, real sad. But, um, Yeah. Yeah. I think about that. I don't know how I feel about the glorification of dying young when you make great art.

It's like it's been kind of like it's been presented and like kind of driven into all of our brains like it's part of being a genius. Or like you have to be like you have to die to become like a legend. Right. And that's not true. Okay, so I think the most successful thing about you, and I mean this as a compliment. Yeah. Is that you're alive. Yeah, I agree.

Definitely. Like, yeah, I'm very grateful. Okay, so if I don't give a fuck about fame and I don't care about money, it doesn't have the same value to me as life and power. Yeah. And like true power is actually different than force. So true power is actually like, it's like it doesn't really change. Nothing can change it. Yeah.

So money can't change it. Fame can't change it. Nothing can change it. So then that's like to be powerful is to be yourself. Yeah. And then have nothing to affect you. Yeah. And then when you get so invested in yourself that you're actually just looking after your life,

your health, all that, it goes into your life, right? and then you're generating from a place of self in like all you're concerned with is making your best art because you want to make it because that's what being alive is to you then i look at you as a more powerful force of you know art and creativity than someone who needs to be fucked up to make art to create the art yeah and they have this relationship with pain yeah i i'm afraid if i figure my shit out, I won't make as good of art. Yeah, yeah. That's the question.

I was absolutely like, yeah, I don't know, maybe you're right. Yeah. But I'd rather be alive. I agree with you in the sense. Like, when I, before I got sober, like years and years ago, I was under the impression that I couldn't make music the way I did sober. Obviously, I don't think that way anymore. But where would you get that impression?

I was on drugs at the time. Yeah, but where would you get that impression, though? Society, definitely. There you go. Yeah. society. That's the narrative. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was all fucked up, but it's like the Kurt Cobain thing. By the way, I love Nirvana. Oh, yeah. I grew up on Nirvana. Yeah. Do I think Kurt Cobain would be making great art right now? Yes, I do. Yeah, of course. I don't think that drugs have anything to do with it.

No, exactly. And that's why I say, like, during that time, that's what I thought, but I blame that on society, the substances I was taking. And then fast forward, you know, after I get sober, every year I started, that I was sober, I started to learn myself more. I started to understand. I felt like more self-love, more compassion. All the emotions that were numb started to come back. And then I started making better music than I did on drugs. So your last record, the one you put out in 24?

Yeah. Yeah, Diego, yeah. To me, that's your best record. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate. And that's the first sober record, yeah. So I'm just saying even the art was better.

Yeah, and I agree. The album art was better. Yeah, it was too. I didn't like the first one. So my, from the outside sitting as, and maybe I'm a 46-year-old man who's got two kids and has lived enough life, but I also am at a place in my life.

I don't give a fuck. Yeah, exactly. I'm the most impressed by people that can sit across from me and talk to me about anything. Yeah. Then a person with 10 platinum records who can't have any conversation with anyone

because they're so concerned and they're so overwhelmed by their success, what's the point of having success if you're so overwhelmed by it that you can't even feel it? Yeah. And unfortunately, I feel like there's a lot of artists that fall into that category. Right.

So my mission in life is to find my truth and live my real life, whatever that is, and some of it might be success. Because I think the more we understand ourselves and the more we grow, the more we can do actually in the real world. But if we put the work first, the external work first, we may accomplish some things. But if we do accomplish the external work without the internal work, we will not be able to enjoy the external work. Yeah. And actually hold it. Like you said earlier, you can have moments of greatness.

but there will only be moments instead of long lifespans of joy and happiness. Absolutely. And so bringing it back to you because I was thinking about it, I was listening to your record and I was thinking about this conversation. And I think the most important thing that you could do is, and this might, I don't know how this is going to sound because I haven't really thought it all the way through. The most important thing that you're going to do you haven't done yet, But in order to get to that, you have to do what you haven't done,

which is live as much of your life sober and healthy and loving yourself. And being okay with the initial shock, which I think you have. I think a lot of these troubles you've had the last few years as you shifted has been an initial shock of you came out. You were young. Everybody celebrated the fucking drug. thing like it was like when I see that I was I saw from their peripheral I was like oh Lil Zan he's like he's like got a drug name yeah he does drugs it's obvious like that's his thing I was like oh that is gonna be painful yeah I see it I'm like what

because what you think everybody's celebrating it's like they're just throwing fucking on the fire they're gasoline on the fire they're just all they're waiting for the thing to blow up yeah they just want to watch this is the the the the the the of public life and making art in the public to the mass. Yeah, the media. They have an insatiable need to watch things die. It's human nature almost. It's like the magnifying glass on the bug.

People are like, kids are like, I want to see something. Convierte your passion in a business with Shopify and bathe records of ventas with the form of pay with a better conversion of the world. Has heard of bien? The mejor conversion of the world. system of pay for Shopify

facilita the market on your website on your website and in the music

for your eyes. No, you're more your business will be a

super-exit with Shopify and then your period of a per a month on Shopify

at records. Yeah, yeah, that's a perfect way to put it and I

think that was a main problem was, and it still is a problem in

some sense today where I am a public figure and so I will be like scrutinized. Everything I do is under a magnifying glass in a sense.

And I've learned to deal with it so much better, sober, but it's still something I'm working on. Well, we all got to work on it. Yeah. Because we all have to own it. Yeah. You have to finally accept it. Exactly. You're going to wrestle with it your whole life or you just accept it. Yeah. It's like, oh, there's nothing I can do that someone isn't going to likely take and try to make something out of it, take it out of context, whatever. And even when, I'm not doing anything they might do that. Oh, yeah. That's the way, yeah, I try to stay out of the mix now.

You know, like, because I was very, a lot of public outbursts in the past, the media would capture it. So now I try to just stay as far, like just stay out the way, you know, just make my music for the fans that I have and I love them so much and just kind of try to stay out the way. You know, I'm just trying to figure out who I am. Right. which is to me the meaning of life. Yeah.

Who am I? Yeah. That's the journey. That's the whole journey of life. That's it. And it's not something we can actually say in the public space because we'll get things thrown at us. They don't want to listen to anything positive. Well, as a group, they don't.

Yeah. As a mass, they don't. As individuals, they do. If you meet someone at a coffee shop or you're in a small group of people and we're all having a discussion, we're way more likely to open up to one another. Oh, yeah. But in a crowd and in a large audience, which is the social forum that we're in

with like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, it's in large masses of people. They can hide behind that too. And yeah, and it's a bunch of people together. And then they all started trying to impress each other with who can throw the sharpest stone and make the biggest crack in the, you know, and it's not real to them.

And it's more of like a behavioral thing that happens in like large groups of people. But the idea that you were young and impressionable and you came out and everybody was just encouraging you more or less or not. I'm not saying everyone's like, yeah, do drugs. But it's something like clapping for like. Yeah, applauding, applauding the self-harm. Self-harm, basically, because that's what I was doing every day. I was, it wasn't obviously cutting myself.

No, no, but it's like a form of, yeah, self-harm. It's a slow suicide drugs. Yeah, very slow. Very slow. Very slow. Very painful. So I just see that and I feel pain. Yeah. I don't have any judgment.

I've been around drugs my whole life. I've lost so many people to it. And so I know the story over and over and over. So at some point I get tired of seeing it because I've seen it so many times. But I don't feel anything but pain. You know, at my age, I see a kid who's. coming out in the world, having some success, getting started, and on drugs. And I go, oh, fuck, man, I hope he's okay. I hope he ends up okay. To sit in front of you as a sober person,

I'm fucking beyond, I don't know, the word is, it's joy. It feels like that's the success story. The real success story. Because let me tell you something, nothing else matters. Life. Like first, put life first and then find out. And then find out. And watch what happens. Yeah. When you put life first, when you put living first, when you put health first, when you put joy first, when you find your little things you enjoy and then you do that and then you start building momentum in your like, like you'd say, three years of sobriety, that's momentum. Yeah. At some point it starts to carry you.

Oh, yeah, definitely. And then you get momentum there and you realize, oh, I got momentum here. But it's all related. So you'll see with sobriety, well, your career success is going to go up. Yeah. I agree because. different way. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. A whole different way. Yeah, yeah. And it's funny because going back to when I was like on drugs, I didn't think this point in my life was even obtainable.

You know, I only focused on what people said about me. I only made the music I did for, I made music for other people, not myself. Right. It was real ugly. And as you were saying, momentum, first year, it was kind of tricky. Second year, it got a little easier, third year, a little bit more easy so it picks up like four or five i feel like the longer i stay sober just the better things will get for for me i know it yeah i can see it yeah i'm sitting in front of you and i'm like oh this is a clear-minded person thank you who's got uh how old are you 28 oh that's great such a like you're so young yeah i know you probably feel old no i yeah i know i'm yeah because i felt old at 28 yeah yeah yeah you know what i'm talking about. But when you've experienced more than the average, but there's a whole lot of other things

you haven't. So I would bet at 28 you're way overdeveloped in some areas because you had success in like entertainment is very tricky and hard. Yeah. Yeah. There's a certain amount of sophistication you have to have to have success in entertainment, period. So you become super sophisticated in some ways. Yeah. But then I, then you lack, I feel like in other ways. Others, yeah. Right. So that'll be the stuff that you probably have to work on. Yeah.

And it's worth working on because the balance is important. But the importance in today, I didn't even know if we were just going to talk about your sobriety. I think it's super important. And I think it's a story that, like, other people need to hear. Because sobriety is very hard for people to keep. Yeah, I agree on that. I think, like, sobriety for certain people is not very, very. easy, you know, and I think I'm so just very grateful and lucky to have had the right people around

me at the right time that, you know, took me, told me to go to rehab, told me you got to get clean and then I finally realized from inside that I'm going to die if I keep doing this. So I'm very grateful to still have those same people that were there at the beginning of my sobriety, still around me now, making sure I'm good, I feel good. And it's a very blessed, blessed thing. Yeah. It's a big deal because some people don't have that. And at the, there are levels.

I mean, there's levels to this in, in, in, on up and down. Yeah, yeah, you can go both ways. Your bottom could be someone else's like feeling, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. And, but it's still your bottom. Mm-hmm. No one ever wants to reach their bottom. Mm-hmm.

But sometimes we have to. Yeah. When you're in a predicament with drugs and stuff, I think. Hitting rock bottom is what finally made me realize I had to get sober because I had kept thinking, oh, this is rock bottom, oh, this is rock bottom, oh, no, this is rock bottom. But then one day I was looking in the mirror and I could see the bones in my cheek kind of starting to fill in. And I just remember looking in the mirror and thinking, like, if I don't quit soon, I'm going to be dead in the next couple of weeks. Like, that was my rock bottom.

And that's when it sounds cliche, looking in the mirror. But it really happened. Not cliche at all. I look in the mirror every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think stuff when I look in the mirror. Yeah. And I have to master those thoughts.

Right? The real test is can you look in the mirror? Yeah, most people, yeah, a lot of people can. It's hard to do. There was a whole period of my life where I couldn't look in a mirror. I relate to that. I hate it myself. It's sad to say.

I think, and especially you saying you hate it. hated yourself. That was where I was at too, where I just, like, obviously I was heavily sedated off substances, but I hated myself. Like, I did not like the person I was. I didn't like the music I was making. I didn't like the friends that I had around. I hated myself. So that's an interesting, like, concept when you think about, like, hating yourself. And so I'm only saying this because I've experienced that from a young age, and I had work on it. So if you don't, you have to work on it. So it's just shame. So the shame, idea of shame is like, I'm wrong. Guilt, I did something wrong. That was me. I always felt like

I couldn't do one thing right. Right. So shame and guilt together, that's like a potent kind of mix. Shame is, I'm wrong. Everything about me is wrong. I hate myself. I'm not good enough. No matter what I do, there's hopelessness in there, so all this stuff. So those are all, I've been reading about like vibrations lately. Oh, I believe in. So vibrations are like actually like we all vibrate. Yeah. And there's levels, right?

So addiction is like rooted in shame. But there's actually like the experience you're having when you're on drugs before you get to the place where you're just trying to keep the withdrawals away. Yeah. Is you're actually trying to get to a higher vibration. It's not the way to do it. but actually what you experience when you're on drugs is something like bliss, which is like the highest vibrations.

Yeah, you feel almost Buddha-like vibrations of consciousness is like bliss. Yeah. Right? So it's a very high level of consciousness when you're in bliss. And we get glimpses of bliss when we have certain moments. But a constant state of bliss is almost like another level of consciousness that's way, way beyond. There's all these levels, though, of consciousness.

And the lowest level of consciousness is shame. Mm-hmm. And shame. and then like guilt I think is right above it but it's like very low level and then shame like in a state of shame long enough you will eliminate yourself whether through action like some people get to a place where they kill themselves literally like that's like self-destructed self-destructive behavior or like drug addiction is something like a long prolonged like suicide it is yeah right but when you think about why am I ashamed to myself that's the question that I had to like go

years of therapy to figure out why I hated myself so much and get out of it actually like and now I don't hate myself that I love myself I love that

fucking love myself that's good I love to hear myself talk yeah yeah you gotta love yourself you have what it's the real truth what else if you don't love yourself

you cannot love anyone else you think you can but you can yeah yeah it's you lie to yourself you lie yes you have to love yourself. So I had to work on that for many years, right? Yeah. And this is after I had hit songs and everything. I thought, oh, if I just have a platinum record, it'll cure all. It'll fix everything. Cheer all ailments, right? Yeah. You realize at a young age, something

outside of you gives you the message, either A, you're not worth anything. Nothing you do will really matter. For whatever reason, I've given you the message, whoever the adult is or the person that's messaging or the voices around you, the outside influences that are around you enough to influence your view of the world is that either nothing I'll do is good enough. I am not worth love or attention. You know, neglect is a big one and get neglected.

Oh, yeah, definitely. And then poverty is a big one. I know you come from a similar background as me. Yeah. We grew up in poverty. Yeah, there was not a lot of money around. Yeah. Yeah, money was hard to come.

It was very mysterious. And then you think, oh, when I make all this money is going to cure my own. Solve it all. Yeah, and it doesn't. No, it doesn't. In fact, it makes it worse. Makes it worse sometimes.

Back to now. So back to you, three years sober, sitting here in this chair in 2025. At 28 years old, my view of your life is incredible backstory. The future will be up to you. from my perspective,

your greatest achievements in life are ahead of you. The work is discovering them and going towards them, not away from them. So the thing that I'm the happiest about is not your Instagram followers or the successes that you've had

with this song or that. Because that stuff doesn't matter. I would just say, like, you're to me a story of like, okay, someone's going towards like enlightenment. They've gotten sober. they're making steps towards like a healthy functional life that could be an amazing story

that's way deeper than a song or a record or any of a success that we could have that I continue to say it's not that I'm belittling everybody's dreams of making art they should I know what you mean they should make art yeah they should want to achieve the highest level they can with their art they should do it for themselves though not for other people yeah yes and value it appropriately because nothing to me is more valuable than life and happiness and not just being alive but living prospering yeah and like having a functional life you could just be alive and just day by day go on but there's a difference between just being alive and then prospering yeah you know and I you know I will be honest like ever since I you know before I got sober I was a mess internally

but three years under my belt now, I feel so much better. I feel amazing, but I'm not there yet. You know, it's not like, oh, I got sober and everything's fixed, you know, like that was just the first step in my mind. I still am learning to love myself more.

I'm still learning to take care of myself more. I've made a lot of progress, obviously, since I got sober. Yeah, it's, it's. But it's, I know I'm not going to be on here like, oh yeah I'm fixed now and I love like no like I'm still learning all those things and I want to be in 10 years so much better than even this version of myself you will be mm-hmm there's only it's only natural yeah if you walk that way mm-hmm there's also a version of someone going that way yeah and it yeah I go that way it isn't a chance thing either you choose you can go this way yeah yeah

because like I'm now before it was like oh I did I don't want to quit because I'll get sick, but there's no excuse now. Like, I don't have withdrawals. I don't do drugs. So, like, it is a choice. Do you go to meetings? I've been to, not recently, but yeah, I've been to a bunch of meetings. Right.

So there's a little bit of the, a little bit of the 12 step in there? Yeah, yeah. I've gone to AA meetings. They double, you know, it works the same way. I love them. I think, I think. There's something there. Yeah, there's something there.

What's the most helpful resource to you as far as sobriety goes that that helps you stay off of drugs? I would say my support system and therapy, my support system and therapy, just having really, my family is very involved in making sure that I stay on the right path. Your family meeting, you're like mom and dad. Yeah, my mom and dad. That's cool. Yeah, my girlfriend is very helpful.

Well, that's nice. How long have you been with your girlfriend? Oh, two years. Oh, that's good. Yeah, she's amazing. Is she like a clean living person? Oh, yeah, yeah. She's never, she never had any addiction.

problems. That's good. Because you know, you don't want to get two people. No, no, that's bad. It can be, it can be bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what they, yeah, I've seen that happen. It could also be good. Like, yeah, yeah. There's definitely, they say, they could. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there's a lot of ways to look at it. Yeah, yeah. But they say, like, the first year sobriety are not supposed to be in a relationship. And then, yeah, because of that. And then a lot of people in sobriety meet each other. Yeah. And some sober couples are great together. They, like, really are. are a true support system.

Yeah. And then some drug addicts get together and they are just drug addicts. Yeah, and they like to do drugs together. Let's do drugs. Drug buddies. It's a sad, it's a sad state. But when you have someone who's never had the addiction gene in them, that virus, whatever that thing is, it can also probably be really nice because, one, they'll never understand.

So that could be frustrating in some ways. but on the other side of it you can look at someone and actually see like the difference it's like there are people who who do I've never had done drugs never had a inkling to do it it's good when people were around me doing it I was like yeah understand why would you alter that being said I drank yeah so I understand like what getting fucked up feels like if you drank you it's just yeah you understand essentially just getting drunk on something else. Altering your mind.

Yeah. And that being said, though, I was around drugs my whole life. And that might have been, you know, my dad was an addict and there was a lot of addicts around me. And that might be like the truth of the matter is it's probably what kept me from it was seeing other people from a young age. Yeah. Yeah.

I've heard that same story where people, yeah, they stayed away from it because they saw what it did to their loved ones, friends and family. And my sister and my brother and sister both were addicts growing up too. But I didn't really get to see it because I was too young at the time. So they were older than you. Yeah, yeah, they were older in their 20s when I was like eight, you know. So I just didn't know what was going on. That's tough.

Yeah, yeah. And then my brother ended up going to prison. And I don't really talk to my sister too much. I don't know if she's still on drugs or not. I don't know. but I didn't really learn until I got a little bit older in my teen years what their issues were, you know, because my parents tried to shield me from that. They didn't live with me too, so I didn't like see that going on in my house.

But that also just taught me like... That's painful though. Yeah, yeah, it was. You know, I haven't seen my brother in probably like 15 years. Yeah. I see my sister occasionally, but I just don't know where she's at in life, you know. I feel like she's battling the same thing that I was battling a few years back. Right.

But she's older. She's in her 40s, you know. It's painful when families are broken and for different reasons. You know, my family was broken, but my dad was a horrible addict. And my mom struggled as well. Like she had other issues. At a young age, I was mad at both of them. I took my mom's side because, you know, that's generally what we do.

Yeah, I would probably done the same thing. So I was angry at my dad for a long time. And then as I got older and I had my own kids and my 30s, I reconnected with him because I realized like people are people and we're all kind of trying our best. It doesn't mean like some of the things he did was okay. But I like wanted to make amends of some sort and make peace with that part of my life. You got to. Because family is family. And it doesn't mean we should accept everything.

But we can kind of like come to. terms of it in our own way. Yeah, and I think, yeah, exactly what you're saying is so accurate. Like, you don't have to deal with it per se in a certain way, but just accept it and come to terms with, this is my family, you know, everybody is given a family. Some might have harder to deal with families. Some might have easier to deal with families, but as long as you can facilitate and come to terms with their problems, I feel like it, it, it, it, you know, it, you're, goes back to that internal, I feel like it helps your internal kind of. It can heal some things.

We may never be close. Yeah. We might actually have different relationships with different members of our family based on like what we can handle emotionally. But I've also found like the more I work on myself inside, the more emotionally I can handle and the more capacity I have for forgiving people and where I need to forgive them and asking for them to forgive me for things. But all of that was, for me,

I found a lot of it was just in the process of working on myself. So for many years, I would never even talk to my dad. When we finally did talk, I had been working on myself. There was a lot of healing in it. It didn't mean we were like,

bother son, like go fishing. Yeah, no. That had passed, but we respected each other. Yeah. We had a very nice relationship. And that's what matters. It's what we could have. It's just the reality.

Yeah. And some parts of a reality or like sad. Yeah, but that's just, it's life. That's life. Yeah, yeah. But I know, like, coming to terms with that and having that, like, the best relationship possible with my father, what it was possible.

The version of the best relationship that I could have with my father was possible. Because he never hurt me in ways that he couldn't reconcile. Now, there are people out there that are offenders and they're, whether they're, whether they, they're like a predator or an offender that hurt people that are irreconcilable. Yeah, there's people in this sense that can't be psychopaths, right? Those are a different category. But addicts and people who have fucked up, they may, he hurt me deeply. And there are things I can't get back.

There's like a whole childhood I can't get back of like what things I could have learned and trauma and all that stuff. But none of it was I felt after working on myself irreconcilable to the place where like we couldn't know each other and have some sort of a positive relationship. Yeah. And I felt like that. And then he passed away, but I felt like that was worthwhile and like healing in a bunch of ways where like it was worth all the effort.

Yeah. And it was still wasn't like story book, picture book relationship. Like I see other people who are close to their dad. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying is you did as much as you could. Yeah. You did as much as you could. that's a beautiful thing that you got to do that before he passed. Yeah, yeah.

I feel very grateful that I get to have that, like, closure. That's a beautiful thing. Yeah, and I learned a lot. And it also made me feel, like, really grateful for my relationship with my kids. Oh, yeah, of course, yeah. And my friendships and everything. Like, it made, it's weird how doing that work made, like, every relationship in my life a little bit more meaningful.

That's the internal stuff. You know what I mean? you fixing things with your dad to the extent that you could at least i feel it heals you in a way it's like you level up in a way and that's why now you have maybe a better outlook for your kids from that or just you know it all goes it all goes in the same thing yeah it's a good it's a beautiful thing yeah you learn a lot yeah so you and your parents are close yes that's nice yeah yeah and i i just said that the other day too i'm just very grateful to have both of them in my life for one,

but for them also to be as loving and caring because I know a lot of people don't have that privilege, you know, they don't have... Where are they from? We're all from Redlands, California. Redlands? Yeah, it's like San Bernardino area. Okay, San Bernardino. Yeah, right next to San Bernardino.

So local, I guess, over here. And yeah, I'm just very grateful, you know, because I didn't have really my sister or my brother. So they... Were they older? So they weren't around when you... Yeah. It's a half-sister and a half-brother. Okay.

Yeah, everybody has different dads. Different dad. Yeah, yeah. And they were always older, so they were always, they were out the house by the time, you know. It's hard when you have a, I had a half-sister. I have a half-sister who is older than me. And I never talked about it before this. Actually, it's weird.

It's hard to be close to them when you're growing up in a different house. And it's tough to get a relationship that has, some kind of like pattern to it that you get like, you know, like we have patterns and we know, we're in like a kind of a consistency. Yeah. And when you have a half sibling, it's hard to find the consistency. And then there's also like none of the adults really sit you down and go like, look, it might be weird having different parents. And like if you ever want to talk about it, even just opening the thing up so that everyone's like, oh, okay. Yeah. It's weird, but we can be close.

Yeah. Like no one, so you kind of have to figure it out alone without the adults. Yeah. Everyone's just trying to get you together. That's what I had to do. Yeah, over time. So it's tough. Yeah, it's tough.

And I think only recently since I got sober, I've come to terms with that and those relationships. Yeah. Strange. It's a very, life is strange. It's funny because adults do stuff and then they drop us all in these like, from the time where kids, they drop us in a room and they go like, just act normal. Yeah.

Like, whoa, what's normal? First of all. You figure it out. of all like I don't even know you know what I mean so it's not what is normal plenty of us have like odd family dynamics yeah yeah dynamics that's actually kind of normal yeah yeah I don't think there's a normal family in that sense like because what is normal no yeah yeah that's it yeah yeah and who who wants to be no we're all fucking crazy yeah so what do you think the themes on your new record so there's something in general that's been coming up a lot in like the

new stuff you're writing. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's definitely, I'm very proud of the Diego record that I drop. Love that record. But the difference, it's, it's, I see a, every, I see a evolution. I see a big evolution. I wouldn't consider myself super religious, but there's more themes of God in it, I guess. Not like a gospel album or anything. No, that's real though. Yeah, you know, yeah. That's a big sign of, optimistic growth when you start acknowledging like a higher power. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of,

yeah, definitely. There's a lot of themes of that, a lot of emotion, a lot more emotion, a lot of family. I talk a lot about my family on it, which I've never done before. So yeah, themes like that. And I think that makes this very different

than that project and not better or worse, but just special in a different way. Yeah, it's real fun. That's cool. I can't wait to hear it. It's going to be great. Thank you. Yeah. What do you think the biggest difference of the last three years versus, let's say, 2018 to 2022?

Yeah. And then 2022 to 2025. What would you say like the most clear difference has been? I would say from 2018 you said to 2022. Yeah. I think you put your first record out in 2017, maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It all folded in 2017, 2018. I'll say during that 2018 to 2022, I thought I had everything figured out. I thought everything I was doing was fine and appropriate, whatever. I thought all my problems were, I didn't have no problems. I had a lot of problems, but I just didn't. I was lying to myself. And then once I hit 2022, I started to really just think about things in a different light.

Maybe I grew up a little bit. Was your first access to real, real money, 2017? End of 2017, yeah, going into 2018. So that was the first access to real money, like, obscene amounts of money versus, like, when I got signed my first deal was my first big check. That was, I would say, in 99. It was my first real access to real, like, obscene amounts of money.

Versus, like, I was working two jobs, and I was paying my rent. I was taking care of my mom. and I was like paying for the band. Me and my brother were like paying for like the band instruments and trying to make demos. I love that. Right?

So like money's always in short supply. And then I get my first deal in 99, got my first big check, never look back. It takes about three or four or five years to realize money doesn't solve shit except pay for stuff. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. No, and yeah, my first access to money was my, ideal too. Right. Yeah. And I wasn't used to having more than $100. Right. Yeah. So at first, here and here feels like warm and everything feels better. Yeah. Because at first we're like, oh, God, everything's better now. All my problems are solved. The problems came. A bunch of problems are solved. Yeah. But then there's new problems that that comes with. Yeah. Financial problems, you know, it solves a lot of that. But here and here is where you get fucking up because about three, four years in, you start to realize like, damn, I still feel kind of like

shit. I still feel worthless. I still feel poor weirdly. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. I feel like it's not my money. I took me forever.

Yeah, I had that same problem. I almost spent it more because I didn't think it was mine. Like I was almost like it only felt real when I was spending it. I had those same problems. Because it wasn't, I didn't grow up with a trust. or a bank account so I didn't believe it was in the bank. Yeah, yeah. When someone would tell me you're a millionaire, I'm like, where is it?

Yeah, yeah, unless you see it right in front of you. But if I bought something, I felt like, oh, it's mine. Like, yeah. And so it took me fucking forever to, like, have a relationship with money that was healthy as, like, a resource. It was weird. I totally relate, though. It tracks, though, because, like, the first few years you get paid, things are good.

you're working, you're motivated, and you're driven because like it does feel like everything's getting better. And it kind of is in a bunch of ways. Yeah. And then in the other ways. Yeah, it's like financially you're able to take care of any financial problems, but it's going to add a lot more to your mental and your heart. Somebody's got to teach that.

Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't have like a proper mentor per se, yeah, at that time. But I learned it all eventually. Like I feel like now I'm in a very healthy spot when it comes to money. I can tell. Yeah. Yeah, it feels amazing.

It feels like you're, like, getting balanced. But how would any of us know, like, my mom wasn't going to tell me, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She didn't have money either. Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. So I was taking care of her. Yeah. So what's she going to tell me about?

Yeah, exactly. But being, like, you know, more balanced. Yeah. I would have listened to her. Yeah, you know, no one around me had money. So no one knew. I'm just happy that you're sitting here today. Thank you.

There was a version of that, not being. That wasn't, yeah. That's scary. Yeah, and I think about it from time to time, and it is a very scary thing, and I'm so grateful to be sitting in this chair, having a great conversation. Me too. Yeah. Why I like your music is you.

Yeah, the person behind. And why I like you is I hear a good person. Thank you. And I think that the work you have is discovering that guy. Thank you. Because if you had been another sad story, like when Peep died, it like broke my heart. Yeah. It was heartbreaking. Because we all thought that wave was so cool and that it was coming. And it did, but what we saw was just a lost of such a great artist, such great potential. And it's very hard for me when people die. I'm not one.

one to publicly mourn. I don't say shit usually. Because it's so real to me when someone passes away, this is a real person. That's going back to that. That's a real suffering, like a time to suffer. When you lose someone or something that you cared for, yeah. Or when you see someone you admired. Admired, yeah.

You know, even if you didn't know him, I didn't know him very well. Yeah, me neither. I just thought, what a special guy. What a loss. The music was amazing. not about the music. That's the thing that I always go to with everyone. I'm like, it's not about the art.

The art was amazing. Yeah. This is a real person who was a good soul. Artists were healers. At the core of what we are, we make art to give to people to make them feel better. Yeah.

And to give them something. And it doesn't get better than being able to provide something like that. For people that feel like they, like someone understands them and they connect with you. There's not a better feeling in the world, but what makes you special?

It's not your art. That's something you do. Great. It's you. It's who you are inside. Yes. And, you know, the world doesn't want to say that. Oh, no, no, hell no, no, they don't want it.

Yeah. I'm willing to take it. Yeah. I'm like, me too. Count me in. If someone wants to say whatever about me saying that, I'm good with it. Me too.

how I feel. And we live in a world where everyone values the art or the fame or the product of the art, which is all the shit around it. I made some good art. Now everybody's, and now it's things swirl around it. All the good, all the bad, all the blah, blah, blah. Yeah. People value that over someone's life. Oh, yeah. That's the sad part. Yeah. And that's the sad state of humanity. Right. Is that we as a group, we all want to watch a plane crash. a train wreck. The world burn. Like what we were talking about earlier,

people just egging on and fueling the fire. Yeah. You know. And so, I know, man. Like, when I see a story like yours, gives me hope. Thank you.

And that's, that's all I want is, is to inspire others to have that same hope. I hope so. Because you have a good story. Thank you. And so I think what we do with music is we connect with each other

and there's some spiritual thing that I didn't know when I was young. Yeah. I felt it. But you didn't understand it. But my ego got in the way. Yeah.

Yeah. Of me like understanding what we're all actually doing, which is like something like healing, something like joy, something like some other thing on this side of music. There's also like a toxic side of music. Oh, yeah. I've seen that side too. Yeah. But there's something over here when we like have this experience and it's big and it's like powerful.

it could be a room of 50 people, 500 people, 50,000 people. And it feels the same to me when it's like pure. Yeah, it's a special feeling. Yeah, and it's something like not about me. It's something like this thing that feels like spiritual. And then I get to have this experience is the only one I want to have. So that's why we don't play that many shows. Yeah, because you would oversaturate it.

Yeah, I'm not ready to do 50 shows. It wouldn't make it as special as it is kind of. It's trippy. Yeah. But isn't it, it's the best thing, isn't it, though? And some people say, like, you're out of touch. Great. I'm out of touch. I want to be out of touch. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing, man. That's why I do this, too. Yeah. This is a great outlet for expressing different emotions, expressing different topics,

having great conversations. Me and you are very similar with, from just what I've gathered, like, our belief system and how we think very similar. I think so. Yeah. And it's, That's a very cool thing to meet like-minded people like that. Well, I'm glad I met you. Thank you for having me, man. Thanks for coming, bro. Appreciate it. Awesome.

Thanks. Thank you, man. Thank you for listening to Artists Friendly. We really appreciate it. If you like the show, you can also follow us on Spotify. You can follow us on Instagram at artist.friendly. And you can watch us on YouTube and Veeps. Leave comments. I always read them.

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