Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Chris Martin

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Musician Chris Martin feels really great about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Chris sits down with Conan to discuss the voices that encouraged him, the improbable story of finding drummer Will Champion, using SubPacs to make Coldplay concerts more accessible, and more. Plus, Conan responds to a curious listener’s voicemail about his “sock game.”

Hi, my name is Chris Martin and I feel really great about being Conan O'Brien's friend. Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. I'm a professional podcaster named Conan O'Brien. I've been doing this for a number of years and I'm real pro. I'm the gold standard by which everybody has judged now. Sitting here with Sona. Sona, wouldn't you call me the gold standard? No, I wouldn't call you the gold standard. I think there's people who've done it longer than you. And much better. Yeah, much better. I think you're good. I think you're fine. I think you're okay. I have a story about the phrase, the gold standard that involves the great Johnny Carson. Oh. Yeah, I had the privilege of getting to meet him a couple of times and talked to him on the phone a few times.

And I remember once I sent him, I was hosting some special in the history of NBC on late night, I think 50 years. So I got the chance to, with my staff, we cut together these montages of every late night hosts, cut together all of their best stuff. So Letterman, Jack Parr, everybody, Steve Allen, I got to reach out and contact them and send them their stuff. Letterman from his late night show. And of course, Johnny Carson. And then I got a call. I didn't expect, I just thought it would be... This is before email, I think, but I thought I'd just get a message that Johnny Carson either approved or didn't. And then I get this call and they say, Johnny Carson's on the line for you. And of course, my soul left my... I mean, it was just the biggest star in the world all the time I was growing up and informed everybody's idea of what a late night show was. So I saw the blinking light and I was like, that blinking light is Johnny Carson.

And someone said, no, that's the light that tells you he's on the phone. That's not Johnny. But anyway, I picked up the phone and I hit the button and there's his famous voice and he more or less was telling me that he watched the montage. And he thought it was good. He thought we did a good job and he really liked it. And in the special, I refer to him as the gold standard. I said, of course, Johnny Carson, the gold standard. And he said, I don't really do a Carson impression, but he said something. He said, well, the only thing I will take exception to is you referred to me as the gold standard kind of a self deprecating thing. That's the only thing I disagree with you called me the... It felt like a little much. You called me the gold standard.

And I said, well, keep in mind, Johnny, that gold has been greatly devalued. I got a little chuckle. I'm not going to say I got a huge laugh, but I got a little chuckle and I was so happy. That's so cool. Yeah. What else do you guys talk about? He then started going on and on about what a huge fan he was of mine. No, he didn't. No, we actually had a really nice conversation. It wasn't that long.

I don't like to over-represent things, but it was really special. I got to tell him that one of my favorite old Carson clips was he used to do this character, Art Fern. Oh, yeah. And Art Fern had this famous thing where he was like a fast talking pitchman kind of. And he was telling you how to go someplace in LA to buy a certain product. And at one point he just... And I was telling Johnny Carson this. I said, oh my God, every time my writers see this segment of Art Fern that we show with this line in it, we die laughing. And so I said, it's the one where you're Art Fern and you're saying, do this, get on the 101, then switch to the 134, then get on the Fire Freeway.

And he says, then take the slosson cutoff and he says, then get out of your car and cut off your slosson. And my writers... Ooh! And he says, and it's the way he kind of rides up on his toes a little bit and he goes, he says, take the slosson cutoff, get out of your car, cut off your slosson. And he's got this big pointer he keeps hitting the board with. And my writers and I, we like to think that we're edgy, young, hot shots. We just watch that clip and every time he does that joke, we burst out laughing. It's timeless. When you brought up Art Fern, I almost said, cut off your slosson.

Cut off your slosson. I'm glad I didn't. And I said, we see that. And I said, that joke is funny every time. And he said, it was kind of just a nice woman because he said, yeah, he said it is. He said, and he kind of chuckled and he went, I don't know why. And then, you know, the conversation was over pretty quickly, but it was just really nice to be able to tell him, you know, how much he meant to all these young writers still, you know, this is years and years after he retired. So that was nice.

That's really nice. I have that memory until I lose it. Slosson is penis. Yes. Oh, okay. In this case. Yes. It's a street.

I wish, you know what? Oh, yes, I know the street. Okay. Yes. He would have loved it because he loved people like you. So I'm not even kidding. No, no, no, no. I'm serious.

If you had been on set, he would have loved if, if he'd said, get out of your car, cut off your Slosson. And if you would said, wait a minute, is Slosson penis? Now, of course, that would have shut down the network in 1974. But still, he would have thought that was really funny. Yeah. It was when Saturday Night Live did that sketch at the nudist sketch, wasn't it? That was the first time you were allowed to. I worked on that sketch.

No, you didn't. What don't you talk about? Yeah. You're a penis pioneer. Yeah. In that sense. Robert Smigel, it was, he was the lead person on that sketch. But I worked on that sketch with him and wrote a song at the end, the penis song.

Standards came in. I think it was actually the great Rick Ludwin. And they just said, there's no way you can do this. And we were arguing that like it's part of the anatomy. You should be able to say penis. Of course, now it seems like the most tame thing in the world. But you get weird when people say vagina. Oh, don't do that.

So you would be like, oh, okay. Don't do that. So a sense of vagina? Yeah. Oh, God, please. No. Well, come back. We got to just shut that down.

I had no idea. You were the penis guy. Well, I know you're more as dickhead. Quite a reputation. Of course, my norm to plume is dickhead. But also in some parts of Europe, I'm known as the penis man. Everyone calls me something different. Okay.

Well, I'm very excited about our guest today. He is the co-founder and lead vocalist of the seven time Grammy award winning band Coldplay. The band is currently on its sold out music of the spheres world tour. This one's a little different. He did not come to our studio. It was kind of a fun field trip. I went out to Malibu. Well, fun for me because let me point out that Sona and Matt did not come.

I wanted to lessen our carbon footprint, especially with real big stars. So I just wanted to make sure that everything was just right. We had a proper conversation. Because you know the way you always cut in a lot and say things like, I am hungry. I am hungry. I am always hungry. And he probably would have fed me.

Give me some stew, Chris Martin. Stew? I want a veal stew. Well, yeah, he's from England. They always have a veal stew, Andy. Anyway, I met him. He has this very cool sort of compound out in the Malibu area and got to meet him there. So it wasn't a proper, wouldn't you say this is true, Eduardo?

Not a proper soundproof studio. You will hear some ambient noises. Yes, you might hear a weed wacker here or there. Yeah, and I'm the one operating it. I don't know. No one told me that I was going to hurt the podcast. That's odd. Eduardo, you were there.

You had fun? It was cool. Oh, cool. I'm glad I'm happy for you. Eduardo, did you think the conversation was adversely affected by Sona and Matt not being there? I thought the conversation was great. Here we go. But Adam, you were there too?

Yeah. Okay. Blay? Oh, cool. That's cool. No, I said all necessary personnel. I can't wait to edit this episode down to 20 seconds. Well, it'll be a fun 20 seconds anyway.

Very excited. He's on the pod. Chris Martin, welcome. I feel great about being here with you. I'm a, I don't know what we just did. We tried to high five, but I think I put my hand out in the incorrect way. Well, we reached across the aisle. We did.

We did. I immediately fell in love with you once our hands touched. Yeah. I have to say. Well, I fell in love with you years ago. Oh, that's very sweet. Well, you know, it's nice. You and the gents from Coldplay did the show a number of times and then you came on and

we chatted once, but I've always wanted to do this because every time I've run into you, you seemed like a fascinating, smart, witty guy. But in that other format, I can't just sit and talk to you. In the chat show format. Well, because it's six, seven, no, it is supposed to be the idea, but in America anyway, once you have the band and all the comedy sketches and everything else, you never really get the time to get to know somebody. I also felt that in the chat show hierarchy, singers are right at the bottom.

I don't know if that's true. It's like we've got this guy juggling koalas. He's on before you and a guy that was once on a rerun of a pilot. He's on before you. And then at 2 a.m., we're going to talk to you for one minute and then we're going to cut to... Yeah. I was like, okay, cool.

Chris, in defense, the koala guy was amazing. He was amazing. Those were live koalas. Most of them were not injured. And no, it is funny when, what was I was looking at the other day, I just came across tape of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and they have people doing tricks with monkeys and then it's like time for the Beatles and you're thinking, why would you even have any kind of show other than just you've got the Beatles, you just have them on?

This funny... I'm happy we're talking about this because we just did SNL last week, which we loved doing so much and Pedro Pascal was hosting and he was amazing. And it just reminded me that it's great to have someone famous come on TV, but it's really great to have someone who really knows what they're doing and can act and I think it's the same for talk shows. There's great guests and there's probably one so you have to scrape the barrel a bit. Oh, I'm happy to name names.

No, no, don't name names. But also, if you think about all the competitive music shows, the voice, you have to remember everything is a TV show or the Grammys, that's what it is first and foremost. And so even if you're the most interesting composer in the world, it might not be great TV. Right. That's the way I've always looked at it. You know, I'll tell you that this is something that I think it's exceptional for actors in

the UK many times, which is over the 30 years that I was doing that TV stuff, I noticed that American actors, I mean, I'm talking about great actors, terrific actors, top of the top, they mutter, they're, they give one syllable answers. They don't want to ever smile because that's not cool. They've all been influenced going back to James Dean. But then I'd have these people on like Richard Harris, I'd have these British actors on who have the best acting chops in the world and they're rack and tours. They love to be funny and they tell stories.

And I mean, I was always blown away by that and I would always tell them there's something in the water. There's something about in the UK where no, no, you need to be able to tell a story. You need to be able to land a joke. It's in the blood, I think. Do you mean that comes from the different types of training or the, you know, the more theatrical background in London or what do you think it's from? I think it's the tall poppy syndrome.

It's the same thing with the Irish, the English, the Scottish, they're very self-aware. You can't, if you get too big, someone else will chop you down. If you get a big head, if your ego gets too big, someone else will let you know it. Whereas American actors can take themselves really seriously and there's no one around to say, shut your face, you're acting like an idiot. And I think that's, to me, that's where the difference is. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Well, that's all the time we have. I'm just here to tell you things that I've, Well, I've got a new thing in my life of if someone says something that I don't necessarily agree with, I just say, okay, great, rather than I don't really want to, I don't, I'm trying to remove any conflict in terms of, we've tried for years to sort of see if the sort of way of changing people's minds is telling them they're wrong and I don't think

it is. I don't definitely feel that more strongly than ever. So I'm trying to just listen. I mean, you're a lighter example, I'm talking about if someone's talking about fascism or this or that. This is going to get to fascism. Okay. I try to find common ground with the people I talk to and it's very hard because you're

a rock superstar and, you know, you think, how can I find common ground with this, with this man without seeming completely deranged. But I did, I do know that we both grew up in these environments where what we're doing for a living or as our art, whatever we want to call it, seemed unimaginable when we were kids. I thought about you that when you were a young kid growing up in sort of Southwest of England, Southwest of England quiet, you weren't a young boy that was thinking, oh, yeah, I have my plan.

I'm going to be a music superstar. Well, it's funny. I was speaking to this 15-year-old yesterday about songwriting. He was asking, how do you know when something's good? How do you... And I was trying to explain the duality between absolute self-belief and complete wonder and humility. I think you have to keep that forever.

But I do think that when I was 12 or 13 and song started arriving, there was something in me that felt like, oh, these are really special. But then on the other hand, there was nothing nearby to measure it against or no one in our, even in the region, had ever gone out and done that. So it did seem impossible, but I still headed towards it, if that makes sense. I feel that no matter where you grow up or in what social strata, if you just have a couple of people say a couple of the right things to you, it boosts you enough to get to the next island.

Yes. So who did you have saying, you're pretty good, you could do this? My parents sent me to a summer camp that I hated away in the woods in Maine and the kids didn't like me and I didn't like them. And then there was one counselor that I just, he thought I was the funniest thing and he kept laughing really hard and he kept saying, are you guys listening to this kid? What's his name? I can't remember now.

I can't remember his name, but I just remembered that he was really laughing and then he single-handedly got me through that summer camp experience. It was all because he thought this kid's really funny and then that just kept happening. And I know for you, you had... That's our common ground then. You had a music teacher. A couple of people then I had, you just reminded me that in the same year, two things happened, which was like a total microcosm of how my whole life has turned out.

I played an original song in a school concert and got booed off by a drunk boy in the year above. And at the same time, this dad of a friend who had been in a pretty successful band in England, he came to see a concert and I played another song and he said, you're going to be massive. This is happening almost in the same month, you know? But then the drunk kid came back. No, but...

No, he won't. No, but funnily enough, the drunk guy showed up backstage in Australia in 2009 and now comes to all of our shows. Wait, the kid that booed you offstage... He might still be booing, but there's more people around him. I don't know why he's there, but he's there. He's the one guy booing at a Coldplay show. I love that.

He did that when he was saying Bruce. Spring scene, I've seen him often after tears coming down his cheek because he was booed. No, no, no, no. I know that you took to the piano at around 10, 11. Yeah, and guitar, yeah. Guitar was first, I know, yeah. Yeah, both. And I wouldn't say I'm very good at either, but this is another thing I was saying to

this young guy yesterday. So many of our songs, the portal through which they arrive is some failure that I've done on the guitar or I'm playing the wrong thing, but it sounds good. Or I'll often tune to a different tuning so I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. Or play without looking on the piano, so I'm just hearing it. So I don't know if it's correct if you see what I mean. Yes.

And often if you analyze our songs after the fact, they're so simple that we would never have allowed ourselves to do that had we known or it's just E to A to B to E. But it's not because I know, I mentioned this to you once, I've tried, when I first approached a Coldplay song that I love to play, there's always something like, yellow is a really good example of that high E string to play it right and have it sound kind of like, I'm going to say the record just to date myself. But the recording, that high E string has to be tuned slightly differently and there's something about it that's, there's always something in your songs and it's a compliment

that is somewhat different. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Even if you think, well, this is just a straight B. No, it's not. It's really not. I mean, this is, this goes across my life too, that your limitations become strength. So really early on, I realized, well, I'm not going to be the best singer of all time

and I'm definitely not as fast on guitar as my friend Simon, you know, or as Wilson Pickett. I'm not going to be as good a singer as that or I'm never going to be able to dance like Tina Turner, but maybe I can make things weirdly me. Yes. And I, that's what I feel so encouraged about a whole, around the whole world right now is seeing people become themselves, even if it's a bit different. Yes. Because that's how I feel about our music and I don't claim it's the best, but it's

definitely the most us. It made it kind of fascinated me to find out at which I didn't know that your chemistry and something feeling right is so important to you that the story of how you found your drummer seems extremely improbable, you know, because he wasn't really supposed to be the drummer. No. He was the one who was technically very proficient and then when it came time to record, he wasn't around.

Well, I realized, it's funny this week, I realized what he actually is, which is he's our sommelier. Oh, okay. Because he's obsessed with wine. I think he won't mind me saying it. Oh, I thought you were going to say he's our sommelier and then use it as sort of like. It's going to be an analogy. Wait.

So he's. He really is your sommelier. So this is, this is Will, our drummer, but he plays a lot of things and he will champion. Yeah. Will champion. Yeah. He's an expert now, now that he's nearly 70, but his, his, his role in the band, I realized has always been sort of to say, we've got too much of this flavor, you know, change

this. He sort of has this connoisseur overview, you can see the whole thing. Yeah. He, he's, for example, he said to me years ago, I don't mind what kind of song you present me, but as long as I feel it's emotionally real, we'll do it. And some, still I show him things, he's like, we can't do that and I get mad, but I really trust his, what's it called, discernment. Yeah.

His poor judgment. No, no, no. I don't know. I don't know. He's right. He's right. He'll say that this song is sounding quite poppy. Make sure that the lyrics have enough bittersweetness in them so that I can enjoy playing it.

And he's right. Cause that's life. Life is this amazing tension between, you know, extremes. But when you originally chose Will, it wasn't necessarily because he was the most technically proficient drummer. No, no, no. No. But none of us were.

Yeah. As a non-musician, I'm fascinated by. But you are a musician. First of all, we have so many things in common. Okay. Let's go through them. We play music. We both rely on the feedback of other people for our livelihood.

Yes. That's true. We both love what we do. Yes. We're both devastatingly handsome. Oh my God. And. We should have started with that one.

Yeah. I think. Well, but also I want to just point out that I'm meeting you. We always do these in my studio. We've both slept with your wife. She still talks about it all the time. Best day of her life. You know, we usually do these in my studio and we came out to where you are.

And I won't say too much about where we are. You can say it's okay. I'm not going to give the address. No, it's out in Malibu and it's this big compound. And the second I got here, I thought, this is a fantastic. I love this. You have all these different buildings. And then I thought I could be a cult leader here.

You know? Yes. Well, I think that might have been what it was originally built for. Was it for a cult? Oh my God. I've always wanted a cult. You can get them these days. It's pretty cheap.

I know, but I want one of those kooky sex cults where I walk around in a purple robe. And then eventually I'm killed by my own cult cult members because they can't take it anymore. You might be, I don't know, yeah, okay, great. Would it be okay if I lived here? You can live here in a robe, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm going to wear a robe and wander around.

Yeah. You're welcome anywhere we are. You know, you talk about how important chemistry is and I know, is the band a democracy? You know, does everyone have a voting say? I think that this is very hard to answer objectively, but I'll try. Okay. I think the five of us, because there's four that you see, myself, Johnny on guitar, Guy on the bass, Will, who's the drummer, Sommelier, and then Phil, who is our kind of creative

director. And you've known him probably for long. Yeah. And he was the other person where I grew up who was like, we're going to do this. And we would read books about R.E.M. and U2 and the police. And we were both in a blues band with this slightly older kid who was teaching us about Motown. Well, that's what we're going to do, but with no real knowledge of how.

So for whatever reason, we've all got our gifts in the world and mine is, I get sent songs and I get a very clear idea of how we're supposed to, where we're supposed to go as a band. And I get sent ideas all the time for this and this and this and this and this and this and Phil does too in a different way for more sort of where we should play or let's release an album then or something like that. So the two of us are the ones who come in with, we've got to do this, this and this. So to counterbalance that, you have Will and Guy, who we're not talking about music, we're

just talking about how the band operates. They are more of the naysayers in a good way to make sure we don't do all the stupid ideas, but they sort of pick what actually is good. And that's the same with music, except that on all of our songs, I know this is a long winded answer, I'm sorry. No, this is... On all of our songs, they are like a production line mostly, which is that I get sent sort of the skeleton of the song and the title and everything and I'll present that and then

Johnny, Guy and Will will layer their stuff on it and it's not finished until they've all either put their parts on it or decided not to. So we always split our publishing royalties, whatever the song is, because it allows people to choose what's best for the song, because they're going to get paid either way. So they might say, this doesn't need any drums on it, but I'll still get paid for drumming, so I don't need to put drums on it. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense and I'm down with it except for the payment thing.

I do my best to screw the people around me. I can see that from the threadbare footwear. I keep saying that's my name up on the marquee and I hand them a can of old beans and they can have that. It's funny, your job starts out to make music and then this other job comes along and some people can do it and some can't and in your case, obviously you're great at it, but the stage work of doing a massive concert, the things, all those skills are not discussed in the entire process of you learning to play music and play music with your friends and

write these songs, there's no discussion or thought about, okay, when we're playing the arena, when we're playing the Super Bowl, how do we put this across? That takes all of these skills that a lot of people who could get to the point that you were at musically would say, oh, I can't do that, but you are very adept at it. And I think that's a whole other skill set. Well, first of all, thanks, Conan. I don't know how to answer something like that in terms of adeptitude, is that the right word?

Aptitude, okay, keep that in. This is another place where I feel that we've leaned into being ourselves with no fear of embarrassment because there's no way I'm as adept on stage as Beyonce or Mick Jagger, but I'm definitely the best at being me. And so that you can only kind of learn by doing and by loving. And I guess what I'm saying is, Chris, you put on a show, you and the rest of the guys, you put on a show, but you are burning incredible amount of calories, there's a huge, you're giving of yourself, and you're also playing to a massive, massive group of people, and

a lot of thought goes into the live show. Because it seems very important to you and the guys that everybody feel and be part of every moment. Yeah, definitely. I was thinking the other day that a lot of the things that we're really good at as a band are not categories that get, bands get measured by. So we might not be the best this or that or in the top 100 this or that magazine or whatever. But there are some things that we really care about that we're just never assessed for.

And the main thing we care about is that interaction and communication, partly for our own sake as humans and wanting to feel alive and not so alone and sort of sing together and feel that positivity and partly for our audience so that they can have a great time. More so than ever, that's our priority. So I forget what the question was, I'm so sorry. I asked you how the First World War started. Yeah, well a bit like that. Two groups of people.

Clearly it was important for you to learn how to do this, the way Jagger had to learn how to do it. At this point. We're really lucky that after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. By Gabriel Princip, yes, yes. We were able to start small. So we've been touring almost since then and we've learned like from the, we call it the toilet circuit in England, but I guess it's the bar circuit here would be, the club circuit.

We call it the Lou circuit here. So we have come all the way up, all the while watching our heroes and I'm more of a fan than ever. So I'd say we learned by doing and I'm still learning by doing and always learning by watching and even though I was at the Grammys the other day, watching Bad Bunny play and that hip hop retrospective, which was amazing. So every week when they got everybody on stage every week, there's something that I see that I'm like, oh, that's, that's amazing.

Let's try and learn from that. So yeah, I'm curious. One of the things that I talk about a lot, I almost think it should be a sub theme of the podcast or in the title is be careful about who you envy because so many people who you would envy, so many people would say, oh my God, Chris Martin, he's got everything. And you think, yes, I am blessed, but it's complicated. There's other stuff that's going on and it wasn't easy getting here. I hear what you're saying.

I don't agree because I'm really of the belief that whatever is happening for me or anybody is what was each supposed to be experiencing as humans in this massive mystery that we are living. And I have not reached that level of being able to do that. So if you zoom out far enough, I didn't make me me, the things I'm good at are gifts, the things that I struggle with are gifts. That's how I'm trying to navigate my life right now. One time this guy came up to me after the Brit Awards, he was really drunk, he's like,

he said, what's it like? And I said, hello, my good man, I said, Are you dressed as Dr. Watson? I said, what's what like? And he said, you know, being a rock star and everything. And I said, well, it's my life dream and I'm obsessed with it. And he's like, yeah, I was thinking about doing it and I was one thing he was 68 years old.

No, but I was like, it's sort of just you either do it or you don't do it if you sort of mean, and I don't have any complaints, but I don't think there's anything to sort of warn people off it or warn or encourage people to it. You see that that's what you are or what you, or you're something else. Right. I'm being a little bit vague, I think, but you know, that leads me to this question of, you talk about the greats, you have Chris Martin, Coldplay, massively successful. So you get to have dinner with the people that you grew up listening to.

And I'm curious, have you gotten advice from those people, you know, for whether it's a McCartney or a Bono or anyone, Michael Stipe, any of those people? Well, funny enough, I don't actually have dinner anymore. I stopped eating at four and I learned that from having lunch with Bruce Springsteen. Really? That's really true. Yeah. Yeah.

What happened? You were having lunch with him and he said, after this, no more. That's it. I mean, what happened? Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. And first of all, Bruce is in my equal top pantheon of heroes and a wonderful guy.

And I love him and I love Patty, his wife. And I was lucky enough to go over there for lunch the day after we played Philadelphia last year. And I was on a really strict diet anyway, but I was like, Bruce looks even more in shape than me. Yeah. And Patty says that he's only eating one meal a day. So I was like, well, there we go.

That's my next challenge. Did you see what that meal was? It's an eight foot long submarine. It was a bus. A one meal a day. And then you see it's this giant vat of beef chili. The chef came out and said, today we have flank of buffalo with a steroid sauce. Washed.

Yeah. I do this when I've had the opportunity to sit with people who are heroes of mine. I find myself drifting out of my body sometimes to look at the experience from outside. I get a little self conscious and I've learned to pull myself back in and say, just be with this person. Yeah. And talk to them, but it's hard to do when you're talking to a huge hero. I think for two reasons.

One is we live in a culture where we celebrate people as much as criticized and we also have our celebrities in that and we're very much ingrained to sort of think of them as from another planet. So if you didn't grow up around that, like you didn't, right? In some small part of you think, oh, Tom Cruise comes from another planet where everything's fine. Yeah. Of course, that's not true, but it's easy to fall back into that.

Even when you're sitting with someone, for example, with Tom Cruise, who I love his work so much. The first time I met him, I didn't say anything about being a fan because I was like, he doesn't need to hear this. Right. And then I realized, no, he's a human. So next time I was like, I love Blivion or whatever it was. And so I have to do that thing as well with people.

I, it doesn't have to be someone older. It can, it could be Adele or Harry Styles or anyone that I think is great. Because I might drift into that almost worshipful fan treating them as a bit of an alien thing. But then remember, oh, this is a, this is a person and might even be my friend. I love any moment where I get to see these, it doesn't happen often, but if I get to be around an icon and I just see that, oh, yes, they're dealing with the same stuff in their life as I am, that makes me very, very happy. And my, my one with Bruce Springsteen was a number of years ago doing in a, I did a

charity event. He was the music. I was the host slash comic. We both do it, our thing. And then we're sitting at this table together after we're done and Patty's with him. And at one point we're just talking about music and I just, this is going to lose me fans. But I inferred that I don't quite love the Grateful Dead as much as other people do.

It's not quite my thing. And Bruce, I hope this doesn't get him in trouble again, but Bruce was sort of was like, no, I kind of, I kind of know, you know, some, some of it's great, but then there's some of it where I go and quiet. And then Patty said, I love the Grateful Dead. What are you talking about? And then I could just see like anyone else who's with their partner, Bruce walking it back and Bruce was going, I did not mean to imply the Grateful Dead.

And she was like, well, I think they did amazing stuff. How could you say? And I was like, again, I would like to stay. I did not mean, and I was just so delighted that, oh right. When I put my foot in it with my wife, you know, this is what we deal with. I saw Beyonce the other day after the Grammys and, you know, she's, she's Beyonce. She's my hero and sister and everything. But it's funny because I'm like, I have a knee problem from stage and she'll say, yeah,

me too. You know, you have like the same work complaints that no one else can talk about. Like, you know, I breathe too much of this and that's yesterday that the strobes didn't go off at the right time complaints to anyone else in the world would just say, go fuck yourself. Yeah. No, but I love that. What do you do just before you go out?

I'm curious because it's such an intense, you know, you do these world tours, you're waking up, you might not always know, or you might forget, wait, where am I? Is this Madrid? Is this, are we in Hawaii? Where are we? And there's a whole production. What do you do to get yourself in the right space before you go out there and do a show? Well, I'm getting older.

So it's a lot of, I think it would be the same thing that you would imagine a retired footballer would do if you said you have to play this afternoon, a lot of creaking and stretching and asking people to manipulate this and loosen that and, you know, it's that kind of thing. I've gotten into trouble asking people that. Yeah. Please could you manipulate this and loosen that. Please manipulate me.

Why am I being sued? So it's funny, as the venues become the same as sports, so the preparations do too. That makes sense to me. I think when we were playing in bars, I don't drink, but the rest of the band were drinking. When we were playing in arenas, the rest of them were doing, you know, arena type stuff. And when you're playing stadiums, it's like preparing for a big soccer game or a big NFL game. And you know, you're going to get some muscle issues.

Yeah. Oh, I also think, even though I have had people make fun of me because I'll be about to do a show where I'm sitting and chatting with someone and I'm stretching and people say, what are you stretching for? You're not going to in any way do anything slightly athletic. And I say, it's something about preparing. I need to do something for myself that gets me to a slightly elevated place. Yeah.

I think that comes from physical stuff and from uniforms. I think that we see it all around the world, anyone that's given a uniform to enforce a rule can do it very, very firmly when they have their uniform. But if they were wearing shorts and a t-shirt, you wouldn't take them seriously. Right. And I would say that if I could not go on stage dressed like this, I would not be able to do it. I have to put on my uniform, which looks pretty similar, looks pretty similar, but I know

it's my band uniform. Yeah. And that makes sense to me though, too, because I've always felt it isn't, it's a performance has to be slightly, you get to a slightly different place than we're sitting here. I'm wearing jeans, you're wearing sweats. If there was an audience here, I sometimes, even if I'll put on a tie, even if it's not required, I just feel that I need to do something that shows that I'm an ice cream man and I put on my ice cream man uniform.

Yeah. Well, this is a cool, I don't know if this is interesting, but it's been on my mind because I got told that I got in trouble for not dressing up enough for the Grammys. Although my partner said, you did dress up, you put shoes on. Which is A, true and being really kind, but I was thinking about, I am happy to feel like I have to wear an outfit if it helps me perform better, but I don't agree with telling people what they have to wear. Maybe that's a hangover from school where you're told you have to wear this or I need

to write a treatise on this, like the sort of clothing rules. Yeah. Well, it seems like it's... It's on your mind because you don't, well, first of all, it's the Grammys and it's representing all different kinds of music and free expression. So the idea that you need to dress up for the Grammys... Yeah, but there's also a thing of does clothing show respect and I would never want to show disrespect because I love the Grammys.

So I was interested, maybe I was wrong or maybe we sort of brainwashed the thinking, if you're not wearing a tuxedo, you can't get married kind of thing. Right. Of course you can. If you're an axe murderer and you're dressed correctly, are you a better groom than Woody Harrelson over here who loves you with all his heart but is wearing board shorts? Right. Right?

No, you're not. But then sometimes... I didn't know the answer. And I think Woody is very violent in my experience. Well, I'm going to give a big shout out to Woody Harrelson because he was at a concert of ours when he was so kind to my brother when he had no reason to be that he just became an extra hero in my eyes. Well, that's nice when obviously people are nice to you, but it's so delightful when

you find out who someone really is, when they're being... When you find out later on that they talked for 20 minutes to the person who is installing cable, I don't know, I love that. When people reveal their true kindness through just... Well, he did another thing too. It wasn't performative. Yeah. He did another thing because something I learned from my dad is that everybody is interesting

if you ask them questions. Everybody. He's amazing at that and he comes out on tour a lot and he doesn't necessarily know who people are from movies. So he talks to our crew a lot and a lot of them have names like Bash or Hoppy, Mystic, things like that. And then he met this guy called Woody and he started talking about what do you do to fold the cables and it was Woody Harrelson.

Hello Woody, by this. And then he told you, I met this lovely fellow named Woody. Yeah. And again, Woody Harrelson was cool as fuck. I was, many years ago, had a party and Jim Carrey was there and my mother was there. And at one point my mother, I see my mother talking to Jim Carrey and I'm thinking, oh God, what's happening? And then she came over to me and she went, I just talked to the loveliest young man.

His name's Jim and I said, oh, you talked to Jim and she was like, yes. And I told him, if you want to be in comedy, you stick with it and they're going to try and put you down. But you keep, of course, he had like nine, he was the biggest star in the world at the time. And I said, mom, all I want you to do is go back to Boston and tell your friends you told Jim Carrey to stick with comedy. That's great.

And she did and got laughed out of town. That's amazing. I had, I was visiting my friend who had cancer at the time in New York, in hospital. I was coming down in the elevator with a nurse in all her glory, like six pens in the pocket. And I was singing, not loudly, not like, hey, check this out. Yeah, yeah. But I was mumbling or something. And she said, oh, you have a beautiful voice.

And I said, oh, thank you so much. She said, you know, you should, you should do something with that. And I, and I said, and I said, oh, you're well, maybe. And she said, also, you look like the guy from Coldplay. This is really true. And I said, okay, yeah, people say that. And she said, you know what you should do? You should call restaurants and say that you're him because you would get really good tables.

And then she left. And it was amazing. Did you ever reveal or at a certain point you can't, right? I sued her, but, um, no, I didn't. And I think, I think, because we don't, we don't appear, I mean, I guess we appear on TV sometimes, but so much of our artwork is arty and we're not always, I think the band is more famous than any of our faces in, in, in, um, so that, that kind of thing happens a lot.

You look, you look like that person, but you're, you're dressed in, you know, a tracksuit. See, it can't be him. Yeah. What I get a lot is, oh, you're so much better looking than on television. And I'm always like, why would people come up and say that to me? And I'll say, it's, I look pretty bad on TV, huh? And they go, well, yeah. Yeah.

I've had people say that. Yeah. The last time I saw you in real life was, I think you were coaching a basketball game. I was there. My son was playing basketball and we were up and down the sideline. That's right. Shouting aggressive things at children. Yeah.

I tackled the child. Uh, wasn't my kid. Um, yes. And, and we were both there and we had, uh, that's right. We got to connect, which was nice. Just as guys who were at a kid, two dads who were at a, at a kid's basketball game. That was fun. I think your kids are more interested in basketball than mine, right?

Uh, bear. No, I don't think so. No. My son, um, you know, was very interested in the snack you get after the game. Yeah. That was, I think what he was in it for. Are they musical? Uh, yes.

But my, my daughter has a very good voice and plays piano and my son is musical and loves music. And, uh, so, uh, we'll see. I'm not sure anyone's going to do anything with it, but it's just nice. It's nice when it's part of their lives. Do you think everybody is musical? I do. Uh, I'm going to say no.

Do you know anyone that doesn't like music? I don't know anyone who doesn't like music, but I have been around people, uh, who seem like if their life depended on it, they wouldn't know how to make a sound. Yeah. Does that have, I mean, you must have met people like that. Kind of, but I really, I really want to believe that music is in everybody because music is vibration and that's what we're all made of. Right.

Maybe it's just that some things, I read this really good book called the conscious ear about why, first about vibration, you know, in the, in all things, but it came into talking about why some people respond to some voices and not others. And it's to do with the frequency that that type of ear canal resonates with. Yeah. And then why there are other singers that appeal to more people because they have a thicker bandwidth is really interesting. You know, I just wanted to bring up because I don't want to, you know, you've been very

gracious with your time and, but I just wanted to bring up something that I think is amazing, which is you and the band have done this very cool thing where you want people who are hearing impaired or, or deaf to be able to come and enjoy a concert as well. So you've figured out a way where they can, and you can enhance the, enhance the vibrations of the music. A lot of our critics say it's the best way to experience our culture if you can't hear the music. But what is it exactly?

Cause I didn't understand what it was. You mean the, the, okay. Yeah. So they are called sub packs, uh, Dakota, my partner gave me one as a gift because she's, she'd seen someone online experiencing whatever they were experiencing with this. It's kind of like body armor that you put on and plug it in and it, and it connects to the base. Uh, Billie Eilish's brother, um, Phineas, Phineas, yeah, wears one on stage because if you're,

if you're on stage, it can give you help you know where the one is, where the kick is. So she had seen this lady use it in the, in the hearing impaired, you know, deaf community and she said, you should use this somehow. And so we started doing that and, um, it's been so amazing and should get better and better. So we have, I don't know whether it's 10 or 20 now every night, um, of those packs. And so if you're hearing impaired, we have an area where we have a signer and you put on this pack and you can feel the show. That's really lovely.

That's fantastic. It would be great if that caught on and more people were doing that. Yeah. Well, you know, like, like a lot of things in our show, they're expensive. Yeah. So until, um, the price comes down, you know, but, but they're amazing. The things that people do to consider other people are just wonderful. Yeah.

You don't hear about them as much as you hear about the shitty stuff. No, we had definitely have. But that's okay. Yeah. But they are out there and, uh, so I've been, I've been, um, I just worked out a way actually because I do a little bit of sign in, in our show dressed as an alien. I just worked out how to change the sign language to fit the country we're in. Cause last year I could only do it in American, but, but we've been chili or something.

And I'm, it would be like speaking American on stage. Right. Right. So you've got to figure out a way to. So I've just worked out how to do that. I'm excited about it. I think the key is you keep evolving the, you have to keep evolving. You have to keep changing.

You have to keep, there's no point where you say, well, God, we've done it. No, never. Yeah. I keep evolving. I learned from Brian Eno who came to kind of rescue our band in 2006. He came in like a, like an excited puppy and he was, he was 59 actually when we met him. And he would always be learning and excited about learning. And I really just loved that and stole it.

Well, it's funny. It's funny. You say it's not stealing it. Well you did steal Bruce Springsteen's diet, uh, and he'll get you for that. But the, and I'm going to steal it now too. I'm at the exact right age to be inspired in both directions and I love it. And sometimes I have to overcome a bit of professional jealousy, but occasionally to allow myself to be inspired by something that's maybe more successful or that I think is better.

I think we all struggle with that. But there is inspiration everywhere, not just in music, but in film and in everything, science all over the place. And then you said about not having anything else to achieve. I think that whether it's a combination of what, what I try and learn outside of music or whether it's age or whatever, it doesn't really feel about trying to achieve anything anymore. It just feels like a film and I were talking yesterday, it feels like we got the job that

we really wanted and now it's just, we can just do it. Yeah. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. We want it to be this stadium band that really made people connect and sing together and not see the differences as much as the similarities, as hallmark as that sounds. That's our real goal. And now it is just, it's the doing of it every day as the doing of it.

And you realize in a way that maybe the drive that you had or the ego is to sort of rocket boost you to a place where you can actually be a bit more useful. It's not about winning this and beating that person anymore. It's like, just make something that some people might like. Being go of that when you can do it is such a better way to live. Yeah. I mean, if you can let go of it, that's, you're better than me. I have to consciously override.

I mean, I have to consciously listen to a lot of weird feelings and luckily have some tools that help me these days to not be owned by that feeling. Yeah. And one of the hardest ones is like, oh man, Harry Styles' new song is better than our new song or something like that. Right. Luckily I've been taught how to very quickly be just inspired by it. Like, you know what?

It's awesome. And he's awesome and I love him. And I'm just going to work harder. I just saw him at Coachella last summer and he was dancing and turned around. And I saw that he had an H on the left butt cheek and an S on the right butt cheek. And I thought, Jesus, that's an innovation I need to steal. I need to walk around. It's a C.

And the O takes care of itself for you guys. I'll get a little apostrophe put over my, okay, my anus. This was really a blast. We're going to finish on that. Do you think there's a better place? You've been, I love talking to people who are insanely talented, but also interested in connecting and interested in the journey because we're all just trying to figure it out.

And you've been really lovely. And I do want to say you gave me a remarkable gift when I walked in the door that I is gorgeous and I'll cherish it. No problem. Yeah. It's a Rolls Royce 1958 Silver Shadow. Yeah. But give them to everyone.

That's the power of soft rock. You're so self-centered and you're giving out Rolls Royces. It's just a bit of a clash. Anyway, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. I'm so happy to see you. And we love you, man.

I think we came on your show 20 years ago. You came on many times and just absolute pleasure. Yeah. And the first few times and you just like, how did we get here on American, so magical and mystical and you were kind to us and that doesn't ever go away. Oh, that's so nice. Well, thank God. I mean, we were honored.

Honored to have you. Yeah, but you could have been a dick and you were really kind and it was a good example. Well, you got me on a Wednesday then. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thanks everybody. Thank you.

Let's check in with people do a voicemail. All right. I'd like to hear from the peeps. Sona. What? You in on this? What are we doing? I'm sorry.

Wait. What did you say? What are we doing? You were looking right at him as he spoke. It wasn't. No, I wasn't. I was I had my hair was shedding, so I was taking the bits of my hair and then I was putting it in.

But I actually know. Putting them in what? The trash can. You throw your hair in the trash. What else? I don't want to throw it on the floor. It's part of you. What?

You want me to? It's falling off. You're supposed to make a talisman out of it. Yeah. Give it to people. Yeah. Your great-grandmother would want you to make something out of it called like a watch it.

What? Called like a Rebi book. Yeah. Why not make a Rebi book? Yeah. Tie it all together and make a little Rebi book. I'm sorry. Okay.

I'll start here. Here's one. Okay. Well, that's the start of your Rebi book. What does the Rebi book do? The Armenian? The way I do? Okay.

I just want you to tell me what it does. It protects you in the night. It's like an evil eye. Okay. Okay. We're going to do a voicemail. Sound good? Sure.

Let's hear it. Sona? Yes. Okay. Punch it. Hey Conan, I've never listened to the podcast before, but I want to know what your shop game is like. You have like one drawer that's got like bany socks with patterns on them and another drawer

that's got like black and brown socks. Maybe like put them in the same drawer or you don't even mess with some kind of socks or you wool sock during the winter. Like what's your, oh no, what's your shop game? All right. Take care. Wow. I've never heard the podcast.

Well, I want to call that out because I think the only way to call in is if you listen to the podcast. So this person's yanking your chain. This guy's playing with my sock is what he's doing. You know, I'm going to say, let's assume, let's take him in his word. He sounds very casual unless he's trying super hard to be casual. He might be a huge fan who's laying it on thick like, uh, I don't really listen to the broadcast.

That means he's listened to everyone twice and some of the backwards. I don't know. I think he's really high. I think he's at home eating some Doritos and he's like, I'm going to call Conan O'Brien and then he just Googled how to call you. I think that's true. Yeah. I'm going to go with that.

All right. That seems like the most likely scenario. What's his name again? He didn't say. He didn't say a name. Wow. He is pretty chill. Yeah.

All right. I'm going to call him chill zone. Chill zone. Just for lack of a real name. Chill zone. That's a good question. Is it? It isn't.

I'm going to say that was muscle memory. Chill zone. You've been busted on all fronts. Yeah. You are a rude stoner, which is a very odd combination. I've never listened to your podcast. Screw you, man. I'm so high.

It's not usually how people come across when they're stoned, but anyway, I will reveal how I do it. I have two drawers. You do. I do have two drawers. Man, what an aristocrat. Exactly. That's the dream.

Two sock drawers. When I was a child, getting hand-me-downs from Luke and Neil that didn't fit, I dreamed of not one sock drawer of my own, but two. One has all athletic socks because as you know, Sona, I work out constantly. You don't just get a body like mine. You have to be in an accident. I was going to slam myself, but you didn't trust me to do it. And then I have one that is all-purpose, like some wool socks, some of those gold-toed

socks that are still left over from my late-night days, because I never went out and bought gold-toed socks, but that was the ones that were assigned to me and like TBS, NBC. These socks go back thousands of years. So, you stole them from the networks. You can't steal socks. They just end up being transferred from one place to the other. That's national broadcasting company property that you're... You know, true story.

All the suits I wore all those years at NBC, they were very careful about. If I wore them on the weekend or something to an event, they would want that back on Monday. They... I used to kind of wonder about it because I'm 6'4", with very specific measurements. And I thought, these suits aren't really going to fit anybody else. I have legs that are... My body is disproportionate.

I'm a very large person. What are they going to be doing with these suits? And they told me extras wear them in scenes at Saturday Night Live. You're kidding me. Yep. Whenever you see a 6'4", really long-legged background person on an SNL sketch, they might be wearing a vintage Conan O'Brien suit from the 90s and 2000s. Actors were probably very nervous because they want to be actors and they're just in

the background sweating all day and night in that thing. And then your Monday morning... Oh, no. They wouldn't get it during the show. No, no, no. It wasn't during. It was after I was done with them. When I had, you know, no, no, it wasn't like I had to turn them in so that on the weekend,

a stranger could wear them in a sketch. In my defense, I was only half listening. I have a question about your socks. Do you fold them into each other or do you lay them flat to save the elasticity of them? No, I lay one on top of the other and then fold. Okay, yeah. That's how I do it too. But some people are very big on saving the elastic.

I'm not. I don't care if they get a little loose and floppy, it just makes me look like a real cool dude. It does? Yeah. One floppy sock. Yeah. Every now and then, I like to show a little ankle, you know.

I'm very Victorian about my sexuality. Every now and then, I want someone to just catch a little bit of my ankle and go, I'm intrigued. No. No. You know, there was a time when people showed a lot less and you had to use your imagination and Victorian era, people used to say like, oh, look at that upper collar bone. That's where the phrase put your best foot forward comes from showing off your ankle

and your calf. Oh, really? From the restoration days. Yes, it does. Yeah. That's true. That's great. Yeah.

I'm so sorry. I didn't know how to react. In a culture where only your eyes are seen, if you're completely covered except your eyes, people are like, wow, showing a little lash today. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it can be taken to any extreme. Yeah.

Yeah. I think we are losing our sense of true sensuality by showing too much and I'm trying to bring it back by covering as much of my body as possible and that's by popular request. You just wear a sheet with a hole and your wanger sticks out. My wanger? It's the wanger, guys. It's the wanger. Coming down the street.

It sounds like a failed car from the late 70s. It's the dunce and wanger. It goes 35 miles per hour at top speed. Where do you come up with these? Your wanger. I don't know. I mean, that sounds fair. You know what?

Your guy that talks dirty from like 1952. I know. This guy was arrested on Fifth and Elm for showing his wanger. His straw hat has been confiscated and is being confined in a 1932 Nash Rambler in Kelly Apologize. I honestly don't know what's ever going to come out of your mouth. Why use a standard term when you can make a new one? You know what I mean?

I thought that might be one that you use. Does anybody use wanger? Wanger is a term for Todger. Oh, God. Jesus. Oh, God. For Twix and Berries, for your goolies, for, you know. Unbelievable.

Well. You're just a font of this mishmash. I love it. This is, I think you're a time traveler. Sometimes I think that, you know, those romantic shows where a guy is traveling through time and he has a passionate love in the present day, but what's it called? Oh, are you to our Outlander? Yeah.

He's like a guy from Outlander, except he's just picking up different euphemisms from penis throughout different times, and then coming home to his true love in Pasadena and saying, would you like to see my Todger, my wanger? Honey, the velvet scepter's home. Want to see my Winklevi? What are you called? I'm here with the old Disney Squad. You guys are bringing these terms back.

So that's cool. That's really cool. Yeah. It's, you know. Well, I hope I do have, I don't. It's popular. Would you say that I'm an extravagant person? No, I would not.

I'm not, but I do have two sock drawers, and I think that answers the question. Listen, if you can have two sock drawers, I think everybody would want to be able to have two sock drawers. Yeah, but because I have two, my son has no drawers at all. Oh, you had to take some of his drawer space. So he has no socks? He doesn't wear socks. He can't.

He can't have socks. That's rough. Yeah, he can't have anything really. Yeah. What socks are you wearing today? Oh. I said black. Black.

That's regular black wool socks. You know, that's all. That'll be deal. All right. You thought you were going to take us to a prop. No, I didn't. Hey, that's cool. Yeah.

Where's Waldo? There's Waldo. What do you got? I just got ankle socks. Show them the ankle. Oh. I'm a slut. You're an 1832 slut.

Leave, Harlett. Be gone. God, she's sexy and she has tuberculosis and palsy. Oh, let's wrap this up. All right. Well, anyway. Hey, I hope you do get a chance to check out the podcast sometime. How will we hear this?

You laid back slacker. Yeah. All right. We did it. Bye. Bye. All right. Engineering by Eduardo Perez, additional production support by Mars Melnick, talent

booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista and Brick 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, teacher or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

This has been a team Coco production in association with Ewald.