The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Mark McGrath AKA Sugar Ray On Long Term Life Strategy, Personal Energy, Fame, The 90's & Celebrity Apprentice

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

#568: Today we're welcoming 90's icon Mark McGrath to the show. Beginning his career as the lead singer of hit band Sugar Ray, Mark has co-hosted EXTRA from 2004 until 2008 and hosted cultural staples such as The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, NBC’s Radio Music Awards, MTV’s Rock N’ Jock, and so many more. Plus, he starred in the first American season of Celebrity Big Brother, coming in 3rd for the season. Today we sat down with Mark McGrath to talk about all things 90's nostalgia, the rock and roll lifestyle, and how he made his marriage work in the world of fame & fortune and after infidelity. He also gets into how fame & work evolves as you get older, how the industry sometimes requires you to “sell your soul”, & how he personally navigated life in the spotlight. He also gets into the details of how human interaction has been slowing in the last 2 decades, how personal branding has helped him remain relevant, and how to stay grounded in the music industry. To connect with Mark McGrath click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE Subscribe to our YouTube channel HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Vroom You can buy a car from Vroom entirely online. So, next time you need to buy a car, just grab your phone, go to Vroom.com, and check out thousands of cars. This episode is brought to you by Sakara Sakara delivers science-backed, plant-rich nutrition programs and wellness essentials right to your door. Their ready-to-eat meals are nutritionally designed to deliver results—from weight management and eased bloat to boosted energy and clearer skin. Go to Sakara.com/skinny or enter code SKINNY at checkout to receive 20% off your first order. This episode is brought to you by Just Thrive These days, stress seems to hit us from every possible angle in any environment at any time, day after day. Enter Just Calm - the breakthrough new stress and mood support formula from Just Thrive.  Go to justthrivehealth.com and use code SKINNY90 at checkout to save 20% on a bottle of Just Calm + Just Thrive Probiotic. This episode is brought to you by Wella Wella Professionals just released its most luxurious hair care line; Ultimate Repair. You can purchase The Ultimate Repair Miracle Hair Rescue at Ulta stores, or go to wella.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog It's never been easier to invest in your dog's health with fresh food. Get 50% off your first box & free shipping by going to thefarmersdog.com/skinny Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her.

I would love to be a gigantic superstar playing stadiums around the world, Him and her. Aha! I would love to be a gigantic superstar playing stadiums around the world, flying private, you know how fun flying private is? I would say I would have adjusted to that. It's easy to go, yeah, I'm really happy I didn't become a gigantic superstar. Like, no, that was the goal, and I had a little taste of it.

It was fun. Does it claw at my soul every day? No, it doesn't. You know, because it was fun, and it was great. I get enough wonderful things. I'll get to jam with the Beach Boys. So I do these really killer things that are above my pay grade and skillset for sure. So I still get a little taste. I play private every now and it's fun. I'm not going to say I wouldn't have wanted that. It's just an interesting set of circumstances that's been bestowed upon me. Here we go, everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential

Him and Her Show. Today we have none other than Sugar Ray himself, Mark McGrath in the studio. I got to say, this is one of my favorite episodes that we've ever done. We have a 90s icon. Wait, scratch that. Not just a 90s icon, an absolute icon in the studio. And we cover so much ground. This was one of the most naturally flowing conversations that we've had in a long time. Mark is so down to earth, so humble, has had such a fascinating career. If you're a millennial like Lauren and I, not to age ourselves too much, you probably grew up on Sugar Ray's music. I mean, this was the soundtrack in middle school and high school. People don't realize how big of a role Sugar Ray played back in those 2000s, 90s days. I mean, this was the soundtrack. This was the

summer jam. Mark does not fail to deliver on this episode. Like I said, one of the most down to earth, humble, exciting people we've had to talk. He's covered so much in his career. He's done so much and he's just still so fucking cool and humble and just fun to talk to. With that, Mr. Sugar Ray himself, Mark McGrath, welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. gary bucey season was was nuts i do remember that it was arguably and it's gone down as like the most dramatic in top 10 reality moments ever when gary bucey and meatloaf got in this like extreme anger shouting match that almost went to blows.

I mean, you've got Meatloaf, a hundred million selling artist, Gary Busey, Academy Award nominated actor, acting like two-year-olds going, where's my paint? And I was in the middle. If you look at some of the video, I'm in the middle trying to block Meatloaf, who's a big dude who played like nose tackle on his football team. And Gary Busey is not small either. And they were just in the middle of this giant fight,

arguing over paint. I'm like, oh my God, were just in the middle of this giant fight arguing over paint. I'm like, oh my God, I'm in the middle of this. And my whole thing going on there was like, I'm not getting involved in the drama. I'm going to lay in the cut, just thought it'd be the nice guy. And here I am trying to referee between these two maniacs, but it was incredible time. I'm glad I did it, but it wasn't easy. Like a celebrity apprentice is hard because you're begging your friends for money and you can't tell them why.

And they can't get a uh it's not tax reduction either that's tough to do because they because they like it's like a chair they'd make it a charity aspect right it's complete charity aspect but they can't know because it's the surprise of a tv show it's a good dude give me 10 grand i can't tell you why and you know it'll be fun you know it'll be good for your brand and like that was tough to do because i'm it's hard for me to beg people for money but anyway getting back to back to Gary, Gary, I love Gary, but after you do the point breakdown dialogue, Hey,

Utah, give me two, you know, after you do all that stuff, then he wears you out. Cause he's like a little kid, which is ironic. Cause I had twins at home.

So he really prepared me for how to like take care of my two year old, my one year, my two month old twins at the time. Right. I've only ever seen Gary Busey one time. That's enough. And I love you, Gary. Yeah yeah in person at dantanas i've never seen someone attack a plate of spaghetti and meatballs like gary bucey did in my life like

it was incredible he demolished this thing like i don't even know how to explain it that's my only interaction with gary bucey that's like literally where the story ends it's a familiar interaction because gary will tear into some food he's gnarly and he like has no problem with like he has he kind of lost his social graces as he got older and he'll just blow his like snot out on the ground he'll uh he'll like i need a coca-cola with ice right now like why we're filming like dude you know what i mean so he just lost some of his social graces a little bit i love the guy i don't get me wrong i don't want to like gang up on him but if you see gary digging into a plate of like lasagna it's not going to be pretty where was gary bucey and i can't remember oh my god the buddy holly story is what he's

really known for that's where he got an academy award nomination now that's pretty severe and to like to like you know portray someone such an icon like buddy holly or with james brown or something like that that can like really be on the precipice of parody. He did an amazing job. He deserved his Academy Award nomination. Later in life, he was in Point Break. Iconic. Yes, yes.

Iconic, Point Break. He's been in a bunch of movies, really. So who else was on Celebrity Apprentice besides you, Gary, and Meatloaf? It was Nene from A Real Housewives of Atlanta. She was a lot of fun. She was a hoot. Latoya Jackson. Okay. John Rich rich who ended up winning the whole thing the country artist we had jose conseco david cassidy who am i missing lisa rena was on it that year as well so a lot of like people who knew how to make good tv that is that's a wildcast so much energy of people all of you

guys have so much energy in different ways yeah we're all spazzes i feel like i need to go i watched it but i feel like i need to go back and watch it again it's kind of a lot of treachery involved in that game a lot of backstabbing and and then have donald trump being sort of the overlord of it all that was a trip too i once i tell people this i spent eight hours in a room with three people once. It was me, Gary Busey, and Donald Trump. And four years later, one of us was president. And that's the scary thing right there. Disgust as you must.

Was he nice? He was a gentleman to me. I'd love to say in retrospect, he was this, he was that. He was super cool. After I was fired, spoiler alert, he had me come to his office and he goes, anytime you need a recommendation or anything, I'm here for so he was a gentleman to me people have had different experiences you know that's all i can say about it okay speaking of iconic i gotta i gotta say dude we've had some weird moments on this show but when dr gadir reached out and said hey you got my friend mark

and he wants to come on the show and i was like who's your friend mark he's like mark mcgrath i was like sugar ray i was like dr gadir are you talking about? And then he put us on text and I wasn't yanking your chain. Like Lauren and I grew up listening to your music. And so it was one of the trippier moments of my life, especially when you said

that you guys have heard the show. I mean, you do this in this small room like this and you kind of, it feels sometimes like it's just all of us in here. And we just don't, we don't get a lot

of that instant feedback. We're like, you know, you you go and play you see all the people and you see all so like for us we kind of see it online but if you paid me a million dollars and said hey mark mcgrath is listening i would there's no way i would have guessed that come on michael no way that to me he was man ears fly out of my mouth man oh my god i've been texting his mom i really i mean well because i mean listen i think like i'm me so i never think that's possible you know and like but people do that to like real rock stars and real platinum artists you know what i mean i i by the grace of god i become one to some people and so it's hard to like rectify that for people that i really admired growing up or songs that

really moved me when i was growing up or were part of my life's landscape. You know, those are my stars. When people tell me that I get real embarrassed and like, and, and like reticent, if you reticent, if you will, I shouldn't try to use big words to like, accept that because it's like, it's so big. I really appreciate what I'm trying to say, Michael. No, no, no. But I mean, we grew up, we were born in 87. Yeah. Right. So like right around the time. And we met when we were 12 too. And we were kind of like dating as kids. And it's like, your music was like, it was, it was there. It was prominent during that time. And like, we also were kind of that last cuss generation in the MTV days. Yes. So like, you know, maybe for the younger people, they kind of forget this, but like, that was also super impactful. And like, that's what we would see before, after school,

all the music videos were huge. And in movies, it was in movies, so many movies. Yeah. I mean, iconic man. Well, the thing about the 90s too you guys as people forget is like we all received entertainment the same way you know there weren't podcasts there wasn't social media there wasn't internet so we'd go home and watch trl what video was coming out we all experienced it in real time and i believe the 90s was the last decade we all did that now whether it was tv was seinfeld at nine o'clock on Thursday and NBC. You remember that? We all shared it.

And then the next morning or wherever you were, we talked about it at school, at the water cooler or wherever. So it was last time we shared things collectively. And I think that's what's going to make the 90s forever so special. And having these moments that you two had, like growing up or maybe finding each other with a little bit of Sugar Ray being the soundtrack to your lives. I mean, that is a special stuff as a songwriter. There's no bigger compliment you can give me. How did you even get into music? Like take us back to when you were little. Have you always been inspired since you were really tiny? I've always loved music. My mom loved music.

She had a bunch of, I'm really going to date myself. She had a bunch of 45s. I don't know if you guys even know what those were. No, what's that? 45s were the singles. Instead of a 33, a big LP, a record album. The tiny, the tiny records. The smaller ones were called 45s. Okay.

She had a million 45s of all the hits and she would listen to them and drink her curvasia at night and just kind of groove. And so that was like my imagery of my mom. And I would listen to her 45s too. And I always loved music. I'm the biggest fan of music you'll ever know in your life. I'm the three-time rock and roll Jeopardy champion for a reason, Lauren. Okay.

So I just love music. Never in a million years did I think I could be part of music. Never in a professional capacity as well. I like to say there's goals you have. Like I want to be a doctor when I get over. And like, these are like realistic goals or there's dreams. You know, when you're three years old, you have dreams, I want to be a doctor when I get over. And like, these are like realistic goals. Or there's dreams. You know, when you're three years old, you have dreams. I want to be an astronaut.

You know, like I've never gotten rid of those three-year-old dreams. I wanted to be an astronaut for about six months. Then I wanted to be the point guard for the LA Lakers. I found out around eighth grade that probably wasn't going to happen. At the same time, David Lee Roth was dropping off a kick drum on MTV. I go, that looks fun. But here's the problem. I can't play an instrument.

I can't write songs and I can't sing. Minor obstacles on my way to be having any success in the music business. So I just had this fantasy dream in the back of my head, which I think we all do. Whether you commit it to yourself or others or not, that's the key right there. In the back of my head, I just always wanted to be around music.

There was a band in our high school called the Tories in Newport Beach, California. Shout out to Corona Marl High School. And they were the cool sort of band at school. They play all the parties. And I figured out by carrying their instruments, I could get into all the parties. And if that was the extent of my musical career, that would have been fine. I never really knew what I wanted to do until I got to college and I got into a band. I went to USC, I majored in communications and that's very broad, you know, especially when I was going there. I looked around, I saw all the football players and

cheerleaders and I go, oh, this is the degree for me. So I just love music, Lauren, to answer your question the most roundabout way. And I found myself just loving music, being gravitated to the easiest things about it, maybe carrying a musician's equipment around and slowly building and building until I got to my band. So was I born with any sort of talent? No, you can argue I still don't have any.

But there was never going to be anything that stopped me from at least trying to pursue my career in music, you know? And so when you say you didn't, I mean, obviously you went on to have a lot of success in music. When you say you didn't have any musical talent, like how did you develop that talent to obviously

one day front a band? Two things happened. Nirvana happened. Okay. In the early nineties, Nirvana just blew up the record industry sideways. Like a punk rock band out of Seattle all of a sudden becomes as big as Led Zeppelin. How did that happen? Well, the record labels didn't know, but they knew they had Marshall amps, Les Paul guitars,

a bass and a drum. And let's sign every band and not miss this again if it happens. So the phenomenon of Nirvana let every major label sign every band. If you could walk and talk and had a Les Paul, you got signed. So we were caught up in that phenomenon. So Atlantic Records gave us a chance. Technology. In the mid nineties, there was a thing called Pro Tools that came along. Pro Tools helps everybody sing. They can tweak your voice to keep you on key and show you where your voice is going to be. So it was a perfect storm of Nirvana happening, letting us get signed to Atlantic Records, and then Pro Tools happening in the tech world, which led us to David Kahn,

who did What I Got by Sublime, that little song you might have heard of. And we just had a song on deck called Fly, and it felt similar to that. And thank God, David Kahn felt the same way. And he led me to water in terms of recording. He said, one day, we're in there. And I'm jumping around, you guys. It's what I do because I'm excited to be here. No, no, no, no.

Keep jumping. We're using Pro Tools now, too, to record this. Well, there you know. See, I told you I was off key. He knows. So I remember I'm about to record Fly i mean i'm in the recording booth there and david khan who was producing the record said to me mark i got some good news and some bad news for you and i go okay david being the irishman that i am what's the bad news he goes the bad news is you can't sing now i'm about

to record fly the only you probably bought florida it's the anomaly on the record it doesn't sound like anything else. And I go, David, call me a pessimist, but what could possibly be the good thing? He goes, I've got this new thing called pro tools. It hasn't come out yet. They're letting me kind of try it out. An artist that I feel that might work on. And I'm going to show you where your voice is.

Does that sound good? And I just got down on my knees and I said, Calgon, take me away, man. Show me the path. And what he did was he showed me where my voice was my voice is my speaking voice it's got a little bit of grit a little bit of tone and thankfully people responded the same way and that little song there he actually finished it up with this he said mark if you listen to me i promise you will sell two million copies of this record i go i'm i'm all yours david that's a big promise we sold two million copies of off that one song flight and he basically gave me the biggest gift

of showing me where my voice was. And subsequently, Michael and Lauren, you know, because we got signed, we were traveling around the world, so you get better at your instruments. You get better at songwriting. And it was just a perfect storm of three things happening that led to our success. I also think, too, that I remember

your album, Art. I remember the way you looked. All the girls went crazy i mean all the girls went crazy but it was like it was i feel like you were like the whole package it was the song it was the art it was you like you really did a good job of branding yourself was there strategy there absolutely my good friend mcg we've been best friends for 45 years he said you know back in the early night is mcg mcjagger no not mcj okay i'm like what but he's a good friend of ours he's kind of like the fifth member of sugar ray if you will i hate

saying that but i don't know how some like really you know articulate how important he was to the success of sugar ray he was the visual component's like, you guys kind of suck. Your music sucks, but there's a visual thing here. Let's make a video. I'm kind of backtracking now. And this is how we got signed to Atlantic records. So there was sort of a video component already within the, uh, the team, if you will, of Sugar Ray. So that was completely thought out, Lauren, you know, looking at little like entities of how we put a video together with little vignettes, as opposed to having one running thread when we thought we'd just make a video of things that looked cool. Hey, let's ice skate in

hockey gear with no shirts on, on, on skating rink. Let's go to the comedy store and, and, and mimic a Iggy Pop video. You know, let's, uh, oh, let's break dance and all just stupid things we thought kind of look cool. We were doing for more like a cool visual as opposed to our running thread. And Lennox like, great, let's make a video, but we want to see what the storyboard is. We have $400,000 for you. We're not just let you make cool things. Luckily they let us just film cool things in that first video because, because the video we made to get assigned has sort of the aesthetic they wanted to see, you know, they liked it.

And so that was built in already. The visual thing, you know, look, Father Time is undefeated. It was a lot of fun. You know, I was skinny back then. I had an unparalleled self-confidence back then in myself, really that was driven by insecurities and fear. Let's be honest, like most of those are,

any confidence level is. And we just, we had been a band for a while. So our chemistry was in point. We kind of knew each other's roles. So a lot of things were in place, Lauren, maybe just subconsciously. But a lot of it was like, okay, we know where the Easter eggs are of this band. Another Easter egg was that you made bleached tips. The thing.

That was you. Frosted tip gang. Michael, did you have them? I never had them, but I had the spike. I should have done them. You should have done them. Everybody did them then. Everyone did them but you. I didn't think I knew. I couldn't figure out how to go get them, but I had this bike. I should have done them. You should have done them. Everybody did them then. Everyone did them but you.

I didn't think I knew. I couldn't figure out how to go get them, I don't think. You made it. Was that strategic or was that just like your look? I feel that was a very like OC thing. That like started in the OC. Well, it became an OC thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because of him. Because we grew up in San Diego, so not far off. San Diego, I mean, we cut our teeth from San Diego all the way up to Malibu in terms of playing on every beach bar up and down there so the aesthetic michael like not that i starred anything but there was my osmosis part of it you know i had a friend was going to beauty school at the time he had no business being in beauty school at the time and i saw a picture of scout wyland playing at the at madison square legend legend from stone temple pilots a huge fan, rest his soul.

And there was this great picture of him in Rolling Stone, and he had a three-piece suit on. It was pinstriped. He was skinny and just, look, he looked like David Bowie, you know, like our generation's David Bowie. And he had a little skunk, like, tip in his hair. It was all black and a little skunk tip. I told my friend the night before we're going to film the fly video,

that's what I want. So he walked in with a case of beer. I'm like, maybe that's not the best idea from a guy in beauty school about to dye my hair. We're about to make a video the next day. Long story short, he put all this like bleach in my hair all over the place. I'm like, dude, I just want it in the front. He goes, we got to do this to get to the front. Don't worry.

I know what I'm doing. He passes out. All the burn stuff is still on my hair. I don't know what I'm doing. I try to wash it out. I blister my hands and all that. It's a big nightmare. And it was just completely ruined.

My hair was straw. It was sticking out all over. Half of it was gone. And there was giant orange spots all over. You can see it in the fly video. That was a complete accident. And I thought everybody was going to be mad at me. I show up to the video. They're like, hey, your hair looks great.

I'm like, oh, my God. It was such a mistake. It was a mistake. So you accidentally started a trend. Yes, absolutely. Anything good that's ever happened to me has been by serendipity and accident, Lauren. That's for sure. Nothing that I ever did. That's crazy. Yeah. How did you, but also that trend is also something like, you know, hammer pants were probably pretty cool for a second, you know? And to be known for that forever is kind of funny. I lean into it now, you know, for a second, I was trying to get away from the stink of the 90s

as, you know, I remember hair metal in the 80s when that kind of went out of vogue. It was like, oh God, I can't believe we ever did that. And we were part of that in the 90s. After that, when bands like Interpol and The Strokes were coming in, it was like, oh my God, I can't believe we ever did that. Listen to Sugar Ray and those bands. So you've got to wait like 10 to 15 years for the stink

of a certain decade to go away. And now we're in it again. I'm going back for the Frosted you're in it well it's either anderson cooper gray or seacrest frosted tip i like the frosted tip like you can guess which one my wife my wife likes better and you know what else it's iconic it's nostalgic but it i everything comes back into trend it's like the new metal resurgence which was right after that now new metal all of a sudden is really popular again you're so right dude all those bands are coming back there's actually a new metal festival so anything old and stinky comes back once again so if you're stuck with a you know a trend that uh if you lean into it while you stick around 20 years it comes back because i miss like we i mean so the

moment i felt i think the first you know i hear my parents listen to rock and roll and stuff like the first thing i heard was Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. Nice. And it just changed my life and then get into all of that metal. But then I think in the 90s, Nirvana, all these people that came along. I think after the 90s, we don't get as much of that anymore. And I miss those times when you actually went and you went to a show and you watched a band. And it's great.

Listen, there's amazing artists out there now now but there's a weird period of time where it like kind of left and now i feel like it's coming back a little bit i think you're right you know i think a lot of had to do with the internet you know like scenes left you remember san diego was a scene for a little bit with cargo records and rocket from the crypt drive like jehu and all these great bands from down there they had the scene seattle had a scene of course new york had a scene in the early 2000s with Interpol, the Strokes, all these cool, the yeah, yeah, yeahs, really cool hip scene. But then everything went to the internet. So the internet is your scene now. Where do you want to find it? You find it there. But it's nice to see people getting a little bit

of retro fever, if you will, and starting their little, whatever it is, might be on your block, but it's cool for people to have their own vibes. And rock and roll is still out there. You just got to go find it now. I remember sitting in the nineties and this is before, you know, you had DVRs and like you would sit there and you would watch TRL and you'd wait for songs to come on and you'd see like what the top 10 were. And that was how you kind of got your music. And I remember, you know, like getting the CD players, one of the ones that wouldn't skip. And if you had one of those, you were, you were a boss. Totally. Totally.

And so like, I just think my appreciation for that stuff is, is different. And it's obviously not this current generation's fault. It's just, we kind of had to wait. You need that to wait on the radio or TRL to like hear one of your hits. We didn't, we couldn't go and just like download it any second. Like it wasn't available at all the time. You either had the CD or you didn't hear it. That's how you discovered music too.

It's like something would pop up on TRL and be holy shit who's that band totally totally and there's a little bit of self-discovery and yet it worked a little bit what was that let me go check it out i mean i remember growing up in the 80s here in southern california i like these shoes called creepers you ever heard of them creepers they have a big thick sole rihanna like reintroduced fenty puma creepers and they have the big thick kind of crepe sole rockabilly guys wear them punk rockers wear their suede they're wear their suede. They're like blue suede. Anyway, there were these really cool shoes

and you only could get them in England or a place called Let It Rock in Melrose. And Let It Rock didn't have mine. And I signed like a coupon and sent it in the mail with a certified check to London to get these cool shoes. They came back six months later.

I bought a pair of these same shoes about a year ago online. They came to my door three days later from London. I just think like, you know how to be cool now. If you want to, the aesthetic, if you want to look a certain way, if you, if Apple calls you, what's your playlist? You know how to curate a playlist.

You might not even listen to, but you might think that others think it's cool. So I think there's one kind of aesthetic now that we all subscribe to that we think is cool and that's fine. That's fine. But it's interesting. There's not as much self-discovery as there used subscribe to that we think is cool. And that's fine. That's fine. But it's interesting. There's not as much self-discovery as there used to be when I was growing up. It's not better.

It's not worse. It's just interesting. Yeah. And you couldn't, I mean, you couldn't find all the same stuff that everybody else could find, right? You kind of had to develop your own thing. When you're performing now, is it so different than when you used to perform because of the cell phone? Do you just look out and it's all cell phones?

You know, there is a lot more cell phones, of course, you know, and I understand that. I'm grateful. I'm grateful for everybody that comes there. I'm absolutely honored that I still get to perform music for a living. I mean, I never thought that 25 years ago when we started. Even when we had a couple of hits, I'm like, well, this is going to go away, and I'm really enjoying this, and bummer.

People can do whatever they want. Once they buy that ticket and come on the show, do your thing. Have some fun. I think also, though, that people that are fans of Sugar Ray, a little older generation. So you see people more, you know, digging the moment as maybe the younger generation. When I see like, say Coachella last weekend, all I saw was a million phones in the air. You know, I go, that's, that's the, how they get down. That's how they do it. You know? So I don't see as much as you would see, obviously like at Post Malone show or something,

but there's certainly enough out there. And say knock yourself out you know how did you manage to stay so grounded and not get into drugs and alcohol like so many of the rock stars do who said I didn't get into drugs who said I know you had fun but I had a good time I think I had a good time listen I joined a band to have fun yeah I was raised in Newport Beach, California. You know what I mean? We got in to go, come on, let's party. It's my noble right. Give me my wares.

So you did get into it. I did. I made mistakes. I became a moron a couple of times. And, you know, there was the precipice of like, which way do you want to go here? I always had great friends and great family. And my wife now has been with me for years, has put up with all my bullshit forever. I've always had people bringing me back.

And also our success happened to me a little later. I was 27 when Fly hit, you know? So it wasn't like if I was 21, I would not be speaking to you right now. So I'd seen a bunch of my friends go up the hill, you know, and some hip hop acts and buy a house. And they were down two years later. So I knew the fragility of being in the music business. So that always kept me on point.

But I certainly made my mistakes. Rock and roll and the music business gives you a long leash to hang yourself. And I was like a junkyard dog on the end of that leash, like frothing, but somehow it always just come back in time. So it's a constant battle, Lauren. And I show up to work and there's two cases of beer, three bottles of Jameson, a couple of things of vodka. And I'm like, come on, drink up. And everybody wants to party. So what you need to do when you get in a

band or you have success in music is you need to find out how you do the road because the road does you, you don't go there and go, I'll show you how to party. I've seen people that come out of the gate and they just, the road just will nullify that. And then the day you figure out it's a business, if you're lucky enough to make it a business. So that's what really separates people. And like, you know, are you going to do this for a living or not? How you can handle the road? It's lonely out there. I know I'm jumping around a lot. What's the hardest part about going on the road? Because I don't think people realize how much work and energy that takes, but obviously we don't, we've never experienced, but I can only travel enough. Yeah. But doing this, but even. Even this show, sometimes we bounce from here to Texas, New York.

It gets a little exhausting, but we're not in front of all these people screaming and singing and playing instruments and getting on a bus and on a plane. Every single different city. It's a lot of energy. The performing is the easy part. It's a cheesy old showbiz adage that I'll use. They pay me to travel, not to perform.

The 90 minutes on stage, that's free. To get me from LA to Manchester, Iowa, to fly there, to get on a plane, to fly at another one, to get on a bus, to take three hours, they're going to pay me for that, especially being away from my family. And I've done it differently as I've gone through stages of my life. When I started in my early 20s, well, mid-20s, I should say, it was like, let's go. I don't even care. Let's get on the road. That's the best part about it. I didn't have any real tentacles, you know, keeping me at home. I was chasing my dream still. The dream was to have some success in the music business.

So it was all about chasing that dream. Once we had a little success, money comes into play. You hopefully buy a house. You do whatever you do. You start having things that kind of have tentacles to keep you at home. So then that push and pull comes between like wanting to stay at home. If you have a girlfriend, if you have a wife, if you have kids. And as I've gotten older, I had kids when I was 42.

So that's a real thing that, you know, to keep me away from them, miss basketball games, miss birthdays. You are going to pay me for that for sure. Again, I'll perform for free. So it's been, it's been, Lauren, it's been kind of an evolving way of checking myself and learning how to do the road after I'm getting older. I'm finally in a really comfortable spot. I travel a lot. It's what I do and I'm grateful for it. But I finally learned this is what I do and this is how I do it. And I can expect a certain amount of income each year,

give or take, you know, as a margin of error, but I know I'm going to be making. And the last, that really just happened in the last five years. When you're raising kids, that's scary. You can go from making say X amount of dollars to one year and then an exponentially large amount the next year. That's kind of scary how to plan going forward. It was all a learning curve. I'm very comfortable where I'm at now. How did you meet your wife? This is funny. We met at the Viper Room. One of the most unlikely stories to have. That's a cool place to meet. It was, but it's very unlikely for, let's say, a relationship that has any legs, if you will. she was the only one with legs hey oh dad joke so i was sitting there like my way to i don't

know about you michael you might have the same game but you guys have been together forever i don't get in the way of your thing i would play the wall at a club i thought i was so cool you're gonna come talk to me so i sat there once at the viper room and i had a box of cranberry in my hand i'll never forget it and i was leaning up against this post, you know, and I was sitting there doing my best Luke Perry, you know, it's 94. I'm going to do my Beverly Hills 90210 reference. So I'm sitting there doing this thing like eyebrow and looking around, doing my thing. And then I guess I was there a while because a couple hours later, I guess she came up to me, Karin came up to me and goes, are you going to hold that post up all night? And I went, oh,

inside I go, you got me. And my first thing I said to her was, I love you. The first thing I said was, I love you. I just, I, I, I love it. First side. I just, she had this energy about her and I go, where are you going? Blah, blah, blah. She goes, well, after this, I'm going to Damiano's. It was old all night pizza spot in Fairfax. What's it called now, honey? You know, John and Vinny's. Oh, it's John and Vinny's. Yeah. John and Vinny's. It was called's called damiano's back in the day and she goes i'm going there after the club closes meet me there i'm like oh my god of course my heart's going whoops girl so i go to damiano's two in the morning my my friends drop me off they don't want any part of it i go back there i don't see her in the main room like oh she bailed on me man bummer and i looked on the side room i go in there and

there she is by herself with like a gigantic meatball sub, a gigantic, large pepperoni pizza. And I go, where are your friends? She goes, I'm by myself. I go, Oh, now I really love you. This girl, like she just was a rail eating a meatball sandwich at a pizza. And I go, now I really love you. And that was it. And you know, we've been together ever since. And it's been rocky and gnarly and we did everything wrong in the first 10 years tons of infidelities really hurt each other stuff we're still rectifying two days we sit and speak and it rears its ugly head every now and then someone's had too much you know it but i just thought i did a show called extra in 2004 oh yeah entertainment

news show the stars are out in hollywood last. Let's take a look. I love Extra. It's a good show. I was really happy to be there. But when I started doing that, my day started being like I had a day job, like a nine to five job, had a commute. I just came off the tour bus. I'm like, what is happening here? And I looked over one day and Karin was still there. I go, are you still here? She's like, yeah, are you still here? I go, do you want to give it a real shot? It's like in 2004, 2005, we said, let's really commit to this. Let's stop like half-assing this relationship. I think it deserves a lot because, you know, the friendship was so important.

You know, I've always loved her forever, forever. But the friendship was like something that that takes you the distance that gets you in that rocking chair when you're 72 and you're holding a hand. You know what I mean? That gets you looking at that sunset. So luckily we gets you in that rocking chair when you're 72 and you're holding a hand you know what i mean that gets you looking at that sunset so luckily we both invested in that but i think extra was the one that really let me settle down and get off the road and really give it a chance you know how do you recover from infidelity well that's very subjective okay because a lot of people and probably you too and wouldn't have gone through or wouldn't wouldn't accepted

what we accepted from each other and i'll tell you thing, it's easy to look like I was the big bad wolf in that. No, she was doing her thing. You know, she's no wallflower. She's no shrinking violet. You know, she's out there, you know, she's, she's had her own bodies in the back of her wake. Believe me. And I say that with love and affection, but that's the only reason why I could never, like it was never, you know, it was never do as I say, not as I do type of situation.

So I think we both hurt each other, but we've also been responsible in building each other back up. They were helping each other though. It was hell getting to where we are. I wouldn't want to be with anybody else at this point. You know what I mean? We kind of got all that out of the way. If you're in the market for a new car,

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or enter code skinny at checkout. That's sakara, S-A-K-A-R-A dot com slash skinny, and you get 20% off your first order. sakara.com slash skinny. Right now, Sakara is offering our listeners a 20% off your first order when they go to sakara.com slash skinny or enter code skinny at checkout. That's sakara, S-A-K-A-R-A dot com slash skinny and you get 20% off your first order. Sakara dot com slash skinny. When you're a rock star and you're in a relationship, is it difficult with like women throwing themselves at you for the wrong reasons no i mean when you're married it's the funny thing is she was expecting you to say something completely different

she knows you well that's why i can joke about it look look i was a moron i was immature i'm still all those things but i was really those things back then and you know we always had understanding like we're out of town out of sight out of mind you know just it was a terrible thing we never really we never really verbalized what this thing was that we have i met her three weeks after i signed her record deal with atlantic records and moved up to los angeles was not looking for a wife never mind a girlfriend you know but we just there was something about our relationship just kept holding us together so yeah i made a lot of, but like she was doing her own thing too. Again, I cannot stress this enough because I know it's easy to go, you were the big rock

star. She was in LA, model, going to run around doing her thing. So it's not recommended. There's no way to like infidelities, cheating. It's the most hurtful thing ever. You never get it out of your soul or your heart. It's always there. And it rears its ugly head every now and then.

If you learn how to deal with it, you can push it back down. If you haven't, it's going to stay there a while. So you're saying that you're dealing with things from years and years and years and years ago still. So it still comes up

even though it's not a thing anymore. Absolutely. Though I won't even verbalize it sometimes. She won't even know it. You know what I mean? It's my own like, you know, trials and tribulations. It's my own demons, if you will.

You know? Sometimes I haven't articulated to her how bad she's hurt me and probably the same way, you know? You know, well, I think that, I think that doesn't just apply to things that happen in relationships. I think we're constantly as humans going through and having demons from our past rear its head, right? Like that happens, I think with everything, right? And we're probably not the best species at verbalizing those kinds of things, right? Like, because people don't like to show their vulnerabilities. Oh,

you're totally right, Michael. Like my parents got divorced when I was 12. It hurt me like more than I've ever even like, even rectified in my soul. 12 is that it's my kids are 12 now. That's why I'm saying so. Like,

I'm like, wow. I'm like, sometimes we fight and stuff. And so then I'm like, Oh my God, I got divorced at 12. I'm manifesting my own behavior and my own experiences. So you just said, Michael, is bullseye, dude. You never forget. You never,

you learn how to, it's almost like with the death or something. You learn how to live with, but you never forget. You know, these things that hurt you tremendously. I'm talking about in the deep recesses of your soul hurt, you know, that you learn to just live with, or you don't learn to live with. Do you think don't ask, don't tell works in any scenario? Does it ever work? I do. It does work. I do.

How does it work? I don't think, I think Lauren, it's a very subjective thing to say that. So if I say don't ask, don't tell, I'm talking about, does it work for me? Yeah. Right. But what I say, it works for you or anybody else listening. Absolutely not. So it works.

You feel like it worked, works for you, but it doesn absolutely not so it works you feel like it worked works for you but it doesn't work for everybody i could see it not working for everybody exactly yeah we had someone come on here that what that did don't ask don't tell to get no they did they did ask right what are you talking about aubrey marcus came on with his significant other i mean if they've been on the show oh yeah well they they had a very very open thing like it was very open it they knew that they were openly having other right right well i think we almost had that in the early like you know we didn't talk or tell or you know there was no like sharing we never said let's have an open relationship and i certainly not involved in that now i do not want that you know i think it's kind of ironic do i say that because i put up with it and like if it

happened now what i put what i i don't know i can't say well i also think i don't i say this it's not good it's not good for the soul it's not good for the family it's a treacherous path to walk down so be prepared for all that that gives and by the way you might think you're cool for a year or two great and something rears its ugly hood. It never goes away. I think the difficulty is even, say, Lauren and I were into that and we were on the same exact page. That might work.

But then you add any third, fourth party. They may say they're cool, but- They're going to mess it up for you, dude. Yeah. I don't think it's too hard. I mean, it's hard enough, as you know, in a marriage to manage one. Managing another person is impossible. Yeah, imagine two of me.

I do all the time. Come on. There were times I knew I was losing her because she'd, like, have another guy. Like, I'd go, are you busy? Yeah. I'm like, what, you're busy? And so, like, I'd have woman that's like kind of puts her foot down what to a rock star in a way i'm sure the reason that you were attracted to her is

because she didn't let you walk all over absolutely absolutely that had probably had a big thing to do with it if she was available for you all the time i'm just this, this is a hunch. No. I think you would have got bored. You're so correct. And I've always been attracted to independent women. Always been. And it's the most attractive. You want to know the most attractive quality in a female for me? Okay. And for others and friends of mine, independence, having your own thing, whatever that is, and being passionate about anything. I go feed people in downtown LA. I croquet. Whatever your passion is, be something that isn't me or that you're significant other. You know,

I don't want to specifically lay it to me, but like, that's why I was so attracted to her. She's like, you can't hurt me. Anything you do to me, I'm going to do to you.

You know what I mean? It was like, and it was like, it's like gangster power hurts. You know what I mean? I will say this, Lauren, it's like,

this was behavior earlier in our relationship. And you guys, I've listened to this podcast enough. You know, you guys don't kid glove anything here. And if you're know me in our relationship that's that's all part of it it's a huge part of it i'm happy to say we're out of that world now like i'm not saying hey you want to go pick up a chick tonight at the bar or do i mean that's not happening that's what by the way

that was never part of our get down we were never swingers that was never i have another question for you in another lane he's blue by the swingers name michael we can stay on the swingers that was never i have another question for you in another lane you just blew by the swingers thing michael we can stay on the swingers please get off so Taylor's available if you start having success at 27 which to your point is like i guess maybe later for some musicians but you are also on this weird cusp of time where I feel like if you made it in that era, it was almost like from a fame standpoint, from a notoriety standpoint, from people actually like being aware of who you are standpoint. To me, it felt like it was almost, it can become like an overnight thing where all of a sudden you have national and international presence if you get put on the right platform. And I wonder how you manage that

being maybe lesser known to all of a sudden being on a national international stage quickly. Because when I was talking about TRL earlier, MTV, once people saw that, everybody knew and everybody talked about it. But sometimes if you didn't have that, you just were unknown. Right now, it's like what Lauren and I do. It's been a very slow, slow, gradual build. And so you kind of, you take it in little kind of spoonfuls where with you, I feel like it's just like, boom, all of a sudden. And you guys ask the most insightful questions. You always do. I was listening to Barbara's podcast the other day. I had questions in my head coming up and you guys both hit them. You guys, that's why your podcast is so extremely successful. You guys know how to get to the

court, ask questions. That's such an incredibly astute question, Michael, because I could walk into the Beverly Center on a Friday, okay? And that Monday, I couldn't walk into the Beverly Center. It was literally overnight, especially in the world where video was such a huge component of what we did. The only way you can prepare for fame is by going through it. And whatever characteristics whatever building blocks you have that made up the good stuff and the bad stuff is how you're

going to handle that there is no textbook to go this is how you handle it because everything is so subjective in that world so you have to go through it to handle it it's something i always yearn for i wanted that i wasn't a guy that wanted just want my art out there and i want to be back in the cut nobody know i wanted it all you know i wanted all that so i was enjoying it all because i also know how quickly you'd go away you know you've seen people vanilla ice was the biggest superstar in the world in 91 there was none bigger international a year later you know you couldn't couldn't get a table at california chicken cafe you know i'm saying so and i love you ice you know we do a lot of shows together.

And he's talked about this. So it was very hard and strange to go through. It is still strange for someone to say, hey man, but I went through this thing in the 90s where I had a little cup of coffee in that real need security type of fame, which is very scary, which is very claustrophobic

and something I thank God and not by my design believe i'd still be there if we were selling 10 millions of records a day but i got a little taste and i got the fall and i fell back because of just the evolution of the band but having to call security where you go and like that's just too much like i like to go to 7-eleven get a cup of coffee you know and i've got a fame now which is like like, oh, there's that guy. You know, it's very unintrusive. It's very friendly. 99.999% of the people I meet are super cool and super easy. But it took me a way to sort of figure out how I'm going to navigate the world of fame. That's the simplest way.

What did you do when it was intrusive? Because it seems like it was. Like if we say you can't go to the mall on a Monday, like what, how did you handle when it was intrusive and you're, and maybe even when you're sitting down with, with someone in your family and people are coming up to you while you're eating, like, how did you handle that? You know, it's funny that people around me handled it worse than I did, you know, because I'm super, I'm gregarious. I tend to like people and I'm sitting, you want to come up and say hello. You know, now people just want a picture and they want to go

back then. They give me like a miniature golf pencil and a wet napkin and go can you sign this out to my brother my dad you know i'm like so maybe if you can't take a picture man don't don't be in this business you know i'm saying just don't do it because if that's that's that's all part of it i understand privacy i totally get it and especially these a-listers they can find it if they want you can go it's easy to do but that i was i having security and all that I was bad at, I felt a little bit trapped, you know, cause I like to go out. I like to watch the first bands play. I like to say hello to people. So I was just bad at, I was bad at being an a level celebrity. I wasn't good at it. I probably drank too much and did stupid things. I was probably shitty to the people around me

that I shouldn't have been. In fact, I was, you know, I'm glad because I, I have me a cup of coffee up there. Like I said, I kind of proved to me that I really can't probably handle that level. And so I just organically back to a spot that like, it's kind of comfortable, you know? But you know, like who was I? I can't remember. Cause I just can't remember off the top of my head, but we were talking to somebody on this show and I was saying, there's a certain level that once you get to it, you can't peel it back. And, and and that is a scary thought because you know i i feel like what you're talking about is you kind of get there you tasted it but then you kind of like step back a little bit and you can have a but i didn't michael you know that that

the world the business around me said yeah sugar ag yeah you're mid-level you're mid you're not gonna be a superstar act you know what i mean so organically happened at the same time i was looking at and going wow this is gnarly all right this is the rest of my life. It's going to be heavy. Sorry for interrupting you. But you know, like there's not like, I'll just like, if Michael Jackson is an extreme example, because he was so that, but there's certain people once they, there's no peeling it back, no matter what.

And you can't. Britney Spears, you know, Justin Bieber. In retrospect, are you glad that it didn't go to that, a Britney Spears level? Because to me, I feel like I would be glad looking back. Well, I mean, no, I would love to be a gigantic superstar playing stadiums around the world, flying. You know how fun flying private is? I mean, it's very underrated. You guys know it's so much fun. Now, listen, I'm not going to be with those people because I can't do it all the time. I'm in Southwest when I leave

here today. Trust me. But when you fly, it changes the game. You can't complain about traveling anymore. It saves time. It saves time. I'll say aggravation. Going to TSA and airports, you pull up right to the, you guys know it's amazing. So I would say I would have adjusted to that. It's easy to go, yeah, I'm really happy.

I didn't become a gigantic superstar. Like, no, that was the goal. And I had a little taste of it. It was fun. Am I on it? Does it claw at my soul every day? No, it doesn't of it it was fun am i on it does it does it clot my soul every day no it doesn't you know because i it was fun it was great and i i have i get enough wonderful things like at the jam with the beach boys or i mean that's pretty fucking killer it's

killer so i do these really killer things that are above my pay grade and skill set for sure so it's still gonna taste like private every now and it's fun you know so i i'm not gonna say i wouldn't have wanted that it's just an interesting set of circumstances that's been bestowed upon me you know but you know i would have handled that there's some part though to me that seems like sometimes when you reach a certain level not all the time that you almost have to sell a little bit of your soul yeah well i think you're right about that i don't and i don't know i'm not i'm not at that level you're on your way you're on your way so i'm just saying like it just seems like a there's a little part that it's like there's a lot of sacrifice sacrificing seeing your kids sacrificing seeing your family it seems like there's a little bit of soul selling

i think you're right but then in every job there is you're right you know what i mean it's like i get but it's all relevant to the job so if the suit up and go oh my god i'm a superstar and complaining about that i understand why superstars complain about that because i had a little cup of coffee up there. I understand why someone hanging drywall right now is going, God, I can listen to these people complain about their problems. I totally understand that too. Everything is relevant to where you are in your place. So I can't say, Lauren, whether I'd be unhappy or not being at that level. I certainly tried to. I won't say I didn't try to be there. I'm having number one songs, selling millions of records. It's really fun. I think it just was fascinating to me songs, selling millions of records. It's really fun.

You know, I think it just was fascinating to me because I think about that period of time and it really was, I think it's gone for forever now, that period of time where like, it's instantly overnight where somebody, you know, just pops in. Like they were unknown to your point on a Friday.

You don't think that happens now? Sometimes. Yeah, Michael, sometimes. No, but not, no, because. Remember they do with the feather and the drinking the crayon apple and listen to Fleetwood Mac? I mean, that guy was going down a freeway off ramp the wrong way one day. Where is it now?

I think he's got 7 million followers. He's probably making a dumb thing. I think it's okay. It happens, but I feel like it happens in smaller pockets. me about the internet all the time yeah is i hear about people that may have hundreds or 30 or 40 50 million people that i have never heard of in my entire life right like everyone has that like there's so many people out there and there's so much attention and there's so much visibility with this thing back then and what i think was like and i don't want to use the term gatekeeper but there was platforms like an mtv or a record label or a movie studio where like that was the

only way to really kind of reach that level of attention was these kind of platforms put you on now like you know there's people all the time that i get shown i've never heard of who that is my entire life and they are massive like yeah and so i think that's just like an interesting thing to observe where like the entire world or the entire country would turn its attention to whoever was on these platforms of the past you're're completely right, Michael. And also you can have this viral fame immediately and there's nothing to support that viral fame, meaning it goes away just as quick as it was bestowed upon you.

You know, to your point, we had a record company behind us making sure we didn't fall out with their publicity department, with their radio plugging department to make sure we stayed where we were and it sustained a career. I mean, I am still eating off the success we had from 97 to 2001. You know, I don't know how many people that went viral, say today, overnight, are going to be having a career 20 years from now.

Pretty fucking cool. Yeah, so, well, I'm grateful for those who really propped me up, is what I'm trying to say. Not to my doing. We have the systems in place, the gatekeepers, if you will, that said, yes, you are worthy

of coming on a radio station or network and video network station. So I'm grateful for that. But I was just talking about that yesterday. You can have the hit song on like a viral hit song that just goes away immediately. It's like a poison apple. You want to buy this? Careful what you ask for. It's going to be a great six months. And then you're going to live the rest of your life chasing that six months. It is astronaut astronaut syndrome yes 100 boy that's well put it's 100 they go to the moon where else do you go that's so well you go to conventions the rest of your life it's at the moon which is kind of cool or were you do you have a lot of wisdom and a lot of you're very smart though when it comes to talking about fame and it being fleeting. Like

I think it's, it's, you have a good grasp on it. Like it's impressive. Did you get that from just looking at other artists or musicians that came through before you? How did you know that? A lot of that has to do with that. I've just always understood the fragility of being in this business. I mean, do you know how hard it is to become a one hit wonder? Do you understand the odds you had to beat to become this one-hit wonder that a lot of us look back now and go, oh, one-hit wonder, funny. Like, well, that's funny. I laugh at you.

The one-hit wonder, you got the lottery ticket. You are charling the chocolate factory. You got in the factory and got one hit. Do you know how hard it is to have a couple of hits? I always say the hardest part of success is achieving success. Achieving success is the second hardest part. The hardest part of success is staying there. It's impossible.

So if you're in the entertainment business, it's almost a Hasselhoff effect. The Hasselhoff effect, I call it. You go through like roller coasters where you're up, you're down. You have to survive those things. A lot of egos can't. A lot of skill sets can't. So I think I saw enough people in front of me go up the hill and come right back down. A year and a half later, Michael, they literally bought

a house up there and look out mountain. Hey, having fun. 12 months later, bankrupt coming down. I saw that happen to many, many people. So I understood that right away. My dad was a finance guy in Orange County. So he always told me the value of money. No, it was never a guy that chased the seasons at Gucci. Once I had some money, I wasn't that guy. I was still on my Dickies and A-frame t-shirts to be politically correct. I, money was never something that was going to be my downfall. And I understood that there would be a bit of a rollercoaster ride and I was willing to try new things and stay here. I saw the value of being on extra when a lot of people wouldn't. And a lot of people didn't think it was very cool to do that. And I understand that.

I think it's so cool. I thought it was cool. You know, especially in 2003 when our last record. Well, it didn't set our last record in 2003. It didn't set the charts on fire. And a couple of guys in our band had just had kids. And they said, Mark, we want to kick back, raise our kids a little bit and take a break. We don't want to go into the cycle of making a record, going on tour and just chasing our tails. And I go, okay, what am I going to do? So because of the ride we had

at Sugar Ray, there was a couple of phone calls that reached out to me. One of them was at Extra. And I went down there on a Friday. And then two weeks later, I was hosting Extra. I mean, literally, I didn't know what I was doing. I went down there for a meeting, but it was really an audition because my manager at the time knew I was not going to do an audition for anything. And I went down there and they gave me a mic and because I was so loose, I was like, Hey guys, welcome to extra. I'm Mark McGrath. Tonight we have Jason Momoa from Baywatch nights. Hey. And I was so loose. I didn't care. I could never do that again. If I tried to in a million years and I got the job. And I remember I had to learn in front of America. So I have no problem learning things in front of people and failing. My first

six months at Extra, if you look at that, I mean, I was like, I'm a bit of a spaz if you can tell. So I gesticulate like this and this is, you know, on stage you want big movements to hit the last row in the arena. At Extra, it's small movements, you know, it's TV. I mean, Clint Eastwood made a career of raising his eyebrow, you know what I mean? So I had to learn how to like settle down a little bit. And I remember six months into my gig at extra, I'll never forget this. Let's get my coffee at seven 11. It's like five in the morning, super early. Now I was up because I was being a good boy and not up because I was being a bad boy, but there were some bad boys in there. And one guy had like a neck tattoo and this is 2004 when those were still, it's kind of scary. And he comes up to me staring at me and I'm like, oh God, here we go. And he gets his coffee, looks at me and he goes, hey Mark, you sucked when you started

extra, but you're getting better, bro. And that was the biggest compliment, backhanded compliment you could ever give me. I was like, dude, thank you. I feel the same way. So I was like learning in front of people and not afraid to fail. And I think that's, what's been my biggest success being just in Hollywood in general, it's just being not afraid to fail. If you don't try things, how do you know? And don't let people's like, you know, perceptions.

I've said this forever. And I knew this intuitively at eight years old, half the people in the world are going to love you for no reason. And the other half are going to hate you for no reason. That's the way the world works. It's your job to go out the front door and find out who really loves you. That's your job. And that's it.

I think that's sound advice, especially in a time now where, you know, especially doing what we do here at Dear Media, we work with not just our show, but a lot of talent. And I am always kind of sharing, you know, my perspective on longevity, because if you're a young person and people are throwing dollars at you in a year and you all start to get a little bit of a platform, it's fun. But if you don't have the experience, you feel like, hey, this is going to last for forever. I was fortunate that I got to do a lot of things behind the scenes in my business career before doing this and before this venture. And I saw ups and downs and ups and downs. So I'm kind of like, I don't take any of this for granted. I'm like, hey, this may never last forever. The job is to kind of try to keep it going and be positive and put in the work. But I see a lot

of people, they kind of hit this, what Lauren would call astronaut syndrome in this digital kind of space. And they think it's just the money spigot is on for forever. And they don't do the things they don't save. They don't invest. They don't think about how to pivot. It's not sexy. It's not sexy to invest when you're in your 20s.

You know how unsexy it is to go, what's my 401k? Let me set up something for the future. It's not fun and sexy. And when someone throws you 25 years old like two million dollars like you know for that year you're like wow this is this is how it works like you're thinking like this this is going to go on forever it just doesn't it ends and historically it's always ended for 99 of the bands that were successful so what makes you different and actresses and actors everybody yeah i think. I think it's, I always say like that we can all talk about the people that have kind of been there forever, but I don't think people talk

enough about the people that kind of got there and then you don't hear from anymore. And I think it's a cautionary tale for anybody that's kind of putting themselves out there as a personality where they just think it's going to last forever. And it may not. You're so right. And especially in this day and age guys, where everybody's on social media, thank God that wasn't there when I had my first bit of money, because everybody wants to flex. Everybody wants to show their stuff and look at me. And that's what gets likes and followers. And that also generates money. So it's a weird conundrum that today's generation's in. So you are going to buy that Ferrari before you buy a home, you know what I mean? But you got to make your own mistake. Money is a lot like the road, Like I talked about, if you, when you get money, you got to figure out how you

have money. Not how anybody else has money. How do you live and work with money? How do you plan? Because people can tell you how to do it, but it's how you're going to do it. And that's one thing about money. It's like celebrity. You don't know what celebrity is until you have it, you know? And same with money to me. If you you all the wisdom that you have now could tell your 27 year old self some three core principles what are those principles that you would go back and tell you that you didn't maybe know at 27 how about ones that i sort of knew yeah okay one that i always knew is be nice to people yeah just because i know that sounds like so easy but just be nice when i say be nice easy, but just be nice.

When I say be nice, take the time to be nice. Remember people's names. I got jobs in this six-figure, high six-figure job I had no business doing because I remembered the names of the crew. You know? Holly and Jade out here, and you have wonderful staff here. Oh. They're wonderful people. It's a testament to you guys. Wow.

I just wanted to prove that. That's pretty good. Holly and Jade. I walk and talk it, though. You's a testament to you guys. Wow. I just wanted to prove that. That's pretty good. I walk in and talk it. You know what I'm saying? The same way. So just be nice and kind to people. I tell my kids that, you know,

if you're nice and kind to people, you're probably going to have a really good life. It doesn't mean you're going to be a billionaire, but you're probably going to have a really good life because when you're nice and you throw it out there, the universe owes you a karmic debt. They owe you some niceties. That's unique though, because a lot of, not all celebrities, but a lot of celebrities, you know, maybe aren't known for sometimes being nice. Absolutely. And I understand that. That's

why I'm saying it's a commodity. I'm giving you, I'm giving you the tea here, ladies and gentlemen, I'm giving you these jewels here. Be nice. Even if you don't want to be, be nice. What's your second core principle? The second core principle is you got to work hard. You got to show up early. You got to be the first one up. And if, if no matter what you're in, if you're bullshitting yourself, I don't really belong here. Then how are we going to believe you don't belong here? Meaning like be the first one up, be, be the last one to, you know, to go to sleep, be the first one to pick up a check at a table. I guess that's kind of being nice too.

Mine are all under that umbrella of just having manners and being nice. And also watch your dough. We kind of just tapped on it a little bit. When you get money for the first time, you're going to do some stupid things and that's okay. Just don't continue to do the stupid things. You might think you need the Gucci's, Rick Owens 2024 line is coming out with the you know the cones in the head you might just need that to get into the cabana wherever you're going tonight you know i'm saying i get it do that once and you're going to figure out wow it's a tough game to play and just you know be smart with your dough third principles call your mom

that might follow the nice thing too as well what's no no also i'm sorry sorry go surround yourself with good people and good friends and i know that's another cliche you know why cliches are cliches because they work yeah because they work yeah they're clear you know oh it's so boring to say passion or cliche they work that's what it's about if it's not that what i mean mystify me with your newness right you know so surround yourself with good people because that old adage you, show me a man's friends, I'll show you the man. There are so many choices when it comes to a probiotic that's going to be best for your gut. We obviously stand by Just Thrive probiotics. We have had the founder Tina on this show so many times talking about the importance of gut health and the importance of

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Give us a couple. Oh, without a doubt. Because I can't say one, but there's a zillion cool things I've gotten to do. Well, one of the coolest things that happened in the band was receiving a gold record from Atlantic Records from Ahmet Erdogan, who started Atlantic Records. He is a titan in our industry. And he was a little bit older there. And, you know, Mick Jagger, Led Zeppelin, he was there on the planes. He was there partying with the guys. He's also an incredible businessman and a great artist as well. So him giving us a gold record in the hallowed halls of Atlantic Records in New York City

was pretty amazing. I may or may not have shed a tear. I probably did. The second greatest thing was in 1999, we got to open for the Rolling Stones in Las Vegas. Oh, that's rad. The Rolling Stones. Yeah.

You know, I was calling my second grade soccer team friends going, hey, what are you doing tonight? Nothing. I'm opening for the Stones, bro. It was hanging up on. So you doing tonight nothing i'm opening for the stones bro it was hanging up on so check this out we're opening for the stones and like i've always been super conscious and and and sort of cognizant about being in the moment on these kind of like knowing about like you know what to do with money and stuff like just this is amazing okay opening for the stones in vegas is pretty amazing okay so we're opening for the Stones in Vegas is pretty amazing. We're opening for the Stones, and it was so fun. The Stones crowd is notoriously a little bit difficult because they want to see the Stones.

Kind of like Metallica's audience. They want Metallica. They want the Stones. They want nothing else. I think they saw five puppies on stage, and they were kind of amused by it. They saw just how happy we were to be there. We're about to play Every Morning, which was number one at the country at the time too to just keep adding on to the incredible incredible experience of the story i'm like well i gotta say i thank the rolling stones for having us open here tonight las vegas

this next song is number one in the country right now i can't think of a better way to celebrate i don't know how this could get any any any better but hold on it just got a little bit better mick jagger and keith richards are watching us perform right there from the monitor world so i'm just sitting there going oh my god this is and myself i said self this might be the best moment of your musical career and we played the song it's incredible we came down the steps there they were thanking us for opening for them and i'm like this is pretty rad now i've had moments came close, but never as cool as that moment. That was incredible. But I've also learned I've got to perform with the Beach Boys a bunch of times.

I've got to perform with Run DMC. The Sex Pistols is my all-time favorite band. I got to play a song, remaining members of the Sex Pistols, Steve Jones, Glenn Matlock, and Paul Cook. So I played Johnny Rotten to their Sex Pistols. And that was incredible. So all these wonderful moments. And there's so many more, Lauren.

You could probably ask me in 10 minutes. And I'm grateful for everyone. We had triple platinum records, number one songs in TRL, talking to Carson Daly. And all those things are just great. It was all fun. And I loved every moment of it. Steve Jones, do you follow him on Instagram? Oh, of course.

Yeah, he's the best. And he plays, Lauren has no idea what I'm talking about, playing in his bathtub, his guitar ripping. It's so great. And he plays these interesting country songs, the songs you wouldn't think the guy who started punk rock would play. And that's why I love Steve. Steve's a great character.

I'm a good friend of his. I love how he just rips that guitar out and plays in his, he's in his bathroom in the bathtub just playing. The acoustics are so good in there. Who is Steve Jones? Oh, Lauren, come on. Who is Steve Jones? Steve Jones is a guitar player for the Sex Pistols. Okay, okay and he just had a uh series released last year in hulu that danny

boyle did called it's called i pistol forgive me if i said it wrong and it's really fascinating and it's about his journey in the sex pistols it's incredible i named my son lyden the sex pistols mean a lot to me and i'll tell you why the sex pistols were a band that kind of kicked against the industry like tried to like tear it all down. That bloated Genesis Eagles, cocaine fueled like country rock that was like so unattainable. And what they did is they came in and they just they ripped it all down and said, no, you don't have to be that talented. You don't have to do that. If you just have the nerve to get on stage, you can do it. And that was kind of the impetus that got me on stage. So these guys can do it. I'm just going to get on stage. So it was a huge part of me,

my willingness to try and not be scared of failing. So I named my son Lydon because Johnny Rotten, the lead singer, his surname is Lydon. My son is named Lydon. So that is such a cool name. I think that's one of the coolest boy names I've ever heard. Really?

Yeah. I'm really specific with names. I like something that's unique and short and strong. And that is unique and short and strong. We named our son after Townes Van Zandt. Oh, that's pretty cool. I mean, are you kidding me? I know, but Leiden's pretty cute.

Leiden's pretty cool. It comes from the same sort of energy and DNA where it means that much to you. I miss the attitude of all that stuff. There was the punk stuff. There was the punk stuff. There was the metal stuff. Yeah. I would categorize the Pogues in there, Shane McGowan.

Oh, for sure. That kind of... But then also, in a weird way, you can also loop a Townes Van Zandt or a Blaze Foley kind of character in there. Most punk rock guys ever. Yeah. Are you kidding me?

That's what I love about music. You could have... It's attitude. Yes, it's an attitude thing. It's attitude. What's your daughter's name? Her name's Hartley. Cute cute that's another interesting story we were driving by the Roxy we go by these venues in Los Angeles and bad things happen to us or good things depending how you look at it we're going down Sunset Boulevard and we looked up on the Roxy venue up there you know on the

who's playing tonight thing and it said Igloo and Hartley and i looked at her i go are you thinking what i'm thinking she goes yeah i go igloo she goes no hardly you're you i don't know no hardly is great crowley's great of course i thought igloo was cool but that might have been one of those names like where you're like oh gosh look at these guys naming their son like you know like asshole blossom pumpkin pie whatever the hell it is you know what i mean but hardly is great it just fits hardly mcgrath and light mcgrath it's awesome you have to so towns is a strong name i I mean? But Hartley's great. It just fits. Hartley McGrath and Lyden McGrath. It's awesome. You have to tell us. So Towns is a strong name.

I like that it's just like a Towns. Yes. People are like, what are you doing? That's because, again, people have, they don't know Towns Van Zandt anymore. When Austin, Texas, they do. Believe that, right? Believe that.

You mentioned earlier about your parents getting divorced. Yeah. Are you close to your parents now? You know, they're both no longer with us. They were the last generation that smoked their asses off, you know, and you couldn't tell my dad nothing. Cigarettes. Cigarettes, yeah, cigarettes, not weed.

And there's nothing I can't stand more than cigarettes. And physically I can't, but I know it's also psychological too as well. You know, because cigarettes killed my mom and dad and kind of robbed them of their chance to be grandparents. And it bums me out to think about it, you know, because my, my dad passed when he's 68 and my mom passed when she was 70. And I come from a long line of single, angry Irish people, you know? So I don't think they ever thought I was going to have kids. You know what I mean? And they both, thank God,

were alive when the kids were born. And I could see my dad was really deteriorating in their first year. And I could see him getting skinnier and skinnier. I could see him holding his grandson going, oh, I wish I took a little bit care of myself, better care of myself. He didn't say that because he never would. He was sort of a Don Draper, old school, madman type of guy. Couldn't tell him nothing. But I could tell he was a little bit bummed out. But I'm glad we gave him the gift of grandkids and he got to be a granddad for a year, you know?

And can you tell us the story of how you met Dr. Gadir? Absolutely. My wonderful wife here, like I said, anything good that happens in my life is always a result of her and her research. But she said, 2009, I'm going to leave you if we don't have kids. And as I kind of mentioned a little while ago, I was on the fence. I come from a long line of single people that it was never, there was never any pressure. Like my mom was like, when are you going to give me grandkids? She never said it once. Karin said to me, I'm

going to leave you if we don't have kids. And after I threw up and came back and said, well, let's give it a try. And you know, she has her own complications. Like she had one ovary and the whole thing. And she, she went through a hell trying to make it happen. We tried it the normal way. And I thought, you know, I'm on there rocking and rolling. I don't, never been good to my body. And it's probably half me, half her, blah, blah, blah. You know, we're never having babies. So we tried, didn't happen. So then she did a little research and found this guy, Dr. Gidear, who was like the most eloquent, well-spoken, articulate. And I've heard your, your, your podcast with me. So well spoken. I love that guy. Uh, I know you guys have infinity tourism. Well, so he was our guy. the most eloquent well-spoken articulate and i've heard your your podcast with me so well spoken i

love that guy i know you guys have infinity tourism well so he was our guy that we went to to get orientation and figure out what it was and i found out what it meant the weirdest thing is when i gave my sample if you will i'll never forget the playboy was a kim kardashian playboy oh my god let me finish and she was in like a gladiator uniform and i'm like i can't this is too weird i know her so i went to my mind rolodex real quick it didn't work but back to kim anyway so got a sample but he he like led us through this whole process and such a gentleman such a good guy and you know it's it's a precarious thing i know everybody's got their own opinion on ivF. I get it.

For us, it gave us the biggest two gifts of our life. And, you know, I had kids when I was 42. So I came late. And at 42, I was up in my house in the Hollywood Hills going, is that it? I've had this incredible career and I'm super grateful every moment, but is that it? And I realized I wasn't on a journey anymore. You know, once you have kids, you want to raise your kids and hopefully become grandparents. It's the eternal journey. And I'm grateful for it all all but she kind of went through the how the ibf works

i would it was too much science for me i'm like i don't get it you know yeah i was not actually on tour and she she did all the big shots on her own the hormone shots where our shots this big literally gigantic and she had her friend come over and administer them and she went through all the hard stuff and she worked hard to have these babies. And, you know, I made me fall in love with her all over and all that kind of stuff. So we're going to the day to find out if she's pregnant. It's a big day. I fly off the road.

I come to, I come get her at the house and I'm fully ready to tell her, I'm sorry, honey. We tried, you know, IVF is expensive. I only had one shot of this, you know, showbiz in her a little bit, you know, and I go, if it doesn't happen, I'm really sorry, but we tried and you gave your best. I'm very proud of you. And I'm,

you know, I saw how hard you wanted this and I'm sorry if it doesn't work fully expecting the doctor to go, it's not going to happen. So we go over there and I'll never forget this wonderful nurse. And she's got the ultrasound. You thought it was bright. The ultrasound she's looking at.

She goes, Oh, I don't see it oh oh there's a little oh congratulations you're pregnant i'm like oh my god it worked having a baby oh my god and then she goes oh hold on a second what's this bad oh my god congratulations you're having twins i literally went from about to console her and say sorry it didn't work to being the father of twins in 30 seconds and all because of dr gadir thank you dr dr gadir was waiting for his name if he's listening you know he's waiting for his name right now the chief meat beater dr the chief meat beater he'll

throw you in the closet with a kim kardashian gladiator oh yeah he knows what you need he throws you in that broom closet and you get to you's it's weird it's anything but fun it's it's crazy and weird and you know i wanted the romantic way to have kids and we tried hard and all that but you know the weird science way was the way it went for us you know and i'm super grateful for it and how hard was it to have twins was it hard i guess you don't know anything different so you don't have anything to compare it to but it seems like it's a lot of work it's a lot of work to compare it to, but it seems like it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. I'm not going to lie.

It's a ton of work. You know, we had night nurses and nannies and people on standby. I'm not, you can say what you want. I'm not built like that. I need my sleep, especially I was older too, so it was tough. And we kind of touched on it earlier before we jumped on here, but you really need to keep twins on a schedule. You need to keep them on a schedule or you're going to be up for 24 hours straight. Because if you're like, if one wakes up at two, one wakes up at three in the morning, one wakes up at four, because it takes about 35 minutes,

40 minutes to change everything and get back to sleep. As you guys know, that would have been impossible. It's so important to keep twins on a schedule. So it was very difficult, even with the night nurse and all that. We were very fortunate that we had a night nurse. We thought we'd have her for two weeks. And we started with the parents of the year you know no gluten no nothing never gonna have any fast food ever how dare they candy never blah blah blah six months into it it's like fast food night nurses we were meeting family members we never met to have them come over and spend some time with the kids you know it was all hands on deck with twins and i don't know now we've kind of been talking about this i don't know babies were harder or going into the teen years they're going to be 13 in a month but because of

tiktok and social media they've been teenagers for two years especially our daughter that scares the shit out of me oh bro it should it should because she's 5 10 already boy crazy like her mom and it's just a rap and all the drama and all my god and all that. It's just crazy. So the psychological warfare is a lot more hardcore with teenagers than it was physical warfare when they were babies. She's 5'10"? Oh, yeah.

She's gigantic. At 13? She's a supermodel, the whole thing. Yeah, she's amazing. You've got to show us a picture. Yeah. I think I've got one. You've got to show us a picture.

Well, good luck to you, Mark. Yeah, I know, dude. It's been rough. It's been nice knowing you guys. Let me see if I can just get this one real quick.. You've got to show us a picture. Well, good luck to you, Mark. Yeah, I know, dude. It's been rough. It's been nice knowing you guys. Let me see if I can just get this one real quick. Yeah, I'd love to see a picture. That's my daughter, and that's my son. We're at Statue of Liberty.

When you guys were in, where were they, Karin? You told me they were at, we're not stalking you guys, but you guys went to, when we were in New York, you just told me on the way over here, they were in. Where were we? St. Barts. Yeah, we were. Where'd you guys stay in St. Barts?

We were on a boat with some friends. Oh, and did you ever go to that funky resort on the other side? It's red It's got It's right on the beach A side note on St. Barts Did you play a birthday party down there? That's what I'm getting at

Because Are they still talking about us Michael? No because I And it was like they rented the whole hotel The whole resort That's why I'm asking So it's a friend of mine Closer to my parents

We will talk about that later Wait A friend of yours Was the birthday Was the person that got married Oh wait I didn't know that They were the coolest people I've ever met

I can't really I don't want to say the name Wait his parents were there My parents were there They were there And they told me How do you not tell me this I remember that your mom said

Oh my god Clark McGrath was there I forgot about that I'll just say floor mats right Yes yes Exactly Exactly Exactly

Nicest people in the world Yes And they had Cheryl Crow about that i'll just say floor mats right yes yes exactly exactly exactly exactly nicest people in the world yes um and did they had cheryl crowe no no they were that was you were at eden rock eden rock that was that was trying to get beautiful spot amazing but i heard so my mom came back and she's telling me about this wedding okay i gotta be careful here but she's like sugar ray at cheryl crow and i think there was who else was the other 52 train was there yeah train this is yeah this wedding and um like four nights in a row of this not just one night they went all out these folks oh no i talked to the the manager of the hotel and he's like yeah this guy he said he's gonna do all this stuff and he's like oh it's gonna be with something like you've never seen before down here and the manager's like oh oh

yeah we've seen a few things yeah and but the manager, it was like nothing we've ever fucking seen before. I don't know how they pulled it off, especially on the other side of the island and putting production in there because these bands demand production, you know, especially Train, Sheryl Crow, and they were just so amazing, the nicest human beings.

So again, this is like, I mean, the world's a small world, but again, when we got connected over text, I was just tripping the fuck out. Me too. I felt the same way. But that's weird for me to hear because I mean, again,

like imagine being 11, 12, 13, 14, like seeing you for so long. It's weird. The world takes you into weird directions. We love your music. We're such big fans. I appreciate that so much. And we love your podcast.

We really do. I mean, we got married to Sandy Cedar Ranch, right? Oh! Which is one of the famous, favorite spots. If I had to get married in the United States, that's where I would get married. Well, she's so smart i had to get married in the united states that's

where i would get married well she's so smart again she's like well that's why i'll have her anniversary there every year so last year on anniversary she goes okay i want you to listen to the podcast online you know and so like okay i won't you put on skinny confidence i think you're talking to gabby reese or something oh yeah love gabby and it was great you guys just so effort like oh these guys are really whip smart like articulate and the questions are amazing she goes i've tried to tell you that so i've been a fan ever since that and for me to somehow figure out that i'm on here talking to you guys it's like because i hold you guys the same selfless you know same esteem you know these guys are just rock stars in the

podcast world and it's an honor for me to be invited i want to thank you both we're going to retire after this one i'm going to tell you this. You are damn good on a mic, which is not a surprise at all. You can come back on the podcast anytime you want. Open invite. You guys can come on together. Maybe we're going to bring your wife. I got to get the other side of the story.

She's the... Oh! She said we can talk about the infidelities. Maybe I'll bring her on alone. Didn't we talk about that? No, you totally... Next time you come on, you guys can come on together

and we can do a him and her thing. That'd be awesome. There's so many different directions too that we can go because you have so much to say and you're so interesting. So open invite. You guys got to understand though, I've done enough podcasts. It has to be like a give and take.

And you guys have such a, you guys actually, you have an interest in what you're saying and you have no problem taking the conversation somewhere else. You don't have to stare at your notes. It's an effortless thing that you guys do. So you bring out the best in your guests. Don't give the credit

to your guests. You guys keep the conversation alive and interesting and fun. So my hat's off to you both. You guys are invited back on in July. We're here. You hit the nail on your head

and I think this is for anything you do. You have to, I mean, you know this, you said it earlier, you have to love what you do and you actually have to be interested in what you do.

We have this brief here and I have it for notes know, for notes, but it's really, we're interested in your life and what you're doing. I think if you don't have that and if you're not passionate about what you're doing, it makes it really difficult, right? It makes it a job. Yeah, it makes it a job. You are really good on a mic though. You're very sweet.

Thank you, Lauren. I mean, do you have a podcast? I do not have a podcast because I could just just think like oh god the guy from sugar has a podcast but you know i mean listen i i think i fooled you today but you know what's fun is like we we talked about music but we talked about music today but i think we talked more like life like music will always be the foundation when you talk to me and i'm super grateful for that but i i've got stuff out of you guys today that you don't even know little one little little well i think like that toys i listen obviously on the surface and all the accolades and all that i think like

and i don't mean this offensively but people can google a lot of that stuff and figure out who i want to know i want to know the person right i want to know like why you can tell you don't have those first three questions so uh you know you just you you have a natural interest which is just but i mean I'll tell you guys, it's what feeds us, makes you guys number one on what you do. It's no surprise. You are welcome back to come on anytime you want. You're a great interview.

This interview was giving Rob Dyrdek vibes. Dyrdek is the king of that. He's the king. He came on, I was like. He's the best, isn't he? He makes you believe in life and humanity. Let's go kick some ass. There's just certain people that come on that are just great interviews. And I really appreciate you taking the time today.

This was one of my favorites by far. Where can everyone find what you're doing, support you, go to your concerts, all the things. And what are you playing in Austin? So we can come. You just played.

We just, we did a private show. We did. Austin has become like the convention capital of the world. Used to be Vegas, used to be Orlando, and it still is. But austin and nashville both these cities which you know are just i love both those cities a lot of conventions are there so i'm going on tour this summer with the gin blossoms and vertical horizon iconic and fastball so if you like 90s

hits come on out i'm also doing a fun little one with Bret Michaels. So I love, you should get Bret on. He's got so much. Talk about a guy that would change your life. He's great. I would love to have Bret Michaels on here. He's great. He would love to be on here. I'll put him in.

You guys don't need much help, but he's just the best dude. I think we might need help for Bret Michaels. Oh, trust me. No problem. He's the greatest guy. He's got so much positivity. He's got some wonderful stories, obviously, about music. So I'm going out with him and Night Ranger, Jeffersonfferson airplane which is so cool because when you think about

that i'm going out with some 80s bands you know i mean and then i'll go some 90s bands i just think that's where my career has taken me like it's letting me open these doors like necessarily not just in the 90s lane whether it's extra whether it's playing with 80s bands whether it's performing with the sex pistols whether it's going out with jim blossoms you know people in our fraternity. I just feel super grateful for it all. And I'm still willing to try it. Where can everyone buy tickets?

You can go to markmcgrath.com. Okay. Or you can go to the real Mark McGrath on Twitter. I hate that. I've had to do something. And do you guys lose your blue check marks? I ended up- It's not a political thing.

It's, have you seen the sort of freak out on that? Did you pay for it? Oh my God, it's a political thing now. I'm like, you either pay for it or you don't. Who cares? Instagram just did it too, right? They just- Instagram did it too? Yeah, they just rolled it out. So everyone's going to pay. Today?

Yeah, listen, say what you want about it. No one wants to lose the Instagram one. No, no, no. But you know what's hard for me now? And I don't mean, listen, equal opportunity. I hope everybody gets a blue, but sometimes it's hard now for me to siphon through the messages because I can't, everyone's blue now now i i totally agree but you also want the validity of like this is the real home and place of that and i guess that isn't that anymore i'll do you one better michael lauren i paid for the blue check mark not afraid and i don't have it they didn't give it to me how about that on twitter blue that's the story of my showbiz life play for twitter blue and i'm

like all right here we go but you know mich Michael is mine? And it just went yesterday. And I was like, yeah, I didn't pay for it either. I'm fully paid for it. Where can everyone find you on Instagram? At the real Mark McGrath again on IG. And you know, I like talking to people on there. I will respond if you reach out. I love hearing from everybody.

I don't do DMs very well because it's a bit of a vicious viper net. But if you reach out to me on either one of those, Twitter or I'm also on TikTok too. Got to be on TikTok. You know what's weird? It's my biggest platform by far.

I did a couple of stupid videos and I've got X amount of followers on there. And then markmurdoff.com, you can find out what I'm doing. It's not hard to find and I'm super glad for it all. Are you going to Austin on your tour? As far as I know,

a lot of it's back east in the Midwest. That's fine. Yeah, we'll go check it all. Are you going to Austin on your tour? As far as I know, a lot of it's back east in the Midwest. That's fine. Yeah, we'll go check it out. I'm going to keep you all posted. Trust me. Thank you so much for coming on. Truly, you are welcome back on the show. If you want to do a him and her podcast, it's open invite. Thank you, Mark. You're incredible. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate you all. Appreciate you too. We want to do a little Mother's Day giveaway. We want to give one of your mothers an ice roller. All you have to do is say hello on my latest post at Born Bostic and I will send one of you an ice roller to gift your mom. And if you're looking for a Mother's Day gift, definitely check out ShopSkinnyConfidential.com.