Modern Wisdom - #1024 - Jon Bellion - The Art of an Authentic Comeback

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Jon Bellion is a singer-songwriter, producer, and artist. Fame has a gravity of its own, and once you’re in the spotlight, leaving it isn’t easy. Yet Jon Bellion found more truth in stepping behind the scenes to focus on creating. Now, as a new father and a renewed artist, what gives his life meaning, and what message does he want to share with the world Expect to learn why Jon Bellion is not touring when he has a new album out, why Jon Bellion stepped back from social media and why he has a fake Instagram account, if Jon prefers producing for other people or performing more, how becoming a father has changed Jon and what it means to be a good father figure for young children, what the current direction of pop-music is right now, what Jon would tell his younger self back in college about the future of his career and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get $100 off the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get a free bottle of D3K2, an AG1 Welcome Kit, and more when you first subscribe at https://ag1.info/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New album, but you're not touring right now. No. Why? Right into it. The touring thing is, it's been a bit of a, I toured for a really long time before I walked away from artistry for about six or seven years. I've given this spiel a couple of times, but it's just like kind of figured out how the ins and outs worked of it, understood what the toll on my life was as opposed to what I was getting paid for, what I was bringing in, and the business just didn't make sense of it. So I've walked away from that a long time ago and then was able to, this time around, just kind of like really do inventory on what's important to me and what I want to do.

And we were able to do Forest Hill Stadium, just two nights back to back, sold out in a couple hours. And because the deal was right and I understand the business more, I can just drive home in my minivan and collect my money and be paid more than I've ever done for touring combined in two nights. Two nights made you more than entire tours previously. Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't regret any of it But it definitely put in perspective Oh, this is how they're killing you

This is how they're getting you on the backside So yeah, yeah So we ended up doing just two nights 26,000 people showed up It was crazy, crazy After six or seven years of being away It was like moving, super emotional After such a long hiatus

Were you surprised by the positive response To the album and the Forest Hills shows? Yeah, I think you build up It's like Dre with detox or like you build up this thing and then the expectation becomes so high that you'll never be able to whatever so i think i was fortunate enough to just like disappear and go away and write for other people for a super long time and i think that the pressure was off because i think the fans after a while were just like i actually just don't think he'll ever put out music again so then when i was like i'm putting

out music they didn't have time for there to be this unrealistic expectation of like stepbrothers too like they didn't have to it didn't have to be dumb and dummers too like it just was and on top of that I just like became a completely different person in seven years like you're tapping in with it the sound was different my approach was different everything was different so I think people were like fascinated and interested and it ended up being a blessing it was a bigger debut top six in the country top 10 in the world like and I'm not even like fakingly like oh it's it's been it's been a shock of a blessing and it's and this time around you don't get to do things twice I almost feel like I'm like scrooge or something like I woke up on Christmas again

and I'm like, I get to do this over. To run it back. So looking out at a stadium sold out two nights in a row and I've never done that six years ago. Somehow it got bigger by the time I came back. I wasn't even in my own self. I was like watching the movie being like, this is crazy. How'd that feel? You're so familiar with playing, performing live stuff.

Yeah. And then you do it. And it's the same. It's the shit that you've done hundreds of times before. And it's different at the same time. I'm interested in what that. I had one of my guys who's played with me since we were in college. My buddy George is one of my closest, closest friends.

And he was on keys behind me, and we both, after the show, just, like, held each other. Like, just, like, you don't... At this point, it's like, I'm on such borrowed time. I really feel that way. Like, it's like, you don't get to walk away. And then end up being, like, nailing a few number ones to, like, pay for your life. And then accept the fact that the artistry's never coming back. And then the label's, like, you know what he's worth more to us,

giving them what he wants, than him just never putting it out. because I don't think he's bluffing anymore. Like, he will not put out. So you played a game of chicken, basically. Oh, six-year game with chicken. And then had to go to therapy and, you know, really settled it in my heart. That's like, this is okay. If this guy's playing on my life, I'm never going to do this and I will serve other people forever in their vision.

Like, that's fine. And I get a lot out of that. And I learned a lot about serving people for a long time, other artists. For sure. Like, it definitely gave me a tool belt and my vocal ability grew and stuff. But playing that show, looking out, man, run a clip if you want. Like you can clip to it. It's just, it was nuts.

It was nuts. I've played festivals and stuff, but I've never solo, sold out back-to-back 13,000 people in a night. It's just crazy. It's crazy with zero help from the machine or whatever. It's crazy. I'm interested in the hiatus and the fact that your fans still should buy and after you spent years away.

Because I think most people in every industry feel like they always need to be producing content to keep their fans engaged. Yeah. Do you got any idea why people stayed resonant with you, despite the fact that you were absent front-facing? Yeah, it's probably a mixture of, uh, it's probably a mixture of like, you know, what you don't have. It's like, you only sell 10 t-shirts, so then the time the 10 t-shirts come out again, you don't know if they're going to only do 10 again, so you're going to, you're going to get the T-shirt. You know, you're excited about, I think there's a scarcity thing, and the content stuff, I'm a very, like, I still, am in real time figuring out as we're talking what content even

it's just not for me it's not for me it takes it takes up too much space in my mind it causes me to not be present with my family it's it's it's odd and you it's like funny I'm like talking to the guy who's like and you've had probably so you've spoken to so many prolific people about it so your knowledge of wealth is probably way deeper than mine but I just don't feel uh like I say it all the time I'm not selling a chair I'm selling me and I go into town square and I get on a pedestal I say, these are my beliefs about life, this is my art, this is the deepest reflection I could possibly excavate of myself. And someone in the background goes, fuck you, I don't like it.

It's like, they're telling they don't like me. I'm not selling, if you don't like a table I made, someone can say, I don't like the table. And I can somehow, even though the table is a representation to me, I could somehow separate myself to try to draw people to the table, not draw people to me. And the self-obsession stuff, it's tough. It's tough with kids. It's tough in a marriage. It's tough. It's tough to constantly be like, I wake up and how will my next decision make me look and my brand for the next chapter of my life? That's a tough, and that's a tough person to be around. It's tough for people to be around that a lot when every move is this concerted effort to, so honestly, me walking away from music wasn't that hard because I never enjoyed. And I'm not like down to

earth cool Joe number one. I just, hey guy, it's not. When were you furthest away from that resonance. What do you mean? So you mentioned that you're trying to be as transparent as connected as possible to the work that you do, to the artistic integrity of how you're producing things, your time with your family, probably time with friends, even like album artwork. You're deep on everything, right? Yeah. Is there a time looking back where that felt more or most out of alignment where you're like, ooh, I really veered off a little. bit there and I started playing the game to a level that I could feel. I think maybe the day, like the first day you get the first thing on YouTube, the first,

I had 5,000 views on the last one, this one has 10. I think the second that became the feedback loop of positivity and whatever, you get yourself on a little bit of a train. That's, you don't even know you're on the train until the shit crashes. You're like, I didn't even, it's like frog in the boiling water type of situation. Yeah. I think I was always on a trajectory of, it's the same thing. It's like, you'd mention any artist.

It was like, I had the most money and I was ready to kill myself. Look at the crazy story of Artist X. And everyone's like, wow, what a deep story. It's the same archetype over and over. And I just happened to be blessed enough, just blessed enough to be like, I don't know how I'm going to walk away from this. I don't know how this is going to work out because I wasn't writing for other people at the time. I'm going back home and I'm going to make music in my basement and I'm just going to walk away.

Maybe work at McDonald's. I told my wife that. It's crazy. I told my wife that, I said, yes, and she's laughing at me. She's like, you're forgetting how talented you are. You've been doing this for a long time. But I just walked away. And then by the grace of God, it was like, it was like, pew, phew, like hit after hit.

But I think that was because I may have sheded, I may have shedded, uh, what do people want? And what's going to feed the next expectation? It was like my heart is vibrating with this song. And maybe that's what humans wanted. And that will always cut through. So I try to just stay to that. I try to. I know that sounds super pseudo, like heavy. It doesn't, dude, I, I couldn't resonate more.

Like, it's, instinct is the only thing that's ever led you right. Ever. Ever. Oh my gosh. Yeah. The only thing that's ever led you right. Like with the show, you know, the currency that we traffic in is plays largely, right? Because, have you heard me talk about hidden and observable metrics? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, um, Observable metric plays, hidden metric, how much it changes a listener's life. Absolutely. Right?

There's a difference between breadth and depth. Absolutely. And unfortunately, depth is just hidden metric. Yeah. When I feel most connected to the work that I do is when I'm following my instincts as sort of plainly as possible. Yes. And I think the big hurdle for me and the word that's coming to mind as you're talking about

what you did is bravery or courage that, I'm prepared to back myself Totally To stick to my principles Totally How difficult would it have been To have done that without your wife I wouldn't have

My point being a lot of people think That they can solo preneur Their way through any industry Music business, whatever You can I just don't know how Like My wife is unbelievable

I really mean that It's like It's a grounded perspective It's an anchor that I would just be I don't want to know, I don't want to know who I'd be or what it would look like. She's, she like almost knows who I am, or knew who I was. Even when she married me, she knew the person that, like, I was going to become that I don't even know. She almost sees that in a way or something.

Yeah, she's, and she, she even, like, I've known her, I mean, I've known her since middle school. I sat behind her in middle school, so she's, what's the best way to put it? if I did wake up tomorrow and was just like, I'm over it, I'm out. She's like, cool, what are we doing today? She's not, it's not, she really does just want to see me happy. So she's down for the, all right,

you want to write for six years? It's like, all right, you want to spend $2 million, a lot of money on an album and risk it all yourself and come back after six years and rent the venues yourself and buy the merch yourself. Hey, let's see if it worked. She's ready to go.

Because, you know, six years ago, I'm like, I'm never bringing art again. And I know my feet. future and da-da-da-da. And then six years later, I was like, I have a lot to say. And now they want to give me my shit back. So I feel like morally it's a good time for me to actually operate because I'm not a dancing monkey. I'm just making shit and getting paid properly off of it. So, dude, that's so cool. That's so say. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned that you changed a lot in the space of six years. Oh, man. I had three kids. That'll change you.

Yeah. Yeah. In fact, actually, before we even get on to that, I need to talk about this fake Instagram account thing. Yeah. It seems like the forum ticket sales and most of the album rollout was talked about through a blank Instagram account called User 1-22-6190. My birthday.

What the fuck's going on? Social media is too much the brand of my name is too much for me to care about. So it was more freeing to just shitposts and just say things in real time and not curate the post and not whatever. And then for some reason when I removed it from my name and it was just this like doing this thing, I knew that the real fans would care. And then the harder it is

for people to access the real information that's not on the main page, it would turn fans into more news herald type of people. So I just was like, let's do a Windows 98, like forum, let's do a fake Instagram, let's do all do stuff that creates people to have to kind of dig to then go tell the rest of the world who are passive fans, this is what it's going to be. Because then I hired a label for free you know so and it just took the pressure off because social media is just not for me i haven't had social media on my phone until i got that fake instagram i haven't had it for six years not a single thing so it's like how am i going to get back into this because the second i post from my main account it'll be 30 000 lines and then my and then my whole shit starts to take over again

where i'm like waking up being like what is the thing that's going to remain my relevancy for people to know about my album no i can't do it did you fear irrelevance fear irrelevance one of my deepest fears creatively is a hundred percent my ideas not being valued to be brought to affect other people my deepest fear is when you lose your quote-unquote relevancy whether it be in production or artistry or whatever there's a viable idea that could change the world but the world doesn't soak it in because the perspective that you've built of yourself is not as strong as it was years ago so there is this weird dance you have to do so you see your relevance as a vehicle?

My relevance is only a vehicle for utility. The relevance is a vehicle to present utility to other musicians and to other things to keep the soup turning of culture for this to birth cooler shit than when I'm gone, other things will happen. You're like a vessel. That's it, nothing else. It's not, it's all borrowed books in a library and we're taking and we're reading and there's stardust coming.

and it's not like um there's days i'm on my high horse there's days i think i'm the worst in the world so it's like you know you don't want to be like too over exaggeration but like it's all borrowed it's everything is borrowed it's all just it's all um um anything that is good in my mind comes from god so if he shows up to do it through you it will be good good in a way that will last forever because he lasts forever. So it's like, if he wants to show up, then it'll happen. I'm on that time.

Now I'm on that time. He's going to either, she's going to show up or he's not. And it's like, oh, well, then just shit in your room all day and wait for God to show up. It's like, yes, metaphorically it gets very, but I can only speak from my gut. And I know right now at 34 years old with three kids and whatever, he's either going to, he's either going to come in a room and play where he's not. It's just, it is what it is. There's a great quote, which is, God doesn't want to do all of the work.

Some of it is left up to you. Yeah. And I think this balance between faith or belief and agency. It's the age old, yeah. Correct. Yeah. You know, I know that I need to make things happen, but I also need to have faith that I'm going to be pulled toward the right direction of this. Yeah.

I mean, how many times in my life creatively I thought what I was making was for this and it ended up being something completely different that was not you look back on it you're like oh that ended up being unbelievable for me do any examples come from mind um just like right now there's the number one record at rhythmic radio i've never had a rhythmic number one in my life and it was a record that i was like you know what i'm going to return to just like really listening to something that i just listen to as a fan and i want to put it in the car and like i just like i just like it, not like, I need hits. I want big songs and it's going to affect the world. I just want to like get back to a place where I'm like, my taste is driving all of this and I'm in the car

excited playing it back right now because there's waves and flows. There's different ways to attack product and like my gut was saying, whatever. So I made the song and I was like, oh, this will probably be for me. No one will ever find it. And like the most unexpected artist in the world was like, I'll take it and I'll take it to radio and it'll end up going number one. And it was like, I never would have thought this artist would have took it. I never would have thought. You know, So it's like, sometimes you make things, and as long as the offering is pure and it's like aligned with your gut, the universe will be like, you think it's going to be here, but I'm going to put it over here one day. And then you look back four years later and you're just like, I would have never predicted what that was, like ever, like crazy. I love the word taste.

Yeah. I think it's so great. And it's very difficult to define and very difficult to replicate and very difficult to create a blueprint for. I think it's one of the reasons that people don't talk about it because. the good definition of taste being able to distinguish between good and not good. Yep. Right? This is good.

Why? Don't know. Is. This is not good. Not sure either. It just is not. Literally. That's a forever coagulating, not problem, but a very interesting interaction with product and me.

It's always like... Can you say product? What are you referring to? Just like the thing you made. Right. The products. Not like a sellable thing. Just like the finger painting.

put it on the table on the table it's a product right there it's a product of my effort um yeah no it's it's wild there's always a forever interchanging uh what's good for the person what's good for me some people would even say like the rick reuben approach is always just like it's about if i like it and nothing else matters but like sometimes there's thoughts that creep into my mind where it's like this is like almost a cooler melody or this is like a really way like a cooler way of approaching it in my opinion, but I know bubbling it, boiling it down here to allow

the person to understand the point of the pre to then be affected by the hook, it will affect more people constructing it this way. Scorsese Scorsese makes this and the Avengers is here. And like it some people wake up in the morning and want Avengers

and some people wake up in the morning and want Scorsese to say that both of those things are, one is better than the other in my older age, I think that's a young man's game. Young men want to argue about that. I realize as a utility guy, I'm starting to disconnect from, there's a time and a place and there's my artistry and I will take my taste to the umph and I will tell to the world this is what I think is the coolest shit ever. Put my balls on the table and be like, I ain't nobody fucking with this. There's time for that. And there's other times where I'm like, it's not my, the world

doesn't want this from X. And I'm working for X right now. So I need to kind of, separate myself from like even telling them I might not even listen to this in my free time that's not my job it's not my job you want to be cool and do your taste all the way and maybe that's fine but like I also enjoy just like sending my kids to college and there's times which you want to say if you want to if you want to send your kids to college sometimes you just we got to pay the bills you help dude I I love we'll get back to talking in just one second but first if you have been feeling a bit sluggish

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Getting a blood work drawn and analyzed like this would usually cost thousands, but with function, it's just $499. And right now, you can get $100 off, bringing it down to $399 bucks. Get the exact same blood panels that I get and save that $100 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. That's functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. I love this point. The idea of like artistic validity. or artistic purity or something. Oh my gosh. I mean, how many people, music is very ripe with this,

but maybe even art, in modern art, for instance, would be even more so that the more obscure or inaccessible or clunky or difficult it is to get or to understand the more sophisticated you see. Look at how refined he is. He's able to consider the complexity and the depth. Oh, my gosh. And you're like, if it doesn't, if it's not popular,

it can't have impact like as in if nobody wants it you can think it's the coolest shit on the planet and maybe it is but if the world isn't ready for this yes it doesn't matter you can I say it all the time

I make the joke in this to do you all the time if you want to be you have to be seen so there has to be something that makes it attractive to say that nothing I do is attractive and I don't care if anybody listens to my shit. It's like, all right, then

live in your parents' basement, eat a bowl cereal every day, and be broke as a joke until you're 50. Enjoy making it. Okay, I guess but I'm not saying that that validates bullshit. I've worked on the bullshit. I've worked on the most poignant. Just the gray sludge pumped out. Which we understand that

the mom who's taking her kids to soccer on a Tuesday is going to turn on the radio and just listen to that. There's a directive there. There's a lot of money there. But for me to like waste time to just be like, I am the most pure. It puts too much. It's a young man's game.

It's a young man's game. To me, thank the Lord for my album. Father Figures is my space to go and say, go listen to what I'm saying and put it up against but-a-bda-da-da. That's a whole different thing. But far be it for me to not take a couple of days off to go work with XX to go make something huge. That the world who doesn't really care about, some people care about boxed wine. Some people care about stomping on the grapes.

and sometimes box wine sells because a 21 year old who's going to a party just needs to grab something to 7-11 and that's viable that's real and that's a necessity and there's utility in that for me to say that there's not utility in that is so like

like pew-pue like I understand art and it's like what's your utility if the utilities to serve then you can't get your way 100% of the time because that's not serving it's like in order to be fulfilled in what you do there has to be a slice of servitude

humanity and vanity are very important you can't just always be vanity because then people will hate you and you can't just always be humanity because you'll just get used up there has to be this clunky disgusting muddy in between grayness as a human or as a creator to help me live with myself

I have to be okay with both sides I have to because the second I say I'm never going to be an artist anymore I look pretty stupid going and being an artist so it's like I wake up every day being like if my gut tells me to go in that direction. Hopefully it works out. It's a young man's game to be so sure of myself. I was so sure myself in my early 20s. I knew everything. Nick crazy, as you get more experience, your certainty

decreases. My certainty's out the window. I don't even know my own name anymore. The only things I'm certain of are the things that I can't pin down. Like, I can't pin down like the direction I need to go to day by day. But my gut is leading me in this uncertain thing. But I'm certain that the uncertain is like the adventure. It's the thing that brings the spoils of war, you know. Okay, so maybe the dynamic that's happening there. Early on in your career, you have less experience, your taste is less refined, your ability to follow your good and your instincts aren't there in the same way. What that means is you need to have more of a prefabricated plan. You can't go up and just improv freestyle rap your way through this thing.

Because what experience you're relying? Yes. So you go in and you're a little bit more contrived, a little bit more curated, more purposeful. Oh my gosh. And then as you get further into your career, into your mid-30s after having a six-year hiatus at the peak of what would have been most people's careers,

you come back and you go, well, I can now tap into, I have faith that my programming will carry me through. I told you this. Oh my gosh. I told you this story about last night. I played the town hall in my, Manhattan last night and the sound cuts out for five minutes in the middle of the set. I can't keep going with what I was supposed to be talking about. So I just need to find, Zach, my warm up,

they came and said, hey, I know you've practiced your set 30 times. We need you to extend by 15 minutes because they're doing bag checks at the front. He's like, can you just create another five songs out of nowhere for us please this evening? And he fucking crushed it. Love it. That is that faith that my programming will carry me forward. One other example on that. I was doing a big podcast a few years ago and I decided I wasn't going to eat on the morning and I was going to train hard. And I was like, the dopamine and the fucking adrenaline are going to be going. I'm going to be super dialed.

And I felt amazing. And then I went hypoglycemic partway through the episode. And my brain just went completely blank. Oh, my gosh, being me nervous. I'm like staring, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Watching someone talk at me. Yeah. And immediately my mind goes, you're messing up.

You were never supposed to be here. You're not supposed to be here. Everyone's laughing at you. This was your shot. You're going to blow it. You're going to do, da, da, da, da, da. Like, and he's talking at me, chatting away. And when I watch the episode back, I'm having a fully cogent conversation about the power of Jake Paul's right hand.

I'm like, yeah, well, the interesting thing is Jake Paul's knocked out every opponent that he's faced. And I'm like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you were never supposed to be here. You're not supposed to be here. Like, and I'm like, oh, that's programming. Yes. That's like a thousand hours plus, the 2,000 hours of conversations over the last eight years. just like, pulling you through.

Yes, yes. So that's why you're allowed to use experience and taste and instinct deeper into your career and you can't use it at the stop. I say it all the time. It's like Rihanna had to make shut up and drive to get to like stay. Like Bruno had to make the lazy song to get to like Uptown Funk. It's almost like you have to. And you also have to be okay with the growth of what it is.

Like you got to just like create, put it out. And then there's nothing you could do about your growth. If you want to get to somewhere, you're going to have to start somewhere. So it's going to be messy, it's going to be sloppy. And it's not, like you said, it's going to be contrived. And it's going to be whatever. Like, if you listen to even, like, any song, like, don't shoot the boy down on my

album now or six years ago, what someone's favorite song might have been. It's two totally different worlds, totally different worlds. So it's like, even like you said, the autopilot thing, or just like your programming of what we only rehearsed for four days for Fort Sills because I used to rehearse for months. But there was, we did a middle section. A million people on stage. you improv the whole thing you're conducting everything

all right look I get that you've got lots of experience four days feels like a high wire act okay fucking looking at your manager through the window and he's like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

it was it was four days of of really intense rehearsal I mean they were like in the 10 hour range but but you're right though it's like you understand this will probably hit

this will work I could pack that in. I'll remember to bring that part out. And I wasn't remembering a single lyric the first two days. But if that would have been six years ago, I would have been like book another month and we're going to get in another 12 hours a day and I can never forget while I'm rehearsing a lyric.

I was like, you know, it's going to kick in when the adrenaline's there. And it did. Didn't need the lyrics on the sheet and shit. I was just like, all right, it worked. And then another thing hit me too is that I don't really need to keep touring. So if this fails and crashes miserably,

like this is the one show I was going to do anyway. so I'll freestyle the whole middle of the show. We'll pick five songs. I'll, like, build the shit in front of everybody because that's kind of what I do in the studio. And if it fails miserably, it's not like, it's like, I'm not going to pay the barrels to, like, finish my tour.

It's just like, that didn't work, but it felt like it worked. So when I walked up there, I was just. Fucked up that. So when we ended up freestyle and it was programming, it was for sure, like, I also have a bit of just like, I don't really have much to lose.

This, you know, I walked away from it. I walked away from it for a soul. long and accepted it and like put it in a coffin and sent it down the river and like watched it go away only for like god to like lift it up and present it at my front door when i woke up one morning but like it was so gone that now i'm kind of like i could do that so it is actually which brings me to like i'm very very vulnerably speaking it's just like this stuff is very uh this is a point that i just kept thinking about days before speaking to you is that i can't express what it's like to be like it's hard for me to put a thought process on like if you really

love your life then just like love your life you don't need to inform people and let people know how great your life is so going on a podcast talking about how much I don't care seems counterintuitive which then makes me not want to even just like leave my house and come and talk to you about it because I don't know how to express the like I'm on a podcast with one of the greatest podcasters in the world and this is like one of the biggest platforms and I'm talking about how much I don't give a fuck

I don't give a fuck but there is a piece of me that I do in my deepest morals find important and I should shoot those out into the world but it's also a larger risk that I don't really care to take like if I really if we talked about how me

and how you speak with your best friend after a couple of drinks like back home or whatever which is like everybody else the people you trust the most you get down to what you really believe so there's a piece of me that doesn't want to just give fluff

But I also don't want to, like, I ain't, like, I don't, I'm not, I don't want to be like this, like, if you want to, like, fight the music industry, but I have a bunch of knowledge that I think can help a lot of people. So I'm constantly struggling, like, I should say something and go on a podcast and have a conversation about balance while playing the game that's, like, in the machine that's plastic. Yeah. I don't even know how that popped out of my cerebral while we were talking. I don't even know if that made sense. Why did you decide to come on? I forgot. I said yes a really long time ago. Let's go, baby! And then Lewis, my day-to-day was like, they flew out, dude.

You're doing that tomorrow. I was like, I'm in. And all jokes aside, I find you your cause to be very, I find it at base root to be noble. It's not salacious. It's not something that is like entertainment. It's, uh, it's a me. meal. And I can get down with that. Like on a moral, deeper level, I can have a conversation with somebody that I've learned a lot from and the guests that you've had on. Like, it's helped my

individual life, my silent life at home with my family. So it's like, I'll, I'm down. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. I also appreciate your booking agent or whoever, just sliding it into the calendar and being like, Friday. What are we doing today? And honestly, truthfully, I'm a really, I'm a really, I'm a really, big fan of you as what you've decided to put out into the world. I respect that. Thank you. Deeply on a really deep level. Thank you. Yeah. That means a lot. I, um, taste is, uh, absent even more in my industry than in yours. And I'm, I'm trying my best to like hold on to that wherever I can and, and to refine that. What do you, what, what's the temptation

for like a guy at your level, top level of, of conversation having podcast. and content, like, what is the daily temptation of the, like, I know I could blow the door open on, da-da-da-da-da. Like, what is your, like, content? Well, first one would be most, almost all platforms, big, big, big platforms with, like, hardcore tribal audiences are built together over the mutual hatred of an out-group, not the mutual love of an in-group. Wow. This is how all cults, how all movements are built, right? By identifying the other, if you look at the way that American elections have been won. The last election where the party that was voted in was voted for love of party, not hatred of the other, was 2012. Since then, most people have protest voted against

I am not that, not I am this. Wow. And that's how, so a great, a great way to judge whether or not the content creator that you listen to is playing the game correctly. Or playing the game in an honest way, is the audience bound together over the mutual belief of something as opposed to the mutual disbelief of something else? Wow. And I've never played that game. I don't start beef with people online, even if I get like poked at a little bit here and there. I genuinely try and platform people who I can go from fucking John Belly and Matthew McConaughey to like some 22-year-old YouTuber from London who I found a one video essay of

and I fucking love and I'm like you're coming to Austin and I'm going to speak to you on the podcast and I'm just going to give you a shot like who the fuck am I to say I'm going to give you a shot but the entire industry is you holding onto the coattails of people bigger than you and then three and a bit years ago

Rogan puts me on when just a DM I've got 250,000 subs it's nothing and he brings me on and gives me a shot and it went really well and that was great Wow. And being the, like, the opportunity to go from you, like, lying in the hammock, everybody else has created for you to turning the hammock into a trampoline that other people can bounce off. Yes. Is really fucking cool. Two of the things I don't want to forget that came

to mind while you were talking. The first one was, you said that you stepped away for six years. If you ever heard McConaughey talk about when he stopped doing rom-coms, bro. So he's like the rom-com king. And what I didn't realize was rom-kongs was super easy to make, super cheap, would generate at the box office, get replayed at Valentine's Day, replayed at Christmas. Like it's just, it was a cash cow. Yeah. He was the rom-com king. But you realized that it was a little gray sludgy. He was becoming formulaic.

He was churning these things out and he didn't want to do it. So he stepped away. Yeah. And he stepped away, I think, for 18 months or two years at like the peak of his career. Real similar to your story. And they came and they offered him five million for the next role and he said no. Then they said seven. He said no.

Then they said 10 and he said no. Then they said 14 and he said no. And they were like, well, what's he got going on? In order to say no to $14 million for this role, which is, you know, easy in easy out, whatever, however many weeks of work. This is, he's got something really serious that's happening. And that was the moment that his whole. Exactly. See, he's funny.

At my age, I don't view him as the rom-com guy. Like I view him as life. Not now, but the only reason he was able to get there was because he dispensed with that outfit, right? That's amazing. Second thing. It's amazing. You know those balance board things? It's like a skateboard deck on a little sort of cylinder.

I always think about this. So you were talking about the fact that you have to play the game, but know that it's not about the game. And sometimes you are playing it more and other times you are playing it less. Absolutely. When you think about standing on one of those balance boards, at no point are you actually in balance? you're always making these little macro adjustments forever coagulating yes and then every so often you go whoa holy fuck like we really like nearly kissed the ground there on that one and then oh yeah totally totally and i love that idea and i think that that what people want is to think if i can get myself to the

perfect level of equilibrium i'll never have to readjust a game it just doesn't exist readjusting is the game that is it then you start to realize that it leaning left or right is not even the thing, it's like you could just do your best to do ab workouts to stay on. It's like, I know this thing is going to go left and right, and I have to be prepared for it to go left and right. So I got to make sure my core is like very, very solid. And then your whole entire holistic perspective changes to make sure your core is right to do the balance. Because the balance is all that's happening. Like you said, you're never going to hit the perfect thing where you go, I'm perfectly balanced for the rest of my. No problems for the rest of life.

Then your mind starts to think. You're like, oh, it's not perfect artistry. It's not total commercialism it's the reflection of this balance thing that is not black it's not white it's it's it's just a lot of nuance it's some things there's no nuance at all but i'm blown away in my older age how deeply nuanced it all is every bit of it it's tough to even have it's tough to even like confidently move forward the only thing i'm confident is is the music because i like it my own music everything else is very very tough for me even people say like what do you What advice do you have for writers? I'm like, I don't even know what I did.

I really don't. Like, I had a weird, unwavering belief in myself. That's super important. But, like, I know there's people out there that are wickedly talented. And just, it just, the chips just don't fall. I don't know how to, like, combat that. I don't. It's very interesting.

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first purchase by going to the link in the description below. or heading to drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom. I've heard you say the most talented people in the world sometimes don't make the best shit

to listen to. Yeah. Why? For sure. What gets in the way? You would assume... So funny the way my mind works. I'm like, I'm already editing that.

Like, I'm like, well... Well, what would you say? In my opinion, yeah, it's like... I think... I think I've been blessed with an understanding that when I'm listening to something, I think in my head humans will feel good because of this. People will enjoy this thing that hits this thing and this will work and this will be pleasing to people. It's a thing when I'm creating.

I want this to feel pleasing to you. I want you to be affected by this. I want you to have goosebumps and to be affected, not just look at how talented I am. I know motherfuckers who can sing the phone book. It doesn't mean when they play me the MP3 in the car that I'm like, I'm going to listen to that song again. It's like, you're singing really great, but I just, there's nothing about it that makes me,

and I don't know what that about it is, which is my obsession. I love that. I live in the about it. I'm not the greatest singer. I'm not the greatest rapper. I'm not the greatest producer. I'm not the greatest piano player, chord guy, harmony guy.

But I just, I'm like, ooh, I think people will like that. And I can now find a way to get, I know who to call to get it to the thing that I think people will like. And that's worked for me. It's worked for me. I don't know. People might say I'm talented, but like, I also just really, really, really, really deeply to the point of tears, love what I do every day. I love it.

I love it. I love it. Everything else is like a day at work. For me to go in there, seven an hour, coming at 11, leave a 7, I get dinner at my house, I play with my boys. I put him to bed and wake up and do the same thing every day. and life just gets better and better and better and better because I'm doing the same thing I did when I was 15. I'm so happy female.

Thank you. And it's hard not to just say that. And I know that might make people reflect on their own thing and not be happy about the statement. But why am I not touring or why am I? I'm not even, I swore I wasn't going to get emotional, but it's like I just love my life. To live.

I love my life. I love it. I love it. It's mind-blowing. I get in a minivan and drive home from a stadium and wake up and clean diapers next day. I got it all. I got it all. Because my life, I might not have got the diapers. I might not have got the sleepless nights. I might not have got the... It's the shit that the world tells you is not what you chase after is the shit that I almost missed. It's like there's a renaissance coming of people. and it's uh the renaissance is realizing that the roof over your head the plumbing job and the cutting the grass is the good shit we've taken it to the extreme our society's taking it all the we got it all we figured it out we're the most connected we've ever been we got the most money we've ever had we use it i think everyone start myself included took me six years to be like i almost lost i almost chased this thing and then for six years i was around a bunch of guys who had all the stuff I thought I needed.

No. It's the dirt, it's the muck, it's the mistakes, it's the thing, that's the good shit. But we spend so much time making sure no one ever, no one ever sees us in a light that might seem average. Being average is the greatest thing in my life. It's the greatest thing in my life. Sometimes I go to the shoe store and people know who I am. And other times I'll go five days without anybody even knowing who the fuck I am. I take my kids to sports class and nobody bothers me.

It's like celebrity. It's like, miss me with that. I've never had a conversation with a famous motherfucker. I've never had a long, two, three, four hour conversation in the studio with a famous motherfucker that's been like, I love it. It was the best decision I ever made in my life being famous. God came out to sky and was like, you have the money like you're famous, but you don't have to be famous.

I'm taking that all day long. Fame makes no sense to me. and I think the general consciousness of the population is waking up to that like the idea of celebrities like everybody's like side-onying these guys like they're not perfect because I'm not perfect

it's like what are we doing here like what are we talking about? I don't know how I just went on that tangent I apologize I don't I didn't need it yeah you guys have to make me look like I'm making sense he's gonna himself yeah that was the main thing guys

like even if I can get on this podcast today and just be like like my coffee in the morning in the grass on my feet in a roof over my head making music it's like you will never you'll never stop me you'll never stop me I love what I'm doing so much you will never I'll never stop I'll be 90 years old just doing the same thing every single day because it gets better and better and better and the relationship changes with it and to be able to get paid like that

where I don't have to I could play one show at Forest Hills and then people show up. I think because I walked away and let go of it, when it came back, I was like, I didn't even know I had this when I had it six years ago. And now coming back to it, it doesn't even define me, but it's just like this funny, like I'm like the Monopoly guy with a mustache. Like, it's all fake money. I'm rolling dice.

I'm like, if I lose money on fucking boardwalk, it this is, this, it's, like, it's just life is good, man. Life is good. Have you ever seen Peaky Blinders? No. Okay. So it's a show about a gang from Birmingham in the 1920s-ish. And in it, it's a group of brothers.

They were in First World War. Two of the brothers were in the First World War. And they went to the battle with the Somme, and they were tunnel diggers. Real dangerous, high mortality rate. And Tommy and Arthur, the two older brothers, they have this line. where they say um they basically thought that they were going to die at the battle of the song but they didn't and they refer to it as everything after that was extra yeah and it feels to me like you died oh absolutely that time yeah and you're like everything after that was extra absolutely

i look at in therapy i did an exercise where i looked at me on a boat and thanked him thank you for getting me this far but i have to go on without you you help me survive you you You, all your tendencies and all of your things, they helped you get to this place because it was survival, but I can't keep you with me anymore. And I got to say goodbye to you, and I got to move on.

And I did it. It's just the boat went away. And once the boat went away, you look at things in a much different, it's just much different. It's just much different. It almost comes to you when you let it, I hate being the, like, guru guy.

You don't, I don't, I just, dude, I'm just not chasing much now. I just know that if I fish and make father figure Some artists out there It's going to be a commercial for myself And some artists are going to hear it And then ask me to go work with them I just know that

I know that in my two year plan Of spending all this money or whatever It's like when you fish You just you fish You can't get into water with goggles And like start swimming after the fish Most motherfuckers want to just like I really in my early 20s I was like

In a speedo with the goggles in the school But trying to get a bass I'm like and then someone was on the dock like young man young man just grabbed the pole and just hang out well I can't see the fishing

what if they don't show up they might not but you're not gonna catch shit from forcing the universe I don't know I don't know it's so countercultural because most people will tell you

wake up and force the universe no no no no you're dude you should not be doubting anything that you're saying I thank you coming from you get a lot of you get so many rounded polished perspectives

of like good information so I appreciate that I believe it you're tapped in There's two types of people in the world. There's people that are tapped in and people that aren't. And when you think about that, you know when you're talking about it and you're saying like, you can't stop me, you're not going to stop me, I'm just doing

what I want to do. You know that feeling that you get that's like a birdcage opening in your chest? Yes. That. Yeah. Like, that's what people should be chasing. That is honest to the Lord. I think a lot of successful peoples, myself included, I swear to you that that is the superpower

of whether it's production or podcasting, or whatever, is accessing the thing. Because once the thing is seen by people, they say, that's the thing that I have hid for, like, there's a freedom in the birdcage opening up. And if you can access the birdcage opening up, I just feel like, by the grace of God, I've been able to open my bird cage on record so many times

that I've learned to be okay with the fact that I'm emotional, that I'm okay with the fact that, like, things can wreck my day. And seeing one thing, on social media will fuck me up so bad that I have to get off of it for six years. I'm okay with those things because I just think my birdcage is, I'm sensitive. There you go. All that talking to say.

No, no, dude, I really, really appreciate you saying that. I think sensitivity is your strength with regards to this. Oh my gosh. I did. I've been wearing this, I guess the audience might not have noticed, but I've been wearing this little piece of red for about six weeks now. And it's got the letters ILM on the back, and it's got an infinity symbol on there. I went and did a retreat in Sonoma County about six weeks ago, two months ago.

It was 12 hours a day from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. Wow. Of very deep emotional work. Intensive. Incredibly. Sober, non-psychedelic stuff. And the ILM on this stands for I Love Myself. And it was the thing that you wanted to take away.

but in it what you were talking about that I need to send that version of me off to see yeah so many of the fears and doubts and patterns the patterns that people have especially the ones that you don't like they're there to protect you they're there to try and keep you safe

they're there to get you validation from the world and even my work my work when I was 14 years old was every night I was lost in that screen, creating and living in a world that was not reality. It's what helped me grow as a man. It's what helped me stay alive. Like music is literally something that I held on to, like a life raft, and it was so embedded in my, but then at what point when you're a grown man, you say, is this escapism?

Is it easier for me to be listened to in the studio all day long than go home and actually have an interactive marriage where my opinion doesn't actually end all, be all of everything? there's a it's a very very very very interesting thing like you said saying goodbye to that person is saying like I know I was put on this planet and I've been giving gifts to make music I'm pretty sure of it at this point but I always have to take inventory on whether it's escapism or not sometimes it's healthy to escape as men I think there is something very valid on a man who goes fishing on a Saturday there's something very valid about your own time your solace you or whatever but you always have to take inventory on it's like dude are you fishing on a or are you not able to stomach the idea of the normalcy of your life? Which is always, that's another thing I have to take inventory on with my job.

Balance beam. You're on that balance board, dude. Totally. Totally. I have to always take inventory of saying, let me see what this feels like to me. Is this, a post just went viral about me doing something that makes me look talented. How am I? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Calm down, bud. You get, hey, and it's a lot of that. But I noticed that that's been the biggest blessing in my life. Some people would be like, she's ripped the door open, man. Like, you just did 26,000 people at Forest Hills. We're going on the road. Whoa!

And when I drove home, my wife was being Michelle Obama all day. She was tired of shit. She was taking care of the kids all day long. There was a playground in the back. So about the time that the show was over, my kid, my son was like, Dad, I didn't. My son was like, the other day he sits me down.

Can I talk to you? I'm like, yeah, he's like, I didn't like a show. I was like, by the way, the whole thing sold out, the whole thing top to the bottom. He's like, yeah, and he's dead, pan. I'm like, oh, I thought he's going to be joking. So like, my ego, he's four. My ego is like, oh, like, everyone told me I killed it. That thing was sold up. I said, buddy, why didn't you like the show? He goes, you know, you sang the first song. Then you just kept singing and singing and I was just like, when's he going to be done singing? He's like, I wanted to. to go play with you in the playground at the back of this thing. So it, like, puts the whole, even that my son trusts me enough to tell me that, I'm like, oh my gosh, thank God. Gross. Thank God the trip back in the minivan that, because we have too many kids now,

we used to have a navigator and a ranger over, and now I'm ripping the Kia Carnival. Wonderful product, by the way. I'm driving home in the Kia. She forgot to get gas. I'm in the middle of Bumblefuck Brooklyn trying to get gas. after I'm like yo I'm rich I don't need this shit but then it like it just was like no this is the this is the good this is the shit is this I'm annoyed I'm tired my wife's over it

but you would look at me at the end of that show that day at the after party of everybody coming up to me my daughters needs this and my cousin and listen to my demo and you're the man that was the best show I ever seen they don't recognize that there's this other thing I'm just like thank God I didn't spend my whole life pretending that that other thing just never existed. Because I'm way more in that other thing than I am in stuff like this. Not saying the value in it.

Oh my God. Oh my gosh. It's so scary, dude. And then you build a kingdom that's predicated on the idea that you never have sludge or you never have mundane shit. Then you're fucking toast.

You're trapped. It's not a kingdom. It's a prison. Bruh. The amount of records I've written for people that by the end I've walked away and been like, I'm all the way good

on everything this dude has ever By the way My heart breaks for them That doesn't mean that Hey I'm like I said I ain't Johnny Noble I'm not like so much better than them I get on my knees I get on my knees in my closet and I say

Thank you you didn't give me everything I ever wanted Oh my gosh Oh my gosh If I got everything I ever wanted at 20 I might not be alive And then you And then you bring it back tenfold for me to look at it

Like I'm not even this isn't even I'm not even in this tomorrow i will wake up and i will be with my children and i will be in the studio making something maybe for me or something for somebody else doing the same shit i did every single day it's not this the fourth of july every day ain't the move man the fourth of july is great because it happens once a year if monday through monday it's fireworks alcohol and craziness but our job i don't know society is just very much like if it ain't fourth of july every day then you are not accomplishing what you are and then the motherfucker who's got to sit in traffic on Tuesday is like

my life sucks it's like dude no it doesn't no it doesn't because we're all living the same the same fears the same validation the same way you want to be looked at when you walk in a room and you wonder what other people think about you we just spend a lot of time making sure that that's not

obvious but the more time you get away from the machine you're like I'm in my chubby phase I'm a little bit of a dad I'll make music as a dad Like, thank God. Dad music. Like, because that's what the fuck I am.

If I spent half my life trying to pretend like I'm not, you get a lot of these artists I work with. I'm like, man, you ain't, why you want to say that? That's not your reality. Yeah, you've got kids at home, but you're still playing the baller up front. What do the kids think? You know a lot about a man about what his kids think about him.

I don't need to know what your fans think about you. I don't even, I don't need to know what my friends. How present is dad and mom at home? How you got, never speak. speak to someone who adores somebody from a distance on a character judgment that you can make about them. You will know the fruit if you know the person. That's the only thing you can count on. So for like, you want to work your whole life for a bunch of people that don't know you to think that you're a good guy. And then when you go home, everyone's like, this guy. That's what most

of the album's about. You've traded the validation of the people who would love you for who you are for the validation of people who love you for what you do. It's like, and then your identity becomes what you do. So if you can't do what you do, your whole life is just shattered. It's taken away from you. So now you're locked into the prison. And that's how you get locked into the prison. Bro, I've noticed that in recently 10 years of some kind, it was almost like, like, even

when I looked at my dad, my dad's job, didn't, he wasn't trying to get, like, his whole community from his job and his whole purpose from his job. It was almost like you made money to then, like, go to church and, like, have another life of... I don't really know what I'm saying. It's probably not going anywhere. But, like, what I'm trying to say is, like, the job is just the job. It's not the definition of what you are. And slowly but surely, given our, like, whole lives being commercials, which is what social media is, you have to turn your job into your...

And I've, like, law... I'm just like, man, it's like, this is just something I get to do. It's not me. It's a facet within the other things that feed me in my community, spending time with my wife, going on vacations with my friends, spending time with my family, eating a good meal with somebody. This is a little thing. Well, imagine if you had an investment portfolio and 95% of your investments were in a single stock. You would be very, very careful and very, very anxious about the progress of that stock. What you have is a distributed portfolio of investments. Oh my gosh. Amen. And it's like, I even think sometimes, too, it's just like this probably, and again, I'm just speaking from, I'm here. And it's like, someone wants to hear me talk, I guess. So it's like, I might as well throw whatever out there. It's like, I've also noticed just like living under my means and not living to the thing that I am has made me also wildly happy by, beyond most. Once me and my wife stopped with the house additions and the hot tub and the pool and the yada yada yada, yada.

Pivoted to the Kia. What did you say? A hard pivot to the Kia. Bro, I'm in the key and they got these little nature sounds. that you could put on in the car and shit. I'm like, I like this just as much as my $175,000 Tesla that I got neck pain from ripping on the highway on.

I'm like, oh, thank God I got the Kia. So then it really started opening up in my life to be like, what if I just lived completely under my means? I'm rich forever. If I live like a motherfucker who makes the type of money that I make, I'm going to have to be on the wheel forever to keep that moving. But if I just make the house smaller

and accomplish huge things and just don't make a big deal out of the accomplishments and just keep it kind of low key and then just tuck it away somewhere that if anybody ever needs it, there but I'm here on the grass with my ass on the grass with the kids just hanging out and doing the thing that is like bring you to tears levels of like thank God I did not keep chasing whatever because the money ended up coming and it ended up working out and I got enough

of it to go around so it's so weird it's like frog and hot water I would have been the frog and hot water if I didn't find out how shitty my touring contract was and and artist contract was for sure what an odd gift bro I'd be looking at into people sometimes and I'm just like man says the guy with a bunch of money that money's not important I know I know I know we've been down that road I understand but it's like I'm telling you man

it doesn't the money the money me and you are still here no matter what's in your bank account and what's in my bank account, because the only thing you can be is present. So if you're never present with yourself and you're never living your life, what the, who cares? Motherfuckers out there in Thailand, just on a boat happy as a motherfucker, and they're not, the hot tub broke.

It's like... Dude, we went for breakfast yesterday at Red Diner, uh, downtown Manhattan on like 43rd Street or some bullshit. We sat in there and our server came over, a Mexican lady, and, uh, I can't remember what happened. She asked some sort of question. She said, I just finished a night shift. It was 11 a.m. And she started at midnight in her other job.

And she's at the diner at 11 a.m. And I'm sat next to Zach, who's warming up for me on tour. And immediately we start going like, ironically going, wow, the ambient water in the dressing room was supposed to be chilled. Wow. I'm not happy about the particular fruit and veg platter that we were supposed to get backstage. Wow. the cat five cables that we were supposed to have triggered

and it meant that I had to do an acoustic performance for five minutes on stage. Yeah, it really puts it in. Are you fucking high? Yeah, I did. Dude, wealth is what you have minus what you want and by that definition, some billionaires are broke. Wow.

Wow. Yeah, I'm taking that one. I'm tucking that one in the back pocket. It's Morgan Housel. He's fucking phenomenal. Wealth is what you have minus what you want And by that definition, some billionaires are broke. But it's crazy because the things that you need, that you find out that you need, don't bring immediate gratification.

And sometimes they're not pleasurable. And sometimes you're not even happy. The type of changing. It's the unhappiness. Yeah, I don't know, man. It's like you have kids and then you learn to die. And when you learn to die, you actually get your life in your death. The giving up of oneself by saying my dreams, my millions, my potential, my MVP, my Olympics are dead because I brought a life into the world and I am everything in my body will make sure that this child is okay.

And if that means me reducing myself to make this child, to give this child even maybe what I didn't have, when it's not about you, it's so much more enjoyable. if everything is about you constantly and I don't want to get too deep into just like what I think's wrong in society like I ain't Jordan Peterson I'm not like educated but there seems to there seems to be this it's all about you and chase what you want and if you don't get what you want your life is a failure but I've found so much freedom in it not in me just not we don't have to go down that road with me

if you want to go to your friend's house I will if you have to go to to school today. I will wake up early despite being in the studio late and I will take you and I'll feel like shit, but I'm going to take you to studio and it's probably going to fuck my day up in the studio, but I'm going to make sure you get to school. Kids shift your perspective on a lot. And I mean, it's so deeply to the point where I say people who don't have kids, that's another thing. I look at my children and I say, thank God I had you to refine me into someone I didn't even know I had the potential of being or grabbing a level of patience or exposing how impatient I actually am. I thought I was this.

like patient, level-headed guy until I had kids. Oh, yeah, very patient when you only have to look after yourself. Oh, yeah, your patience is really being tested. Like, even now, like, I wake up with the kids, I don't have time to work out. I should make time to work out, so all I got to do is get up at 4.30 because so-and-so on Instagram told me, like, I'm almost, I almost feel myself becoming softer around the edges because my concern is the life of somebody else. So kind of me is, to some degree.

get me wrong. I'm in studio seven hours a day. I live a great life. You know what? No, I'm not going to, what's the word, validate everything that I'm saying. Or there's a different word that my therapist tells me, like, not to use. I constantly try to, like, justify. And I'm not saying equivocate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, just on that, you have done it a few times today. And I think it speaks to the fact that you don't want to come across as preachy and the fact that you're saying, hey, look, I'm an idiot too. But the disclaimer, the reason that I, I, have the compulsion to do that as well. Part of it's a protection mechanism because you don't want to be called out by somebody for saying this guy doesn't know what he's talking about and he's still

proselytizing. Totally. That being said, not saying a thing that you believe because you're worried about the criticism of people who are going to hear it and misunderstand it. Yep. You really should not be worried about the criticisms of people who don't understand what you're trying to do. Absolutely. If people misunderstand, understand you, that's a them problem, not a you problem. And it's like something to try and overcome that is really tough. That being said, in the music studio, we spent the first half of this conversation talking about taste and about how, like, I just know that it's good, but you're in an alien environment here. And you're thinking, well, I know that this is good,

but I'm not sure whether or not I'm allowed to think it's good. Yes. So this is you at the beginning of the music career going like, well, if I can prescribe and I'll hedge and caveat and I'll litigate my way through this thing. Absolutely. And so it's just a new, and if you put me in the music studio, you're like, maybe we need to, can we like roll that off on the kick drum a little? I'm not saying I'm a guitar player,

but maybe you'd be trying to different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, it's funny. People even, this, a usual comment my whole career has always been people thinking I'm on drugs when I'm in the studio. I'm a different person, a different person. He's whacked out.

He's cracked out. Is he footage me in the studio? What's your demeanor in the studio? so I'll sing something and it'll like be freestyled but then I'll listen back to it like I didn't even make it like this is the best part of my day I'm having so much fun right now I light up it's like it's the thing that like my whole being feels like I'm supposed to be doing that I just tell him like I'm a little it's like a little screw loose or something it's not necessarily that and I think I've done it long enough now where I'm like Max Martin Rick Rubin Farrell every time I'm I'm around out the other day i was in the room uh working on bt s with and max martin was in another room and it was i was in l a took a quick trip they're like finishing up their album blah blah blah they asked me to come out there work on on stuff for them um max walks in the room we're working on something and i'm not like creatively like whatever i'm not gonna go there max martin walks in the room and he listens to

what we do max is uh 20 years older than me you know i'm like here we go i've never seen him work before I'm like on the couch and I'm looking at him and he's like can I give some notes and he's in a room full of like eight people I can't explain it and producers and writers will know what I mean this motherfucker in 17 seconds it was like he listened to it one time and he was like oh your intro is your pre just take your intro and make it your pre because that's your best part he's like and then bring it back in 30 seconds later to jjjj we were like pooh pooh but we moved it all and we all looked at it and I was like oh man like only time can make someone that fucking that fucking and cold. It's the same thing with Farrell. Ferrell be walking in the room after I'm working on something all day. He'd be walking in and just be like, no, no, no, I just bab, blah, blah, blah, move this and do this here. I know that the wall looks like it's 5,000 feet tall, but it's only 5 feet wide. Just walk around it.

I'm like, God almighty, there's a... Motherfugers be asking me, how do I get good? And I'm like, yo, it's just, you gotta just do it for 20 years. Because the 20-year motherfuckers are so cold. Ferrell's so, Rick Rubber, it's so cold. Max Martin's so cold. They're so good. And then I thought when I got with them, they'd give me the keys.

But then I realized they just didn't get off the treadmill for 20 years. I'm like, oh, that's true mastery. Like Picasso doing like a drawing on a napkin when he's 80. And it's just a stick figure. After all that shit, it's like the wall was only five feet wide. I really look up to those five feet wide motherfuckers. It's amazing to watch. I don't know how I went on that tangent.

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Yeah. How is it not the case that the person who has the most talent doesn't make the best music? What is it that's getting in the way? There might be a talent of making things that people enjoy to hear. Like Tame Impala, like Kevin of Kevin Parker, he's like, I think he just like has a talent in making things that people enjoy to listen to. This is soothing to my ears, and I want to play it on the way to the beach at the club. I don't think he's like the third chair at the fucking Raghmanovich Orchestra in Australia.

Savant or some bullshit. Or maybe he might be a savant in making the thing that, you know what I mean? In delivering instead of that. I've had this thing, so I was thinking about... Most, sorry to catch you off. Most of the bigger producers I've been around, I've recognized that they don't really have any technical ability. none some of them can't even play an instrument like an impresario no they're just like i don't care that it's the third harmony and that's not in the chord the chord just feels good

and that's how i've kind of i've kind of been blessed enough to kind of be i i can't tell you what i'm playing on a keyboard i can play the shit out of the piano but i can't tell you what key i'm playing in any of it i just know when it comes back to me i go i would listen to this in my free time taste fiddly little fiddlest giddlet a bit libel abel abel what is it yo i'm like sometimes riff are just to be riffing too much. I don't want to hear you. It's like, and then you want to play me the song,

and you just shitting all over the song riffing. It's like, I don't even know what you're trying to tell me. Let me sit in the, let me sit in the room for a bit and at least look at the wallpaper before you invite me in the den. I got to, if you're trying to take me on a house tour. And then you got to, when do you take them out when they're bored to take them into the next room?

Not just, look at this house and there's purple walls and there's blue walls. Sometimes the motherfuckers would be trying to, you'd be trying to just give them the whole house tour on the whole shit can talent be an obstacle in that way of course talent talent

self-belief what that's a whole other deeper conversation what is talent I mean we could spin our wheels all day into the digression of what the basis of the root of the whatever but talent is like I've just noticed it's just like that and a doll

and get you to ride the bus like it doesn't it doesn't Some people are talented To just work in the system I know a lot of writers that can't write a song I never mention their names I never whatever I know a lot of writers that have no business

No business being in the room writing songs But damn you know how to go to the bar mitzvah Damn you know how to talk to the CEO And get the dinner But some of the guys in the back be like Okay if you're going to get me to the bigger artist and you're the social bridge that I have to tap dance to get to,

well, I'm just, far be it from me to whatever, but that's a talent. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. To say that because you play the guitar better than everybody else makes you successful in a musical industry that's more fucked up than you could ever imagine. There's, what's a talent, bro?

Talent? Like, I play the greatest piano in the world. It's like, yeah, but do you know the radio programmer or it's own, though? this big weird coagulating thing that's where the artistic purity versus the game playing

sort of comes back in again right and I think there's always going to be a sense of elitism and he's so artistically pure if only he was prepared to lower himself to the standard of you to have to go to fucking

the dinner the bar mitre or whatever he's above that there's people it's funny it's like you know for me in a time in my life for those six years years, I was so removed from being an artist that I just wanted hits. So my brain wasn't geared toward like, in six years, I'm going to go on a podcast and talk about some of the biggest songs

I ever wrote for them me to go on a podcast and talk about all the giant number one billboard songs I have for the comments to be like, here's why I hate every single song. I can't prove to you that I'm talented. Some people don't even think I'm talented. Some people think I'm the most talented to ever grace the fucking didn't need to use the British accent then I just thinking

he came out of me I said oh shit I don't know why the British remember the audience I don't know why the British has to fall into that I have to remind you that we are on stolen land right now

specifically stolen from the British I should have started with a fucking land acknowledgement before we began this podcast. I'm getting way too comfortable with you right now. We're going to get a beer after this. What was that?

I don't even remember what I was saying. I want to tell you this thing that's been in the back of my mind. I was thinking about this conversation. And I wondered where you were going to go when I said what, what, I've realized that people that are very, very talented

don't always make, that sell the most records be the most popular or whatever. Even be the most liked. Yes. One of the things that I've noticed since being around musicians more over the last couple of years

is that artists tend to fall into two categories or there's a spectrum that they're moving in and on one side is create like an artist that's artistic purity that's skill that's like are you an impresario what's your ability to play scales and also to create the music like on your side like I just know what's good and I can put it I can put it into a track on the other side is operating like an athlete so create like an artist operate like an athlete absolutely and it's okay how many repetitions are you doing are you in five days a week from 11 till 7? Yes.

Are you spending your time drilling and working and looking over game tape and working on your mindset and nutrition and whatever it is like all of the individual components? Yes, especially after having kits. You have to be.

So can't be Olympic without an Olympic approach. One way to look at it would be you have to ship at a pace required to work out what works. And have to ship? What do you mean? Ship. Ship approach.

product. Oh, got it, got it. Send it. It's like, okay, dude, we could just, we could keep fucking trying to record this riff for the next three weeks. Send the fucker off to get mastered. Like, mix it, master it. Let's get put it. Let's see what happened. Yes. And just a lot of the time what I've seen is that because artists tend to be like away with the fucking fairy, you know, like just a cigarette butt and a fucking afternoon. I'm on a hammock. I'm going to have a walk. It's like, okay, dude, can you sit down and do some work, please? And I'm interested in what you think about, the value of consistency might be a way to look at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. You're, you're, I've noticed in my older age that you can't

will it, you'll walk away from it if it don't work. Because again, if you're just the instrument, if the player doesn't show up that day, you're not going to be played. A trumpet can't play itself. A trumpet alone without the player is like some, some like a medal. But the second, the player, the second God comes in, or inspiration, or the muse, or the whatever comes in and plays through you, it becomes this thing. The issue is that when the trumpet starts to believe that it's playing itself, and then you wake up every day and think you can wheel this into existence, and then you're like, why hasn't it came in a bunch of years?

It's because you didn't let the thing bigger than you come in the room. If the thing bigger than you doesn't come in, you will never have energy. We're not getting energy from ourselves. You're getting energy from this, like, I don't know how that song was written that day or when that came or whatever. So you're a little less, I'm a little less hard on myself sometimes when it doesn't come out the way I want it to. you can't white knuckle creativity and you can't control culture some things you'll drop

and it will not be the right time and 10 years later this shit will look back on and be like what an amazing piece of art and so prescient he was able to predict where the genre was going to go a decade before it did yeah and a lot of people in the beginning they just say it's that I've dealt with that my whole career whole career every album six years later is like the new one sucks but the old one was the one. Then six years later, the new one sucks. The old one was the one.

It's like, what are you going to do, man? It's crazy. Talk to me about the story of the new album. Yeah, man. Get a phone call one day. It's a new regime over at the old label that I had. They're like three presidents removed.

One of them is a fan. Why aren't you putting out music on our label? You guys are fucking me on the contract? What would you do if we gave you your shit back? Let's have that conversation. I'm talking my lawyer. He's like, you know, we might be able to get your whole, the reason why you walked away,

we might be able to reverse it. I'm like, I ain't an artist. Well, go find out. Go see you, fiddle. Calls me back. He's like, you now have X percentage of yourself. What are you going to do? I was like, yeah, I'm not.

I already pushed that down the river. And then over time, it was just kind of like working on songs for really, really big artists and then being like, I don't have to write about the experience. That's not mine today. Like, I could. It felt like the door was just over the little crack again. And it started to turn into me telling, like,

my buddy Pete Napier and my buddy 10 Rock or whatever, like, prolific musicians and producers, like, ridiculous. Like, ridiculous. Only reason why the album sounds as good as it does. Yo, I don't know if you're not for that on. Started turning. It's like, you play a bunch of records

for like this huge artist and there's these millions that could possibly come from them taking it and then you get to the playlist and there was when I'd be like, hi, hit the next one. Hit the space bar. That's so fucking funny. Yeah, and I found myself telling my wife like,

I'm not having a blast right now, but you know what would be fun? If I went and wrote about, da, da, da, da, da, and she's just like, it's happening again, isn't it? Yeah. And then one night, she randomly, I had it out of nowhere, right before we went to bed, she, my wife's amazing.

She, uh, She goes, I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. She's like, you got to go do this. She goes, you're not going to be, because you're going to be regretful in many, many years if you don't come back and do this again. She goes, and I don't feel like dealing with you. It's joking around.

She's like, I don't feel like dealing with you in 20 years when you say you could do, da, da, da, da. She's like, go spend the money, go risk it all. Go back into the world. Go do what you got to do. She's like, I'm telling you to. I'm not asking you to. I was like, okay.

And then I just, I had a battery in my back. for some reason when she when me and my wife are on the same page life decision making a lot of stuff is easier especially when she puts the battery in my back she puts a battery on my back I'm like I'm like drool out the mouth gorilla beat on my chest

don't get in my fucking way that's how I feel when she's so the second she was like literally like awesome like they need whatever you need to say I believe in my heart that the world needs to hear it and your fans have grown up and they've matured with you and you have accomplished so much self-worth and you've put yourself in the background for so many years she's like it's okay to like accept what's going to come from whatever's coming here

and I just went nuts and in like six months we had an album five months we had an album so that's the story behind it grow crazy crazy and then fast forward there's a bunch of stuff I can't talk about that's coming out but like I thought of this album in my mind as like I told my business manager I said I'm burning X million of dollars of my own money and I don't expect to ever get it back this will be only pure exactly who I am artistry I'm not concerned about hits and I want to shoot the biggest videos and be like super creative on it and I don't expect to get a return on my money yet this this money won't come back culturally for another 10 20 years because I can't I'd have to get back on the road

and then start to schematics how to make my money back which will doubt which will dilute the process. So like in myself having money, I was able to do a pure process of burn money by working on art that was just for art's sake. And I think that is a reason why it came across as potent to bigger artists that I'm working with now or shit that's coming out soon or thank God I treated it like a too, a many million dollar commercial. This is not, this is just like a commercial to stir the soup and remind the world that there could be other opportunity for me to go work on music in other areas. It's the greatest. advertising campaign of all time. Exactly. It wasn't the definitive thing that's going to make me

the greatest in the world ever. It never is. It's just always these constant, it's a new lure in the ocean fishing for a new type of fish because I want to just keep it moving. But when you want to keep things moving, sometimes you've got to do the thing that doesn't make sense. The machine's not going to help you. Then you fast forward and we're at Forest Hills. 26,000 deep. And I laugh about it because it's fucking hilarious. It's fucking hilarious. Like, the grateful thing changes a lot of,

a lot of, uh, I'm sorry if I'm rambling. No, I'm loving it, dude. It's, it's been a,

uh, someone would be, like my friends be coming over and they'll be like, dude, can you believe you to fucking, and I'm like, I know, like they paid me for it.

Like, that's where I'm at consistently. In my older age. I can't believe it. yeah it feels to me like uh mostly artists get split into two camps artists that have beef with other artists and artists who have beef with the industry you fall into the latter camp and also too i was also i also i also signed it at a young age i also like look at my publishers who signed me early and only gave me a ten thousand dollar advance that i was in for ten years before i signed my second publishing deal like it was all angered and it was blame and it was ever and then you get older and you realize like they were just trying to do what the it's a reflection of the norm of the industry it's a reflection of people's greed it's reflection of whatever and it's my response i don't ask for the trauma but it's my responsibility

to process it i don't ask for it and that's not fair that's the injustice of life that's the thing why'd you put me here if you were going to that's your fault for making me i didn't ask to be born it's like we don't ask for the traumas but it's our responsibility to process them because your life's going to be fucking miserable unless you don't so you have to take responsibility for even the things that were out of your control which is But I'll tell you, at the other end of it, we are simultaneously living where everything is the most important decision

we've ever made in our life leading toward this amalgamation of our work forever. And COVID could like happen again. It's like this thing where like nothing matters, but everything matters, but none of it matters. So like, it's working right now. Like, I want to know how you want father figure to make men feel who listen to it.

it's funny like we were on a vibe and a feeling that i don't want to speak from that feeling i almost have to like recenter myself to open the bird cage to get to the general pure intention of what that was um guy who has lost sight of the fact that fathers are important and your role in your children's life is more important in the cat in the lineage of your family from a thousand years back to a thousand years in the future your job as a father will do more than anything you could ever do in this physical world it will it will echo and reverberate further than you ever could because you're downloading and imprinting into something that came from you my son is me and his son will

be him and we will live forever through each other you're the most important job you could ever do i hope for 47 minutes or however long my album is that you can be reminded you've never lost the path far enough where you can't return to your kids you are not damaged you are not damaged so badly that you can't return to your children because your children need you whether whether you like that fact or not. So if I could put a little espresso in your cup in the morning to go and be whatever that figure is, which is different for all men and whatever, but somewhere along the way we threw the baby out with the bathwater, and I don't know what I mean by that. I just mean culturally. Somewhere along, we've lost the thread of fathers. There's a thread that is like, I cannot put my finger on

it artistically. It's just no, no, no, no, no, no. It's important, man. Keep on. Clock in. Don't have that drink. Don't pick up the pill bottle. The child needs you. And your role is important. Just because you're not on the radio or you're not making hits singing. No. Fathers are, the fathers are a bedrock, a pillar in something very, very important. We can't lose that. If I could bring us something. attention to that with another man who's struggling with that. I don't think a 12 year old is going to relate yet. But if a guy my age who's like, man, I'm thinking about leaving.

I'm thinking about just fuck all. I'm going to just go back to the bar because I'm not good enough to take care of my children. I'm not perfect. And that's what I want that. I want to just speak to. Now, I don't know how the ending finish line will be. But if you could just pop that on and even if one day it prevents you from choosing something that's not going to feed you for the rest of your life. That's what I genuinely at the bottom of my heart hope that the album speaks to. And I wanted to make the music and the cut so ball main that it made you proud to listen to. Because there's a difference between an after-school special and Goodfellas. Goodfellas, the lesson that you learn

you're not feeling like you're being told something because it's in this messy, murdered Italian heritage thing. It's in this thing. But then you go, be careful what you wish for. Be careful who you trust. Being the top dog sometimes is not even what you might want. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, but it's wrapped up in this thing. Like, I wanted to make Goodfellas.

I didn't want to make like, being a dad is important. So I felt there was a responsibility there morally for me to creatively attack it to the best that I could in that direction. It's a very long-winded answer, but. Was that a fear that you had? What? Not being able to live up to your own standards for a father? It's a fear I have every day.

You don't know how I'm, uh, I want my kid to know what working for money is like, but I don't want my kid to be like this, like, starving, like, because I know some kids that grew up and be like, my dad was rich, he didn't give me a cent, fuck my dad and then there's another kid in rehab who's like my dad never let me make any decisions on my own and gave me all my opportunity so every day i pray to god there's a balance and a patience with my son all three of my sons to say i know i'm like lightly messing you up somehow i just

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bioavailable nutrients and clinical validation. Plus, it's still NSF certified for sport so you know that the quality is legit. Right now, when you first subscribe, you can get a free bottle of of D3K2 and AG1 welcome kit plus bonus AG1 travel packs. And for a limited time, US customers also get a sample of AGZ and a bottle of omega-3s. Just go to the link in the description below or head to drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. dad that I've had on the show who has achieved a level of wealth that's significantly greater than they grew up with has this exact same problem. They know that most of the things that they value in themselves were the byproduct of the struggle that they had to go through as a child.

And they think, I don't want to rob my child of the opportunity to learn those lessons for themselves, because I know how important those lessons were for me. Yes, yes. And at the same time, what the fuck was the point of working so hard if I'm not going to give them the opportunities that I didn't get? It's like the term nepo baby. People would be like, oh, like, you're a nepo baby. It's like, but when a man like comes from nothing and makes something of himself,

the second he makes something of himself, you become, it's like they exalts you to the, to want you to chase after your dreams. But then when you get your dreams and you have kids, that kid's just the product of a man. who reached his dreams. It's like, bitch, you told me to chase them. Now I'm in trouble for the fact that you,

it's like, that's like NEPO baby to me. Like I hear that term being phoned around with like kids who have parents who are in the industry and this set in a third. It's like, what do you want their parents to do?

And if you are a NEPO baby, what do you do? You fucking wear a dunce cap and sit in your closet every night and just be like, I'm too privileged to like have an opinion or make art. Like,

what are you supposed to do? I don't know. Interesting. You know, Fred again. Yeah. You know, he, I think, comes from at least a little bit of wealth.

I have no idea. I didn't know that. I've found that out this week. I think family comes from at least some degree of what people will call privilege, I think. I get the sense, looking at the way that Fred presents and looking at the sort of shows he did. Do you see that he did a miniature tour around the islands of Scotland? No, I did not. He played 200-person cap working men's pubs.

Sick. And clubs. Sick. Right? And it was... Love it. Storn away. these tiny little

fucking islands or the Hebrides are some shit off the top corner of Scotland and the way that he presents online with his social media

very sort of anti-marketing marketing type thing I get the sense that a lot of that will be an additional burden that Fred has to pay in order to like

wipe the potential accusation of Nepo baby Say it again rework that last part he needs to what's called counter signal

okay um that uh i'm playing these tiny shows i'm not flying at this ridiculous like i'm a man of the people okay in an attempt this is an additional burden that he has to get over just so that people see him as someone that is remotely fucking resonant as a normal human got it got it got it got it got and because the accusation is so and i mean that's also by the looks of things like who he is like a pretty nice chill down to a dude uh and the way that he wants to live and all the rest of the things as well. But there has to be in the back of your mind this weird scenario where you go, the privileges that I was afforded are a burden that I have to get over as well. I have to work harder or counter signal in this weird way or a downplay. That's, I would say the last three,

the last two years have really started. I feel like he's on an ascension and his his moment is like happening and it's all this stuff. So he's going to figure that he seems like a very brilliant bright guy. So I'm sure I'm wishing the best of luck on that journey because you're right. That is something that you have to deal with in the public eye. It's like it's so fake that it's not fake that I'm making fun of it for being fake and by the way go by my album. It's like we're all we're all on that. But I recognize there's another thing where it's just like something or at least I'm trying to work on creatively is just I am not apologetic for any space I'm in anymore. I will, it's a waste of time. It's a creative waste of time. I can't.

I can't. I have to believe I belong in a space in order for something to be believable. So for me to posture my whole life about making sure I'm accepted in the space creatively, again, as I talk within the music stanza, I have a much more direct, whatever. It's just like a waste of, to posture.

That's another reason why it's like social media. Like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'd rather just not be on it. I don't, I did it. All of the caveatting dilutes down the purity of what it is that you're trying to say. Again, dude, it comes back to, you're trying to justify yourself

to people who don't understand what you're trying to do. Oh, you don't get it. Well, that's a shame. But if you try to litigate your way or caveat or create in advance some odd disclaimer

that front runs the criticism that you think most people are going to have about... What are you saying? Welcome to politics. It's so arduous. Dude, I had Bernie Sanders is on the show on Sunday.

Really? Yeah. That came out two days ago. It's really good. It was really fun. In the space of a couple of comments that I saw, one was this is absolutely unspeakable. I can't believe how judgmental you are. You are always shilling for the right. And it's obvious that all you're doing is like pushing these like hard right wing views. And then the next comment that I saw was you only interview. You own the interview liberal guests. It's evident who's paying you off. I screenshotted both of them and put them in Instagram stories side by side. I was like, a story of the internet in two slides. Literally, literally. Sometimes I feel like why do I even, like...

I'm being spit-roasted by two people pointing in opposite directions here. You can't be both... How could you be both villains? Well, apparently I am. Unbelievable. And this is the point. If you try and please everybody, you're going to under-pleasing nobody. And if you fucking caveat, you're going to dilute your work down so much.

Double down. Double down. Double down until you really in your soul Realize the error of your ways If you don't feel like there's an error of your ways You're going to turn to a super angry person You'll be angry at yourself For kowtowing to the thing that you've

Like the rehearsed speech You're supposed to give everybody Before you go into a space It's a waste of time It's a waste of time Art is art suffers through that Art suffers in the The validation

Some of the best art comes from the people Who were never supposed to get their hands on music equipment some of the best heart comes from but to say you haven't paid your dues in the sense of blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah it's like that i ain't i'm not you're barking up the wrong tree with me the wrong tree at least in the studio every else in my life i don't know but i would never be able to go into the places i'm going into on the album without me being like i am not by no such as you imagine asking asking for your opinion on that your opinion asking for your opinion on whether i deserve to go into that space or not creatively

Where do you think about self-belief coming from? Because that sounds like an awful lot of self-belief. It probably has a lot to do with my father, telling me I'm great constantly. Constantly, my whole life. Even when I wasn't, he was so proud of me. Playing songs for my family in the backyard. My son made this. And I'm like, Dad, it's not good.

I made it. Stop embarrassing. me but looking back on it it's like you are spectacular you're spectacular like i was i was told that for so long that i think your brain just snaps in and wires at a certain point and you go i'm spectacular and someone says no you're not you say no the man who made me told me i am so fuck off and then you look back and you're like thank god i believed it even when it wasn't true because that's what got me to the place to be like i've got really really good because i thought I thought I was good, but I wasn't, in retrospect.

But maybe that's the whole, that's the whole equation. It's just like even when you're not, yeah, I don't, that gets really convoluted with self-belief, but I do think a lot of it has to do with both of my parents telling me I was great. You know what's strange. And some people to this day don't believe things that anything I've ever done is great. That does. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

And I've noticed that a lot of my actions or my things come from I'm a trillion fans are not worth dad saying you did a good job. I put my money. I put all the money I have on that. And it's tough for some people. So I'm not a big, like, a privilege, Visions. Thanks for letting me in the cool house. I'm not that type of guy, but I can't imagine. That's why that album's important.

I can't imagine. I ain't nobody's daddy, but if I could play an album that just tells you, stay the course. And you're not broken, because everybody's broken. Like, that's the album. It's funny that they just got back to that, but yeah, without, I couldn't imagine. Couldn't imagine. Yeah. Silence on the podcast. Crazy.

We were saying before about the challenge of growing up with an big pair of Phil, financially. In terms of corporate success, dad was a doctor and mum was a pharmacologist and you're going to become a lawyer or whatever it might be. Yours were. No, no, no, like you could just imagine. Got it. We talk about the kind of nepo baby expectation. Yes. I think it's one of the reasons that kids from wealth are more likely to use hard drugs, not just because they can afford them, but secondly, because they need to find a way to be able to cope with the expectation. It's another reason why this is a great insight, dude. I learned this. I learned this. I'm on a great sub-stack post.

We look at the kids of high-performing parents are more likely to go to college. You say maybe that's because of advantages, maybe it's because of private tutoring, maybe it's because of whatever, whatever, whatever. What if it's because they have such a fear of insufficiency if they don't meet the minimum standard that their parents set for them?

They are driven by the fear of insufficiency. So all of that is to say, classic, if you come from privilege, there is an expectation that you live up to the opportunities and also the standards of your parents, right? Objectively. What you have, which is really interesting, is what sounds to me like a really wonderful father, and you have the obligation to try and live up to the standard of fatherhood that your father set for you. Yep. And this isn't, you cannot fill this with the number of records you sell. You kind of fill this with the size of your bank account or the house or the fucking,

however many keys you are does not matter and that's a unique kind of pressure and expectation that's holistic and beautiful but is still going to be there

holy fuck I had I had like an Olympian level father and I now need to try and be that for my sons is that a pressure to sort of fill the shoes of dad for your sons that you felt?

Wow. Um... yes in the beginning and then it slowly turned into understanding that my father is me and it's like we're gonna have to chop this up because i don't know how i'm gonna even get to the what i'm trying to say if we don't ask for the trauma we don't ask for the trauma but it's our responsibility to process it

right if you take the time to process it the mountain of a father starts to look different it's not a mountain anymore. It's another human being that worked three jobs to get his ice cream shit off the ice cream truck off the thing in Brooklyn for him to move his family out to Long Island to give his son pro tools and to be able to afford it by the time. He's a guy that, like my dad be telling me stories about his father and his grandfather that I'm like, my father is a miracle.

A miracle. I think it has to do a lot with Jesus in his life, but my father is a miracle. all the good things I want from him in droves and more good things than bad things with my father because my dad was amazing. He was around every corner. My father did the right things around it and especially having children now. I know what he sacrificed to be present with me.

I want all that stuff. And then the other stuff that I didn't ask for that's deep-rooted all the way into the grandfather's grandfather, grandfather, grandfather, I didn't ask for it, but it's my job to process this. So I don't look at him as an unattainable thing the reason I am successful or not successful a figure that I can't mold myself into I look at him as somebody trying to figure out just like I am and with the tools he was given

he did a pretty damn good job because when I go to retreats and I and I'm around people that have made mistakes in their lives or accomplished incredible things and won the PG8 or and yada yada yada yada it all lines to daddy there's a weird there's a really strong thick through line of men with their fathers and what it ends up being what it doesn't end up being and whatever but like i don't even know what i'm trying to say i just say i guess what i'm trying to say is i look at my father now right now like today and there's no like Thank you for everything, and I don't blame you for anything. Thank you for what you did get me.

And it's 90% it's all, it's all good. It's all good. It's like The biggest The biggest lie of it all Is that you go You can't connect back with your father Your father might be too successful

You can't connect with them Your father might be too much of a drunk You can't connect with them Your father might be It might not even be healthy for some people to actually connect with their parents because they're in such fucked up positions and whatever. You will never be able to figure much out without going headfirst into uncovering what the story in lineage is with your parents

and facing that, whether you ask for it or not. That might not involve you even seeing your parents, but I can tell you that your life will open up if you can process that. I don't even know how I got to. to there from the question that you asked me and we're going to have to edit all that space out and whatever but no no no the space is going nowhere sorry like the the

I just think fathers are very important I think I think that I just might think that there's not much more importance than a mother and a father whatever we have to do culturally I ain't no fucking politician none of that shit but whatever we have to do culturally to reestablish the importance of that is important to me that doesn't leave me on any side of the political special.

Mm-hmm. But I would go to war for the idea that fathers are important. I mean, cosmically DNA from Saturn to here and back levels of since the primordial soup of cavemen, fathers, it's, and depending on how this, depending on how this goes, is where this whole thing will fall or stand. I'm speaking very symbolically, but I know how we treat the unit, how we treat the leader and micro-leader of every home culturally across the thing, what we do with this will determine what it all looks like top to bottom because it begins and ends with that. That's why it's tough for me to go on podcast. I don't really even know what I mean. I just know what I mean by that. whatever that means is what it means.

Everybody knows what you mean. Yeah, it's going to get tough, man. It's going to get tough. You can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. In the process of trying to get justice, don't burn, you can't burn the whole fucking thing down. Parents are important. You can't burn the whole thing down in the pursuit

that you believe to be righteous. It's, and I don't know what I even, it's not left, that's not right. I'm just saying in the pursuit, you can't fucking burn the house down in the winter. You still got to have a roof over your head. So there's a hole in the wall in a room and cold air is coming in and people are trying to go fix the hole. You can't just sit in the house all day and say, well, the hole wouldn't be there if you didn't fucking da-da-da-da-da. I know, but there's still a fucking hole.

So can you come with me to come and fix the hole? If we don't fix the hole, it's going to get cold. It's going to get cold in this motherfucker. Cold. And there ain't no, not a lot of amount of millionaires are going to change that. I brought this up with Bernie on Sunday.

It's my second time in New York in a week. And he's big into inequality. As I am I, I grew up working class as working class as possible. And I wanted to get his thoughts on a few statistics that I'll say to you know as well. I basically put forward the idea that fatherlessness is the real inequality?

Boys who grew up apart from their biological father are about two times more likely to land in prison or jail by age 30. Fatherlessness is a better predictor of incarceration than race or growing up poor. Young men are more likely to end up in prison or jail in the US than they are to graduate from college if they are raised in any non-intact family setup. More likely to end up in prison or jail

than they are to graduate college if they grow up in any non-intact family set up and that's like across the world just the US just the US wow regardless of family income

children in intact families are half as likely to be diagnosed with depression and girls who grow up without fathers are ten times more likely to be diagnosed with depression what do you gather from that it's politically very unpalatable

to talk about fatherlessness because it feels like you are putting blame on something very intimate and very closely associated to people's sense of self-worth I think that there are probably some breakouts by demographic here too which are politically unpalatable for people to talk about too

that there are going to be subcultures and areas of the country in which this is worse and better. And that's also something that people don't really want to point the finger out because it sounds a lot like blaming. It sounds a lot like, it's a slippery slope to get toward a type of conversation that's not too nice.

Absolutely. And yet, exactly as you said there, we cannot deny the raw reality that growing up without a father in the home is not good for, daughters and sons and mothers and the local community and the fact that people are so unprepared to be able to hold two facts in their mind at one time which is fathers are important and mothers can be independent absolutely you know how um there's a

uncertainty principle in quantum physics you have a suit what's called a superposition the particle can be in two places at once essentially uh thinking in super positions allowing yourself to hold two thoughts in your mind at one time yeah and unfortunately we have a world that refuses to think in super positions and it collapses down the space if you're in this that means yes yes yeah if you want to give uh empathy to men that means you're taking it away from another more deserving group if you're saying that fathers are important, you're implicitly saying that mothers are incapable. If you're saying that, you know, pick your one-dimensional argument of choice. And I think that you are right. I think that there are many things that need to be looked at. Inequality is a big one of them.

Poverty is a huge one. Class, the diversion away from the focus on class, and into other, in some ways more arbitrary. ways to delineate people from other people is a big problem. But removing focus from the family and from fathers and their role in the home, in the hopes that what, by reminding people, but by trying to convince people that fathers aren't important, that somehow pedestalizes women, that somehow makes them more independent? Yeah, like, there's no, uh, one, like you said, like the super, yeah. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

We can, we can have a super position in terms of our thoughts. And, um, I think it's very prescient, dude. I think this weird position that you're in where you're talking, your, your, your album is a tribute to your father and an offering to your sons. Yes. At the same time. Absolutely. It's going in both directions.

Absolutely. Um, I don't think we need to be ashamed. I don't think we need to do this fucking land acknowledgement. each time before we do this. I talk about men and the problems of men an awful lot. And it will never not fatigue me to have to do, well, we must remember that women have fell behind for all of this time. And oh, it's also important to remember. It's only been not been long since a da-da-da-da. Like, guys, I get it. I get it. I wish I could just say it once. Or like have a disclaimer on my website and be like, I understand completely the challenges that

we're talking about. I am not saying any of this huge list of things. Remember what we were talking about before? If you have to try and justify why you're in the room in order to be able to do the thing and you water it down and you have the caveats, which is exactly what I'm doing right now. No, no, no, no. You'd never get yourself. Yes, no, no, no. This is, this is, I don't see this as caveat. This is like, the excavation of the thing. Yeah. I think, I think people are deathly afraid of the excavation, because you just don't know what the fuck you're going to find. So it's a lot safer to just not excavate it. If you say this, you mean this.

If you say this, you mean this. And now I get to go home and live my life and whatever. Because if we were both to excavate, shit, I might actually like you. I might actually agree with you. We might actually be on the same page. Then I'm going to have to revert everything that makes my life easier. It's easier to not excavate.

It's easier to not excavate. If you have to excavate everything, that means you might have to really face yourself to find out what you truly believe at a gut level. Most people, I don't think, I just don't think people, it's just a lot, it's a lot easier to just not to excavate the problem. If we estimate, if you excavate the problem, you might have to rubble some feathers. It's like, oh, I'm dealing with abuse in my family. Abuse runs in my family.

We just don't talk about that. It's like, might be a little bit easier for now to not excavate it because if I excavated, I might die facing that type of. But the only way you get anything. is the you gotta have the the discourse i guess and i just i guess discourse is not uh it's just risky dude it's risky it's becoming increasingly less risky which i like yes and i think that this doesn't mean we need to have mask off you can shit post whatever you want totally totally obviously um it's just you can caveat yeah yeah fuck god damn it yeah we should call each other out every time we do it yeah yeah absolutely absolutely um

But it seems to me like the trend is moving in the right direction now. I think people are prepared to say what is accurate and caring and holistic and makes the world a better place. It's, yeah. Just with less of a concern about how it's going to land. That will help art greatly. Why? Yeah, I mean, if there's no, it's like when the Italians and the blacks and the Jews get together, it's magic. It is.

Like, it's just like we're all, you can learn, there's, there's, art is like, you take the Africa with the Europe with the thing to then make the thing that says, this is the most newest European African thing I've ever. like you gotta be able to like you know but I think it's all it's like tribalism and to be honest as you I have taken the stance of kind of like I gotta make sure like my house is clean like I don't know I mean by this but like I have to make sure that my like shoes are lined up at the door and my underwear's in the hamper for my wife before I'm like because there are all these voices that's like how dare you make an album about your father when you about being a father figure and trying to be better when you lost your patience with your kids. Yes.

It's just like... That is humility, though. There's grace. There has to be some sort of grace to be able to stumble into art. There's grace and stumbling. It's grace. It's stumbling. It's learning what you did wrong or refining the product or whatever.

But if there's people who you're not welcome in a space to create, we've already cut the art at the legs. So like you said, if as a cultural whole, people are more excited. excited about, I'm just going to do what I feel and let the chips fall where they fall, the potency of art will 100% change. It won't be watered down or homogenized or whatever. But I'll tell you what. I don't know how much time we got. I'm having a blast. Not to just like expound on expounding, but like, you know what the last conversation with my wife for the last six days and my therapist this morning was just like, I also just like don't. Like, I don't want the smoke.

I don't need the smoke. I don't care. You can, you, you just, like, I don't, it's not even my, uh, when I go on social media, I'm, like, whipped up into this frenzy to believe that, like, it's my role to speak out to join the ranks of the thing. I'm just going to shut social media off today and make sure I threw my underwear in the hamper from my wife. Like, let's just, like, start there.

Let's just, like, take a fucking second to. I have strong beliefs about a lot of things and a lot of things that I'll expound upon with people in the studio for four hours. People who lean super left and people who lean super right and people who don't believe the government's real.

All of those things combined I will have the nuanced conversation with. I struggle with just like, I have a moral obligation in my art to, like, say what I believe in, but I also, I don't need, I don't need it to, like, I like going to the store

and just like fucking, hanging out buying my shit going home eating dinner working on music coming back well you have to remember I I struggle I struggle in that that's that's the best way to put it I have no answer I I struggle deeply with who I'm called to be yeah it's the balance again dude it's the balance board it is wow it keeps on coming up and the reason that it keeps on coming up is that you have no obligation as a recording artist to do anything that you don't want to do. Yep.

You have worked this hard to afford yourself the opportunity to not have to do anything that you don't want to do and say anything that you don't want to say. Yeah, I even think sometimes I say you may have been conditioned by too much content to grow to be angry at me for expecting what you think my output should be. That's not my fault. Like, it's like somebody being like, well, you don't get good ticket sale splits on your money because that's just the way. the industry works like that's not my issue

don't shit on me because that's just like the artist is just this isn't a weird it's weird I want to like I owe you my music maybe if that kind of yeah if you're lucky

the gratefulness that pours out of me for people that like look back at me at a stadium is like a whole other level of appreciation you took time out of your day and you spent money to come and do this and I am so deeply thankful for that but it's not my like i don't uh whatever you've come to expect from artists i'm not going to be unhealthy to fit myself into that if it just doesn't work for me if my pace is four albums uh one album every four years and you get the best of me and i'm

like a healthy father because of it and whatever like i you might have to like sorry sorry i'm not going to be doing two albums a year double-sided deluxe with the thing with the performance at the thing with the and i also don't need to be um right i don't i don't need to prove to the i do the thing i love every day and in that service it's between me and the creator i create with collaborators and it's between me and him and as long as i'm here and i'm doing the thing and I'm doing the crayon and giving it to my daddy for him to put on the refrigerator

oh look at this little creator thinking he made a masterpiece and it's like I made the whole universe as long as I'm here saying hey daddy I made this for you there's not much else I could give to you because anything else beyond that to me it's not in my alignment

it's not in my like it's not in my um the deeper I am in my purpose I will provide more you utility for the long term of the world. And I can only determine what I believe my deepest utility to be. So I have to operate within where I think I'm humming at my highest frequency of utility. For someone to say, you're not, you're not utilizing the way I want you to utilize.

It's like, well, like, what are we? It's a rough, it's a rough go of it for artists right now. It's a rough, it's a rough go of it. It is. It is. It's insane. Analysis paralysis. how i do not know how they do it kids i have no idea this motherfucker's out here 11 years old talking about so blessed to win the athlete of the year award

comments he ain't someone so from houston it's like you're 11 dude they're gonna look at this like cigarettes an artist of the main smigarette smokers because we gotta use that to get streaming services shitting on us so we have to double down by using the platforms that only need us to use it because it makes users use the platform. They don't actually care about the artist,

so then we have to change our behavior as artists to succeed on a platform that only cares about the platform getting eyes, so then we turn into like stupid monkeys performing for Instagram. Motherfuck's doing a Carlton out on TikTok to be like, listen to my song. Do you think motherfuckers 20 years ago, we're like, this is where it's going to go? But it's like once you invent the thing,

TikTok just needs you to act like TikTok needs you to act to get the most eyes to keep the most people on the app. TikTok's not helping you get to your, fans to you they're helping you keep fans on the app i don't know how to navigate it i don't i wouldn't know how to advocate if i didn't have money i'm just making an album put it out and again caveat i ain't pure i ain't the most i only make music because i'm the most moralistic no it's like i did i don't i don't i mean we're john we're supposed to talk it is what it is i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't i don't i don't how to, you're just going to have to create really thick-skinned motherfuckers in the future

because it's only going to get worse. So maybe this will breed a bunch of people who like naturally in the response of over-criticalism by every comment, maybe the generation next to or they'd be totally fucked from social media with self-image and all that stuff. Or it would breed like really resilient, like, I don't give a shit that you said I was, that album sucked. They follow the culture or that the counterculture. You drop a song and a motherfucker is filming themselves as someone is. is watching them film themselves to react to them filming themselves. Why are we making music?

Like, it's almost as if the people trying is just raw content for these people who just want to be seen on the internet to use as a tool for their channel to blow up. It's a human centipede where everyone's attached to the person before them. It's like, you drop a song and a motherfucker's like, watch me listen. Why the fuck would I watch you listen? I don't even, I don't know, dude.

I don't know. You know what, I could be wrong. Sometimes I like watching people listen to an album that I love because I'm like, wow, you're going to experience it the way that I did. And I like, this is a great album. I can't wait to see what you think about it. Dad listens to Nirvana for the first time. Like, those are cool.

I don't like mind them. But in general, though, the whole over-scrutiny of like 100 comments. and 20 of them were bad and then it... Did you not always used to have this though with music critics but it would have been in magazines and stuff like that? For my shit or just like in general? General, you'd go back a couple of decades. Yeah, but it's like if the newspaper of the New York Times

just says like the Beatles, Sergeant Peppers, overindulgent and slot of the mess and whatever, the New York Times said it, people read it, it wasn't like... Taylor Swift, life of a showgirl. Okay, now, it's not just the New York Times and then people talk about it for two days. It's, here's the dissertation as to why

that this album felt redundant and malignant and not in the decision. I found it to be the exact opposite, given its sweet nature and da-da-da-da-da-da. By the way, by my protein shake, it's like, it's everybody is like a... People are weighing into such a degree that artists have to become a sensei

at just being like, the chips are going to fall where they fall. I cannot be affected by that. Everybody needs a mindfulness practice. What did you make of the reaction to Taylor Swift's album? I don't think that I've seen a public reaction to that political commentators giving their thoughts. Were they? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There was no one that was beyond, it was honestly, the fact that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump didn't do reaction videos to it. In fact, did Trump say something about Taylor Swift? I feel like he did. I feel like he did say something about it. What was the general gist of the discourse? Was it a split discourse? Oh, you certainly split. I think a couple of things that were interesting that people picked up on.

One was you used to never be able to criticize a Taylor Swift song or album without Swifties calling for your head. Okay. And the fact that this time criticisms were put out and the Swifties didn't do that was seen as indicative that even her most ardent fans realized that this might not have. been the thing, whatever. It's like the inside of the box is the inside of the box, which brings the inside of the box. It's like, Jesus, Christmas. The fan's non-response to the criticism

was indicative of what we might believe to be the micro-management. That was like a big, that was a big talking point. We're three levels of derivative away from what the actual initial piece of content is now. Fully vulnerable and transparent. The only clip I saw was over my wife's shoulder. She was strolling through and somewhere on some sort of entertainment tonight or something, it was her saying, I'm not the art police and I like it and like kind of just like leave it at that. And I thought that was pretty cool. That was the whole my level of receiving discourse of like what that was. I listened to it. I listened to it. And I have my opinions musically on. I can get I can get into the minutia of like what I really thought about the wine as it was being stomped on the grapes. Like for sure. But I don't know how like a 14 year old feels about it or like how it relates to the zeitgeist of her applying to. to her relevancy. I don't know.

I genuinely did not take enough inventory to know. I just know what I thought about the album when I listened to it in my car. What did you make of the album? I liked it. I enjoyed it. I think she's a great songwriter. What a great opinion?

I liked it. I don't know. Oh, you could have said. Yeah. It wasn't for me. Some songs were, some songs weren't. Like 100% of the albums I listened to. Very rarely across the board am I like

stopping an album and I'm like, dog shit. the whole thing was Taylor Swift must be kidding Like I'm like no Like the second pre on that third song Was pretty sick I could probably take something from that

And that's like Max Martin's a genius Man Taylor Swift knows how to write the shit out of a song I wonder what she means by this I don't agree with that Hmm I'm not like I don't agree with that Max Martin's a genius Make sure everyone knows how I feel about it

I know how I feel about it Because I fucking listen to it myself I don't need you to know that I thought That I listened to it It's like But that's what I think Tellsworth's been Olympic for a long time And the crazy part is she's writing them too

She's writing them She's good She's good And that type of run What am I gonna be like Her fall from Grace should be studied If people don't like the album I don't fucking know

I don't look at her that way I look at her as just like a very high level Force Olympic creative That's just like Like wow she does it at a really really high level And a lot of the songs I end up liking Like these are catchy I like this

Catching on a way to drive my son somewhere in a Kia. It's kind of going. What's the sound system like in the Kia? It's pretty great. Is it? I paid the extra 15 grand for the... This is Deluxe.

Both sound system. This is turning into an ad read for fucking key. I want to talk about the direction of pop music right now. I've seen those videos of Ed Sheeran playing 50 songs over four chords. You know, it's the same chord progression of whatever. Ed is like mind-nominably talented. It's crazy. but um does that suggest that pop music is formulaic now where are we at in the arc of what do you consider pop music

i guess anything that hits the charts yeah formulaic in a sense that bro sometimes i literally just be like like literally in my head i just like nothing means anything like it's like what do you it's like defeats the whole person podcast but you're just like what do you what do you mean like it's like pop music formulaic it's like the base that's going to pop music is looking to be fed in a way that is not that might not even necessitate breaking the mold. Right. It doesn't need to be experimental.

It can be predictable. Another way instead of formula it might be predictable. Yes, and some of the best people in the world are the best at taking something that's completely experimental and still creating, like if we're all trying to make bikes, you're still trying to make a bike that will last long for you to do the marathon in the country. Pop music, I guess, is just like the most people can ride the bike and enjoy it and whatever. And then there's some people will be like, can I drive a motorcycle?

Like, you don't even know what biking is like. And it's like, I just like my huffy dog. Like, I don't give you shit that you're so angry at the fact that I don't have like answers. Like, the older I get, the more I'm like, oh, this is like a whole fuck ton of everything matters and nothing matters. Like everything matters and nothing matters. Like those six years while I was gone, I was like, I want hits. I will tap dance. for whatever guy that's best friends with the artist

and tell them they're great to just like sneak in and do what I got to do. Because I don't know where this money's going to come from. Like, I need hits because songwriters do not get paid. Songwriters do not get paid. They are at the all the way the, whatever the bottom of the barrel is, ask who's in the basement and who's got barrels in the basement. The bottom of the barrel.

So I was like, I need hits in order to really make a living to still do what I love to do. so my focus is hit. I wasn't, I had to kind of shut off the reverberation of like, maybe in six years I'll do a podcast and talk about it to the top comment to be like, he made a bunch of shitty songs that went number one because pop music sucks. It's like, dude, I don't know.

I was trying to make some big songs, and I tried to get in the best rooms to make a living for my family and the repercussions of that and what I did with pop music is. Now because I have money, I'm able to drive my taste more, and a lot of the shit I'm making is just like cooler and harder and more like fuck you if you don't like it type of shit because like you said I'm not as rehearsed I'm not as whatever I'm a little bit more on autopilot and I could take a bit more risk dude what what is the point of having fuck you money if you

never say fuck you there's no point there's no point at all so you say like would you you're asking a musician like you're asking a musician on why pop music can it be formulaic is it it's like yeah it formulaic in the idea that one day when we get to heaven we're going to find out that the wall was only five feet around what's that mean like when we get to heaven like all of our lives like in this realm of trying to make music like all of us like in our flesh these magical things happen and god enters the room and you make like john lennon makes imagine and like these things happen and they change a generation and bob marley happens and it's it's this this thing that seems bigger than what our flesh is

capable of and as music creators like we're going to find out that the wall we're in the wrong like dimension of it and we keep trying to pretend like it's not five feet around and i think a lot of the grates are somewhat have an understanding that's like you don't have to climb so high to try to like hey man people just want to feel good you know like like when we get to heaven and we have the perspective that's outside of like the body trap get to heaven next plane whatever fuck you believe great will we will um i don't know if pop music's formulaic i think the world is searching for a lot of the same thing you know and then there's the young kid who says i'm gonna change that thing up there and then they get too much money and they become depressed and then

have to find out who they really are without the success it's the same uprising and falling the same shit over and over and over again oh man i look the reason that i keep laughing we've we've all that from you says me is pop music for me like yeah yeah you're the best sort of guest dude i flick you once and you're a fucking infinite content and infinite fucking perpetual motion machine that just ticks away it ticks away like like max martin they're concerned about it feeling really good i don't think they're in the room with the weekend max can correct me if i'm wrong i just don't think max in the room of the weekend being like yeah i think he's like this will keep them listening because it feels good to listen to it

and sometimes that might come off as formulaic sometimes it might be groundbreaking sometimes things work because it resonates within like Olivia Rodriguez driver's license that's not formulaic but people would consider that somehow pop garbage I don't understand how you would that's one of the best to me that's one of the best written songs

in a very long time it's so antithesis of what pop is whatever but you're still going to get people being like because she's in this sphere of artists it's pop and formulaic and what I let me give you a what is pop what is cool what is nice I'm not at all.

Let me give you an insight that I've played with for a long time. There's a guy called Jack Butcher who made visualized value. He was a graphic artist for a very long time. And then he started creating graphic representations of quotes and concepts. Now you think as a graphic artist, what you traffic in are fonts and colors and design. There's a million different degrees of freedom. But he put constraints in. He said, it's only ever going to be white on black.

It's going to be geometric shapes and it's going to be one font. what that meant was his constraint bred creativity. Absolutely. And I think about this... Which is why to me, like, Occurion of Time or Toy Story or like the staples of creative genius were because of the constraints of what it was.

Like, now they drop games and it's like... It's too good. Like, I don't even want it to look this real. And I don't want to, like, pay my taxes inside of a video game. It doesn't need to be like life. It was so removed from life that it Yes, yes

The constraints that the Nintendo 64 had Is what bursted Occurion of time Because they had to trudge through the limitations That they had which forced them to do Really smart things to make the mountains look bigger In the background without doing bandwidth and shit What is it that people care about the most Right?

And for instance, like the analogy that we're talking about Yeah, let's say that you could only use four cords for the rest of time Let's say there was some weird other universe. Only four chords are allowed to be used in every song. Yeah. Okay, well, what do we start to play with then? Well, we start to play with the arrangement.

We start to play with the complexity. We start to play with the lyrics. We start to play with the musicality. It's never-ending, unfolding, coagulating, resurfacing thing that just keeps eating itself into just everything. What you can end up with, the reason that I thought it was real interesting, constraint breeds creativity. So if you do have inside of pop music, some constraint, some regular. formulas or levels

of predictability or expectation or whatever it might be. It means well, perhaps people begin competing in the area which is the highest contribution and maybe that's the resonance how much of the artist's soul is put into it. What's the message of the song?

And I thought that was really cool. I was thinking about this on walk through Manhattan. I'm like, fuck, like, wow, that constraint that Jack put on himself where he said he wasn't going to allow himself to use different colors, different shapes, all the rest of the stuff. It meant that the only only two things he thought about was what was the quote I'm choosing and how am I representing it. That's it. He had two things to play with. I'm like, well, those are the two highest points

of contribution. Yeah. So perhaps unlimited degrees of freedom. What do you think of the two highest points of cards? For him, for him, it was what is the quote that he was choosing from a gazillion quotes that you could choose? What's that? And then the second one was how is it going to be represented graphically? And he believed that to be his high points. Those were the highest points of contribution. I can have all the colors in the world and the different fonts and all the rest of the stuff. And I think the same thing can be true of something like music, where you have an infinite number of ways that we can represent this. But perhaps if you bring the constraint in, you focus on what do people care about the most? And where do I get lost in the

source? Utility. Utility. What's the utility of this? Are we making a song? Sometimes it'll be an hour in. You're like, are we just making a song because we're making one? What are we doing here? What's the purpose here? Where does this get played? Who's going to listen to this? Who's going to like that? It does come into your mind. Lately, lately, I've just been, I can only stomach making something that I'm just like,

I will listen to this in my free time. There's been other times where I haven't. There's just other times where I just haven't. I've just gone along with who's in the room. Whatever gets to cut, and their fans will like it, and it's big, and it's just like whatever. And I can use my talents to kind of treat it like a day at work. and making X amount of dollars off of just me spending eight hours by helping this person do this thing.

It's like, cool. But lately, it's tough for me to feel for some reason. Six years ago when I was making hits, I just wanted hits and it excited me. I just wanted to figure out the code to get to the top of radio with the biggest artist with the thing. And then that becomes just like everything else. It all becomes disenchanting.

It's like the artist thing, I'm walking away. And then I just want hits. And then when I just want hits, I made enough money to where I'm like, I'm not interested in making hits right now. I want to make an album. I'm going to play Forrest Hills, and that's really interesting.

What's interesting to you now? Shutting off as many things on the outside world as possible and making something that I am 15-year-old John going bat-shit crazy about in my car, and then maybe, again, bringing that to the world one more time. That's what's really interesting to me right now. It's just like shutting down. It's like open eyes, wake up, coffee, music, busy, music, music, kids, go to sleep, wake up. Kids get music, music, music, kids, go to sleep, wake up.

And it's been an interesting, it's been interesting to see what artists have just like came into my universe from me just doing that. Because now I'm sending out songs that I'm like, I didn't even consider this, this, this, and this. But somehow that somehow makes it more interesting for artists of different artistic calibers and how the world views them and blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know shit about shit I really love what I do I really love what I do so right now taking the necessary steps

whether that be living healthily living olympically processing drama in order for my balance to not take too much out of me that's what I'm enjoying right now is enjoying myself

I'm so happy for you man thank you I'm so fucking happy for you Thank you. I really, I appreciate that deeply. And you did it all from fucking Long Island. Yeah. And are there days where you want a strong-on-the-perspective

and you don't feel like you're getting the just-do of that-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-th comes and goes. It comes and goes. But a normal life is a great life. I'm positive of it. Because in the details is where you find infinity. Infinity's in the details. It's not in the... It's just like not in the headline.

It's just not hot. So you see, like, motherfuckings seem... Like, I live a very odd. Me and my wife talk about it a lot. We are smack dab in the middle of regular life, and we're also smack dab in the middle of not. Like, there's no... And I'm not even...

even sure that what I'm doing is the right way to live. I just know that I'm happy. In an overarching sense, not every day is perfect at all. But when you almost get wrapped into something and almost lose it all, like going to get smoothies with your kids is like, it's hilarious. The jokes, the development, the way that they see life, the things that they trust you to say that This is just like, man, if I would have just, like, live for me. What a bummer. What a bummer. I know a lot of motherfuckers that got it.

Didn't turn, uh, didn't fill the hole. But the industry. I know it's the age-old archetype, but you'll be different. because your message is the most important. So of course you're going to sacrifice a little bit of family time and a little bit of social time and a little bit of health right now. And of course you're going to do that

because what you have to say, when you get your message out into the world, and that's what they tell you, and that's the temptation, that's the thing. And then when you get there, you've made so many fucking sacrifices to get there that you're not even the person who began to be in the first place. It's like, I have to become the, I don't know,

like metaphorical president. But in order to become the president, of course I'm going to have to slide some money here and do this in you because my... Burn my life down. My goal is the noble one. So me doing the wrong thing, what's immediately wrong in my present,

to get there is the sum of all games. It's like... That was something that I considered. You had this eye-opening moment when you realize how much you're getting screwed on your deal. And from that, I don't want to tune anymore. But would you actually even want to tour as a new father if a touring deal was the most perfect you can put it on the table. Right after four sales, they were like, they, the proverbial they were like, holy shit, we didn't know he was going to sell it out in three hours.

We didn't know that it would stream this way, it would charred on Spotify, blah, we had no idea. They put in front of me, they put in front of me like multi, multi, multi, multi million dollar 40 day just in case you want to see it. I just looked at it as a joke. I just looked at it like, no way. Why? It's like a guy like Ed or like certain artists you have conversations with. They live to be on stage and it brings them a lot of joy, bringing people joy in that way. You know?

Like Ed is just like he lives and breathed by playing his guitar and singing and being like playing stadiums and that brings his life so much joy. that it's worth putting in the effort with his children to do that because it's so important to him. It's just not that important to me. People like the shows and they like when I'm on stage and I have fun and it's my adrenaline pumps, but I don't like the come down. I don't like the two days of staring at the ceiling of being like, what drug did I just take? I don't like the drug. The drug's not, it's not, it doesn't feel normal for me. And I don't know how to regulate that. You do enough shows and you learn how to like not give it everything. I'm on stage losing my fucking mind and then by the time i get off stage i'm reeling for two days i don't enjoy it i barely

enjoy the the album release process i don't like going into this thing where it's like you're about to release this thing and this podcast is coming out and will you get clipped and will it become this thing that's i don't enjoy any of that that's not none of that is like it's not exciting to me but i'm lit up when someone plays i'm just a mean honking chord over just some ill fucking drums and I'm just like I can just do this for the rest of my life this is great there's other stuff that comes with it because you have to make a living and your relevancy

and play the game to some degree because you can't abandon the game completely that's just like a young again that's me at a young age I'm burning the whole thing down it doesn't work that way for me at least nice pipe dream nice pipe dream not possible but yeah it's uh

I love what I do I really do love what i do the torrent to answer your question i don't enjoy it i don't even enjoy i i i don't even really enjoy um it's like the fanfare or the praise i don't i don't like it how's it feel you know it's like a selfish thing you want it how you want it it's like listen to my music and be affected by it and think I'm the greatest but like don't like put too much pressure on me because like I'm not that like it's not that serious but it is very serious but it is very serious but it is very serious and I'm like what how to even um how to even operate in it I still have no idea no idea well I have an idea because I know that if you put a seven

million dollar tour in front of me it ain't 40 million or if you put a seven to a seven I'm like, I'm good, because I just know myself at this point. I've walked away long enough to be like, finally I'm back and they're accepting me. And I can go on this sold out tour if they want me. It's like, dude, I made an album about being a dad to three boys. Like, I wasn't trying to apply to everybody. Do you imagine playing that live being like,

I'm working really hard as a dad, but not for the next 39 days? Dude, coming to the opening night. Honest to the Lord, that is the conundrum of my. existence that is the conundrum yeah yeah yeah I would suggest to give you a little bit of insight that um you know uh Aaron Gillespie from under oath he's the drummer and singer from under oath metal I know under oath I don't know he's the drummer just singer from that he struggled a lot struggled us a lot with uh performance anxiety anxiety generally I think he said on the pod that he's been to like the emergency room hundreds of times

while he's been on tour. He's adamant. He's having a heart attack, health anxiety stuff. And as I was sort of listening to him talk about it, and I'm hearing sort of you'd say the same thing, he has a particular type of obsession, which has caused him to get some outcomes that he's not happy with,

having to go off tour to go to an emergency room, and telling the nurses what scans to get, because it's the same scans that he know that he got loud, time because he's been so many times like going to a pub and ordering the usual despite the fact that he's never been to this hospital before but he already knows what he needs to prove to himself that he hasn't got the thing and I'm like you do understand that the level of obsession that is tormenting you with regards to your health is the reason that you're in one of the most famous and successful battle bands of all time yes and the same thing for you with this yes I I run into

all of these reminders every day that don't that feel counterintuitive to ambition, success, whatever. It's almost like, this John guy's crazy, he's coming here preaching mediocrity. There's times in my life where I say, I could finish this song today, and I know that so-and-so needs it, and I know I could,

this could really be a big win and da-da-da-da, and it's just a graduation. It's just Christmas Eve. It's just a random day in July going in the pool, and my kids are going there. I'll be three hours late. I run into that a lot, where I'm just like, this feels unimportant,

but, the thing I tell myself in my head, I just go follow that. And a lot of times I'm doing things that don't feel, as a father, a lot of times I'm doing things that don't feel, they don't feel fun, they don't feel important. And I don't realize their importance until like six, seven, eight, nine, ten months later. So a lot of it's just like kind of feeling out in the dark to like, I'm actually walking toward the exact opposite of a self-health podcast. I walk toward mediocrity very aggressively because I find that the nuance inside of the

mediocrity gives you a stronger baseline for a longer level of happiness when your ambition is so like i'm not going to throw any names under the bus of like giant athletes or whatever but the ambition is so obsessive and so whatever just look at the fruits of the look at the fruits of the thing and did ultimately your career is a marathon not a sprint it has to be uh why do you think every fucking artist goes on a podcast over and over and it's the same story it's the same story i was at the height of my career and the loneliest i've ever been it's like at a certain point someone i might be mildly not too dumb to look at that and just be like i'm gonna i'm gonna believe ever all of them and never look over

the fence and never chase after the thing that no if i got it because enough people have told me that it's not the end all be all i'm gonna have to do this i was i didn't want to have to fucking pull this one out but I'm going to have to read you I'm going to have to read you an essay I'm sorry I'm in okay I'm so in okay here we go

such a good um conversation I came up with this insight about a year ago and it's exactly what you've been talking about and I called it unteachable lessons basically what I realized was that there is a certain category of lesson that no matter

how often people learn it, we refuse to be able to hold on to. Yes. I've been thinking about a special category of lesson, one which you cannot discover without experiencing it firsthand. There is a certain subset of advice that for some reason we all refuse to learn through instruction, unteachable lessons. No matter how arduous or costly or effortful it's going to be for us to find out for ourselves, we prefer to disregard the mountains of warnings from our elders, songs,

literature, historical catastrophes, public scandals, and instead think some version of, yeah, that might be true for them, but not for me. Absolutely. We decide to learn the hard lessons the hard way over and over again. Unfortunately, they all seem to be the big things, too. It's never insights about how to put up level shelves or charmingly introduce yourself at a cocktail party. Instead, we spend most of our lives learning firsthand the most important lessons that the previous

generation already warned us about. Things like, money won't make you happy. Fame won't fix yourself worth. You don't love that pretty girl she's just hot and difficult to get. Nothing is as important as you think it is when you're thinking about it. You will regret working too much. Worrying is not improving your performance. All your fears are a waste of time.

You should see your parents more. You will be fine after the breakup and be grateful that you did it. It's perfectly okay to cut toxic people out of your life. And even reading this list back, I'm rolling my eyes at how fucking trite it is. These are all basic, bitch, obvious insights. that everyone has heard before. But, if they're so basic, why does everyone so reliably fall prey to them throughout our lives? And if they're so obvious, why do people who have recently become famous or wealthy or lost

a parent or gone through a breakup start to proclaim these facts with the renewed, grandiose ceremony of someone who's just gone through religious revelation? It's also a list of very contentious topics to say on the internet. If you interview a billionaire who says that all his money didn't make him happy, or a movie star who said that her fame felt like a prison, the internet will tear them apart for being ungrateful and out of touch. So not only do we refuse to learn these lessons, we even refuse to hear the message from those warning us about them.

Even more than that, for every one of these, if I think a bit deeper, I can recall a time, including right now, where I convince myself that I'm the exception to the rule, that my particular mental makeup or life situation or historical wounds or dreams for the future render me immune to these lessons being applicable. No, no, no, my inner landscape would be fixed by skirting around the most well-known wisdom of the ages.

No, no, no, I can thread this needle properly, watch me dance through the minefield and avoid all the tripwires that everyone else kicks. And then you kick one. And you share a knowing luck between another person, the kind that can only occur between two people who have been hurt in exactly the same way and a voice in the back of your mind will say

I told you so. To the T I could have saved ourselves a whole fucking conversation. I love it. Bro, I could never have related with something more in my entire life. It's like

the grass ain't greener. Like, hey man, being present is really good. Like, you don't know until you got to like I give up artistry and I'm walking away from it to be to a bit. It's like, wow, I didn't even need it in the first place. Thank God I stripped that of myself. Dude, I love the fact that you're a,

this weird role model for both ends of the fucking extreme, for the complete dedication, purest art form going forward, and also winning in the weeds of taking your kids to the ice cream to get a fucking, like, what's that fucking ice shit that everyone on Long Island eats? Italian ice? Yeah, Italian ice. Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Why did you go to throw Italians in that like that? He did the British thing before. He did it, dude. He did the British thing. Oh, well, I don't ever tell you about these. It's like a French ice or something like that. Yeah, exactly. But I think it's really cool, man.

I think that you are, without knowing it, like very on the nose of the zeitgeist of where people are moving. You said before, I think that fathers are important. I think the fathers are going to be increasingly important through the future and also might be one of

the most culturally out of touch people that's been on the podcast and you know when you know when two of your different friends tell you hey man you got to watch this new series

and they don't know each other and they didn't coordinate to do it and you go oh or two people say have you checked out the new fucking sleep token record or whatever the fuck you're like

I should probably pay attention to that because a lot of people are talking yeah yeah two independent people came up at the same realization. You came up with unteachable lessons. You had some other name for it in your mind. I wrote that essay a year ago. There's probably something there. I feel like there's something that. The fact that you missed a fucking Faraday Cage, sterile laboratory of music production

and child rearing, arrived at the realization. I think fatherhood's important. I think you win in the weeds of life. Yes. I think that normality and boring victories and mundane successes day to day are where the juice is to be squeezed from. Absolutely. I think the fact that you have done that and if you look at the zeitgeist that they're pointing in the same direction too, that people are like, dude, the glitz and the glamour

and chasing all of that stuff is becoming gauche. It's becoming cringe. It's becoming an ick. It's becoming shallow. It is. In a way that maybe it does. didn't previously. Yep.

I think that suggests that you're under something now. Which also takes me, like, and again, last thing, just, I totally agree. The zeitgeist is, there's just a level of consciousness that seems like if I, if I'm conscious like that, then we're all connected, then like, if I feel that way, chances are a lot of other people might feel that way. And the depths of myself, it was songwriting. I recognize that. When I identify something deep inside myself, I say, oh, hold on to.

that one and try to always hold on to the way that that felt because you might be able to put that in something to then deliver it to the world because you're human just like everybody else that's why when you start to doubt yourself it's so dangerous if you start to caveat for other people that little whisper Rick Rubin calls them whispers right or my therapist said pay attention to fleeting thoughts yes oh hold on yes come back yes let's have a little listen to that mm-hmm and that's where oh he sees me yep he sees me yep holy fuck dude the consciousness of it all it almost feels like the uh times are times are coming to a tie tied up end i don't know what that means it's just a and maybe you know nuclear war was

always a threat and all this different stuff but in my deep in my gut somewhere it feels like the bedrock of reality is starting to like crack open like is school good what's college who's the president what's going on do we trust the government i don't know but it's like coming to this thing because everything's being recorded and truth is quickly getting you know thrown to the top of the pile because of our access to it that you're right there is some sort of consciousness that's moving in a direction that i don't know hopefully it's toward uh honestly dude as long as you know what i want to return to uh i appreciate you give me the freedom to even feel this comfortable to have this conversation by the end of our conversation but

I almost like want to go back to being stupid because the dumber I stay, the larger and more aware I am of like in my happiness to some degree. And I don't mean willful ignorance. I don't mean ignoring problems and not addressing things and pretending like things don't exist. Just. I don't know. It felt good to make it, to make that song.

Or I don't know. Like one show. It's like, I don't know. It just felt right with me. It felt right. You're stupid. You didn't get $7 million deal from your $30. You're back, dude.

People are listening to you. The whole world wants you. You're dumb. It's like, I just, like, I'm thinking, like, I'm starting. I'm dumb. I'm, I'll just be over here just, like, in my dumbness, doing nothing, having a popsicle on a Tuesday with my boys. I just can stick to dumb. Because I think dumb's been working.

Mundane and dumb has really saved my life. It's really helped me out. sitting with the uncomfortability of the things that you don't want to touch slowing you down and in the dumbness you end up you end up coming into grips with that monster

you end up you end up things kind of just worked out I've smarted myself into being so stupid I'm like the I'm like the smartest dumb person ever I'd rather be like the dumbest smart person willfully letting go of like the wisdom I feel like the more like

insane wisdom i get the more i'm like okay i i need to i need to do a bit on you that most people on the internet will know but given you're not on the internet you wouldn't have seen it do you know what the midwit meme is midwit midwit me okay so imagine a bell curve that you've got here and on the left hand side you have a meme of a guy who will people not believe that i don't know what that is like is it that popular probably not no no it's a justifiable level of ignorance okay The rest like can't No, no, no, no, no, you're hopeless Outside of that.

Left-hand side, guy that looks a little bit like a caveman. Okay. Big brown, you're sort of stupid like that. And then at the top of the bell curve, which is where most people are, you have this sort of screaming, raging, over-complicated optimizer person. And then on the right-hand side,

you have this guy that looks like a Jedi with his hudder. And the meme, the joke, is that the guy in the left and the guy in the right always agree. They always come to the same conclusion. and it's the person in the middle who overcomplicates everything.

I love that. So, for example, how do I build muscle? Eat protein lift weights. Eat protein left weights. I must ensure that my predigested way is consumed within a 30-minute window from a grass-fed, grass source, non-GMO, right? Right? Okay? Yes.

And for this, everybody that is, every guy in the middle is a guy in the left trying to be the guy in the right. You cannot be the guy in the right. Okay, there's no way to become the Jedi. You can only be the guy in the left. So a question to ask yourself is what would the guy in the left do? The guy in the left, Tuesday afternoon. We should get lollipops. As opposed to what is the most optimal way for me to ensure

because that is you trying to be the guy in the right and ending up being the guy in the middle. Chase, have you still got that? Can you lift it up? Okay, so this is what we're talking about. So guy in the left. Guy in the middle, guy in the right. You can't be the guy in the right.

It's only possible to be the guy in the left. Yeah, and it's almost like the more you're okay with being the guy on the left, you're kind of like, it all just ends up being all right. Hey, I don't know, man. Dude, I love it. John Bellion, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, I've enjoyed today so much. That means it tends to me.

Over the years, like I try to get people their flowers if I ever meet them and say, if I ever come across that guy, let him know, first day, whatever. I just think it's very, very noble. I think it's very, uh, I wish a lot more people thought the way that you did in what they decide to help people with and how they decide to help people.

And I've seen you refine it over the years because I've been a fan for a super long time. So I'm in, man. I appreciate you. I appreciate you having. And thanks for, dude, thanks for doing this all the way where I live. I got you, man.

Until next time. Yes, sir.