The Joe Rogan Experience - #953 - Shirley Manson

Episode Date: May 2, 2017

Shirley Manson is singer, songwriter, musician and actress from Edinburgh, Scotland. She is the lead singer of the alternative rock band Garbage. This summer Garbage will be touring North America on the "Rage And Rapture Tour" with co-headliners Blondie.

Weave it, yeah. That's better. Five, four, three, two. Kapow! And we're live, Shirley. How are ya? I'm feeling alive. You look alive. Thanks, so do you. Does anybody ever ask you, are you really only happy when it rains?

All the time. Is that annoying? Yeah. I would imagine so. I shouldn't have done it. I couldn't have helped myself. It was a little beneath you, Joe, but that's okay. I'll forgive you. It was a little. I panicked. I didn't know how to start. I never so. I shouldn't have done it. I couldn't have helped myself. It was a little beneath you, Joe, but that's okay. I'll forgive you. It was a little. It was.

I panicked. I didn't know how to start. I never do. Well, at least you didn't ask me, are you really related? Are you really, you know, the sister of Marilyn Manson is another one, too. Oh, is that one that comes up? That comes up a lot. Yeah, that guy's a freak.

Have you ever met him? I love him. He's an odd dude. He's, you think? Oh. I was kind of shocked by how normal he is in a funny way. Oh, he's very smart. Very nice.

He's really smart and really, I thought, really forthright. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I appreciated him. I loved him, actually. I was crazy about him. Well, doesn't that in and of itself make him a freak? Yeah, I guess so.

In this world? I guess so. And we were just talking out there about how many people are pilled up and that this world Well, we were also talking about people who can't tell the truth. That's maybe even more weird. Yeah, we were talking about transracial people. You know the one, folks. We don't have to say her name.

You know that chick. That one who thinks she's... And then that dude who also did it. There's a lot of weird people out there. But also Jamie. Jamie lies about being an Indian, apparently. Not a lie. It's not a lie.

A Native American, right? It's a joke. Yeah, that's that funny thing you can't... Indian is actually kind of offensive to some people now. Yeah. Where it was, like, standard for a long time. Well, I'm ashamed to say when I first came to America 20 years ago, I always...

Because it was the way we were brought up to, we referred to Native Americans as Red Indians. And every time I would say Red Indian, everybody in my band would be going, you can't say that. You've got to stop that. And I'm like, oh God, I'm so sorry. But you know, I was 30 years in or whatever. I was so used to saying it.

Oh, is that a Scotland thing? Scottish thing, yeah. You say Red Indian? We used to say Red Indian. That has now been completely changed. But back then, 20-odd years ago, yeah, we always referred to Native Americans as Red Indian. Yeah, I mean, you can't say Red people,

but you can say White people. You can definitely say Black people, but you can't say Yellow people. Yeah, it's complicated. It's super complicated. The rules are complicated. I get it. It's, you know. If you didn't know, like if you were just learning this language, like if complicated. It's super complicated. The rules are complicated. I get it. It's, you know.

If you didn't know, it would be super, like if you were just learning this language, like if you came from China or something like that. You'd be very confused. You'd be baffled. Yes. Yeah. I spend my life baffled though, that's okay. I've just gone, I just go with it now. Good for you. It's okay to be baffled. Good for you. That is a good way to approach it. Yeah, well it's

made me happier, I'll tell you that. It's definitely happier than trying to control everything. A lot of people that go down that rabbit hole, that's not a good rabbit way to approach it. Yeah, well, it's made me happier, I'll tell you that. It's definitely happier than trying to control everything. Yeah. A lot of people that go down that rabbit hole, that's not a good rabbit hole to go down. No, but I think controlling things, it's fear-driven, right? Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, a lot of it. I think I'm too old to be fearful, I think.

Really? A wee bit, yeah. Yeah? But you're like a, see, there's a certain thing that happens to people in show business when they get to a certain age. Either they feel like it's slipping away or they feel comfortable. You seem like a comfortable person. Yeah, I'm a comfortable person. Well, kind of.

Kind of? Yeah. What's uncomfortable? I'm uncomfortable about a lot of things. Let's get into it. You got there already, Joe. Sorry. That's impressive. you're fast i lower

your guard by giving you something really beneath me first and then i see and then you come in like and just yeah you don't even know it's coming to the left side of the head um no i'm uncomfortable about a lot of things but i hear what you're saying and yeah i feel like maybe if you feel like you've failed and then you've stepped back up, then you either crumble and you can't build your life back up or you find a place to stand and you build your career again on your own terms and then it is comfortable. Is that what you're saying? That's what I'm saying. That's where you're at? That's what I'm saying.

But you never failed. I felt I did. Really? How? Yeah. But you never failed. I felt I did. Really? How?

Yeah. Well, you know, we in the 90s were so much a sort of pop cultural zeitgeist, I guess. Right. You know, and that can't last forever. But when it stops, I should speak for myself, when it stopped, it was dizzying for me. I didn't really know what to do with myself. I didn't really understand my identity. You know what I mean? I didn't know who I was. Because it was such a ride?

Because it was such a crazy ride and I identified with myself as a successful person and my idea of success was really warped. Oh, so your idea of success was commercial success? Correct. Did you take any comfort in the artistic success? success correct yeah did you take any comfort in the artistic success I did eventually but at the time I felt like we were being creatively adventurous and we were getting punished for it and it made me really angry oh so you feel like were you getting published I mean was it the publishers the music publishers that were punishing you like what was no it wasn't even that personal although I took it personally it was really much more a cultural shift you know right so that just that wasn't

received as well correct you are correct sir yeah and so we've been used to being on top of the charts you know and then when that stops all of a sudden you're like well is everything we're doing all our ideas rubbish but deep down you know they're not but you're being rejected anyway and so you have to find a way through that and that's complicated i think or it was complicated for a simple girl like me yeah well i would imagine any time you were as big as garbage was in the 90s i mean you guys were gigantic i mean it was hard to go into a clothing store without hearing your music blaring yeah you know it was mad it was crazy yeah i'm a huge fan i love you guys oh thank you so it's kind of weird sitting across from you but it's quite nice

i'm enjoying myself you seem to be yeah but like i would imagine that like as big as you guys were you either stay that big and then you become a crazy person. You're probably better off like doing what you did, like taking artistic chances, settling in and then doing what you're doing now, being more comfortable. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, we were lucky we had a manager, a very wise manager at Q Prime Management at the time who said, what do you want? Do you want a long career at a lower level or do you want a short career at a ridiculously high level? And we were like, we want the long career. And, you know, that's exactly what we got in the end. But there was this mad blip that happened for alternative music,

which had never gotten really that much pop cultural success i guess we were like we enjoyed this weird rush of alternative music that for for a blip ruled the charts if you weren't an alt band you were a nothing band yeah you guys caught that wave that post nirvana wave yeah that's really what it was right right? Yeah. Yeah, I would love to talk to Chris Cornell. Remember when Chris Cornell did those pop music songs? He went from Soundgarden, this deep, crazy, dark band, to weird, poppy music. Yeah, sort of softer.

I'm sure he was just trying to figure out a way to survive, like we all do. It's complicated for anybody with a career, yourself included. You know, you have to like adapt and figure out, well, okay, where do I step to now? Yeah. It's weird. Well, I think ultimately what you got to figure out is what do you like? Yeah.

It's hard to know what you like sometimes, no? Sure. Because if you don't like something, but it's super successful for you. Exactly. Then you might keep doing that. That's very confusing. Yes, Shirley. My goodness, we're getting deep here.

We're going deep. Maybe you're my future husband. Oh, Mary. My wife's coming over here soon, too. Better keep that on the DL. I'm sure my husband will be listening and laughing his ass off. Yeah, your husband is named Billy Bush. He is.

It's a different Billy Bush. Not the grab-the-pussy Billy Bush. Correct. But he really suffered during that time. I'm sure. He got like a hailstorm of abuse via Twitter. I mean, we found it funny, but it was also quite alarming

because we were like, oh my God, I hope somebody doesn't come and punish you. Well, what's crazy is that guy, the real grab the pussy Billy Bush, didn't really do anything. He was just there. Yeah, he kind of was a scapegoat in the end, God bless him. I mean, I think he was just trying to be conciliatory as a TV host, you know, and he got, yeah, he lost his job, no?

Yes, yeah. And he was sitting next to, you know, this gigantic tycoon billionaire character, this flamboyant, boisterous sort of a guy who was going on his usual flamboyant, boisterous sort of a guy who was going on his usual flamboyant, boisterous tirades. He probably felt like it was funny, you know, to listen to this guy. Yeah, I think he probably did, to be fair. But yeah, boy, did he have to pay the price. And my husband, too, by default. But it's funny that, you know, your husband would get hate from it,

or that that guy would get hate from it. People seem to be looking for people to get mad at. Well, I think we're all mad, right? The world is currently angry, and we don't really know why, but we get fed a lot of negative information, and I don't know if the human brain knows how to cope with it. So it's very early on in this sort of technological revolution, so to speak, and I don't think our brains have quite caught up with how much bad news we're absorbing on a daily basis. And I think yeah I think people are angry and

upset and they don't know what to do with it and there's certain figures that attract that you know that kind of rage or wrath and people use these people as hot rods for their own I don't know chaos in their brains yeah no I think you just nailed it. I think that's absolutely it. We've been talking about it a bunch lately that there's just too many people. There's 7 billion people. And to get all the information, especially the bad information from 7 billion people, it's unmanageable. It's intense. Yeah. I mean, yeah, well said. It's just crazy. You flick through Twitter, you flick through Instagram or look on Facebook. Every single thing from every corner of the globe is you're hearing bad news. That's all you want to hear.

Because like if you, well, the good news is not news. No. You know, it's like everybody got along great today. Yeah. That's not a story. You can't sell that. Yeah. It's going to be really curious as to see where the human race goes and how we do manage with all this information.

Because even if you stand up for a cause like, you know, like today I was I did a post about for Amnesty International, who's standing up for the Turkish journalists who are all imprisoned for just doing their jobs. And so you stand up for that cause because I feel very strongly in a free press. And you just become inundated with people saying, well, what about Venezuela? And they have their legitimate concerns about what's going on in their country. What about the women in Argentina, you know, and so on, so forth, and Brazil and Mexico. And it's just, I just don't even know what to do with all the information. Yeah, that is a part of the problem, too, is that people expect you to comment on every single thing. And if you comment on one thing, especially if you comment on one funny, silly thing, they'll say, well, what about this? How can we not talk about this terrible thing that's happening? I know. It's almost like you have a responsibility to alert people of your state of consciousness at every step of the day.

Every second of the day. I could definitely do that. Could you? No, not even. I could do that. Just not even i could do that just with emojis yeah just emojis i feel like emojis of the future i've been thinking a lot about this i think emojis i mean who said this i think was it eddie bravo that compared him to hieroglyphs you was jamie was jamie yeah jamie jamie was saying we were talking about it that like they are a lot like hieroglyphs like if you if you if you send someone like i one of the reasons why i thought it was eddie's because eddie always sends

me like a series of emojis like in a row you know it's fun he's just being funny like he'll send me a clown and a thumbs up and a black fist the clown and the aubergine are my two favorites the aubergine the aubergine what's an aubergine an eggplant oh i call it an aubergine? The aubergine. What's an aubergine? An eggplant. Oh. I call it an aubergine. Did you know what it is? I don't know what you mean now, but... An eggplant. Why is an eggplant the favorite one? I just like it. It looks rude and funny.

See, I'm Italian, so I feel like it's racist. I see eggplants. Of course. I feel like it's... Direct your wrath on me. I'm so sorry. But I feel like it's like a racist term for black people. Okay. Now you're just being No, no, it is amongst amongst Italians. It really is. What is yeah, I make plans eggplants. Yeah. Why what is the word?

What's that word that Italian word that they use? There's a see if you can google it race it Italian word for eggplant used. It's a common thing on the East Coast. What is it? I don't get the Reese thing. I swear to God, it's mystifying. There's a couple choices, I guess. Yeah. There's a word that they would always use.

Moulinon. Yeah. Moulinon is an Italian derogatory slang term for a black person, and it's derived from the word eggplant. slang term for a black person and it's derived from the word eggplant. The word melanzane, which is a term

for eggplant. You've crushed my spirits right there and then. I made it impossible for you to use eggplant now without thinking about it. I'm just going to have to go back to the lipstick emoji. We've killed Red Indian and we've killed eggplant on one podcast. Good.

Indian was a thing that you could say all the time when I was a kid, but now if it even accidentally slips out of my mouth, you don't say cowboys and Indians anymore. You're supposed to say cowboys and Native Americans. It doesn't roll off the tongue as quickly. But we can break our habits, can't we? We can, surely. Because we're evolved.

We are. We're trying. And we're disciplined. I know you're disciplined. I'm trying. We work at disciplined. I know you're disciplined. I'm trying. We work at it. You're definitely disciplined. How do you know?

Because I've read some stories about how you pulled yourself together over time. And that takes discipline. And I don't know. I think it takes a lot of balls, actually. Hmm. I'll just leave that there. Thank you.

You can just say, thank you, Chris Manson. You guys say bollocks, though, don't you? Do you say it in a positive way, that it takes a lot of bollocks? Thank you You guys say bollocks though Don't you? Do you say it in a positive way That it takes a lot of bollocks? Takes a lot of bollocks Do you say that?

Would you say it that way? No I say balls Because balls is I don't know I like the word balls Yeah Something to do with my accent Bollocks is too hard for me to say

But bollocks is like Bullshit too right? Oh well yeah That I would use That's bollocks Right I would definitely say that but that's also balls right correct but it's used in a slightly different how could balls be

bullshit i'm so confused i'm confused too but like i said just go with the confusion it's okay i'm going with it i'm totally going with it i'm flexible i try to be more flexible as i get older i work on that it's hard To remain flexible is really a challenge and I think that's what differentiates the sheep from the goats. What's better, the sheep or the goat?

To be flexible. The goat's the greatest of all time. I love the goat but then I'm partial to a sheep. I was reading this article yesterday about music

and they were talking about how people get very rigid in their musical tastes. Like what they liked when they were younger, about how people get very rigid in their musical tastes, like what they liked when they were younger. They get to a certain stage in their life, and then they just lock on, and any new music they just sort of reject. But there's a neurological reason for that, right?

Yeah. Yeah. What is it? Do you know? It's something to do with the pathways in your brain. I don't know that the first, when you first make these insane connections, and it's usually during adolescence, apparently. Yeah.

Where you make these connections with, I suppose, adventure and independence. I mean, I don't know. I don't know enough about it. But they have done all these studies. During studies on the brain on dementia, they've discovered all these incredible neurological pathways that are formed by music. Somebody can't even remember how to button their shirt, but they can sing every single word and every note perfectly to some opera that they performed when they were young.

I mean, I don't know. It's crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. There's definitely weird pathways that get established in the brain. And they say that, like, there's something about music and especially like musical pathways that literally invoke these physiological changes in a person that are unlike anything else like it like when i was a kid that rocky eye of the tiger song would come on and he would just want to start he would just want to start running he would just want to lift weights or just run up a hill or something like that i mean it would make your

body change it was like if that was drug, if you could take that drug, if you could sniff it, like, and, like, feel how you felt when that song came on, be like, yeah! Right? I mean, what else does that? There's nothing else that does that. No, that's true. There is nothing else that does that. I'm currently on this mad obsession with Oliver Sacks. Oh.

And I'm reading his biography right now, or autobiography, should I say. And he's talking about some of his like really sick patients who have dementia or there's some other form, weird virus that shuts them down completely and they can't even stand really. And then if they play a certain piece of music, someone who is essentially an unconscious being snaps to, Someone who is essentially an unconscious being, snaps to, stands up and can dance and recite words even though they've been mute for years. I mean, really crazy, crazy stuff. Yeah, there's something about that art form, about your art form.

Music can heal you, Joe. Put your hand against mine. Feel it. I felt it. I felt it. Charged my whole body. My hair stood up on end. What hair I have left. Yeah, there's something to it. I felt it. It charged my whole body. My hair stood up on end. What hair I have left.

Yeah, there's something to it. There's something to it that's like, I mean, and it's also very bizarre because it's something that people have created, right? It's not something that exists in nature. I mean, it's beautiful sounds in nature, like birds chirping and certain animal noises and things that are beautiful. But music is like the ability to control notes right the ability to create a symphony the ability to structure a song and put it together with a beautiful voice like yours like that is something that's entirely created by a human being like that didn't exist before

human beings existed and it works only on us you ever play music for a dog just fucking stare at you don't give a shit i don't have shitty music taste my dog my dog responds to music well maybe your dog does yeah makes sense yeah i suppose she's trained that way yeah well she probably maybe feels like it's important to you too yeah you're probably right like if you meet like a shitty person you know usually they have a shitty dog. There's no such thing as a shitty dog. Really? Only a shitty owner who's taught them shitty manners. But then the dog becomes shitty.

If a dog bites your face off, that's a shitty dog. Okay, fair enough. That's fair dues. Although I would argue it's a scared dog, but I'll give you that. I agree. Or a terribly trained dog. It's the owner's fault. I agree.

I agree. It's the owner's fault. I agree. I agree. But there's something that we've done with this that I think is really, I think it taps into the human reward system in a way that. What is the human reward system? Like when people enjoy being around certain people, there's like rewards. There's like social rewards you get from it. Like say if you have like a leader.

Yeah. Yeah. We're having a fun time, having a fun conversation and laugh. But like, say if like you were in a tribe of people and there was this one leader or this one, uh, you know, warrior that saved you from the Jaguar and you would look up to that person like that, that's like a hero in a movie, right? Like the, now when we tap into these ancient reward systems, I think there were ways that human beings could learn and ways that we could share energy with each other that existed before media, before music, before movies and books. And I think what we've done with media, music and books and movies especially, is tap into those human reward systems in this really crazy way. I love this. You're teaching me something right now that I'm really into.

No, seriously, I love this idea. There is hope for the human race after all. Oh, there's definitely hope. We're awesome. We are pretty awesome. Yeah, we suck sometimes. Yeah, there's a few who suck. But it's not even 1%.

Is that true? Yeah. I think it's maybe 1%. I think that if you get 300 million people like we have in America, you get about 3 million douchebags. That's what I think. if you get 300 million people like we have in America, you get about 3 million douchebags. That's what I think. That's fair. And then you have also people that are the same victims as your dog that's a bad dog.

Yeah. Like you have people that are born and raised in horrible environments and abused when they're young. I think that's a giant part of the problem, a giant part of what we are. And if we just address that, it's one of the main problems that I have with our culture, is that we don't address, really at all, the raising of children and the doing it from the beginning as a culture. But we don't address very much that's painful or dark or complicated, do we? Not really. We don't talk about death, which I think is a big mistake

because then you rear people to not live their lives fully because they're so scared of dying. They spend their whole lives worrying about getting sick. Yeah, they don't even like to talk about it. Yeah, my parents don't like to talk about it. I just think that's so crazy. It's as though if you don't talk about it, it's going to go away somehow. Like, oh, I don't want to deal with it.

Let's talk about something else. Let's go get dessert. Yeah, weird people just shut off if you mention anything difficult it just shuts down a conversation well that was one of the main problems that a lot of psychologists had with hiding um caskets like when they were bringing people back from the war that they were taking these photographs of the caskets and they wouldn't let them be released. Like it was a big thing during the Bush administration in America. And psychologists were saying, do you understand like this is you're, you are programming people to have a very specific notion of war then because you're not showing them the actual

consequences. I mean, in a casket is almost a symbolic consequence because you're only seeing a box and you know that a person, a child's, you know, some parent's child is in that box. You're not even seeing the body. Like you're not even saying we should see the body so people can understand what a missile does to a person. You're saying like the boxes themselves are forbidden to be shown. And that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's just, it's weird. It's psychological warfare in a lot of ways on the people because it allows people to accept the consequences in some sort of a weird, almost abstract way. They're not, they're not seeing the consequences. So sanitizing everything and not allowing people to grow and expand, I guess. It shrinks our minds in a way. The less we see, the less we can think about, the less we're capable of thinking about in a way. It's really weird.

the less we can think about, the less we're capable of thinking about in a way. It's really weird. But it goes back to the idea of rearing children, and that goes back to education as well, and that we seem to have fallen by the wayside there too. Well, I think we have, but my feeling— Let's go back to the human reward system. It was much more uplifting. Well, I think it's all connected, because I think that what we're doing with technology in the form of music and movies and media and all that thing is just one step in this multifaceted experience that we have of integrating technology.

And the more sophisticated this technology gets, it seems like the closer it brings people and ideas. And I think that's – I honestly – I mean, people think that it's's I have too much of a utopian view of it. But I really feel like that technology is essentially going to balance it all out. I really feel like as much as we want to try to hold back information and we try to hold back education or try to program people. I feel like technology is ultimately going to connect people instantaneously with ideas and that you're not going to be able to already yeah sort of yeah but you can you could push it aside you could shut it off you could walk away if you have discipline you can leave your phone at home and go for a walk in the woods but i feel like we're just one or two generations away from being a completely different thing than

we are now that's the thing that bums me out about dying that's the really pretty much the only thing is how much we are going to miss of all the great technological advances. Like how crazy is it going to get? It's going to get crazy. I know. And I'm so sad I'm going to miss so much of it. You might not. You might not miss it because you're on the tip right now of the scientific and medical advancements that are going to allow people to live to be 300, 400 years.

Oh, God, I hope not. It's very possible. I really, really, really hope that's not the case. Because you worry about overpopulation? Yeah. Yeah. And yes, and the calcification of the human mind. I worry that Donald Trump's going to live to be a thousand.

Oh God, we all worry a wee bit about that. He's got a lot of money. Yeah, he sure does. He's pretty healthy for a fat guy too. I was thinking that the other day. Guys out there are super active. Why is this? Why is he so

preoccupied with fast food? It's really peculiar when you've got all this money and you're stuffing your face full of the cheapest food you can find. Does he? Apparently he's got a huge fast food preoccupation. Maybe it's a president thing, because Bill Clinton did, too. There was a huge issue with Clinton.

He was at fast food as well. He had heart problems, though, no? Yeah. All caught up with poor Bill. So watch out, Prez. Why, he was at fast food as well. Well, he had heart problems though, no? Yeah. Yeah, it all caught up with poor Bill. So watch out, Prez. Yeah, you can't eat fatty foods all the time or sloppy. Well, it's real sugary and cheap crap. Sometimes it's delicious though. It is, right?

Every now and again, it's the spot. Get one of those Wendy's double doubles. What are those things? Those double cheeseburgers. I've never had a double cheeseburger in my life. Ever? Ever. Why? I couldn't get my, cheeseburger in my life. Ever? Ever. Why? Even I couldn't get my

jaws running back. You really never had a double cheeseburger? I've never had a double cheeseburger. How long have you been in America? 11 years. No, nonsense. No one's brought you to In-N-Out? 22 years. Yes, of course I go to In-N-Out. So you get a single cheeseburger at In-N-Out? Is that a double?

Maybe I have had a double. You've never had a double-double? I a double? Maybe I have had a double. You never had a double-double? I've got my jaws right on that. No, I've never had a double-double. So what do you get? I don't know what I get. I've never ordered it. My husband's always the one that's sort of barked into the machine. Wow, your husband's like your assistant.

You're like, get me what I want. I wish he was. Maybe he was for like the first couple of weeks that we were together. Oh, yeah, when he's trying to work for it. When he's really trying hard to work it. That has long been left in the dust, I can assure you. Like literally, now I'm like, I have to beg. I had a friend of mine before, he's married now, but before he's married, he had gone

through a series of like really horrendous relationships. And we were sitting around talking once, we were super high. And he goes, I think what I'm going to do is just have two week relationships. He goes, because two weeks is like the perfect amount of time. You're in love. Only two weeks? Yeah. You're in love.

You want to spend all the time together. It's great. And he goes, and then somewhere around then, they just start expecting things from you. And then they get mad at you. In two weeks? He's just picking the wrong partners. Clearly. Clearly, because he's married now.

And he's happy. Two years, I think, is like a good honeymoon period. Two years? Really? Oh, Yeah, I mean, two years, I think, is like a good honeymoon period. Two years? Really? Oh, things can go ugly in two years. Especially dating an actor. Oof. Oof.

I've never dated an actor in my life. Good for you. Congratulations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I couldn't deal with that. Did you? Yeah, actresses, yeah. No dudes, but actresses.

Because girls, when you say actor, like girls want to be called actors now. Like it's non-gender specific these days. Fair enough. Yeah. I get that. Yeah, it makes sense. I totally get that. I guess.

Yeah, because actress or comedian, that was a big one. Like female comics do not like that. Don't like being called comedians? No, it makes you seem like a cheapened down comic. Like my funny comedian friends that happen to have vaginas, they're all comedians. Yeah. See,

I get that. I really do get that and I respect that. The only thing is, I love the word actress. Actress is a pretty word. It's a lovely word. Comedienne

sounds like a light version of comedian. Yeah. Comedienne. Comedienne. It doesn't have the same kind of gravitas, right? Low fat yogurt or something,

you know? Yeah. I guess so. I never thought about it that way. But yeah, I think the more we get rid of gender, actually, the better. You think so? But isn't it fun to be a girl?

It is fun to be a girl, of course, and I think it's fun to be all genders, whoever, however you are. But I think when you have to be called something, it's like prison. Yeah. I don't think we should be living in prisons yeah but we're not living in prisons but we clearly are different like especially you and i of course you and i are very we're very different very different yeah i'd be super confused if you were anything like me i'd be like i don't know what to do with

this yeah no but i think all humans, we're all different, right? I mean, I think it's crazy that we get put into these generalized packs. We kind of do, yeah, but... For men too. There's also just a, I mean, there's a broad spectrum of behavior that is on one side of the fence or the other side of the fence, whether it's male or female. But there's definitely a male and female in most people. And then there's people that are, you know, then it gets real weird.

People that are born or in some way don't want to be whatever gender they are. I think it's kind of cool. I don't think it's that they don't want to be. They just aren't. I think some people just aren't. And some people don't want to be. And I think it's like we were talking about earlier about that Rachel Dolezal woman. I think you and I have to disagree here.

Well, this is what I think. I don't think we could ever possibly know the motivation for every single person. You are correct. Who's transgender or transracial or trans anything. Well, gender though is not, as you know yourself, under no circumstances do you choose your gender. You're not that powerful. I don't think most people do. But I think some people, it's entirely possible that you could be a woman and decide, you know what?

I want to be a fucking man. I'm tired of this. I don't like it. It's well within the realm of possibility. But then that's a different thing, isn't it? I mean, you're right. And I'm sure there are circumstances like that. But that, I think, is a different thing entirely.

Maybe. But would it be any less legitimate? thing entirely maybe but would it be any less legitimate it'd be any less legitimate if a woman felt compelled just by curiosity to become a man versus compelled by her feeling I think that's identity flirtation as opposed to gender flirtation or gender a choice or gender manifestation I'm using their own words here hmm I think people could do whatever the fuck they want. So do I. I'm into that.

I met that lizard dude once in Austin, Texas. Do you know who that guy is? He's turned himself into a lizard. He's essentially tattooed his entire body. No, I know who you're talking about. He split his tongue down the middle. He sat in the front row of my show at the Cap City Comedy Club, and I was like, well, you don't need a lot of attention, do you, buddy?

No kidding. He sat right in the fucking front row looking like a lizard. Very nice guy, though. Seemed like a super nice guy. But he's, you know, I mean, look at this guy.

Well, that's before he did his whole face. Yeah, I've seen him before. He's kind of amazing looking, though, no? Definitely weird. I don't know about amazing.

If that was my kid, I'd be super upset. That is amazing. Come on. If you saw that in an art gallery, you would be like, that is amazing.

Maybe you and I have a different sense of amazing. Maybe we do. Well, that seems like a guy with drawing on his face. But hey, this is coming from a guy with drawing all over his arms. I think it's pretty incredible. I mean, who am I to say that it's, I mean, that's a cultural thing, right? Like, why is it okay that I have tattoos all over my arms and I don't think it's right to tattoo your face?

I wouldn't say that. Like, you should be able to do whatever the fuck you want. Yeah, and he has done. But it's a cultural thing. I mean, for some people, like, I was in Japan and they made me, I was in a gym and they made me go and put a long-sleeve shirt on because you can't have exposed tattoos like this.

Well, I guess because their feelings towards your arms are the same feelings that you're having towards his face, right, Joe? So you were, for one second, the lizard man. Yes, a little bit. Just for those of you who are not in the studio right now, who are listening, just take my word for it that Joe is fucking with me right now. No, I'm not fucking with you. He is. Guys, he is. We're having fun. this is a fun conversation

don't you think when someone's fucking with you that's like a negative thing right no no oh god no

no I often fuck for fun I think we just did a we just did a play on words there hey hey there's life in us yet exactly yeah so so what's the latest with you you guys are touring again we just did a play on words there. Hey. Hey. There's life in us yet.

Exactly. Yeah. So, um, so what's the latest with you? You guys are touring again. Uh, we're going on tour in the summer.

Yeah. Um, that's only like a month away or something. Just a month away. Yeah. It's hot as fuck here now. It's hot as fucking America. It's back. Stop.

Yeah. Well, you guys are used to rain. I, I like it cold. I must admit. Do you? Mm-hmm.

But we are going out on tour. We're going to do something in my mind pretty sort of historical in a funny way. Like we're going out on a headline tour with Blondie. Whoa. Legendary Debbie Harry. Wow. Do you know her? I do know her, actually.

And I love her. And she's been somewhat of a mentor to me in a way, because she was managed by a very famous music manager called Gary Kerfirst, who managed the Ramones and Talking Heads and Blondie and so on and so forth. He was the one who basically plucked me from my band. He saw that. He thought I had potential. And he was like, you know, I think you have potential to be in the music business and he signed me in the end and blah blah blah blah blah and anyway he introduced me to Debbie and Debbie came and saw my band open for the Ramones in the academy in

New York during the music seminar one year and I was shaking like a leaf I've told this story a million times but it's one of my favorite memories of stepping out on stage on the academy and of course Ramones fans were pretty hardcore, you know, they weren't taking fools lightly and you had to prove yourself, so I was very, very nervous and I looked down into the mosh pit and Debbie Harry was there and I just was like, I will love you forever

anything you ask of me, I am your slave, you are, like for someone of that calibre to do that, it meant so much to me and it's sort of, even in times of when i've doubted myself i always think debbie didn't doubt me wow so yeah i'm very excited to be going out with her wow that's heavy i might tear up tear come on tear a little bit a little bit come on get into the you know the emotional oh that's acting

she was uh a very unique historical figure in music. There was no Debbie Harry before Debbie Harry. Correct. It's like you can look at some bands. There was no Madonna before Debbie Harry. Right. There was no Lady Gaga. Yeah, right.

She did it all really. She's the archetype, I think, for a modern pop girl. And she was very authentic. Like there was no questioning her authenticity. Like she was uniquely eccentric. Oh, she still no questioning her authenticity. Like, she was uniquely eccentric. Oh, she still is. Yeah, I'd imagine. Yeah.

I mean, to be 70 and to be still making records, that's incredible. That's pretty badass. It's really badass and really inspiring for other women, you know, who follow in her footsteps, who, you know, will watch. It's the first time I can think of like a woman has had a pop career that long. Well, isn't it a new thing? I mean, if you really stop and think about music, really what we're talking about is recorded music and recorded music in modern times has really only been since the late 20th century, right? I mean, when did people or the early 20th century rather,

when did people first start recording music? We've gone over this before. They started doing it on wax in like the 1700s. Is that what it was? Something along those lines? I don't think it was that late. I think it was in the early 1900s. Let's find out. Thomas Edison had those wax cylinders that they were recording, talking, and a little bit of orchestra stuff on.

Okay. Did you just pull that out of your brain? No, we've actually discussed this. Both've this is one of your favorite topics no we have discussed it like fairly recently within the last year we were talking about how amazing it is that recording things like like mozart or beethoven like there was no recording it was just written work and you know people would duplicate that written work and that's how you would get to see the genius of their ideas. Here, 1877. Oh my gosh.

Wow. Okay. But that's a practical sound recording. Yeah. But when you compare that to like a record, a modern record, I mean we'll call it a record, but I mean a recording, a modern recording like Blondie, like Rapture or something like that, I mean that is, there's never been anything like that in human history up until the 19th

or the 20th century. I mean, it really didn't exist. No. So when you think about like pop stars, you know, I mean, Etta Mae or I mean, however far you can go back to where you can legitimately say someone was a popular music star. It is so recent. It's within a hundred years. Well, it's like Elvis, I think, was the first popular star, correct?

Yeah. That's why he went fucking crazy. He has no roadmap. Yeah, well, none of them had roadmaps. That's what we forget. Like, we were talking about this recently with a bunch of friends, is how accomplished young musicians are right now. Like, they can be 15 years old and you can watch them perform

and they've got all the moves and they can sing perfectly because they've practiced singing along on YouTube to, you know, digitally enhanced recordings. So they can do stuff with their voice that we never could. You know, and so they're learning at an accelerated rate. Yeah. But they don't understand what it means to have any kind of motivation or like have any authentic taste or, you know, it's really peculiar.

They don't have a struggle yet. They're like Terminators. No, you know, they're perfect, but they don't have any. No inside. Well, I'm sure they do have an inside, but it's not fully developed. Who's developed at 15? No one. You can abort them.

Shut up. Who is like, it's just you're off the charts right now. But it's true. It's really insane. Yeah, it is. They can sing along to these mad records that have been all sort of, you know, auto-tuned and this, that, the next thing, and they can sing it perfectly. Well, I was reading about this 24-year-old motivational speaker, and I was like, I want

to find that person, tell them to shut the fuck up. How can they be at 24? What do you know? What do you know at 24? I don't know anything at 50. Tell people about life at 24? That's preposterous. Yeah, it's preposterous.

Yeah. It's like my friend Steve Maxwell says. He said you should never listen to anyone who is under 40 who is a personal trainer. He's a personal trainer. He's like, anybody who's under 40 who's a personal trainer. What the fuck personal trainer? He's like, anybody who's under 40 who's a personal trainer what the fuck do they know about injuries? It's true, yeah. Running the long haul. Yeah, there's a lot to learn.

There's a lot. There is. I am amazed that I continue. I thought I had it all sussed out by 30. I mean, I remember thinking I'm so old and I'm so wise. I mean, I remember thinking that. And then you hit 50 and you're like, oh my God, I knew nothing. Yeah.

And then you probably think that when you're 70. My dad claims that's the case. He laughs at me. My dad laughs at me when I, you know, say something that he thinks is absolutely ludicrous, you know. And he's like, just you wait. Just you wait. You'll eat those words, you know. Well, I feel like that's a big part of what you see today in social media with young kids espousing really preposterous ideas.

Like they have so little experience, actual life experience. I feel sad for them. Do you? Yeah. I feel sad for all these like young hipsters that get lauded by, you know, fashion magazines literally at the age of 15. I think it's the fetishizing of young people right now really gives me the creeps. And I feel very sad for these young people who basically are like these beautiful butterflies and a glass jar gets shoved on top of them. And then they're stuck there being cool and hip.

But with no driver. Nothing to fight against. Nothing to be dissatisfied with. I don't know. It's just peculiar, I think. Meanwhile, they're doing Adderall and having a great old time. They're looking at you. They're like, this crazy lady.

Yeah, I'm sure. Oh, so just because you made a bunch of fucking hit records, you think you can tell me how to live my life. I like being in this goddamn glass jar. I never for one moment would ever tell somebody how to live their life. What I don't like seeing is people not being allowed to live their lives. Oh, I Saw this kid somebody sent me this thing on Twitter some kid I forget where it was some pop festival, but he's like 12 years old playing the guitar and he's Fucking incredible. I mean incredible and they were like saying he's the next Jimi Hendrix some little black kid

It was amazing. Like just just like, just unbelievably talented. And I'm just like, boy, he's check in with him 10 years. He'll be fucking crazy. Well, that's what it feels like to me. Yeah. It's creepy. It's like so many people send me, you know, recordings of young, particularly young women artists.

And they're like, you know, would you think about, you know, supporting this girl or what do you think of this and that? Live your life, right? I think go out live your life. Don't let your parents figure out your career for you. That's what you're supposed to do. You're not supposed to have your parents who happens to have an in with a well-known singer or producer or whatever, pimping you. That's how you

learn. It's by actually doing it yourself. I don't know. I just feel it's creepy and it feels pedophilic to me and I don't like it. It definitely can be right. But when you were young, when did you know that you wanted to be a singer? I don't think I ever knew I wanted to be a singer. Today?

Do you know now? Yes. So something's happened somewhere along the line. But very recently, I mean, literally in the last, I'm serious. In the last 10 years,

I was like, I'm really good at this, actually. And I enjoy it. And I guess this is what I do for a living. This is my thing. In the last 10 years? The last 10 years. So what was going on with you when Stupid Girl was coming out?

Well, I felt like I'd stumbled into that opportunity, which I did. I wanted to be, first of all, I wanted to be a writer. Then I wanted to be, first of all, I wanted to be a writer. Then I wanted to be an actress. And then by total default, I was in a youth theatre when I was young and I met this guy and he was like, oh, would you come and play keyboards in my band for a weekend because we've lost our keyboard player and I joined the band. And then I just ended up being in that band for 10 years,

playing keyboards and doing back vocals. I was quite happy. I didn't harbour any ambition to be a lead singer at all. And then just a billion and one things happened and I ended up being the lead singer of this very same band just so that we could survive because we'd been dropped by our record label for going to Berlin and spending all our money

on our record advance on drugs. And coming back and not have anything to show for it. So the record company dropped us but kept me. And so then I pulled the band in as my band. So we just sort of shifted all the roles. Oh, wow. So I find myself as the lead singer by default. And then our video got made.

What kind of drugs? Oh, it was mostly speed and ecstasy. Speed? Mm-hmm. How much money are you spending on speed? Jesus Christ. It was an inordinate amount of money that got spent. It was our entire record advance.

How much was it? I can't remember. I think it was something like 100,000 pounds. What is that, like $50,000? American, somewhere around there? I think it's double that. Double that? Oh, it's 200,000? It's double? Oh, I'm doing the opposite? Oh, my God.

How the fuck did you spend 200,000 on speed? I don't know. I don't know how we did it. I mean, it wasn't all on speed. And it was alcohol and going out and drinking and partying and just wasting time. In America, we call that going off. We went off. You guys went off.

We went totally off. And I wasn't one of the real... I was one of the sober ones for the most part. I mean, you know, and I know I did my share, but by comparison, I kept my shit together. But anyway, we wasted our opportunity there. But by default, I became a lead singer. Our video got played on MTV and then I just chanced upon garbage. The Garbage Boys needed a singer and I got hired. And so I always felt I just fumbled

into it by going off so to speak wow that's crazy yeah it was pretty mad and then I never believed in myself for my whole first half of my what I call the first phase of garbage wow you know that's a really common thing we were just talking about this the other day with somebody I forget who it was where they were saying that so many really talented people feel illegitimate. They felt like they're not legitimate. But don't you think everybody feels legitimate? I don't think it's even artists. I think it's everybody.

What parent sits there and goes, yeah, I'm a parent. Yeah, I know how to parent my children. And yeah, I know how to pay the bills and get the work done and keep the house. Nobody knows how to do anything, right? No. Well, you definitely question and keep the house. Nobody knows how to do anything, right? Well, you definitely question yourself all the time. Yeah. How old are your kids?

Well, I have three. I have one that's 20. I have one that's almost nine and one that's almost eight. Wow. Yeah, or almost seven, rather. And I was hanging out all day with the almost seven yesterday. And, you know, we're just having a great old time like we we have days we split up where i just hang out with one kid and my wife will hang out with one kid that's cool because

i think sometimes when you get the two of them together the young ones they don't get enough attention especially the little one suffers a little bit so we have like specific days where it's just and so the entire time we're trying to have a good time we're having fun but i'm also thinking okay i've got to like figure we're kind of kind of programming her here as this goes so every question I have to kind of temper this question well you have to think that these people probably don't know any better so that's probably why they litter you know and see like she gets mad when she sees people throw cigarettes out the window I saw a guy throw a cigarette out the window did you

see that daddy he threw a cigarette out the window did you see that daddy he threw a cigarette out the window and i'm like well it's definitely not good to throw cigarettes out the window but you have to think like this poor person like what kind of a mind do they have like this this the way their brain works they think it's okay they're not worried like if i drop something on the ground i pick it up do you pick it up she's like i always pick it up i go yeah we pick things up right we don't want to litter because if everybody livered we would never be able to get anywhere just be garbage it's stressful but the reward is there's that's really you don't have kids i don't it's very hard to describe to someone the love that you experience between you and this little tiny person like me and the six almost seven when when we talk

like and she just jumps on me and hugs me like my whole body has this reaction like the love meter it's like you know a carnival thing where you hit the thing on the bottom and the bell goes ding you know like the the metal thing shoots up and hits the bell it hits the bell every time whenever she gives me this big hug, it's like, I can't, you can't love anybody anymore. Of course not.

The love that I have for her is, it's crazy. It's weird. It's scary. Cause you worried about losing them. It's scary. Cause you worried about fucking it up. It's scary because just cause it's so powerful.

It's really powerful. Changes you. It changes who you are. I mean, it's just a hundred percent changed me. It just made me a different, completely different person. And it does every day. Every day I'm a different person than I was like a week ago. And I talked to a lot of other, other, my friends that have kids and

it's the same thing. Like it changes your level of compassion. It changes who you are. Like Dave Chappelle said it best to me. He said, it didn't just change my how much i love it changed my capacity for love wow i was like that's it i think you nailed it i mean i had a tiny i have a tiny window into it because my sister my younger sister had two children and i felt towards her children differently than i do any other child oh yeah so that's just a small window into how i imagine it is for her with her children and we talk about this a lot i'm like i just don't think i could handle that it'd be too i'm too sensitive i'm too hypersensitive to i think take the responsibility on of being a parent you think

though but you would it changes you like you become whoever you are now once if a little person comes out of your body you just you're like okay now i'm surely with a person there's like chapter two you know or surely 2.0 or whatever it is yeah i'm sure it changes how you view yourself and your function on earth i would imagine it does it does and it also makes you appreciate like my my time is fairly um it's flexible in terms of like i can manipulate my time. I can kind of choose what I do. Like I don't really have to do anything. I choose to do a lot of different things. But people that do have to do things, like especially couples where both work and they work long hours, that's incredibly hard to raise children.

I mean you see how tired they are too. And they come home from a 9, 10-hour day and their kid has been in daycare and the kid just can't wait to see them and then you literally only have an hour with them before they go to bed like you're not even raising them no well my relationship was like that with my dad like when my mom died a few years ago my dad came over here to Los Angeles to to stay with us and we went out for lunch and I'm sitting across from my dad I'm 45 years old and I'm thinking to myself, I have never sat alone with you in a restaurant in my life. Wow. Ever. It was really weird.

Wow. Because my dad worked hard, you know, and he was always busy and yeah, it was an intense realization. So I think it's great that you take time one-on-one with your kids because I didn't have that with my dad. I didn't have that either. I try to, well, I mean, I'm sure they're going to learn something that I fuck up that they're not going to do. You just have to accept you're going to fuck up.

Yeah. Just don't try to fuck up. Correct. Don't try to fuck up. Try to do your best. Try and do your best. But sometimes the things that you do, in adverted commas, get right,

are the things that do, I think, the most damage. And sometimes the things that you do wrong, the so-called big mistakes, can also be really good for children. And I'm not talking about when they get, at no point should a child ever be hurt in any way. You know, I'm not saying that's a good thing. That's a terrible thing and that must never happen.

But I mean, like, you know, I know a lot of parents who sort of really get down on themselves because they divorce, for a random example. And I have seen children bloom through divorce yeah you know and i keep saying that some that to my some of my friends who are going through that it's like you're not you're not making a big mistake you're teaching them to not settle and there's good things that can come from bad things i guess is what i'm trying to say yeah no for sure my parents split up when i was five and it was a

very good thing and it taught me that my mom was strong for leaving my dad. And that like you have to make tough choices in life and then things are going to suck for a while. But there's a reason for it. Yeah. But, you know, pressure makes diamonds. Just this. I mean, you said it much more articulately than I did. But we're getting to the same place, I guess. Yeah. Well, it's a really it's an uncomfortable moment that I have with a lot of getting to the same place, I guess. Yeah, well, it's a really, it's an uncomfortable moment that I have with a lot of my friends that have children, too,

because we sit around and we think about it. We say, well, you know what? You try to protect your kids as much as possible. But everybody that we know that's interesting came from a fucked up background. Like, all of my friends had fucked up childhoods. All of them. All my artistic friends,

all my friends that are musicians, all my friends that are musicians, all my friends that are comedians, they just fucking came from chaos and they emerged from this rubble as this person with a purpose. Absolutely. But see, I've gone quiet and I've gone quiet because it's getting back to the moment that I have or the feeling I have in myself that I am an inauthentic artist because I didn't come from a fucked up background.

You didn't? All my friends, every single one of my friends when I was growing up from the age of five onwards, they came from broken homes. Every single one. Maybe you learned from them.

Except, I don't know. But I came from a really happy family. My mum wore a penny. She baked every day. What's a penny? A penny, you know, an apron. Oh, okay.

Kind of like what I'm wearing right now, funnily enough. But, yeah, she wore an apron. She baked every single day. She, like, warmed our clothes on the stove before we went to school. Wow. I mean, she cooked us dinners every single night. They were always at home. They were always there.

They loved us. They were never cruel. I mean, I came from the most abnormal normal family ever and it's always made me think, well, that means that I'm not, I'm just not an artist. Not legit. Yeah. So crazy.

Yeah. I got fucked up anyway. Yeah, but it's not, it's not mandatory. Like, it's not mandatory. It certainly happens a lot of the time, but it can't be mandatory. It happens almost all the time, but I just don't, yeah, I always sort of feel, and this is really sick, a mild envy when I hear my friends talk about their fucked up upbringings because I'm like, God, I'm so normal. I used to feel that way about people who are drug addicts. What do you mean? I used to feel that way because to feel that way about people who were drug addicts. What do you mean? I used to feel that way because all the greats as comedians were drug addicts. Richard Pryor, Kennison, Bill Hicks, they were all drug addicts.

Yeah. They all had, like, huge cocaine problems. Hicks was the only one who got through it, but then he wound up dying of cancer. Who knows? Maybe because of that. But, you know, Kennison was a cocaine addict. I don't know who Kennison is. Who's he? You don't know Sam Kennison? No, I've never even heard of him. You know, who knows? Maybe because of that. But, you know, Kennison was a cocaine addict. I don't know who Kennison is. Who's he?

You don't know Sam Kennison? No, I've never even heard of him. Really? Mm-mm. Wow. He's Mount Rushmore for sure. He might be the greatest. Well, I think Richard Pryor

is the greatest, but he's right up there. Kennison's like number two in my book. How have I not heard of this person? I don't know. I don't know how he's...

It was a fat guy who wore a beret. Did I pull out from under? You never seen him? No, I don't know how he was a fat guy You never you never seen him recognize him. Oh my god. This is like pull up Sam Kinison's homosexual necrophiliacs He did this pitch. This is this bit was it This is a bit that got explained to me by a girl that I used to work with This is a bit I found out about this, pause for a second.

I worked at a, this is one of the reasons why I got into stand-up comedy. I worked at an athletic club in South Boston. It's called the Boston Athletic Club. And I worked with this girl. She was hilarious. She was a volleyball player, big, giant girl. She was like 5'11", big athletic, big personality.

Okay, easy, easy. She was hilarious. But what I'm saying is, she told me about, you've got to see this comedian. Holy shit, was he funny. She saw him on HBO. And so she starts doing this bit. The skit. She takes me out to the parking lot.

And she's doing this bit about, there's a real news story about these homosexual necrophiliacs who would pay these morgues to spend a few hours undisturbed with the freshest male corpses. So play the bit. Play the bit. We'll play the bit here. I read the paper. They said that a group of homosexual necrophiliacs had been going around to mortuaries offering them money to let them come in at night and spend a couple hours undisturbed with the freshest male corpse. I wasn't trying to sell this as a fucking home game, all right? It's a story I read, folks. Jesus Christ, give me a chance

to do some journalistic reporting here, will ya? I felt the same way. I read this thing and went, oh, oh! Oh, thanks for the visual! Hey, I felt sorry for these corpses, man. I mean, you'd think death would be bad enough, wouldn't you? I mean, the one thing that scares the shit out of everybody is death. You don't want to think about it. You don't joke about

it. You put it out of your mind. But you figure if you faced it, that's it. What could be worse than fucking death? You figure, I got bashed death. I mean, you hated it, but at least you lived through it, you know? You got to buy it and all that shit. I felt sorry for these corpses, because I know these guys were laying out on slabs.

They're in there going, well, life was tough, and that was pretty hard to live up to. I faced death, and I'm glad I went through it. And, well, now I'm ready to spend eternity in heaven and be with Jesus and rock of ages. Hey. What's this shit?

Oh, I don't believe this. Oh, my God. There's a guy's dick in my ass. Oh, you mean life keeps fucking in the ass even after you're dead? Oh, never ends, it never ends. Oh! So, this girl, she laid down in the parking lot, and she was going, you mean life keeps fucking in the ass even after you're dead?

And I'm crying laughing. I was crying laughing, and I was like, oh, I got to see this. I got to see this. And so I think I got it from a video store. I think it was back when you would rent it from a VHS cassette. And that's how I found out about Sam Kinison, and that's one of the reasons why I got into stand-up comedy, because I didn't know that comedy was ever like that.

I thought comedy was a guy who just stood in front of the microphone and said, Did you ever notice? Like that kind of stuff. So what is being a comedian to you mean now? It's a bunch of different possibilities. But it was so chaotic. His comedy was so wild and crazy. He was a real ground breaker in that way.

And why else did you get into being a comedian? I don't know. I got talked into doing it. No, I wasn't really very funny. I wasn't funny. Did you have siblings? Yeah,

I have a sister. How many? One sister. Yeah. So it was just you and your mom and your sister? Yeah. Well, my mom remarried i'm

stepdad who she's still with today and do you like him yeah he's a great guy okay yeah super lucky he's a real good guy okay good but um it was uh i got talked into doing stand-up by my friends from martial arts for real because we would well you must have been funny well i was only funny because it was like gallows humor we would go to compete like like or we would... Well, you must have been funny. Well, I was only funny because it was like gallows humor. We would go to compete. Or we would be about to spar. And I would be the guy who would make everybody laugh. Because everybody was so nervous.

Because it was scary. You beat the shit out of each other, you know? And then we would go to these competitions. So we'd get on a bus and travel across the country to go fight in these tournaments. And it was super nerve-wracking. Everyone was super nervous.wracking everyone was super nervous so you could like cut the tension with a knife so I would always like be doing impressions of people having sex and making jokes and I just this was like long before I ever thought about

being a comedian I was just trying to lighten up the mood and that's how I got into stand-up so hold on a minute so see this is a bit of a surprise to me because when people fight you know semi-professionally or otherwise or at school or what have you it's nerve-wracking no it's terrifying because you're scared of pain violence the the anticipation of the possibility of losing you're worried about the just all the possibilities the there's the just the full realm of things that can happen why do you do it i know i'm sounding like a moron i just have never had the opportunity to ask anyone who's ever done this um i was very insecure and um i got bullied and i wasn't big i was a small kid and I was really nervous and I did not like that feeling at all.

And I was always, we were always moving around a lot. We always moved to new places. I was always the new kid. Were you a military kid? No, my mom married my stepdad. We moved across the country from New Jersey to San Francisco

and then we lived there for a while and then we moved to Florida and then we moved to Boston and he switched careers and he was a computer programmer and then he became an architect and so there's a lot of yeah there's a lot of traveling and I just was always the the new kid and the new kid gets and most of the time was fine but as we got started getting older that's when it got creepy like most of the time was no big deal like at nine and ten it's no big deal but when it got creepy. Like most of the time it was no big deal. Like at nine and 10, it's no big deal.

But when it gets to be like 13 and 14, then it starts getting violent. And so like kids would pick on me and I didn't know how to fight. And it drove me crazy. Like I was like, God, I fucking, I hate the fact that when these kids want to fight me, I don't know what to do. And I'm terrified. So I'd be like, go, go home the long way around. So I'd avoid everybody and that kind of shit. So I decided to martial arts i said well what am i afraid of i'm afraid of people

that know how to fight well i'm gonna really know how to fight so i went into it then it became my whole life like from from high school freshman year on really from um 15 is when i went crazy so from 15 on that's all I did every day. Like six, seven days a week I was teaching. I was teaching when I was 17. That's what I was doing like every day. I was teaching at Boston University when I was 18 or 19. That became my whole life.

Were you born in Boston? No, I was born in New Jersey. How come you don't have the crazy accent? Got rid of it. Heard myself on TV. I won the Bay State Games. It was this big, like an Olympic festival where they had all the Olympic sports. Taekwondo had not been in the Olympics yet, but it was about to be.

So they had it in the Bay State Games and I won. So they interviewed me on TV. And I remember I was like very specifically say we were working really hard and I was like it was so bad I heard the video and I was like oh my god what the fuck is wrong with me like I had taken on that accent out of insecurity because I only lived there since I was 13 right so from 13 to in six years, I developed a stupid accent. You just wanted to fit in.

I wanted to fit in. Yeah. And then I realized how dumb it was, so I abandoned it. But it'll come out a little bit if I get drunk. Yeah. Like every now and then some words. I like it. I think it's a cool sounding thing to me.

Because you didn't grow up in it. Yeah, of course. It's gross when you hear it out of girls. Fuck me harder. It's just like, it's like too many R, the R thing. It stretches out. Yeah, I wonder where it comes from. The mix of the Irish, I suppose.

Although the Irish don't speak like that. No, Irish is beautiful. I like that accent. It's pretty. There's something about the Boston accent. It's just particularly gross. So hold on. So sorry to ask you these questions.

Please go. Don't worry about it. So you are fighting and then your pal talked you into becoming a stand-up comic. My friend Steve Graham. Two of my friends. Ed Shorter and Steve Graham. Steve Graham is still one of my best friends today. He was an ophthalmologist at the time. Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah. And so encouraged you to what? Go to improv class? He told me I should be a comedian. Like literally grabbed me by my shoulders and said you should be a comedian. So then class? Like literally grabbed me by my shoulders and said, you should be a comedian. So then what happened? I went to an open mic night. I watched amateurs try it. And one of the good things about amateurs is if you go to watch, like most of them don't know what they're doing.

They're terrible. So I was like, okay, well, I can't be as, you know, at least I'm not going to be the only one who sucks. So like if I go up and do that, I can do what they're doing. They suck. I suck too, but they suck. So it's not like you're going up and Richard Pryor's on. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Richard Jenny and all this.

You felt you could take the competition. Well, no. I felt like I wouldn't be the only one who sucked. People who really suck inspire you to do it because they lower the bar of expectation. Because if I went up there and it was all these really amazing comedians and then me, I'd be like, oh, I can't do this. I'm fucking terrible at it.

Because the learning curve of stand-up comedy is so long. Sure. And especially when you're 21, you don't know shit. I didn't know anything about life or anything. Well, of course you didn't. Exactly. So I was terrible. But somehow or another, these guys talked me into doing it.

And do you still do your stand-up? Yeah, constantly. That's great. Yeah. You turned it around on me, Shirley. Yeah, I sure did. Yeah, you did. Interesting.

Clever girl. Yeah. Don't know about that. I wish. You don't think you're clever? I don't think I'm particularly clever. I can think fast on my feet. That makes you clever.

But I have a serious attention deficit disorder. Yeah, see, I hear that a lot from people. I usually think that what that means is you really enjoy certain things so much that other things suck for you and you just get distracted. I bet you don't have an attention deficit disorder when you're singing your songs. No, of course not. But that, again, is not material you have to retrieve. It's just sort of in there.

You open your mouth and it comes out. But do you think that it's possible that you achieve these high frequencies of delight and of stimulation when you're performing and when you're I mean you gotta think that when you're

on stage what's the biggest crowd you've ever performed for? This sounds like I'm making it up because even I can hardly believe it but we played in front

of 300,000 people in Samara, Russia and that was the trippiest experience of my life. Oh my god. At the And that was the trippiest experience of my life. Oh, my God. At the time, it was the biggest music festival that I'd ever been. Like, you couldn't see the end of the crowd.

Wow. Now I look at Glastonbury and go, no, small. You know how it goes. Yeah. So think of that. Think of that experience. How many people are ever going to feel that? How many people are ever going to rock out in front of 300,000 people?

So I think that some people, the moments of brilliance, these moments of spectacular experience that they have are so different than most people's lives. I totally disagree. 100% disagree. Because I know that people's capacity for joy, that it's a certain experience that we all have. Like I can go out to dinner and if you're having a really great meal and you're with people that you love and you are laughing yourself sick, I have the same feelings as i do when i'm having a good show i don't think it like it's not like my career is the highlight of my life it's a it's a joyous part of my life that plays a role in in my enjoyment of being on earth that sounds very balanced but i'm not saying that i think it's

true so i, my point being is that I just think if you enjoy your job, if you love your wife, if you have great sex with your boyfriend or your girlfriend, if you have a baby, you know, that moment when they put the baby in your arms, you know exactly what it's like to play in front of 300,000

people. You know? I don't think that's correct. I think that is correct. You're the only one who'd be able to tell us though. I'm telling you. You must take it from an authority on this subject. There's no denying. How dare you argue with me, Jim Rogan. I cannot. What I was going to say though is that your experience

and the intensity is so high that your capacity to appreciate boring shit is probably very low. And that's one of the reasons why people would label it like attention deficit. You probably just don't want to pay attention to shit that you're not passionate about. I wish that was the case. But there is moments when somebody's telling me something.

And I'm thinking to myself, okay, remember this because this is important. And or this is really cool. You could use this. I do that all the time. All the time. I'm going to hold this information. Hold this fact. Hold this. I do that all the time. All the time I'm going, hold this information, hold this fact, hold this.

And then I try and tell somebody 24 hours later about this incredible story I was told and I can't remember anything about it. That's called being a person. It drives me insane. Yeah, but you haven't slipped away at all during this conversation.

No, I'm intense. You've been locked on. I'm intense and I am awake. You are, you're woke. And I'm... and I am awake. You are. You're woke. And I'm... Oh, fuck off. If I hear that fucking expression one more time, I might hit the next person whose mouth it comes out of.

That is an expression that never had its day. It was a joke. Yes, it had its day. No, it was a joke from the moment it first came out. Trust me, it had its day. With who? Fools? Yes. Yes.

Yes, only fools. No person that I know ever said that word without being in jest. Oh, you must be joking. No, well, I hang out with a lot of comedians. People use it a lot. Yeah, you're very fast and quick and funny. But also, they think it's ridiculous. Well, it's also your job as a comedian to take the piss out of all us norms.

Yes. That is one thing that I love that you guys say, take the piss. Yeah, I like that expression. That is a great expression. Now, Scotland has some incredible, like... Yes! Incredible expressions and sort of the most... One of the best things that happened to me lately was I got retweeted by William Gibson.

Really? Who I'm a big fan of. And he retweeted a Scottish, a link that I'd done for the NME on Scottish swearing. And the fact that he had reposted my tutorial on Scottish swearing made my fucking life, call me sad if you want, but it was like the most glorious moment of my career.

That's not sad at all. There's nothing sad about that. I was so chuffed. But yeah, the Scots are really funny. You know, it's a small culture because it's bad weather. I mean, these are stupefying sort of cliches I'm spewing here. But because it's a small country, because it's bad weather, because we spend a lot of time talking to one another, passing one another in the street, there's a lot of humor. Yeah. But in America, I find, is not quite as acute. You know, people are used to verbally sparring in Scotland because you're against people

all the time. Pushing past them in shops, you know, traveling in the tube, being on the bus, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whereas in America, everything's more spread out and you're not around people so much.

So when you are face-to-face with them, people are a little more polite. In Scotland, there is absolutely no politeness well you guys have that big comedy festival there every year that's right

the Fringe Edinburgh yeah have you been there yet no haven't been well get your arse over there I need to Ari Shafir raves about it

but that motherfucker goes everywhere he's crazy you should go there it's incredible it's an incredible that's what I hear circuit for

funny men like yourself you guys have Billy Connolly he's hilarious he came from there Billy Connolly. He's hilarious. He came from there. Billy Connolly is great and hilarious. Hilarious, yeah. He's not well, though. No, he's not?

He's not doing that? He's got a really sad, degenerative disease, sadly. Oh, no. What is it? Yeah, we're going to lose him soon, I think, of fear. Oh, no. Really? What is it?

I think it's Parkinson's or dementia. I can't remember. It was one of the two. Anyway, he's a brilliant mind, very funny man. That sucks. But you should get your arse over there. They would love you. That bad weather thing, I think that's why Boston has so many funny comedians.

I'm sure it does. Same shit. I'm serious. I'm not. I mean, it is a ridiculous cliche, but I'm sure it plays a small part. Oh, it's not cliche at all. Culture, yeah. 100%. Yeah. I mean, it is a ridiculous cliche, but I'm sure it plays a small part. Oh, it's not cliche at all. Culture, yeah. 100%.

Yeah. I mean, in Boston, the same thing. A lot of bad weather, a lot of cold snow, people indoors. Yeah, long winters, I guess. That's true. Oh, yeah. No tolerance for stupid shit. Yeah.

No tolerance. Also, work ethic, like hard work ethic there. Very hard. Yeah. No tolerance for meandering bullshit. No, it's very different. It's a different way of thinking, certainly, than Los Angeles, in my experience.

Too soft out here. People are soft. People are very polite, and they are soft, for want of a better term. It's like I find that sometimes when I make jokes, people don't know how to flip it back, you know? Right. Like in Scotland, everybody's joking all the time, and it's really fast sort of dialogue. Yeah, people don't know how to flip it back. You know, like in Scotland, everybody's joking all the time.

And it's really fast dialogue. Yeah. People panic. People panic. Yeah. They're scared they're going to offend you and say the wrong thing. Yeah. Sometimes I have to go on double dates with my wife.

And sometimes I'll crack a joke and the whole table will be like, what? Yeah. That's me too. What have you done? Yeah. And I always go home and in the car, I'll say to my husband, I'm really sorry if I embarrassed you tonight. And he says, he's always got this classic.

He went, you didn't embarrass me. You only embarrassed yourself. Is he serious or joking? Kind of half and half. I mean, it's definitely, we both know when I've said something mildly inappropriate. Do you feel like you're like, because you're from Scotland, that you have like to temper that all the time? I do try and temper it a lot, but sometimes I forget, you know, and then there's the crickets. Oh, my God.

I have a poor husband who's very, very sort of quiet. Like he's very quiet and he thinks a lot before he speaks. And I can just see him in his mind. quiet, like he's very quiet. And he thinks a lot before he speaks and I can just see him in his mind. I mean, he loves me and it doesn't bother him at all. He doesn't get embarrassed. But he has to... But you can see him girding his loins, you know, like

oh god, did she just say that? What was the expression you used? Girding his loins. Girding his loins. Girding. I don't even know what that means. Girding? What is girding? Google it, bitch. Ugh. I think you're the first person on this podcast to ever say

Google it, bitch, to me. It's hilarious. Gerting. How do you spell it? Gert. Gerd. G-I-R-D-I-N-G. Jamie, you've never heard that before, have you? This is the first time in all my years I've heard girding. Girding your loins. I would imagine it would be clenching.

Yes, you're right. Yeah, just context. Put it together. Gird. Here we go. In circle. With a belt or a band. A young man wants to be girded with a belt of knighthood.

Oh, okay. Secure. You have to look up Scottish gird. Well, it makes sense, girding. You're talking about constricting. Girding. Gird your loins. Gird one's loins.

Gird one's loins. Prepare and strengthen oneself for what is to come. Get ready or gear up. Gear up. Perfect. Gird your loins. Wow. That's a good one. We are learning on this show. This is a show of up. Gear up. Perfect. Gird your loins. Wow.

That's a good one. We are learning on this show. This is a show of education. Stick around. There's plenty more where that goes. So are you fired up about this tour? Are you excited about this? Of course.

Yeah. My God. Yeah. I love playing. I mean, I'm sure there is a certain kind of high you get when you go off on the road and you can stop worrying about bills, you stop worrying about money, you stop worrying about, you know, the pain in your ankle. You know, you just have

no worries. You just go on the tour bus and you get bussed from A to B. You get a little email every day that tells you exactly what you're doing, you know, at noon. Do you have a tour manager that handles all this stuff? I have a tour manager, yes. Oh, I have a tour manager yes oh that's nice yes

so I love going on tour and it's an honour to be playing with Blondie and the fans are very excited and how many days you go for

great I think it's about seven weeks all in all which is a small tour for us that's a long time we normally go out

for a year a year a year yeah on and off you know I mean you come home for bits but generally it's a long time. We normally go out for a year. A year? A year? Yeah. On and off, you know, I mean, you come home for bits, but generally it's a sort of year-long thing. It used to be two years, but then the music industry got crushed by music file sharing.

And so it's a slightly different game now. But isn't the touring business the same? Or how does that work? Well, yes and no. I mean, the problem with the touring business now is that it's the only way a musician can make money. So now the competition to score venues in which you can play

is getting higher and higher and higher. I noticed that as a comedian. Really difficult. It's a huge issue. Like, I have to book stuff like a year in advance. In a year in advance, yeah. So book Edinburgh Festival next year. Maybe.

Come on, you'll love it. You'll learn all kinds of phrases that you can employ in your stand-up that nobody's ever used in America. Lots of original material. Hmm, maybe. So you guys, though, you were in the business when the money was being made. Yes, we were. Oh, my God.

It was like, what is it, around like 2000 when the floor dropped out? The floor was beginning to drop out. And then 2001 came around and September 11th. Well, Napster was, yeah, that was the beginning of the end. Yeah. Did you see the writing on the wall? Did you think they were going to be able to patch that hole up? No, I totally saw the writing on the wall.

I actually wrote about it. At the time, I ran a blog, a music blog, which was, you know, one of the first back then, because musicians didn't have blogs. We didn't really use computers up to that point. So I had this blog, and I was very vocal about Napster. And I could foresee the issues that, you know, that presented themselves, but the industry itself was so greedy, it refused to adapt, you know, and as a result, it's died. What do you think could have been done? I don't know.

That's not my place to worry about it, really. But they just continued to want to make money via CDs and physical sales, and they refused sort of to make the kind of deals that they really needed to. Digital deals. Yeah. Yeah, it took a while before people started selling things on itunes and what have you but there wasn't really a venue for it before that they would have had to create like they would have

had to create it but they were the only ones who had the power and the financial resources to do so you know yeah and and as a result now of course they are the only ones making money really the companies the record companies continue to make vast amounts of money off artists. YouTube makes vast amounts of money off artists and the artist makes nothing. I don't think the general public are fully aware of what a crime spree it is.

I mean it's a crime spree. It's a crime spree. Who's committing the crimes? Well they're tiny crimes committed against each artist that compiles a vast library of digital content through which massive companies, conglomerates, make money from by just sheer mass. But the artist themselves makes less than a penny a pop.

Less than a penny a pop. So if you guys, like i bought your albums on itunes well we're a bad example too because we are our own record label at this point you are your own record yes we're a bad example we're one of the lucky ones when did you figure this out by a lot of getting fucked up the arse and you know no lube was used and you know yeah we we are we were around long enough that some of our masters reverted to us and so we could make really lucrative deals for ourselves and protect our catalog and you know it's blah blah blah it's so boring but it's not boring

it's fascinating for young artists i i don't know i despair it's like you know you're you're hooked up to a record label the record label makes money by your records getting played on youtube for an example you don't not really i mean it's like a 0.0375 percentage of a penny that you might get played after about a thousand million plays on youtube i mean it's bizarre but you know it's how it is what what is the justification for a record company at this point? It seems like... Distribution. Yeah, but where are they distributing it? All over the world.

But to where? In what manner? In a variety of different manners. I mean, they now do 360 degrees, so they take a percentage of absolutely everything a band earns, which was not the case before. Generally speaking, they now sew up your publishing, they sew up your performance rights, they sew up your merch,

any endorsements you get. So that seems fucked up to me. It is fucked up. Doesn't seem like it's worth it. What do they bring to the table? All they are is just a bunch of people stealing money. Except if you're a massive pop star, like you're a Beyonce or a Gaga or Kate

Perry or Bieber, what have you, then that company can use its resources to make you even bigger. And that's why these pop stars who continue to make commercial sounding music get bigger and bigger and bigger, more and more powerful until they can just buy their way into the consciousness of public culture. Hmm. But radio is not much of a thing anymore. No, no, no. It's not radio anymore. But it's visibility. You have to have visibility. So what is it that's getting people visible these days?

Like it used to be a song would be a top 40 hit on the radio, and then everybody would hear about it, and you'd want to go out and buy the record. Well, I think most young people get it on the web right but like how does but viral music like if you release a song and and you're with your label it's your own thing and you put it on youtube and say someone like me comes along that has a lot of uh twitter followers and i say this is awesome and i retweet it and then a bunch of other people retweet it that's all it takes today right yes and no i mean you have to have a song, though, that's easily digestible, which is why

there's so few musicians now taking real risks, because if they take a risk, they don't have a shareable song, you know, that appeals to the masses, then so you die. You see what I mean? I mean, I'm not articulating myself very well. That Kendrick Lamar guy, is that guy, is he

independent? Is he the guy that's independent? Which guy? Chance the Rapper. Chance the Rapper. He's the guy that's independent. And he's enormous, right? Yes. So how the fuck did he do it?

Well, there's obviously always an exception to the rule. And he's extraordinary. You know, he's an extraordinary talent. And usually when somebody hasn't reached public consciousness yet, there's a lot of hype around them. You know, people want to be in the know. They want to talk about the new artist that everybody doesn't know about, so on and so forth. So they enjoy like a massive swell.

Right. And hopefully he'll be able to build upon that, but it'll be harder for him the next time around. What I'm getting at is that it is fascinating to me that the record companies have managed to stay even remotely relevant. Well, because they made all these deals with all these new companies. I know, but that's where it gets really creepy, right?

I think it's creepy. It is creepy. It is creepy. If someone is not in the business, it's creepy because I'm looking at what they bring to the table and there's not a lot. Well, they bring, as I said, distribution. And if you don't, I know this first time because it's very difficult for us to distribute our music

because we don't have a distribution label that can compete. Right, but when you say distribution, like distribute it where? Everywhere, wherever they can. So whether that's ads on the street, whether that's ads on the television, whether it's ads on the radio, whether it's ads on YouTube and so on and so forth. It's just an accumulative awareness of an artist. So they're almost manufacturing public interest. Kind of, yeah.

I mean, they have to have a semblance of something good. You can sell shit, as it turns out, but that's, again, the exception to the rule. Generally speaking, they'll have a catchy song. And if they push it to enough minds, eyes, they can have a hit. Wow, what a weird transition. They're like vampires. They've figured out how to remain indoors. Yeah, it's very strange and it's kind of sad, really.

That's why you're seeing fewer and fewer artists that have long careers, because, like I said, you can generate a lot of excitement when it's your first record. That's sort of when it's easiest. Right. By the time it comes to your second record, a lot of these artists that we hear about are already dead and buried under a billion and one other new artists. Yeah, I'm sure you read that Courtney Love article that she wrote many, many years ago

about the music business, about how complicated it is. And this is pre all of this digital stuff. She wrote this way back in the day when she was explaining how these artists get fucked over by music companies about how everything gets written off as an expense. So by the time they get paid, everybody else has been paid, everybody else is, like, the record companies made money,

the executives have made money, and then the artists get money. And all the expenses get written off as expenses that the artists have to pay for. But you have no control over the spending. So for a random example, you can turn up at an airport, you've flown from LA to London, you arrive and there's a limousine waiting for you and you don't even question it. You're like, oh, this is

the Transpo, the record company I've sent. They take you to this ridiculous hotel that's posher than you've ever been in your life. You don't think about it because the record company's paying for it. They throw a huge big party. Wow, how generous. Our record company is so amazing. Well, look at this incredible party. They're charging you for it. They throw a huge big party. Wow, how generous our record company is. So amazing. Well, look at this incredible party. They're charging you for it.

They're charging you for every single thing and yet none of it gets run through you for your approval. So you have no power over the economic spending, but you get charged back absolutely every single expenditure. Not only that, the salaries of the people that run these companies, all that is dependent

upon you selling your art. That's right, and when things are going well, everyone's there going, didn't we do an amazing job? Worship me. Literally everyone at the record company is like, you owe us, so thank you, and aren't we amazing? Is that how they talk to you? No, but it's an inference. Like, yeah, I did that.

We did this. Look at what a great job we did for you and your band. And you're like, yeah, great, thank you so much. That is wonderful. And then the second something goes wrong is you're on your own. You guys need to figure this out. We're just your record label. We can't.

You know, I mean, it's just like it's difficult to deal with at first, but then you get used to it. Now, in the early days, did they take a piece of your tour? No, no, they never have with us, but they do now with young bands. It's called the 360 deal where they take a piece of everything. How much did they take a piece of your tour? No. No, they never have with us, but they do now with young bands. It's called a 360 deal where they take a piece of everything. How much do they take? I don't know. It's different for every band. Every single band has to negotiate its

own stance, you know? What's a normal? Absolutely. 50%? 15, 20%. 20%. So they would take 20% of all your touring. So they would be like, if you had a five-person band, they'd be like the fifth person in the band. Boy, the merch. Your fucking t-shirts?

Holy shit. Yeah, they take everything. Wow. It's pretty weird and pretty grim right now. What's weird is like, I don't understand what they're doing. Well, I don't think they do either. I think, to be honest, they're still trying to figure out what their role can be in this new world.

You know, it's difficult for them. Wow. Life is tough. Well, it's a fascinating time because this digital thing that came along. What's really interesting is that, you know, we saw when the economy fell apart, right? We saw banks getting bailed out and we saw these music companies going under. We saw like a lot of issues, a lot of collapses. And it's all because of these emerging technologies. But these emerging technologies also on the flip side make it so much easier for people to find out about you yes and slowly i think things will i think it will balance itself out again right i

think younger artists are going to get way smarter than we ever were and just go hold on a minute we're not signing these rights they have to because there's no reason for that today it just doesn't make it that's what it's so confusing to me like giving away your merch and your touring like unless they're booking the tour for you, unless they're acting as a manager. See, how the fuck are they getting a piece? That's what I'm saying. Don't ask me. I didn't fix the rules.

An agent gets a piece because they book it. They set it up. They arrange the publicity. They do all that. Like, they deserve a piece. Like, that's a business deal. Like, it seems like they're just stealing money. Well, it seems a little bit like that i would agree i mean what's what like for instance in our business

we make 10 of everything we earn so that's basically we know that what we can make a certain amount of money and by the time we've paid everybody we'll take 10% home. For all the band members? Each band member gets 10%. So 40%. Okay, 40%. Of what we make. And this is not even taxes. You're not even talking about taxes. We're not talking about taxes.

By the time the taxes decimate you know, you were decimated. But we are one of the bands who don't have to pay a percentage of our touring and our merch. And we're one of the bands who get a very high royalty on our records

because we only give away a tiny, tiny percentage of every record to our distribution company. So we're one of the lucky ones. So we're always thinking, well, if this is how it is for us, how is it for all these other young artists? And there's a big thing about young artists.

They have to pretend that they're rich. So everybody has to drive around a Ferrari. You have to have a $30,000 watch on your wrist. You have to walk around like a baller. But I really reject all that. And I think I advise everybody else to reject it too. I think we're beginning to move towards a new world order because the worshipping of money,

we can't sustain our lives and our world the way things are right now. Well, it comes from people being poor and wanting to aspire to be rich. And then once you make it, you have to sort of put that show on. Right. I mean, that's a huge thing in the rap community. Right. With rappers, it's almost mandatory. It's very rare that someone bucks the trend where they're not wearing a lot of jewelry and driving around a Bentley.

Although I feel that, again, that's changing too slowly. I hope so. You know. out wearing a lot of jewelry and driving around a Bentley. Although I feel that again, that's changing too slowly, you know, but yeah, I've never fallen in love with those kind of acts, you know, where it's fur coats and limousines and I don't know, it's just not my style. Yeah, no, it's, well, I mean, it's, it comes from, you know, economically deprived people that finally break through. Oh, of course. I understand. It's always been, but it's almost like the fun part of the rap business,

like a big part of the fun part. I mean, how many fucking rap songs are about jewelry and diamonds and cars and mansions? You see, when I was growing up, as we were talking about being the same age earlier on, it was really uncool to talk about money. Right. And all the cultural heroes didn't have money and would never talk about money. And actually, often it was heartbreaking when you've discovered they were rich because they

were kind of our working men's heroes, you know, our working man heroes. Like, go back to Kurt Cobain. He wore, like, Converse All-Stars and ripped up jeans and flannel shirts. Or even further back than that, you know, like John Lennon or somebody like that. Lou Reed. You know, all these cats, you know, but that's what I was sort of indoctrinated in when I was growing up, which I'm actually eternally grateful for. I don't want to be somebody who worships money.

Well, it's a foolish thing to worship because, you know the ultimately like what an artist is doing is they're trying to express themselves in the most unique way possible and connect with people right you're supposed to you're trying to show the world through your eyes you're trying to express yourself and if all you're trying to express is that you want to stack checks stack what is it what do they call it? Stack on deck. What's that? Stacks on deck.

Stacks on deck. That's like a big thing. Rappers, those kids today. Talk about stacks. I wouldn't mind a stacks on deck. Stack on decks. Just to have a little cushion. Yeah.

It's always nice to have a cushion, right? But I feel like these days are long gone. It is crazy though that you guys only get 10% and you really stop and think about it all and then you pay taxes on the 10%. I don't think people understand that. No, I really don't think people understand it. But at the same time, nobody wants to hear a musician whine. No. But I know many people who live,

who have very modest jobs, who are way wealthier than we are at this point. Yeah. But you know, that's life. I never became an artist because I wanted to be rich. Right. Well, you would be so much happier being who you are than not being able to sing and being wealthy. Exactly.

Yeah. And I also have met a lot of rich people in my time, and they're miserable as hell. They certainly can be. Chasing that. Yeah, very isolated. And I know I could count on my hands the amount of really rich people I know who live happy lives, who seem like they know what to do with their money. And these people definitely are out there.

You know, they have all their happy marriages, happy kids, balanced kids. You know, they know when to have fun. They know how to work hard. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they're the exception to the rule. Yeah, it's super rare. work hard, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they're the exception to the rule. Yeah, it's super rare. It's well, the pursuit is such a strange pursuit, because, you know,

in oftentimes, when you're pursuing wealth, you're pursuing wealth at all costs. I mean, that is the ultimate goal is the score that you put on the board. I mean, that's the Gordon Gekko philosophy. Greed is good, right? Or greed will protect me. I mean, I understand it why people feel and they they're not always wrong either, where money can protect you from a lot of difficulties. That's our president. I mean, our president is essentially the greed is good guy. I mean, he, I mean, that is who he is. I mean, that's what he's done. I mean, he has pursued wealth at all costs. But he was also born into wealth. A little bit. Yeah. I don't think it was a little bit. I think it was a substantial amount of money he inherited well he was given two million dollars to start his business his first business and he talks about it a small loan small loan

small loan of two million dollars yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean it's he certainly has inherited quite a bit of it no doubt no doubt about it but my point is that his philosophy and like what he's always pursued is extravagance like the the big gold letters on the side of the skyscrapers that's his thing yeah and it's it's a state it's in a lot of ways it's a dangerous ideology for a country to uh aspire to well because everybody can't yeah it's not possible can't attain that so what are you then saying to people who have that, who will never have that? That's kind of what leaves me in great dismay. I understand the pursuit of money and economic well-being.

But I feel like, what do we then say to the people that don't have that and never will have that? Right. There has to be something else other than the worshipping of money. Yeah, it's a hollow pursuit. something else other than the worshiping of money. Yeah, it's a hollow pursuit. And it's a pursuit that's like, it's not examined closely enough for its hollowness, if that's a word. I was having a conversation once with this friend of mine who is a pretty radical black guy. He's a pretty radical African American and just very proud of African American heritage heritage. And he, uh, he went on this thing about how black people used to be Kings. He's like,

we were Kings. Do you understand that? I go, stop. I go, you can't, everybody can't be a King because if you have a bunch of Kings, like to be a King is to be a dictator.

Okay. That means you're dominating people who aren't Kings. That's not a proud thing. Like you got to stop saying that. Like you're saying it's the wrong thought process, but it's the thought process is his in his eye he hadn't examined it like his in his ideas like at one point in time we were Africans we were kings we were that we were on top and then you know slavery and all this other stuff so his like his thought process was kind of convoluted

and by saying we were kings like you don't want to be a fucking king man like nobody should be a fucking king should be zero kings and you definitely don't want to see we were kings like we can be kings again like don't be a king yeah i don't want to be king i don't want to be a queen well it's a big thing with fighters like some fighters call themselves king this or king that they like it's a part of their name you know it's a weird it's only's only African-American guys. I don't know any white guys who call themselves King. Oh, come on. I don't.

Oh, please. Fighters? White fighters? Oh, you would know about that world way more than me. Yeah, like King Bobby Green, King Moe. I know like five or six. King Kevin Casey. Sometimes when you feel that you're at a disadvantage in a society, you know, words are powerful. can, the words we tell ourselves

are really powerful and perhaps you can manifest a power that you need sometimes we all need it sometimes, I know I need it myself, you know where you know you think to yourself okay you need to remember what you have done what you've accomplished, who you are, who your mother

is, you know, I think that there's a lot to be said, I guess, for the casual use of certain words. But you're right. I mean, as we continue to use these words, we have to examine their meaning. Yeah, I think I definitely think that's the case. I think that the wealth at all costs is a foolish pursuit that people look at when they don't have the wealth. I mean, that's when it becomes an attractive thing, is the idea that, you know, you just got to get that paper. Or when you've got the wealth, I think the greediest people are the people who have got shitloads of money. That's why we see a lot of these people with money

wanting to have their taxes cut rather than inject some taxes into the community. I mean, to have their taxes cut rather than inject some taxes into the community. I mean, I'd much rather live in a more pleasant community than sit in my golden tower by myself with riots going on on the street. You know what I mean? I feel like if you make everybody happier, you can still be rich, but you're going to have a nicer garden to walk out into. That's a very good attitude. It's a very good attitude.

I think it's a weird game that people play where it becomes just about getting those points up on the board and they become, the numbers become meaningless. Like you don't sing, you don't think I have $30 million. I can't spend this. This is if I live a normal life, I'm good. They don't think that they think I need 50 million. I need an island. Well, there's that question. How much is enough, babe? You know, how much is enough? And, of course, the more you accumulate, the more your expenses are and the more you want. So it just goes on and on and on and on. There's an amazing Radiolab podcast that's out now about Bernie Madoff.

Oh, there's a show coming out too, right? Yes. Yeah, Robert De Niro is playing Bernie Madoff. With Michelle Pfeiffer. Yes. She's still hot as fuck. She's so hot. She's got to be 80, 90 years old now. she's still hot as fuck she's so hot she's got to be 80, 90 years old now

she is still so beautiful she's so hot it's crazy underutilized actress I'm looking forward to that but sorry I interrupted no worries but it's just

the interview him and you get to hear him talk and the reporter called him in jail and it's a really fascinating way they had to communicate because they're only allowed to communicate's a really fascinating way they had to communicate because they're only allowed to communicate for 15 minutes and then they have to the phone is

disconnected and then they have to wait 15 minutes before they can reconnect so he's doing this yeah that's just the rules of the prison so they're doing the i mean he's in there forever he's never getting out of that fucking cage yeah but it's fascinating when you hear him. He has zero empathy. I mean, none. It's weird. It's weird hearing him talk about these people that he ripped off and finding these like, oh, they're fine. These people, you know, they had money.

It's like, you know, it's no big deal. Like you're listening to the way this guy is sort of rationalized, but he is essentially the poster boy for that greed at all costs because he was just running a Ponzi scheme. He was stealing money from people. It's funny. I was again talking about this with my husband earlier on today because we were talking about what is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat? What is essentially the difference, because I know lots, I have very good friends who are Republicans who I respect enormously. And, you know, they have taught me a lot and they have changed the way I view the world and so on and so forth.

But essentially, I wonder, is it that Democrats are able to utilize their imagination and a Republican is less imaginative? I mean, I don't know. I'm musing out loud. I have no answers. I'm just curious about what drives someone towards the left and what drives someone towards the right. Because it's certainly not that one side is good and one side is bad. One side is really smart and the other side isn't. It's nothing to do with that. So what is it that drives us towards these embattled positions that are right now in America seems so acute. You know, there just seems to be no merging of the two sides. And I'd love to know why.

I wish I knew more about how that all works. I think people are very easily influenced. I think people are very tribal. And I think people, it's very easy to influence someone to get them to adopt a predetermined pattern of thinking. And if that predetermined pattern of thinking is right wing or left wing, if you're around those people and you seek social status by committing to a certain ideology, you get embedded in it, it becomes a part of your thinking, becomes a part of your life. And then that is the pattern that you bore, you dig deep, you dig deep trenches in terms of your psychology. You dig deep trenches in your mind that are unwavering. And whether they're left-wing or right-wing, it becomes very problematic when you have two teams like that.

We were talking about Holland the other day, that Holland has something like 17 different parties, viable parties. Unlike what we have, where we have this one, two, and then we have a few joke parties like the Green Party that no one takes seriously. Libertarians, nobody takes seriously. They never even come close to winning. one or the other. And they, whether it's from upbringing or the community that they're attached to or what have you, or life experiences past positive or negative, they just immediately gravitate towards one or the other. They dig in and then they start talking shit about the left or they start talking shit about the right. And, you know, you got salon.com and you got Fox News and everybody's lobbing bombs at each other. And it's just fucking weird. But why have we not seen any break? I mean, I get that generally speaking, like I understand. And I totally agree with what you're saying, that generally that is what occurs.

But surely on both sides of the fence, you have free thinkers. There must be a few. There's more now than I think there's more now than ever before. But this is a very weird time in terms of Trump and Trump winning because he's sort of engaged the, like, they've sort of, there's a bunch of people that are not necessarily political that are really into being a right winger now. It's almost like online trolls and people that just like to be a part of a team and they just like to fuck with people who they call snowflakes or liberals. It's weird. It's a weird time. I think we're going to fuck with people who they call snowflakes or liberals. It's weird. It's weird time.

I think we're going to get through it. I think it's like the Goldwater Republican days. It's like I think we need to have like bad examples that we need to go well let's not do that again. Yeah. And then collectively the arc of history is long. And the age of the world is infinite. It is.

But America is young as fuck. Yeah. And that's part of the problem. It's this weird new experiment in self-government that's really only been going on for a few hundred years. Yeah. And it's easy to look at a few hundred years as being a long time, but it's really not. No, it's not. Especially you guys in Scotland, you know, you guys have been around forever. We've been around

forever. Fucking Braveheart days and shit. Yeah. But the thing about the free press, that's what worries me as a foreigner living in this country and seeing this sort of stuff that's being spewed about the free press really is worrisome. It's worrisome when it comes to the president himself. That's kind of what I mean. There's only been two presidents in our history

that have actually gone to war with the press, and one of them was Richard Nixon. I mean, this is an unprecedented time that someone disrespects the idea of the press and and news. This is where people get... And ideas being challenged. Like I get it. Like nobody likes getting challenged. It doesn't feel very nice when somebody goes no I disagree with you. It doesn't feel good but you know aren't we all at the point where we're willing to at least listen and start like... We should. Yeah, but it's very scary, I think. Well, he's a dictator in a lot of ways.

I mean, and then he was challenged the other day by CBS. They were asking him about Obama wiretapping. The lie that he made up. Yeah, and he wound up, well, see, there's some, you could say it was a lie, but there's some validity to it, where there was some surveillance being going on, but whether or not it was Obama, or whether or not it's standard surveillance that the NSA has been perpetrating for a long time. Which I think was the case.

I think it's more that. I think fucking everybody's getting spied on. I mean, I think that's really what's going on. So you can say, I'm being spied on. I think you'd be correct. But you say Obama spying on me. I don't think that's correct. He walked out the interview.

Yeah, he walked out when they were challenging. He doesn't like being challenged. He doesn't like anybody questioning him and he feels like he could just leave. He doesn't feel like the press is important. He feels like he's got a strong enough base and all these people that will just yell out fake news. I mean, he's made this sort of meme. When he pointed at that CNN guy and said, you are fake news. I mean, he's made this sort of meme. When he pointed at that CNN guy and said, you are fake news.

Like, what? This is a scary time. Yeah, very disturbing. But I think in some ways that's good. And this is why. I think we need, as human beings, need resistance. We need something to push back against. And it helps us.

It helps us sort of reinvigorate our Collective ideas and re reinvigorate knowing now that this is possible We didn't know that this was possible before no we didn't think he was gonna win if we did if he did win Jesus Christ We didn't think he was gonna win like this And then think that he was gonna sort of dismantle the EPA and do all these different things He's doing kick away the fucking satellites they use for climate. I mean, there's a lot of shit that's going on that's very problematic to science and scientists, and they're being really frustrated right now.

So now they know. Now they know, and now we know. No, I totally agree, and I think the U.S. press, since September 11th, have actually, the standard of journalism has been sliding now for a decade, if not longer. And now all of a sudden journalists are being held to account and they are having to step up their game again, which I think is great for the American people to enjoy good journalism. Yeah, I think you're right. Yay! So we managed to take something relatively sad. You know what I i think it is i think it's the same thing that's kind of happened to the music business i think journalism experienced this new wave of media and information

being distributed by anyone whether it's uh breitbart or anyone who just creates a blog and just starts pumping out their agenda h Huffington Post, Salon.com, whatever it is. They become these aggregates for news that they feel fits with their agenda, the agenda that they would like to promote and push. And whether it's full left-wing like Salon.com or full right-wing like Breitbart, both of them are problematic. And that's where the New York Times has to really step up. Which I think they're trying to. I think you're right.

Yeah. Yeah, I think they are. Yeah, I mean, it's weird times, but weird times create great art. No, it does. Well, it creates good people, too. It's good for... I think what you were saying earlier on is really true. Like, when people are tested, that's when you see them at their best. Yes. Pressure creates diamonds. Pressure creates diamonds. I'm stealing that from you.

It's not mine. Steal it. I don't know. It's old term I believe. It's good. Yeah it's good. It's real. It's legit.

We're getting profound in here aren't we? Yeah we girded our loins and shit. We sure did. A lot of things happened. Listen you got to get

out of here. So do you. Yes I do. So where can people find out tour information? And garbage is your Twitter handle. And do you handle all that? Do you do that stuff? For the most part, I do.

I didn't like the feeling of somebody pretending to be me and putting words into my mouth. So generally speaking, I do take care of the social media. That's awesome. Well, it's a bit of a pain. I farm mine out to China now. I might farm mine out to Scotland. What I do is I say just read my tweets and whatever I say like that, just say that. Use woke.

Say woke a lot. Say woke and lit. Use swears a lot. That was lit. Yeah. Lit? I don't use that one. Good.

I was lit. Thank God. It was lit. Drives me up the fucking wall. It was lit. Yeah. How about it was fire? I haven't heard that one. Oh, it was so fire. But that's old school. That's Viking terminology. Is it? Yeah was lit. Yeah. How about it was fire? I haven't heard that one.

But that's old school. That's Viking terminology. Is it? Yeah. Ooh. Yeah. You said it like you owned it. It's my people.

I do own it. I'm 100% Viking. Don't fuck with me, Joe Rogan. 100%? 100%. 100%. I've had a DNA test. Really?

That was run by my city of Edinburgh. I'm super impressed. Fine. Thank you. I'm sitting here trying to impress you. Ah, you win. There it is. Rage and Rapture Tour. Blondie and Garbage. Super impressed. Thank you. I'm sitting here trying to impress you. You win. There it is.

Rage and Rapture Tour. Blondie and Garbage. It looks exciting. It looks exciting as fuck. And all this is available online. Where can they get all the details? I'm ashamed to say I would imagine it's on our website, which is garbage.com. People can find it. People can find it. If you can't find it, just Google it. Don't garbage.com. People can find it. People can find it.

If you can't find it, just Google it. Don't show up. You can't find it. If you can't find it, you're a moron. August 11th, that's my birthday. You're going to be in Austin, Texas. Hold on. What did you say?

August 11th, that's my birthday. You're going to be in Austin, Texas. Yeah. I'm an August baby as well. Oh, shut the fuck up. Oh, shut the fuck up. I am. Oh, my God.

Crazy. So hold on. What sign are you? A Leo? I'm a Leo. You're such a Leo as well. Oh, you're such a Leo. No, I'm not. I'm a Virgo. I am. Oh my God, crazy. So hold on, what sign are you? A Leo? I'm a Leo. You're such a Leo as well. Oh, you're such a Leo. No, I'm not.

I'm a Virgo. Fuck you. Shirley Manson, you're awesome. I really, really enjoy talking to you. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you for being on. All right, fuckers.

We'll be back soon. Bye. Oh, I'm sweaty in here. My ears are open.