Locked In with Ian Bick - I Perform for Death Row Inmates — Their Reactions Shocked Me | Eric Genuis

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Eric Genuis grew up in Canada with a passion for music — but he never imagined it would lead him inside some of the darkest places on Earth. After receiving an unexpected invitation to perform inside a prison, everything changed. What started as a single performance turned into a life mission. Today, Eric has performed in over 1,500 prisons worldwide, including maximum-security facilities and both male and female death row units. He believes that music has the power to reach even the most forgotten souls — and his concerts often leave hardened inmates in tears. #DeathRow #PrisonStories #MusicHeals #TrueCrimePodcast #RedemptionStories #EmotionalInterviews #LockedInPodcast #BehindBars Thank you to BLUECHEW for sponsoring this episode: Visit https://bluechew.com/ and use promo code LOCKEDIN at checkout to get your first month of BlueChew & pay five bucks for shipping. Connect with Eric Genuis: TikTok: ericgenuis Instagram: ericgenuis Facebook: Eric Genuis YouTube: @ericgenuis1096 Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 Why He Plays Music Behind Bars – A powerful opening story 02:22 Who Is Eric Genuis? Performing in 1,500+ prisons worldwide 05:24 Growing Up in Canada & Discovering Music as a Calling 08:07 His First Prison Concert & The Shocking Reaction 12:28 When Hardened Inmates Broke Down Crying 17:39 Can Music Heal the Broken? Redemption Through Beauty 20:09 Facing Critics: “Why Play for Criminals?” 24:07 The Truth About Death Row Inmates (Not What You Think) 27:01 Prison Staff Reactions & Being Invited Back 30:34 Personal Tragedy & Finding Purpose Again 34:34 Stories of Inmates He’ll Never Forget 41:45 Drugs, Alcohol & The Downward Spiral of Pain 43:21 Wild Prison Moments in Australia 46:17 Inside Women’s Prisons: Unexpected Emotional Encounters 52:55 Death Row for Women: Heartbreak & Humanity 54:54 The Cost of Touring Prisons & How He Funds It 57:34 What 1,500 Prisons Taught Him About Humanity 01:02:04 Final Reflections: Dignity, Hope & Why He Won’t Stop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What do you think is a misconception about death row inmates? I'll never forget. One story was very, very moving for me. I was playing in the super maximum security prison. Most musicians dream of arenas. My guest today chose prison yards and death row units. He plays for the forgotten. And what happens during those performances will shock you.

Eric, welcome to Lock In. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming on the show. So it's such an honor to be here, Ian. Yeah, we've been talking about doing this for a long time now, and I'm glad we finally made it work. Yeah, this is great. I'm here. I'm actually doing a tour throughout Connecticut prisons.

So so excited to be here. Yeah, tell the audience what you do. Obviously, we're going to get more into it in this episode, but your job is awesome. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. So about 30 years ago, I was invited to go in and perform in a prison. and I tour with a world-class violinist, cellist, and a singer.

And since then, I've devoted a good part of my life to playing only prisons. So I've performed close to 1,500 prisons, including death row, Texas, four times, Death Row, Arizona, which is actually very emotional right now because I just played Deathrow, Arizona two weeks ago for the second time, and they just executed a gentleman a couple days ago. So he gave me a big hug and he was very grateful and he was very gracious and he was just executed. So it played throughout, you know, I did tour in Australian prisons, but mostly here in America, close to 1,500. And I'm grateful for every note. And you're here this week performing in different prisons in Connecticut. Yeah, exactly. Different prisons throughout Connecticut.

That's so cool. Hopefully I'll be able to get to see one of your shows this week here. I'd love that. I'd love that. Where'd you grow up, Eric? So I grew up in Toronto, Canada. Oh, you're from Canada? Yeah, originally. And I moved. here in 1997, so I've been here ever since. What was growing up in Toronto like? It was awesome. It was awesome. I mean, you know, us boys, you grow up with skates, you know what I mean? And so hockey's always been a big part of my life and just loved to, you know, always, you know, playing street hockey every night after school. So it was great. And I always loved playing the, when I was a kid, you know, I used to, you know, play the piano, took piano lessons. My, my mother would come

beside the piano with a vacuum cleaner and say, go do something else because I always loved composing me. And so I love my lessons. but I always loved composing, and I feel very honored to be able to do that for a living now. Have you watched the Danbury Trashers documentary? No. You got to watch ads on Netflix. It's about the hockey team from Danbury. Oh, wow.

It has like a crime element to it. Oh, is that? Yeah, it's really good. Definitely watch that. No, I love that. Especially if you're a hockey fan. No, that's great. So tell us how you got into music at such a young age.

Yeah. So I always, always very passionate about composing music, always. But I never really thought I was going to be able to do it for a living. but, you know, I got my degree in piano performance, and that was good. But I started to play. Other people would say, oh, would you come and play at my fundraiser, and I would only play music I composed, and then it started taking legs. And then one day I was invited to play this massive concert in Europe, and, you know, in Poland,

and it was great. It was an AIDS benefit concert, and it went super well. And I thought, okay, I'm going to pursue this. So I started pursuing it, it was tough, but it was growing, growing and doing very well. And then one day, but I promised myself as a young man, I would never say no. So if someone wants a concert, I wouldn't let money or distance or let anything get in the way. I was invited to perform in a prison.

And I went, and it was really an eye-opener for me. The reason it was was because I walked in, and it was unlike obviously any other venue you played. And the funny thing is, we've all encountered, you know, prisons, you know, you drive by them, you know, you sort of hear stories about them in the media. But when you're in, it's a very different experience. So I walked in. I marveled at how things were broken. There was nothing beautiful, nothing inspiring. I'm walking down the hall. There's tape on one side of the aisle, tape on the other. And inmates were walking, and they wouldn't cross that line. The guys walking down one side were, you know, walking this way and the other guys this way. There was very little communication.

There was very little respect. You know, the lights were this bright fluorescent light that cast a dark shadow, the walls were hospital white and I thought, this is very bleak. So when you go in and you play and you sort of hear the interaction between some of the SEALs, the correctional officers and some of the inmates was low. It wasn't, you know, excuse me, sir, was none of that. And I remember being bothered by that because I thought, no matter what's going on in here, there's an element of respect. We should never cross. We should never go low because that does not build up the humanity of the person. We played the, and I bring the, you know, violinists and cellists and singers that are world class, all of a sudden the front row got up and ran towards the stage. Now, not in a

threatening way. It was in a beautiful way, right? So one guy just, you know, play, you know, just kept on saying, just keep playing, you know. The next song, this guy in a second row throws up his arms and he yells out, I forgot what Hope felt like. Now, this guy was in there for a double murder. He's got 60 years. He's going nowhere. And here he is being so moved by this and at the end of the show I felt ashamed and the reason I felt ashamed was because I thought you know here I am playing all these concerts and I have never given you know there's what hundreds of thousands of inmates throughout the country I've never given these people a second thought you know I could have lived my whole life and never considered them

considered them as people not even considered them at all and I felt so ashamed of that how could I do that you know and what i've come to learn and really think about ean is that there's so many people in our civilization that are easily forgotten i have a beautiful daughter 21 years old she has down syndrome she'll never finish a sentence in this life you know she'll never do anything cool she's not going to be on the front cover of vogue she'll never you know be an entrepreneurial woman of the year so people don't really come and want to have coffee where they don't come and want to hang out with her they don't invite or shopping, she's easily forgotten. And it struck me how easily forgotten so many are. So at that point, I thought, I'm going to stop what I'm doing and I'm going to move ahead

with devoting a good part of my life to playing in prisons. So that's what I do. I play in prisons, rehab centers, inner city schools, for those who, you know, obviously the rehab, those who suffer from drug and alcohol addiction, play in VAs, play with guys who suffer from PTSD, play for those in our society that are really hurting. And I'm so grateful for every note. And I've had very, very strong, strong reactions, you know, to this. I'll give you an example. My last time I was on death row in Texas, I'll never forget this story. I was playing and I left, what they did was in Texas, I'm behind bars and the men are in their cells about 100 feet out. But in between pieces, I talk about my work, right? So I'm talking to them about stories, but they're,

they let me in. So I'm in with the inmates. We're separated by their cell door, but I'm right there. So they're putting their finger through grates and I'm shaking their finger and we're high-fiving and then I'm talking and then I'm dropping the mic and where you from? Tell me about your family. And then I'm going and I left enough time Ian. They're in pods. So there's about maybe 50 guys in this pod and I left enough time to hit every guy twice. The last guy I hit the first time was sitting on his bed and would not and you know just wasn't interested most of the guys are up there trying to catch you know the shoulder or the you know the elbow or the violinist because it's an awkward setup right they're trying to catch whatever they can but they're up and they're engaged this one guy was not no problem he just

doesn't want to engage i went and played then i came around for the second round and he and it was really really moving because the time i went through everybody high five you know did all that got to him and him for the second time, this time he's up. So he's up from his bed. He's high-fiving, sticking his finger through. I'm shaking his finger. I'm talking to him. I dropped the mic so that it's just he and I.

We're talking. Where are you from? I go to leave. He yells, come back, come back. I run up the stairs again. I've only got one piece left, right? It's the end of the show. I left enough time for two encounters.

This is my second encounter with him. We talk more, and he's bawling and bawling. which is not unusual because the violinist and cellist I bring are so good that they make people emotional. So this guy was weeping and weeping and, you know, was encouraging to stay strong. And I go down, play the last song, now I'm packing my gear and I'm leaving. And the host said, he felt that that was very moving. I didn't know the backstory. So here was the backstory.

That guy had tried his, so he sentenced to death. couple years prior to, he's not even 30 yet. A couple years prior to that, he tried to have his death sentence overturned to life, and he lost. So now all he wants to do is die, you know? And nobody, he never gets out of bed, doesn't talk to his brother inmates, doesn't talk to the chaplain, doesn't talk to the warden, doesn't talk to anybody. He only gets up to receive his food and to go and shower. He doesn't get off his bed other than that. So the fact that he was off his bed, and we, weeping was really unusual and uplifting for everybody around. So I was very moved by that, but that's what beauty does Ian.

So what am I trying to do with the music? I'm not trying to go and entertain. I mean, I'm hoping they're entertained, obviously. The goal is not to go and entertain inmates for a couple hours. The goal is to bring beauty. So I talked about the beginning about how, you know, I was so taken by the fact that these prison environments very often are less than beautiful.

Well, if I go and I bring the world-class violinist and the world-class cellist, and I can move them, and I can uplift their humanity. And what does that? Beauty does that. I'm not going to talk them into hope. I'm not going to talk them into goodness.

I mean, yes, there's room for inspirational talk, but if you give them beauty, you uplift something in them. Music and beauty is a language that speaks to them in ways that words can never touch. And so the hope is to bring beauty to them for them to feel uplifted. and moved.

You know, so that's the whole thrust of what I'm doing. Maybe one of the most, the best examples of that. I was playing to 15-year-olds, and they were all tried and convicted as adults. These are 15-year-olds that are going down for 30-plus years. Well, what does a 15-year-old boy know about 30 years, right? So in the front row, there was the leader in the room, if you will. And at the end of the show, the boy stands up in front of like 300 other boys, and he says, that violin, can I hear it alone?

she played. The boy throws his head back and puts his hand over his heart and starts to weep in front of everybody, which is a no-no, right? But he's there weeping in front of everybody. And he said, you know, he said that violin is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Why have I never heard it before? Okay, that's a great question. That kid knows, you know, everything about every style of music, rap, hip-hop, heavy metal scream. He knows at all. He knows nothing about something that really moved him. Now, there's validity to those other styles, but the reality is he was moved and found beauty in that violin. Why has he never heard that before? But I was thrilled to death to be able to give him that experience of being uplifted.

You know, he felt his humanity uplifted. So thrilled to do that. So that's why I go in, and that's why I'm setting up all these concerts. I do two, sometimes three a day, which means you're performing for seven, eight hours a day, which is a long time. But I'll do that times ten, because I really believe him. my work. Do you ever have any negative feedback moments? I mean, I'm sure there's some people in the world that probably think why is someone on death row deserving of this experience? I just had that. Yeah, I get a fair amount of that. I just had one, which was really interesting. I had just left

that death row concert in just a couple weeks ago in Arizona. And a woman called me up, how dare you play for him? Do you know what he did? And she started telling me, I says, I know everything he did. And she kept on going about how what I'm doing is promoting him and promoting what he did. And I don't buy that. So here's essentially how I look at that sort of thing. Number one, Ian, I think we all have a responsibility to one another. So I can go, this man, you know, is suffering. I can go and bring him goodness. There is nothing bad about bringing anybody goodness. There's a lot, nothing bad will come out of a good act. Nothing. So, I will never back down from why I go in and play.

But if you take a look at this gentleman that was just executed, his problem started 30 years ago. So let's say as a child, you know, in some of these schools, inner city schools, this guy was, you know, abandoned. I can tell you, I'll tell you another story in a minute. But this poor guy was abandoned. This poor guy was never loved. He was never nurtured.

He was never encouraged. He was never mentored. He was never tutored. Nobody cared whether he succeeded or not. That's when the problem started. So for every, I told this woman, for every guy that's on death row, there's like 1,500 kids sitting in seats in our inner city schools, and they're forgotten, and they're ignored, and they're abandoned, and they're abused in many ways. And what are their lives? I mean, a lot of these kids are playing video games that are encouraging violence and making them feel as though their dignity and they're, you know, who they are as people.

Their dignity and their honor comes from who they can dominate and who they can intimidate. Well, that's never good, right? So we have to teach them elsewhere. We have to teach them doing other things. So I'm trying to tell her, if you want to stop the problem, let's go and let's mentor our kids. Let's go in our grade schools and teach these kids. Go after the kids that have no parents and have no love and have no encouragement.

Go after and do all we can for them. Then we'll stop this. But to yell at me for going and playing for someone who's on death row, no, that's misguided. I'm going to share with you a story that I find so meaningful. A lot of the guys who are in prison now, they want the media through apps, the prisons. And there's reasons for that. Some nefarious stuff was happening through the letters.

So they don't want letters anymore, right? So everything is done through an app. They're moving in that direction. So I'm often in touch with guys on death row up until the day before their execution because we have the apps. Well, there's a gentleman that I played for, and I'll never forget, he was to be executed. The last minute he got a stay. He went back from death row to where he was, where they're housing the guys on death row, which is an hour and a half drive. And that next day, I performed for them.

And when I was going from cell to sell and meeting them and high-fiving them and all, he was sobbing. And he said, yesterday I was to be executed. And if I was executed, I would have missed this concert. But okay, and that just filled me with so much joy that I could share that with another person, right? We stayed in contact. Okay, we wrote letters. We did all that. Okay.

Now, so every time I would go back, he was like, Eric, I'm up here, you know, because he can't see. You know, and so I'm looking up and you turn to your left and I would turn to my left. Okay, wave, you're looking at me. So anyway, the day he was actually executed. So let's go back actually and look at his life. when he was a kid, he was sexually molested. The poor kid was trafficked from birth. Then they came and they took him and they gave him with child protective services. Nefarious things continued to happen. As he went on, family members got him addicted to drugs at

the age of 11, 10, 11, around that age because kids that are addicted to drugs are very often much more effective at begging for money, stealing money, all that kind of stuff. So that's what he was used for. Okay, so now at 18, he was going to steal drugs from his drug dealer. And, you know, the drug dealer's girlfriend caught him. And, you know, he did some bad things. And now he's on death row. He instantly thought, I can't live like this.

So on death row, he wanted to be helpful. He became a leader on death row. This guy was doing like book studies. He was, okay, we're going to. study Plato, we're going to study Aristotle, we're going to study different things, and we're going to talk. Now, they're all an individual cell, so they're doing different good things. And he stopped calling it death row and started calling it life row and wanted to give the guy's hope and constantly gave them hope. Okay? So here's a guy. And then the day of his actual execution, which happened not too

long ago, he turned to the family and he said, I'm so sorry for what I've done to your family member. I'm so sorry. If I could take it back, I would. All I've done in this, life is take. I didn't contribute anything good. And then he says, but I lived my life on death row to be good and honorable so that I can turn to you one day and say how sorry I am. I wanted to live up to the fact to be worthy enough to say that I'm sorry and I'm begging you to forgive me, not for my sake, but for yours so that you don't carry this around anymore. And then he laid on the table and then he was executed. So you think, you know, when when other kids are taking cello lessons and going to private schools, this kid was being abused and so on.

So we can throw our darts saying, oh, those animals. And I'm thinking, okay, hold off with those animals statement. Because when you look at our society, we're providing, like, you know, when you think about the violence in video games and, you know, play the odd video game where there's violence is probably okay. but to some of these kids who are not sort of nurtured and loved and cared for, there can be an imbalance as to the reception of what they're doing, right? With the amount of drugs that's available and all this, these kids get into bad stuff from a young age, and then they commit their act,

and then we say that they're animals. I'm thinking, let's get in there and do all we can from preventing that by giving them hope, giving them encouragement. So, Ian, I go in and I play for those kids. I'll play, I'll spend my life in those inner-city schools so I can show them something different. I can make them feel uplifted. I can make them feel good about being human.

And at recess, they go out and they're imitating my violinist. It's great. So that's the thrust. Fellas, listen up. If your bedroom performance has been feeling like a participation trophy instead of a championship belt, it might be time to call on the trainer. Blue Chew's tablets are like strapping a sweatband around your crotch

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And we've got a special deal for our listeners. As always, get your first month of Blue Chew free. Just use promo code locked in at checkout and pay five bucks for shipping. That's it. Bluechu's mission to upgrade humanity one thrust at a time, head to BluChoo.com for details and safety info. And as always, big thanks to Blu for sponsoring the podcast. Do you think that's an example of that, even if someone's on death row, they can find redemption in their life? I do. 100%. You know, it's funny because people say, well, why bother going

into there? And I'm thinking, you know, they're not forgotten. They have dignity, just like you and I have dignity. They, you know, these are people, even though they're on death row, you think, oh, things are hopeless. Things are not hopeless. They still have thoughts. They still have, you know, ideas. They still have dreams that they may not sort of fulfill on the outside, but internally they can.

They read good things. They encourage good thoughts. They, you know, sort of constantly stimulate their mind. It can uplift the human soul. It can uplift the human heart. So are they worthy of redemption? Absolutely. Until our last breath, nobody is beyond redemption.

So I think, yeah. So, so, um, so, they're no less alive and they're they're no less worthy than you and I so we put our judgments on but those judgments are ridiculous so I know there's a lot of situations I can't fix but I can go and give what I can give and if I can go in there and take great musicians and uplift them and uplift their humanity I'll do that all day long I mean I have you know bins of letters from guys saying Eric you gave me hope I got the craziest phone call once three minutes before a show, a guy said, you came into my prison and you performed five years ago. He said,

I was ready to take my life. He said, all my friends had already done it, I was hopeless, and I came to your show, and I was filled with hope. He said, I'm getting it. I'm out. You'll never hear from me again. So what was it about the beauty of my violinist and cellist that moved him and uplifted him, that allowed him or invited him to see humanity in a higher way, which meant he was, it gave him enough hope to see life worth living. Well, that's a mystery. What brings us to that point? So I think you can take a man who's, you know, on death row and make him see that life is worth living, you know? So, yeah, you give up on nobody. What do you think is a misconception about death row inmates as someone that's spent time with them closely, probably as much time as say correctional officers would?

Yeah. If you're going to ask me what's the biggest misconception, I would say, with death row inmates and probably inmates who have, like, you know, five life sentences and so on, I would say this. I would say that we have a perception of what these people are like. Ian, these are men and women, but you got to picture this. Like after a show, they come up and they hug you. And I'm so grateful you came and they're weeping and weeping and sobbing and saying things like you have no idea what you did for us. Now, it's got nothing to do with me. I just go, and I give them these great players, and they're uplifted. So I would say the biggest misconception is that they're these hardened people that have

no feelings, no thoughts, nothing productive, no emotions. I would say that, you know, I have met, you know, a very high percentage of them have incredible emotions, have deep, deep thoughts. And those who have done nefarious things are incredibly remorseful. So we have idea these hardened criminals. These hardened criminals are people who wish they never did what they did. And situations and environments sort of provide an environment for them to do it. So if you were to tell me what's one of the worst things in the world,

drugs are making people do things that they wouldn't in a million years normally do. So, Ian, when I'm on death row and I'm playing for guys, I'm playing for guys that a lot of them don't even remember what they've done. you know so um you know in talking to different people who work up there all the time and know these guys and inmates who have been released who are i call they're all my friends you know and i'm and i'll go and stay at their homes when i'm down there performing and you know the the fun thing is is that they will say that drugs have such a high percentage because it it sort of messes up your perception and it messes up your, you know, your ability to think and your ability to sort of make, you know, prudent decisions and so on.

So you do things, you know, rashly that you wouldn't normally do. And so they do terrible things that they wouldn't normally do, that their personality. So they're either high when they do their act or they're in the middle of an addiction, which completely throws off their ability to make prudent decisions. And so, you know, what is the biggest misconception? Oh, that these guys are animals that don't care about life, that don't care about. about their life that would do anything to anybody. That would be the first misconception.

The second misconception is that a lot of these guys are suffering for mental illness. Now, when there's mental illness, there's criminal activity, but are they criminals? You know? And so I just sort of look at it and I think, you know, there's a lot of people that where activity has been done

and horrible, horrible things have been done. And I'm not defending sort of, oh, well, you know, all I'm defending, is we should get to the bottom of this and help these guys out before they get in there and help civilization out and do all we can to recognize that each person has profound dignity. But there are many, many people that are not guided, that are not taught that, you know, we make the drugs look like, oh, it's no big deal. And, you know, drinking look like, oh, it's no big deal. But they have led to so much criminal activity that have destroyed so many lives. And we often think about, you know, the inmate and the victim.

it's deeper than that. If you think about the inmate, the inmate's family, like they suffer so much. The inmate, when sort of he comes to and everything is made aware, very often he suffers so much over the guilt and over the pain and over the hurt and over the loss and over the shame and all the blame that he puts on himself. So the biggest misconception is, to me, they are human like you and I are human. They deserve mercy. They deserve forgiveness.

They deserve friendship. They deserve love. They deserve redemption. They deserve all those good things. So I think we actively go after all the brokenness in our civilization to do what we can to sort of help them before these things take place. How did the staff react to you? It must be divided, right? I get a lot of very positive feedback from the staff.

I get letters from staff saying so grateful that you came. One guy wrote, he said, I've hated my job for 20. He said, I've actually felt good about my job today. And, you know, you think about some of these guys who work, you know, as staff, their jobs are tough, and they're constantly in this environment. They don't go out of their way to make prison very inspiring, right? They're not, you wouldn't walk in and say, oh, the colors you chose are beautiful. Oh, I love the flooring.

Oh, the molding is great. It's just not there, right? So there's nothing about it that would uplift your humanity. So they go there and there's very little sort of, you know, you know, interaction on a human level. So I just do all I can to bring goodness to them too. And I tell that the, all the prisons, let the staff and bring the staff and shut things down, bring as many people as you can. And very often, I'll say, if you want me to stay and do an extra show for the staff alone, I will. But it's never, oh, he shouldn't have come, never. They're all grateful. You know,

so, and, you know, when they don't know what's happening, they think a violinist is coming. So they warn the inmates, you guys better behave and so on. And I think, oh, they're going to be fine, you know. And we play in from the first note. They're engaged. There could be 500 guys in that audience on a gym floor in chairs. We start playing. It's loud in there.

And they're engaged. And, you know, I tell stories in between. They are right on step. They'll sit there quiet for two hours straight. And the staff will think, I never thought in a million years. They'd be able to sit there quiet for two hours straight. So it's an experience that, you know, I get what I love is getting letters like I did here in Connecticut. I'm came because I got a letter saying, Eric, you know, it's been years, please come.

They're still asking for you. I love those letters, you know, from wardens who care enough to write me and say, please come back. The inmates are still asking for you. I'm here. I can't wait to start. How often will you go back to a same prison? Like what's the time in between? Yeah, there's no rhyme or reason.

I'll go back when invited. So, for example, I'm going to play Connecticut now. if they call me and say, can we get on your schedule right away, I will do all I can to come back. And I could play the same or play the prisons that I didn't hit the first time around. But yeah, I will try to hit as many as possible. Does it feel weird to run into inmates that you might have seen in that facility years ago, still in that facility and life has changed so much, but they're still there? Yes. Yes, that's something.

it's almost it's almost time to sort of you know when that happens like oh erika saw you 10 years ago you sort of stop and you breathe because you think okay i'm leaving in a couple hours he's never he's never leave and guys will say i've seen you 10 years ago and he said i'm going to be i'm going to die in here i'm afraid to die in here um those are very real things i think for the most part what i do is i encourage them. Listen, you are in here. There are many inmates, Ian, that I have met, that are freer mentally than many people in the free world. Okay, so I can tell them as I would tell anybody. You know, don't let your head make you, for example, make you a prisoner, whether it's society or whether you're incarcerated. So this is what I mean. Right now,

we read all kinds of things on the news that are bringing people down and is very discouraging and lack of hope. Okay, if I keep watching the news, and watching the news and wars over here and wars over there. There is nothing hopeful about that stuff and I have no control over that stuff. So stay in your lane. Life is worth living. Life is beautiful. The awe and wonder about learning about so much about life.

There's great authors I've never read that I would love to dive into. There's great music that I'd love to study that I haven't dived into. So life is beautiful. Now don't give in to the negative. Fight your mind. And I really encourage that a lot. When I'm in the prison system, you know, I'm just going to share something with you. I had a son who committed suicide, okay, four years ago.

And you have to fight your mind because what your mind quickly tells you is you're guilty, where were you, you should have been there for your son, you weren't there, and so on. I have to fight that constantly. A lot more when it recently happened. My son would be 30 now. He was 25 when he did the act of suicide. but you have to fight your mind and you have to say, no, you know what? I did all I could at the time and I'm not giving into it, right?

So it's the same thing here. That guy who's still in prison, I think there's so much about life that you can get. There's so many guys in this prison that need help, that you can give hope to, that feel hopeless, that are in wheelchairs that you can wheel around, that need toiletries. You can buy them and help them, you know, with basic things in life that would love to read, they don't have money for a book, you can buy them a book and so on. There's a lot of things they can do for other people that define them, that uplift them. So my thought is the greatest act you and I can do is charity and help for one another.

That's it. So if I can go in and play for these guys to uplift them, I'll do it all day long. It uplifts and blesses and benefits me and it does the same for them, right? So what can they do? They can do the same thing but for each other. So when they put on the tough act and all that, I get it. I get it, you know, the concept of where you stand on the pecking order of things. But there's a lot of people in the prison that need charity.

And so when they say, I've been here for 10 years, I zing back. So what have you done for people in the last 10 years? You know what I mean? And I sort of joke around with them. But the idea being just because they're incarcerated for 10 years, our perception on the outside is that, look at that. They've wasted 10 years of their life. And that's not true.

There are people in the prison. Every charitable act, every good act that they do for other people is a great act of humanity. So there's a lot that they can do and make their life very meaningful while in prison. Do you think if you didn't have your purpose and your mission, you wouldn't have been able to get back up after the loss you experienced? Yeah, that's a great question. Ian, I'll answer that twofold. Number one, to talk about my son, I do it every show.

I do it every show because whether I'm playing in sophisticated place, or whether I'm playing in prison or on death row, everybody's encountered suicide. Do you know, I'll be playing, you know, at a, you know, it could be a corporate gig or something like that, and people come up and say, thanks for talking about your son, my father, my brother, my mother, my aunt, my uncle. You know, everybody has a story of a family member,

or somebody who loves them or they loved have taken their life. Just recently a woman said, I was so close to my father. When I was 15 years old, my father took his life. life. Nobody saw it coming. I didn't see it coming. Even as an adult and I look back, I didn't see it coming. She said, what you said was so healing because I talk about it. And I talk about what I went through. You know, the last thing I'm going to do in any concert eating is stand up there and tell people, oh, I've got it all together. I don't and I don't pretend to. You know, so I go up there and I talk about my struggles with my son and how much I love my son and I still think of my son.

So from that perspective, you know, with regards to that, I talk about him because other people have experienced the trauma of that. And I want to help them get over that. And I want to help them find meaning. Secondly, with me personally, I just sort of look and think, you know, my son struggled. And my wife and I poured our life into that boy. We did all we could. It was devastating what he did. But I have a choice.

I can go on or I can just sort of crumble. I'm not going to crumble. You know, I'm in a funny story of a guy in prison in Texas. I'll never forget this guy. After the show, he grabs me. And he says, I live with the pain that I caused that family when I was 19. I said, buddy, how old are you? He said, 91.

I said, you've lived with the intensity. this pain for that long, he said like it was yesterday. Okay. Now, all that guy did his whole life, anytime life through graces at him to sort of get out of this hole through humor, through goodness, through mercy, through redemption, through, you know, forgiveness, he didn't drink it. He wouldn't take that. It was like there was, you know, a worm in a soul that reminded him, remember what you did,

remember how rotten you are. And he listened to that worm over and over again. and every time life sort of said, hey, let's get out of this now, he wouldn't do it. And he basically, I would never look at another man in the eye and say, you wasted your life, but if I ever did, it would be him, not because of his crime and not because he was incarcerated, but 100%, because he would not do anything to lift himself out of this sort of self-imposed hole over the crime he committed. So I look at it and I thought, I'm no better than him.

I'm not smarter than him. I'm not more dignified than him. I am him. So I'm just not going to play that game. I'm not going to let my mind win those fights. So that's the battle. The battle is, are you just going to kind of give in to the despair that, okay, oh, look what your son did. Oh, look at what your son did.

And I think, okay, my son suffered. And sometimes I have to sit back and sort of retell myself everything that went on and just keep going. there's so much in life to do. You just keep going. And you keep going by bringing goodness to as many people as life presents. And so I admire you for what you do, you know, the goodness that you bring and the awareness that you bring to people and the hope that you bring. You know, you are my daughter's hero.

So, you know, it's awesome what you're doing. You know, you have the ability to do this as a service to many. I love that. So we just do what we can. And that's what makes us better men to ourselves. is to do what we can with the gifts we've been given in life, to bring goodness to others. After playing in so many facilities,

what do you think is one inmate story that you're never going to forget about ever? Yeah, well, I'll tell you, that kid, in the, that 15-year-old kid I told you about, that's one. But I'll never forget one story that, you know, was very, very moving for me. I was playing in the super maximum security prison, and I was warned over and over and over

about, you know, how dangerous this prison was and, you know, and, you know, just be careful, I think, be careful, what am I going to do? I'm 5'5 140 pounds. What am I going to be careful when I throw my piano out of me? So, anyway, this gentleman comes up to me after the show and he said, I've been in here 44 years, He said, I've got like five life sentences.

He said, I'm going to die in here and I am deathly afraid to die in here. He said, I have been dreading this for so long, this overwhelming paralyzing fear to die alone, anonymous in prison. And he said, today, so the music moved to me in. And he said, today, I have lost that fear. I will never forget that because you think about this man, he's been afraid for decades about being alone, anonymous, and meaningless. And there was something about him that uplifted his humanity and it made him feel human again. If I do nothing else with my career, that'll mean the world.

The second story I'll tell you was I was playing. And this boy, like, he was a boy. He's in his early 20s. comes up to the warden before the show. Now before the show, nobody knows who I am because I'm just standing there, you know? And he goes up to the warden and says, warden, what did I do so bad that you hate me so much that you're going to make me sit through a two-hour violin show? And I said, buddy, I don't want to sit through a two-hour violin show. If you decide to leave, come get me, we'll go together. So I said, but wait till you hear my violinist, you know? At the end of the

show, that guy came up and hugged and was bawling, bawling. He was 23 years old. And he said, I just got sentenced. And I said, how did it go? He said, I got three lifetimes. And I said, are you okay? And he said, oh, yeah, you can't cry over spilt milk. Okay. When did his life become spilt milkian?

It isn't, it never was. Your life is so sublime. It's so mystical. It's so complex. The human person is alive. You're not spilt. milk. But that, keep coming to that. When did you start thinking you were spilt milk? But to look at a kid, a kid who says, you know, you can't cry over spilt milk, whose life is full of potential. He's got

that glow of youth in his eye. It really broke my heart. But it showed me there's something really dead inside for him to feel that. And so those are two. One, Last thing I will tell you overall, I hear this story over and over, and I tell this to my kids and my children say, Dad, you always tell us. Ian, countless times I go into these prisons and you see, they'll tell me, oh, yeah, that guy over there got 23 years for vehicular homicide because he went to a party and he had a couple of beers and he was on his way home and he killed somebody on the way home. And the accident may not, the last one that I heard of, the accident wasn't even his fault. But it doesn't matter.

He blew over the limit and all he had was a couple beers. And I just think, how many lives did that ruin? Because he could drive after just a couple of beers. Now, many people drive after having many, but I look at this and I think you had three kids. You know, your family lost that income. This person lost their life over a couple beers. They're not criminals. They didn't set out to do criminal activity or nefarious.

actions. All they wanted to do is have a couple beers and go home. I think, have the beers when you're home. I've seen too much of that. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's, like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app, you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week. Plus, you can earn fuel points to save up to $1 per gallon at the pump. At Ralph's, you can enjoy more ways to save and more rewards every time you shop. So it's always easy to save big every day with savings and rewards. Ralph's SoCal for over 150 years. Savings may vary by state.

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Yeah, that could really change an upend the life. You see it all the time in the news and everything. I just quit drinking myself. I just don't want any part of that. I don't like the way it feels or just the after effect and I want to be kind of present and have my mind fully there. That's awesome, Ian. And you know what? If you choose to have something, have it when you're done for the night, right? Have a beer when you're home and you're not going to drive anymore. But I do agree with you. It robs so much of our life. You can do without alcohol, do without alcohol, fully agree. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are, I put up a post about this last night and I was surprised with the reaction it got. Like, so many people are very supportive and so many people are

sober. I guess that's why like the restaurant and bar industry is declining, too, because more people are getting sober and staying away from alcohol. Oh, that's so good. I am so glad to hear that. You know, you're right, it does ruin so many lives, right? So, as I mentioned, those guys on death row, the majority of them, if not all, drugs was effectively what the problem was. And, you know, drugs, alcohol, it effectively was the problem to get them where they are.

It completely skews your thought patterns. And so I think, stay away, just stay away from anything that would anyway potentially ruin your life. Congratulations on that, Ian. Thank you. That's awesome. Tell us about the prisons in Australia. I've never heard that perspective before.

Yeah, craziest, craziest concerts I've ever done. You know, a lot of the situation in Australia, because it's an island, you know, there's sort of drug issues and a lot of people trying to import, you know. And so once I'll never forget playing this concert, I was outside, and there was 10 different audiences. and they were, you know, behind cages, but based on their country. You know what I mean? So, Eric, we're from, you know, Indonesia.

And so I'm high-fiving all these people and they're yelling at their country. I'm outside and it was crazy, you know. But so we played a two-hour show and these guys were all, you know, like just slapping the cage and screaming. It was really, really great. During the concert, quiet. As soon as that song finished, you think, you're all right. thought you were at a heavy metal concert, you know. How does the prisons compare to America?

Yeah. I mean, pretty well the same. The whole, yeah, I would say pretty well the same. The one concert in Australia, though, that was very memorable for me, I was playing in solitary confinement. So we would call that, you know,

here they call it administrative segregation. But it's solitary. They're left alone in their self for a good period of time because there's just a disconnect with how they're going to, you know, react with other inmates. So I played to a wall. There was 400 inmates behind that wall, you know, and so I was setting up, and they're all watching me set up, and we just blasted them. It was very loud, and it was awesome. And I was yelling. I was, you know, talking to them as though they were right in front of me, and they

were right in front of me, but they were behind a wall. That was probably the craziest concert I've ever done. But they were allowed to buy CDs. This is a lot, you know, this is 10 years ago, and sold a gazillion CDs to those inmates. They were so responsive. It was really beautiful. And as guys get out, I get a ton of emails, you know, so it was great. Did you get to witness the food at all over there? No, no, I didn't. Here, I'm always attentive to it. it because they say oh these guys they they they have high blood pressure and I'm thinking what's going on in the food you know what I mean they think oh no they're under stress that's not stress 30 years old high blood pressure you know so no I haven't I haven't really you know seen so much

with regards to the food in the difference between there and here I always kind of lovingly make fun of the food you know especially in women's prisons because they're very attuned to that right And so, but there is a big, I wouldn't notice between men and here, but I do notice a big difference between men's prisons and women's prisons. Yeah, tell us about your experience in women's prisons. Yeah. So I talk about my family a lot in the concert. As I mentioned, so there's, you know, I have a beautiful daughter with Down syndrome, but she has special needs. So because she has special needs, I worry a lot and my wife and I are very engaged.

and, you know, I often make the joke when we're empty nesters, the three of us are going to have a ball, you know. But all these women have children, and they all really care about their children. So I address it. See, music is very disarming, Ian, so you could play a concert, and people are moved by the music. Well, then that invites conversation

about things that matter to you, because you've been affected deeply, right? So I had them all. So we're talking about, you know, the women in prisons are, it's a very emotional concert, so the tissues are flying. You know, they all cry because they all have children. You know, and they all miss their children and they all feel this horrible. It's almost probably physiological for women to feel this horrible separation for the child

that they gave birth to, right? So I talk about, I talk about children. I talk about my children. I talk about their children. I talk about, I remind them. You know, I'll never forget, after there's a point in the show when I'm talking about the dignity of the person. And then I tell them, I said, if you are mothers or if you are fathers, if I'm talking to the men, I tell them, remember you are fathers or remember you are mothers. Your child longs for you.

You are written on the soul of your child. Who's ever looking after them is probably doing an awesome job, but your child yearns for you. And so I encourage them. You can call your child, call your child. Oh, no, my child doesn't want to talk to me because I'm in here. Whether they recognize it or naughty, and those children get satisfaction. They feel uplifted if they know that their mother or father who's incarcerated is doing well. So I tell them you do everything possible to uplift your life so that you can present to your child

that you are doing good and meaningful things in prison. That will give them dignity knowing that you are making the most of it. If they think that you're cowering in some corner and just sort of rotting, away, that will deflate them and that will invite them to a life of despair. Why would you do that to your child? You do everything you can. Nobody's asking you to live a perfect life. But look out for charity, look out for good things you can do, look out for productive things that you can do for other women, you know, in the women's prison, other men in the men's prison. And then I tell stories, you know, and I tell stories about that. So I tell them, I said, if you're estranged from your child,

if you don't have access to calling your child, write them a letter. And if you don't have access to that, write a letter and leave it in your cell. And just every day write about something that is meaningful to you. Tell them, I watched a movie today. And this really moved me and then write about what really moved you. Because your kid is going to come and find you one day. And they're going to say, you never thought of me in all these years. And then you hand them the boxes of letters.

And you just say, I thought of you every day. I just didn't have access to you. That would be such a beautiful, meaningful gesture because they are always, whether they know it or not, they are always pulled to their parents, right? And it's the same thing with regards to the men. So you know what I do with everybody? I offer free music to everybody.

Everybody inmates, I tell them, my music, I have six CDs in circulation. My music is free for you for life. I tell them, you send me an email or you send me a letter with your dad, your mom, your brother, your sister, anybody's address. I will mail it to them. And so I said if you're estranged from any family member, your son, your daughter, your mother, your father, write me their address.

I'll send them some music and that'll be a point of contact. I get so much mail. Thank you for sending my dad a CD. We're talking again. I got a call for my mom today. Thank you. We're talking again. Just a little thing like that, right?

So the difference is I feel that women have this pull towards their children. One man came and whispered and he said, Eric, we cry at your concert, but then we put the tough face on after. So, Ian, all I can say about that is that they weep like everybody else, whether it's externally very often. I've had the toughest guys in the world. Eric, can I give you a hug? And I'm thinking, yes, but don't squeeze because I'm a lot smaller than you.

but you know these guys are hugging me and they're sobbing and sobbing and i cry with them i and you know what even you think oh well you know that's good work you must keep an emotional distance from these guys i don't i don't you know how i tell you i don't because there was one guy that really did not want to be executed and i was writing his lawyer telling them you know tell them this tell them this and we were going back and forth and he got to stay at the last minute and i thought oh and he wrote me said brother i got to stay i'm going to see her show in two weeks because i'm going to see her show in two weeks because I was going in two weeks later. And then I said, that's awesome.

I wrote him back the next day, didn't hear from him. Wrote him back an hour later, didn't hear from him. Painfully went to the news and they had overturned his stay. I went in my barnion and I cried like a baby. So I don't have this separation. I'm there. I'm with them. These are my brothers.

These are my friends and so on. So, but the men, they long for their kids too. They long for their families. They feel the pain of that separation. They just hide it better. They just put on the tough face. But after the show, when they come up, they hug and they, you know, they pour it out. They let me know what's going on.

Oh, my son here, would you write? Would you do this? And I give them all my address. And I give them all my, you know, my email address. I'm very accessible to them. Have you had experience with women death row inmates? Yes. I played for women death row.

Like in Florida recently, I played and they have, I think, one couple women on death row. And she has to remain in herself. So I just put my hand up to her window and she puts her hand up. And she, you know, I would have played for her alone, but she's in the part with the, you know, the administrative segregation or the solitary confinement. She's just another inmate, but she has a different color outfit because she's a on death row, you know? And so, yeah, so the women, they're, they're very gracious. I'm going on Oklahoma, and I'm going to be playing there as well, you know, for those on death row,

really excited about it. But I don't even know Ian if it's possible, even, you know, you think about yourself, you know, they, they know their day of death and so on, but can the human person and really have a conception of, you know, I'm going to die. And what is that? Like, what does that mean to my life? Like, am I still alive? Am I still worthy? Am I, do I still have worth?

Yes. Yes, you still have worth. Up until your last breath, you still have profound, mystical, beautiful worth. And you can be an inspiration to other people, which means you have great meaning, you know? And so you think of the things even you and I do on this earth or anybody does. Really, the things with meaning are the things, that bring goodness to other people, right?

Those are the only things that don't die. You're going to buy a car, that car is going to go, right? But the good that you can do with that car to make other people uplifted and feel hope where there's so much hopelessness and feel love and encouragement where, you know, that's the stuff that lasts. You know, some of the greatest comments

are when people say, I feel human again. You know, one guy wouldn't let go. He was hugging. And he said, I'm afraid to let go. Because if I let go, I says, I haven't felt like this since I was a child. I feel uplifted. I feel good about being alive. I'm afraid if I let go, I won't, you know, I'll lose this.

And I said, then don't let go, brother. Don't let go, you know. And so, you know, there's, you know, there's great meaning in all that. So I feel so honored. Every note I play, who am I to write music to make people feel that way? I feel very honored to do so. I'll play until I can't play anymore. Now, tell us about the monetary aspect of this.

These prisons don't pay you to come into the shows. No, never received the dime from a prison. I have to go and play my own benefit concerts. So sometimes, like I was very blessed once, I played in the last one was the gentleman who's in Malkop, Kevin James. You know, I played in his home. And I'm actually in the second movie.

It's the best movie. It's the best theatrical movie out there. It's better than Gone with the Wind. better than, you know, Lord of the Rings, his mall cop too. I'm a piano player in there. So anyway, he was very gracious. He had me come to his home,

and I played in his home. And I do fundraisers. I do my own fundraising concerts for the purpose of going in, and every dime I have a charity called Concerts for Hope, and people send me, they believe in what I'm doing, and they are very gracious.

So most of the time, though, I go and I play in, you know, could be in country clubs, could be in churches, could be in small concert halls for the purpose of raising money for my work so I can go and do this. Because as you can imagine,

I take a violinist cellist and a vocalist. I have all the equipment. I have to drive them, fly people, you have hotel expenses. My concerts cost me a lot to put on, you know. But when you get response, and if it was just entertainment, I would do it on the side.

But this has meaning. And so, you know, I will go to great lengths. and there are many times when, you know, the money is tough. A lot of people have the attitude, why would I give to them? Well, I am playing to a lot of inner city schools as well. I play to a lot of vets. So I play to a lot of, you know, people who, you know, have suffered in war,

people who are suffering from PTSD, you know. And so it's just me going out and sort of hustling that way. But, you know, I'm going to tell you a funny story. There's a guy that I met. When I was going into death row, he always carried my husband. bags, which was good because he's strong and I'm not. And so, you know, I'm going down in death row, Texas, you're going into some narrow hallways and I'm thinking, okay, you know, carrying all that, I'll take the help. And he got out recently and he said, you know, Eric, when I was in prison,

I got into 600 fights, 600. He had a 28-year sentence. Okay, 600 fights. And, you know, you think about how absurd that is, you're an adult. For one man to actually turn and to be forceful or in any way aggressive towards another, that's childish, that's behavior for kids in a recess, you know, in school that don't know how to sort of work out issues, but that's the problem, right? Was he ever sort of addressed?

And, you know, he stopped it as he got older. I mean, he was the head of a, head of a gang. and, you know, he is the kindest, the gentlest man ever. But I challenged him. I said, you know what? I said, to find 600 people that are weaker than you and beat them up, that's not tough. Said, you aren't tough? Go and find the guy I like the least and befriend him.

And he may be the weirdest guy in the whole prison. Go and befriend that guy. Make sure he feels that he means a million bucks to you, you know. And he says, oh, no, I can't do that. That guy's weird. Yeah, he's weird. He's weird because he suffers from things that you are blessed not to suffer from. Go and befriend the guy. Nobody asked you to heal him. Just go and uplift his humanity a little bit because he's easily forgotten. So you look at this humanity, Ian, is so easily, oh, I don't want to hang around that guy. Yeah, but that doesn't mean that guy's not worth hanging around just to uplift him. So what if it causes you some angst or some, you know, some just agitation? Go and do it for him. know, kill something in you, that resistance in you, to uplift something in him. That's manhood, right? Okay. So this is what I'm really trying to do. So I'm trying to go and give them their humanity.

I'm trying to go into inner city schools and remind them what it means to be a person. And when they grow up, what they should look like so that they don't end up over there. So in terms of the money, what I'm trying to tell people is this isn't just me going in and playing music. I'm trying to go and sort of reach levels of humanity that we're reading about all these sort of things that are happening in our society that are violent, that are aggressive, that are bad, and I'm trying to do all I can to prevent them. Now, I'm only one person, and I can't pretend to change the world, but I can change what's right in front of me. So, Ian, my goal is to raise enough money. LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business. We cannot make your email response time faster.

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These savings won't last. So don't wait. Shop Wayfair's Memorial Day clearance now through May 25th. Wayfair, every style, every home. Money so I can just keep doing these concerts over and over and over. What's one lesson that playing in all these prisons has taught you over the course of this career and journey? Yeah. If there's anything, it's something that I always theoretically knew, but until you sort of do this, you don't really know. It's sort of theory.

Every religion alive has a version of what you do for those who are most vulnerable, you do for the divine. Okay. Forget about religion. forget about, you know, your perception of religion. But why is that out there? So Christians would say, what you do for the least, you do for God. Okay? Okay, so there's this theory that what you do for those who are most vulnerable, you do for the divine.

Well, that just sounds dumb, really. What does the most vulnerable have to do with the divine? To me, over and over, it shows that there's a real complex dignity in the human person that is undefinable. Okay. So if every person has this profound dignity, then what I go and do for those who are most vulnerable, those are easily forgotten. Nobody's in my concerts. Like when you think of, I should be taking these 10th best violinists in concert halls so that people are writing reviews and writing great reviews so that they build their legacy and they build their career. When I'm on death row, who knows about those shows? The guys on death row, me and a couple of CEOs, that's it. There's no legacy. There's no money. There's no career. There's none of that. So why do it? I do it because there's meaning because they're easily forgotten and I just have to sort of never forget that they have this profound unspeakable dignity that I can't define. But I trust it's there because the greatest thinkers in history

have all agreed that what you do for the least, you do for the divine. So I'm going after the least and I'm trying to uplift them because I truly believe that what you do for the most vulnerable in your civilization is how you regard your civilization. So I have an ability to do that. I'm very grateful. I didn't give myself this ability. It was something I was born with. You know, I worked at it, but I've been given this ability that I can take great people

and go in and play for those who are hurting the most and I can uplift them. So what have I learned? What has been the greatest lesson to me that nobody should be forgotten, that everybody has profound dignity. Everybody, everybody, everybody is worth diving into that pit to go and help and uplift, diving into that hole, going to death row in Arizona and playing in 90 degree heat outside because that guy is worth it. So the dignity of every person constantly reminded of. So I tell everybody, I don't care how smart you are. I don't care how good looking. you are. I don't care how accomplished you are. I don't care how many Facebook friends you have, how many Instagram followers. You have profound dignity right where you are. And any lies that come to

your head that would encourage you to think otherwise are lies. Don't drink the water of those lies and keep going. Yes, better yourself if you can. Go get a job. Go do better studies. But that doesn't give you the dignity as a person. So, Ian, if you were to say, you know, what is the one thing, the one thing is that everybody has great dignity. And I can go and share this gift I have to uplift them and I will do it until I die. Eric, I appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me today. Ian, it's been an honor. Yeah, it's an absolutely incredible conversation. Thank you. I look forward to you coming into the prison with me. I'm sure you're going to be the hero of all those guys too, Ian. You're doing great work too. Thank you. Thank you, and thank you, friend.