Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Aimee Mann

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Singer-songwriter Aimee Mann feels apprehensive about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Aimee sits down with Conan to discuss her tumultuous childhood, early days on the scene with her band The Young Snakes, and the importance of being able to say what you think and feel. Plus, Team Coco’s own gossip expert Solomon Georgio shares some hot historical goss dating all the way back to 1892.Check out The Juice with Solomon Georgio here. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.

Hi, my name is Amy Mann, and I feel apprehensive about being Conan O'Brien's friend. I think that's fair. I'm a lot to take on. the L, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walk in blues, climb the fence, books and pens, I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Hello there and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Got a terrific episode today. Very happy about it. And of course, joined as always by wonderful combo of Sonam Ovsessian and Matt Gourley. It's nice. Thanks, boys.

Guys, I've been wondering lately, tell me if I'm wrong, but I listen to The Daily a lot, you know, the New York Times with Michael Barbaro. And there are times, you know about this, Matt, but it's a suspicion. I'm a big fan of The Daily and it's like a regular part of myo. And there are times, you know about this, Matt, but it's a suspicion. I'm a big fan of the daily and it's like a regular part of my day. And there are times where I swear to God, I listened to it. And I think that it's possible that they get someone talking for a while. And then afterwards in audio, they just have Michael Barbaro go, uh-huh. They have a bank. They have a bank and it's,

and then basically they have him recap. So what happens is they get the person talking for a while and he basically says, there was this, apparently this woman named Goldilocks who went in and there were three bowls of porridge and there was one bowls of porridge. And there was one that was too hot

and there was one that was too cold, but then there was one that was just right. So what you're saying is that this young girl, Goldilocks, went into a house, a house that she had not been in before, and there were three bowls of porridge, one too hot, one too cold, and one in before. And there were three bowls of porridge, one too hot, one too cold, and one just right. And which one did she choose? Well, good question. She chose the one that was just right. Ah, mm-hmm. Yeah. Then she went into the next room and there was

a bed. There were three beds. One was too firm, one was too soft, and one was just right. So what you're saying is that then she went to another room and there were three beds. One was too hard, one was too soft, and one was just right. Did she choose one of those beds? She did. Very good question. And it was the one that was just right. At any point, let me ask, did the bears come home?

They did. They actually did come home. And that's what I was going to get to next. The three bears came home and they found Goldilocks asleep in the bed. So what you're saying is that Goldilocks fell asleep in the bed and the three bears came in and they encountered Goldilocks. What happened then? Excellent question. They awoke Goldilocks. She was surprised and she ran out the door and she was never heard from again. Incredible. Okay,

here's what else you need to know today. In Canada, a large vat of syrup exploded, flooding Oregon. We go now. I believe that's the general thing. And I'm feeling like I could, I swear to God, I don't need to be here with the guests anymore. As much as I love it, I feel like I could be, you could let them just babble and then send me little prompt questions. And I can finally live out my dream

of living in one of those little ice fishing shacks, you know, where they cut a hole in the ice. And I live there all alone and I grow just a crazy beard. Do you know how to fish? No, and I don't even like fishing and I don't like the cold, but it's an image that I like.

And that's what I'm gonna do. And then every now and then I'm gonna get on the phone and Matt's gonna say, all right, all you have to do is ask these three questions about Goldilocks and you're off the hook. So what you're saying is that this bear, this blue bear, which is quite unusual, was started out in Canada and then came down to Oregon. What does this mean? And then the person goes on and says, and the hammerhead sharks attacked the supermodels. Is that what you're saying?

Are you talking like Michael Barbaro now too? I'm channeling him a little bit. You know, he has that way. Here's what you need to know today. And then he goes, here's what you need to know today. But he puts in eight seconds. Yes, yeah. No, I've actually, I have a game where,

when Michael Barbaro does the introduction, I try to see if I can make a tuna melt during the gap. So he goes, Michael Barbaro, the daily, and here's, and I try, I quickly run and I get rye bread. I put it in the toaster and, you know, I won't take you through the whole thing, but I've made most of a sandwich. And sometimes I've made the whole sandwich

and eaten half of it before he says, you know today, today, today. What you need to know today. That's good. You could probably make up, Matt, a bunch of things, audio cues, that you play almost like on a keyboard. And we could do a podcast where I'm just reacting.

And I know you, I know you, you're going to sometimes screw me over because someone's going to say, yeah, it was really tough because that was the year I lost my father. Yeah. I think, I think you should record a bunch of stuff you say often. Yeah. When I was at Saturday Night Live or, well, I'm like Picasso and, you know, you don't tell Michelangelo how to paint. Look at this body, yeah. Look at this body or, yeah. When I say look at this body, it's usually with fear and sadness.

It's a threat. Yeah, it's more like if you don't behave, I'm gonna take off my shirt and then you're really gonna see what 80-year-old spam looks like if it's fresh out of the can. My father just passed away. Look at this body.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that listening to The Daily gave me this idea that we could probably, I could spend a day, one full day, giving you every single Conanism and every single human reaction. And then God forbid something ever happens to me, this podcast goes on in perpetuity. You sit there at a synthesizer and you just play or not even something happens to me,

I just become incredibly lazy and a hermit. So you just sit there, Matt, and they're like, we need to have another episode. You know, who's on this time? Well, it's Marissa Tomei. Okay, get Marissa Tomei in a room and have her tell five stories. And you're just sitting there and you're playing like,

mm-hmm, oh, I see. Yeah. Oh, ha, ha, ha. Wow, that's rough. Murderer. Corn cob soup. I'm Picasso. Corn cob soup.

Look at my body. I used to work on Saturday Night Live. Cockaroo. Cockaroo. I could do that now. I could just take those sound bites from previous podcasts. You could, but I want it to be a whole day in the studio. I want it to spend, cost a lot of money.

I want it directed by a famous director. Oh, really? What are you thinking? I don't know. Your Cameron's. Kirk Cameron? Yeah. Kirk Cameron. I want him to direct it and also be my religious director. No, I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying, but. I think we could work that up. I think we can make a whole podcast with you just never saying anything.

Yeah. And I think that that's a goal we should strive for. Anyway, think about this. Okay. And then we could, I think, start cranking out hundreds of episodes a week. That's another bonus. I can't, but then I have to edit all that

and put that all together. What are you doing? Picking out a whatever new weird tchotchke to have in the background of your Zoom shot? Okay, sup with camel. No one has a bigger collection of straw hats from the turn of the century than Matthew Gourley. Mike?

Who's Mike? He's the guy I'm gonna replace you with. He's really great. I keep, we have one more meeting with him, Sax and I, and then he's on board. He's fantastic. I keep we have one more meeting with him Sax and I and then he's on board he's fantastic

I wish him well yeah Mike Galaginski fantastic guy alright Galaginski yeah he's wonderful anyway

we'll hit you with that next week alright my guest today is a Grammy award winning singer songwriter who has released more than a dozen albums

over the last four decades her latest album Queens of the Summer Hotel, is available now. I am thrilled. She is with us today, Amy Mann. There's a lot of factors to you. I mean, not just leaving out. What do you mean there's a lot of factors. Leaving out the fact that you just said that you long to do an interview where you really tear somebody apart, where you really hold their- We did that off mic. And I said, I would like to, my fantasy is to really go after someone

who people like. And I think of you as someone who is very much liked. So I was thinking, wouldn't it be funny if I just had all these facts and figures at my disposal? And it was like a 60 minutes takedown of Amy Mann. And people listening were like, what was that all about? But I contend that I'm not universally liked enough for that to have that kind of impact. Although I do applaud the impulse. But I mean, I think you're talking about a Tom Hanks, right? Like that's, you got to go right to the top. Well, I actually have real dirt. I have real dirt on Tom Hanks, which I can't get into. He didn't pay his taxes from 1997 to 2006. I know that for a fact. That's a long stretch. Yeah. And he's a big MAGA guy. He also, he refuses to recycle.

He hates dogs. I know that for a fact. He hates dogs, despises dogs. I think of us as friendly because I've known you a long time. You would always, came on the late night show and shows that followed that many times. You were always really nice to me and I'm a big admirer of yours. And then I got to know you and I think Michael pretty well. You'd come over to my house. I have the occasional shindig, can we call it? Yeah. Hootenanny? Blowout. Blowout. I call it a rave. A full blowout. Occasionally I have a-

We're very blowout people. Yeah, and you're always like, woo! Woo! And you'd bring glow sticks. This is a whole side of Amy Mann that no one knows. The cat in the hat hat. You have a giant cat in the hat hat. You've always done a lot of Molly.

You're always- I'm always rolling. You're always rolling. And you stay till like six in the morning and then make a whole bunch of waffles nobody wants. You're a mess. Boy, those waffles sound good though. That last part sounds kind of like,

now I want to have me at my party. Well, there's a lot to talk about here because like many comedians, I'm fascinated by music. The grass is always greener. I'm close to that, although I know enough to know. Listen, I don't want to go on the road and stay in one of those weird comedy club condos. Like I know enough about it to know that it's probably grim. Right.

Also, I get to travel with people. Right. I can't imagine that it's very fun to be a comic on the road alone. Yeah, that seems crazy and— And depressing. Yeah, and depressing. But I think it's fun when you're young. Yeah, if you're a male and you really like—if you're really into waitresses, it's probably awesome.

We just described me in the 80s to a T. Although I wasn't touring. I was just going to restaurants and trying to chat up waitresses. It's just going to. And it went nowhere. Just leaving really good tips in the hopes that something will pay off. Yeah, and then my move was to leave a really good tip and then go outside and peer in through the window of the Denny's to see them get the tip. And think maybe they'll just look out the window of the Denny's to see them get the tip and think maybe

they'll just look out the window and see me looking back in. Well, you write your name and phone number on the bills. Oh, damn it. I didn't do that part. I mean, that's everybody knows that. Oh, damn it. I wrote my major in college on it. What was your major in college? History and Literature of America, specializing in the literature of the South. I would write that. No waitress ever called me. Of course, they didn't have my number. I didn't leave that. I did leave my social security number. Listen, I really screwed up at being single. It was a big mess. You blew it. You had a lot of opportunities at Denny's. You know, I probably did. Denny's, your occasional sizzler where I would wipe off my own tray. Outback Ste steakhouse.

I used to take women on dates to restaurants where you had to pick up a tray. Oh, no. I ended up marrying them, though. Carrying a tray is very romantic. I got you your tray. Now you hold your tray and I'll hold my tray. But let's talk about this crazy- Yeah, let's talk about music versus comedies.

Yeah, in the eternal Marvel DC struggle between music and comedy because- What is it about music that you are particularly fascinated by? I mean, is it just sort of like a kid's version of it looks cool to be on stage and sweating and having people try to touch the hem of your garment? Yes, but I've had that. Please. Yeah, people want to touch the hem of your garment. Yes, but I've had that, please. Yeah, people want to touch the hem of your garment very often. Yeah, many years I performed comedy dressed as Jesus, and it was a big success.

But no, I guess, okay, I'll tell you exactly. First of all, we have to break this down into categories. One is songwriting. And I've talked to you about this at parties at my house where I have cornered you could write a song. And you very kindly said to me, this is just as we were wrapping up the show. And she said, well, I'll write a song with you. And I thought, well, that's not going to happen. And I would be completely useless to you. I would interfere with your process. Well, obviously you brought a guitar today so we could write a song on the podcast. I did not. I did not. How is that possible? Because, well, I think it's because.

Are we going to have to do an ancillary B-roll podcast at your house? Yeah. Well, I would do a second. I would do one that we sort of edit down. Oh, I'm totally game. We could do that. Totally game for this, by the way. Okay.

All right. I did not. First of all, I think if I had showed up today with a guitar, I'd have felt like an asshole. Yeah. Because I don't think that would be fair to you. No, you said one time at a party. I know. You said we were going to write a song.

So look what I brought. I brought a Telecaster and it's already plugged into this really cool amp. And you're going to make a song with me right now. No, I don't. That is, by the way, my singing voice. It's got a very interesting timbre. Have you tried to write songs? I've never tried to write a song. Not even like... I have to say that I remembered as a young man when I was playing the guitar and learning it,

I was obsessed with writing a song and it was always the same chord progression. It was E, with writing a song and it was always the same chord progression. It was E, then it would go to F sharp minor, then it would go to A, and it kept sounding like every Lou Reed song you've ever heard. I mean, that's probably accurate. Yes. And I'm telling anyone out there who doubts me, you just sort of muffle the strum a little bit and you go E, E, E, E, E, E, E, A minor, F sharp minor, and then you go to A, A, A, A, A.

And it was just like, it's like, yes, this song, this is going to get me laid. I'm going to be, yeah, this song is going to be dark and interesting. Dark and interesting because those are dark and interesting. That's a dark, interesting progression. I'm going to seem brooding. I'm going to seem like I have a problem that only you, my darling, sweet, lovely lady can fix. Yes. Yeah.

No one else understands me but the woman I'm singing, the waitress at Denny's I'm singing this to right now. one in comedy is that there is a, and you will probably disagree with me, but from our perspective, people on this comedy side, there's a lack of judgment. Now, yes, there's, I'm sure there's all these horror stories you could tell me of working your way up and you're in Boston and you're playing these cruddy clubs and people are throwing cod at each other in the audience and you're trying to- That's what we do in Boston. Trust me, I know. We're going to have a cod fight. Everyone tossing cod at each other while you're trying to.

It's scrod. It's scrod. Scrod, cod, you know, exactly. You're going to eat scrod. And, but I understand that. But at a certain point, everyone shuts up when you start to play your song. Not always. When was the last time people talked as you were performing, Amy Mann?

I mean, listen, if you were playing a bar in Chicago. Yes. Look, I love Chicago, but it is the chattiest city. Yeah. And they're not throwing scrubs. They're throwing various types of sausage. Spice sauce. That's very deep dish pizza.

Deep dish pizza flying around, which can really, when you're hit with, you know, thin crust, you get hit, not a problem. Not a problem. You get hit with deep dish and you're in terrible, terrible trouble. I was thinking about you today before this interview and I was thinking, I know for a fact that your independence and your, I think, confidence was probably hard won because of the way you grew up. You don't sound like someone who had the most cheerful childhood. No, it's not cheerful. Well, first of all, there's this crazy story, which I've known for a while, but the crazy story of you more or less being kidnapped when you're three years old. Yeah, I was one of those, you know, my parents split up.

My mother, everyone's gone now so I can, you know, talk about it. But my mother had had an affair with this guy and I think got pregnant by him. And they decided that they would run off together because he was married and he had kids. And he knew in 1963 nobody's giving him custody of his kids. So, you know, they hatched this plan to take his kids and take me and not my brother. I don't know why. I think my brother is probably a little too old. You know, I was like a very-

I think you were three, weren't you? I was three. He was five, but he was like a very smart and aware five and also a five that would like call stuff out, where I was a very acquiescent, you know, very easily controlled three. And they took all these kids and ran off and this, you know, And she was pregnant or she had just had a baby. And they ran off. They ran off to Europe. They fled the country. Yeah. Yeah. They went to Europe because I remember being in Amsterdam and I remember

being in Germany and we landed in London or the outskirts of London. And that's where we were found. And you were found because your dad hired a private detective to track you down. He and this guy's wife hired a private detective. And so, you know, we're kind of trading tips and, you know, trying to track everybody down. And he actually found him by accident because he was having – he was in advertising. And this guy had worked for him just to make everything more – So not the perfect crime. Yeah, just more awful. Wait, I know this guy had worked for him just to make everything more. So not the perfect crime. Yeah, just more awful.

Wait, I know this guy. Yeah. So he was having lunch with somebody else in the advertising business who was from New York, I think. And the guy was like, oh, I ran into somebody who used to work for you and said his name. And my father was like, oh, really? Where was he? Where is he living? And that's how he tracked him down. Wow. Okay. So then you're brought back and you're growing up in the South. Yeah. Whereabouts in the South? Richmond. Yeah. Richmond, Virginia. And you described this thing that makes sense to me, which is that being a woman growing up in the 60s, 70s was not a piece of cake.

The kind of cliche thing of telling your kids, you know, or, you know, your daughters, like, you can be anything you want. Like, that was exactly the opposite of my experience. just understood that women were dumber and that women couldn't do stuff, but also that, I don't know, there was kind of this atmosphere that if you wanted to do something that women didn't usually do, you were literally going against nature. And it was like almost a crime against nature if you, you know, if you want, I mean, like literally I wanted to play the bass and, you know. And your family, when you said, I want to play the bass, their reaction was? Oh, they laughed at me.

It was just hilarious laughter at the very idea that... I mean, I can't even come up with an analog today because women do. They're in the army. They're doctors. But it was so outlandish. Well, when the Talking Heads came along in the late 70s and 80s, it was, oh, look, the bass player is a woman. Yeah. And it almost felt like a novelty, which now is insulting.

But I remembered my mother, if one of my sisters was chewing gum, she'd be like, take that gum out of your mouth. You're chewing gum. And the implication is always like you're making yourself unattractive so that you won't get a husband. Oh my God. You know, like I'm 12 and I like football. Like, what's the problem? Right. And also we don't need to marry me off just yet. This is in 1851. Yeah, but it's- You're 12. It's time to have a child. But you have to be trained, Conan, into, you know, into your job is to be attractive at all times.

Well, that's, I mean, but I remember noticing, wait a minute, my mother doesn't care if I chew gum. She doesn't care if I- Boy, that really is a, I mean- She had a different standard. Gum chewing, that it's down to gum chewing. Yeah, and this was, and keep in mind, this is an ancient history. This is the 19, this is like 1983. Why are you chewing gum?

Get that gum out of your mouth. Meanwhile, my brothers and I are in the backyard, you know, we're in the backyard shoving dirt in our mouths and swallowing it. We're just animals. We're like, we're like wild apes. And she's like, well, those boys, what can be done? Now listen to me. What can be done? Well, it's out of my hands. I have a very clear memory of the first time that you were introduced to me as a musical artist. I know

that you would spend a lot of time in Boston because you'd gone to Berkeley and you got involved in the music scene in Boston. Yeah. And you were with a punk band for a while that was called- The Young Snakes. The Young Snakes. Yeah. Kind of like an art rock, noisy- Right. Yeah. And one of an art rock, noisy. But there was definitely, you know, in the sort of punk new wave scene that anything melodic or anything that was like a love song was definitely like that was out. Right. You know, like I was banned to, I was friends with one of their songs was the lyrics were a recipe for shrimp flambé. You know, it was all like, just weird, whatever the weirdest.

Was it accurate? If you listen to the whole song, did you actually get a good recipe for shrimp flambé? That's a great question. Did they follow the recipe exactly? Then simmer! Simmer for 15 minutes, don't let it brown! I mean, that's very useful, right? Like a whole, you mix the cooking show and music

into one new genre. I used to do this performance around Serenite Live just for new genre. I used to do this performance around Star Not Live just for writers, but I used to do, what if Led Zeppelin had gotten into a period of their career where the songs were really just about useful tips for staying healthy. Then I would do Robert Plant like, you know, chew thoroughly before swallowing. Helps with digestion.

And people, I just love the idea of a hard rock band that was trying to tell you, sleep's important. Try to get eight hours, nine if you can. But still the same sound. Do, do, do, do. Yeah, yeah. Same heavy sound. Same, you know, John Bonham drums, same cool rock parts. And then everything is, some sun is good in moderation, probably good to put on, you know, sunscreen when you go outside.

Then you get into that schoolhouse rock stuff, right? Yeah, exactly. And all of those songs were fantastic. Great songs. Great songs. Great songs. I mean, and also it's still how I understand how our legislative process works is I play over how a bill becomes a bill on Capitol Hill. That's amazing. That song's amazing. Yeah, it is a great song, but I still to this day will be reading the New York Times and they'll be saying, yeah, you know, mansion, cinema, they may.

And I'm like, okay, yeah, hold on a second. Let me see if I can follow this. And I go back to Schoolhouse Rock and I'm like i got this i understand exactly what's happening let me get back to the bridge and then i'll understand but i find it terrifying because now we are able to listen to early versions of songs from just about any like so you can hear the demo yeah for a song the beatles do on the white album you can hear the demo for a song that Beatles do on the White Album. You can hear the demo. And I think, how did you ever get from that point to the song being the song? Part of the answer, though, to that, Conan, is that McCartney is a fucking savant.

Yeah. And he obviously can hear all the arrangements in his head, all the different instruments all playing at once. He can hear it. That's why he's always a little surprised that George isn't hearing it. George is a great guitar player who has to work out some parts and try some stuff and live with it and like, no, that doesn't work, which is what most mortals do. But he can just hear it. I think he's going to go places. I really do. He's going to work out for that young man. And you can see too,

like how he's translating every experience into music at all times. Right. This is savagely name droppy and awful. And I apologize for that, but let's just, all I can say is that I was allowed to attend a party once and Paul McCartney was there and it was a dinner party. uh and paul mccartney was there and um it was a dinner party and as the party's breaking up i walk into the next room and he's picked up a guitar and he's playing it and he's not doing it like hey look at me i'm paul mccartney i'm playing the guitar he's doing it the way someone who kind of likes the guitar would pick up a guitar the interesting thing is it is a right-handed guitar and he's famously left-handed. So he's playing it upside down and sideways.

He's playing it. Oh, my God. But he's playing it correctly. He's making it work. And I just said – I said, I don't understand how you're able to play – I know you're left-handed. I don't understand how you're able to play that. When he went, well, you know, I had to swap a guitar. I had to swap off back and forth with John.

And if I had restrung John's guitar, he'd have crippled me. That's what he said. If I had restrung John's guitar, he'd have crippled me. So I had to figure out how to play it that way. Wow. And he's got that way of making, even when he speaks, it's kind of musical. Yeah. And it's a song in itself.

And I'm just telling you how to go. Just take a left and then take a right and pass the pizza shop and you'll get there. And you're like, wow, that's a song. You just told me how to get to the pizza shop. I mean, that's all he has to do is drop John in. Like someone can say, these baked potatoes, Paul, are really good. How'd you make them?

I remember John told me once, oh my God. What did he tell you? Oh, just put foil around him and it keeps the skins nice and crispy. Everything becomes a legend. Everything becomes a legend. My iPhone, I didn't bring the cord, but it's the new kind of receptor for the cord. It's the universal.

It's not the old. I remember John once saying, with an iPhone, you've got to have the right cord. I don't think John, oh, he did. He told me. He'd cripple me if I took his iPhone cord. We're talking about the Beatles, but I feel when I listen to your music, I'm aware that you've made a million decisions in the studio. They sound like all the right decisions to me, and I don't know how that happens. You know, you hire the right musicians that you know are going to play tasteful stuff, and then they'll play something.

You go, oh, keep that. Were I a musician and a recording artist, my one move would be, let's get strings in here. I would put strings on everything. Yeah. Cello, violin, big orchestra, over the shittiest music you've ever heard. And I would just say, get me the London Philharmonic. Well, when we record the song that we write together. We should do that, yeah.

We can do an orchestral arrangement and just do it bring in giant strings no I'm serious yeah schedule me in I will do this you and I are going to

write a song together it's going to get nasty when we work out the publishing that's when you're going to you're famously argumentative I'm

you know a parsonomious you'll be like wait a minute Conan I'm Amy, you know. A person of this. You'll be like, wait a minute, Conan. I'm Amy Mann. I've been doing this a long time and I'm quite acclaimed. No, it's O'Brien Mann and I get 70%. I also get all the merch. All the merch.

Yeah. I want the merch. Our two heads on a t-shirt. But I remember that first hit, Voices Carry, my sister Kate, who I think really did feel like she was under the yoke of this. And again, I'll repeat, I had lovely parents. They're fantastic people and I love them very much, but they came from a different world. And so your song came along with the video and my sister Kate was just transfixed because it was all about, you know, Voices Carry is all about keep your voice down,

let me control you. And it was, she, that song was like a liberation song for her, you know, which was really great. Well, that's fantastic. That's a really nice thing. Yeah. You know, I didn't, I mean, I have to say, I didn't even write it for that, but. You didn't write it for my sister? No, I mean, I didn't write it like as, you know, necessarily a feminist anthem. Right.

You know, I think that when it came time to make the video, that kind of, that sort of idea was in the air. I mean, it's like very, very heavy handed and. Who's the guy in the video? like very, very heavy handed. And who's the guy in the video? I don't know. The director cast him. And when I saw him, I was like, oh, come on. Like, how did you like, give me some credit.

I'm not going to go out with this muscle bound. Right. You know, it's so funny because I was watching the video again today, you know, in preparation for this interview, I just was like checking out a lot of stuff. And I went back and I looked at that video and this guy is over the top. Like you're thinking, why would Amy for a second be with this guy who's- Oh no, not even for a second. And I encourage you to, the guy is just like, what are you doing?

Why is your hair like that? I know, he's like such a mustache twirling villain. Yeah, mustache twirling bad guy. He practically ties you to a train track. But what's really funny is the first comment that I saw on the internet was, this guy had one job. It was to be an asshole, and he nailed it. But putting in his song, I mean, I think that sort of case in point of Voices Carry is,

you know, I wrote it about a friend of mine, a male friend of mine, who's talking about a relationship he had where the girl didn't want to be affectionate with him in public, like made him, you know, like, don't keep your voice down. Don't tell people we're going out. But I think the reason I related to that story was probably my history. in a song that, you know, you can disguise, you can have a metaphor that maybe is a little oblique that people might get or might not get, but you can say what you fucking think and feel, uh, you know? And I think that if, if you grow up in a way where you're able to say what you think and feel, you don't necessarily need that. I mean, I wonder if that's what, if I would have been, if I would have gravitated towards that so, so I felt like I had parents I could talk to. Right. Now, of course, people will want to know when you had success, did your parents change their minds? Did they come around and is that satisfying or is it not cure

the fact that they laughed at you when you said you wanted to play bass? I think that my, I had grown up with a stepmother. My real mother, you know, once I was brought back, I didn't see her again until I was an adult. My stepmother was really the one who was really, you know, the don't chew gum model. the don't chew gum model. And I think that she really was very excited that I was getting famous and wanted to be around that a lot. And that was uncomfortable. So, you know, she wanted to take credit for it. So she would tell people how she, she started me out, uh, you know. Oh, really? Yeah. There was a lot of that. So.

Revisionist history. So that was kind of uncomfortable yeah yeah um my father i feel like my father was just very disengaged from from the family and i i never felt like he you know was necessarily judgmental of me you know he sort of accepted me but but at the same time like you know my stepmother really ran the show so you know you can't do that because your girl stuff was really just percolated in the family because I had three brothers. So, you know, you have three brothers and you have somebody who's told they can't do a thing. And then that person becomes the scapegoat, you know, of the family. Like, ha ha, you can't do it and we can, you know, because kids always like to have somebody who's, you know, they can step on, I guess. Humans do. I mean, I've heard about families where the siblings are, you know, support each other,

but I literally can't imagine. Yeah. And then there's like the secret tools that you don't really know you have that sort of you realize later. And I think for me, one of those was that I'm very persistent, you know, I'm quietly persistent, if not stubborn. And, you know, there's just some things like, I don't know, like starting my own label and getting off major labels and stuff. I just, you know, I mean. Which you did. I mean, now that feels very common today, but when you started doing it, it was not common. Yeah. When I, at that point it was really, you were on a major label or nothing, you know. Right.

And, you know, the internet had just kind of sprouted up a little bit so that you could go to a website and then, you know, order a record by phone. I don't even think you could have ordered it online the way you did. I love that the internet was, you're still on the phone with the same guy at the record store. That's exactly right. Yeah. What do you want? Okay. Yeah.

That's, that was the early internet that people don't understand. Write this post, you know, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to this post office box. Yeah. I love that. So,

but that was what? Early 2000. That's, that's. Yeah. 1999. 1999, 2000.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, but that's also i mean it's like once again that kind of stems from dysfunction like i don't i don't trust anybody i'm sick of it like fuck you i'm gonna do it myself um it takes what it takes but i think also quite uh persistence is a quality people don't talk about a lot as part of the creative process and i think it's a huge part of the creative process yeah people think a lot of it is inspiration. And I think inspiration's fine. It's almost none of it. Like 5%. I mean, great. If you, you know, if you're walking along and you suddenly have an idea, a song pops into your head, or one of those people who are like, I had a dream and then I woke up and wrote it down. Fuck paul mccartney like yeah you know must be nice

uh i guess occasionally that happens but for me it's really about like just pick up the guitar and do you know and just just keep at it yeah put in some hours you know play this play that imitate a song play the chord progression from this other song and see as an exercise to see if you an alternate melody occurs to you know like whatever it's just you know keep at it you just reminded me of i talked to elvis costello on this podcast fairly recently and i didn't get to talk to him about this on the podcast but he did a really lovely thing which is you know there's this new uh star i guess she was a disney star and then she came out this album olivia rodrigo and she came out with this album and it was this big hit and got a lot of attention. And of course, immediately people came out of the woodwork and said, well, this song sounds a lot like that song

from 10 years ago. And this, you know, she's almost like she's ripping people off. And I thought people were giving her a hard time by one of her songs, which they said, this just sounds like a ripoff of Elvis Costello, some Elvis Costello song. And he immediately went online and said, what are you talking about? I got that song because I was thinking about this other song that was famous, and that's where that song came from. He said, we all are constantly listening to what came before us and reinventing it and trying to make new magic.

And I thought that was really lovely. That's very generous. It's very generous because I think we're, you know, in this age now where everyone can access a song immediately and it's become kind of in vogue to say,

hey, wait a minute, you ripped off X, Y, and Z. Yeah. This one part sounds a lot like and, you know, you think. Yeah, there's always going to be, you're going to stumble across

like, you know, a couple of notes that sound, that remind you of another thing and, you know, and I'm sure I've done that but, I mean, sometimes it's deliberate because you want the flavor of that quote in there, you know? Right. I mean, Elvis is another savant, right? Like he's unbelievable. He's unbelievable. I've never seen

a person with so much going on and so much, so much energy to, and so many ideas. I mean, I think he is kind of like pure inspiration. Yeah. He's also, what I find helps me a lot as a song with a lot of changes that come pretty quickly. Some of my fascination with guitar is just that it keeps my hands busy. You know, it's doing something that's calming me down. Yeah. And I think music, you know, something that's calming me down. Yeah. And I think music,

you know, is kind of an organized chaos, right? It's, it's the organization of chaos. Like it's probably that the perfect thing for, yeah, for, for your restless hands.

Yeah. Well, there you go. There you go. Yeah. Which is the title of our new record. So we're going to do this. We're going to make, we're going to do this. We're going to make...

We're going to do it. We're going to make a song together, and we're going to get it out there. But I... Yeah, this is our pledge to your listening audience. Yeah. So now we have to release it. Yes. This song is going to have...

We have to write it. Michael will record it for us because he's already made that offer. He's brilliant. He's a great producer. I mean, he's one of those guys who's like, I can play anything. Which is frustrating. And I can also engineer and produce. So I don't need anybody else.

So this is one of my favorite moments that embarrasses me in hindsight. But cornering you and Michael Penn in getting you guys cornered and saying, hey, guys, isn't the bridge to I Can See Clearly Now really strange? And you guys were like, huh, I haven't really thought about it. I'm like, but check it out. So this is the song and it's pretty normal. But then you get to the bridge and I was trying to figure it out. And you guys were being so sweet. You're listening to me and I'm showing you.

But then it goes to E minor. But then it goes to this. But then it goes to that. But why would it go to this and go to that? And you guys were like, that's great. Merry Christmas. No, you were very sweet about it. But afterwards I said, oh, I can't believe. That's great. Are they carving the roast beef in the next room? Is there ham in that room? But I remember just afterwards talking out loud, lying in bed going,

I cornered these two musical savants and told them that I had figured out the bridge to I Can See Clearly Now. Well, what's funny about that is like my experience of it is like, oh my God, what am I as dum-dum that I can't remember that bridge?

Like I could not, I couldn't even remember it. I could say, look all around, there's nothing but blue skies. Yeah. That's probably why because it's sort of an anomaly. Yeah, it's a weird, crazy bridge.

It belongs to a different song. Yes, but it's also complete genius at the same time. Sometimes it's fun to have a bridge that really jumps out. I'm excited. You and I are going to record a song together. Michael's going to produce it. And again, then I'm just going to hammer you. Are you going to sing it? Can again, then I'm just going to hammer you. Are you going to sing it?

Can you sing? I mean, no offense. I'm not implying that you can't sing because you did sing just now, but in a funny voice. Can you sing in a not funny voice? That wasn't a funny voice. That was the best voice that I had. How would you tell if I could sing? I know.

I don't know. Silent night. This is. How would you tell if I could sing? I know. I don't know. Silent night. This is- Holy night. See, how can we keep- All is calm. We can't write a comedy song. All is-

We can't. We're not Alan Sherman. Okay. We can't do- Listen, maybe you'll handle the vocals. We're not Adam Sandler. I know. I know.

I know. We'll- We'll figure it out. We're not Adam Sandler. I know, I know, I know. We'll figure it out. We're going to figure it out. Yeah, we'll figure it out. But I want our listeners to be, this is going to be a collaboration, which means if it's any good, Amy Mann will do 98% of it, and I'll be on cowbell. That's how we'll figure this out. But this was delightful. I wanted to talk to you for a long time and actually have this conversation.

Yeah, me too. This was really nice. Well, I'm no longer apprehensive. Oh, really? What have you switched to? You're now, how do you feel about being Conor Bryan's friend now? Enthusiastic. Oh, good.

Until you find out what the publishing deal is on our song. My people will call you. My people will tear your people to shreds. We will send you, we will FedEx you some papers to sign. Amy, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you. This was great. This was very fun.

As you guys know, I love gossip. I love my tea. Isn't that true, Sona? Yeah, you love your hot gossip. I love my tea. Isn't that true, Sona? Yeah, you love your hot gossip. I call it tea. Isn't that something that I should be? I don't think you can say I love my tea. I don't know if that's the way it works.

And it sounds weird coming from you anyway. Also, often when I say it, I just like an actual tea, a chamomile. I think that's what you mean. Yeah, I don't mean. Yeah, Conan, this segment's supposed to be about gossip, not tea. Well, my enthusiasm level just dropped incredibly, because I have all these facts at my

disposal about different blends, your English breakfast, your Scottish lunch. Did you research tea before this segment, thinking we were going to talk about tea? I take these segments seriously, and I went to the library, because that's the were going to talk about tea. I take these segments seriously. And I went to the library because that's the only place to get information.

And I went through the library cards, the Dewey Decimal System. But now that I know that it's about gossip, I'm even more excited because I love gossip. I love, and as you say, Sona, I loves my hot goss. So I'm very happy to report that Team Coco finally has a gossip expert in the house, comedian Solomon Giorgio.

Very happy that he's on board. Yes. Hi, hello. That's Solomon laughing there. Solomon, I love anyone who just giggles at their own name. That is your actual name, Solomon. Oh, yeah. Every time I hear it, I'm like, are you sure? Yeah, yeah.

Trust me, my first name gets a laugh out of me every time. But anyway, Solomon has been in the Team Coco family for a while. He's appeared at our live shows. He's been on the late night show. And just before the world went on lockdown, Solomon hit send on a tweet that changed his life. The tweet was, I don't care about celebrity gossip. Give me small scale gossip.

And you had no idea what you were gonna get back when you sent that tweet out, did you, Solomon? No, I did not. I did not expect hundreds of responses to truly the most, just an afterthought that I had just in the middle of the day. Yeah. The tweet went viral. Complete Stranger started sending Solomon their juiciest stories. Now he's serving them up on The Juice, a brand new podcast from Team Coco, featuring Solomon and a celebrity guest discussing low stakes gossip stories. It's low stakes and very high on the petty. Yes. I think, which is, I always like petty gossip.

I love a good petty. I've held every grudge my entire life. Oh. Not a single one has been let go. The Irish, all we're really known for is very green grass and the ability to hold a grudge for thousands of years over the smallest thing. How you put the stone on my side of the farm? It should stay on your side of the farm.

And then they're bitter about it for a thousand years. Anyway, Solomon, thanks for being with us. And you've brought some juicy gossip to share. I want to hear this because I want to weigh in. I'm a very wise man. Well, this, actually, I brought some historical gossip, some stuff from the past

because gossip has been around for a while. It's been like segments in newspapers for the longest time. Yeah, I have many gossips. Gossip's been around, I mean, it's been around

for a while. I think right after Adam and Eve were kicked out of, you know, Eden, gossip started. Yeah, really. About these two, this naked man and woman

and what was with a snake and how come the apple? And so, yes, it's been with us since day one and it's probably kept the earth churning. And I respect it. So Conan and Matt,

I know that you both are history buffs. So these are historical pieces of gossip that we put together for you. These historical pieces of gossip come from the Hamilton Evening Journal,

August 6th, 1892. Ooh. Yeah. A woman not a thousand miles from Richmond was without doubt the most flurried female in seven counties when she discovered, after coming out of church Sunday, that her brand new hat was adorned with a tag

whereupon was inscribed the legend reduced to 275. Oh my god. How humiliating for her. She bought a hat on sale? the tag whereupon was inscribed the legend reduced to 275. Oh my God. So how humiliating for her. Yeah. She bought a hat on sale. She bought a hat on sale and was probably humiliated because it made the paper. Right.

It made the paper, but also like she's leaving church. She's supposed to not, she's supposed to have the newest hat, I'm assuming because it's a church function. Yeah. The Sunday finest. She showed up with a cheap hat and she didn't,

she didn't take the tag off. Also this, this just shows you how little was happening in the news that day. Or what a bad newspaper it was. Because what if this was the same day that like President Garfield was shot and they were like, what should we do? The president's been shot in a train station in Washington.

Wait a minute, this just over the transom. Stop the press. Stop the press. Stop the presses. The president, he'll either live or die. There's nothing we can do about it. But, you know,

Enid Crabtree just wore a reduced hat at the Methodist church. We've got to get this out there. Do you remember Minnie Pearl? She used to wear a hat with the tag hanging down. Is this in reference to that?

Oh, no, no, it can't be. No, no, no, no. This was a very, I don't think Minnie Pearl knew about this story. She might have. Is that what you're saying? Like, look, Minnie Pearl might be all knowing. She might be the woman.

That would make Minnie Pearl, who I'm going to guess passed away like 10 years ago. So she would have been, I don't know, 120 when she died. I'm sorry. Could happen. Who's Minnie Pearl? Exactly. A rapper that just hit huge, just out of, you gotta know what's going on, right?

Straight out of Oakland. No, Minnie Pearl. Oh, that's Minnie Pearl. Yeah, Minnie Pearl, famous, was at the Grand Ole Opry. She was a comedian and then she was on Hee Haw. She was a, you know, big time comic in her day. And that was her trademark, was a tag hanging from her hat.

So those are things, I love that you're learning, Sona, about the history of women in comedy. Yes, from you, a man in comedy. It makes sense. Sort of in comedy, I guess. I don't know. It's unclear to me what I'm doing anymore.

It is just the reduced price hat is sort of the thing that's like you can't, it is gauche. You can't be caught in that situation. So MiniPro's doing like a nice little tip to something that's happened to too many women, unfortunately. Of course, nowadays, to get to elicit the same kind of scandal, you'd probably just have to walk naked.

Do you know what I mean? Out of a church that you just set on fire to get the same amount of attention. This society has changed so much. I don't think if someone saw a reduced sale tag, also that would look cool. Like, I think, aren't there a lot of celebrities who like to let it out there

that I only spent $8 on this or I only spent, this was only $15 and you're seen as thrifty, which is cool. And there is a fashion to keep the stickers on your ball cap for a long time too. But also like it shows like how different our society was. People like talk about cancel culture. Like she got canceled for wearing a reduced price hat.

We hope she was just canceled. She may have been run out of town. Or murdered. Murdered. Yeah, who knows? We don't know. The stakes were very high back in the 1890s.

And so we don't know what happened to her. I think it's just safe to assume that she was dismembered. She was dismembered. Dismembered. Maybe she was going to return the hat after church. So she left dismembered. She was dismembered. Dismembered. Maybe she was going to return the hat after church, so she left the tag on.

And a lot of influencers do that now where they buy expensive clothes, keep the tags on, and then return it after they take photos for their social media. I feel like that's, I think back in the past, all sales were final.

I think that's usually. Also, she was also responsible for the first selfie as she came out of the church. She waited. She waited while a guy with a camera set up the tripod, put the flash powder on the pan, put his head underneath that big sheet,

and then set the daguerreotype levels to the correct settings, and she had to stand still for 40 minutes for her selfie. Wait, that's not a selfie. She had to get under that curtain herself. Yeah, she got under the curtain. She got under the curtain. She got everything just right.

Then she lit the flash powder and jumped back into frame. And it was the first recorded selfie, August 6th, 1892. Look it up. Solomon, what else you got? The city of Humboldt in Kansas has a young woman's military band that goes around playing for picnics and celebrations. It may be all right for a woman to play on a brass horn, but it makes the lips hard just the same. What? What year are we talking about here?

1892, same. This is also happening in 1892. Yes. Women were just going insane at this time. I know. So like she'd walk around town and everybody'd be like, oh, there's hard-lipped Sheila over there. Don't go near her.

Yeah, it was actually a whole women's band, a military band on top of that. So they were in the military. So wait a minute. Wow. I'm confused. It does make the lips hard was considered a bad thing. Yeah, that's the part that I'm trying,

like I feel like is it just because they're all women and they shouldn't be getting their lips hard and that's against the rules? I think so. I don't understand. I don't know, but it sounds kind of sexual. Yeah, they've been put out to pasture. Get your lips hard.

Oh, I think it's that their lips have been spoiled now. They don't have soft lips anymore. Oh, okay. I was saying the way it was written sounded sexual. Yeah. I like a hard-lipped woman. What about like chapped, crusty lips like that? I like that too.

That sounds great. You know? Oh, yeah. Honestly, smooth lips, really, they just don't tell a story. And that's what I think the issue is. Yeah. I think that's, I'm with Solomon on this one. Anyone can have smooth lips.

That just means you haven't lived life. But give me a hard lipped woman whose lips are chapped, crusty, flaking. I want... You want her to leave some of her lips on you. Yes, exactly. Yes.

Oh, come on. I want it to feel like- What? I want it to feel like I just kissed a freshly sandblasted banister. And that's what I like. Hey, that's what, I swear to God, first thing when I saw my wife way back in 2000

across the room, first thing, when I saw my wife way back in 2000 across the room, first thing I shouted was, yo, you got some hard lips. And then I said, give me some of that skin chap. Oh, God. Yeah, I said, flake me up, baby. Anyway, she refused. Oh, no. Yeah, it took me a year to recover just from that.

She got a restraining order. But then about a year later, she had forgotten that I said that. I said that that was someone else and she believed it. So we got past it. I'll ask her. This is good gossip. I like this.

I like historical gossip. This is good. I like my, I like, I call it the goo. Give me the goo. Don't I always say that, Sona? The goo, yeah. You do,, I like, I call it the goo. Give me the goo. Don't I always say that, Sona? The goo, yeah. You do, yeah. I say, what's the goo?

What's the goo? And to me, that just means the gooey, sweet gossip, the goo. That's what I like. I like that. Num, num, num, num, num, num, num. My favorite memory, I used to work at the JCPenney, the suit department, and I would just go hang out with women in the perfume department,

and they would smoke menthols, and then we'd watch Passions, and the entire time, we would just swap stories of gossip so that's like that's always going to be that sounds amazing you watched passions i loved i watched it too yeah oh my god that was the best soap it was it was a fever dream of a soap opera i was just gonna say it was a fever i didn't see this soap opera what made it so great had witches and a like it had a living doll it was very very wild yeah living had witches. It had a living doll. It was very, very wild. Yeah, living doll.

A little person played a living doll and it was all shot on early video too. Oh, I remember. I didn't watch it, but I remembered everybody was talking about it. It was insane. It was off its rocker. Crazy. Bring back passions.

That's all I came here for. That's all. Yeah. You know what I want to do? I want to, let's see if we can't use our resources, Solomon, and get some behind the scenes gossip from the making of the show, Passions.

I bet we can get something good going there. I'm sure I can. I probably can do that. I'm going to actually do it right now after this. Yeah, yeah. I can't think of a better use of too adult time than to drop everything. Too adult time.

Too adult time. All right, well, what are you gonna do? This has been a lot of fun. And I'm very happy that you're getting to do what you love. That's the trick in life, Solomon. Find out what you love and then trick people into're getting to do what you love. That's the trick in life, Solomon. Find out what you love and then trick people into paying you to do it. And congratulations, sir.

You've done that. And just a reminder, everybody, from workplace romances at Denny's to moms with secret lovers, oh my God. Each week, Solomon sources only the best everyday gossip from comedians, performers, and listeners like you. In fact, I went on the juice. I had a blast.

Sona, I think you did as well, right? I did. I had so much fun. I really did. Talking to Solomon was awesome. Well, he's here listening. Allegedly. Of course you're gonna say that.

Yeah, allegedly. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I know. I was paying him a compliment. Yeah, but you're on Zoom and I saw you do air quotes and he was awesome. So insulting, so insulting.

Do you think he's God? I hope he's God. No, I don't think so. I saw him, he's crying now. He's visibly crying. So do with that what you will, but probably crying about something else. Yeah, but anyway, no, it really is fun.

New episodes of The Juice are out every week. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. And thank you, Solomon. Thank you so much. Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sona Movsesian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Joanna Solitaroff,

and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering by Will Beckton. Additional production support by Mars Melnick.

Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista and Britt Kahn. Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 323-451-2821 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.