Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Zac Brown - Part 1

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Zac Brown. The Zac Brown Band have been a torchbearer within Southern music, bringing their wide-ranging blend of country, pop, rock, and soul to thousands. Led by Zac Brown, they’ve only continued to challenge themselves through the years, expanding their sound through thoughtful, unexpected collaborations and covers.  In a conversation with Joel, the three-time Grammy-winning artist and entrepreneur opens up about fatherhood, music, and staying grounded amid fame. He also shares insights on his upcoming album, Sphere residency, and his passion for giving back to veterans and kids through his foundation. ------- 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 three-time Grammy Award-winning, many-time CMA award-winning, singer, songwriter, frontman, and entrepreneur, and knife maker, Zach Brown. Let's go. I fucking say it to people, too. Like, yeah, this is called artist-friendly for a reason, because people have been exploiting creators and creative people who are good-hearted and honest when they make art. Yeah. And exploiting them into narratives to make all of us look like assholes. There are some assholes out there. For sure. But the truth of the matter is, is if we could have a friendly conversation where we didn't feel like someone had a gun under the table. Right. You know what I mean?

Yeah. That's how I always think of whenever I do conversation, sometimes I forget because this is such a safe, like open space. If someone here said something then I thought would be taken the wrong way, we always take it out. Because I'm like, nah,

he wasn't trying to say that. He was saying this. But anyways, I think about it all the time and I'm like, imagine if I was out promoting a record and someone like actually was on my side

and trying to help me get my message out. Yeah, for sure. I love that. Yeah. So I feel the need to say that sometimes because we don't know each other. Yeah.

A lot of times people that come on here, I know them. but I have wanted to meet you for a long time. Yeah, it's great to meet you, man. Great music. I love what y'all do with the foundation, everything. Like, super, super happy to be here. Thanks for taking the time to do it, man.

Dude, thank you. Bringing your big-ass brand and band and all the shit you do to my little show is a big ass deal for me. No, and likewise, man. It's awesome. Cross-pollinating is great, man. That's what you do. Yeah.

I love that. there shouldn't be rules around or labels around everything, what genre, whatever. Like it's either good, either dig it or you don't. Some of it's tastes, some of it's like, you know, things that, that movie, but I've heard you music for a long time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, likewise.

Yeah. Weirdly, I was talking to my brother, my twin brother, my partner, everything we do. And I always talk to him when I'm excited to talk to someone that's coming in. And I was telling him about you because we're fans. And I was like, I weirdly feel like he's like us. You don't do a genre. You don't use genre bender.

Like, yes, you're in country music. You're rooted in it. Like, just like we are in rock, like we're rooted in it. But we've never held ourselves to like a rule. Yeah. You know? Yeah. We just do what we want.

Yeah. We let things kind of become what they want to be. And that's been the cool thing about collaborating with a lot of different people. Like, you know, if I, if I do a song with Skrillix, it's not going to sound like Zach Brown band. It's going to be the mashup between the two things. It's always polarized. and to be because usually my cycles between Zach Brown band albums,

there's like two and a half, three years in between. So I want to make something, I'm writing constantly. So I want to make something in between. So I will make like a pop project or make something that's like a little more edm or a little more rock or a little more reggae or whatever it is. And it's amazing. Like people get angry because you create extra things because they feel like they don't have ownership in it or like we're changing who we are and all of this.

And it's just, but I've never let that scare. me like I don't I don't make my decisions based on the fear of things yeah like whatever a song wants to become like that's what I follow like whatever it's the spirit of it is try to capture the spirit of a song and then that's the dress that it that it wears yeah I can tell and I'm not locked to it being like a traditional thing like I love a traditional country song because I feel like the stories like real American poetry is like that's one of the only places where it's still relevant like where it still lives and so I'm always looking to be inspired whether it's from music or lyrics or both when it's done well or harmony like the mixture of all

three of those things is really what because I'm a music fan first because I was a kid like I got no ego about it like I love to share my stage with people I love to collaborate with people it's not always that case but it's cool when you find like-minded people that are just like let's make something together that's a little bit of both of us yeah and you're and you're from a place that's like a melting pot of music and culture and everything so it's interesting because like while like Atlanta and Georgia is like you think country music when you think of Georgia, but then you think of Atlanta and you think hip hop. For sure. Like period. And that was the only hip hop that really got me into hip hop. Right. Because I couldn't relate contextually to more gangster style rap and things. But like

when Outcast came out and it was musical and it was like Andre was so like influenced by Sly. Yeah. And then Andre Big Boy and then the Dungeon family, which was Celo and Outcast all together before it was before they were outcast and goody mob and all this stuff like and ludicrous yeah and there was like a there was musicality to it there was sense of humor in it like i love ludicrous he's hilarious i love ludicrous and he's talented and you know that was what got me into that world of things of like open to that world you know yeah i was i grew up in maryland so it was interesting because like we were close enough to new york that we felt like it was definitely a part of my life but the Southern hip hop. It's like a different kind of gangster because it's still gangster rap.

And like, but it's different. They can joke about it. Right. It's like a different thing than LA, LA gangster rap, which I always liked because it was more like fantasy. Like easy. Right, right. All that was like, I couldn't even imagine. It was like a different world. I was like, what is that like? Yeah. And I always got captivated by stories. Right, right. So when I would listen to Dre and Snoop, it captivated my imagination. It was so cool. But I couldn't. personally relate to it. Like, it wasn't real. I couldn't believe it was real.

Right. And, but I always loved West Coast hip hop, but it's different. The Southern hip hop, it's its own thing because it's gangster as fuck down there. But like, it's different. It's not, it's crazy. So to me, like Southern hip hop and Outcast in particular definitely affected my actual music. Yeah.

Like Andre 3000, I could say is one of my influences. Yeah. From an early age. Yeah. Never got to meet him. Seems like very cool. But definitely like something about the music, I felt like, oh, I could do something like that. It inspired me to like try and definitely made its way in there somewhere.

And there's an energy in the beats that are in that music too. And so the Atlanta stuff was the first thing because I had heard the other stuff. I couldn't really grasp it. And then after I got into the Atlanta stuff and I was seeing what's doing, then I could enjoy the rest of it, all of it. But that's what pulled me in to kind of being open to it. And then I started delving in. And Sealo's solo album. I don't know if you listen to those.

So good. Unbelievable. Yeah, he's wild. He might be the most talented singer and rapper because he can sing like Donnie Hathaway. Yeah, he's, that dude's voice is ridiculous. And I've gotten to work with him. That's cool.

So we did some stuff together. I actually have a version. We did this song called One Day on my Jacqueline Hyde record. And I had Cilo come in and I had him sing it. I'm like, I just want to hear how you would sing this. And it's so cool. So I'm just sitting. I've got that like in the archive sitting there.

That's dumb. Him singing it. But there's a dungeon family song. that's called Follow the Lights. And that was the first song that I was like, wow. It just like moved me. Because I grew up, my oldest brother's 21 years older than me. So I was on all his music.

I was on all 70s music, you know. And he played guitar and banjo and it was taking me at Bluegrass Festivals when I was like seven. Wow. So I was watching and they would have like guitar competitions for like, and kids would be competing with the adults. And so some like 10 year old kid would win the competition, like shredding a guitar.

but it gave me confidence seeing that in person like if that kid can do that i can too so then i would just go back to my house and sit on the back porch and just shed you know just work on so he kind of like raised you a little bit musically anyways musically for sure yeah and and everybody was older than me so i grew up on 70s and all this great singer songwriters you know my mom loved james taylor and jim croce and yeah gordon lightfoot and dan fogleberg there was like there's like the singer songwriter side And I remember being in seventh grade and like Nirvana was killing back then and I loved them too. Yeah. But all the kids were playing Nirvana riffs and I was learning James Taylor and they were like,

oh, that's rocking chair shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you doing? Yeah. At that time especially, it hadn't fully become a ripe, fine wine like it is now where you're like, that's a classic. You can't say anything about that. Yeah.

It was still a generation apart at that point where in the 90s it would have been like your parents' music or something. Oh, dude, smelled like Team Spirit on MTV was like. that was it life changing yeah and then i remember like having this because i wasn't really allowed to watch tv so at night i wasn't allowed to watch in living color either why because of um well just my parents were just like religious yeah a little bit so you know i wasn't either by the way that's why i would go to bed and i had like an old glass tv that turned on with like a knob you turn on it like clicks and turns on yeah so i'd go to bed and i'd lock my door and i'd put some under the door so they couldn't see the

light and i'd turn the tv on with just and i'd watch in living color remember in living color yeah yeah i'd watch that like this far and watching him to me james fox way and brothers fucking day rleckley classic comedy yeah yeah back when you used to be able to say all kind of crazy stuff like whatever it was you know yeah so i grew up on richard prior and eddie murphy my granddad was like this richard prior my granddad was clean-cut accountant for sears and roebuck for like 40 years wow and he would read me like little golden books and then we listened to richard wow when i was like five so that fucked me up Like my sense of humor, like I have no boundaries. Like you can't offend me.

No, me either. And I like being around people that are like that. Like it's hard for me to like, I can respect people in any, you know, whatever their sensitivity might be. But I don't really want to kick it with people that get, just choose to be offended by. They're just looking. There are people who look to be offended. A lot.

Right. And more and more it seems like. I was just talking about this with my brother. Because we can't go through life so afraid that we're going to offend someone. and get canceled. Where you're going to no matter what you do. And then you realize you are. That's what he said.

He's like, you're going to offend somebody because I find that a lot of times I like hide a little bit because I don't want to target on my back. Right. Because I just want to just move along about my day and not have a group of people mad at me because I actually don't want anyone to be mad at me. I like like people. For sure.

My like disposition is to be friends with people. Totally. me too like what's up man where are you from oh that's interesting right you know like i think it's interesting when someone's different for me or when sure even when someone has a different political view or whatever like i don't really have strong views but like when someone does i'm like tell me why like how did you get into that right and then they're like i'm not against them i'm just yeah i just want to know like how you can listen without trying to change whatever their thing is it's like i just just to hear where they're coming from and like have a conversation without it being volatile or

about being whatever that is where i truly live yeah that's where i live yeah and i find myself being afraid of groups of people because I don't want to fight anyone. I don't actually. Well, these days, man, first of all, have you ever written a review or comments on people's shit? Like, people that have lives don't sit around writing those things. Like, they might do like a quick, like love or whatever, but like sit on a ride a scathing review. Like, I was at UFC was like my favorite sport. So I was at UFC this last week and I was hanging with Michael Chandler.

Amazing dude. Yeah. And he's adopted, you know, his kids that he has. He has two African American kids. And my buddy Neil Kamamura, who's a knife maker, badass, like, awesome guy. He's the family to me. But he was telling me, yeah, Michael catches shit from people because he adopted African-American children.

And I was like, that just made me feel so much better. Like, if somebody's hating on somebody, like, literally taking responsibility for somebody's lives, like, you have to have some, you have to have thick skin. And you can't be afraid to be what you are, who you are. And I never, ever want to have a bad intention for anyone. Me either. And if you joke around, if people joke around and they choose to be whatever, like, I would never joke with someone with the intent to, like hurt their feelings or whatever. Like we give each other shit on the road, like all of us.

Like we jab each other all the time. But it's an interesting world that we live in. What an asshole. I know. The person that would go after someone who adopted kids and make it about the color of the kid's skin. What an asshole. I know. But the thing is, those people, they have zero accountability because they can hide behind their screen.

They would never come up and say that to their face and they have a conversation about it or whatever. Or like let anyone else be a fucking human being. And like I always say this. Okay. The one thing I know that keeps me grounded in like who I am and like okay with it, why I can not say anything and just keep moving. Yeah. Is because I don't need to prove anything because I know if I put all my cards on the table, I can live with all my decisions. Yeah, yeah.

If I handed you my laptop or I gave you my fucking phone or I put all my life's decisions on the table, I'd stand by all of them. I'd say this is this what I did there. This is what I did there. Yeah, it's probably wrong there. Probably this, this, this and that. And then the person that's talking to me better be able to do the same thing

and none of them can. Because most of the time, the loudest people that come after you for some normal-ass life bullshit where you're like, yeah, yeah, I'm trying my best here, man. I'm just trying to raise my kids or just trying to. Sure. I know they couldn't because the loud ones are the ones who are the worst. They're hiding some crazy shit.

Or the people that write an article on your new record you put out, and they hate on it and they try to just be kits and be sound clever in the way they slander it or whatever. They have a failed band. They probably live in a shitty apartment.

Nothing wrong with that. I've done that too. But like they're the ones that love to tear people down. Yeah, if you dig in on their failures, you realize why they hate you so much. Well, they hate themselves. And they hate themselves.

So I've made peace with that where I don't feel like I need to like even engage with that anymore when I was younger. I did all the time. Yeah. Like fuck you, man, blah, blah, blah. And then I didn't realize, like, that was a lack of experience, a lack of my own growth and experience.

And we're limited. Like, we're human. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. More my self-esteem got correct with, like, just liking myself, being okay. Yeah. Like, good record, bad record, good song. Yeah.

Does okay. As long as I like what I'm doing every day with my life and I can stand behind it. Yeah. Then I'm good. Yeah. And you can say whatever you want. And what do you do? you're going to do it's funny you never going to please everyone somebody's always going to tear you down

no matter what so i don't even read it i don't read the reviews i don't read the comments i don't read whatever i made what i made because i'm proud of it and proud of my like growth as a human being every single human being i always want to err on the side of kindness on generosity always yes yes and if people make decisions that unfortunately like make it where they can't be in my circle anymore, I still wish them well. Yeah. I still want them to be well. I just don't want them in my circle. And that's life. And it is. But I live that way. And anybody that knows me knows that. It's all the people that don't know me. And so when somebody puts a headline out or something and says something that doesn't know you or whatever or somebody's trying to extort you,

which happens when you're successful. All the time. Or exploit you. Yeah. Exploit. All the bad things. Yeah. And then they say things. Everybody reads that headline. And then that same person could have been pulling for you the day before it doesn't know you. And then they hear that and they're like, oh, fuck that guy. This is whatever. Like, that's just the world we live in. That is reality. But it's unfortunate we don't have, it's a matter of math. Like, we don't have the time to really show our heart and show who we are to everyone. So we just have to be okay with knowing that our tribe is good, our people that we come across. We treat them that way. I learned that. The most valuable thing I learned living in a truck, like sleeping on a window for

10 years was appreciating every single person that was there. The dude swan, in the bar at the end of the night, like, sometimes I only do what was there listening. Yep. And treat everybody like gold. Like, that's what I live by. And also, I mean, we're humans. And if we do something or whatever, we need to own up to it. We need to like, try to make it right, do our best to make it right.

But ultimately, that's the code that I live by. And until you have a code, I think I was about 23 years old when I was like, okay, this is, I'm finding my code. Like, this is the way I want to be. This is the way I want to treat people. I want to show up. I want to be on time. I want to come through.

If I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm going to do my damnedest to do it. The worst thing for me is when things get, when I don't like tell my assistant that I talk to somebody about something and then if I ever leave anybody swinging that I forgot to do something like it kills me. Yeah, it's just a bandwidth issue.

That's what it is. It is. And but you got to play to your strengths, right? Because like I'm allergic to a schedule. So I'm an amena. And like my music, my hair can be able to continue my rhythm. For so, potion 9 of Sebastian Professional

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of Sebastian Professional, the secreto professional of who not are the things, but of who they're not to a schedule and I'm allergic to say a no to people

that I actually want to please. I know. So someone asked me or something, I'm going to say yes. 100%. I talked to, I was actually not to to bring up therapy, but I was talking to my therapist about this on Friday because I run in the

same problem. I let people down sometimes where I was trying. I look at it. If I don't have my mind right where my self-esteem is like in a good place where I'm like, no, no, you're a good guy. Just keep trying, keep doing to your best. Like, that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to make mistakes, learn, correct, fix. It gets there as you get older, right? You know that we're around the same age. you could probably say you're better now than you were 10 years ago. 100%. In all your awareness and all your ability to communicate, all that shit. But the truth of the matter is is actually my want to please people is not coming from a bad low self-esteem place.

It's actually wanting to be a consistent guy who's solid, who's there for people. Right. Those are my values. 100%. Right. And so my values say if I can do something, I should do it. Yeah. And if I, if, you know, if it's not going to cost me my life or, or if it's not going to hurt me, like, you should always do it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. If you can help a stranger, help them.

If you can help your friend, help them. The balance is actually what can you actually physically do. That's bandwidth. That's the balance of all of it. And what we do for our job is made people feel good. Yeah. It makes us happy. And so we're doing it on a big scale every time we say. And I got five kids. You got five kids? Wow. And so 11, my son's 11. My girls are. 14, 15, 17, 18. Whoa. My daughter's 17. Okay. You have your hands full. Yeah. Because I have one. It's the best thing in the world. Yeah, yeah, it is. But so, so I'm,

I'm a servant when I'm at home with them and I'm dad and I give that 100%. So half my life, I'm not able to be out and smooth as much or take people out as much or do things as much, but priority one for me is my family. Amazing. And then the rest of the time, I work hard. Like, I work hard. And then when I get a chance to adventure, you know, I get out, I get in the woods. I get it under the water, I go spearfish, I do the things that fill me up and like recharge. We kind of detox from all the people and the energy. But it's such a blessing. And you obviously work out.

Yeah. Yeah. But I always thought, I was like, that motherfucker I would like to work out with him. Well, you know, I quit drinking when I was like 37. That's great. And I don't drink either. And then I'd always heard like when you're, when you turn 40, like your warranty runs out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so you get away when you're young. Like we used to get away with Smaschen Yeager before, during, after shows and whatever. And like have my days of that. But then it's like what really adds value to my life? Like what's going to make me feel better and be able to give more to my kids, to my fans, to my creativity so that I can do the things that I want to do till I'm old. You know, so I invest the last like seven years has been this huge spirit quest journey for me from like life coaches and therapy and plant medicine and anything I can do that's like

help me to see me, first of all, help me to let go of whatever it is that I'm hanging on to that's holding me back that's like weight, you know, whatever that weight is and try to just like keep my side of the street clean. Yeah. Treat people well. And if somebody's out there saying that, you know,

or slandering or whatever it is, it's because they want money or they want something or they want whatever or they lost an opportunity because of their own behavior. And or you're just doing really well. And when you're doing really well, a certain like a marginal amount of that like negativity that's going to come and they're going to try to hit your weak spot so if they see the music you can't listen you guys been talking shit about

my music for fucking two decades you can't hurt me there you're going to come after my wife which is sacred guy you're going to come after my kids right you're going to come after me as a guy right because they start poking to where for sure where's the weak spot for sure you know what i mean yeah well and a lot of people hope that they're going to make you uncomfortable enough to where you're going to give them whatever it is that they want. Right. And then as a matter of principle, sometimes you've got to stand up for yourself. Yeah.

And you can't engage with it. Yeah. Because then it just makes it a bigger deal. And that's kind of what they want anyway. So it's always a balance, man. Balancing our time. And you're talking about bandwidth. Like for artists, like younger artists and I talk to them.

And I've had like 23 businesses at one time before. Like before COVID hit, I had 110 people that worked in my factory, like huge 165,000 square feet of manufacturing, three different big C&C shops, mills. like the best thing COVID did was smash all of that where I couldn't work for three, I couldn't play for three years, simplified my life. And it was just like a recentering. And now I'm moving even more towards that. Like what's the best use of my time? Right. And then if we say yes to everything, we can't do anything well. Right. So it's like a true mindfulness. Yeah. And stepping into that and just being aware and like, and then, but we're not born with any tools that we need to

deal with anything. No, not at all. I love that people seek therapy. That's when the greatest thing for me is like, give me tools to help me to be a better human so that I can be at peace with my own decisions. And I try to handle those decisions and things the same, no matter what the situation, no matter how weird or how bad somebody does something to me or whatever, I'm just like, you know what, I want you to be well.

Like, I can't have you around me anymore, but I wish you well. Like, here's whatever I can do to just like, help them, whether it's an employee or whether it's whatever. But also, that's a natural part of life that we don't acknowledge. Like, every relationship is not supposed to be forever. And if we don't actually know how to start and end relationships in the form they're in, for sure, into the whatever form they become. Right.

We are actually not truly in real relationships. That's true. If we can't understand relationships come to an end. So if I'm working with someone and we no longer want to work together, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Like actually, like, If you're frustrated with me or I'm frustrated with you, and we can't seem to understand each other on whatever reason,

I could give my thoughts, whatever. But like, at the end of the day, if it's not meant to continue, there is a healthy way to be like, hey, I think we run our course. Yeah. We can part in good, for sure. You know, goodwill. Yep. And I'll do whatever I can to help you understand where I'm coming from.

Right. And to make you feel good about it to my best of my ability. Right. And if you want to participate in that, usually we can get. somewhere and sometimes we end up in a better place than we're working together for sure and then but your your quality of life and healthy like mindset all of it really depends on the people that you surround yourself with and if your people around you aren't expanders and they aren't people that are on a path on the same path that you're on to be curious about how to be better how to do better how to

treat each other how to how to put yourself outside of a cause other than yourself like just trying to make a bunch of money knowing a bunch of shit or whatever but there's really nothing that brings real joy more than helping other people. Yeah. Like that's really where that. And so the people that are in my circle, I've had to cut out people out of my circle just because we weren't,

we didn't have a lot in common anymore. When I changed the things I was doing, the places that I go, what I'm working on, doesn't mean that I don't like have love and respect for them, but I want to invest my time. I only have so much time with my family and with people that are my expanders

that we lift each other up. We sharpen each other. We call each other out when we feel like, you know, hey, maybe you could have done this better. And then if you can lay ego down aside and you can really look at yourself and what's going on and being like, you're right. I need to be with healthy people who are actively trying to like, like you said, expand, be healthy and be honest. And you learn from each other. Yeah.

They help you be better. You're there for them. And then you can all together like try to reach out and help people that might be a little bit lost, but they're willing to put in the effort to try to be better. Because you can't, you'll just like be in your head against the wall, trying to lead somebody out of something. that they're not ready to be let out of yet. And it's just like, you know what? When you, you know, there's only been a couple times in being a parent where some things happen

and I don't, I don't yell at my kids. I don't either. And like, whatever and like, whatever. And I was just like, you know what? Come talk to me when you're ready to be honest. And I was just like, until you're ready to be honest. Yeah. And then and then the next, the next day, it was like,

I got a list of everything bad that they did like over the last year. And it was like, but it takes, it's not intuitive, man. we intuit we're animals. Yeah. And we have to learn how to be above all of that and our patience. But having kids is like nothing makes you tougher than having kids, man. It's the best teacher.

About yourself, about how to show up for them. And it's not all perfect. And then doing therapy with my kids helped me to heal things that had happened with other situations, not between me and them. But it helped me to do things, you know, like going through a divorce. Like, it's the hardest thing that I ever did. I can only imagine. But showing up every day and just being consistent.

and like I'm here for you, I understand. And then talking with therapists and doing the work, child psychology doesn't work like ours. It's not intuitive. Right. Like they don't process things the same way. Like a young kid, if a parents get divorced, they think it's their fault.

They also don't understand that like we are just teenagers who grew up. So we're just trying to work this shit out. But I don't know the answer to this relationship. Me and my wife, right, we had our kids first. And then we didn't think we were going to get married. And then we got married. And then we didn't have a plan. And so the whole way we've had to work through stuff.

Right. And we tell our kids like, guys, we don't know like how to be parents. We're just learning and we're trying our best. Yep. There's no book and all these fucking experts. Like you can get nuggets from them. Right. But I always wonder, this is the thing is like, be very careful about presenting perfect.

If you're the parent expert or the marriage expert, right? It's never perfect. I'm like everyone I know this married because all my friends that have gotten divorced, I've had to, I've been on the ride with a view of them. It doesn't matter how well it goes. It's fucking painful and it's hard and it's got ugly parts. It's got all these parts, right? And then if you're an interfuck, if you're a fucking entertainer, be sure people are going to double down and try to beat you with that instead of having empathy for the people that are going through it. For sure.

Doesn't matter what went down. Doesn't matter what happened. Half of us are getting divorced. Let's be real. Half of us. So if 50% of us are getting divorced, shouldn't we all just have empathy for each other? Right. But and then when you have kids involved and you're just trying to make everything okay and you're just

trying to like. But they don't know what it means. The scariest thing to them is the unknown. Right. They don't know if they're losing someone. They don't know whatever. The tabloid hit like I'm abandoning my children and all the stuff. Oh my God, dude.

The struggle that my kids had through that or whatever, I'm grateful for that struggle. I'm grateful that we came through that together. I'm grateful that they know that I show up for. them every day and then I'm there for them and they're human too and that's what I tell them look I'm not perfect you're not perfect we're both going to screw up but I'm going to show up for you every day and try to be worried that like because of who you are in the world and and like you're hugely successful guy right right whether you want to say it or whether you look at yourself that way I see you as you as a guy who's watched you in the world never met you and I will say

this we always do this but we jump around fast in this show yeah to sit with you with you is really nice because it's what I hoped because I'm a fan. When I see guys out there that I relate to so I can hear your music, I could see you and make moves in the world and I go, I like how that guy rolls. So I just like how he cares himself. Like it's, it's, it's, I'm as simple as that. Across all the arts. Right. Actors, right. For sure. And then some people like, me, you know, like, I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. We all have our, our brands, right? Yeah. Things we like to wear, you know. So, um, do you ever worry though, be that, and I do. So I'm asking this because I do. I know people are going to judge my kids. The ugly word that everyone,

or the buzzword that everyone likes to use is nepotism, right? They're going to say that. They're going to say they grew up with famous parents or this or that. All the things that know, I would say anyone that doesn't know me sees me as. They see me as the guy from that band who buried that girl, who does this. And it's all the things that I would say are the least important things about me. Right. 100%. I would say the most important thing about me is actually if you hang out with me right and get to know me for sure i'm a good friend i try my best at marriage i try my best at parenting i try my best at work i all the things i do i try my best i actually also don't hit the ball every time like you know what i mean life is humbling right

all the time but people see the highlight real and they and they for sure they sum you up yeah and we've been blessed with these careers that we worked hard for so like there's blessings and you got to show up for them yeah yeah but then i see my kids and i'm I'm like, I know people are either going to write them off because of me or try to get next to them because of me. And instead of seeing who I see, which is these really special people who are talented. Right. And also just don't give a fuck.

They just want to live their life and do the things they love. Right. I've actually talked to them now that they're teenagers about it in a way that I feel like, look, guys, you know how the world is. People are going to judge you one way or another. And, you know, you're growing up in this family. me you didn't choose it but here we are yeah and i'm your dad you didn't choose me but i'm your dad right and my set of circumstances with my dad was different yeah yours is different i don't know which

one's actually more challenging i don't even try to guess i don't judge it but like i guess i answer my own question i guess it's just the nature of the world our conversation continues in part two