The Rich Roll Podcast - Maggie Baird Is The World’s Coolest Mom

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

Parenting typical teenagers is no easy feat. Today’s guest parented two as they skyrocketed to bewildering fame—and kept them astonishingly grounded in the process. Today we explore the uncommon reality that is Maggie Baird’s life. A veteran actor, improv performer, and writer with a long list of screen credits to her name, Maggie is also a long-time vegan, animal rights and environmental activist, and the founder of Support And Feed, a non-profit that partners with restaurants across America (and soon the world) to provide plant-based meals to those experiencing food insecurity. She’s also the coolest mom ever to two of the biggest musicians in the world—7x Grammy Award winning 19-year old Billie Eilish and Billie’s equally talented brother and counterpart, 8x Grammy winning 23-year old brother Finneas O’Connell—all portrayed alongside Maggie’s husband Patrick O’Connell in the recent Apple TV+ documentary The World’s A Little Blurry. Although Billie serves as the film’s primary protagonist, the documentary paints a technicolor family journey portrait. The story behind the story of this uniquely gifted foursome is both surprising and deeply heartwarming—a narrative exploration of parents striving to consciously guide their talented kids through their trepidatious and vertigo-inducing ascent to superstardom. It goes without saying that this is a conversation about parenting, how to raise conscious kids, and the many benefits of homeschooling and unschooling. It’s about what happens when your children become unbelievably famous at a young age, seemingly overnight. And it’s about organizing your life and your family’s priorities around what is most important. It’s also about the challenges of pursuing an artistic life. The importance of finding your cause. And it’s a dive into Maggie’s particular cause, which is to solve food insecurity and make the music industry, concerts, and touring, more ecologically sustainable. To read more click here. You can also watch listen to our exchange on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This one is chock-full of sage advice across many topics, and there’s something for everyone to learn from Maggie’s refreshing perspective. Wise and charming, Maggie is the mom we all wish we had. Enjoy! Peace + Plants, Rich

One thing about parenting that I think people should talk about more, that a lot of times by the time kids get to their teen years, parents maybe feel like, oh, this is a good time for me to go back to college or get a second job or do my own thing. But I think it's really important to know in those years, your kids need you more than ever, and you just have to be careful to not think you're done.

Even if they're taking all of it out on you and you're like, oh my gosh, I really want to run away, but I have to stay here because I actually have to protect you. That's Maggie Baird, and this is The Retroll Podcast. Anybody who's a parent knows that it's just hard. It's really hard, even under the best circumstances. But imagine parenting two kids, two musical homeschooled kids, and trying to keep them grounded as they skyrocket to just insane fame. I certainly can't imagine that, but this week's guest can because she has lived it and continues to live it. Her name is Maggie Baird. And if that name sounds familiar, it could be because she's an actor, a performer with a long list of credits to her name, but more likely it's because she's like the coolest mom ever to two of the biggest musicians

in the world. Billie Eilish. Yes, that Billie Eilish, the seven-time Grammy award-winning 19-year-old Billie Eilish, and Billie's equally talented eight-time Grammy-winning 23-year-old brother, Phineas, all of whom are portrayed alongside Maggie's husband, Patrick O'Connell, in the recent and quite amazing documentary on Apple TV Plus called The World's a Little Blurry, which is, to my mind at least, this beautiful story about coming of age, but also it's a documentary about family. It's about parenting and the challenges faced by a mom and a dad just trying to consciously guide their talented kids through this vertigo-inducing ascent to superstardom. Maggie's also a longtime vegan. She's an animal rights and environmental activist. And she's also the founder of something

called Support and Feed, which is an incredible and relatively new nonprofit that partners with restaurants across America and soon the world to provide plant-based meals to those experiencing food insecurity. We're going to dig in in a sec, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to

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I really do. And they have treatment options for you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Maggie Baird. So this is a conversation about activism. It's about solving food insecurity, the growth of the plant-based movement, and working to make the music industry, touring, more sustainable.

It's about the challenges of pursuing an artistic life. It's about parenting, how to raise conscious kids and the benefits of homeschooling and unschooling. It's also about what happens when your kids, not suddenly, but fairly quickly become insanely famous at a young age. And it's about organizing your life and your family's priorities around what is most important.

If you haven't caught it yet, please make a point of checking out the documentary about Maggie's family. It's called, The World's a Little Blurry. You can find it on Apple TV+. I absolutely loved it. I've watched it a couple times and I love this conversation. So, Terry, no absolutely loved it. I've watched it a couple of times and I love this conversation. So Terry, no longer shall I.

Please enjoy my conversation with the awesome Maggie Bear. So nice to meet you. So nice to meet you. Thank you for coming out here. I'm actually surprised we haven't met previously in the kind of extended vegan mafia universe that we sort of occupy. We've got lots of mutual friends in common.

I tried to get Toby Morse out today to join us. He wanted to, but he had band practice. He texted me a few times. So yeah, he sends his love. And also John Lewis, who I know you're close with. He's a good friend. A lot of these people, to be honest, I've only met this year through the incredible Jeanette.

And although I've been like a lifelong, almost vegetarian and vegan, I just wasn't that well versed in the larger community. The ecosystem of Los Angeles veganism. Yeah, I was busy doing other things, kind of some in sad ways, kind of being a solo person in that. So it's been really fun for me to connect with that world.

It's a tight knit, small community, but very mutually supportive. I wish I had found it sooner. I really didn't. John just premiered the new movie, "'They're Trying to Kill Us at Tribeca." You've seen it. Yeah, you're involved in some capacity. I don't know.

Billy is an honorary executive producer. I didn't know if that was public. I think I'm on a producer thing. I think it is, yeah. Is it? Cool. Yeah, it came out with the Tribeca thing. Yeah, it's gonna be great when people see it. I can't wait for people to see it.

It's so important. It's just, it's very eyeopening. It deals with the issue of food poverty and the inequalities with respect to how we're feeding the population, food deserts and how that disproportionately impacts people's health in lower economic strata, especially in urban areas, which dovetails pretty nicely with support and feed

and everything that you're doing right now. Yeah, it's kind of right up our alley. John came out and he did film a little bit of what we were doing. I think that's in the movie. Yeah, it's right in line with what we're trying to do. Right, so explain to people what it is. So Support and Feed started at the beginning

of the COVID crisis, really as a response to the COVID crisis, you know, that we realized that I was on tour with Billie. A lot of what I do with Billie, I do a lot of things, but a lot of the things I do are centered around helping her, everything she does be sustainable and green, socially conscious and everything else. So we were on tour. We had a very green tour.

We had a company called Reverb with us. We had all vegan catering for everyone. The most amazing catering, by the way. And we had our venue, everything set up, recycling centers for water filling. COVID happened, we came home. It was a bummer on every level. And then we just started talking like, wow, this is going to be so bad for so many people. So many people are going to need food. So many people will be out of work. And all the plant-based restaurants, all that we depend on so much, that we love so much because they help people learn about plant-based restaurants, all that we depend on so much that we love so much because they help people learn

about plant-based food. They're so important. They're so small usually. So we like ordered a bunch of food from Sage actually. The Sage and Echo Park. The Sage and Echo Park, yeah. And we had it delivered to the Midnight Mission. We're like, oh, we could do that, you know?

And then I was like, that's a good idea, but that's not really gonna do that, you know? And then I was like, that's a good idea, but that's not really gonna do it, you know? So overnight, I kind of had this moment in my mind of like, oh, this could be a big thing. This could really do something. You know that feeling when you're like about to step into what you know is gonna be a major project. You're like, do I really wanna do that?

Better get your growth mindset on. Exactly, exactly. You're like, I could just walk do that? Better get your growth mindset on. Exactly, exactly. Like I could just walk right by that idea, you know? But the next morning I made a few calls, those calls connected to me a few more people, including the amazing Jeanette, Rose and Nick, all these incredible people who just jumped right in. Justin, even at Billy's Label.

And within a week we launched a, we had not only launched a website, we were delivering meals. The premise being we would buy plant-based meals from restaurants, so super high quality, delicious nourishing, take them to people experiencing food insecurity through community organizations, helping people meet their need for food that's healthy, also supporting the local community and economy and exposing people to plant-based food,

helping the climate because we know how important it is. That was the idea. And that's what we did. Right. And it was pretty amazing. We had a 100% volunteer operation and still do actually until next month when we finally are going to have some paid employees. And as we did that, now to align more with what John is talking about is, you know, once we stepped into the world of food insecurity, and I'm going to admit I was very naive about it. I just didn't know enough. You step into that world, you realize where your mission can be most effective. In the beginning, we were also feeding frontline workers, which was great because they really needed the help. And they really needed the vegan food.

They were getting inundated with pizzas, et cetera. And when our food would show up, they would be so overjoyed. Oh, that's great to hear. Yeah. Surprising, cause you'd think like, oh, these guys need me. Oh, well, that's what people would say to us. It was a little blow back on that.

Yeah, no, they were so, especially the hospital workers, and I would get messages from other people like, oh, I heard that the best day is when the support and feed meals come. But we did realize that the biggest mission we could address was food insecurities and food apartheids, places where people had lack of access to healthy food. And there's so much hunger, there's so much food insecurity.

So where could we make the biggest impact, help people the most, help the planet the most, help everything associated with plant-based eating? So we really focus on community orgs that serve communities that have lack of access to healthy food. Then those organizations started asking for more information for their community. The people were loving the food. Many people had never had plant-based food. Some of them, frankly, didn't want it in the beginning. So that was part of the mission of like giving them the best food,

like the highest quality delicious food. And they got turned on to it. The lines started getting longer on the days our meals came. And they started asking for information just about the health benefits, the how to make it at home, et cetera. So we really started addressing that. And now we've really pivoted to, not really pivoted, but like transitioned as we move forward out of COVID crisis

to really climate crisis and food justice is really our mission. So on that arc of learning about food injustice and food apartheid, et cetera, what was the, you know, what did you learn that you didn't know going into it? You know, I had a vague knowledge, but it's a really deep subject.

And, you know, it was an incredible year, as we know, the whole George Floyd horrific, you know, the summer, all the protest, you know, it was a learning time. And I was immersing myself in that as well. And learning about the systemic racism in the food system. I mean, I knew a little bit, but to really have at the same time that we were doing support and feed to really be learning about redlining and the lack of even grocery stores in communities and why that exists and why the fact that there was a grocery store and then it closed and there now can't be a grocery store for 15 to

20 years. You know, this was really eye-opening to me. And at the same time, I was actually physically making the deliveries in LA with our other amazing volunteers and going to communities. And, you know, I remembered literally driving to the boys and girls clubs of challengers of the Metro LA for a delivery. And at the same time, listening to an NPR story about how the temperature in that very community would be one to two degrees higher in the summer for the lack of plants and trees, et cetera. So it was all kind of coming at the same time. And I've always been really obsessed with climate change.

I mean, for 35 years ago, I was wearing a shirt that said, "'Stop eating McDonald's, the Amazon rainforest.'" I had stats, 35, this isn't like new. You're not Johnny come lately to this. This is bred into you from the get-go. Yeah. And also I think it's, it's, it's crazy. Like there's a certain idea now that it's like new information. It's like, this is not new. Bono was shouting about this 35 years ago. You know, we knew, we knew what we were headed for. People just didn't want to make a change. The government didn't want to make a change. The, you know, we, we all know about the,

you know, the suppression of information and the, the heavy power that the lobbying industries of the meat and dairy industry have, but we've known this was coming. We have known, and it's really criminal that we've gotten this far, But all that was kind of happening at the same time, it was almost like it was being fed to me. And then at the same time, this crazy thing happened. I was like trying to find a book to listen to, to go to sleep. And I happened to have on my like audible list of books I had gotten on tour, the tipping point, you know? And I was like, oh, that'll probably put me to sleep. But no, it didn't put me to sleep at all. I was like wide awake going, oh my gosh, this is where we are.

And these are the things we could do to help this tip. There's so many things right now happening. So it was all very concurrent for me. Yeah, well, what's powerful about that is just taking that step. I mean, for many of us, if not most of us, the problem just seems overwhelming if you acknowledge it and it feels like we're powerless

to actually do anything, so we just continue to live our lives. But here in the midst of the COVID year, you have this idea, you executed on it with just, like, hey, let's go to this restaurant and get some food to these people. And it's scaled up now into this real thing where you've, I mean, this is happening in like,

we have like four cities right now that are doing this. We have four cities and we're gonna be on tour next year on Billy's tour, she has an eco village with Weaver. We'll be part of the eco village. We'll be meeting people getting in all the cities. We'll be able to do deliveries. So we are scaling up. We have in our five-year plan to be a presence in all 50 states, at least doing some activations.

Because a lot of what we're doing is we're feeding people, but food is part of the step of what we're doing, right? People really need the food. But if we can empower people to know, oh, plant-based food is good, and plant-based food is healthier for me and the planet. I'm gonna ask for plant-based food. A lot of organizations feed people,

they need to be including plant-based food as part of their strategy. If all the organizations that feed people could switch to having at least 50% plant-based meal, that could make a major impact on people's health and the climate. So part of what we're doing is just trying to be a part of that culture of change of like eye opening,

like, oh, this is a thing, I want this, I deserve this. Yeah, that conversation would have been sheer lunacy even 10 years ago. It's crazy how much things have changed. I'm thinking of not just what you're doing, but John's movie that's on the precipice of coming out. I know Jaden Smith has his, I love you truck. He goes down to Skid Row and delivers free plant-based meals

to people there like- I literally talked to Jaden yesterday. Oh, you did? He's the best. He is the best. That kid is incredible. I love him. Yeah, and we were just talking about all the ways,

we could help him, he could help us. What he's doing is amazing. And he has that attitude of like, he just sees a problem and he's like, how do I fix this? How do I do it? What do I throw at this? That guy has no problem getting into action. It's unbelievable what he's capable of manifesting.

He's doing so many things. It's amazing. Yeah, he's really, really special. And the water thing too, which is a big deal when you're on tour and all the plastic bottles and all of that, all the waste, it's crazy, right? Well, that's how it started for me. Like the first tours, you know, when you're touring in the beginning,

I mean, you literally are in a van, you know, you're in a white Sprinter van. Well, at first you're just in the car and you're just hauling it, you know, to San Diego, but then you're in a white Sprinter van, you know at first you're just in a car and you're just hauling it to San Diego, but then you're in a white Sprinter van and you get to a venue. And it was quite shocking to me to go from my little life

where I've been using cloth grocery bags for 35 years and reusable bottles. It's been such a part of my life. And then to go out and be like, what is with this? What is the plastic water bottles? Where's the recycling? Where is the this? And in the beginning, I kind of encountered an attitude of like, that's how it's done. That's how it's done. That's how it's been done. Nothing you can do about it. I was like, I don't think that's true like I think we could do

something about this but yeah it's it's a real I mean it's it's a major switch right now in the touring industry and Reverb which is an incredible company is a lot of that um I got you know I just started asking a lot of questions and I'd ask this and then somebody'd say oh you need to talk to so-and-so and you And actually Chris Martin called me one day and I was like, I was walking around like, Chris Martin's on my phone. I was so excited. That is exciting.

But he was calling me to recommend, cause I'd said who can connect me with somebody and he connected me with Reverb. So that's an organization that creates sustainable solutions for touring. Yeah, sustainable. And they have the Music Climate Revolution starting this year.

All these artists, including Billy Phineas, have signed on to have carbon positive tours, with all the various things you have to put in place to do that. But that's their whole mission is greening touring and advising, like to help advise us on, honestly, like what kind of vinyl? Can we use 100% recycled vinyl?

Can we use this? Can we use that? You know, the trick is there's never a perfect answer and you have to be, you have to kind of weigh stuff. And we don't live in a society right now that's great with that, you know? And you have- Everything's binary. Yeah, and people are super judgmental.

Like it's like, oh, you did this and you didn't do that. It's like, there's subtleties in this and you're trying to make change and it doesn't all happen overnight and it doesn't happen 100%. And I think it's really important that we look at what is happening in a positive way. And I'm trying to say like, there's some reluctance on some people to take any steps for fear that they will be cut down for not being 100% perfect.

If you just adhere to the status quo, nobody says boo. The minute you try to change something for the better, you get criticized for not doing enough or doing it wrongly. And that's not a very encouraging environment. Exactly. For people who might be interested in participating in that positive change.

Exactly. It's like, oh, you're a hypocrite because you did this. It's like, you know, these other people are literally doing nothing. We're really really trying so just to say that but reverb helps us make those decisions you know because it's always a decision like should we make the tour bus biodiesel here's the pros and cons or should we do this which will not be that but it'll you know offset in another way yeah those are the kind of

decisions if you go biodies, then you're opening yourself up to all the criticism about that, but there is no electric truck or bus. And even if there was, then it would be like, well, do you know how they create the electricity for the bus? Like you really can't win. So the only way to move forward

is to make those best decisions and immunize yourself from all the chatter that goes on around it. Was reverb part of the Live Nation decision to go plastic free, like with the water bottles and all of that? Yeah, I mean, I think, I'm really happy to say, I think a lot of some of that has come from Billy. We've been pushing for a long time to have these things

and Live Nation has been very, very responsive. Shout out Michael Rapinoe. Yeah, I mean, they've been really responsive. You know, we went in with a lot of concerns and they've listened. And I mean, some very cool things are happening, you know, even just, you know, on Billy's tour, you know, some of the arenas are actually kind of changing their names

to be away from names that are associated with meat and they're adding vegan substitutes and they've really come a long way. And what's been really cool is that in the beginning, you know, in the beginning it was kind of me being a nudge. I mean, I was annoying. I mean, I'm sure everyone found me very annoying. Oh no, Maggie's on the call.

What's she gonna ask, you know? But it's gone from me going like, you know, what about this? And what about this? And can we do this? To them literally presenting us. They've laid it out. They're like, they are coming to us with,

we found a way to make this sustainable and we found a way to do this. And we know you might be concerned about this. So we've already addressed it. It's massive. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Well, that's the responsible, effective use

of the power that you wield to be in this very privileged position with everything that's the responsible effective use of the power that you wield to be in this very privileged position with everything that's going on to be able to create those kinds of changes in the world. I mean, if you're not gonna do that, then what else are you doing? What else? And also to be honest, the challenges,

listen, the life of my family is great. There's so many perks, but there's challenges to that kind of thing too. And what makes it worth it is you can do some good. It's kind of the only thing to do in life, I think. And my brother always says, Billy and Phineas have a superpower and it always depends on how you use it. And that superpower is having a platform, being able to take action. And a lot of that's not super visible to people.

It doesn't need to be visible. It's what you're doing behind the scenes that that's really changing, but it's also what you actively promote as well. Sure, I wanna talk about the family piece. I'm just obsessed with your family after watching the documentary, which I absolutely loved. As somebody who's been an activist

and feel strongly about so many of these issues that we're talking about, and as this Uber mom who raised their kids with this ethos, how did you, my feeling is that kids go one or two ways with this stuff, either they're on board because they revere their parents and they wanna model their behavior after the example that their parents set. Or, and at some point,

they need to kind of push the envelope and stretch their own limbs a little bit and separate. And they do that by rebelling or doing the opposite of the example that was set to distinguish themselves and their individuality. But it seems like with Billy and Phineas, they're on board with all of these ideas. Like they're as passionate about this stuff as you are.

Yeah, I mean, I think you're absolutely right. Those things can go either way. And I mean, we're lucky. We definitely always talked about these things. They got the message of why always, why. So if you're hearing the reason behind it, people used to say when they were little, like, why don't you let them eat meat?

I was like, well, because I'm responsible at this point for their health and their wellbeing. And that includes their moral and mental health. And when I look back at my life, I regret having ever eaten meat, right? And so at this point, when I believe ethically, morally, for all the reasons we know that it's correct to not eat it, that's what we're gonna do.

Now, when they grow up, they have a right to change and think whatever they want, but they won't look back and regret not having done something. You know what I mean? Like having done it, you can't take that back, but having not done it, you can do it later. So that was kind of the philosophy there.

But then along the way, you talk about why, you know, you talk about why do we do it? And, you know, they hear it and, you know, are they indoctrinated in it? Yes, but you're indoctrinating as opposed to an entire culture that's trying to indoctrinate in a different way, right? So yeah, I think it's just that they learned about it.

I mean, I remember watching a documentary with Billy, a David Attenborough documentary. I mean, it was radical to her, you know, really, really affected her. So it just was kind of part of our family. And I think it was, it got into their mindset. And, you know, is there probably a little bit about like, oh my gosh, what would my mom think?

Yeah, a little bit. But, you know, they have other things that they do that are, you know, not something I would do. I have no tattoos. Right. Yet, yet, Maggie, there's still time. That's what I meant to say. Well, this goes back a long time for you,

as you mentioned, you grew up in Colorado. Your dad was like a hunter and a fisherman. So were you the odd duck out to say, I wanna be vegetarian as a kid? My brothers became vegetarians too. My father fish, we always went fishing. His indoctrination didn't work the same way. My dad was awesome by the way.

And he loved the outdoors. He'd been an asthmatic kid on the East coast, got sent out to the West to go to boarding school cause he would literally die in the East., got sent out to the West to go to boarding school because he would literally die in the East. And he discovered the out of doors and he loved it. He loved fishing. He went hunting every year. And I grew up in Western Colorado. That was a big part of the culture. I loved going fishing with my dad because it meant sitting in a boat outside all day. He threw all the fish back eventually. And he had three kids who didn't

want to eat meat or fish. Isn't that funny? Like not one of us would ever eat a fish ever. And none of us would eat a deer. We all eschewed. I don't think any of us ever ate steak. Like those things, I don't know, something in our DNA, you know, we were kind of made to eat meat, but like the only thing we'd do is, you know, the most burnt kind of unrecognizable. I remember the only time I was ever kind of punished, I sat at a table for many, many hours. I have a very, very clear memory of sitting at a table because I would not eat a bite of venison. So I don't know why we all, my brothers are not vegan,

but they're still vegetarians. Are they still are to this day? They're still vegetarian. They've never eaten meat ever since 13 years. Some weird rogue like a DNA fragment or something that happened along the way. Yeah, I've met other people like that who for no kind of obvious reason from early on,

or like I'm not eating that. And at the time it was really 100% the animal component, it was, I'm not gonna eat an animal. And then of course later it became about the environment. And then very sadly, my mother died of a heart attack at 57 suddenly. And my mother had been in a family where heart disease was very prevalent.

My brothers and I all have genetically extremely high cholesterol. So, the health component definitely came in at that point. I think there is something about growing up in proximity to animals though. So many vegan activists grew up on farms and perhaps something about your dad going out and hunting and being around those large animals

or in a different way from the way you experience them when you just go to the grocery store or the restaurant. For sure, when you see Bambi's mom, dead, you're like, I'm not. Well, it goes two ways. Either you become the hunter and the fishermen and there is a beautiful appreciation for nature and a deeper connection to the food that you're eating.

So, you know, I wanna make sure I say that, but also that sensitivity to the fact that it is a sentient being that didn't exactly sign up for being eaten. Yeah, and interestingly, I would agree with you about the hunting. I mean, a lot of people over my lifetime, I've heard say things like, I would never hunt.

And I'm like, but you would buy it in a package at the grocery store. And to me, if I'm gonna have an opinion, I'd be like, I would respect someone who hunts it more than someone who would never hunt it. Yeah, they're being honest about the equation. And they're doing the terrible dirty work themselves, not expecting someone else to do it.

And I will say that in my father's later life, he died of pulmonary fibrosis 20 years ago. He did not feel good about the hunting. He kind of regretted it. So he came to a different place with it in his older age. Is he still around? He wasn't that old. No, he died at 74.

So he didn't love it. He didn't love looking back at it. So he came somewhere with it too. That's interesting. Yeah. If he'd stuck around a little bit longer, maybe he would have gone in your direction. I think it would be interesting.

And also for his health, here's something kind of interesting. I was a vegetarian for many years. Well, since I was a teenager, but when I became a vegan, it was all the reasons. I learned about the animal agriculture, the dairy and the eggs, and it just became unavoidable. It was like, you can only deny it.

Oh, it's cage-free eggs. Oh, it's this. And then you go, oh, all of that's kind of nonsense, right? So I did it. Massively changed. I had really been developing arthritis in my hands. That went away. Then my family, who was all vegetarian, Patrick, Phineas and Billy,

they came to it separately later. And each of them had a major health change from it. Each different. My husband had had a lifelong problem choking on food. And it was like quite serious. He'd had to have several medical procedures and it was like a daily occurrence. So did Phineas. And when he gave up dairy, it went away. It's crazy. Basically overnight. Turned out is a condition called enosinophilic esophagitis. And at the time, they didn't know what it was,

but subsequently they have discovered it. It's an allergy in your esophagus, primarily today, dairy, eggs, fish. Wow. Yeah, isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's wild. So crazy. He had all his medical stuff. And he first went to the doctor and he was like,

he told the doctor, like, I cured it. And the doctor, of course, didn't believe him. And then, you know, eventually within the next year or two, they discovered it. The signs catches up. Wow, that's wild. Isn't it? So where does the performer emerge? How does that happen in Western Colorado? I don't know.

I looked at the TV at age two and said, that's what I wanna do. Apparently that's what my parents always said. All I ever remember saying was I wanna be an actor. I don't know where I even got the idea. I mean, I grew up in a small town. So yeah, I just always wanted to be an actor. And Lily Tomlin was on Laugh-In.

That looked like the greatest thing in the world. And I loved Kapaloo with Jane Fonda. I just wanted to be an actor. I don't know. I never wavered either. Was there local theater in your town or were you able to apply that trade at an early age or not until college? High school, yeah.

Junior high, high school, the minute there was a play. I remember doing like a drama contest in high school, you know, how you do, which seems so stupid. Like you take your play to the state. I remember before going on just like sobbing and the director was like, what's going on? I was like, well, nobody else really cares about, but this is like my whole life, you know, like it was so serious. So yeah, I did like all the high school plays. Then I went to college to study acting. Sure. And then you ended up in New York at a pretty young age.

Yes, I quit college. You make it on Broadway, Iceman Cometh? Well, I was an understudy in the Iceman Cometh. Me and Stanley Tucci actually were the understudies in the Iceman Cometh, yeah. Yeah, I quit college, moved to New York, went to a Shakespeare company, then lived in New York City, worked in regional theater. That's what you do when you're a, moved to New York, went to a Shakespeare company, then lived in New York City,

worked in regional theater. That's what you do when you're a young actor in New York. You work at Cincinnati Playhouse in Florida and Seattle. And I met my husband working in Alaska. So that was my early years. It's interesting if you pull up your IMDB, I mean, you have a zillion credits. Yeah, if you spread them out over a large time, they look impressive.

Like every TV show from Six Feet Under to LA Law and everything in between West Wing, you're on Friends. Like it's crazy how many shows that you've been on. But I think there is a sort of myth dispelling that we could do. You know, the contrast between looking at all those credits and what the reality of that life is. I mean, you're very much a journeyman actor,

living from gig to gig in a situation where you have very little control over your destiny. Like there's so little control over the arc of your career. It's the worst. It's really the worst. It's a little different for actors now because there's ways to create content more easily. But yeah, I mean, you spread, you know,

it does look impressive on IMDB, but you're like, well, that's like, you know, how many jobs in a year and how much did it actually pay and what was your role? And some of those were really nice roles. I was cut out of more movies than I've ever been seen in. You know, there's that. And yeah, the working class actor is a real... It's much more of a thing than people know. I think LA is

full of working class actors, people who managed to make a living, not a great living. Maybe they supplement that living by teaching or working another job, but they managed to kind of keep their foot in the door. And that's what I was, that's what Patrick was. And you're always one call away from, I remember saying to my dad- That's the crazy thing. It's like pulling the slot machine because it's that, oh, here comes pilot season.

If this one goes, like everything changes. Oh, I did. And it keeps you in. I did two or three network deals. Network is when you're like, you've auditioned, you've auditioned, you've had callbacks. And then they're like, they literally write out your deal. Yeah. So you know what you're gonna make if you get the job,

but you have one more step, which is going to network. And I never even went to network because the two times that are coming to mind, both of those fell apart right before the audition because, oh, so-and-so wants somebody to get it and they don't want you in the room because you might, you know, it was like craziness, crazy. And those are like, you're this close

to like a major change of your life. Yeah. And it's impossible to not like forecast into the future what that life is gonna look like. I have a, in my past life, I was an entertainment lawyer. So I've negotiated pilot deals before. And it is crazy. Like it's literally, okay,

this is what your life is gonna look like for the next seven years. What you're gonna get paid every year. It has to be fully negotiated and signed before the network even has decided whether the show is gonna be a thing. That's true. So that plays into that fantasy

that more often than not is dispelled because those shows end up in the graveyard. The show ends up in the graveyard. You don't get it. You know, something happens. Yeah, it's a very weird world. And it's also very not, listen, there's amazing people who do incredibly well. I don't want to put, you know, take that away.

But there's also incredible talent out there that just never gets a break, never gets the, you know, never gets a chance. The things fall apart. The show closes, you know, all those things happen. And it's not like a merit-based career. Not at all. You know, it's not like, if you do this, this, and this, this will happen. No, not at all. It's really, you know, when my dad was alive, we were talking about the psychology experiment where the pigeon pecks at the door and the pigeon pecks the door. And every time the pigeon pecks, the door

opens, there's food, right? But then if they take the food away, the pigeon stopscks the door, and every time the pigeon pecks, the door opens, there's food, right? But then if they take the food away, the pigeon stops pecking, unless the pecking is random, like the pigeon pecks, sometimes the door opens, the pigeon pecks, sometimes it doesn't. If it's random, and then you take the food away, the pigeon will just keep pecking forever.

And I was talking about that with my dad and he goes like, well, that sounds kind of like your business. I was like, oh my God, we just keep pecking, thinking the door is gonna open. Gotta keep that health insurance going. Well, that's literally been my life for 23 years since I had children, especially just, can I get my health insurance?

Can I get my health insurance? And people in the industry are nice. Like sometimes they know like you desperately need your health insurance. In fact, my role on Friends, which the episode is about Joey needing his health insurance. I got that because the casting director was someone I knew from the Groundlings. And I was like, Tony, I'm gonna lose my health insurance. And he brought me in and I got that because the casting director was someone I knew from the Groundlings.

And I was like, Tony, I'm gonna lose my health insurance. And he brought me in and I got the job. That's wild, very meta. It was actually a health insurance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Groundlings seems like it was fun though. You were there at a golden era of all kinds of interesting people.

The Groundlings was fun. It was- And then you taught there too, yeah. Yeah, I taught there. Yeah, it was fun. You know, one of my best friends still is you taught there too, yeah. Yeah, I taught there. Yeah, it was fun. One of my best friends still is from the Growlings, Amy. Yeah, it was fun.

I came out to LA from a play, I'd been touring in a play and my mother had recently died and I was very sad. And I came out and I saw a show with the Growlings that another friend of mine was in. I was like, oh, that looks like so much fun. Wow, I honestly didn't even know that existed like so much fun. Wow. I didn't, honestly didn't even know that existed. Like I'd always wanted to be like Lily Tomlin on SNL, all that, but I had been in the kind of more serious acting world, you know, the more

traditional acting world. So when I saw that, I was like, oh, that's for me. I want to go do that. So I started taking classes to the growlings. And the thing about that was you just laugh so hard all the time, you know, and teaching the same. I really miss teaching. It's not easy for me to do that now, but I miss teaching because it's just laughing for three hours, you know, teaching improv. You taught Melissa McCarthy.

Well, not that she needed to learn anything. So let's just say she was in my class. In your class. I had her in class for one. That's cool though. I was her basic teacher, her first teacher at the Groundlings, yeah. But that whole class of Melissa's was great.

Everybody in that class was great. I think Tate Taylor went on to be a successful director. I mean, I could name, I don't wanna name people because I will miss somebody and they were all great. Her whole class was great. Fundamentally, I think of you as a teacher in general,

like that's your lane. I think that's where you excel because that shows up throughout your life in all these different ways, like whether it's through some kind of odd job or the way that you raised your kids or the groundlings, like when in doubt, like you find a way to be a teacher in some capacity.

Like it feels like you're always pivoting back to that. Well, it's interesting because my father was a teacher and he was a really beloved teacher. And yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I actually love teaching, you know, and I have kind of found a way to teach anything I know how to do. I will try to teach someone else

because I want them to share in the fun. I mean, I've taught cake decorating and aerial circus and songwriting and ukulele and life skills and drama, kind of anything I know how to do. I've taught a lot of improv obviously, but yeah, I do like teaching, it's true. Right, and sometimes just for survival, like I'll barter you this so I do like teaching, it's true. And sometimes just for survival, like I'll barter you this so I could get this,

I'll teach this class so that my kid can get in when you're trying to scrape by. That's totally, my husband and I did a lot of bartering. So I would teach, I started assistant teaching aerial circus so that my kids and I could do it. And then I started teaching it, and we did a lot of bartering.

My husband like used to do handyman work at the little gym so that Billy could have gymnastics classes. Yeah, it worked out. Bartering is a good system. It's very sweet. Yeah, I fell in love with your husband watching the documentary. I mean, he is like the unsung hero of the movie,

always lurking in the background, taking care of the unsung hero of the movie, always lurking in the background, taking care of the laundry or like in the kitchen, paying bills or putting stuff away. Like, you know, not a lot. He served just always there making sure that everything is a well-oiled machine, you know? Yeah, picking up the dog poop in the background. Yeah, exactly.

Shouting, he makes noises. He always has made noises. He and Billy have a lot in common of like goofy, like strange noises and stuff. And he, he's always doing that in the background. And sometimes like a new person will,

like when Phineas's girlfriend, Claudia came into our lives, we kind of forget about like Patrick's oddities, you know? And then a new person comes over and they're like, what is your dad saying? Like, what's he doing?

He's like shouting in the background. Yeah, he's unusual. I love his mustache too in the movie. Does he still have the mustache? No, that was a rough period. I did not love it, but I've always been like- It was world class. It was, but I've always been like, whatever,

you do what you wanna do. I don't care, like facial hair comes, goes, do what you wanna do, right? I've never been controlling. That mustache got a little old. Yeah. Because we were on tour forever and it just kept getting more and more extreme.

And the problem with something like that is, it's the same currently for, I'm gonna out Danny, Billy's manager for this. He has this beard that has grown and grown and grown through COVID. And we're just like, when is it gonna go? But the more attention you get, like, because you know, when you got a massage

like Patrick had, like everyone talks about it, you know? Everyone comments on it all the time. How can you get rid of that? Like it's a conversation piece. Well, the movie was one of the best things that I've seen over the last year. I just absolutely love it. I've watched it a couple of times.

Going into it, as I suspect, this might be the case for a lot of people. I thought, oh, this will be a documentary about Billy's trajectory. And it of course is that, but it's really this incredible, like layered on top of this coming of age story is this incredible document of a family.

It's really a movie about parenting as much as anything else. And this unit and how they're trying to navigate this crazy, insane skyward trajectory while trying to navigate this crazy, insane skyward trajectory while trying to maintain sanity and remaining grounded in what is most important. Yeah, I think RJ did an amazing job. I think that's definitely how he saw it, you know,

and he did a great job telling that story. They also used a tremendous amount of my footage, which I think is new to documentaries, to really have that kind of immense amount of phone footage, et cetera. And he did a great job of like incorporating like real home events. I think that was kind of his goal

to like have a story of a family for sure. I think he called it Neo Verite. Did he? Yeah, and it's so emblematic of Billy's generation, this generation of people who have their entire, every moment of their entire lives documented. You have this extraordinary archive. And when you wanna make a movie,

like excavating that and creating a narrative out of the entire process of going from A to B is available to you. It's available and also really presents a lot of unique challenges because you have so much footage, and how do you, you could tell so many different stories, and we all know that a documentary filmmaker could make,

he could tell a completely different story and that's a little scary. Yeah, you're putting your trust into this person. You are, and depending on which piece of footage you use, even a couple of things in the movie, like if the context isn't there, that's gonna look really bad, you know? Like there's a couple of things where, you know,

I think they struck a balance in the end, but you know, if you don't show why that's happening, you're gonna look bad for being upset about it. But if you go, oh, these are all the steps that led up to that, and by the time you got to hear this happened, you know what I mean? You can really sway a story.

And I thought he did an amazing job in the end of like pretty much telling the real story. When he came to you and said, I wanna do this, was there some trepidation around that or what was the process of signing on for this? Well, first of all, my other big love is filmmaking and movies. I love movies.

I am obsessed with indie movies. I made a movie, I wrote a movie and I have always loved documentaries and small movies. So I had to have that in my, I knew it needed to be a documentary. Do you know what I mean? Like I didn't really want to be documented, but I knew it was worth documenting. And I was already filming kind of all the time. So I could see myself that it was interesting.

I think I thought in the beginning, like if I had been making a documentary before RJ came into the picture and everything, I probably would have been focusing on the fans because to me, that was an incredible story, right? The life of the fans, the beauty of the fans, the deep relationships. The connection is so profound.

The connection. Between Billy and her fans. Yeah, and so I was really filming that myself. And so when people started saying, what do you think about a documentary? You know, I wasn't like, yeah, I really want our family to be filmed because I didn't. But I was like, yes, it's the kind of thing

that should be a documentary. And then we met RJ and he just was so clearly great to me, you know, and the work he'd already done and the stories he'd already told. So I was pretty down, you know, for that. You know, nobody really likes to have a camera in their face all the time. I certainly don't.

I'm very private, to be honest. Don't really like a lot of people around. I don't know. And so definitely trepidation, but also, okay, I know this is a story we're telling. Well, I got so much out of it, not the least of which is just the power of effective parenting.

So I'm interested in how you came to some sort of parenting philosophy like you and Patrick in this approach to raising these two wonderful, amazing human beings. Well, first of all, I think, thank you. We were older parents, we weren't young. I had always wanted to have kids, super important to me. So I knew that when we had kids that was gonna,

also I'd lost both, I'd lost my mother and Patrick had lost his mother young. And I don't know, I think that changes you. I think that, I mean, I know it changes you, but it gives you a real... You don't go through... Once you lose someone important, you don't go through life taking anything for granted. You know, things can change, you know?

And so I think that informs my parenting right from the start. We desperately wanted, we were so happy to have children. People always say like, oh, it's really gonna change your life. It's like, yeah, I really wanted to change my life. You're ready for that change.

That's what I want. I wanna devote my life to someone else. And then some really key things happened. So we did attachment parenting, you know, that just all spoke to us. You know, we had a family bed, we had our kids in the slings. Both of our kids were super high need kids, you know, high need, you know, if people are parents, they know like they weren't like the kid that sat in a car seat for hours. You know, Phineas would literally, he had sensitivity issues. He was only happy in a sling moving at all

times. So right from the start, we were like, whoa, this baby needs full on. And then Billy was really the same, but different, but both, they were not like really super easy kids. And I, I mean, I wish for their sake, it would have been easier for them. But for me, it made me feel very needed and very involved. And I just kind of threw myself into that. And then you've got to learn a lot when you have high need kids, you know, you've got to learn how to cope with that. And so we took parenting classes.

We went to the, it's now called the Echo Center. It was called the Center for Nonviolent Education and Parenting. That had a massive impact. Nonviolent communication, yeah. One of the greatest things in the world, honestly, to this day, it's informs everything I do. I think about it, I think about the language of it.

I think about strategies and needs and meeting people's needs. And so we went to those parenting classes that had a lot to do with everything we did. And then, you know, a couple of interesting things happen. Patrick saw a show about Hanson and he was like, they were homeschool. That looks fun. You know, he thought that was interesting. Little did he know at the time. Right. Isn't that crazy? Like you have no idea, right, Hanson? You know, there was going to be a musical thing.

And then Columbine happened and I'm from Colorado and Columbine rocked my world. I was shaken by Columbine and planted the seed in my mind of like, maybe not school. You know, like, what's that about? It's not just about, it's about a lot of different things. And it just kind of put me on the track of like homeschooling, then started to learn about that. And then, you know, once you, you kind of step into homeschooling a lot of times for one reason and then end up there for a different.

It's kind of stepped in thinking, well, I love being a mom. I love being with my kids. I don't really want them to be gone all day, right? I bet we could teach what they teach in school in maybe an hour or two, and then we could do something else. But then you get into it and then you start to question the whole system.

Like, wait, why do we do this? Why do they go to school? And what do we get out of it? I'm not knocking having a school system. Obviously, it's super important for a lot of people and it can be an amazing part of society. But when you start to question it, then you look at could we do it differently and how would that look?

And because we had kids that were a little bit different, I didn't really think it was going to be super successful in school. Billy has an auditory processing. You know, she doesn't learn in the same way other people learn. Phineas has, you know, real sensitivity issues, you know. So it just didn't seem like it was gonna be a great fit. And so that kind of set us off on this journey.

And then we found this amazing community. And so that became a set us off on this journey. And then we found this amazing community. And so that became a lot of our journey. Homeschooling can mean a lot of different things depending on who you talk to. And unschooling is a very specific strain of homeschooling. We were talking before the podcast, we unschooled our two younger ones, our older boys had some homeschooling experience

and also some traditional schooling. So I'm steeped in this and I'm a huge fan because we've raised our younger ones in that mode. They both decided they want more formal structure and are in different schools right now. But I'm interested in you speaking a little bit about unschooling and your particular like lens on that. Well, again, there's as many ways to parent as there are.

And there's as many ways to school or homeschool or unschool. And we were talking about earlier that, you know, kids change along the way. And your job is really to give them what they need, right? And so if they need, and they're wanting something that can be satisfied in school, that strategy of going to school.

For us, unschooling was really just following their lead and helping them find what they needed at different times. Now, sometimes they took classes, like group classes. Like we'd get a science teacher for a bunch of kids and they'd go to the park and they'd do cool stuff. Or they'd go to a group class where a parent who was a something physicist would teach something. Sometimes it was that because they wanted that activity or there was really no other way to learn that thing they wanted to learn. And sometimes it was like, Phineas, when he got into music,

we just started going to Grammy Museum all the time they had these cool classes at the Grammy Museum so for us it wasn't like you know the philosophy of unschooling in our family was like you're learning all the time there's never a time when you're not learning it's not like summer vacation is it like we're going to stop learning because we learn all day every day

you can't stop a brain from learning really you know it just, what are you learning and how are you learning it? So you can learn math from cooking, you know, you can learn socialization from going to the symphony, you know, and having to sit still. Both of my kids were in the Los Angeles Children's Chorus, which of course was highly disciplined and structured. They both took dance classes. They took sports classes. They played ultimate Frisbee. They had tons of opportunity, but it just was like a very flexible, what did they need? What did they want? What was missing from, like, for example, what did they need? What did they want? What was missing from like, for example, I, at one point, I think with both kids,

we kind of was like, oh, you don't know geography. You know, like they said something that was clear, like, oh, you don't know what, that's a state, right? And so like- That's the thing that comes up because you think they know certain things and you realize because they're not in a traditional school that they like, oh, wait,

you don't know the months of the year? Like you assume that, you know, and then you feel like a bad parent that they like, oh wait, you don't know the months of the year. Like you assume that, you know, and then you feel like a bad parent, you know, and you have to rush in and like solve that problem. Exactly. But here, you know, so that's exactly that. I was like, well, you know, this wish co-op that I teach drama and songwriting at,

this wonderful teacher, Rebecca, who's a mom, homeschooling mom, but she's an amazing teacher. She teaches this super fun geography class. So in the unschooling world, like we were not so much about like, you have to do this, but it was like, look, there's lots of reasons to take a class or learn something. One, primarily because you're interested in it. You need to know it. And also you don't want to look stupid at a party. So in geography, we got there that way. We're like, look, this is a basic thing that you don't wanna go to a party someday and not know.

So, hey, Rebecca teaches this really fun class, sign me up. They're like, yeah, I wanna know. I wanna take her fun class. So there's a lot of different ways to get there. And everybody always said to us like, don't you think they're gonna have gaps in their education? I was like, absolutely. But I have gaps in my education and I graduated with a 4.0 and went to college and I've got massive gaps

in my education. There is no foolproof way to cover everything. So when you have a gap in your education, if it turns out you need to know that, then you learn that. When do you learn it? When you need to know it? When you realize, oh, I want to go into a career that involves this. Oh, you're going to need to know X, Y, and Z. Okay. Then you want to learn it, right? We wanted them to know how to leave a tip. There were certain things like, you got to know how to learn- Life skills. Life skills. Anything that's going to how to leave a tip. You know, like there were certain things like, you gotta know how to learn- Life skills. Life skills.

Like anything that's gonna come up on a daily level, we wanna cover. And that all great about, you know, everything even there, but you know, most teenagers aren't, you know. Yeah, in addition to the gaps thing, the other big thing is, oh, they're not gonna be socialized because they're not around other kids.

I mean, in our house, there are so many people coming through all the time. Like that's just not a concern at all. And I think focusing on that is to be blind to the huge upside of trying to identify what interests a kid and using that to fuel the learning process. That way they're more deeply engaged

in whatever it is that they're doing. And I think this is particularly important. I mean, obviously you identified having two kids who on some level were gonna be a little bit different, might be square pegs, trying to jam into a round hole in a school. If you sent them to a traditional school, that school might just stamp out

everything that's extraordinary about them through its own indoctrination and just the systemic aspect of what it is to go to like a school. Yeah, and also in our kids' case, when they really were into something, which they frequently were even before it was music. Well, for both of them, it was also music early

and then it came back to music. But to have the kind of time, you know, because it was kind of more like, it was almost as if what in normal school would be an extracurricular activity was their main activities and the other stuff was extracurricular, right? So the thing that they were interested in, obsessed with, was the thing they could do most of the day. And then they'd also do this, or we explain something or we talk about something else. And obviously I think in Billy and Phineas' case,

that made a major difference because they could spend a lot of time doing what they love to do. Yeah, I think I read that you said the rule in the house was they could stay up as late as they wanted to as long as they were doing something creative. Yeah, because you know,

creativity comes to you at weird times. And a lot of times it comes at night, you know? I mean, that's true for every artist I know, you know? And so if you're like, you have to go to bed now, right at the time when their brain is always the most creative, that's not gonna get you very far. Yeah, I have to tell you,

I watched the movie the first time myself, I was very impacted by it. And I brought my two step-sons in to watch it a second time, they're both musicians. They're recording their first album right now out in Highland Park at a studio out there. And they're kind of, they're 26 and 24. And they're sort of tiptoeing on the periphery

of the extended Phoebe Bridgers universe. Oh yeah, we know Phoebe since she was 17. Yeah, I'm sure of that. And they were very excited when Patrick was wearing the Phoebe Bridgers t-shirt in the movie. They were like, that was their favorite part of the whole thing. And they're working with Harrison,

Phoebe's guitar player is playing guitar on their album and helping them out and kind of mentoring them at the same time. Phineas was in like a battle of the bands. He had a band, amazing band called the Slightly's and his band was in a battle of the bands with Phoebe one time. It was like a music competition.

And I think at that time, Phoebe took first and the band took second. And that's when we first saw Phoebe. And she was like 17, I think he was 15. Yeah, it's crazy. It's been cool to watch her just blow up. Yeah. During the COVID year, I mean, nobody made hay. During the COVID year.

You know, this year like she did. Yeah. It was incredible. It was a huge year. But Patrick, you know, Patrick, I mean, we've all been to many of Phoebe's concerts, of course, but Patrick, like she did. Yeah. It was incredible. It was a huge year. But Patrick, you know, Patrick, I mean, we've all been to many of Phoebe's concerts, of course, but Patrick went to even more. Patrick is a real music devotee. Like he listens to,

like he takes his release radar very seriously, you know, and he discovers people. I mean, both Patrick and I take a lot of pride if we've turned our kids on to anybody, you know, good, you know, if they're like Patrick, I think turned Phineas on to Noga Eris, I turned Billy on to Celeste. We are so happy if we made the discovery.

Usually it doesn't work that way. No, they're far, they know so much more than we do. I know, right? But what I was gonna say was, when I got the boys to say, I was like, you gotta watch this movie with me. And I'll tell you why once we're into it. And once Billy comes on screen and starts talking,

it was so unbelievable how similar the way Billy behaves, acts, talks, is to my oldest daughter, who's a couple of years younger than Billy, but it was shocking. I was like, I've never seen another human being behave like this kid of ours, who was also a very demanding child

in a lot of different ways, in an amazing way. Like she's incredible and I can't wait to see what she's gonna create in the world. But I truly thought that she was a one of one. And then I'm watching Billy and I was like, it's unbelievable how similar these kids are. And the boys were like, I can't believe it. I can't believe it.

Which was crazy and kind of a beautiful thing to see. They're unique. I mean, they're unique. Obviously they're similar in their uniqueness. Yeah, I mean, extracting out the musical genius part of it. You know, Mathis is an artist in her own right in a different way, but sorry, go ahead. No, no, I just, it is,

Billie has a really unique, and obviously your daughter too, like ability to be her and she's her strong, her strength, her, it's her strong, her strength, her it's kind of mind blowing. It's a little bit tough to put the guardrails up in the teen years though, or to know where the boundaries are

and where to back off and allow them to be who they are. That's the struggle that we're in right now. I found 13, 14, 15 to be brutal. I mean, brutal. 16, it got a little bit easier, but it's hard because they need you so much, but they don't want you at all. Yeah.

And then they really do want you and you have to be there. When you've got little children, they take your face in their hands and they go, I love you so much, mommy. And then you get to this age where they take your face in their hands and they go, I love you so much, mommy, you know? And then you get to this age where, you know, one moment they are just vicious to you

and the next moment they wanna crawl in your arms and, you know, be a baby, you know, it's really, and so, but it's really a challenge in those years because they need you more than ever. They need you more than ever and They need you more than ever. And it's harder than ever. Yeah, it's harder to show up for them because they're repelling you at the same time.

Absolutely. And I think one thing about parenting that I think people should talk about more that a lot of times by the time kids get to their teen years, parents maybe feel like, oh, this is a good time for me to go back to college or get a second job or do my own thing. People have to do their own thing, whatever. But I think it's really important

to know in those years, your kids need you more than ever. And you just have to be careful to not, you know, to think you're done. You know, even if they're off at school all day long, to think you're done. Even if they're off at school all day long, it's like, I've often thought for the last few years that have to under sketch, of course, Billy's a little bit different with the crazy career, but just in general, you just never know when they're gonna need you.

They might need to talk at 2 a.m. and you've gotta be ready to do it, no matter how tired you are, because you gotta take those moments when they come. Right. And if you're overbooked and you can't make those things happen, they need you a lot.

You got to drop everything and be like, be here now, which is hard. It is. It's been really hard. The relationship between Phineas and Billy is such a beautiful thing. Like the intimacy of that relationship, not just creatively, but just in terms of the friendship

and the trust that they have is something amazing that I can only imagine, you know, you helped cultivate as parents. Well, it's beautiful. It always has been, you know, they've always, you know, they had their few years in there where, you know, they irritated each other, but really from the beginning. And I think that is, to be honest,

that's definitely part of homeschooling, unschooling. As much as my kids had a huge social network and they had tons of friends and activities, they also had many, many, many hours of the day together. And, you know, schools are segregated by age, you know, and you maybe even by school. So you go to this school and they go to this school and they were together, you know, sometimes many times in the same classes. You know, we had calligraphy classes for a while at our house, you know, they were all in there with their friends. And so they definitely had a real bond of just being together. And they just make each other laugh.

I mean, the thing that's the best about... Both of my kids are funny. They're so funny. They're funny in different ways. Phineas is more like a witty stand-up. Billy is more like a... I always thought she was going to be like Jim Carrey, like a groundling.

But they're both really, really funny. And so they, the laughter, you know, you hear it in the beginning of the album, the last album without laughing, that's just them, you know, roaring with laughter at stuff. So that's been, you know, I think I said that in some interview, but it was kind of the currency of the house, which was like music and comedy kind of. I was in the groundlings, I had an attic full of costumes and wigs and they were putting them on,

well, Billy was putting them on. But yeah, they're very, very close and it's a really special, it's lucky. What was the moment where you realized like, oh, this is gonna be a thing? Like, was it with Ocean Eyes or was it before that? Well, back to the conversation about being an actor. We've lived our lives as artists

where there's no clear path and there's no clear reward for talent, right? And so I don't feel like we were overly optimistic, like not negative, but I also never felt like happiness depended on success. You know, I did write a movie and the message of the movie is kind of like the ordinary life is beautiful.

You know, there's beauty in the ordinary life. So I didn't ever imagine, I mean, Phineas's talent for songwriting was so evident, so young. And of course he's four years older than Billy. So we saw that first. And so I definitely, as a songwriter was blown away. And I figured that at the very least he would find his way into being a professional songwriter, you know, because it was undeniable, you know, and I figured, okay, he could write for. He could write for other people. He could write for himself. He could write a musical. Like if the, if the industry didn't acknowledge him.

And then when Billy came up and she had the most beautiful voice from, from the little kid, just the most pleasing, pretty, easy to listen to voice. She was the same as a dancer, just easy to watch, you know? And, but I never, I never, I mean, you know, the kind of voices you see on TV are usually these, you know, big singer or whatever. So no, I really didn't, I didn't ever kind of imagine this. And then when Ocean Eyes kind of took off, but I mean, you know, it's kind of always said like Ocean Eyes,

like it was overnight. Well, overnight they got a thousand plays, right? Which was a big deal at the time, but it wasn't like it was on the radio or something. They wrote it for their dance class or something like that. And then just uploaded it to SoundCloud and overnight it got a thousand, but it was still a minute before it,

it must have gotten picked up by some blogs or something like that. Yeah, by some like KCRW. Yeah, Phineas had written it actually thinking his band would do it. And then he had Billy sing and it was so pretty. And then the dance teacher said, we wanna do a song to something you sing Billy.

Cause she'd uploaded a couple of songs she'd written to SoundCloud. And so it was really just like they put it with a free download link. Hey Fred, the song is on SoundCloud. And then this blog called hilly dilly ran a thing about it i think hilly dilly had seen somebody i don't know i don't know you know somebody talked about it online like how do these things happen how these things happen and you know and it had enough plays and it was just a unique enough time where there wasn't full saturation already. And then just people started

calling, you know, man. And then Phineas had known this manager, Danny, from working on something else that Danny managed to produce her. Phineas had tried to work with, had worked with. And so we were like, Danny, can you help us? You know? And then he was just, but you know, even then people say to me, like, did it blow your mind when Billie was like, you know, at Radio City? I was like, it blew my mind when she was playing the hi-hat down the street. You know what I mean? It all blew my mind. Like, a song on KCRW, that was insane to me, you know?

So everything was kind of miraculous, you know? But looking back, it was a full year of meetings, you know, of Billie and Phineas writing songs and just meeting people, going to meet the Spotify people, going to meet the this people, going to meet labels. There's a lot of meetings in there. But they were creating the whole time. But all of it was amazing. but it's very true for me. You know, to be a month and a half after Ocean Eyes is out, we're in Spotify offices in New York, like sitting there and they're playing their new songs. And I was like, you know, it's like when you're in a world

and there's a door and beyond that door is this whole other world. And suddenly we were beyond that door in this whole other world. And suddenly we were beyond that door in this whole other world. And I hadn't even known there was a door. You know what I mean? Like I didn't know how any of it worked. Once you're on the other side of that,

everything happens really quickly. Yeah, and it's like, and I had to learn so much because she was 13 and then 14. And I had to learn all about them. How does the music industry work? And what are all the names? And what's a sync? And what are all the names and what's a sync and what's a split and what's a- It's so complicated.

I was an entertainment lawyer and people would call me and say, can you do this music deal? I was like, no, I don't understand music at all. Like I understand film and television. I know what the rules are, you know, sync and writing and publishing and- Mechanicals. ASCAP and all this stuff.

I was like, forget it. It's the most confusing business in the world. It is so confusing. And we have this wonderful attorney who for a long time was just helping us out. Like, cause we didn't, cause I had made this movie and it had a lot of music in it. And so he'd kind of given me advice for free.

And so he was so patient with me, just explaining all of it. And it was a steep learning curve for the first couple of years. It was really steep. Which of course puts you in this precarious situation because we all know the trope of the stage parent or the hovering overly involved parent who becomes controlling or the, you know, steps in and says, forget about the managers.

I'm gonna manage you and all of that. This generally goes sideways quickly. And also for the young person, for the talent, right? For every Justin Timberlake, there's a lot of terrible stories about stuff that's gone sideways. So you're suddenly foisted into a situation where you're trying to guide this very young,

talented person and her older brother, do it responsibly and try to keep everything like grounded. Like that's a very difficult situation to be in. Yeah. And I think the movie, sorry to step on your words, but like the movie like does such a good job. That's why I call it a parenting movie. Like you're meeting these obstacles as you come

and doing everything in your power to like make the right decision for your kids. Yeah, it was very stressful to be honest. And I think even before the part where the movie takes off that the couple of years before that, I mean, I would see a friend for coffee and if they were interested, I'd just be like, oh my God, here's my life, I don't know what to do.

And it was highly stressful because yeah, you're responsible for your child, but you're not, I didn't wanna be the manager obviously, but you know. But you wanna be involved, you wanna be there. Nobody's gonna care about the needs of your child like you. They might say they have that best interest at heart, but they don't wanna be involved. You wanna be there. Nobody's gonna care about the needs of your child like you. They might say they have that best interest at heart, but they don't. But they can't, they can't.

They can't because they have another agenda. They have to. And part of that is maybe to benefit your child's career, but you have to help discern like, what is that coming from? What's the reason? Is that a good reason? Is that a valid reason?

And also listen, not everybody's coming into your world. We were lucky. We have amazing people on the team, but again, they weren't coming from the same place of caring about not just her career, but her legacy.

And by that, I mean what you do for the world and how you do it. And that includes like your merch and every single decision you make. And she was also young and making mistakes and being a human being, you know, in the age of Twitter and everywhere else, you know? So the kind of role that I found myself in, which was like, oh, so I'm her mom. Like, who's she gonna get mad at? She can't get mad at everyone else.

The only one she can get mad at kind of is me. So kind of like what we were talking about in general, it's like, they're taking kind of all of it out on you. And you're like, oh my gosh, I really wanna run away, but I have to stay here because I actually have to protect you. I have to kind of still fight for you, even if you don't maybe appreciate it right now.

So it was a lot of learning and a lot of talking and a lot of making sure everybody on the team was great and had the best intentions, had the best moral code and always being watchful of that and learning along the way. And even then things happened that weren't great, even then not with her immediate team, amazing, but it's a big wide world out there and you can't micromanage everything.

So yeah, it was really very challenging. But those early decisions create the foundation for everything that comes later, right? Like, so it's still the same manager, same label. Like it seems like you staff this up or helped make those decisions in an effective and responsible way. Well, we were very lucky with the fact

that Danny Ruckusen and Brandon, the first managers who are still the managers, because we were lucky because we had gotten to know them a little bit through this thing that phineas was doing and they danny had always been super respectful of phineas super and he wasn't his manager he was just dealing with him from someone else he was very nice he was responsible he was a good person and so we came into like immediately we're like can you just be the manager because we already knew he was a good person. And so we came into like, immediately we're like, can you just be the manager? Because we already knew he was a good person. And then they worked so hard. And I think that role,

that manager role is so, so very, very crucial. So we were lucky from there. So then they helped us like meet the right people for all the other things, with us kind of giving our feedback and giving our vibes and vetting things, but that was important. I think young artists, how would you know, but that's very important relationship. Yeah, and layered on top of all of this, I mean, Billie has been very open and forthright about her own mental struggles with depression

and self-harm and body dysmorphia and all of that. So that's all like kind of, you know, on top of this whole thing, which heightens it all for you as a parent. Yeah, and all of that was heightened by what she was doing. I mean, you know, when you're sitting in a hotel room in Germany and for the first time you start reading vicious hate about yourself, that is hard.

And listen, everyone in our family, everyone in our team has gotten it, but nothing like she gets. And because she was so close to her fans, she wanted to have that contact and that access. And at a certain point, you have to push that away. But yeah, when you're parenting someone who's going through the normal teenage things, and then they're in extraordinary circumstances, very- Extraordinary circumstances, like unbelievable circumstances. Yeah, in an extraordinary era where we have no roadmap.

And I imagine you felt that way even with your younger kids, like even the difference between Billy and Phineas as far as social media. Totally different. Totally different. And I mean, I remember hearing Paula Poundstone say, like she doesn't trust any parenting book written before video games.

You know, like there's certain things where like all kind of parenting philosophies, all things kind of got, you couldn't really rely on a book or anything because we're pioneers. Like who's had kids in the era of this to know how it's all gonna turn out? Nobody.

Nobody, yeah, nobody. Yeah, like the kid who can't, you gotta take the phone into the bathroom and you're watching a TV show. It's like, it's constant. Well, Billie lives with the office. I mean, she's been open about it, but she's- What is it about the office

that this generation can't get enough of? It's crazy. It's crazy. You know what, it's familiar. I mean, I think first of all, once you watch it once and you think it's funny, I know she said, I'm not saying anything she hasn't said. Again and again and again, watching it over and over and over again.

But it's familiar. It's like, you don't have to almost, like you can miss a part. You don't have to think too much. Like it's familiar. It's like, you don't have to almost, like you can miss a part. You don't have to think too much. Like, you know, it's like, they're like your friends, you know, and the office, I think, I don't know, groundbreaking, I don't know. It was just a little bit before

we got more politically correct. And I'm not saying anything wrong with politically correct. I'm saying, you know, being more sensitive. We were in a more sensitive society now, which is mostly good, but the office was a little before that. And so I think for young people, it's a chance to like explore and hear things that-

Feels risque. A little bit. That's so funny. The scene in the movie that I'm sure everybody wants to talk to you about is the Justin Bieber scene. Cause it really is this emotional anchor to the whole thing. Like that moment that Billy has with him, that's proceeded by, you know,

her explaining her love affair for Justin over the years and how intense that was, to see that embrace was so powerful because he's perhaps the only person on the planet who could really understand what she's going through. Like it's so cool when that happens. It's so amazing that that's filmed and chronicled in that way.

But the moment for me that I found to be the most interesting was the scene in the backyard where she's essentially blocking her music video and you're sitting at the table as the stand in. And she's like, this is how it's gonna go. And this is what the camera's gonna do. And it's not gonna do this, like those other cheesy things. It's gonna do this. Now mom pick up the water and drink this.

And she's literally making her music video with the camcorder or the phone or whatever it is. And I just thought everybody else just needs to get out of the way. Cause this kid knows exactly what she's doing. She has such a command over her creative voice and such a sense of purpose and direction with where she wants to take it.

And it was so beautiful to see that at such a young age before any of those things manifested, that confidence, that self-assuredness in what it is that she was here to express. That's so nice. I always wish I had like put some makeup on and worn like a little nicer clothes than that. Little did you know.

Cause who knew? That she's gonna be in a documentary. Oh my God, no idea. I think that's through the whole thing. And a lot of times it's me filming too. And then it's like, and then if somebody, I look horrible, but that was really, that was her though.

She was making movies like that from a very early, she made music videos with her friends, bossing her friends around, telling them what to do, assured. You know, she knew what she wanted. She had the, you know what? She took her first steps into a video camera because from the earliest days she wanted that camera. And so I was filming her.

Phineas was there. And she goes, Missy. And she wanted to look at the camera. And she walked into the camera. We got her first steps on camera. But from the earliest days, she wanted that camera in her hand. She wanted to see what was going on. She understood it.

Then she had her friends come over. She filmed everything. And I'll say parenting tip maybe if it's a tip let your kids have the bloody camera i mean now that you know it's a phone but you know we always let our kids like use the real stuff you know like have the real camera have the real tripod have the whatever mess up the house trash it but she was making movies with her friends from from so early i remember coming out one time and we have a little house, you see. I come out in the backyard.

She's put the aerial circus mat on the ground outside the garage. She's put a wedding dress on from a play that I was in, the Heidi Chronicles, that I kept the dress. She's on top of the roof. She's got a camera set up. She's filming herself jump off the roof onto the mat with the camera, like in a wedding dress. She would come up with these crazy ideas early on.

And I think that's like another parenting lesson. Just think how many kids are out there who right now could make art. I mean, they are. Listen, Loxa is full of kids making amazing art. Schools all over the world are making kids not in school. Gymnasts are at their prime at these ages, right? And so are a lot of young artists,

but that was definitely her. She's always like that to this day, she's directing her videos and watching every take. Yeah, she finally gets to make that video with this director. Amazing director by the way, Carla. Yeah, it was amazing, but then she's still like, next time I'm directing.

She's like, I don't need this guy. You know what, he was awesome. He had a very quiet voice though. So she couldn't hear him. So she made them turn the monitor around so she could see it herself. And she had a very clear vision. And then people kind of were like,

if she's gonna have that clear a vision, it's really kind of not even fair to the directors. And so if she's gonna co-direct, it has to be a director who's like, knows going in, like she's gonna have a lot to say. Yeah, but what I extract from that, like in a broader context is, and from a parenting point of view is just the power

of like allowing kids to be kids and just getting out of the way. Like I said earlier, like in that scene where you're being a good sport, you could have been like, well, you might wanna think about this. Or did you think it? No, you don't say any of that. You just let your kid have this exploration.

I don't know about jumping off the roof, but like there's something to be said for just, letting kids be instead of policing them or over scheduling them or putting them in a specific lane and saying, you're gonna be this. Like so much of parenting is just receding into the background in those moments and providing them the space

so that they can indulge their creativity. Yeah, and carrying the stuff, you know, like Finneas said that to somebody recently, you know, you don't need to buy your kid a $3,000 guitar, you know, they don't need that. You know, what can you do? You can help them haul their stuff into the car and haul them stuff out at the band practice or whatever.

I've done that so many times. Right, yeah, it's like you're just hauling it, like making sure they get there, you know? Yeah, it's allowing it and not kind of over pushing it. You know, a lot of people, I think they're like, oh, my kid is interested in this. So the next day they have- Here's my parenting moment.

Yes, my parenting moment. They're gonna have a classical guitar lesson. They're gonna have a $3,000 guitar and they're gonna have this like, yeah, it doesn't have to be that, you know? Cause also that's a lot of pressure for kids. You know, most, you know, this was another parenting thing that was hard, but we parented, we parented in the age, I'm really happy to say, was with the kind of anti-good job philosophy. Do you know that? No.

Okay. Well, there was, oh, I'm not going to remember his name, but there was a great set of essays and things that was about the overdoing of the phrase good job. Right. And I felt fortunate that we were able to hear that philosophy because there's a kind of over praising that happens to kids, you know, like good job carrying your this and good job peeing and good job. It's like, what does that mean? And so it was kind of a philosophy more about like, it's less about what I think about you and it's what about, it's how you, what you think about you. Right. So let's give the example of like, cause I taught aerial circus for a long time. If somebody climbs the aerial silks for the first time, I don't say good job. I'm like, you did it.

You got there. How does it feel? You know, it's more about your accomplishment, right? And when Phineas was a little kid, he was like this kind of precocious drummer. He wanted a drum kit at three and he would drum and he would go crazy and it was great. But then sometimes people would come over

and they're like, you're an amazing drummer. You're the greatest drummer. That's like very counterproductive for kids. Phineas went to a karate class one time. He loved this karate class so much. Like you could see the light in his eyes. He was running around, had this long hair. He loved it.

And then at the end of the class, the teacher goes, all right, at this studio, we have a ritual. We always have a student of the day, and they get the head, you know, whatever the headband is to take home. And my heart sank. I was like, oh, no, oh, no. Phineas is going to be the student of the day.

I know it because he was new. And of course he was, and he got that headband, he got to take it home. It ruined it because all he now cared about was, oh my gosh, I was student of the week. Oh my gosh, I got the headband, I got the this, I got the that. And the pressure. And well, and also like, okay,

I'm gonna be the student of the week again next week. And I'm like, I know you can't be. It becomes performance oriented as opposed to just fun. Performance oriented. And then the next week he also like, okay, I'm gonna be the student of the week again next week. And I'm like, I know you can't be. It becomes performance oriented as opposed to just fun. And then the next week he's like, why wasn't I student of the week this week, mom? I'm like, well, they give it to a different kid every day. Every week he goes, yeah, but I really worked hard and I was the best.

And I was like, but that's not what it's about. And the whole, the reward became the external prize. Before they had the reward, he reward became the external prize. Before they had the reward, he loved the class. And it literally sunk it. And I saw it happening and it was the most visual, physical experience of it. Like the reward has to be the doing. The reward is making the music.

The reward is learning the thing. It's not the prize at the end. The prize can be fun, but it's not the reason. Now take that example and let's play that out in a huge broad context. Billie Eilish sitting at the Grammys, they're about to announce the winner and she's mouthing, like, please don't let it be me.

I mean, is that any different than the Phineas in the karate class? It's kind of the same thing, right? It's kind of the same. Well, it's slightly different because you know, the reason don't let it be me is cause she knows she's gonna get so much hate. It's a weird world we live in.

So it's like, that's gonna come with- But the pressure and the responsibility that comes with that. Yeah, and it's very like, yeah, it's like you love doing it. And when it becomes more about, you know, I mean, even in a way, like, you know, I mean, Phoebe's in kind of a beautiful place. But, you know, you get to this place where now it becomes about record sales. It becomes about this, it becomes about that. And the joy always has to go back to the doing.

It's always about the doing, you know. And we need to keep bringing it back there and keep bringing it back there. And, and I guess that's even what I try to do now is like, are, is Billy, is Billy's team letting her care about the doing, you know, is there enough room for that, you know? And then sometimes there's a lot of pressure that you can't because you've got to fulfill a lot of obligations to a lot of people. And that's part of the game. But if you don't keep coming back to the art

and the making of the art, then what's the point? And again, to your legacy, what can you do with that? What can you give back? I feel like they have a pretty good grip on that though. I mean, for people that are listening or watching who aren't familiar, I mean, this record came out of Phineas's bedroom. That's literally where it was recorded.

The appreciation and the love for the process seems to be pretty intact. Although maybe it's a little, it was there some weird trepidation when Phineas got his own studio, his own house now, and it's not back in the bedroom and you've taken over that room. It had the same vibe

because it was in the basement studio of his house. So it was kind of the same vibe right there. And she just went over there every day. I mean, I was sad because I didn't get to hear it all day, every day, like I did the first album, but I was doing support and feed. So I had a lot of meetings to deal with. So it was okay.

But yeah, I think it kind of for them always has the same vibe, cause it's just them and it's just at his house. They can always go up and make a sandwich. I was listening to the podcast that you did with Tig Notaro and Cheryl Hines. They're so funny. I know, they're great.

And Tig at the end asked you what you would do if Billy came to you and said, I don't wanna do this anymore. Like on this subject of like pressure and it kind of becoming something that betrayed its roots or its origin and that love or that passion for the actual just doing of the thing goes away.

You know, it's all what she wants to do. You know, it's, you know, things change in your life. Sometimes you don't want to do something and then you come back to it. And sometimes you don't want to do that, but you want what it can get you. And you do it because you want what it can get you, whether that's, again, being able to use your platform or whatever it is. So you just got to always make those choices. You just gotta always make those choices. And that was definitely a feeling I had from the beginning of like,

you watch your money, you mind your money, you don't overspend ever. You donate a lot of it and you watch the rest of it because you wanna be able to quit at any moment. Unfortunately, Joni Mitchell said it best, you've got a whole team of people that are on your payroll, right? And you care about them too. So that becomes definitely important.

You know, our crew was mostly laid off last year for the touring crew. You know, we had to care about that and figure ways to help that. And, you know, you do have a lot of people that you're kind of responsible for. But, you know, there's a balance to that. I mean, right now she's got a big tour coming up and she's really, really excited about it. But at some point she doesn't wanna do that, she do something else.

I love that the tour is tied to this mission, making it service oriented and about something more than just Billy and the music. And it just gives me so much hope and optimism for the future when I see Gen Z stepping into this role of activism and taking our world's problem seriously and doing what they can in their own right.

It's such a beautiful thing. Yeah, it is. And I mean, we've kind of, I mean, I was talking to Jayden about this. I mean, we've kind of thrusted on them I was talking to Jayden about this. I mean, we've kind of thrusted on them. They don't really have a choice at this point because it's, you know, we're in a- They've inherited this shit show.

They really have, but they are really stepping up and change is happening really fast. I do think it is a tipping point for a lot of it. And yeah, to be able to go on tour and have all these young people like watching our social media for support and feed and mine and they're watching cause they care about, they care about climate change and,

and food justice and how to be a better person. And they care, they care about all that. And, you know, to be able to go out and have this eco village on tour and resources for, for kids and, and families, it, it's, it is pretty, it's pretty awesome. It's pretty inspiring. And, you know, Billy's been able to support the Fender Play Program and provide a lot of musical instruments to a lot of kids. And, you know, a lot of things

that she has opportunity to do that continue to make it all worth doing. Yeah, it's so powerful. I mean, I'm a child of the 70s and the 80s. Like that was just not part of the equation. If you liked a band or were going to a concert, it was about the opposite of that, if anything. Oh yeah, it was.

I mean, you know, Billy's not alone. I mean, we were so happy that call with Chris Martin, but you know, the Dave Matthews, all these bands kind of laying the way for it, you know, who've been socially active the whole time. But now that it's becoming more like, you know, getting people, all these people signed up for the music climate revolution, you know, so many, it's becoming, I mean, you want it to be mainstream. You want it to be normalized. You want it to be the default, right? That you're gonna be the outsider if you don't do that. If your tour isn't climate positive,

it's gonna be a problem, you know? Yeah, it's really cool. What's the advice that you would give to parents, specifically young parents, like what do you see parents do? I mean, you've done such an incredible job with your kids being conscious in the way that you've raised them to be these amazing beings. I mean, that doesn't happen by accident or happenstance,

like that's very intentional. So when you see other parents out in the world, making mistakes or what comes to mind in terms of how you'd like to see people think about how they're raising their kids? Well, to be empathetic with people now, they have a lot of challenges too because they have a lot of competition with phones and content,

a lot of competition and a lot of challenges in what content kids can see. So I think parents have it extra rough right now. Of course, they also have easier things. I remember going like, why isn't there drive-through pickup at the grocery store? Well, now there is. There were things as a parent that I would have loved to have that now do exist, which I think can take a little pressure off sometimes. But I think the pressure on parents right now is really hard. And I think being able to put down your own devices and be fully present for your kids

is probably the hardest things parents face right now because their work literally is on their phone, you know? So I think that's super important, just giving your kids the time and the space and getting some help. Parenting classes, especially nonviolent communication classes, they're worth it. They're worth it. They'll change every moment of your future life

and they'll get in your kid's DNA. And that's important. When I first heard Phineas model back to me, mom, I think what you're trying to say is that you have a need for ease. And I'm like, trying to say is that you have a need for, you know, ease. And I'm like, what? Like, holy cow, you know, like, cause you want to be better than your parents before. And if you can just keep that in your mind, like I'm gonna try to do, my parents, I love my parents,

but I wanna try to do a little better. And then I'll get that in my kids' DNA and they'll do even better, you know? And that comes from getting resources and help. And especially on that path of nonviolent communication and they'll do even better, you know? And that comes from getting resources and help. And especially on that path of nonviolent communication and empathy, if I had to do over again, I would have taught meditation really young. I tried to teach it too late.

I tried to get that in there a little too late. I would establish that mindfulness and restorative justice, you know, all those, which we did, you know, like we never punished, we never had rewards. There was never a punishment or a never reward, no consequences, you know. The consequence, if anything,

was the natural obvious consequences. If something happened, someone cried, you made, you know, what your action did made that person sad. That hurts. How can we make amends? How can we make it better? And not just say, I'm sorry,

but like, what could we actually do that would help? And what did your action come from? What was the need you were trying to meet with that strategy? And let's talk about that. You know, that's a whole, that's a lot of deep stuff, but it all comes from just getting some support, reaching out. I mean, educating yourself and being curious

about how to effectively parent is so important because left to our own devices, we're going to just repeat whatever our parents did. And when we're not doing that, we're generally parenting in opposition to the way we were parented because we had some need that wasn't met. And so we're like, I'm gonna make sure

that my kid gets that need met. But of course that pendulum's probably swinging too far in the other direction. And then you're just ping-ponging back and forth. But to really have like these tools and understand how to communicate effectively. And listen, I'm like, I'm not the worst, but I'm not the best.

Like I screw up with this all the time because my button will get pushed and then the thing comes out of my mouth and I know that wasn't what I was supposed to say and then I have to fix it and you know. Oh yeah, that's not- It's so messy. It's so messy, but that, you know, I talked to, you know, Dr. Burke Harris,

the surgeon general, it's like, it is messy and you can't do it perfectly, but it's how do you handle it after that, you know? What do you do to repair it or to correct it or to look at what's going on? And, you know, that's kind of the best we can do, you know, but you're right. It's, it's, it's taking the time to really invest in parenting the way you would invest in any other job that you're given to learn all about it, to know you're going to make mistakes, but to be learning and reading and talking to experts, listening to people, the best you can do.

Yeah, and not for nothing. I mean, there's a lot of people out there that can't, they're not gonna be able to unschool or homeschool. They've got multiple jobs and the pressures that come with that. So you're in a unique situation in that regard, but the fact that you shouldered it and did it so beautifully and took it seriously,

because you can also unschool a kid and just be on autopilot and be doing your own thing and the kid is doing nothing. Oh, absolutely. Unschooling should be the opposite from your kid doing nothing, because it's really more like, we were out in the world all the time,

like day in, day out on activities and field trips and projects and then a lot of fun home time too. But yeah, it's not about doing nothing. That's just neglectful parenting. That's like a different thing. Yeah, so how is Phineas doing these days? Phineas is good. He seems by Instagram,

which is not exactly an arbiter of truth, but like he looks like he's living his best life right now. Phineas is, he loves to work. He loves to make music. He loves it. It's his go-to if you're at his house and the conversation lags, he's playing the piano and singing

and he's making his own music, putting out his own album, always working with Billy. And he works with lots of other people, too. He just kind of lives and breathes it. He has this amazing dog and an amazing girlfriend. And, yeah, he's living a nice life. Like, he really, you know, takes his dog for long walks and loves to hike. And it's always one of the things I love about Phineas. I love everything.

And he's very funny, as I said, and he works on himself. You know, he really takes his therapy seriously. And he always tries to, you know, the demons Phineas had as a child, we all have, they're in us. You know, the sensitivity issues, the things that we all have, and we in us, you know, the sensitivity issues, the things that we all have, and we need help, you know, coping with them, learning to cope with them. And, you know, he takes that seriously

and really works on it and tries to, you know, be a better person. And he's very generous and he's very generous with, you know, us and donations and, you know. That's great. He's very funny. It feels like he's really found his thing. Like he can be part of the Billie Eilish mechanism,

but he has so much going on outside of that at the same time. Yeah, he's found a way to really, and like Billie, but in a completely different way, she makes all these, she wants to be very involved in her videos and she has this vision. He's not so interested in that because he's busy,

in this other realm of scoring and producing and creating in a different way. Does that create constraints or time pressures on how the two of them are now collaborating? Well, for sure. I mean, they had this year of writing where that's mostly what they did and then they finished the album. And then of course, then you have to go into pre-album mode.

That's an intense period, you know, and that doesn't leave a lot of time for writing. And I know that, you know, having time together and being able to create is something they miss in these periods, you know. But now we're into also rehearsals, rehearsals for festivals, rehearsals for touring, you know, more for festivals now. So they get to have that time together, but yeah, it's again, it's a balance of like, you know, do you have enough time with the people you love? Yeah.

How do you make that time? And, you know, we still try to have like fam, you know, family dinners or come over for brunch. Still in the same house, everyone's still coming over and hanging out. Yeah. That's pretty great. When does the tour kick off?

February. Oh, so you have a little... Yeah, but we have major... She has major festivals in September and October. Major, like headlining festivals. So you're just basically gonna go from zero to 90 minute headlining sets. And you go to everything. I do,lining sets. And you go to everything.

I do, yeah. You and Patrick go to everything. We do. What is your, like how do you qualify your role now? What does that look like? I think I'm technically her assistant, but, you know, Patrick is on the crew. So he works on the crew and I kind of just am involved

in everything from, you know, talking to her team and helping her day-to-day manager figure out the schedule. You know, like when would be the best time for this for her, for all the things she's trying to do. And just kind of taking an eye on everything and like, how's it going? Is she happy? And is she getting her needs met? Same kind of deal. Who's getting their needs met? Who's not?

How can we help? What's the overall goal? And also like, can you order this from me? Can you pick this up at the store? Can I have a glass of water? Where do you know, how do you know where the line is in terms of your appropriate role though? Because I suspect as she gets older,

then that line's gonna shift and she's gonna sort of separate a little bit more. I got this, I'm good. For sure. I'm always trying to look at the line and I'm always kind of pulling back and then going, did I pull back too far from that? Did she need a little more help with that?

Her team also, to be honest, kind of depends on me. I have a role that, her life is too busy to be making all the decisions that sort of fall on me. You know, I have a role that she, her life is too busy to be making all the decisions that sort of fall to her, you know? So I have her ear at weird times, you know? I can ask her something when no one else would be able to get to her. I can say, hey, I'm thinking you want this for lunch? You know, they're ordering from MyVegan. You want the spicy noodles basil? You know what I mean? Like it's, it's a weird kind of access and shorthand that I have. And of course, as we go along more and more people get certain clues into that. Um, so then I'm like, they don't need me for that. And then I'm like,

ah, maybe they did need me a little for that. Maybe, you know, you yeah. Maybe I could have been helpful in that one. I wasn't at the video for the snake and cause I had a job that day, an acting job. And I was like, she's like fine. And then later she was telling me about one very dangerous part. I was like, she goes, if you would have been there, you would have stopped it.

And I was like, yeah, I should have been there. Snakes and tarantulas and oil. I would have been so mad at you if you stopped it. And she's like, well, I was a director. I could have stopped it. And I was like, yeah, I should have been there. Snakes and tarantulas and oil. I would have been so mad at you if you stopped it. And she's like, well, I was a director. I could have stopped it. Well, there's those things, but then there's also like, I would imagine like helping her navigate

how to communicate with her audience, because no matter what she does, there's gonna be some thing that happens that may or may not require her to say something publicly. We've had a couple rounds of this. There was one the other day. I mean, I would imagine that's really trying. That's the worst, that's the hardest.

That's the hardest. Because there's no perfect answer. Again, we don't live in a society that's super forgiving or is comfortable with anything in the middle. So it's super hard. And she has a big team, but again, you know, I have really her best interest at heart above all else, you know? So that's probably the most challenging, but that's just a challenging world right now. And I don't really know how how to I don't know what we're all supposed

to do about it you know I mean that's a big subject you know what happened to you being human and why do we judge people on the smallest mistake even if they made it or they didn't even make it somebody literally made something up about them you you know? And where do we judge people on their actions and their benefit to society and all the good they're doing, you know? Restorative justice again, you know? What happened to that? Why did it become this?

It's so troubling. Like the instinct is to judge people at their worst moment on their worst day and make that a referendum on who they are as a human being. And we score points by taking people down a peg on social media. It's like a sport to people. And those people are not cognizant

that they're dealing with real lives and that there is impact to this. And so how do we inject this social media ecosystem with some level of humanity and compassion and empathy. Like it's, I don't know how you solve that problem. I don't either. And we've also given people like an incredible power, to be able to say things and create a noise anonymously.

And a few people can suddenly, corral an army of people. And then a thing exists that maybe need not exist. Maybe need not or maybe didn't even and it got changed. And a lot of times I look at even my own hateful comments and I'm like, I look at the account and they have no followers, they have no posts, they're trolls. It's crazy.

And yet they get- But Billie's fans love you. Like if you go on your Instagram, all these like fan accounts for Billie are always like throwing you so much love. Well, I love her fans, but that's my point is that sometimes I think these things get started by people who are not in the fandom at all. In fact, maybe are not even on the progressive side

of society and things get started. We're quite quick on the progressive side to cancel people and hold people very accountable. And maybe the other spectrum isn't very interested in that, but they like to take people down. So you have to be careful, I think. I wish people would start to think like, is this a person we want to destroy?

Or is maybe this even coming from someone who would want to destroy that because they have a different agenda? And that's a really scary time. That's why I say, like you look at the account, you're like, wow, this person isn't even a real person or at least we don't know who they are. So where is that coming from?

I don't know. That's why I keep, I've been thinking lately just more and more about like, we have to make this move toward more compassion and restorative justice and a different way of looking at people's mistakes and flaws and humanity. And that has to be a two way street no matter where you fall on the spectrum.

Yeah, you have to be forgiving and accepting and like in learning, can we learn? It's about how can you learn, right? Can you learn, can you change, can you grow? Do you learn, do you change, do you grow? And you can give that benefit of a doubt to anyone on any side, right? To side, I mean, side is a dangerous word,

but on any philosophical point, can you learn, can you be compassionate, can you grow? And I mean, I think about, you know, I mean, it's nothing new, people who are, this generation is in a unique position. It's crazy, it's crazy. And you being a mom, I mean, your daughter's like 19, with untold millions of people who all have the right

to say whatever they wanna say about her, the protective instinct, like I just, it's like, I wanna hug you. Like I can't imagine how challenging that is. It's hard not to shout and say, and say stuff, you know, and yeah, it's hard. It's really, you can't protect them from this. And it's, I don't know.

I mean, is she the, you know, I mean, I know very talented artists whose careers have been destroyed already. They'll never really have the career they merited because of something stupid they said at 15, on the internet. And maybe it was really actually bad and they actually meant it at the time or something,

but is that worth destroying them forever? We're just in this infantile or adolescent stage with how we're reckoning with social media because it's so unprecedented. I can't imagine, you know, Billy's generation is the first to grow up with this from the get-go. Everybody is gonna have their lives completely documented.

Everybody's saying stupid shit and making mistakes and there's video of it. So is everybody gonna get canceled? I mean, how are we gonna, you know, select the people that are gonna be criticized for these things? Like, I mean, thank God these things didn't exist when I was a kid. Well, that's what everybody says. It's like, it's like an episode of Black Mirror. The whole thing is an episode of Black Mirror. That's what it feels like. It's, it's so extreme, you know, it's so extreme. I don't know. It's infantile. You say like, how do we teach people? You know,

I would go, you know, my niece is a school vice-principal and she's trying to get, you know, nonviolent communication, restorative justice into the schools. I think we have to start teaching from day one, like in our homes, in our schools, you know, mindfulness and compassion and all these things,

but that's a tall order. It's a really tall order to imagine. We have a long way to go. We do. But if you look at the vegan movement and everything that's a tall order. It's a really tall order to imagine. We have a long way to go. We do. But if you look at the vegan movement and everything that's going on, it's crazy. It's exciting. Compared to where it was not that long ago.

Yeah. So 35 years ago, when you were a kid in Western Colorado telling your dad, you didn't wanna eat meat. I was not a kid in 35 years ago. I was like a full on, I'm not, thank you for that. However long ago it was, I don't know. I was a kid so long ago, but yeah, like, can you imagine? I mean, you know, I had years,

I ate a salad and a dry baked potato, you know, and I was happy if there were some kidney beans in the salad bar, you know. Yeah, now I've heard you talk about how you spent years, if not decades, sort of being apologetic, like always overly accommodating to everybody else because you don't wanna ruffle feathers. I know what that feels like.

And I love what you had to say about letting go of that and just being like, why am I apologizing for being who I am? Yeah, and why am I apologize for being who I am who's doing something that is right, is morally better. And making a positive impact. Yeah, making a positive impact.

There's nothing negative about the way I live my life as far as my diet is concerned, right? It's only positive. It's more positive to the climate. It's compassionate toward animals. Why would I apologize for that? Why would I? But I get it.

And I think this is a dilemma for a lot of people who wanna step into this lifestyle because it's so socially fraught and they don't wanna have to be a problem to their friends and their family members. And I think it scares a lot of people off who might wanna take a look at it because they don't wanna be difficult. But I think it's a lot of people off who might wanna take a look at it because they don't wanna be difficult.

But I think it's empowering to let people know, like you don't have to apologize. And we're now in a culture where wherever you go, there are vegan options and people get it. And there are more accepting, if not embracing of the whole thing. And we don't have to be in that mindset anymore. We can like stand in our strength with this way of living.

Yeah, and still be, you know, you're still find yourselves in situations where you have to be, you know, not shouting about it. Yeah, gracious. Because it's just not the time and place. You have to be gracious. You have to be gracious to the kindness of the people around you and their journey.

And you can't be shouting about it every time, but that's different from being apologetic, you know? And that's the change. You know, I used to be invisible about it and like, don't mind me, you know? I'm sitting in the corner with my Tupperware. I brought my own food. I made a whole separate entree

because I knew there would be nothing here for me to eat, you know? And now, you know, you may find yourself still in places where people have a different philosophy, but I deal with my part of it differently. Right, it's not permission to be obnoxious. No, it's definitely, I think that's a beautiful way to say it.

No, you don't get to be obnoxious. You just don't have to be cowering and apologizing. Right, in the meantime, we can all go out and support and feed. Yes. So you're in four cities, right? LA, Washington, where else? New York City and Philly.

And how many restaurants do you have involved? That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that, but many. A lot, yeah. Many in New York and LA. I looked at LA, I mean, it looked like at least a dozen. Yeah, we have a lot.

And also we don't just, it's not just restaurants, we also help provide kind of a pipeline for products. If someone has extra almonds or extra follow your heart cheese or extra something, and we can help get it to people who need it or maybe to a restaurant to make more meals for people. We've done a lot of that as well. And like I say, we're gonna be in many, many cities in 2022

and even in Europe because of the opportunity with this tour, feeding people, meeting people, expanding the mission. And then ultimately all 50 states and bigger presence. The tour is just gonna be like steroids. Yeah, it's such a lucky opportunity. It's such an amazing, and we have the support of everyone on Billy's team

wanted to do it. We had Billy's team volunteering people from Live Nation, people from her record label all year. They've been delivering food with us. That's cool. Isn't that cool? And from an individual perspective, if somebody wants to get involved, they can go to the website, supportandfeed.com, right?

I think it's supportandfeed.org. .org? It will be in July, when we launch our new website. I think I looked, there was both.org and.com up there. That's just the middle ground. We'll be launching, I think July 12th. Got it, do you have your 501? We have a fiscal sponsor

and our 501 application is in. Yeah, it takes a long time. Yeah, we're in that middle ground, but they can make donations that are tax deductible. Right. And yeah, everything, you support, support and feed, you're feeding someone, you're helping provide a nourishing meal.

You're also helping us help people get materials about their own health and the climate, et cetera. Of course, you're supporting the climate just by replacing that meal with a plant-based meal. And does it work like you can pick a restaurant, like I wanna choose this restaurant and donate to that one and then they will provide the food that goes to where? Currently, yes, it does.

How that's not tax deductible though, because legally that would be sort of a money laundering. Right, I got you. So if you direct donation directly to the restaurant, then the restaurant is donating to us, if that makes sense. Or you can just donate to our general fund and you could specify a city. You could say like, I want it to be in LA or Philly

or New York or something. And how do you identify where the meals get delivered? We have this great network of wonderful organizations. And like I said, we've really tried to partner with orgs where we can make an impact for them. They're interested in what we're doing and providing this healthy food for their families. So we're looking at organizations in these areas of food apartheid and that have these community bases. New Earth Life is an amazing organization that has kids

from 13 to 25 instead of incarceration or between incarceration. We've also fed all their families. So it's where we can make the most impact with people who are food insecure, but also really make a larger impact to create systemic change in the community and with what's available to them and what they can reach themselves. The real solution, not the bandaid. Yeah, the bigger solution.

You gotta do something around the release of, they're trying to kill us when that movie comes out. 100%, yeah, I'm waiting for that. We have some great plans for that too with Billy. So yeah, I hope they get great distribution and everyone can see it. Well, it's good talking to you. So nice talking to you.

Yeah. I'm such a huge fan of you and your family and everything that you guys are about. I just love it all. And please consider me a support system for you if you ever need anything and good luck with the tour and everything that you're doing. Thank you so much.

So nice to meet you. I really appreciate the work that you're doing. And it's super inspirational how you've raised your kids and the example that you set and how you lead with service. Thank you. Thank you. I'm so honored to meet you. So if people wanna connect with you,

obviously supportandfeed.org and then Maggie M. Baird on Instagram is that the best place to go? Maggie M. Baird, yeah. And supportandfeed on Instagram as well, right? Supportandfeed on Instagram. I think we have a TikTok too. Oh, you do?

Either now or shortly. All right. I love watching the cooking thing that you did with Toby and his son. They're superstars, they're so much fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, super fun. I would cook anything with them. Come back and talk to me again sometime.

Thank you. Appreciate it, thanks. Thank you so much. Peace plants. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources

related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast,

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Plants. Namaste. Thank you.