Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - John Mayer

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

John Mayer is an American songwriter, guitarist, and musician. He has won several Grammy awards, including Song Of The Year for “Daughters.” In addition to his successful solo career, Mayer is also a member of the band Dead & Company, which features former Grateful Dead members. He joined the band in 2015 and has since toured extensively with them until this summer when the band announced and just wrapped their final tour. Mayer's contribution to Dead & Company has been praised by fans and critics alike, as has his dedication to the guitar in a time when its cultural resonance has been challenged. John also remains dedicated to his own songs, past and present, having recently finished an acclaimed solo tour. ------- Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: House of Macadamias https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra Get a free box of Dry Roasted Namibian Sea Salt Macadamias + 20% off Your Order With Code TETRA Use code TETRA for 20% off at checkout ------- LMNT Electrolytes  https://drinklmnt.com/tetra Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with your order.

Tetragramatism Maybe we stop by talking about the Grateful Dead, you might not tell me about your relationship to the Grateful Dead's music historically. Historically. You know, I pick up on knowing about them probably in the early 90s when I was in high school. And I related their music to the people who were listening to their music in high school, which was, okay, that's not for me. There were cooler kids who were driving jeeps

with the doors taken off and they had the stickers and they were going to dead shows and they were talking about dead stuff. So I went, okay, that's not my world. You know, and so describe who your world was. So I know. My world was Stevie Ray von, buddy guy, BB, I mean, all those guys.

That to me was like, when did this, when did your blues fascination start? At about 13 or 14. A neighbor handed me a cassette. He was like, you know, everyone had like the cool boyfriend of the mom of the neighbor. Like the kind of cool in-between guy, between adult and kid.

And he handed me this tape because if you can play like this, you were really playing guitar. Just a little bit. Yeah. It didn't even really understand soloing. I just knew there was the one thing you could do on the guitar that didn't look like you were sitting by a campfire. I knew there were two types of playing.

I didn't even know how to describe the second type. I just knew that I wanted something to do with it. And it was Stevie Rave on in double trouble. And looking back on it, Stevie's music was perfect for being 14 or 15, because it's like a comic. It's like fast, it's in your face. And it was also produced in a way that I could understand, right? So it was produced with like an 80s thing.

It was produced with reverbs and really high quality recordings. And so it wasn't like I was going to ever discover Sun House when I was 14, you know. What was the other music you were listening to at that time? Well, I would go back and forth. It's funny. I'd go back and forth between hardcore guitar playing stuff and then like Pearl Jam and Song. Song Jam and song based song stuff, you know

So I'd grown up listening to MTV just songs songs songs songs songs and then I discovered the guitar and that was like a Whole other dimension for me. So I was coming home from school Going right into old records when I got home. Those were my imaginary friends. I Would be at school. I remember thinking that like 21 Jump Street was a good allegory for like my being in high school, which is I'm not really a student. I'm under cover. Yes. Because what I'm doing is I go home and my classes start at 3.30 when these ones end. And you have no idea who you want to do professionally already or no Yes, but I didn't know it was professionally. I just thought that's gonna be my life Yeah, did you ever have the idea of having a regular job in life? Never never I mean I got good really fast and

I could hear myself get good really fast. Would you tribute that too? luck luck I mean when I see all these other guitar players on Instagram self-get-good really fast. What do you tributate that to? Luck. Luck. I mean, when I see all these other guitar players on Instagram, I don't assume they want it less than me. We all want it the same. Yeah, yeah. So it's a luck thing.

It's an ergonomic thing. It's something. Something, you know. And I just looked at it and went that. And first of a guy who over thinks everything, that was the most Zen sentence that ever came into my head. I'm gonna do that. What was your first guitar?

It was a rental Washburn acoustic. My parents were renting it from the music store. My father said, there's two types of guitars. There's an acoustic and that's beautiful. That's a beautiful sounding guitar. Then there's this thing called an electric and you plug it and it sounds like Drek. He said. So that was him trying to steer me away from rock and roll or the neck.

What was your dad's taste of music? So my dad was into show tunes, 40s, and my dad's 95 as we speak. And so he was 50 when he had me. So my father was already in that golden era of... And was that the music that was playing in your house? You know, my dad would play the piano, never improvised a note in his life, but he would play these songs on the piano. And so yeah, Cole Porter stuff, he would just never smile bigger than if he's recalling an old song.

And he would always play the piano every day or once in a while. Once in a while. Once in a while. He would, he would, more of a recital guy. So the improv part of me was kind of sprung up. It wasn't really handed down to me. I would look at the piano and go, this is the most incredible thing too.

I just wasn't that good at it. But I just remember understanding intervals from the very beginning, going, okay, look at all these things are laid out. It's not like they're out of order. I would understand if they're out of order, right? So you can look, I remember being a kid and going, are they gonna get higher as you go and even increments?

That's sort of to me like, got it, let me work it out. It's a length of string. That's all it is. And so I remember sitting down and trying to work out the piano, but it just didn't come naturally. But I still saw it as this magical thing that you open the lid up and you can do anything on it. There's a disconnect in my brain between my looking at an instrument and going, you can do anything on that and me realizing, I don't know anything about it. I still look at it like anything's possible on it. Yes.

And I just cancel out the fact that I can't do it. And I'll try it still. I'll sit down and still want to play it. That's the wonder of it, you know. So, was it a grand piano in your house? It was a stand up. It was a terrible old Baldwin stand up. Upright, sorry, I call it a stand up right.

And funny story about that piano. I was in LA, the very beginning of my career, it's 2000, I'm at the super eight motel. I'm like, wittly in Hollywood Boulevard, and I'm calling my parents to find out what's going on. How's everything? Good, my mom says, we are, we're trading the piano in for a digital piano.

I go, what do you mean? We're trading in the piano. Wait, but that's the piano that I... My parents weren't very like sentimental. You know, I had to develop sentimentality. Or maybe I always was and I had to figure out and embrace it. What are you doing in the piano? I'm going to go buy it. Where did you sell it? Where is it? Well, we still have it. I go, listen, hold on to the piano. I will take care of it. I had the piano moved into storage for about 20 years, and only recently took it out of storage and put it into my house in Montana.

So cool. And I still have the piano, saved it from... So cool. I mean, the piano's worth $800. Yeah. But it's your piano. It's my piano. And we need...

It's your childhood piano. Yeah. As I get older, memories... it's not that I question them, but I lose touch with them. They might as well not have happened, unless you have one totem that you can point to and say that wasn't a dream. Because look, it's right there.

My father just got rid of a piece of furniture. I would have taken from him in a heartbeat as another thing and he put it on the street. I think they're from a generation where they weren't as sentimental about things. My first guitar was in an acoustic, it was a washburn. Then my brother got an electric guitar for Christmas, which was just really odd. There was this strange... Older younger. Younger. There was this strange,

older younger. Younger. And I was like, why would you get my brother, the electric guitar, I'm the guitar player. So I kind of took it from him. And that's when I went off. Because you can't really bend strings on an acoustic. You know, that's when I figured out, oh, this is the machine that lets you bend the strings.

This is the machine that lets you get vocal. And from that period on, I was in a wormhole. You couldn't get me out of the room. I would come home from school, sleep for like 30 minutes, go into a room for four hours. And that was it. What was the first amp? It was a squire, 15 watt amp. No reverb, no nothing. I went to the music store one time and I finally heard reverb out of an amp And I went this is the most incredible thing I've ever heard But I couldn't get an amp with reverb

We used to have these Charles chips potato chip cans these ten big ten cans And I took an empty one And I put it in front of this 15 watt amp And it would just go over and I'd go in front of this 15 watt amp, and it would just go over to my gosh. And I'd go, that's reverb-ish. It's cool. I would play into a charleship can just to have the note go over to the...

How loud would you be listening in your room? Is loud as I could, I don't think I remember like being demure about it. I think I probably went for the energy I could get out of the amp before it would blow up. Would you be playing along with music or just playing along with music? Always. And in my mind, muting the singer and the guitar player.

Like, neuro-obviously. So it was your rhythm, you had a rhythm section to play to. Yes. And you ignored everything else and just focused on playing with the rhythm section. Yes. Have you heard other people tell you that? No. Never heard that one. Have you heard other people tell you that? No. Never heard that one.

Have you? No. I have never heard that. I would ignore the top line. It's interesting, though. Or I could go back and forth. I could mute it. So you might harmonize with it or do something.

I would never learn a solo and play a lot of it. I never saw the value in learning a blue solo. Yeah. Because I knew how ephemeral they were, but I saw the value in learning the vocabulary. Mm-hmm. And yes, somebody would play something and I'd go, can I get that?

Yes, I could get that. And here's the thing about blue solo. This is really interesting, by the way, because most people I know do it very differently. Most people I know learn every solo. Yeah, I saw it like, if you sit down and learn every solo. Yeah, I saw it like, if you sit down and learn every solo, you go like this, yeah, I know that's how it goes.

If you have a pretty perfunctory knowledge of the panatonic blues scale, and you hear someone play a blues solo, it might sound magical at first, as soon as you go, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. Got it, that's what that was, but that's not what that was. Whatever that was before you heard it is the thing. Just as soon as you go, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da always try to go for the thing that made the solo. So what's the scale that makes the solo?

And how can I get into that same spirit that the player is in? And there are, no, there were certainly times I would mimic what I heard. More is a way to get me into the center fuge and then start playing. It's all often not even about the notes. It's so much more about the attitude and the style. That's all. That's all. The pocket. Yes. And I'll come back to this word probably a lot, but the intention. Yeah. That's my whole career is all about now, music, please. Yeah. Just coming as close as you can to the pure intention of it. And that's what actually makes and made playing with these blues legends so amazing in person because it's one thing to play along with a buddy guy record from 1972. It's another thing to play in the same moment with the same supply of oxygen as

buddy guy. Yeah. So you have a point of reference for the moment, the same as he has, so everything he's playing is in that moment, and that's the university lesson. That's the highest, that's your doctorate right there. When you hear someone else in that moment playing, you're grabbing from the same moment, and you hear what they do, that's the best teaching in the world, not what it must have been like 30 years ago

from the time you were listening to. Yeah. Tell me about those experiences. Who have you got to play with? Oh, wow. I got to play with BB King. I played with Buddy Guy a lot. Eric Clapton.

Got to play with Eric. I got to play with Hubert Sumlin one time, which was incredible. That was wild. Those guys are like digging something out of the earth when they play, like an oil drill or something, just getting something out of the earth, which I respect and try to go for. But one thing about me, you'll never see me attempt that style of music because when I hear it, I go, I don't buy that for a second, John.

When you do it. Yeah, when I do it. I don't buy that. buy that for a second, John. When you do it. Yeah, when I do it. I don't buy it. It's fun, but you'll never hear me do. Yeah. Blind Blake stuff, or even Lightning Hopkins, who I love. Yeah. I'll mess with it at home, but there is a line to where,

I think you should probably. It's off the, you wanna play authentic music for you. Yeah, that's right. I came up with these guys as references. They're like baseball cards. They're like, if you're into the NBA and you wear different jerseys, you pretend you're a different player in the driveway. That's what I was doing.

I did it for a lot of years. So all those pieces are in there still. I could give you Robert Cray, Ish, give you BB King Ish, I could give you Eric Ish, I could give you Steve Revon ish, but not by duplicating what they did, but playing over the grooves that they're playing over and understanding the style of what they're doing. That's right. Like more becoming them instead of copying them.

That's right. That's right. Yeah, seek what they're seeking. Don't seek them. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And when it's really good, even when I was a kid, your feet come off the ground and your feet come off the ground as you're playing. You're elated. What else on earth? You know, and I think about young people today there really is way less of that. I'm not to say people aren't going into their rooms and playing music, but I remember having my feelings hurt,

being upset, being bullied, being made fun of, feeling small, and knowing that I was on my way to go home and reset from that, and hammer out the debts and re-inflate from playing guitar, and that became a secret that no one else really knew about in school. And that was like my 21 Jump Street undercover student thing. It was like, you have no therapy as well. The greatest therapy in the world is to play music and say, as you hear yourself play,

I am not a piece of shit. You know? That's a powerful thing. Where else, if you don't play music today, can you get that feeling? When the world isn't so many ways, sort of telling you you're a piece of shit, right? One way or the other.

Where else can you go and get that feeling where you go? Huh! Am not. You can't. It's so guitar for me, as it is for so many people, and music is for so many people. It was like armor. It was like armor that no one saw that I had under my shirt. And then I'd go to school and deal with whatever that social mess was, knowing that I'm friends with these,

this league of superheroes on CDs when I go back to my room. And to be able to actually play with some things. Amazing. I had a similar experience without actually being able to play. Like I would play along with the Ramones, punk rock. But that was, you know, like very rudimentary things. But I still got to have that experience. Right. Even without it being no virtuosity whatsoever. Right. But it still was my savior.

Yeah. You got in the simulator. Absolutely. And you got in the flight simulator. Absolutely. And that's really what it is, you know, but you still feel like you're flying. Amazing. It's amazing.

Amazing. And leaving school, racing home to just play along, just to have that feeling of the energy of the music. Yes. Being in the music. Yes. Such a great feeling. It was the best feeling in the world, and I still chase it, and I still have it.

Yeah. You know, I still have it. Yeah, it doesn't get old. No. It allows you to leave it when you want to. Absolutely. And I take breaks, but it always regenerates. It always regenerates new tissue all the time.

If I'm at the end of the tour right now and there are certain moves that at the beginning of the tour wowed me but don't quite anymore, I just know that when I go back out in October, all that tissue is going to regenerate and I'm going to want to hear those melodies again. You just have to wait and it all grows back, but you can't say for a lot of other things. When you play the same songs over long period of time, like over years and years, do you find new ways to relate to the songs over time? I do now. Yeah. Not in the short term. There's this very interesting kind of graph where you're excited when you've first written it, you're excited when you're first playing it, you're excited when it's really successful

and then you have this trench where you kind of never want to talk to it again. Because you feel as if you've taken everything out of it that you could. And then you put it away, in what I call like the penalty box, you just put it away. And then time happens to it, you know. You grow up, you slide out of sync with yourself or the self that made that record. And then you come back to it and it becomes vintage in some other beautiful way. Because when you're still the person

that could have written that song and you sing it a billion times, you're tired of it. It only gets interesting when you stop being the person who wrote that song. How long do you think it takes for that to happen? I'm gonna bullshit a number and say probably seven or eight years. Does that make sense? Does that sound about right? Well, I could say it could be a year. Yeah. Like, the depends. It really depends on you. I don't know how quickly you change. For me, yeah, I shed my skin probably every five years or so. And so now I'm coming back to all these songs on this tour.

And I know I wrote them, but again, like memories, like the only proof that I was there are these songs. Yeah, that it was recorded. Yeah, that I was record, and more often than not, what happens is I'll go back into rehearsal and the songs will come up on the prompter. And I'll go, into rehearsal and the songs will come up on the prometer. And I'll go, he wrote that, that kid wrote that because I'm an adult now. Yeah.

And I know that I was, I was all over the place a little bit when I was growing up, but those songs were very truthful. You know, there's a lot of energy coming out of me when I was growing up. Great songs, crazy ideas, too much talking, too much ideating all the time, but all that's left are those songs, right? Everything else gets to melt away. Even sort of the gossipy stuff sort of melts away. A lot of those pictures, they're not on the internet anymore, you know?

All those things I thought were going to stay with me that kind of doesn't stick like the songs do. So now it's just these songs. And I watch them come up on the prompter and I go, these are really kind of beautiful ways to look at love and life. And I go, these are mine now. Because maybe part of it is as you get older, your questions get answered. I think that's maybe the main driver and not writing as prolifically as we do when we're younger, it's because we have these unanswered questions.

We're writing to what is going on. You get to be 45. You're like, I pretty much know what's going on. And I get to read these lyrics, and sing these lyrics of, I know their mind, but they're a younger version of me that I then have grace for. And that's really nice to have compassion for your younger self when you read it and go. It's the Baldwin piano. Yeah, you know it's the same. It's like you get to, it's a memory.

Yeah, I mean, don't you think that into us? It's interesting. I just feel like so much of life is going back into things you told yourself stories about and revising it to the truth, which is, you're okay. You've always been okay. You know, you could probably bring someone of their knees if you walked up to them and said, you know, you don't know me, but I want you to know you've always been okay. I know what you're thinking. You've always been okay no matter what you ever did. It will bring you to your knees. It's like figuring that out and defending that

as you get older is like you spend, you know, we all spend a portion of our lives in the past. Are you driving in traffic or you had an extra half an hour in the morning that's stare at the corner of the room. And these songs allow me to kind of go back and go, these are beautiful, man. What are you worried about? You know, and it's very healing for me, especially now that these songs are not race horses anymore. That's the other life they have. They're not race horses.

They're not out to make a name for me anymore. They're not out to prove to the record company that I can do it that they made a good investment in me. They're not out to get big names on the guest list. Well, now what are they? All I got. And I'm in front of 15,000 people and now these songs come to life between us. I'm not throwing music at them. The way that sometimes if you think about rock concerts, they're sort of projected. My songs are not projected at the audience anymore. They're sort of projected. They're not really, my songs are not projected at the audience

anymore. They're sort of projected up like a planetarium or something. And then everybody's underneath it. And that thing is brand new to me. And you have the songs together. Yeah. Yeah. And I bet you, for some of them, the audience might have the songs more than you do. Yes, for sure. For sure. And then I learn from them what the songs are. Yeah. They remind me what these things are. Yeah, it's so cool. Because for you, it's a moment in time

that happened a while ago and you've moved on. For them, it might be something they've listened to thousands of times. Yes. And it's theirs now. Yeah. And it's a thing when we make music and put it out into the world It very quickly becomes something else

That's right. Do you know that's right? But I'm reclaiming it now Yeah, which is what's incredible and I know that if you know if you just sort of glance over what I'm saying it sounds a little self Revorential But it it's only because you externalize from these songs over the years. And then you get to look back and look at what you've written and put on the shelf, and you look at all the different colors of books together. I was only writing one at a time. Yeah.

And you got to write 10 or 12 at a time for a record. Yeah. And then you got to go do an album. And the albums of you made eight. And I think I have a pretty good, like looking back on it now, like a pretty good percentage of songs that haven't rotted out. Some do.

But like there seems to be like an inverse ratio of uncool to longevity. The more sort of quote unquote uncool something is in the moment, the more mileage it might have in it. And my music was never in any one year like dominatingly cool, but it was stable in a certain way as work. It was like a very stable craft.

And some of it, I wouldn't go back to some of it I go listen. That was prototypical. But it's interesting to go back now and see that if you take away the commercial result of these songs and just democratize them and just put them on the table, I think the crowd is watching me look through them, especially when they have signs that have names of songs I haven't played in a while

I go that's interesting and I say I don't even know if that's gonna work on the acoustic and they get to watch me in real time Figure out a how to play it on the acoustic be how to play it tell me the whole story of this tour because this is a different Torre than others that you've done. Yeah, I was always tinkering with the idea of doing an acoustic thing, but new I just wasn't to the point in my career where I felt like I was going to be able to pull it off for some reason. I think probably I have to do with catalog. I just wanted to have a really good stable of songs to pull from. And a few things happened last year where I was playing acoustic and it really worked.

I did a radio show, which I hadn't done in some time, so my memory of a radio show was throw me in the middle of the lineup. I come out and do my thing and I'm out and the big band comes out and plays. It was an arena show in San Jose and I was kind of one of the headliners with just an acoustic guitar and it worked. And it only worked because the audience made it work. I can't stress this enough. It only works if they build the bridge to paradise for you. If they don't, you're no planter. You can't overpower them. You can't. Within acoustic guitar. You can't.

And it's 20,000 people. You can not. You will sink if you tread too fast. If you tread your arms too fast, you're not swimming, you're flailing, and you sink like a brick. And they were created this golden road to where I wanted to go. They're all building this thing, you know? And I got off stage and I was like, well, wait a minute, that's actually doable.

And then I had just started to have this idea about 2023. And I'm pretty good at reading tea leaves in the near future, you know, and I went, I feel like everything's going to change this year before you can really make a plan for anything. So I'm going to go month to month this year because I don't trust the outlook of December from January. So I'm going to go month to month. And I'm not kidding, the first week of January, we booked the tour. This third week of January, we were shooting

all the photography and I was coming up with the name of the tour, what's it gonna be? How are you gonna call it? How are you gonna put a stamp on it? On sale, a week later, like eight weeks later, the tour started. And what was so brilliant about it is number one, artists plan things so far in advance.

We wanna do them, which is why we plan them. And most of the time by the time we get to the doing of the plan, we don't wanna do it anymore. And the other thing that was fascinating was in terms of selling tickets, we don't know what we're going to be in eight months. So it's not that people aren't buying tickets to a show in October because they don't want to go. I don't know where I'm going to be in October.

So something really interesting happened where in January, we sold tickets for shows in February and March, or March and April. And everyone was like, yeah, it's still being school. And that just made more sense to me than booking things that far out. And it makes, you know what I mean? I'm more into it by the time I do it. They're more into it by the time they go. You're just shortening that fuse between,

that sounds cool, I think I'll do that and doing it. It makes sense the whole world has gotten more immediate. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we live in an on-demand world. That's right. It makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense.

And now you're seeing me in the middle of my initial desire, the excitement of it. And draw the do something. Yeah, the fire of the ideas. You get to do it now and we get to experience it. That's right. And I remember saying, just because it's fast doesn't mean it's bad. Not at all. It's, I think, maybe just the opposite. Yeah. And I remember saying, just because it's fast doesn't mean it's bad. Not at all.

It's, I think maybe just the opposite. Yeah. And my team is great. And I hate saying my team, sorry, but it's incredible. And so flexible and just so immediate and dynamic that I could say I wanna do this and that. And it starts with a vision. You can't waffle.

I mean, if I waffle and I go, well, it might not, then we're over. You can't do it, right? It's just too short a period of time. But I'm pretty good at downloading a vision, but not wavering from it. And so this tour just turned out to be way more special than even I thought. I thought it would be like an appendix to my normal touring. And it became weirdly like the centerpiece of all of it. So cool.

Describe what it shows like. It is like taking a magnifying glass in the middle of the afternoon and trying to get the beam from the sun so bright into the one tiny, tiny, tiny part of the paper that can burn. Like how do you get all of who you are? How do you get those lenses to line up so that you really can refract everything that's inside you and make it work?

Now that goes against a lot of the thinking of touring which is repetition. Let's get doing these shows so it's muscle memory baby up. We go down. We go a broad Broadway play. That's right. And this is the opposite. Cannot do that. You cannot do it. I've never in my life been more in tune with myself in terms of even living in my body of stress. I am in my physical body more than I've ever been before.

If I don't sleep, I feel it. If I don't rest my voice, I hear it. If I'm stressed, I wear it. Okay, what do we do? We have to lay down, put on music. You need an hour. It's all of this real objective. And it's a solo acoustic tour. Solo acoustic. It takes me forever to write a set list because I have to be honest with myself. What do you want to play? What do you want to play tonight? Who are you tonight? And what is the set list that you will have the most fun sledding down this perfect how far before the show do you do the set list?

About an hour and I go through two pieces of paper Because I'm always fighting with yourself with my with my instincts Yeah, because there's the one instinct in me that goes like don't let them down give them the biggies because I'm always fighting with yourself with my with my instincts. Yeah. Because there's the one instinct in me that goes like don't let them down. Give them the biggies. And I don't know if you've had experience with this. Like sometimes the audience doesn't want the biggies. Absolutely.

And both the artists and the audience, you can't even project what they want. I know they want it to be good. That's exactly right. And I know you want it to be good. That's exactly right. And I know you want it to be good. That's exactly right. And I have a feeling if you're really good, everyone's happy. That's what I'm saying. And if you think about both the audience and the artist having the wrong idea about the other. Yeah. And the audience would say, we thought you loved playing it.

And the artist would say, we thought you loved hearing it. And if you come together, you go, well, I don't really need to hear that one all the time. I know, and you play it all the time. I thought you loved it. Well, no, it was just big, and I thought you wanted it. And I've started to learn that they don't need waiting on the world to change. Yeah. That, you know, certain songs are part of the rocket booster. And they fall back to Earth to get the other payload up where you need to go.

So I write the set list that's in impression of how I feel. And then I go up and the show starts and it's still organic and it's moving around the whole time and depending on how they make me feel or depending on what the signs say, I'll go off a little bit and go into some other things. As long as it's honest and everyone's in tune with it, it's great. I still have to talk myself down from this idea like, we haven't played a biggie in three. John, you don't have to play a biggie in four. You don't even know what a biggie is anymore. Nobody's gonna agree on what the biggie is. It's over, just have fun.

And there's a lot of learning. You're also reinterpreting the songs because you're playing on acoustic. That's right. So it's already new. It's already new. It's already new. That's right.

So a song that may not have been a hit in its recorded version could be the best song of the night as an acoustic song. That's precisely right. And if that happens, then people go home and go, I like that song. That's what I want to hear again. And that is the power of a tour in terms of the water table of your work, is that you can actually sort of elevate songs that were seen as, quote unquote, deep cuts into being really important songs. I mean, I've seen Pearl Jam do that in real time, democratize everything, you know, so that in concert these things,

they all have value. And I will say this to anyone who wanted to do that, get ready for two or three really uncomfortable years of touring, because you have to push against that thing of like, where's the biggie? And exactly what you're saying has to happen, which is trust me, you're gonna like this more. It's like I know we had plans to go get sushi tonight, but I'm not really in the mood to trust me. I found a place where both gonna love more.

Trade it in for something if you trust the person. And I take everything up there with me. You can't go into show mode up there alone. You've got to take it up there with you. I have said to the crowd, my heart's in a different condition tonight. You know, I got a text before I went on stage about my dad's health condition

that had some verbiage in it. You know, sometimes you get these texts that say what they may have to do for an older person. And the may have to do disappears in the words that they may have to do. Hit your heart, you know. And it was like two or three minutes before I went on stage. You cannot separate that. You got to bring that up with you.

You know, a therapist told me a while ago about anxiety, bring the little scared kid up with you on stage. So you can come along, change so much for me. Absolutely. If you're anxious and that part of you that's a kid, it's still anxious to go, do you want to come with me? You can come up on stage with me. And I've brought him next to me.

You can come up on stage. There's a lot of people out there. I know, I know, it's weird, but trust me, I got it. And then you can take care of yourself. Amazing. In that way, you know. Beautiful. And I said, take care of yourself. Amazing. In that way, you know. Beautiful. And I said, my heart's interested

different conditions tonight. And the moment I admitted it, the music went right on track and started healing me. And everything stopped being about whether my vocals were on pitch or whether I had the breath control. It doesn't matter. You control, it doesn't matter.

You know, it doesn't matter. How miraculous is music? It's crazy. It just gets deeper as you get older. And I'm gonna make a bit of an admission here. I thought that I was out of road about six months ago. And that's okay to think you're out of it. I'm not talking about retiring,

but just going, I might not be able to put the spin on the ball like I used to. Okay, that was a good run and we'll do some songs occasionally, but, and then I learned that the dumbest I'll ever be is in my own sense of myself and what lies ahead for me. Because six months ago I was like, I think that's probably it. I've never been more energized to right now and I'm playing new songs on stage.

Yeah, maybe that feeling like let you off the hook to be yourself again. That's right. And it, of course you want to make things because that's what you are and what you do. Right. Of course. There's two places you write from. One will never work and one always works. The one that never works is the one that happens most often, which is, wouldn't it be cool

to have one like this? There's no way around it, right? Because the second way, which is, this is just purely emanating from me, just that train doesn't come through the station very often. So we spend a lot of time going... You can't count on it. Yeah, you can't count on it. Wouldn't it be cool if I had one that went like this?

Probably what you're doing when you think you're writing those songs is you're assembling firewood for the moments where that second thing really does come through. And so none of it's wasteful, but you cannot believe the narrative at any given moment that your creative youth is over. Yeah. And also sometimes you got to write some bad songs to get to the good one. Absolutely. Just happens. Nothing ever happens on the spot. No, I wrote it on the spot. No.

You know I wrote it on the spot. You go. I will show you six or seven other demos that had that chord progression. Yeah. Right. And I look at age, you know, I don't reckon with it, but I know it's in there.

And I look at 45, I'm 45, I go, okay, I've been doing this for a lot of years. There is this impulse to want to put your hands on your kneecaps and bend over and breathe and go, okay, look, that was a good run. And I don't know where that comes from except from like the suggestion that that must be what it's coming down to. And then I went on this tour and it was like, where did this all come from now? You just have to wait till you pick up the right guitar or hear the right song. You never know. You never know. You never know. And so now I'm going to do this tour as I write my next record. Great. Which is just the way to make me square up with

who I am every night. John, these are the songs you write. And then I go, are you tired of playing all these songs? Write the next one you want. That's the best way to write music. Write the one you don't have yet. Absolutely. And after playing over and over again, I go, I got a few I don't have yet that I want to write. It's great. You know?

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How did you end up essentially becoming the lead singer of the Great for dead. I was working on born and raised with Don was and I had heard a live version of Althea by Grateful Dead and then Don knew about that. Don handed me like working man's dead and that sort of got me a little deeper into it. And then I remember getting really deep into the serious, grateful dead station, which is... And let's go back. Because originally when we started talking about it, we know in school, dead was not for you. Now bring us up from there to...

So, grateful dead out of my life for most of my career leading up. Yes, most of my life as well. And we have similar relationships to the dead. life for most of my career leading up. Most of my life as well. And we have similar relationships to the dead. I love meeting people who have that same path. And in a way, you had to listen to everything else to be able to understand what it was doing that the other stuff can't do.

Because I always liked music based on songs and I felt like that's not really what they do. Yeah, there's songs in there, but that's not why it is what it is. Right. Until you realize there are songs in there but you have to learn the songs via the best versions for you to learn which take you a while to find. Yeah, they're not, they're albums. No, but all it takes is for each song, one one live version of a song when you're driving

and you go, I got it. I now understand the language of the song. And then you can listen to any future version of that song as dilapidated as it might be, as fast as it might be, and you now understand the framework of the song. And I always say it's like your kid talking to you. No one else can really understand it, but you know, you understand the language of it. So once you, once you have this defining moment with each song that helps you understand the form, how does anyone get into the grateful dead? He's just, I agree. I, I don't know how it's possible because it's not set up. It's inaccessible. It rewards the journey man. It rewards the investigation process.

And when you then peel back a layer, you're the one who found it. And it becomes personal to you. It is a maze. But if you work your own way through it, you have your own hold on the music. Via whatever way you took into it. Because if you take every live, grateful dead recording and divide that,

really multiply that by the number of songs there aren't each recording. And then multiply that exponentially by the order in which you might be able to hear them. Everyone's journey into it is completely different. No one says, I now have three favorite grateful dead songs and they're all the three same songs. They never are. You get a different fingerprint depending on where you were when you heard it. I did some great drives when I was first falling in love with this music. I was doing some camping. I was in Joshua Tree. I was in, you know, BLMlandst, Arizona driving through these great, you know, badlands and stuff, listening to grateful dead and discovering, oh, St. Stephen's different

than, you know, Jack Straw or something. These are different songs, you know. And the visuals of where you are when you have this music imprinted into you, stay in the music. Yeah. So it's really good in the car. It's really, really good in the car.

I was telling you before. Yeah. It's all how you parse time. That's what I'm learning about life. It's all how you subdivide time. And if you get in the car to drive for 35 minutes and you just put the radio on, you're going to hear 14 different things.

Commercials, announcements, songs, and it's gonna litter your brain. If you listen to Great Full Dead channel, you'll hear the end of one song and the whole rest of one other song, and then you're to your destination. And you can just let your brain go and look out the window and look at the billboards and look at,

it's probably makes you a better driver in the sense that you don't get antagonized as easily. You know, and you get where you're going and you actually might have had to move. It is moving music. It like it goes with the drive. It's traveling music. It is traveling music.

You know, I've said there's no grateful dead songs that take place at home. You know, these are all people on the move all the time. The spirit, the world, if you put all these songs together and build a town, nobody lives there. L-M-N-T. Element electrolytes. MNT. Element electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun?

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your very best. Element electrolytes are sugar-free, keto-friendly, and great tasting. Minerals are the stuff of life. So visit drinklmnt.com slash tetra and stay salty with Element Electrolites. LMNT N-G. Is there any other music that's like this? It seems so singular.

Not that I can think, not in any kind of a popular idiom at all. And I think it rewards the work you do in finding it. It's well worth the work when you finally decode it. And I also think people who don't get it are appreciated by people who do because it creates more value to getting it. I've seen people enjoy their wives not getting it because it allows them to have a place to go. It's something it's theirs. I've seen wives.

I've heard wives tell me, I actually do enjoy it, but I want it to be his thing. Amazing. I actually do enjoy it, but I want it to be his thing. I actually do like it, but it's so much of who he is that I let him have it. Okay, so you have the experience with Don was so I have the experience listening to these songs and what's so fascinating about the grateful dead but more over Jerry's playing, right? Is that I cannot visualize it. Now, I'm a good enough guitar player that I could close my eyes or not close my eyes and see what most guitar players are doing. And then pick it. I don't even need to have the guitar in my hand. I could just pick it up and do it because I can see where you're going.

And I've learned that the music I love the most is music I cannot visualize. So I hear Althea and I couldn't play it for you, if you just handed me the guitar. And for the first time in years, I hear a thing on the guitar that I can't place. But it's like I don't play the guitar, and now I want to. Wow. Because I don't know what that is.

Yes. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. So my brain goes, file not found. And all I can do is listen. That was in my favorite moments as a musician is when something is so beyond my ability to visualize it, I'm forced to just listen. I love it. And so I did.

And at the same time, I had a vocal issue I couldn't say. So I was forced to shut up at the same time. So there's this overlay of me not being able to say. What was the vocal issue I couldn't say. So I was forced to shut up at the same time. So there's this overlay of me not being able to. What was the vocal issue? I had a granuloma in my throat which is benign but very nasty because it's basically proud flesh that keeps building up in your vocal cords because they won't stop moving, you know. So all you have to do is get an abrasion in there once and you start this momentum of it not being able to heal and it just keeps trying to heal and your vocal cords won't close. No singing or no talking or nothing. No nothing. For on and off for a long time. Surgery didn't work. This and that didn't work. Finally

got out of the woods on it. But in that period of time I was just listening to the grateful dead. Not really being able to go be a musician. I was just a listener. And then I started making a record again and I was a capital record. It was the capital recording studios. And Don said to me, hey, I'm meeting with Bob Weir and Mickey Hart today, you should come up to my office. And this was just when they announced the fairly well shows with with tray and I went up and met them and I

Don't ever have anything in mind other than Just like extolling the virtues of something to the person who made it. Yeah, I love telling people what it is They did even when they know I don't know why I just want to do you have any ideas good, right? Absolutely, do you do that to people you why. I just want to do you have any ideas. It feels good, right? Absolutely. Do you do that to people? You just have to, we just can't wait. I just have to go, do you understand that what this really did and they were like, you want to be our publicist? Because I really was in just the very moment of that explosion of understanding and loving the music. And then they said, what are you doing in March?

Because they were going to keep going. And then at that point, that was my goal, from that point forward, was to be in whatever future version of this band that it was going to be. Because I got to be honest, I wanted to play on that jungle jam. Yeah. I just wanted to swing that jungle gym. Yeah. I just wanted to swing from those bars.

Yes. Where else can you do it? This is why people have grateful dead cover bands. Not because they want anything else out of it but to experience what it feels like to play that music. It is not a commercial endeavor. I got to know what that wind feels like blowing through my hair. And I have that same thought, except now I had met the original guys. And

they were actually talking about doing some other more exploratory stuff with the music and maybe going electronic with it. And I was like, guys, the most space age thing you could do right now is to keep doing this because as a de facto spokesperson of this generation, this is about to be the most space age thing that's ever existed, is rediscovering this music. And I sort of impressed upon them like stay analog, stay analog, stay analog. Thank you, stay analog. Don't overthink this. Please, please, please.

I've never wanted to do anything more. And I went up and we started, I would say half rehearsing, half auditioning, there's an audition sort of. Yeah. And I didn't really have that many of the songs. I maybe had three, but I made sure to try to grab at least the spirit of the thing. I want to ask you, are you playing as you

or are you channeling Jerry? God, that's a good question. Let me break that down for a second. That's I am thinking about Jerry all the time and I wouldn't say channeling but I am making sure that It's being run through a little bit of that thinking. There have been shows I've done where I decided to go straight rogue, Brent, like just me,

and it breaks a little bit. The tether breaks a little bit. That doesn't mean copy. I just stand in the spirit of that thing. That thing, that thing, in the spirit of. And again, like almost the way that my career worked as a guitar player where I took so, I copied so many times from so many people that I forgot what I was copying

so I just started being myself. That's happening on this, in this band now, I mean, we've done so many tours now that I might just be copying what I did four tours ago not copying what was on a record. Which is always great when you start kind of spoofing your own stuff, instead of just throwing other influences into the mixer. And is it an intellectual thing or is it a feeling thing? Are you thinking when you're playing?

I am thinking to get myself set and then I pull the thinking away. I am thinking to get myself set and then I pull the thinking away. So I'm very like I have a right brain and a left brain going at the same time. It's very sort of bilateral all the time, all the time, all the time. So I have a gymnastics coach in my head. I have a guitar playing coach and it's me. Stop it. It'll say, you already did that. What are you doing? Come back. Hey, chill. Excuse me. What are you doing? Relax. Go back down. Go back down the neck. Go back. Just hang out there. So I will get intellectual. Is it going the whole time or does that happen come up sometimes? Is there always a voice when you're playing?

Correcting you. Yeah. It sounds like correcting is what that's, that you're what you just described was not telling you what to do. It was telling you what not to do really. Yeah. Okay, if correcting is not a bad thing,

then I would say keeping me on track. Okay. The way there's always the scout next to the sniper who writes down the windage and stuff, just your windage up to clicks to the left. It's a little more like that. There you go. There you go. There you go.

And then it goes away. Lately, I will say, so there's this thing with guitar players when a solo is approaching. Where guitar players see the solo coming up over the horizon. They start thinking about the solo when it's eight bars away. Where am I gonna go with this? Should I go up high? Maybe I'll go like up high and go, Reen and in her...

And lately, I just let all the music come. And when I start playing, that's what I play. That's great. Yeah, that sounds great. That's closer to mastery than that sounds great. Okay, here comes the solo. You can see that in a guitar player. Here comes the solo. It's coming. What are we going to do? I think we should probably do a major the boom and you get hit. Now, you're not even in the moment because you're too busy thinking about what it was going to be. But for the first tours, I mean, there had to be curriculum and scholarship in it

because I was taking all this on. And now there's a little bit of tenure where people know how I can play, so I don't quite need to prove anything. How long have you been doing it? Oh boy, we started in 15, so we were in eight years. Amazing. We have our own band history.

Yeah, you know? Yeah. And how the set's get decided? I get a text from Matt Bush who is Bob's tour manager and manager. And Bob and I look at it first. We go through it. I don't know. The rest of the band knows that. But they do now. We sort of go through it. Most of the time now, it looks good. Sometimes there will be a song that might be over my head. I need another day on. Yeah, so you might just say,

I'd rather not play this one tonight because I don't feel like I'm ready to play. I need to do my homework on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a realistic. Yeah, that's right. That's a realistic concern. That's right.

And I loved the prep work. I mean, I still love homework as a musician. If I'm sitting in with someone. Keeps you off the street. Yes. Well, I think I've never gotten over the fact of how cool this job is. That even if you have to do something related to music,

it's still cool. Super cool. Sorry, guys, I gotta go home and I gotta learn the song for tomorrow. Actors kind of do that. I have to be up so early tomorrow. I have to go up to Santa Clarita at five in the morning. There's still this love of getting of do that. I have to be up so early tomorrow. I have to go up to Santa Santa Clarita at five in the morning Like there's still this love of getting to do it. Yeah, and I just believe in preparation

Because I know that it's work. It's like it's not you're not up there messing around It's deadly serious. It's it you you you create your own space to mess around and then you mess around Yeah, and then you have to build another mess around. Spongebob and mess around. And when I say mess around, it's not. I mean it like what you're doing is very serious. You take it very seriously. I take it very seriously.

You're there to play. We're playing. Yes. It's play. So every night. But the fact that you get to play is serious. That's serious. And you want it to be as good as it could be as the best. you get to play is serious. That's serious. And you want it to be as good as it could be as the best.

You can do it. Right. And I have these sort of shadows cast over me by giants. Absolutely. And huge shoes, the impossible shoes. The impossible shoes to fill in a lot of ways, except you can give people the same feeling of being in the crowd. I've noticed we could do that. All you got to do is put on Jerry Garcia playing the guitar and you go, right, right, there's

the guy. But what I've noticed is that you can bring people to their desired place in their mind with different guitar playing. If the guitar playing is in the spirit and has the same intention, I cannot play like Jerry Garcia, but I can watch Jerry Garcia play and try to learn sort of heart and soul of playing. If you listen to a guitar player play long enough, you'll understand them. Especially if it's a guitar player, you know, you can sort of reverse engineer who someone must be

based on hundreds of thousands of choices, right? And so if you take all those choices that he's making a lot of times he's making the sensitive choice. Not the pelvic, not the sort of, you know, histrionic, incendi Cindy, he's making the sensitive choice. That's changed my guitar playing. Yeah. You know, there are some bird-like things about his playing. Yeah. He's not gripping the guitar. I came up listening to Steve Revaughan who gripped the guitar. Yeah, opposite. And Jerry Garcia is like Bill Evans to me where they're both playing an instrument that if you didn't ever see the instrument,

you'd think it looked different than it does. Because of how they're able to coax it, they're taking straight lines and making circles out of it. That's how I see great guitar players, great pianists. When I hear Bill Evans play the piano, if I'd never seen a piano, I would think it was circular, or that it was like a spiral or something. Not straight lines.

And the guitar, to a certain extent, is just straight lines, right? How much better of a guitar player have you become from being in the spend? Okay, this is an amazing question. A better guitar player in, yes, I've become a better guitar player, but I make more mistakes.

And here's my great. It opened up all of the parties. Great. We play in boxes. Blues guys, we play in boxes. Yeah. We know three or four different shapes, and we're in No Man's Land until we get back to a home base

on the NACO. Here we are. Okay, then, playing the music of Grateful Dead inside of Dead & Company, opened up every fret. You're free. Free. Now that works for that music. Yeah.

Then I go back on my tour. Yeah. I start taking the same kinds of chances and I get hit in the head. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes it's really good. Sometimes it's really good.

And sometimes even the wrong note is really good. Maybe. I mean, that's the tricky even the wrong note is really good. Maybe. I mean, that's the tricky part is coming back into my playing. Now I can't revert. I can't undo, and I don't want to. No. So now I'm playing my own music that used to have

a certain way around the neck. That now the neck is brand new to me. It's wide open. So I take all these chances. And I do think my music is less forgiving harmonically, structurally. That makes sense. Because it was written in a less forgiving way. It was written in a box.

That's right. So I take these chances and I fail a lot more now on my own music, but I just can't put the toothpaste back in the tube on that. I now have all the blinders taking off on the on the guitar neck I love it, you know, I love it. I make I make a mistake every night now if I'm soloing on stuff That's mistakes. I never would have made before because I didn't know they were out there Yeah, you didn't know they were possible. Yeah, that's right. You're reaching now. You're reaching for the possible Before you were going to what was something known.

That's right. Now you're reaching for the unknown. Which, and sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not. That's right. That's incredible. That's right. I love it. And I'm learning to take the ego hit of that and go fine. Fine. Whoopsies. Yeah. Well, it's about a different thing. It's bigger than mistakes.

That's right. But my music that's already existed pre-meaming in dead and company is less resistant in my mind to mistakes. I am a snake. But maybe that's just in your mind. Sure, oh listen, most of what's going on is just in my mind. Yeah, but what's interesting is creating new music

in the future that can accept it. Yes. Creating new music in the future that. Well, you will... And I will. You obviously you will because now you have a whole new relationship to this instrument. That's right. And that has to be good.

It's more fun than ever to pick up a guitar at home and play. Because I'm playing from a different place now. Like so cool. I'm playing from a different place. I don't have set stuff I play on the guitar. I don't have... I think most guitar players like have a thing they do. I have none.

I have no, if I went to NAM, the music conference or something, and I sat down and there were a hundred people watching me pick up a guitar, I could suck. For five straight minutes before I picked something up that was all of a sudden, he flipped a switch, he's found something. Because I don't have like a thing I do. Yeah, I love to this day picking up a guitar. The volume is up and I haven't played a note yet. Where do you put your hand?

And it used to be about burning and blowing and now it is about what is the simplest thing you could play that would communicate the most out of this guitar? And sometimes it's, I mean, really, really basic, but with so much depth or the attempt at adding depth into it. And when you do that, I almost want to get other guitar players around and go, just try this. Just try this. Don't.

Yes. D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D- album. And I've been obsessed with the idea of not youth. I don't want to hold on to youth. But I want to hold on to what I would call creative youth, which is... Yeah, naivete, the childlike wonder. Go grab it. Grab it. Grab it. Just grab it. And again, I hinted at this before, it's like the older you get, everything else in your life suggests you stop doing that. We call it settle down. So settle down, settle down with this person, or hey, settle down. And you do give up things that promote excitement. I stopped drinking six years ago. I don't hook up. I don't run around the streets. I used to go out at night and bring sunglasses because I'd probably wake up somewhere in the morning. I haven't hook up. I don't run around the streets. I used to go out at night and bring sunglasses because I'd probably wake up somewhere in the morning.

I haven't packed sunglasses going out at 8 p.m. and years. Well, how do you find that still without that propellant of coming to the studio, having a couple drinks? How did drinking change? How did stopping drinking change your playing? I became way more musical the whole show.

When you get to the last three, four songs and you're drinking even a little bit on stage, I wasn't a lush, but even if you just drink a little bit, you're at the end of your show becomes a little bit of a carnival act. Is it interesting that so many people think that loosening up allows their creativity? Yeah, I don't think it's true.

It'll give you about, it always gave me about 15 minutes. Yeah. I used to pour a little bourbon in the studio and I would get you out of your head a little bit. I would think I was gonna be there for three hours. You probably've seen this before. You know what, I'm gonna pour a drink. Let's get deep tonight.

And you get behind the microphone, you get about 15 minutes and you go, oh, it's past. Yeah. Now my commitment is to, it's past. You know, now my commitment is to, it's hard to explain, just consistency, just consistency and getting out of your head the idea that there's, how do I say this? Like, you've got to depend on magic to be good at something. You know, I think when I was younger, I was so scared I wasn't gonna be good. That when I went up and I was good,

I had to go burn it off, because I couldn't believe I'd been holding on to all this tension all day. I think when you see young artists, they go, it's gonna suck, I'm not gonna do it, it's not gonna work, it's not gonna work. And they're in stress all day. They go to the show, it's predictably great.

They get off stage, they're so relieved that didn't suck, they have to go drink. You know, and as I get older, I go, can I take these two posts and move them closer together? Do you know what I said the other night? I was in St. Paul. For the first time in my life, I said out loud, it's going to be a great show tonight. I had never said it for fear of cursing the show. Yeah, jinx. How many more show, how many more years, John? How many more decades are you gonna have to go on stage without incident, playing great music?

Before you can say, it's not gonna be a great show. That's another lesson on this tour I picked up. You know, it's gonna be great. Go have fun. There's another thing that I would bet 99% of the time, it's great for the audience. Yeah. And where may be 50% of the time, it was great for you. Well, that's what I say is the difference between giving a good show and having a good show.

You're always giving a good show. Yeah. Whether you're having a good show is sort of up to you. Yeah. Because it's just in your head. It's just your own... Why does everyone hate the your own. Why does everyone fight with the L.A. Self? Why does everyone hate the L.A. Show? It's because there are more

moments of self criticism in the L.A. Show than any other concert. So that by the time you're in the second song, you've got a dozen notes for yourself. How are you going to play the third song and enjoy it if you think I already ruined it? Well, why didn't you think that way in Cleveland? Well, because you just weren't doing that to yourself, you know, I always said, I wish that I could play a show that someone told me was Cleveland

and they went, surprise, you actually just played LA. Yeah. I wouldn't be. It's also like the difference between playing at the Meadowlands versus Madison Square Garden. For some reason, the same people go to both shows. Right. Madison Square Garden is Madison Square Garden.

So it feels special. Right. It's the same thing go to both shows. Madison Square Garden is Madison Square Garden. So it feels special. Right. It's the same thing. Right. And you tense up. Absolutely. When you play the garden. Absolutely.

You just, you tense up. History. You tense up. So there's like, you do a trade off when you do those shows. You're getting 15% more energy out of yourself, and you're probably taking 15% magic away in terms of what could be. But you're making this very calculated risk

that I don't want to leave it so much up to the gods at the garden in case it doesn't work. So I'm going to mitigate that by a set list that's got bangers on it. I'm going to staple myself in a little bit. More protective. More conservative. That's right. But we're going to make sure the insurance policies there that it's going to work. Yeah. It's just going to have a little bit less magic in it. Yeah. And I think artists take that deal because it's you just

don't want to go home into your hotel room and say that you had attempted something, you had attempted a leap at the garden that you didn't land. You know? Yeah. So the ultimate dream for me is to have a show at the garden and go to dinner while people are filing into the room. And just be cool. And just be cool. Doesn't happen that way, typically. Never.

What's the vibe before the garden? I almost see going into the stages of nervousness as something like part and parcel to the show. So what I'm talking about, I guess, so many words, is like learning to let go finally, learning to let go of all these things that I've been holding on to, like white knuckling. Let go of the set list, and what you think they want to hear. Let go of holding yourself to these standards of pitch. I'm producing my vocals as I sing live. It doesn't do any good. You just sang, it's live.

Why are you producing your vocals? You can't punch in. And then the ultimate for me, and I'll try to do this in the fall, is you don't have to do a sound check. It's just two lines. It's an acoustic and a vocal. Go to dinner with your friends.

Go to dinner and look at your watch and go, yeah, people are in the room. They're sitting down. They're getting food and drink. I'll be there. And walk in with 15 minutes and try to get the stage to be level with the earth. Yeah. And that I'm already announcing is like, that's the ultimate. If I can do that, I will have succeeded as a musician. That will truly have internally succeeded as a musician. Instead of what I tell people, I have to go get nervous as if it's part of the assembly line.

Yeah. You know? How much of what I'm saying is a shared experience across the board for artists? A million percent. Yeah, the almost. A million percent. I have the experience every time I started a project

in the studio, I've been doing this for a long time. Yeah, I had a lot of success over a long period of time Every time I started a new project. I'm terrified because I know ultimately For it to be good That's not really in my control. Yeah, you know, I know that Something has to happen. It happens a lot. I see it happen all the time. Yeah. But I know it's not in my control.

I know I can't make it. I can't will it to happen. So I show up at humble. You know, like I want it to happen. And I also feel like there might be some expectation on me that someone might think I can make it happen. And I know I cannot. Does that then put more onus on the artist to make it make it happen. And I know I cannot. Does that then put more onus on the artist to make it happen?

And you know that? No, no, no. So you think that you're as responsible? The artist is as responsible slash not responsible for what comes as you are. Everyone's responsible. Yeah, it's that everyone's in the passenger seat in a certain way.

Oh, absolutely. Do you ever feel the weight of pressure or disappointment if you're in the studio for a certain number of days and nothing materializes? No, it's a pretty patient. I'm anxious, but I know it always works out. It always comes around. It's not like it never comes around.

It comes around. Well, that's so funny because I've got eight records under my belt and I think every record's the last one. And again, then I write a song that's made 200 albums. You know, I've done so many albums that the experience is it just, it always find a way. We always find a way.

And sometimes I come in anxious and then right out of the box, amazing, right? You know, it's not unusual for it to be great right out of the box. It's, I always call it like gambling with self-esteem. Yeah. And that's, that's the part I wish I could impress upon other younger artists. That's really songwriting.

Yeah. It's not how you're doing when, you know, the spirits in the room. How do you live off of crumbs for a long enough period of time that you can wait for the next moment? Because you have to. You can't depend on the magic and we got to show up. We got to show up and make something happen. And sometimes you need to make something bad happen to get that's right. It's part of it.

It's just part of it. But when you're young, especially young in this day and age, you really take it personally. And you can't have people in the room with you that you consider an audience. You might want someone in the room with you that you want to sort of impress. I agree. But people in the room, and then you're gonna go home

and going, they came in here to watch me write, and I haven't written anything in four days and they think I suck. Now you're multiplying your disappointment by what you think other people are thinking. Well, the idea of having someone watch you write isn't insane. It seems there's only a terrible.

There's only a few people who can do it with me that I can do it in the room with. But I'm, you're a great writer in my book. If you can drive home with the radio off, knowing you didn't get it today, and showered off like a great basketball player who didn't win the game, and wake up the next day and go, let's hit it. Let's go again. Yeah. And I can live between the kills pretty well.

Yeah. And the other thing that I think young writers need to figure out is like, it's always going to be code cracking after you have your fun of bringing the song to life. Bringing the song to life is always the fun part. It's the best. But it doesn't finish the song. No. Now you have to put on a lap to do.

Yes, we have to do. Absolutely. And you cannot go to dinner. You cannot go to dinner. The craftsman comes in to the room and... Cancel everything. Yeah, there's work to do. Where's work to do.

And that is my favorite moment when you know that I got something. Yeah. And you know that what I just came up with in 15 minutes has inside of it all the information for the verses, the choruses, we know what it is, we know what it is, we know we just have to make it, but we know what it is, and that's a big difference

in looking at a blank face. And that's my favorite thing. It's the best feeling. It's the best feeling, and you know, and I always say this about days that are long, you gotta go to bed sometime. Yeah. Days gonna be over at some point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So even if it's three days of massive excavation, yeah, of 800 different takes on the verse, it's gonna be over at some point. Yes. And when it's over, you never have to write it again. No. But you will always have it for the rest of your life.

And I see young artists sometimes with a hard drive full of minute and a half ideas that were just the spark. Yeah. And they move on to another spark. And they move on to another spark. And they move on to another spark. And I'm like, day two and three and four. Yeah, you don't leave the room.

You put sweatpants on, you're in a hoodie. You're in a hoodie. You're not going out tonight. your friends are going out and you're not. Why? Because the greatest thing is about to happen to you. And all these songs that I play on stage now represent a night I went, shut it down. We got work to do.

It's my favorite and like least favorite. It's just this wonderful torture you know you're in for. Your iPhone is going to be on all night. You're gonna be just walking around aimlessly typing in your iPhone. I use a whiteboard now that I swear by. I have this digital whiteboard. That sounds great, I swear by.

There's a way to write songs now for me. That's very mathematical in terms of making it easier on yourself to understand what's left to write in the song. So I go, okay, if you have a verse, you have a rhyme scheme, you have syllables, you have the spirit of what the song is, that's 15% of the song. If you have a chorus, that's 50% of the song, do that three times. As soon as you have a rhyme scheme, you now know exactly what your second verse has to do or not do. So everything you come up with is just take it off of what remains that you have to do.

And the less you have to do, the easier it feels. Because you feel like you have momentum. I have sold a lot of people on the whiteboard idea now. It seems silly at first, but you get to see it right up. Yeah, and the closer you are to the end, the easier it is. When you're looking at, what am I going to do? I don't even know what it's about. Yeah, it's impossible.

Yeah. But then when it's almost done, I have a slightly different version of this than you do in terms of needing to finish it. I like to get as far along as possible when that spark arrives. And if there's like in the context of working on an album, I don't think of working on a song to the end necessarily when working on a body of work. Like we might work on all of the songs at the same time, getting them as far along as we can. And then a different momentum happens.

When you, like, if there's one song, it's just hard to crack. It's easy to crack it when you've got 12 other songs done then when, oh my god, and how are we going to get to the rest of the album, we can't even do this one. I agree. Like, there's just tricks of momentum. There are tricks of momentum.

You're absolutely right. The combination here didn't work. Wait till a new combination falls into place. That's actually the secret to life now, is if something's not working, just wait until the sequence changes, and it'll open the door. Yes.

It'll open a different door, or open the same door a different way, but there's always a way to wait. It's door. Yes, it'll open a different door or open the same door different ways, but there's always a way to win. It's okay. Yes, it's okay. Now, what I will say is as a writer for me, the reason that doesn't work as well is because the concept of the song is only 2020 vision for me,

the day I have it. Of course, I understand. And if that portal closes, I have to scratch up the hill to get back to what I, you're a whole new person. Whole new person. So there are times I forget the thrust of the song that is so immediately present in the first verse and the chorus and the second verse I go,

I forgot what I was really thinking. So I'm a big fan of cancel everything. I don't care if I don't eat, I don't care if I don't sleep. What equation of like work to result is better than if I work these next three days, I can play this song the rest of my life. And something John London talked about is like as soon as you have the beginning of a song, even if it's just a rough draft, write it to the end. Yes. Don't let that moment pass because you will never come back to that. So again, I don't know if you have to refine it, but you have to really get as close as you can

to a great first draft where then maybe it's like, I'll change this word. But maybe this line's not as good as it could be. That's right. But get to where it's like, I see this whole song. I couldn't agree more. Just get a circuit going. Yeah, get the light bulb to light up because all the wiring is in there Yes, and then it's so much easier to change it Yeah, and then you realize most of it didn't need to be changed. Absolutely. I mean, there are so many songs

I have that have what I thought were and I call them placeholder layer Yeah, yeah, and they're not placeholder Yeah, because as writers, we hold ourselves to this line by line standard of impressing ourselves. I have a song. I can't say we've been holding on for years. That's just boring. Until you sing it. Being holding on for years, gets in love. It works. Not every single line has to flick you in the forehead. But you think that when you're riding it, so you go play it.

And sometimes the simplest line, the most ordinary line ends up having a life of its own. And we can't even know. Well, that's what I was gonna say. That's what I was gonna say. It doesn't make you better the more you do it. No. It makes you better in one way.

A, not panicking. So you have the experience of knowing that you land on your feet. And B, when you're in the trance, you can't extend the trance, but you can make the trance more efficient. So when I'm in the trance, I can grab more out of the dream. It's almost like, imagine that you could dream.

And for a certain part of the dream, you could wake up with money you stole out of a bank in the dream. That's what songwriting is. You could actually wake up in bed with a sack of money that you stole in a dream for the 15 minutes in dream time. There's nothing else on earth. I mean, I know there is an art, but other than art, there's nothing else on earth where

imagining it creates it. I mean, I know there is an art, but other than art, there's nothing else on earth where Imagining it creates it. Yeah, you're starting with nothing and then you have this thing forever But it's you and people could sing along and it can change their mood It can change their life. It can set a memory When they hear that song of an experience that they'll remember their whole life Yeah, and it took you 72 hours of real hard work just to get the idea out of you. And sometimes? Sure. Five minutes.

That's right. Sometimes when we're lucky, again, we don't control it, but the fact that it takes however long or short doesn't really matter what matters is, there it is. Yeah. And to go home on a Wednesday, where when you woke up, the song didn't exist. And when you go to bed, this song exists. It's the best feeling.

It's the greatest feeling in the world. And that drives writers crazy, because they get hooked on that feeling. It's the best feeling in the world. And you can't get it sometimes. And what do you do in between those feelings? Well, a lot of people go, I'm a piece of shit. I'm a giant. I suck. It's gone. It's gone. And I think the better you get is like saying, it's not gone. It's off doing something else.

And wait until getting a great performance is the same. Like when you have that song and then you record it at it's, you know, sometimes you'll play a song and it's good. And then you'll play it again and it's good. Play it again. It's a little not as good. And then you play it one time. It's like hmm sounds like a different song You play everything the same and like Now it sounds like it's the greatest song. Yeah, but nothing what's different? See that's different for me as a solo artist because we don't have takes Really yeah, and I've always wanted to be in a band that had takes, I've done it sometimes. And I do know the magic of it. It's ridiculous when you see it happen,

going from pretty good to stunning. And no one knows what changed. Yeah. You know, no. I want to be a part of that. Everyone's doing the same thing. And it's like, boom. I want to see it.

It's so cool. I want to see it. I want to see it. You know, Porton was sometimes who's so good at sitting in the room taking his hat off and putting the headphones on and driving that stuff. Yeah. Like I know you are. I don't give him as much to work with as I know bands do because so much of it is layered. You know, and that's another reason I love dead and company.

It's to be in the community. Yeah, you're in a band. A music. We rise together, we fall together. Yeah. You know, there are nights I want to, I'm ready to take off and the band isn't, and I go, okay.

And there are nights the band slingshots me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, takes are always interest. Full band takes are always, that's out of my comfort zone, and I don't want it to be. I'm really, maybe the next thing for me is like the new wheelbarris or something.

Do you have fun thing to do? You know, just to be a part of that again. Yeah. Let me ask you a question if I can. Yes, please. Is Rick Rubin opinionated about music? Do you have hot takes on music? Do you sit around with friends and go,

that's bullshit when you listen to it? I mean, you're human. I wouldn't use that word. I would probably just say, that doesn't speak to me. You know, that's not for me. Got it. Is that an effort to look at things that compassionately or you've just never been the type to be critical?

Well, I don't think that there's good and bad music. You know, I think I like some things that nobody else likes and you know, like, I, so that's not a practice to think that way. No, I think of it's so apples and oranges the things that people make. That any idea of like comparing which is better than someone else doesn't make any sense.

It's like, Jimmy Hendrix makes the best Jimmy Hendrix records. I agree with that. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? No one else could do it. But you can't say that that's better than a Jeff Beck record. Right. You know, because Jeff Beck is better at being Jeff Beck.

That's right. Then Jimmy Hendrix is at being Jeff Beck. I saw fish and I went, these guys are the best fish I've ever. Exactly. Yeah. That's the idea. It's like if they're good at what they do, and the crazy thing about music is, someone's good at what they do.

They don't even really have to be good. They someone's good at what they do. They don't even really have to be good. They just do the thing that they do. I'm trying to grow old gracefully and not be, I don't want to wag a finger at Elvis. That always, when I was a kid, I was like, I just don't want to be count. It's like the bad guy to me.

The bad guy in the movies, the one who shakes the finger at Woodstock. But what I found is really helpful for me, because I like being critical. I think it's a fun way to pick things apart and interact with things is to criticize it. When you get me home alone, I'll get deep into stuff. I also like defending things that are criticized a lot.

I enjoy being equitable with that stuff. But what I like to do is split it, like I call it like split the stock. If you think that something's gone so downhill, then split it and call it something else. So if I were to say, I don't get today's music, I don't wanna say that. So what I say is, well a lot of what I'm hearing

is social media soundtrack. And if I say that, now I can say that's really good social media soundtrack. Instead of that's bad music. And I do that with a lot of stuff so that if I redefine it, I give it the dignity of calling it something a little bit different. I just think about it. It's not for me.

That's how I write about it. And there'll be something. I'll hear something new where I have that same experience that I have when hearing the, when I first got it, like, hmm, what's going to happen next? This is different than things I've heard before. And you're saintly. It's such a great feeling. No, I love that feeling. I'm always looking for it.

Always looking for that feeling of just like, whoa, that's really cool. That's really cool. I am too. It's just sometimes I don't go looking for it in music. Like lately I don't listen to anything in the car. I don't listen to anything. Do you listen to podcasts or talking or anything? Nothing, just silence.

Silence. And I just love it. Especially if I've just been working on something like silence. But I enjoy the active drive. I don't know if I'm quiet, I'll hear things, or I'll think things. And there's again, there's just this built-in sense of time and elapsed time in my head where I say to myself, I've heard so much music, I've heard so much.

And by hearing it, I digest it pretty quickly. Yeah, so you want to break. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll go in and something else completely different than music. And then that hits me like music. I listen to more, I will say, I listen to more audiobooks and podcasts than I listen to music now, which is a big change.

Because I listen to music pretty constantly before that. But I like the auditory experience. And if I'm, let's say, I'm exercising, walking on the beach or swimming, I might do like a chant or a mantra in the routine of what I'm doing instead of just wandering mind. I put on like a rain noise in the dressing room. Nice. I have these blue lights. I just put a put on rain. A lot of my favorite music is theoretically like nature sounds.

If you think like grateful dad music plays like nature music. It just plays and rolls like rolling thunder. It just, you know, and Bill Evans, who I listen to constantly, is might as well be forest rain or something because of how sort of glacial it is. And it just makes you feel something more than, again, like intellectualizing it.

And then you come back to it and you go, ah, this is great, but I have to take a little break. Do you think of yourself as a guitar player or do you think of yourself as a singer-songwriter? I don't think of myself. Wow. Wonderful. There you go. I'm going to say what you were sort of hinting at, which I think of myself like my name. I think of myself like I do John Mayer. I do this thing. Okay. So inside of that, it's 70% guitar player.

No, maybe it's 50% guitar player. 35% songwriter. 15% singer. Singing is last for me because I really do not believe that I have an Objective leaf like fast-ciled great voice as a lot of singers don't I have to always Right for my voice. It's like there's two people. It's like John You're stuck with this guy. He sings pretty good, but he can't really reach a lot of notes How can you compose songs that

These things pretty good, but you can't really reach a lot of notes. How can you compose songs that sound like they're high, but they're not high, because this guy can't get above like, you know, a high E on a guitar string. And so if I were able to sing with incredible range, I would be able to write 10 times as much music. I'm limited by a voice that's technically a baritone. If pop music venerated the baritone, I would be a mega star, you know. So all my songs are actually pitch pretty low. They're meant not to sound that way. How do you do that? How does that trick work? I don't even know. I don't know. Maybe the harmonic of it is bright. Sort of the harmonic movement is bright.

But Daughters is, I know what girl. That's the note. Fathers be good to you. That's talking almost. I really wish I could do, if you love someone, set them free. I would be able to write something like that. So as a songwriter, I'm a little hemmed in by the vocalist. And then, of course, being a vocalist, you have different conditions every night as a singer, different conditions in the studio every night. Who knows why? So I don't love that. I feel betrayed by the voice.

Yeah. And I never- The most vulnerable part of the operation. Yes. We are mid evolution between screaming across a jungle and singing areas for an entire lifetime. We're in the middle of it. And we're sort of using it in a way that it's not quite meant for yet. Right. It's like a misappropriation of a part of your body to be able to sing and then decide you're gonna do this consistently over a bunch of years. So I find the flimsiness of that to be sort of like emotionally betraying.

The fact that we don't know if my show on Friday, if I'm gonna have a clear voice or if I'm gonna have that other little second note in there for no reason. But on guitar playing, it's never let me down. Guitar playing is special for me. Singing is an application of a thing on top of it that I have to work to make special. And so when you when I access both those thoughts in my mind, the guitar playing is the walk down, it's just a beautiful beach, and the singing part

is a little neurotic because you just don't know if it's gonna be there. And so singing goes on top so that it expresses all the other stuff that's in my head in a language people can understand. Cause I wouldn't really wanna make instrumental guitar music, you know. So we write around it and now I'm writing much more

in a zone vocally that's really fun to sing it. I'm going to ask for an acoustic guitar just because I realized it'd be really nice if you had a guitar in your hands. So singing in dead and company. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about that. That's different. That's different. And I try to make it work. I try to make it work. I feel good about it. I don't feel good about it.

I have a good ear. I have a really good ear. I have an honest ear. A really honest ear. Like, I cannot bullshit myself. And the tricky part is that, Jerry was the exact opposite. Jerry could sing really high

and make it sound like it wasn't high, because he's saying so relaxed. He's almost on the opposite end of the spectrum vocal range-wise. And I am singing some of these songs. And not only, by the the way this is not just pitch This is about vowel sounds We write the vowel sounds that work for our voice

So all the sudden it's not that I can't do It's driving the train I Wouldn't never write that for yourself. I would never write it for myself. I'd go, tell me, na na, tell me, na na. That's what I would do for the shape of my larynx. So to squeeze it into dry, it's not a very automatically pleasant thing. I know this. I have an ear.

I can hear it as I go. My job is to find a way as best I can to shape the note. That sounds as close to what the spirit of the song I can do that on the guitar way easier. And there are times where I know that I'm not quite the exact tonal color that I'd wanna be for the song, but I can't swap a vocal cord like I can in guitar. Yeah. So that's an interesting lesson in embracing my limits. Hey man, I'm just John. I know I try man, I try.

I try to relax. I try to sing Tarapin in a way that communicates the same thing. But I'm just, I have me. It's still me. I can only operate within the parameters of who I am. So I'm going to do the best job that I can, try to relax. And some people like that, and some people don't, and I agree with them both.

But in fact, I'm relieved when someone says they like it, and I understand when someone says that they don't quite think it fits. How different in all of your study of Jerry from both guitar wise and vocally show to show you to year to year to year. I think I've gotten smoother in both my playing and I've gotten more language, I've gotten more relaxed. There's only one way to start something and that is to drop into it. my playing and I've gotten more language, I've gotten more relaxed. There's only one way to start something and that is to drop into it. And the only way to drop into it and a gig like that is with confidence. So okay, we're going to drop in and we're going to try our best.

We're going to take our first shot at the target. And the first shot at the target was a bit verbose, as I was learning to really work down all the layers of Gerry Garcia's playing. My first interpretation of it had to do with sort of the number of notes. And as I kept working it down through more and more tours, and by the way, what I'm talking about is like embarrassment, listening back and going, no, no, no, and the joy of this band that's about to end sadly is that I've always had another tour to get it right. Get closer.

Yeah, get closer. Oh, when we go back out, wait till I figure this part out. And I would do that and get closer and get closer. Tour three, now we have like certain nights, certain nights there's a whole song, and not the next one, but there's a whole peggy-o. Wow, that made sense. And then I started to get into the earlier grateful dead stuff that was less guitar hero.

It was just less, no, fewer notes. And that started knock me out. So I was taking pictures of the serious station on the dashboard when I heard something I love. I do the same. And that's 72 or 74. Yeah. 72, 73, 74. That's the stuff when you move through all the other stuff. That's what made me find them after not understanding the most of my life. That was the point of entry. It was the reckoning. That was the way in for me. Yep.

It's like, oh. Yep. Oh, it's a, they're a folk band. They are a folk band. And what I had thought, they're an R&B band. They're a country band. I don't think they're a great R&B band. I don't know if they're a great country band, but they're a really good folk band. Well, again, they're a great R&B band. I don't know if they're a great country band,

but they're a really good folk band. Well, again, they're a really great, grateful dead, because what I figured out, I thought that they were purposefully landing just south of R&B. I thought they were purposely doing that. And then I learned they were really trying to nail it. I usually when an R&B song comes on on on the dead channel, I usually change channels.

I go to Sinatra. What do they start doing? R&B. Interesting. R&B like a cover of R&B or R&B flavored. I don't know if there are any of their R&B songs, so more the covers. Right. Which would be like midnight hour or something. You know. There's a lot of them. Yeah. Maybe the Motowny type of thing. Yeah, dancing in the streets and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, there's a reductiveness to it that I sort of enjoyed.

And what I thought was that they had aimed for it. And what I found really exciting was that they hadn't aimed for it. They had aimed for the real thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's the case with most bands who miss what they're aiming for, but end up on something else, you know?

That's when I loved it. That's when I really got it. And actually, there's a couple of versions of songs. Not that I'm going to start sending you dogs, but where Billy Coitzman is playing like Clive's Double Field. And there are a couple of times you go, who's on the ju- what? Yeah. There's a couple of things.

When I mean a couple, just magic nights, I've even thought to myself, like, is everyone like perfectly slept and like freshly showered on this version? Did everyone just take a nap and for the same length of time and woke up and had the same meal, they're playing perfectly, you know. Yeah. And I'm really what it is, is like musical aquarium. Yeah.

Starr- you just stare at the fish go by and it's- once you learn the form- It all makes sense. It all makes sense, you know. It all makes sense. So, but getting back to like why it's so fun to play on is nobody's writing those song forms. So you can only, a solo is only as good as the chords, which is why people love little wing because it is like 23 bars in the progression. And so people can't stop playing that because it, each chord progression takes your guitar a different place. And there's so many versions, or there's so many examples of that in dead music, where guitar players just want to be able to jump around on all those chords.

Even if the actual zone of guitar soloing is the same, you know, and I know we're on an SM7, but it's like, it's like, even if the guitar solo was like Well, it's really Which is super cool who wouldn't want to play on? You'd play it all day because you've never heard, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. The guitar players aren't really there. Guitar players are, you know, in the panatonic blues stuff. So all of a sudden, you get to, it changes your whole ability to play guitar because

these chords are so great. You know, one's writing that stuff. I got to make an album with ACDC and one of the secrets I learned about the way they did it. So when they tracked the song, they didn't do the solos. They just played the rhythm section of the solos. And when it was time for the solo, they wanted the solo section of the song

to be the most exciting part of the song before the solo happened. So they would play. They would speed up on purpose. They would like lift off. And you never even had to hear a solo. It was just in the DNA of a track. To just, they often, you know, changed chords to not what you'd expected by the song.

That felt like it was lifting off. Right. And then hit it harder and sped up. And it was all intentional. Like even before the solo, it was the most exciting part. That's amazing. So planned that in. So cool.

I never saw anything like change these versions. Leave space for it. Hit it harder. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. They were really like, wow. They really knew what they were doing. They knew how to do ACDC so good.

Sure. It's unbelievable. Yeah, and it's still all works. Yeah. The best loud sound I ever heard in my life was ACDC and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And it was the greatest, I mean it hurt, but it hurts so, it was the best sounding hurt in my ears I ever heard in my life. Ever. Yeah, they're amazing.

It was like, okay, you can have these little hairs in my ear. Cause I'm, are you pretty hearing protective? I try to be. I try to be too. And I just want this is, this one's worth it. Oh, absolutely. This one's worth it. Yeah.

I usually will listen loud for 30 seconds or so to understand it. And then I put the earplugs in. Oh, so you don't even, you don't turn it down in the and then I put the earplugs in. Oh, so you don't turn it down in the room, you would put earplugs in. Well, I'm giving the example of in a concert. Oh, in a concert, sorry. Like, it'll live something. I might wanna like get the full experience for a moment

before putting the earplugs in. Do you have synitis? Any ringing? I don't have ringing, but I definitely have lost some high end. I see. And you work that into what you're doing. You compensate while you're... That's for the audience.

And so you do compensate. So you don't know. Right, right, right. Yeah, I can't. I always worried about how would I adjust if I lost high-end? Would I have someone else be my high-end concierge? Yeah, I'm hoping that I'm hoping that the mastering engineer deals with that. Right, okay, got it.

Yeah. But I also feel like you can feel it. Like I could cover my ears and listen. Yeah. And I have a pretty good idea what the mix is doing. Right. I could listen from the next room. Yeah.

And have a pretty good, like it's either work or not. You know, you can, I think the energy of it is less about that detail and more about this feeling. So you have fewer parameters that you're looking through when a song's coming through. You sort of, I had a doctor tell me one time, he was a lumper, not a splitter, and he really was. He didn't subdivide every last thing. Yeah. He had ten minute visits. You know? So there's probably something there

that a lot of people could take from his not having so many sliders in your head of parameters. Is it this is, hey, it's really one big ball. Yeah. Does it feel good or does it? That's how it is to the audience. The audience hears it as a ball. Right. There you go. Everyone starts hearing it as a ball, when they're a kid.

And as they get into the life of music, they start to isolate and they can't go back to hearing it as a ball. This is a brilliant conversation right here. This little nugget because I still have the ability to what I call like take my ears out of focus, like crossing your eyes, cross your ears. Yeah. And check it, you know, just how is it as a ball?

Because I didn't even, I was in Berkeley College and music months into it, weeks into it before, I could isolate a kick drum, which is funny because then I go back to these songs I loved as a kid and I go, oh my God, this is the recording. But that's great, that's great ignorance. That's great ignorance. I mean, I don't, this is the recording. But that's great, that's great ignorance. That's great ignorance.

I mean, I don't pick things apart necessarily anymore. But when I'm writing a song, I have a very distinct vision of what I want the thing to sound like. I had a song on my last record and it was a song called Why You Know Love Me, which is so funny because people just did not love it. And I loved it. I thought it was great. Yeah. But I love thinking something's great and finding out I'm wrong. I just think it's wild. Well, you're not wrong. You love it. I love it.

You loving it is never wrong. Yeah, I guess you're right. Well, no, I was wrong in thinking they would. Yeah, you can never know that. That's something that you could be wrong. But I love it. You'll always be wrong. I love it. I love it. I love the gamble. And I wanted the sort of Steven Bishop on and on. I got to love it. Really sensitive. And I had to, we did the drum track three times.

And I was trying to explain what I wanted the drums to do. And I said, you know what? I finally got to, I said, you know what? I want the drums to go fit. I want the snare know what, I finally got, I said, you know what, I want the drums to go fit. I want the snare to go fit, T-H-I-T. And we got fit. And I remember feeling like with Don, that I had gone past my line of credit

a little bit with going for a third drum take. And when we heard it, it was like, that's what I'm talking about. So I do get into that, but in terms of, tell me how do you make your records? Well, you're describing this is far into me, so that's why I'm talking about. So I do get into that, but in terms of... Tell me how do you make your records. Well, you're describing this is foreign to me, so that's why I'm asking. Oh, is a solo act? Yeah, tell me what you do.

I'll write a song. I demo it pretty well. Most of my demos have the DNA of the song. And will that be with like machine drums or what would be? I have a big NPC guy. Okay. I decided I was gonna get really good at one Platform and so I'm really good at NPC

It's clunky, but it allows for these other great opportunities to happen so because it's not streamlined all these cool accidents can happen And I will sit so you're a hip-hop producer in a way. I mean, I've been on people's records through playing into an NPC. Because you can use plugins right then and there, which is wild. It's like, I almost don't want to give away the secret sauce, but you could use your guitar as a software instrument. Wow. The guitar can be a software instrument,

and then you can use all the effects that a software instrument would use. But your guitar becomes a Rhodes. What's a guitar if you pitch it down? It's a Rhodes. It's just a time you pitch it down? It's a Rhodes. It's just a tie and it's just boom. You can do anything with it once you put it in an NPC. I would go to plan people's records and then not make the cut because I'd bring a basement

and a strat. It wouldn't fit in the record and it wouldn't make the record. I started bringing in NPC and playing straight into the NPC and just taking the left and right out. And it would sort of put it in a context of the rest of the record and then it would start fitting records. And it was on like Travis Scott's album and just showing up on people's records with a guitar finally again.

But for the most part, I figure something out. I'll take... So the rule is, no writing over loops. Don't just loop four chords and write over it. You'll get stuck all day. Don't stack a loop so high that you just have a great sounding loop and nothing else. I say the song is upstairs, it's from the neck up. I'm always bringing the song back up above the neck.

It's in your head, it's in your voice. Don't make a beat, make a bass line, make a chord thing and go to lunch. You've done nothing. You've just made a loop, you know? And I'll do a little drum loop, but nothing that takes away the sound field. So it'd be like a rhythm tone,

ace, you know, those little things. But people, just little things. But you're starting your demo from the drums, typically just a little bit of something. Something to play too. Something just a little bit. So the more rolled off and small, just a pulse. And then I'll take one.

So essentially a click track, but something with flavor. Something with a little flavor, so you're not alone. But you don't want to weigh down the space so that you've got nothing else to add to it. Sometimes I'll take a little ostinato pattern or just a B3 pad, just something. Just to take away the white canvas. And that way, different chords will all of a sudden

just pop a little bit more, and then I'll just sing. And I'll sing, and I'll sing until I hear myself say the truth. It's you haven't played guitar yet. Now I'll play guitar. I'll play guitar. I'll just sing more. And sing, or you'd... All the same time.

And sing. I'll just move around. You know, or normally something has to feel good on the guitar. Like, has to feel good. Now are you describing writing or demoing? It happens the same time. Always. I don't sit in a room and write alone with it.

It's happening. You don't write alone on the guitar. You have to always have. OK. It's all building up at the same. I have to think about the song. So by the time the song's done, there's sort of the records there.

I understand. And I just go until I hear something truthful and I go, wow, it's getting harder to impress myself because I have a catalog of things. I go, did that, yeah, did that, did that. But when I catch a spark, I just stay and I go and then I have a demo and then I bring the demo to other people.

And it's the demo pretty close to the demo to the final. They're all pretty close. They're all pretty close. The drums can be, but now what's great is Aaron Sterling was a fantastic drummer, who was playing on a bunch of my stuff, lives in Nashville and just cuts drums in his house.

So I can text him and go, can I get a loop, like a two bar loop at 95 BPM, just going like, dook, dook, dook, dook, dook, he's got it. An hour later, I've got real live drums I can write to. That saves me all the time. It's just to have something real there. I'll pick up a bass and do something. I don't really know how it works, but it works, you know.

And why is the demo not the record? Because they're two-dimensional. The bass loops, the drums loop. I do think there will be things coming up on the next record that are looped, that just have magic in them. I have a song where the acoustic guitar parts loop, but it doesn't feel looped,

and it hits perfectly every time. It just, it changes. And I might even be better, that's what you never know. That's right, you don't know, it changes. And I think you can be better. You never know. That's right. You don't know. And I go, I'm gonna leave that alone. You don't know.

I think I'm gonna leave that alone. There's a drum loop that's so good on this other song. I think I might just have Aaron play Phil's over it. Yeah. You know? It's no right way. Yeah, I think the thing is no right way. But it's harder as you get older to find parking spaces in the lot for songs that you haven't touched on before.

So that when you do, you go, oh, that's one. And when you don't, you go, yeah, I've done that. I've done that. I have so many parts. And sometimes you come up with a thing that doesn't have words, and you already box yourself in because you've written so many syllables.

You ever have someone do that? You're gonna go write those syllables, you know? Yeah, it's two, sometimes it's two-boxed. Yeah, I mean, I have so many ideas. I'm to go on, when is the day you're going to wake up and go, oh, that's the word. You have to, a great idea can just stay a great idea for the words or what you're going to spin you into the next day. So I have so many songs.

I could have this beautiful piece of music just in the open. You know what I mean? That was great. So do the same thing again now and just not don't make sense or anything, just put words in. Right. When it's always gonna be so slow, and I take it a time and go. Right? And you do that. And you keep cutting in and over again. And over and over again.

And over again. You notice I'm not scared to do it. I will do it in front of you. But I will do it, you know. It's great. Hey, shut up. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da And I do it with words. So I have all the, it's like imagine a guy with a garage full of cardboard boxes. Here's a thing, here's a thing, here's a thing.

It's almost like if they don't blast off the moment you have the idea, they just become parts. So my suggestion to you, this would be my message for the day is every time you do this exercise, never do it without words. Oh, I, yeah, I'm with you. I've never done that. No, I've never done that. I'm just showing you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Always they could be bad. The wrong words, but there's always words. I agree with you. Just the sound of the words. That's my rule with other people when I work with this. Great.

There's no harm. Just go. And if you can train yourself, I do that. I was making it different every time. And you find it comes from subconscious. It's not intellectual. Exactly. And when I think I'm highly let it go, then the truth comes out.

And then I go, there it is. But it's not what I'm thinking about it. No. And you sit and you get your outfit. No, we're our own worst set of means in that respect. And you're right. And the longer your jags can be, the better you are. Yeah.

If you can sit behind the microphone for an hour and then get up, you're good. Yeah. Lately, sometimes I go 25 minutes and I go, John, you gotta get your numbers up. If you're sitting back there for 25, you gotta be going back there for an hour. I mean, I used to walk in the room I go, John, you got to get your numbers up. If you're sitting back there for 25, you got to be back there for an hour. I mean, I used to walk in the room and go,

it's all there. Let's listen back and circle all the stuff that's there. And that process is a little harder as you get older, that dig, that excavation. I'm trying to still. I used to open channel and you go, how do you do all that? You go, just do it.

You get older and you know, is that a common thing with artists that the art are just squeezes closed a little? I know it doesn't have to. I'm sure it doesn't have to. It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to. I spend a lot of time, I don't know if you do this, or have done it, measuring time metrics between my career and other great artists' careers. It sounds like a terrible idea, but it's interesting. Have you ever looked at other people's careers and sort of chronographed it? No. No, I'm not competing with anyone.

Why would I do that? I don't want to compete. I want context. Yeah, I'm not competing with anyone. Why would I do that? I don't want to compete. I want context. Yeah, I don't care I I want to know less that's so funny. I know I want to know I want to I want context context context Information information and I go I want to learn something. I'm interested in but I'm not interested in that I'm just just fascinated with time and opportunity and time and who gets what for how long. It's amazing.

Who gets what for how long is an interesting idea. It's an interesting song idea. I hear who gets what for how long? Who gets what for how long? I can hear it one of the chords. Who gets what for how long? Who gets what for how long? I'm a winner and you're love strong.

But who gets what for how long? I would do that, that's interesting. I go, oh, I could figure that out. You could say, coming out of the change, when you went back in, it sounded like the chords wanted to be different than what you did. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the chords that went, the first set of chords made sense, but for some reason when we came back to it, it was some mountain. It's fun. Yeah, and I would back now, now I can reverse engineer. If I said, who gets what for how long?

That's a question. What's the question before that? Why do some people win? And some aren't so strong. And who gets what for how long? And why me? Why me and you? Why me?

You know? Tell me why. Some won't be so strong. And who gets what so long? It's great. That's the thing. And then I would take that, that's information. If you said, let's write, who gets what for how long?

I would say, close the doors, whiteboard, center goes, who gets what for how long? Why am I asking that? Well, now I'm thinking about winners and losers and blesses and career. Why do we get what we get? Why do we win what we win? Now, we get specifics, you know? Nothing special about me, nothing weird about you.

Ain't no reason I should've been born this way. United States is a lucky game to play and I want it. I got the number and I don't know, and I know, and I know what I'm a lucky game to play and I want it I got the number and I go on and on and on And I know and I know what I'm So and maybe I would take the chords I just showed you So that I bet, but but on and but I don't know Why I just look way strong Why do we wake up and so strong And who gets what for how long? That would be, no, they write themselves.

But, well, they do when they don't write. No, I know. I know. And I'm responsible for now, this is my favorite thing. This is my left brain goes, if this is all I have. I have a murder weapon. And I have them the detective. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know where the murder was committed.

What's the motive? Yeah, Colonel Mustard in the dead. Yeah, that's right. In the dead. Yes. And that's really fun for me. Conservatory, I believe. That's right.

That's right. And that's really fun for me. That might be a thing. And then we get into the thing where, well, how long do we spend on who gets what for how long? What's the appropriate amount of time to spend on that song before we both look at each other and go, that was nice. What else?

Yeah. Yeah. Do you co-write necessarily with that? Yeah. Try not to. Yeah. I mean, sometimes I'm forced to, but I don't. Yeah.

I'd rather not. Yeah. Rather not because it's, is it fraught with peril in terms of splits and you don't think about that? I don't think about any of that. Yeah. I just would love somebody to be able to do the work and not think about it. Seriously, I'm happy to help in whatever way that's the most honest thing. It's real. I don't want to do it.

You go to war. I don't. Yeah. My interest is in the thing being as good as it could be, and the less we have to kill ourselves for that, to be the case, great. But we have to kill ourselves, we do. Okay. So, if you know in your heart that something wasn't as good as it could have been, but the

artist is happier, you happy? No. And that's a conversation we have. At the beginning of the project, I always say, let's work on this. Let's work on whatever it is we're making until we both love it. We make that agreement. Great. And it seems like if I love it, and they don't like it, that's a failure.

That's right. Either way, it's the same. It's the same. And the same, when it's a band, we all have to love it. Because I guarantee you, if we both love it or if we all love it, it's better than when just one of us likes it.

Yeah, it has to be. Has to be better. So have you gone down the road of retracting something just because one person in the band needed to hear three more days? Absolutely. And you know already it's not going to be. I never know anything. I have no idea. So you've never demonstratively done something in the studio as a favor almost to show someone in real time that you don't.

Right. It may be the first time I ever did it. And then as soon as I had one experience where something that every day someone says, I have did it. And then as soon as I had one experience where, something that every day someone says, I have an idea, let's do it like this. And I hear what they say, and I'm thinking, I imagine it, and it's like, that sounds bad, is my conversation, self-conversation, say, okay, let's try it.

And then we try it, and it sounds good. And it happens all the time. And you can't imagine the results. So then it's always has to be demonstrated, demonstrate it, and I'll tell you, if it works from here now. I see, okay. Then there is that.

Demonstratatorial in there. Oh, absolutely. I'm not sure you've given it the chance. Yeah, we have to give, every, we have to give it the worst idea chance because you never know. And you can't know. Yeah. Can the artist know if they know themselves. And you can't know. Yeah.

Can the artist know if they know themselves enough if you're working with? No, you can't know. Yeah. You can't. Or maybe you know, but it's you're putting yourself in a tiny little box. Yeah. There's so much more possible. Yeah.

Well, that's what I'm learning now. Yeah. As having my head opened up for me again. Yeah. Because six months ago, I went, well, that was good. Like, okay. And this tour has proven to me that the dumbest I'll ever be is in my sense of my own capacity for things now.

You just don't know, and then if you don't know, if you follow that thought, it gets really deep. Because that goes into people's sense of despair and their sense of hopelessness. And it would make sense in a way. I defend the thought in so much as it would make sense that you're you and based on your experience and your grasp of things, you would base your hope off of that.

But once you realize that your own take of yourself is just that Everything changes. Yeah, everything changes that your own take of yourself today is not the government of who you are No, you you're take on yourself today is very just a story. It's just a story. It's a made-up story It's a made-up story has nothing to do with you. Yeah, has nothing to do with you. That right there is the deepest pearl I could dive for or thought I could have ever reached is you're telling yourself, it's not necessarily psyching yourself out, but it's telling yourself the story in the voice

that's not yours and the voice from above. Well, that's just the way it is. And I went on tour to be like, okay, let's just have fun and play some acoustic songs. It'll be fun. And this audience every night has just been a mirror for me and saying, go, do this, we love this. This is who you are.

So I wanna go right back in the studio and make more songs like that. Of course. Not reinvent the wheel No more songs on the guitar of course I want to do that fun. That's a lick absolute Absolute not I want to work with this person take take this technology, and then it's because that's where your mind wants to go is how do I stay in that world, and you go, no, no, no, the

best thing you can do is let go of that world. Absolutely. And drift into your world. That's it. And that's what this tour has shown me. And that's the future. That is your future. That's it.

That's the, yes. And so to have that shown to me, when I am such a know-it-all, is shocking. It's great. I just had the next 10 years. So happy for you. Opened up to me.

Probably the next third. Okay. Now I don't know anything. No, back square one. Yes. Back square one. And it feels great. It feels great.

Yeah, and the wonder of discovery when it happens, it's thrilling. When you don't know how it's gonna go and something good happens, it's incredible. It's incredible. It's not, I just do in the thing that I know that I know how to do it. I just get old, and that makes sense

that a couple of years ago you had that feeling of like, I think I might have Done it all that I might have got the bottom of the bag maybe you got to the bottom of that version. Yes, right Yes, you did that now it's time to reinvent and make something completely different. Well, you have this too There's you have no proof that you can't do this forever now Absolutely and once you now once you once you're once you can say you have no proof, you can't do it forever, that's the glory. Yeah.

That's where you go until a doctor sits you down and goes, look, you know, this is what I feel in my life now. It's this until a doctor sits me down and goes, look, when I first became a doctor, I go, shit, tell me. You know what I mean? Yeah, I just have this. Okay, it's because everything else is worked out. All those things that gave you so much anxiety and stress and worry and you had to build a person around that as you were doing it in front of everybody is nailed down.

Even that can sometimes feel like a loss because a lot of what gets celebrated is that young fiery sort of hit the scene. Well they're not nailed down. When you finally get nailed down, it's actually a beautiful feeling and it's gonna be there until I'm not unearthed anymore and until that moment that I'm not unearthed, it's gonna be there.

And I'm getting used to that now as the trade-off for newness. Yeah, you know, you have to let go a little bit. Yeah, people will come up to you and say, my high school self is freaking out right now. How do you feel about people coming up and talking to you about records that you remember making 30 years ago?

It's amazing. Still as good as a record you made last year. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's all the same. Yeah. I don't listen to any of them. You know, it's like, absolutely. They were all the same. Yeah. I don't listen to any of them. You know, it's like, yeah, that was a great moment.

Yeah, yeah. I'm so glad you like it. When someone talks about one that less people talk about, that's really cool. It's like, wow, no one's ever said that about that out before that. That's great. Yeah, I'm embracing all of it.

That you have people saying, my middle school self is freaking out right now and they're in their 30s. But also where I'm headed now is someplace that I only have to think about music. I don't have any expectations. I have no expectations. I'm just going to put music out now. That's great. Just to do it.

It's great. So what am I, I've made it put music out now. That's great. Just to do it. It's great. So what am I, I've made it in music. What am I expanding into? More music. John, what are you gonna, how are you gonna roll this out? What are you gonna do, just more music? Well, you've done music, no, but I've not done the music. I haven't done yet.

Yeah. And the world of music is big enough to just keep expanding in it. It's endless. Yeah. And the way you describe the way you write and make your demos, that's one way to do it. Yes, the way you've always done it. But that's one way.

You're right. There's a million ways. That's right. So first, right first, and then read them out. Absolutely. Jam with a band, write songs with a group of musicians there, playing together. That's never done that. It's interesting.

It's different. Get a task and four track cassette. It's a million ways to go about it. There's never done that. It's interesting. It's different. Get a task and four track cassette. It's a million ways to go about it. There's a million ways to go about it. But the thing I want to say is that writers get tuned in. And I'm not even talking about like tuned in to like the divine. Just sometimes you just feel tuned in with your tastes

and what you know it takes. And especially what what you know it takes. And especially what little you know it takes. Right now, I get my hometown by Bruce Springsteen. I get how you could write it. I get how I could write something that simple because I'm lined up with it. Whatever that thing is by playing these shows, I'm lined up with it. That's why I want to go right as soon as I can. When you're not lined up with it, you think it takes 300 pivot points, right?

That you just psychus right now, I fucking get it. At your best, you go, dude, pick a line that matters. Make it the center piece of your song and sing how you feel about that line. Do it in four to six chords and roll the tape. And it sounds so easy to be aligned with that. And it is so hard to be aligned with that. When you're not aligned with it,

you go, where am I gonna get words from? It's fine, yeah, it's fine. We're gonna get words from. Can't think about it, just gotta do it. You cannot think about it. It just has to make sense that something that strange could happen. It happens all of that happens every day. It wouldn't happen for me if I didn't think it made sense that it could happen. It's hard to explain. No, I understand.

You just have to see down the road. Yes. You see down the road. You go like this. Yes. It takes four things. Yes. Take a sentence that matters to you. Now, there are a month of time. I go, where am I going to get a sentence from? Right. Right now, if we sat here and did, I would come up with something and it would be direct and powerful. I don't know if it would be great, but you'd go.

And it doesn't even matter. No, it wouldn't happen. Because it's a process. Yes. You do that all the time. Yeah. Sometimes some come out really good, some come out less good. It's okay. You do that all the time. Yeah. Sometimes some come out really good, some come out less good. It's okay.

You got to get through the not so good ones to get to the good ones. Yeah. Part of the process. Yeah. And it's just like in a clips, when everything lines up in front of everything else and you go, oh, you just pick a line that feels like something and you sing it. And then you're done. And you sing around it in the verses and then you're done. And you sing around it, and the verses, and then you got it.

Or you overhear someone say something. That's someone says something like that. That's a good phrase. That's right. Done. And I can still go, who gets what for how long? I can still sing it. That's also a test, too.

If I go home after writing a song, if you can't sing it to yourself, it's not good. You've worked on it for four hours. You can't sing it. Doesn't mean anything. Not good. You can sing it while another song's going. It's a big one. That's a good rule. Yeah. So as you know, as we talk about this, we think we're closing out topics and we just keep opening up. Oh, absolutely. Just absolutely. Things to fill and it just keeps going. It's infinite.

It's infinite. Yeah. And so much fun to talk about. Fun to think about. Fun to talk about. Fun to make. Fun to do. Yeah. We're so lucky that this is our lives. We get to basically play and these things appear that weren't there. Yeah. And then we get shared with people and they get to have an experience. Yes. And it's amazing. Then like you were saying, they catalyze it and return it to you. It's different. It's different. It's different. It's different.

I play a stop this train every night. It's not a song from a record anymore. It's a feeling for people. It's a feeling for me, I think, about my dad. And I look at their faces and I know what's going on. Yeah. I know that they're thinking about people who might not be there, people. No, I'm not caught a blind. I know the world is black and white.

And that's the song, right? And I look out and people have this look on their face that's like, it's like a pout. It's like adults with this vulnerable pout, they're taking it in and it's melting them down and it's like that is a universal way from I want to make it as a musician. Universal way. And I should have thought that.

But once you do, what are you going to do with that? Make experience more, dominate further in the, no, I don't want to dominate the world anymore. You go like this, any people go, I can't take the speed, it's moving in. I want to get off and go home again. I can't take the speed, it's moving in. I know I can, but honestly, won't someone stop this train? And I'm only doing it to bring those colors up in their head. And bring the colors up in my head and think about my dad and think about how I thought about that.

And it's way beyond, if I do this, they'll know my name. Or I'll prove this person wrong. It's not showbiz anymore. It's not showbiz. Showbiz has ended. Yeah, beautiful. Beautiful, pleasure speaking to you about this. Showbiz has ended. Yeah, man. Beautiful. Beautiful. Pleasure speaking to you about this.

Showbiz has ended. Yeah. That's the perfect line to... That's brilliant. I'm not going to forget that. You nailed that ending. Wow. Thank you.

My pleasure. Showbiz has ended. Thank you for playing music for us, too. It's so great. No, thank you. I... Isn't it funny to talk about the process and you get instantly... Please show business. You're playing music for us too. So great. No, thank you. I Isn't it funny to talk about the process and you get instantly I get I get Concurrently inspired and frustrated. I just get excited. Yeah, I get inspired and no But I think you're frustrated because you want to do it right now. Yes, that's

Well, you're welcome to say I'm leaving but you can stay and do it. Thank you No, thank you for the opportunity to talk to you too. I just knew that your ability to understand things would allow me to explain them with more sort of bandwidth. So this was really fun to have. Beautiful. And we'll definitely do it again. Just fun talking to you. I'd going to go to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach.

I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. you