The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby - They wrote our wedding song: The Johnnyswim interview

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Johnnyswim's Amanda Sudano and Abner Ramirez sit down with Matt and Abby to talk about their new album, which explores love, depression, and health struggles. Amanda reflects on her mother Donna Summer’s legacy, while Abner shares how psilocybin played a role in his healing and faith. They also open up about surviving the California wildfires, the impact of therapy on their marriage, and writing through life’s hardest moments. This episode is sponsored by Hungryroot, Orgain, Hiya and June's Journey. Hungryroot: Visit https://hungryroot.com/unplanned and use code UNPLANNED to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice. Orgain: Visit https://orgain.com/unplanned and use code UNPLANNED to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice. Hiya: Go to https://hiyahealth.com/UNPLANNED and receive 50% off your first order. Get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. June's Journey: Download June’s Journey for free here https://bit.ly/unplannedpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Abby would play your music so much, our first year married. I was like, sweet, can we play something else? The name Donna Summer didn't mean anything to me. Even when we started dating, people were like like do you know her mom is Donna summer

I was like, you know, my mom's Marisol Ramirez Was there anyone in your circle that gave you bad advice my mom gave me wedding night I know you're a good girl, but you know for him, you're gonna have to be slutty sometimes Why are you telling me this from the outside outside looking in, Johnny Swim might seem like they have the perfect marriage. They were the soundtrack to our young married life, but we were shocked to hear that they've been through their fair share of hardship. In recent years, Amanda's health declined to a point where she thought she was going to die. And on top of that, Abner faced the worst depression of his life. We talk about all this and so much more in today's episode.

the worst depression of his life. We talk about all this and so much more in today's episode. Welcome back to the unplanned podcast. Today we are joined by one of honestly our favorite music groups of all time. Johnny Swim. You guys have never actually saw it. I didn't want to embarrass Abby, but I'll say it right now. Like we, Abby would play your music so much our first year marriage. I was like, it's like Abby, I know Johnny, Johnny swims.

Music is so good, but sweetheart, like, can we play something else? I love you. I don't even like music. Like I have to be honest with you. Like I'm not like a music lover. Like I would sooner listen to a podcast in my empty space. Oh my gosh. Listening to my husband's music.

I've heard it before. I've heard it before. I've heard it before. I've heard it before. I've heard it before. I've heard it before. I've heard it before. I've heard it before. Music like I'll be honest with you like I'm not like a music lover like I would sooner listen to a podcast Yeah, my empty space. Oh my god Listening to my husband's music of course, that's good I'm kind of like not very experimental right when I found something I liked I was like this is gonna be what I listen Oh, thank you

On Instagram on the way here and somebody tagged me It's tagged us on something I look at it and it opens and it's like somebody celebrating their 19 year anniversary and they're playing our song over it And I just opened it and it's her voice singing a song that we sing a million times and she goes ooh turn it off You guys are wonderful, but it's like when you hear the same song When you hear the same song 10,000 times. When you hear the same song 10,000 times, I do it to myself. I'll find a song that I love, and then I play it a bunch. And then Abby will be like, dude, can you please

stop playing that EDM song? Stop. Yeah, it gives me stress. What song do you have like that right now? Oh, man. For a little bit, it was Midnight by Liam Payne. It was like a collab he did with an EDM artist. He likes EDM.

So I'm like, I need you to have a vibe that's a little bit more mellow right now. Stitches by Ed Sheeran. Yeah, that was great. No, but your music is so good and I feel like we're probably not alone in this but your music was the soundtrack to our marriage. Oh, come on, man. It still is but like our first year of marriage, it was always on and it just felt like our life was a movie. It was always on and it just felt like our life was a movie. We were so happy. We played your songs for our guests walking into our wedding and walking out of our wedding. Oh, let's go!

Oh, nice! Do you even remember that? Which one was it the, we don't need to be together? Yes. Sing, bro. Yeah, why don't you better sing. Hallelujah.

Yeah. And I'm pretty sure this made sense in time, ring the bells when we were leaving. Let's go. We had like a lot. Yeah. It always means so much to me when people use our music for their wedding day because I know how insane we were

with picking every song and what the DJ could play. When I say DJ, it was our friend who went on the iPod. Literally got married and still had the rotary iPod. We got married in my parents' backyard and we were like, it's plugged in behind a bush. Just go back there and move it around. But yeah, it was such a big deal. Our first dance was Louis Armstrong's version

of La Vie en Rose. That was our first dance song. I had a playlist, I made a playlist for Amanda. She had all her babies at home. Superhero, superstar, yada yada. I like food and they told me you couldn't eat at a hospital so I said there's like pictures of her eating or ice cream you guys are so humble though

because I like I want to have you guys up for a second because I was doing some research today and I'm like oh my gosh you guys are like Oprah Winfrey's like token artist. Like, like she's a huge fan of you guys. I never heard of that. I don't know. I said that. So we were, it probably, so one time we were invited over to Oprah's house.

Don't tell me that it's wrong. I want to just believe that for a while. We're going to believe it. No fact checking today. No fact checking. Because it's fact checking with fact checkers, am I right? Collaboration with Oprah Winfrey, Johnny Swin became closely associated with Oprah performing

on her Super Soul sessions. Nope, didn't do it, but. Never happened. But Oprah, where you at my girl? We were invited to Oprah's house once. Why did AI just lie to me? He said they went to Oprah's house though. No, they invited us.

That's pretty cool. Tyler Perry invited us to Oprah's house for his first born son, first born child's what did, christening. And when Tyler Perry announced to the world that they had their first baby, it was just a Johnny Swim lyric. And it was like, babe, we made it, this is unbelievable.

So four people were invited to Oprah's house for the christening, aside from Tyler Perry and his baby mama. Yeah, it was us, Oprah, Jennifer Hudson, Tyler Perry, and the baby. And I was like, babe, we gotta, and there's probably some therapy I need to go through for this, because now when really big opportunities come up that feel like they're gonna be mind-blowing life-changing I feel like they're just never gonna happen. She's like babe. That's the day. I'm due with our firstborn child with our child that day

We can't go to Chicago or whatever was it it's it's no we're not gonna make it back for it was literally the due date It was on my due date and I was like I'm not going to be the day she had the baby or the like I'm not baby yeah after so we wouldn't have been able to do it anyway so we didn't go never met over never my tethered but you're my girl big oops this is your first? Baby? Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, so I was like, I'm not going anywhere. Oh, so Music for Weddings. La Vie en Rose is our first dance. I had like a three hour playlist for Labor that we had made. No song repeated ever. And she gave birth to our firstborn child. As the music's playing, our baby enters the world to La Vie en Rose, the same version

that we had our first dance to. No way. Which is really amazing. And I'm even saying, babe, do you hear what song? There's a video of it. I'm like, babe, do you hear what song's playing? Our baby enters the world to La Vie en Rose, the same version that we had our first dance to. No way. Which is really amazing. And I'm even saying, babe, do you hear what song? There's a video of it. Babe, do you hear what song's playing? So that we have this deep connection to our wedding music, now connected to our son.

And the other day, we're out of town, and my sister who watches the kids for us, she showed us Joaquin, our oldest son, has a little keyboard in his room. He just got it for Christmas, yeah. He just got it for Christmas, and he was teaching himself how to play a song. So you know, you're like in an Uber or something going going somewhere and it's gonna probably bang on the keys a little bit I'm not prepared for like an emotional experience from this video and he's like, is it playing is it recording? It's broken. He goes We

We feel so connected to our wedding songs when people say your song was in my wedding. We're always like that's not something that we just know. Thanks. It's a really big deal. So we're honored that we were part of your wedding. Well your music is truly beautiful and I love that it brings together all these different genres to make a very unique, folky, jazzy, blues sound. It's so, so good. And it's funny you bring up Louis Armstrong, because with Abbey's rotation of music, it's like Johnny Swim, Louis Armstrong, Leon Bridges, George Ezra.

It's like that rotation. I love it. And it's all influenced by jazz. And does that ever get like intimidating the fact that your music is being played at like everyone's wedding across the country? Like is that ever like, man, we better never, you know, get into a public argument because then people are going to like, man, we definitely, we argue, we don't argue ever. We never argue. We've never finished the show still mad at each other

Yeah, we've never finished a show so much other and I do think I mean we've been together for almost 20 years This October first is our 20 year anniversary of being together our heart Our hardest years was the years that we dated we fought all the time like we were just constantly I was like, we're just bickered all the time. And then we got married and we were like, pretty chill. We're like, yeah, we're pretty chill. And that's when we realized, yeah. There's something about knowing you're on the same team forever, like same team.

We always say like with our band, one band, one sound, it's kind of like just a slogan we use all the time. And that's what it is in marriage too. Like once you know you've committed that you're gonna do this till the day you die. Like I also think weddings aren't like as Cinderella stories as they are made to be. It's like, okay, let's all get together and I'm going to swear I'm going to love you until I am dirt.

Yeah, literally. Until I return to ashes under the earth. I'm going to love you till that moment. And there is a sense of romance to it, but this is like a really massive, it's a massive promise, man. So I think something about that promise changed, it didn't just change our relationship, it settled something for us that's bigger than words

and bigger than whatever. Maybe the little bickering we could, and we did often, was just settled in, no, that's us forever. Till toe tags and body bags. Not until we ride off into the sunset, until this becomes over. But I think with that, it's like, you know, every couple argues,

and it would be very weird and awkward and not human. If all you had was sugar, it would be a great meal. If all you had was sugar and you didn't have to work through, like part of why we get along so well, part of why we enjoy our marriage so much, is because we can look at each other and be like, I don't like that. You know?

And we have to talk it out, and we have to sit there and get back on the same page. So without that. Or like recently, you're like, okay fine, I know I hurt your feelings, but can you get over it, because we need to do it. Yeah, I did. You didn't hurt my feelings, so I was like, oh no.

Oh, is that not a hurt feeling I'm hearing? No, just being annoyed does not hurt. I'm annoyed with you, I'm not hurt at all. I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I about we were trying to film a video and... Oh, yeah, yeah. See, it's always involving work. It was past work hours. It was past work hours. Yeah. And it was like stressful

because we just wanted to be with our kids. Right. We were like, we gotta freaking film this video. Yeah. Oh yeah. That'll do it. That'll do it. But I think also in those times,

like for a big thing for us was recognizing, for one, I'm kind of like that, like if something is outside of work time, like it's really hard for my brain to shift gears. If I'm in mom mode, it's really hard for me to be like, yeah, I'm cooking dinner and the kids are all asking for my attention and now you're asking me about song lyric and I can't give you the attention that you need right now.

I can't do it. I'm like, my creative juices have shut off. You have to get me out of quiet time. He could just be doing whatever through the whole time. Like I'll pull up a guitar while she's making dinner and three children are yelling at her, hey babe, I figured out verse two, verse two, and I start playing, she's like, what are you doing?

And I don't even clock what are you doing? Like I don't even, I just see her eyes, and I go, okay, she's listening. And I start singing. And she stops, she puts down, she goes, what are you doing? I can't help you right now. I can't, I don't even hear you right now.

No, it's like I see your mouth moving, but it's not. And so he knows for me that like that's, now it's not a point of contention because he knows that about me. And I also know like, okay, he, his mind is gonna go and be creative. Like he doesn't care. It doesn't stop.

And there's busy seasons, right? Where like the line really gets blurred when you're married and your partners and work and business and life and everything. And we've never put like hard stops on stuff but naturally we flow between. We like to say it's not a balance, it's a gumbo. Like it's not like balance like you're playing Jenga,

work life stuff. It's gumbo, like the food needs to get made. The pot's getting made and you taste it. It needs a little more salt and as you go it's alive, right? Like you're fixing the flavor as you go. And so there's times where we realize, all right, there's a little too much and as you go, it's alive, right? Like you're making, you're fixing the flavor as you go. And so there's times where we realize, all right, there's a little too much work in this gumbo. Let's relax, let's put the guitar away

and let's put the conversation away for now and just watch a movie, watch a show. And also look at each other and talk. Also, I think a big clarifying moment for our marriage was when he realized that if I'm tired, don't mess with me. And I realized that if he's hungry, don't mess with him. And so now it's like a very easy, like most, like so many arguments now.

He'll say something that just like gets under my skin and I'll just kind of look at him and I'll just hand him some almonds. I think that was hunger, you know? It'll eat him like, yeah, he's hungry. And I'm like, okay, okay. Do you really mean what you just said? You know, like, why almonds?

And the same thing for me, or just whatever I have in, whatever snack I have in your eye. We always have protein bars now, or like a protein, like, just like. Yeah, I'm like, just eat that. And then we'll just have this conversation. And I'm the same way, if I'm tired or I haven't slept, I'm like, what are you talking to me for?

Everybody's talking too loud, and I want to be alone and cry. For Christmas, I got her a door hanger that says I'm all touched out, and just don't touch me. And it just goes on the door. And then the other side is like, please come hug me. Please come hug me. That's really funny. Like, I'm open touched out and just don't touch me and it just goes on the door and the other side is like please come hug me. I'm open for hugs. I'm ready. Yeah that's like for us at least like when we are in the in the depths of two under two and the late nights and early mornings with both our kids like

sometimes there'd be mornings where one of our kids wake up at you know 4 a.m. and we're just like, ugh. Even if you're not the one waking up with the kid, well now you're up for the day. Oh, for sure. And the melatonin that your body naturally produces has naturally worn off. It's earlier in the morning and it's like, okay, that's great. For Abby, she'd be like, well thanks for getting up with our son, but I literally can't go back to sleep now because of the screaming of our baby waking up.

How about kids being full volume at any time of day? My daughters this morning, our daughters this morning were screaming at 6.30 and they all weigh 300 pounds when they run into the room. They weigh 30 but when they're running to your room they weigh 300 pounds. You can hear them from across the room. This is not human interaction. I know. Literally sometimes I'm like I'm going to throw up right now. This is not human interaction.

I know. Literally sometimes I'm like, I'm going to throw up right now. Last night our daughter woke me up and I was trying to get her back to bed and it was 4 a.m. And she was like, Mommy, hold me. And I was like, girl, I am shaky right now. I'm like, I can barely hold myself up right now. Like, you need to walk.

If you got yourself here, you can get yourself back. I'll come with you. When you're calling calling your daughter girl like I was calling Joaquin bruh yesterday. We had a little day trip just took a little trip together and it was the flight kept getting delayed coming back and she was like dad can you just hold me I was like bruh you are huge. You're 10 years old my man I'm not holding you right now. You are a five foot three ten year old and your daddy is not holding you You can lean on me when we're sitting down Actually scares me for when our son it's probably not gonna be too long. I'm five two. Yeah What's gonna happen? He's five three at ten. Oh, yeah

Where did it do they so far get their height from you? Yes. Yeah far. yeah, I guess. I guess we're a foot different in height. They're both in the 90th percentile. I'm not in the 50th. Yeah, you got about two years before you can share shoes with them. They'll be slipping into those on the way out to the park in no time. It's like, what am I doing?

Oh my god. Yeah. That's so fun. I'm so curious. How did you guys know? Because for us, I think the hard part of our relationship kind of hit when kids came around. Because it's like, whoa, now we have

these two humans that are fully reliant on us for everything. How did you know that it was the right decision when you weren't seeing eye to eye before marriage? The right decision to have a kid? Or no, how did you know that getting married was the right call when you guys, it seemed like you weren't getting along before?

I got one. Well, we were definitely getting along, but we would just, we would, It was just, we only noticed it more after getting married, how much less we would disagree or fight. We definitely, there was definitely a change, not that we don't disagree fight because we do, but I won. Thank you to hungry root for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. I have a goal for 2025 that I feel like you are actively working against me on every single day. What is it? Eating at home more. Oh shoot yeah I've been I've been going to get food out a lot. And the reason I want to eat at home is because I have a health goal of not eating as many processed foods and

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Hungryroot.com slash unplanned, code unplanned. I've never believed in the one. My whole life I would argue. I grew up in church, I'd be like, God's got somebody for you. And even as a kid that just didn't clock for me, I was like somebody's, God's got one person. So one idiot's gonna go out there and marry the wrong person

and just mess up the algorithm for absolutely everybody. I was kind of a pain in the butt. I would have a friend, I remember me in a car when we were dating, and a buddy of mine who's always really creative and artistic, he's like, look at this sunset. Can you believe God painted this sunset just for us? A really beautiful idea and really pure.

A grown man at that time, 22 years old or whatever he was, Will Hill, shout out to Will Hill. It just so beautiful and pure, and he wasn't putting time, 22 years old or whatever he was, Will Hill, shout out to Will Hill, it just so beautiful and pure and he wasn't putting on a show, he really was just, it came from his soul to his mouth, look how beautiful this sunset is, God painted for us today. I was like, bro, God did not paint that,

that is like just the sunset today, like the difference in heating of the surface of the earth created those clouds. I'm so literal like you. It's 630, like what are we talking about God painted that, that's just 630 in Nashville, Tennessee is going to look like this in a Kroger parking lot. That's the most beautiful sunset on earth. I've never seen a more beautiful sunset anywhere than in a Kroger parking lot in Tennessee for some reason. Yeah, you're so unromantic. Exactly. So I always felt the same

way about like the one. Literally felt that way. Like there's no the one, right? I was 19 years old. I was, as we called in Southern Baptist Church, backslidden. And I was dating this girl in Nashville, Tennessee at the time, and she invited me to church. She said, if we're going to keep dating, we got to go to church. And I'm getting to the point, I promise. Are you? No. We'll see. We'll see. It's an adventure. And we're sitting at church together, and I'm sitting through church. I liked church, even though I was backslidden. I was, you know, I was cool with it.

Church lets out and this girl stands up in the front. It's Amanda. And I think to myself, that's the girl I'm gonna marry. Like out of nowhere, out of the blue, that thought comes to me. And I also said it out loud without knowing it right next to the girl I was dating. So I got dumped immediately right then.

And it was literally the last breakup I ever had. It was that moment. I didn't meet her for four years after that. But in that moment, my whole theology that there's not just one person for you, that you just have to do your best, was destroyed. Because I saw her, and I said, if that is on the table, I have to be a better person.

If like attracts like, I can tell from this distance she's just a good person. She's gorgeous, she's amazing. I need to be better. And I literally seeing her once, this sounds ridiculous, it sounds like a bit, like I didn't date ever again until I dated her. And that would be four years.

Four years go by. So when you ask a question like, how did you know it was the right thing to get married? Bro, how do you know you should breathe air? Like you just, that is the only answer is oxygen. That's the only answer. For me, the only answer was this one ever. You're such an artist. That's beautiful. As he says that, he's, you know, God didn't paint the sunset, but look how that turned

around. Yeah. I walked into a coffee shop four years later and he was there with another friend of ours whose they were roommates at the time. He's a singer-songwriter named Matt Carney, and he just turned around, I said hi to Matt, and Admiral just turned around and saw him, and he goes, I've been waiting to meet you for so long, and I was like, oh, excuse me,

gotta break up my boyfriend real quick. I follow you on everything. I was dating somebody else. Oh gosh. So it took a couple months for it to work out, and then it worked out. Wow. Were you immediately like, this dude is stalking me?

No, I thought he was so cute. I was though. I had thought he was cute before, but I had seen him at church also. Cyberstalking, he was cyberstalker. I saw who he was hanging out with, and I was like, oh, that group of people, they're not my crowd.

And I was like, if he likes them, then he's not gonna like me. There were two different types of people. I was a nerd, I was in school, they were cool, wanting to go out, dress cool, whatever, and I was like, if he likes them, then he's not gonna like me. There were two different types of people. I was a nerd, I was in school, they were cool, wanting to go out, dressed cool, whatever, and I was like, I'm wearing sweatpants, I'm going to class, see you later. So I was like, if that's his crew,

he's never gonna be into me. So I had seen him for years, and then I moved to New York, and I was dating somebody else, and then when I came back and he said, I've been wanting to meet you for so long, I was like, tell me more. And then we sat down, he sat down at the coffee shop with my friend and I, and you know, just

like was like chatting and was like, I've, you know, I've wanted to meet you. Can I sit with you for a little, for a couple minutes? And I was like, yeah. So we chatted a little bit and I was like texting all my single friends that were still living in Nashville. Like I, this guy is so cute. I thought he was cute for years, but he's actually, I thought he was a douche. She's not a douche.

She's really sweet. You should meet him. So I was trying to set him up with my friends and then a couple months went by I went back to New York We kind of made friends on social media and then I broke with my boyfriend a couple months later I told her like once she's broken up with her boyfriend I invited her I was a solo artist at the time invited her one of my shows and A friend of mine who was actually obsessed with her sister We both like would download pictures because she was a model in New York her sister model for a little bit was an actress We would like download pictures of I would download pictures, because she was a model in New York, her sister modeled for a little bit, was an actress, we would download pictures of,

I would download pictures of Amanda on my desktop. And I had a folder on my desktop that just said Amanda, and it was like every modeling shoot she did, I remember one point you did a teeth whitening thing, and you're walking down the runway with teeth whitener in, and I was like, this is just still so freaking beautiful, she's doing teeth whitening on a runway, which is bizarre, but beautiful.

And so my buddy, it was backstage, it wasn'tening on the runway which is bizarre but beautiful. And so my buddy. It was backstage, it wasn't actually on the runway. Oh it was backstage. Well see I always thought you were on the runway. And my buddy who knew I was obsessed with her, Amanda shows up to see me sing, he grabs me by both shoulders, turns me to look him square and he goes, Amanda Sudano is here to see you sing.

Don't mess this up. Aww. And then he played and I went back and found him and was like, can we write songs together? I wanna write songs. And he was like, sure, I'll bring champagne, let's get married. So the first day we hung out, I was like, all right,

I've been waiting. If you wanna watch Grass Girl, I'll watch Grass Girl with you. Whatever you wanna do, I'm in 100% of the way, whatever. And I told her, maybe the first hangout or second hangout, but really, really early on on you need to know this There's a I have a folder on my desktop for the last four years This is real of pictures of you from the internet that I've saved and I've been like tracking the things you do

Ever since I first saw you I've been like tracking like I just hope that's not like super crazy Also, I would marry you tomorrow. I told her all this. I would marry you tomorrow. I'd be your best friend I'd walk you down the aisle if you married somebody else. I just want you to know I want to be around you I want to be in your life somehow to what you responded. I actually have a folder of you, too do my research. Oh my gosh. Do you remember Zenga? They don't remember Zenga. I did Facebook when I was in seventh grade. Yeah, so before Facebook there was like live journal and Zenga and essentially it was just kind of around the same time as Facebook but Facebook this is also probably before your time but when Facebook first came up it was only college so you could only get in there if you had a college.edu.edu

email. So for years it was Facebook was only like for you to keep in touch with like your college friends. And that was the only way you could get on there. So there was also this other thing called Zanga, which was like a blog basically thing where you could upload pictures. And so I would go to his Zanga. But you wouldn't see the pictures.

You'd have to like code it. You'd have to, you know, do a HTML thing and it would open up a different tab. Well mine, I never got pro coding. I only did the. Oh, excuse me. This whole time while you're stalking Amanda looking at pictures on on your computer of her Did you have any clue who her mom was at the time? I didn't know who her mom was the name Donna summer didn't mean anything to me once even we started dating

People like do you know her mom is Donna summer? I was like, did you know my mom's Marisol Ramirez? Like literally one time one of the first Marisol Ramirez. Like, literally one time, one of the first early days we used to, we played at a friend of ours church. And we were playing it on the stage at church and the pastor's big, like, Texas mega church. And the pastor's friend of ours says, we just, real quick, can you believe to, like, you know, the thousands of people in the room, this is Amanda's mom is Donna Summer. Can y'all believe that and I grab the mic that church and I grabbed my go and Abner's mom is Marisol Ramirez

Let's just make sure the time is equal on both He didn't know and and so and I wasn't like in my mom But he kind of asked I think some of his roommates or whatever and they're like, yeah You know, she sings this song that song and he was kind of like Big and then I sold her house and I was like, okay. Yeah One of her shows and he was like, oh I know like half of these songs and he's like I know all these songs He's like, I just didn't know the name but he but at that point He'd already been over our house for dinner every night for months and you know They were already pranking each other as my mother and he liked to prank each other to tell the prank story no

Okay, maybe maybe after the camera You started the pranking or she started the prank she did What she did she gonna be mad at us I'm not worried about her. Well, she's dead, dude. Yeah. No. You guys, you have such dark humor. It's a sign of our intelligence, I like to think. It's a sign of intelligence? Yeah, sure. I saw somebody say that online. I was like, okay, I'll take that.

No, no fact checking needed. No, but they like to prank each other. And so at that point he was like- Liked. Just, you know. He was already part of the family. I think my parents really liked him. He was folded right in because he was a songwriter.

And so, whereas my sisters married guys with regular jobs and my parents were like, so how are you going to support her? And they were making those talks. And they were making money and they would have those talks. And so I got nervous waiting for my talk. They had businesses and they were still getting talks. And I brought him around and they were like, he's a musician. Of course he works at P.F. Chang's bussing tables.

Like, aw. He's a musician. But they were like so happy that he just had a passion, and like, and it was the same, it was the same thing as like, what they had, you know, like my parents met each other, but you know, my mom was already kind of like, becoming famous, but she was still kind of like,

just becoming famous when they met. And my dad had moved to LA because he got a record deal with his band, and they met at my aunt's house who was actually just a family friend of my dad's and my mom's manager and so she had both of them staying with her because they were both trying to find places in LA and so they were both crashing at her place. And didn't she say to Bruce like you leave Donna alone?

Yeah, she said to my dad, don't, because she was kind of a player, she's like, don't you mess with her, I like her, don't you mess with her. And then to my mom, she was, because he was kind of a player, she's like, don't you mess with her, I like her, don't you mess with her, and then to my mom, he was like, she was like, he's a player, don't give him, he's gonna try to talk to you, he's got a girlfriend, don't let him try to like whatever,

and regardless, they stayed up all night, and here we are, so I think my parents, they would write songs together, they would sit around and go on tours together and whatever, and so I think when they saw us writing together and playing shows, it was it was like very sweet for them to like watch kind of like a version of themselves you know so he never got any of the talks he still doesn't get the talks the only talks he gets now are like take rest

make sure you guys are resting make sure she's resting that's like you know the talk he gets but he never had the energy levels are slightly different I remember we were in New York when we were first starting, so early 2000s, and we played a little show in New York and we're going to go play an even smaller show in Connecticut. I think we'd literally sold 13 or 14 tickets. We're going to drive ourselves to Connecticut and play this concert at a little black box theater in Fairfield, Connecticut. And her parents were in New York and we were staying in their big suite at a fancy hotel

in New York City. On the pull out couch. Yeah, and we were going to Connecticut the next day and her mom was like, we're gonna drive you guys. And she was like, mom, no, that's ridiculous. Don't drive, it's gonna be embarrassing. 10 people are gonna be there. We'll take the train.

We'll take the train, we'll get there, play the show. We'll play music for 10 people and then we're coming home. And so they were kind of going back and forth. And then I was like, no, we're gonna take you, it's okay, I didn't mean it. And she was like, no, mom, it's embarrassing. Come on, man, whatever. And I'll never forget what her mom said, she was Amanda.

You're never gonna get these days back. One day you're gonna be on buses and you're gonna be traveling the world and you're gonna be doing all these things and you'll never get these moments back. These are the good old days and I wanna be there for the good old days. Let me drive you, really sweet, why am I getting emotional?

And so she drove us and it really was a beautiful thing. It was a beautiful, we played this little show, she sat in the back, her and Bruce, her parents sat in the back and like supported us. So they'd always, and Bruce continues to support us in great ways. I'll never forget my parents when they realized that I was dating royalty.

They sat me down in Florida, in their house in Jacksonville, Florida. And it was a really serious, I don't know how y'all's dads would talk to you, but it was a really, like I knew a serious conversation was coming from a mile away. He'd put the coffee on, my mom put the coffee on because he asked her to bring the coffee over.

Mijo, sit right there, Mijo, we gotta talk, we gotta talk. Sit down. Your girlfriend, Amanda, do her parents know that you're poor? Do they know that you're poor? Do they know that we're poor? There is no dowry, there is gonna be no support system, but you are just out there. I was like, yeah, dad, they know, they're good,

they don't care, they don't care? They don't care, then they don't know. If they knew you were poor, she could have anybody, why would she be with a poor Cuban kid like you? Aw, my favorite poor Cuban kid. I think it's so beautiful though, hearing you guys explain all this, it's making sense. And correct me if I'm wrong,

but it makes sense why Johnny Swim is what it is. And it seems like you guys in your relationship making music together was what you saw in your parents. And so you wanted that to be your life. You wanted that to be your family. And I was listening to an interview with you guys and it was so cool hearing you say this because I was like, wow, like here's Donna Summers daughter who's in this amazing successful music group who's talking about, I don't know if it was you or Abner that said this, but

basically I think one of you said that you or Abner that said this, but basically I think one of you said that you didn't really care all that much about the fame aspect. And I was like, wow, that's emotional intelligence. Wow, that is so, that's so wise. I think people, myself included, I feel like I learned this, I'm still learning this even to this day. I don't want to act like I have all the answers, but people get so caught off guard by fame and they just don't realize there's so much more to life than

that. And I feel like you seeing your parents have the sweet thing they had and bringing that into your music, it's cool that you get to share that with the world. And there's a cost to it, right? So I grew up seeing the cost of being recognized places and I could see how it would affect her, I could see how it would affect her. Just, oh, we're going to go out for dinner and she had to sit in a certain place and we had to find the right table.

And if people came up, then there was always like, well, I'm with my family. I don't want there to be a, I don't want a line of people for all, you know. There was always those logistics that made things harder. But the thing that was the most exciting, and it wasn't like she was anti-being famous or anything like that, it was like, but the thing that I think they put a lot of value on was creative freedom and doing something that you're passionate about.

Like I don't think they would have cared at all if I was like, I want to, I don't know, study bugs. They wouldn't have cared what I was doing as long as I was passionate about it and was following that thing. I was passionate about it and was following that thing. You know that I think their biggest fear for all of their kids that was that we would talk ourselves out of whatever it is that we wanted to do because for whatever

reason we thought it'd be too hard or it wasn't risky, too risky or whatever else and that we would look back later in life going, oh man, like I always want to do that thing and I just never gave myself the opportunity to do it. That's where our parents were the same. Yeah. Our parents fail fail, you want fail a million times over, but do that thing and I just never gave myself the opportunity to do it. That's where our parents were the same. Yeah. Fail, fail all you want. Fail a million times over but do the thing that you love. Like, failure is not as bad as, sorry, failure is not as bad as that sense of loss that you

have for not pursuing something that was in your heart to pursue. So like, fail and have fun. Like that was really the point and that's the point of like these are the good old days. Like sure you're not at the top but but why do you think the top of the mountain is the top of the mountain? It's not really. Like the whole journey is to be enjoyed. There's not, sure there's gonna be parts

and milestones and stuff, and you hope that you get to those places and you hope you can enjoy it, but unless you enjoy all these places leading up to it, you're not gonna enjoy the big milestones because you're always gonna be looking ahead to something else. You know, there's never an end to it.

And comparing yourself to somebody that's got a higher mountain or a bigger platform or whatever. Our parents were definitely the same in that my parents weren't the immigrant parents that were like, you got to get the best job, the safest job, the whatever. My dad, I don't remember a lot of lectures, but the lectures I do remember mostly revolved around, we risked everything to be here. And we didn't risk it for you to have a safe, easy life.

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Head to Oregon comm slash unplanned and use code unplanned for 30% off your order That's the best offer you'll find but you have to use my code unplanned for 30% off one last time for 30% off Oregon comm slash unplanned use my code I moved to Nashville My dad drove me to Nashville Nashville I didn't I wasn't accepted at college there anything yet and we went there on the week of moving in for freshman freshman orientation week at Trevecon I's University in Nashville because I wanted to be a songwriter and you know to be a songwriter

to be a New York LA or Nashville and he's like we can't get you to New York or LA but I can drive you to Nashville let's go find a school literally had a friend that was going to Treveca. We go to Treveca, he somehow as my dad did, got in with the dean and he was like my son, he's smart, he's got good scores in SAT, he's a violinist, he's whatever, he should be at your school.

Well no, the time's already done for acceptance and all this stuff. He's like no, I'll just accept him. Somehow I got into the school, got to Nashville, and my life changed forever. The week of orientation? The week before school started on Monday, I got done on like a Tuesday.

Like it was insane, like super insane. But it changed my life changed forever. The Weekend Orientation? The Weekend, it started on Monday, I got done on like a Tuesday. Like it was insane, like super insane. But it changed my life because we both, in a similar way, we both had parents that just, when they saw that we had something we wanted to do, a drive for our life, a passion, that's, put all the chips on that. Just push all the chips in, you're all, let's go. Go do that thing.

That's awesome. And neither of us would be the people we are, much less have the career we have. That's not a size or scale, just it's a risky thing to do to be an artist for a living, to create art for commerce is full of risk. It's completely always, and never gets safe, ever. No.

Oh yeah. It only gets weirder. It only gets weirder. Technology changes and TikTok happens and then goes away and then comes back. And I say this just to show how big of a failure I am because I try, I don't know if you guys knew this, but I tried, and I guess I'm not giving it up for good,

but I tried to do like the artist thing this past year. I started like releasing music. So I was like, I've got, you know, seven million subscribers on YouTube and like seven billion streams on there. I mean, seven billion views. So I was like, well, like to do music, like I could probably get like a couple million streams.

Like that shouldn't be like that hard, right? Cause I have like this audience, bro, it's like I had the biggest advantage and yet I failed miserably. Cause it's like music is not easy at all. It is so hard. And like, and there's so many talented people out there. So the fact that you guys have been able to make it in that industry

Doing what you love is incredible and just to be clear. We're not famous. We don't have some huge platform We don't have whatever but I always say the day we made it is the first time we paid our rent With tour money the first time we paid our rent with music money was the day we made it like that's that to me is the top Of the mountain we have we make a living we get to put our kids in a fancy school right now, pay for our house, because of music, and that's making it. Like, I don't need, we don't need Grammys, we don't need more accolades. We had this conversation once with this

New York Times columnist, and he said this really wise thing and profound thing that I'm not gonna quote correctly, so I'll do my version of it. He says, Western humans, Western people in the West, what's it called, like Western Europe and America? The people in the West. What's it called? Western Europe and America. The West.

The West. You know what I mean? Like Western Europeans in America. We have this, we want to wear our chips of joy. We want to be able to compare our joy to each other. It's ultimately what we want. Our consumption. Right?

We want to compare our joy. Thanks. That's the punch line. We want to be able to show our joy but there's no chips for joy. There's no badges for how satisfied you are in life. So the thing we can show isn't even the money we have or the house we have. It's our ability to continue to consume is how we show the world subconsciously or consciously how much joy we have or how much we've made it or how established we are.

And it's a thing that it's a destructive thing. It's an unsatisfying thing. It's like only eating sugar. It's not a thing that, it's a destructive thing. It's an unsatisfying thing. It's like only eating sugar. It's not a thing that actually produces real joy. It eats itself alive and it goes nowhere. And I think in the same way, when you think of career path and you think of status, if you were thinking of the sales or the stuff, there's always somebody else. There's always somebody or somebody on their way to beat your record or do something better.

I was just going to say, and that's, I think you can reframe it in your head of, that's not, you're in no way a failure. You're actually the opposite of a failure because you did it. A failure would have been if you just never tried, right? A failure would be, I mean, literally we have an album coming out in a month

and we've been trying to decide, okay, what will it look like if it's success? Like, what does success look like? And honestly, like who knows anymore? Is it TikTok? Is it ticket sales for shows? Is it your song being on a movie? Like what does it actually mean?

Because the industry itself doesn't really have like a basis. If you ask different people, it's gonna be something different. Like why are they successful? Oh, they're successful because they're on TikTok. Why are they successful? Oh, they're successful because they're on TikTok. Why are they successful? Oh, they're successful because they can tour

all year long and still take a trophy. Or look at the trophies they have. Or look at the trophies they have. So there's, I mean, what you name success, I think if you can frame it in your head, as doing it is the success. Like, that's what it is. That's so good.

It'll grow as you grow. And like what, you'd be robbing everybody else if you just said, oh, that didn't work and so I'm like, just not going to do anymore. Like, no, just keep doing it. If you love it, do it. Okay. Seriously though, like you said that perfectly. So I'm not going to try to, like that was incredible. That was like, we need to, you need to like put that on the wall somewhere, like quote that,

give me that on the wall. But was like, we need to like put that on the wall somewhere. Like quote that, put that on the wall. But, uh, there's probably people out there that someone could go look at Spotify streaming numbers and be like, Oh, this artist is more successful than this artist because their streams are, you know, five times more, 10 times more, whatever. Right. You guys have such like, okay, I'm just, I'm just making this assumption based off of the research I've done on you. You guys have a very healthy family marriage. Like you seem to guys have a very healthy family marriage. You seem to have a very good, well-rounded, amazing life.

And people could look at someone who has 50, 60, 70 million monthly listeners and they're like, man, I want to be them. I want to be them. They don't realize a lot of those people are kind of depressed because they work so hard and then they don't have family and they don't have the basis isn't there. You know, it's like you know, every you know, we need community and we need people. And I think the people that have a hard time as they succeed are the people that kind of lose connection with the with the people in their lives that really keep them grounded. I think that's probably why my mom was able to be successful and keep herself grounded. I think that's probably why my mom was able to be successful and keep herself grounded. Like she always traveled with her sisters and she kept people around and of the celebrities that we are blessed enough to know and

call friends. And I say blessed because the ones that we hang out with are all really awesome people. But it's the same thing. If you go hang out with, you know, anybody that I know that's like, you would consider like a big celebrity, the ones that are doing well, the ones that have just like the most solid group of people, like you go hang out with them and their friends and their friends are all like, Oh my gosh, I want to be with your friends, because their friends and their family are amazing, you know, and so I think, you

know, you can't forsake your people and you know, the things that really matter as you achieve your your dreams. I think we pass by the thing that really is the actual win on a path to get the win that we've made in our head. Like we've imagined, we have this imaginary finish line down there that we will just let everything around us blur in order to get to that thing, because that's a win it is. And so often people get there and they realize,

oh, this meant nothing anyways. The whole, this never meant anything. And I blew by all the stuff that mattered on the way to get something that was absolutely pointless. Absolutely pointless. My family, my kids, my friends, the community, the purpose we have in life. We just had these big fires in Southern California.

We went to the Dream Center, which is a place that for years has been a hub for homeless people, for people in need. Anytime there's natural disasters or people in crisis, they can go to the Dream Center. Even musicians, they have a studio there that musicians can use for free to make their records and what we've recorded there.

I think, was it, we recorded some songs that are out at Dream Center actually years ago. No way. And it was awesome, we got to take our kids. Maybe Hallelui actually, it was Hallelui? We might have done the drums. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, what am I saying?

We went to Dream Center and we got to take our kids. And we were helping hand out, we were in the section where people needed diapers and wipes. And there were affluent families that had lost everything that just couldn't get wipes and diapers and you could just come in line to Dream Center and get it. And there were families that are a complete opposite standing in life or whatever.

But they all just need help and they were all happy and nobody had their head down. And our kids were helping pass out the diapers and the wipes and my son was just smiling, our daughters were smiling so big as they were helping these people because they knew what they were doing mattered. It mattered and I remember our son saying to us,

I'm gonna get emotional thinking about it. As we were leaving our son says, dad, I just feel like a superhero. Just like a superhero helping people feel so good. And I was like, son, I mean, I don't know what else to tell you but this is what you're here for. This is why we're here. This is literally why we're alive, is moments like these.

And I can't imagine, I think a failed life would be to get everything at the end of the imaginary rainbow and miss all the things along the way. Help absolutely no one but yourself. I think that is the most miserable existence that I can possibly imagine is to get everything I can imagine that I want and miss all the winds around me

And so even like our music we really treat it as an act of service And so we know we have to constantly remind ourselves that it's not the sales the streams or the ticket sales Or any kind of affluence that can be gained by it or attention to be gained by it if it helps people We are absolutely winning and we try to create from that space as well that somebody needs this. Somebody needs this love song that could help them that maybe even reframe their relationship a little bit. Somebody needs this song of loss. Somebody if it's a real feeling that we've lived with as a couple, somebody else is feeling it too. Maybe we could help them with the song.

Okay, I want to hit you with the question because we're listening to your new album when the war is over. Oh, nice. In the car on the way here. It's phenomenal, by the song. Okay, I want to hit you with the question because we're listening to your new album, when the war is over. Oh, nice. In the car on the way here. It's phenomenal by the way. And there was a lyric that Abby and I were just like, bruh. We're like, that lyric is so good. She wrote it, Marty telling you now. No, it's probably Frank Gehry. Okay, so I, now I'm blanking on who exactly wrote it, but well, you guys tell me who wrote it. You guys are the one, it's your song. Yeah, we'll see. But at the time of recording this, you know, the album's on release, but it comes, but the album's out on February.

7th. February 7th. February 7th. So check it out, When the War is Over, right? I said that right? That's it. But when we were listening to the song, When the War is Over,

Oh. There was a lyric that said, will freedom feel like treason because war is all I know. Yeah. Oh! That was my line. Who wrote that? She did. Let's go. Let's go. She sang that to me the first time. She's Oh! That was mine. Who wrote that? She did.

Let's go. Let's go. She sang that to me the first time. She's like, this is two journal entry, right? This just doesn't sound like a song. It's two journal entry. And I'm like the puddle on the floor. I'm like, that's a song.

Yeah. What is that? Can you explain what you meant by that? So how long of a tale shall I tell? This is gonna be a three episode. Okay, so I had a bunch of health issues like in the last couple years I had kovat a couple times and then like my body just kind of went haywire It was it's kind of like six months after having kovat all of a sudden like one day

I woke up and was like I do not feel well And then it kind of just got worse and there was like we happen to be on tour So it was a very difficult tour and then we got home and I thought okay as soon as they get home and I just Can sleep for a little bit get back to my normal schedule. I'll feel better and then it was a very difficult tour. And then we got home and I thought, okay, as soon as I get home and I just can sleep for a little bit, get back to my normal schedule, I'll feel better. And then it was like, oh no, I'm just going to be in bed for months. And so it was really hard. I'm still kind of in the process of figuring out what exactly happened and how to fully heal from it. But there was a point where I was not having the extreme symptoms. So like some of my symptoms were like really tachycardia, which is like really, really high heart rate and like passing out or feeling like I was gonna pass out.

Just all sorts of like weird, like feeling my body was out of control, like really insane like sound sensitivity with like if somebody made like put a cup down, it would feel like I was gonna have a heart attack and I'd be like, oh my God. And like just really crazy stuff that I was like, I would go to doctor after doctor and be like,

I don't even know how to explain what's happening but like something's wrong. And so it got to a point where like a lot of those symptoms had like calmed down. Like I wasn't having these like, I mean for a while I was like, I'm gonna die. Like at some point I'm just gonna have a heart attack and die and I'd wake him up in the night

because sometimes I'd be like, I think I'm gonna die tonight. Like I don't know what's going on. And it's a weird thing to like have the ambulance pull up to the house at two o'clock in the morning and try to figure out A way to get the EMTs in the house without waking up your kids Just because you don't want like trauma on trauma, right? You're like trying to figure out when do I go to the ER or when is this just like a normal experience?

You know, whatever but because they couldn't figure it out It was like just a lot of testing and a lot of whatever so there came a point where it was like, okay I'm better from like that. I don't wake up thinking I'm going to die anymore. Or if I do, I can go, oh, I've had this experience before and I didn't die. So I don't think I'm going to die. This is just uncomfortable. And I started kind of thinking about just emotionally going through something traumatic where you just really felt like you were going to die or you were, you know,

you were just in a place of like being challenged like very severely. And the trauma that comes along with that and how even though I was like starting to feel physically better, that emotionally I was bracing always for something to go wrong. I was bracing to feel bad because it just been my life for so long, you know, like for, you know, a solid year and a half at that point or two years at that point, I was like, just like, OK, I just I don't know how to be normal anymore. I just feel like even when I start to relax, I get I get this like anxious feeling like if you're not careful, it's going to get worse again. So like just enjoy it.

But like keep an eye out sort of thing. And so I kind of could recognize like this isn't a completely healthy and this is obviously thanks to our amazing therapist Tim who we cannot. Tim Long shout out to Tim Long. Our favorite person. Literally other than you and my kids. My mom, my sister sorry. But then Tim. But just being able to process the trauma that kind of comes along with going through

a difficult season and being able to sort of name it and be able to say, okay, when I do feel better and when I do, you know, get out of this season, which I believe I will heal from it and I will get better, like, will I be able to just function like a normal human and move on or am I going to kind of keep emotionally attaching myself to the trauma, you know? And so I think that's what that line is. Like, is it, it am I gonna know how to feel like a normal person once I'm outside of this because I don't even know what normal feels like you know and so it's and I think you know so that was kind of the point of that song is like kind of reconnecting yourself before a trauma and after a trauma what

I learned about the song is that it's not an answer to anything. It's not. It's absolutely an in process song. And the album, like the album cover, is that there's these two rays of light that we're not in. We're like outside of the spotlight and it's after a party and we're a little disheveled and we're just sitting in the chairs.

It's not like the joy of the party, it's not the anticipation of prepping, it's just like there's some cleaning to do, there's whatever, but we just gotta sit down. Yeah. That's kind of the vibe. And I think with this song, what I love about the honesty in the song that she wrote, When the War is Over, is that it doesn't offer any solutions. And so often in therapy we've learned it's not the answer that you're really looking for, it's the process.

It's being able to walk the only way over or past something is through it. So this song is process. And I think it's beautiful. I think this album is process really. Did Tim help you guys co-write this album? He's not getting 80% of the story. We have to answer carefully. For sure the tools, I think, you know, I grew up in a place where I always thought therapy was for broken people, for people that are just completely messed up and like they need to get fixed. We're all broken. I always thought therapy was for fixing people. Go to therapy and get fixed. But as we all know, if you only went to the doctor

when you were sick, you'd only ever be able to treat symptoms, you'd never find a root cause because you're only seeing somebody who's super symptomatic in their sickness. And therapy is like eating healthy. Therapy is changing all the things that lead to maybe a traumatic moment and processing past trauma. I think it's a key element to just being a healthy human.

We started this album right at the beginning of me getting sick and then at the same time as I was like my health was getting worse He kind of reached this point turning 40 going am I the person that I really want to be is you know? What how do I picture myself moving forward in life and? And so he kind of like was like I need to get healthy. I'm going I'm going to therapy So he was kind of on this trajectory of like healing and kind of you know Facing his trauma. I was actually just getting traumatized by my health at the same time. So poor Tim, you know, had a lot of crossover.

I mean, he should be able to buy a yacht at this point from just like Tim. Yeah, just from us. But, but yeah, so the album covers a lot of that. So you know, early in the process of this, like he was feeling really depressed, like, you know, we'd, you know, again, after like, you know, however many years of writing songs together and touring and then kind of getting to this point of going, okay, we've had a lot of mountaintop moments and gotten to like, you know, see a lot of dreams come true. But like, what now? And like, what does it look like to succeed now? And what does it look like if you believe all the best times are behind you? Yeah, what

is what does that feel like? And so having having you know, he was kind of processing this and for the first time in our marriage, he wasn't the one going everything's going to be awesome because I'm more like is everything I tend to be the anxious one, you know, and he's the one that's like we got this, you know, moving right along and all of a sudden he was waking up every morning with this like look in his eye of like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what's going on and and at some point we were able to name it like, oh, he's depressed.

I just did not believe in motion sickness. Thank you to Haya for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. If you're a parent to a toddler that has all of a sudden become a picky eater, you are not alone. And we've been seeing it more and more. We were in a rough patch there, but it's really nice because if you are also tired of battling your kids to eat their grains the grains the grains if you are also tired of battling your kids to eat their greens hya now has kids daily greens and superfoods a chocolate flavored greens powder designed

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It's a super powered, chewable vitamin formulated with the help of nutritional experts. It's pressed with a. It's a super powered chewable vitamin formulated with the help of nutritional experts. It's pressed with a blend of 12 organic fruits and veggies, then supercharged with 15 essential vitamins and minerals. It comes in this amazing reusable glass jar that kids can decorate with their own little sticker pack. It's pretty really cute. It's really cute. So we've worked out a special deal with Haya for their best selling children's

vitamin. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim the deal you must go to hiahealth.com slash unplanned. This deal is not available on their regular website. Go to hyahealth.com slash unplanned and get your kids a full body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. I used to think motion sickness didn't exist. I remember driving a friend to a hike in Malibu that we love

that I'm sure is looking different these days. But driving a friend to this hike, and we were all together, and she's like, Andra, can you slow down? Like, I'm really feeling nauseous. And I was like, I kinda like internally rolled my eyes, I was like, what the,

like this driving makes you nauseous? It's crazy. We have to get there. We're not gonna walk, like, I mean, I guess I'll drive slower. Made no sense to me, and it always felt that way. And I know it's a ridiculous thing to think,

but that's really what I thought about motion sickness. And then one day I felt motion sickness. And I had to stop everything. I was like, oh my God, what is this? I didn't get out of the car. Motion sickness. And then one day I felt motion sickness. And I had to stop everything. I was like, oh my God, what is this? I didn't get out of the car. Motion sickness. I didn't get out of the car. I was like, oh really?

She's like, this is my, I was like, people feel this? I was so instantly, just so much like repentance. So just like, I'm so sorry, I've treated people so poorly. And I kind of didn't know I felt this way, but I felt the same thing about depression. I thought depression was just a sign of a weak mind. I wouldn't have said that out loud. Yeah, I think somewhere deep within me I believe that same so after like a year of waking up feeling like I had this heavy blanket on me

I there would be days I would get up to go like go to use the bathroom or something in the morning and I'd take a couple steps like oh I feel kind of cool. Oh, maybe it's gonna. Oh, no here it is And it was like this unwelcome friend that was just always with me. And I just kept waiting to write myself. I just got to throw my shoulders back and get after this thing and I'll be fine. I'll be fine. I'll be fine. And just like what we're talking about, there's not a moment of success that cures you of

depression. It's a process. It's walking through something. And therapy, songwriting, an amazing wife, beautiful children was all a part of our process and this album is as a man of saying kind of this moment in our lives that neither of us had ever experienced before and we're writing from these moments in all these songs on the album. My journey through depression, the man is kind of health crisis, I don't know grown folks stuff man. Dude well the album is really good like it's really really good I

think I might even like it more than your music that Abby used to play every day. Let's go. I don't know how you feel about it. Dude, it's really good. It gave me chills. Oh yeah. I personally, sorry, I feel like I need, you should talk more because like these are your favorite. I just started listening to everyone. I'm like, yeah that's great. I'm say this, but then you should talk more because like, Abby's like way smarter than me. We need to hear from Abby. I want to hear from you.

I know you have a lot of good questions in there. I'm a consumer. I'm just a viewer. No, but we were listening to your album and there was a, we listened to Monte Carlo, which was like, I was like, this one's really good. I was like, this might be my favorite one on the album. Let's go. And then we listened to, then we listened to Silla Saibin and I was like, bro, what is this? Like this is, this is different. This is good. I was like, this might be my favorite one on the album. And then we listened to then we listened to psilocybin. I was like, bro, what is this? Like this is this is different. This is good. What is this? And I was like really listening to

the lyrics and trying to figure out like the meaning of the song. Yeah. That's that specifically is about my depression journey. No way. Because you know, you marry somebody and you're with them for so long. And, you know, you hear it all the time on even movies or maybe friends, whatever, of like, that's just not the man I married. And that was always my worst nightmare.

Like worst nightmare, because we're old enough now where we've been to a bunch of weddings and we've seen the divorces, we've seen the babies, and we've seen split homes. Like we've seen friends in life go through many different parts of the journey. And the nightmare for me was if I ever heard my wife say, you're not the man I ever married, because that's a heard my wife say, you're not the man I ever married,

because that's it, that's a wrap, right? Like you're not the man I married, but the fact of the matter is we're all growing, we're all changing. God forbid I'm the same person I was when I was 22. I never, that'd be worse that I would stay the man that you married, I'm meant to be better, I'm meant to go further.

And so, but the worst nightmare scenario for me is you're not the man I married, and that's the beginning of the end. And here I was in my depression, which was absolutely not the man that I was when we got married. And she wrote this song, Sils-I-Bin, and then played it for me. And it's not like a love song by classic standards, but it's the most romantic song I can possibly imagine. Because what she says in the song is, it doesn't matter if you're different, if you're changing, I'll to wherever you go on go with I'm a mess that's the song that's what the song is about and it's beautiful

it's my favorite song in the album that is really that is really when I heard those lyrics like yeah yeah with with like people changing in marriage Abby and I even you guys been together 20, you've been together only eight, but there's a lot of changing going on. Yeah, I guess, how did you come up with the name of the song? How did you come up with the lyrics? Because I did drugs. I'm not kidding.

Actually, that's actually a very interesting story, but when I wrote that, it was actually this company had sent us microd dose psilocybin and which is like, you know, and my midwife at the time was like, it's really good for you. It's really because I had some like postpartum anxiety with our last daughter where again, I thought I was going to die all the time. And so what they had said was like, you know, psilocybin, you know, imagine like a snowy hill and you're sledding down the same like part of the hill every time.

So you know, there's a groove part of the hill every time. Yep. So there's a groove there and that's how your mind works. There's a groove. So if you've made a groove of anxiety, that's just where your mind's going to automatically go. And psilocybin, what it does to your brain, it basically is like a new layer of snow. So you can start, it allows you to creatively think in different things and form different pathways in your brain.

And so which we thought was really cool. And the ones that we had were like microdose. They don't get you high. It's not like a trip. It's just no, you don't even notice it. It's like you notice it like I would take one and I would notice like that the next day something that would normally stress me out like organizing a kid's drawer, for example, whereas normally I'm like, Oh my god, I can't handle this. Look,

look at all this clutter. I would look at him like, huh, let me see. Oh, you know what, maybe I can do something. All of a sudden I was just looking at things that would stress me out creatively and not with panic. And so that's how I noticed it. And for me, part of the tools, therapy being the key one, spiritual growth, all that stuff, was all the key elements, but also exercise is a key element for my mental health.

And so I would microdose the psilocybin and I would go for a run. And that would help me just like a fresh fall in snow, get out of my own way, help my mind to just see a little bit differently and I would see it through. I would just do a microdose psilocybin and go run a 5K and I'd come back and I'd feel pretty good and I would embrace it.

And so she references it and that was gonna be the name of the album. And then our management was like, maybe not. Maybe drugs should be. I really appreciate you guys being vulnerable and sharing that though, because I have heard that there are people that have PTSD, maybe they were in a war, and they are really effed up

from their traumatic experiences. And obviously, I don't think any of us have been to war here in this room, but people go through things in life that leave them effed up, that leave them depressed, that leave them in a space where maybe it's a year or multiple years of not feeling like the same person.

That's it, man. No, trauma really locks up your brain. Trauma, literally your brain does not function as well. It literally just locks it all down and makes it so that you're not operating at a, like your thought processes are all different. And so psilocybin was something that we were lucky enough that we had, you know, we lived in California where things are a little bit easier to come across.

And then this company was nice enough to like give it to a shout out to Sillow. I don't even think you can buy it. I don't even know why I'm shouting them out because it's like, I think they have to- This might all have to be redacted. Who knows? Is it still in the black market? Like- Yeah, no, no, no. Actually, no,. It's on the black market. No, it's well Abby. It's not because they're I was talking to a guy at an event.

He was he opened up to me about his depression and I was asking I was asking him what helped his depression because I went through I was really really really really depressed for the first time in my life in 2024. And when you said that you think that people with depression were like weak or something like I would have never said it but I literally deep down I'd be like man they just need to suck it up. I for the first time was like holy f this is horrible this is horrible depression is horrible you like you can't think your way out of it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and so this guy is opening up to me and he's like yeah dude I started microdosing on yeah it wasn't psilocy, but it was a type of it's basically pretending to be psilocybin,

but it's not because it's I guess that portion of it is is like legal in the US they can sell it because it mimics it mimics what it is. Right. I don't I'm not like I'm not a scientist. I don't really understand. Only legal things. No, but but even even with that conversation though, there is a lot of talk,

because when I saw that title, I was like, that is awesome that they are being vulnerable about their life because there's a lot of talk about legalizing that because of all the benefits it's showing for people with PTSD depression. My midwife specifically was the one who first told us about it, Elizabeth Bachner.

We're shouting out everybody. We're shouting out everybody. We're shouting out everybody. Wow. And because she was like, you know, a lot of times like women are postpartum and then, you know, they're breastfeeding and they can't take antidepressants and they can't take and it messes up everything else. And so there needs to be, you know, options that are natural that are like not going to be dangerous for breastfeeding.

They're not going to be whatever. And so she was like, this is what I recommend if you can get it and micro dose this and this is a lot easier route and it's okay for the bit you know all the all the stuff. I gotta pee so bad. Oh go pee you're good. We'll just keep chatting about the name of your album that you guys completely changed that that's so cool though I never would have thought that that song was originally going to be the name and then your manager was like maybe dude like, like the wars over. We literally had a photo shoot for it and the whole thing and it was like all bright colors and whatever.

And they're like, we just feel like some people don't know what that is and it's going to be a harder like leap for some people. And I was like very much like, nope, that's the name of it. And then I think it was our, our music director, Jonathan, who was like kind of always with us was like there for part of the conversation backstage one day. And he was kind of like, well, what other names could there be? And he was like, when the war is over. And I was like, actually, that one's good. We changed the name. Yeah, I like it. That's probably why it's just because like, people to, you know, have this wide appeal, maybe that that title is gonna have a have a larger appeal.

But once people get into the album, they're gonna realize that there's a lot more to it than just that song. Right, exactly. And maybe they'll listen to this podcast and maybe this will help somebody. Maybe someone who's severely depressed right now is gonna realize, hey, maybe I need to try an alternative therapy

to help me get through this really awful time in my life. Right, yeah. And more and more places like clinics I know are doing it. I mean, he'll maybe talk about, he also did like a macro dose experience where we have a friend who studied at Johns Hopkins. And actually another big part of it is that we have another friend who's a musician

who was like severely depressed. And he went to Johns Hopkins and did a ketamine therapy. And he was always very quiet and like didn't talk much and you can kind of tell he just was always kind of brooding and All of a sudden we were playing a show with him and he came backstage and was like, oh my gosh you guys How are you and like and he's like I gotta tell you I gotta tell you about my year I gotta tell you about my year and we were like I've never heard him talk this much or this like with this much excitement You know, like normally he's like quietly,

and he told us about this experience, and so we have a friend who studies psilocybin and kind of assists people on their macro journey. So for his birthday. Oh God, we're going there. Well, we were just talking about how much it helps. I mean, you don't have to talk about it. Yeah, we can talk about whatever.

This is who we are, baby. He did a macro dose with our friend who is like, what do you call it? What did she do? Yeah, whatever kind of guide like not a guru not like it wasn't she wasn't a spiritual whatever it was a clinical Yeah, like taking notes recording making sure I felt safe making sure I was safe. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it changed my life though We changed my life. I did I love that for you. Yeah So one of the big things when we do a hero journey, I've never talked about this publicly.

We're doing it. I don't know, do you want to or is this weird for you guys? Of course, no, I'm not. I love learning about things that help people. I'll just give you one thing about it, because I could talk about it literally all day. It was a beautiful, massively influential experience in my life.

One of the things, there was months of prep for it. Therapeutic work, talking about what's the purpose that I'm doing it for, what's my worst nightmare that could happen while I'm there, what are goals, I guess, or whatever. And my worst nightmare was that I would see my dad, who passed 13 years ago or so, and that he would tell me I'm a bad father.

That's like, and that wasn't something I just came to quickly, that was like a deep-rooted wow, like that's there, That's my worst nightmare. And then we had to decide if, cause it's hours long and you're fully like in your body, you're fine. So like you gotta go to the bathroom at some point. Do we wanna cover the mirrors?

Cause sometimes people see themselves and they see things that they don't wanna see and it can be an impactful thing, maybe in a negative way. I was like, yeah, definitely cover the mirrors, whatever. All right, so I'm in the experience. And the first thing that happens is I'm behind a velvet curtain, a purple velvet curtain. There's a bar on the other side.

All the sounds of a bar. And I just know it's- How do you guys feel about profanity? Should we censor? I can censor myself. You know, you can say it. Well, we just censored out. Beep it out, okay.

Yeah, yeah, you're gonna talk however. This is crazy, y'all. You guys are getting like real deal. You started it. Well, dude, the whole point of this podcast is called On Plans. Yeah, it's because we want to have real conversations and real connections. So I love that you're sharing this right now.

Buckle up. Buckle up. Behind the curtain and I can, I know it's God on the other side of the curtain with his homies is how it made sense to me. And I hear God say, alright I'm going to bring my friend Abner in here and he's going to freak out. And everybody laughs. Curtain opens. I feel like an armor on my shoulder. I don't see God but I know he's

next to me and he's kind of guiding me into the room in front of all his friends, his homies. And they're all kind of waiting. And I just start screaming, oh my God, holy crap, oh my God. And they all start laughing like, oh God told us you were gonna freak out. He called me his friend. He called me his friend. And in real life, I'm just weeping because all it took was envisioning whatever's happening, I don't know, imagining, seeing for real. I don't know the difference.

God introducing me to people as his friend. This is my friend Abner, wrecked me. Hours go by, I gotta go to the bathroom. And I'm like take the blankets off, take the towels off the mirror. I gotta see myself, I gotta see myself. I walk in front of the mirror and I see me. Nothing magical, nothing crazy.

I see me and I just start laughing and I start crying. And our friend who's kind of the guide there, she goes what do you see? What do you see? And I just pointed at myself, I said, I see God's friend. Oh dude, you're gonna make me cry. Yeah, and yeah, that was my experience and it changed my life forever.

The idea that it's not some, I did mushrooms and I came out of it a much deeper believer and a much better Christian. Wow. Yeah. Like for real, for real. Thank you to June's Journey for sponsoring this episode. Abby is literally playing the game right now.

She's actually been playing it since she was pregnant with our second child. I'll be straight up. I actually have never played the game, but Abby has played the game enough for the both of us. Why do you like June's Journey, babe? Well, you just play it yourself and I'll tell you I don't even know what to do right now Do I touch to attach the raccoon or the the bird? So I look for the paintbrush it's set in the 1920s, can you help me out? I actually really suck at looking for stuff. Maybe if I get your husband

Can you help me out? I actually really suck at looking for stuff. Maybe if I- Honestly, get your husband these games, because if they have husband vision, they will learn to find things better. I suck at finding- Abby's like, babe, go- You can have the rest of this ad read to try to find one of those things at the bottom. Baby, I don't think I can find it. I suck at finding stuff. Like I said, it's a hidden object mystery game. It was set in the 1920s, and basically it follows the story of June Parker- I got the berries! I got the berries!

...in the quest to solve the murder of her sister and uncover her family's many secrets. You guys know that I love a good mystery when it comes to books, even just true crime, movies. I love it all. And so it also translates to games. I got all three of them. I got all three of them.

I'm so happy for you, Matt. This game is also free to download. It's a mobile game. It's really... I'm actually getting really good at this, babe. You can customize, remodel and fix your mansion and garden island. You progress through the story and discover new chapters and can also take part in events to earn additional in-game prizes. There's so many things going on and it's a beautiful game to look at. Lots of colors and one left, one left, carved initials going on.

I enjoy playing a game to just turn my brain off. Social media like turn my brain on. Got it baby. Puzzle games like this help me wind down at the end of the day and it's way less over stimulating than social media. So it's a great thing to have to fill in those little gaps in your day that you don't wanna just like end up scrolling. So download June's Journey for free

by clicking the link in the description or by scanning the QR code on screen. June's Journey is available on iOS and Android mobile devices as well as on PC. It's kind of beautiful how you clearly, and tell me if I'm interpreting this wrong, but you didn't view yourself as enough, and then you went into that experience

and you heard God call you his friend and then you knew you were enough. You know it wasn't even like a level thing it wasn't like you're not enough you're more it's a who you are thing it was more lateral. Oh okay. It was like I you see yourself as this but let me tell you what bro. Yeah. Let me tell you how the king of the universe sees you. He sees you as he introduces you to people as his friend. And that wasn't a this way thing, it was a this way thing. It was like, oh, measurements off.

This is not who I'm gonna be, not who I'm becoming, not something I can attain, not something I can lose. It's who I am. Is God's friend. And that's kind of a means. Tim Long and psilocybin, my friend. Oh, this is Tim. No, it's not, it wasn kind of Tim Long and psilocybin my friend. Oh this is Tim. Therapy with Tim was one thing and then psilocybin was with another person that does that they know what they're doing. Yeah exactly. Got it. Johns Hopkins. Yeah it's not like you went

down some weird alleyway. No no no I wouldn't encourage anybody to do it without, Johns Hopkins studied some, you know. That's very, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, not for me. Dude, I don't cry and I'm like, yesterday on the podcast we were filming, I almost started crying, now I'm about to cry right now. I'm like, that's beautiful, I'm so happy for you. I think the whole, what we do,

we're 20 years into being together, almost, in October it'll be 20 years being together. We make music together. And the temptation is to make music for the success of it. I think competition's cool in sports, it's fun to see people compete and try to be their best, but the reality is life itself cannot be a competition or else it becomes something else that's not life.

And if we're going to live life, and if artistry, what we do is the outflow of life it's that's what we have to be honest our music otherwise it's not an outflow of our real life our art should be an outflow of who we are and if at any point it's not honest it becomes a competition it becomes distorted so if we can't have conversations like this or say the things in our music that we say in our music then we're just not we're not doing what we're meant to be doing like the whole purpose of this life

is lifting each other up. I had a friend today that said, let's not boil. There's, you know, I'll say this politically, I'm in a stressed out state, I think. And he said, you know what, man, you can't let it boil you, we gotta hold each other up.

And at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. Amanda, seeing the love of your life go through all that, how did you handle it? How did you, how did you, yeah, how did you handle it? The journey and the psilocybin journey. It was such, it was, it was, I was so proud of them because from the very beginning, like being able to recognize like I'm not okay. And to be able to say that is like one, you know, one big step that I think a lot of people just don't even get to that step because they want to seem like everything's fine. I mean, I know plenty of people like that. I, I, we lost a friend to

suicide a year ago and that was basically what it was. It was like him telling everybody I'm good. Everything's great. Everything's great. Look, our business is doing everything's great. And then the next thing you know, he's gone. And, you know, there was, you know, layers of things going on. But like, you know, getting to that first step of being able to go, I'm not OK. And I think I need help is like a amazing. So so proud of that.

And then he really just like flipped us and he is he is of us too. He is the one that's very like he's kind of an extremist whereas like I'm like, I'm going to do I'm going to be mid crime and be consistently mid. Yeah, you know, and he might be like, I don't care. I really care. I don't care. I really care. And I'm like, I care the same all the time.

But suddenly he was just like, you know what, I wanna see my kids, I wanna be able to play with my grandkids, I wanna be healthy in here. I couldn't imagine myself old. Yeah. I'd have to make it up in my head. I couldn't imagine myself at 80. And that was a problem for me. Like I wanna imagine myself playing

with my grown grandkids, like big grandkids. Like, oh, grandpa, you're an idiot. Like I wanna be able to have that. And this whole, that was part of the goal for the whole. And so he, I mean, he lost 50 pounds. He was like, just actually did the work. Stopped drinking, stopped, like, got off social media for like an extended period of time.

Just was like making the hard choices to be healthy in all the ways and doing it in a way that was, the priorities were right, right? You know, it was like spiritually, I wanna make sure I'm healthy, you know, emotionally, physically, and it was all, they were all stacked up on each other to where all of a sudden it was like,

you know, he went from being this, you know, guy that would wake up and I would be like, are you happy? Is it me? Is it the kids? Like, what do we need to fix in our life? Is it too much work? Is it not enough?

We're like, what are we doing that we have to fix this? And he just kind of went, nope, I gotta do this. There's work I gotta do. And so it was just like, we're like, what are we doing that we have to fix this? And he just kind of went, no, I got to do this. There's work I got to do. And so it was just like kind of like watching extreme home makeover husband edition. You know, it was like suddenly it was like, oh, there was a smile on his face. There's, you know, he's beaming. He's having fun again. And you're like, wait, he's he's laughing. Yeah. And it was like his true self, you know, because I think even before, like he was always

the kind of happy-go-lucky guy, but I think it covered, he was covering a lot. Do you guys, are you guys Enneagram people? Do you know about this? We need to take the test. We need to. So you'll take the test, but he's like a classic seven, which is like party, fun, everything's great.

And a lot of times that's to cover trauma. And so for him, it was like, he had to kind of like uncover all the trauma, which was, you know, like, you know, it's like getting all the gunk out. So it was like gunky for a while. But then that stuff is out. And all of a sudden, it's a true version of the person that you married. And so you're like, Oh, this is amazing. Like, this is the guy that I married, but like healthy, you know, not just having fun

because he's like, doesn't want to talk about the stuff that, you know, you know, he doesn't want to talk about. But like, being truly who he is and coming into his own, so it's like, not only for myself is it fun to watch, but I'm so happy that my kids have gotten to watch that too. Like I think the emotional health of taking care of our emotional health and them watching that, even though our kids will use it against us, for example.

For example, they got into a fight. So can I tell the story? I want to tell the story from my perspective. Please do. Please do. So, you know, we're on tour with our kids. It's crazy touring with kids because it's like you're, there's moving pieces.

There's 15 people on a small bus together all the time. You know, like you can't poop on the bus. We know everybody's poop schedule. We know everybody's like, we know, you know, it's like, it's a very close family. It's very unglamorous. It's not glamorous. And so we're grinding.

We're in Boston and we're in separate Ubers, so we're trying to go to dinner or something. And our son is like. There was a street being named after a mom. We're going to celebrate Donna Summer Avenue in, you know, the South side of Boston. So our son's like hitting him in the head with his Batman doll, toy, whatever.

Action figure. And he's like hitting him and Abner's like, you gotta stop, you gotta stop hitting me with that. And our son's like, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. And he's like, if you don't stop him, I'm gonna throw it out the window. And he goes, so if I do this, you're gonna throw it out the window.

And Abner just goes, whoosh, throws it out the window. Going down the highway in Boston. Going down the highway, we're like, that thing is gone. So our son is very upset, right? And so he spends like the next hour, so we get out to see my mom's street. He like barely takes a picture, because he's so upset.

I'm trying to calm him down. We get back in the car to go to dinner, and he goes, so dad, so you go to therapy, huh? Much good, that's doing, or so. A lot of it, that's doing. But we're like, oh, grossed it. But he'll say that every so often. He'll be like, so, like, what are you guys doing? So, when you go to therapy for it was deep. He's like, so you go to therapy, what do you go to therapy for?

Because I want to be a better dad. I want to be a better husband, a better friend. He's like, that looks like it's doing a lot of good. Yeah. Yikes. I'm scared for that. Yeah, exactly. But overall, I mean, I, you know, I love that our kids-

Hey, you followed through. He followed through. Yeah, I messed up by saying I was gonna throw, I should've figured it out earlier. I looked at him and I was like, you know what you could've just taken, it's just say, I'm gonna take it away. Oh yeah.

You could've just taken it away, and then like, when you chill out, I'll give it back to you. So I did. Yeah, you know, he, he's nothing if not consistent. But it is great to see your, you know, that your kids can like see, and see the process of it too, that, you know, your parents are human and that there's growth to be had. I think during the fires

last week, I think at some point he was like, I might need to go talk to somebody about my feelings about this, because it was very stressful for our kids. And the fact that he could come up and just say, hey, I think I might want to talk to somebody. I'm like, oh, great. Because I was raised not by my family, but my environment, that's a sign of weakness. For a man, for a Christian, for all that stuff. When really it's not. Abby, what are you most disappointed in about us right now? Yeah, tell me.

Disappointed? Yeah. I'm not disappointed at all. Yeah, how are we letting you down right now? The most? Are we talking too much? No, I'm just fascinated. I'm sitting here wondering,

anytime during this evolution in your life, in your marriage, was there anyone in your circle or your community that gave you bad advice? Oh, that's a great question. That's a great question. You know, all the time. I think we get bad advice constantly, honestly. Okay.

But I think you forget it a lot because that doesn't. I don't remember, yeah. Yeah, there's some bad advice. What's some of the worst advice? Some of the worst advice was early in our marriage. And it was constantly, marriage is hard, the first year's gonna be the hardest year. And that could be true for people.

I think people trauma dump on you and they consider it wisdom. And so I think most bad advice comes in the extrapolation of your experience and demanding, because you need it to feel normal, demanding that's gonna be my experience. And it's like you just opened up about how psilocybin made you, I would say, made you a better father, made you a better man.

But things in life aren't a one size fits all. That's exactly right. Someone saying, oh the first year is so hard. Maybe that was true for you but not for someone else. Exactly right. I think you can't have a one size fits all approach to life. Exactly right. My mom gave me wedding night advice.

God. Oh, she sure did. So that was a horrible experience. Now we gotta know, you have to say it. What happened? She was like, we're Christian kids, right? Like we're Christian kids, so we grew up in the saving it for marriage thing and all that stuff.

She's like, now listen Abner, she's a good Christian girl. So before you go in there and do the deed you got a What are you talking about and she was well, you know before you have sex with her you need to just mother yeah Stop, please maybe never speak again To the speaking is done forever But we did pre-murder counseling. We had someone tell us like I'll tell you I'll tell you like how to do it when it's time and Mike I know we've never done it. We got this figured out man

Somebody pulled me aside and said Said I know you're a good girl, but you know for him you're going to have to be slutty sometimes. And I was like, all right. And I was literally just like, what are we talking about? Why? Why? I think the marriage thing is telling me this. I think when people ask us for advice in their marriage, because we get put in that position

because we're a married couple that people Like our love songs, right? People want to know like the advice and that's a really hard thing to do because we've gotten so much bad advice Honestly man state like your dad has this Advice he gives us for music and performance If it's not alive, it's not live Yeah, like you got to constantly be alive with this thing And I think that's the best advice I can give for marriage. If it's not alive, it's not live, man.

You gotta ride with it. Things are moving. It's gumbo, we're making gumbo. Constantly checking that flavor. Is it too much salt? Is it not enough sauce? Is that enough whatever? This thing is moving, it's changing, it's constant.

In the moment you think you can just set it and forget it, then you messed up. Yeah. And I think all the bad advice that we've gotten has all been well-meaning, you know what I mean? So it's always like, it's always well-meaning, but it's- And I think it probably served a purpose too. Like it helps, okay, that's not for us,

and it's good to know. It's good to know that's not for us to, I'm not gonna live my marriage taking marriage as hard. It doesn't resonate. And I think people mean different things when they say marriage is hard, you know? Because sharing your life with someone forever isn't maybe the simplest thing, and I get that.

But man, if we weren't meant for it, you know what I mean? Well, you know what's beautiful about it is you share your life with someone forever. And maybe this is like the most unromantic thing I've ever said, but I don't believe in soulmates, dude. I just don't. I believe in figuring out how to love the person

that you chose well. And the more that I've gotten to know Abby and the more that she's gotten to know me and be together for eight plus years, now I'm better, I would say I'm a better partner for you, I think, and you're a better partner for me. Because we became, we became each other's soulmates. Hey!

You become the soulmate. You don't marrymates. Hey! You become the soulmate. You don't marry the soulmate, you become the soulmate. Whatever it is, there's always a process. Even if you were meant to be and it was always in the stars forever, that's not the whole answer to the equation. You know what I mean? Like you have to constantly be working at it.

You constantly have to be growing together. Have to. I wish I could read your journal. Because I feel like when you were saying that you wrote those lyrics, you're like, this should be a journal thing. I'm like, I feel like when you were saying that you wrote those lyrics, you're like, this should be a journal thing. I feel like our journals probably look a little different. It's probably like artistic, deep thought. What's funny is that in the moment of writing things, it never feels that way. It's just like, but the other day I found a journal from January 1st of last year

and I was like, well, how poetic was I? My journal writing was like I don't remember writing this. Who was I writing this for? Who was I writing this for? I think we all think we're Hemingway and at some point somebody's gonna find our journals out long after we're gone or gonna be in a museum somewhere. No I think mine is like rough it's like I went to Trader Joe's with the kids. That's dope though. Which by the way. That's a bar. Yeah exactly. For real I went to Trader Joe's with the kids that was rough. Yeah that's a bar. That's really cool wasn't trading jokes with the kids. That was rough. Yeah, that's a bar. That's really cool. I feel like y'all are awesome.

Who are you in your head when you're like monologuing? Is that just a songwriter question? I don't know what you're talking about. When you're monologuing, when you really like, you close your eyes and you feel like you're delivering a speech. You're Hemingway? I'm Hemingway, yeah. Oh my gosh.

But not Hemingway actually. The actor that played Hemingway in Midnight in Paris. I'm specifically that version of Hemingway? I'm Hemingway, yeah. Oh my gosh. But not Hemingway actually. The actor that played Hemingway in Midnight in Paris. Ah. Specifically that version of Hemingway. Oh, you should watch it. Matt, who are you in your head? I don't know. Or do you remind yourself of anybody?

No. I've never even thought this before. Matt's head is very unique. I'm a weird Matt. I think you have a few personalities. Yeah, let's go. What's your favorite one, Abby? I like...

Do you like hyper Matt? Hyper Matt is fun, but I feel like it's a little bit more fun. I like hyper Matt. I like hyper Matt. I like hyper Matt. I like hyper Matt. I like hyper Matt. favorite one, Abby? I like... Do you like hypermat? Hypermat is fun, but I feel like certain times of the day. Yeah, because other times we need sleepy mat. And like, I like thoughtful mat, but sometimes he's way too deep for me and I just can't.

I'm tired. Sometimes I'll go to Abby, babe, what makes you feel purpose of the things in your day? When do you feel the most alive? I'm like curling my hair. I'm like, babe, I don't know, man. Right now, right now, I was growing up. The answer is now. Next.

Yeah. No idea. No, I like it when we're like, growing out. You know what I mean? Yeah, growing out. I watched Mr. Beast last night. So yeah, I watched Mr. Beast videos together. Yo. Let's go. Drinking Prime. Yo. I watched Mr. Beast last night. So yeah, I watched Mr. Beast videos together. Let's go.

Drinking Prime. Yo. Exactly. That was fun. That was a good one. I love it. That's fun. What's your favorite of my multiple personalities?

The one that brings me snacks and coffee in the morning. You guys are the same person, by the way. You and I are the same. You guys are so steady. He's extreme. Yeah. We are wackos. 100%.

But do you feel like you were like that or you're like that because you're in relationship with him? I'm always dissecting that in my brain. I'm like, is that me or is that because I'm balancing Matt Howard? Oh, that's interesting. I think I was always like that. My parents used to find me as a kid

just sleeping on the floor and I'd be like, I'm tired, man, I'm gonna go to bed. And that's kind of still my personality. What were your first words? My first full sentence that my parents were shocked by because I was very quiet as a kid and I was very introverted. still my personality. My first full sentence that my parents were like shocked by because I was like very quiet as a kid and I was very introverted. And they would, you know, at some point my mom was like, Amanda, go, you know, let's go get ice cream with your cousins

or whatever. And I was like, no. And she was like, come on, it's ice cream. And like I was, I again, hadn't said a full sentence and I just looked at her and said, I know my own mind. And she was like, oh, okay. And that's kind of still the thing. I'm very easygoing, but I will tell you if I want something or don't want something. A hard no from Amanda. Is a hard no. That is a brick wall.

You've met the center of the earth. You're going nowhere. That is the hard mantle surface. A no from Amanda is an absolute no. Yeah, so I feel like it is my personality to kind of be, like that is my personality. Yeah, I don't think I've been to, I don't think I've been to him. I think we've both been to each other, obviously.

Like I think I do more, because he pulled me out of like, I was so shy, like when we first started playing shows together, I would go hide in the car after, because I was so, it was such a vulnerability hangover. You know, like being in front of people singing, and it was like friends and people I knew, and it was like, I would do it,

and then I would just go hide and cry for an hour, because it was like, it was just not my personality to be out there, and he'd be like, you can do it, come on. So he really has, I would sit in sweatpants, eat snacks, for the largest majority of my life writing in my journal If I could and he like helps me get out and then I help him get to bed on time By getting me a gaming computer for Christmas, so my sleep time is gone later Do you guys go to bed at the same time?

We get question. I think I think think best case... Tell them the answer, babe. No. Babe, tell them the answer. Seasonally, it depends. Right now we're not because you got me a gaming computer for Christmas. It depends on if he's playing a game with his buddies or not because they like to get online and play together and because of time zones it always works out that it's like after the kids go to bed he's playing video games. So he goes through seasons where he plays video games and I, poor thing, go to bed by myself and go, okay, I'm going to bed. And then once he's over that season,

then we go to bed together every night. And then he goes, oh, why did I not do, this is so nice, it's so nice to go to bed and cuddle. And I get full amounts of sleep, this is great. I'm not staring at a computer. I sleep way better when I'm not playing video games. It's a fact. And I'm like, yeah, dog.

But I gotta let him have his fun bro out. Sometimes it is nice when your husband is occupied though cause I feel like, I'm like, great. Everybody, the kids are asleep, he's got an activity. Like, ah, what's it like to just be me right now? Because, like I never, I actually told him, I was like, I'm like very rarely alone. But like tonight, you're hanging out with people and I'm gonna put the kids to bed right I'm gonna be like I'm gonna meet me again

Yeah, I read a couple books tell me tell me tell me I'm reading a book called Hello Stranger It's like a light What's the most embarrassing book that you're reading other than fourth wing? I'm only reading three books, okay Um, I can't say any of them are embarrassing. I'm a stranger Oh, yeah, it's just like a little rom-com. Oh Sorry, did you read fourth wing? Yeah, I like it Recommended to me. Should I read it? I mean Teenagers it is horny teenagers

Baby you get get page 230 right? Oh, that's cute, we're reading it together. I said, put a towel down there. Oh my God. Oh my God. It is, it is raunchy. But it's also like a great story. Yeah.

And it's not raunchy the whole time. Like there's definitely like sections. When it's raunchy, it's raunchy. No, no, no. I've had a very, very embarrassingly raunchy. Yeah. It's called Butcher and Blackbird. There's like a 30 page section there that I was like,

I was on an airplane and I was like. Yeah. Yeah. And Abby likes to read out loud, so I'm in bed. I'm like, what is she saying right now? When Matt went to bed at the same time as me, I would read out loud to him. I'm so sorry, that is really crazy.

I don't read books like this all the time, Matt. Yeah, he's like, sure, you know. What's going on? You're in Kindle right now. What book are you reading that you're getting the most out of, either like, illustrative? This is very out of character for me, but he was on our podcast, actually.

Ramith's book. Oh, yeah, Ramith. It's about having financial conversations with your spouse. Oh, that's cool. Matt and I don't really talk about money ever. Because as soon as he starts talking about it, I'm like. It really stresses Abby out. It really does. So I'll be like we spent this much money last month and she's like we spent how much money? We're gonna die.

And I'm like we're never eating out again. I will cook at home. We will shop at home. Chicken breasts and rice only. That's me. And he's like don't freak out. And then anytime he spends money. One of our first big fights when we first got married, we were so broke, and we went to the movies, somebody gave us a gift card, and I was like, just buy one thing of popcorn, and he got popcorn and a large drink, and I was like. She was so mad, right? What are you doing?

She thought it was five, back in the day it was five dollars. That's five dollars. I could make us a meal of Trader Joe's for five dollars. He was like, babe, it's five dollars, it's fine. And I was like, no it's not. I love that Donna raised you right. Yeah, she did. It's actually, it's fine. And I was like, no it's not. I love that Donna raised you right. Yeah, she did. It's actually wasn't my mom, it was my grandmother

who was very fiscally, financially sound and kind of actually over the top where we had to save our money and we had bank accounts and she would get us like, yeah, that generation. And so I still have like. I had $15 on our wedding day. 40. 40 bucks?

40 dollars. No bank account, I don't think I had a bank account when we got married. I think you opened one right after. But it was poor food. $14 on our wedding day. $40. $40 bucks? $40. $40. I don't think I had a bank account when we got married. I think you opened one right after. But I was poor. Yeah. I didn't have a bank account. I didn't have a check card.

My wallet was a license. Wait, how did you learn financial literacy? Right? Wait, did you read books or what did you do? So what happens is that you- Marry somebody that's got it together I guess. You marry somebody who can make sure that things don't get wild and then you get to a point in your career where you hire somebody to do it and then they can call you.

And then monthly they're like this was the damage, this is what you're doing, this is what can be fixed. And I hate being on those calls. I'm like can I please not be on that call. Just tell me I have to stop spending money. I feel like I don't eat for a day after that. Just tell me I have to stop spending money. Yeah, I'm like I just.

We have a great business manager, shout out Caleb C. Everybody's gonna shout out. Everybody's gonna shout out. But are these people paid like a flat rate or is it like a percentage? They make decent money, yeah. They, yeah. There's different ways of skinning the cat, but yeah.

Yeah, there's different ways, it depends. That would be different for each. People want that different way. But especially, the hard thing about it for us is that whenever you're touring, if you sell merch, merch sales, you're basically operating a business in different states with different laws and different tax codes.

Oh, yeah. So it got to a point where we were going to H&R Block and going, okay, well, this is a show we did in Massachusetts. And the guy at H&R Block is like, I don't know how to help you. Yeah. And so it got to a point where we had to have somebody help us. And also we were touring. I'm on a budget like I'm 16.

Like I have a budget on my debit card, a budget on my credit card. And we still are bad. We're still not great, but it's been the most helpful thing ever. We were in, we got in debt because I didn't have financial literacy. And we really did like the, I could say cheesy,

but we were in a bunch of debt, credit card debt and all that stuff. And we started doing Dave Ramsey. No way. And it was the Dave Ramsey method, the cash system that got us out of. Which I think was a lot easier to do when we were first married because.

We didn't have a business too. Well we didn't have a business, but also now it's like everything's on card now. It's so hard, and online shopping, like online shopping wasn't, like there wasn't Amazon, you know what I mean? So now every time it's like, oh we can go back to cash system,

and I'm gonna give Jeff Bezos my cap. But the cash system established how we still do business. How we still run our house is based off what we learned in the cash system, because it got us out of big trouble. How we still should run our house. It's how we do run our house. That's not mine. In my heart.

Who's the spendy one, so it's you? Oh yeah. I buy things, they show up at the house, I'm like, oh. I read jokes about guys like me and my wife got on Amazon and blah, blah, blah. It's like, bro, that's not our life. No. Like boxers show up at the house, I buy things they show up at the house like oh like I read jokes about guys like me My wife got on Amazon and blah blah blah. So that's not our life. No like box will show up at house I'm like babe. Don't don't look over here for just ten minutes. Let me clean it up and see what I'm giving back I'm gonna turn this still Think about a pair of shoes or like I'll be like, okay

I bought a pair of sneakers a year and a half ago. They still the soles are okay I probably don't need these and he's like babe you like the shoes to get the shoes and I'm like, the soles are okay. I probably don't need these. And he's like, babe, you like the shoes, just get the shoes. And I'm like, I don't know that I, oh, I'll wait for Christmas. And he's like, buy the shoes, I would have bought three pairs already. And I'm like, I know, and that's why I'm scared

to buy the shoes. You cut out one shoes. Yeah, exactly. I was like, Zara had a sale, I went off. When it comes to the kids, are you the spendy one? Or that's for me. I'm like. Bro, Abby, bro, our kids have so many gifts for Christmas.

No. I can't be smart. We had a return. I was like, babe, like, I don't know if we have space for this last one. I was like, I need to steal the box. They literally opened it on Christmas morning, and Matt's like, I think we should return that.

Yeah, I think that's smart. Like, this year was kind of a big wake up call for me with the kids. I did it too much. Yeah, I think so, because a couple of years ago, I also realized that it's not just us. Like, we buy the kids. I did it too much. Yeah, I think, because a couple years ago I also realized that it's not just us, like we buy the kids however many presents, they're getting presents from their aunts

and their uncles and random family members and friends and whatever, so they're opening so many presents on Christmas morning and they're not really enjoying it. And I think at first when they were really little it was like, okay, but they're playing with it and I don't know. And then it was when I started to see them open something

and then just be like, you know, and then be like, can we have screen time now? And I was like, you just opened up how many presents and you're asking, what are you talking about? So. I can open a house where nonprofit organizations supplied our Christmas gifts, for real. So he likes to have fun getting presents.

Somebody would come over and they would be like, here's your Bible and your basketball, and that was my Christmas and it was amazing. I'm like, it's your Bible and your basketball. And that was my Christmas and it was amazing. I'm like, it's a basketball and a Bible. That's really sweet. So it's like the definitely rich dead poor dad situation. Yeah, great book. I love that book.

Definitely that's my battle. Definitely growing up in poverty, growing up super broke, like Christmas just needs to be Kevin McAllister in New York City every year. So I will plan, I'll be like, okay, this is what you kids want. Home-loved two-reference. I don't know.

Here's the budget. I'll have a budget for each kid, the whole thing. How many presents each of them get. I'll have them all organized. And then boxes will start coming. Be like, I got them this, and I got them this, and I went to the store, and I got them this. And you're like, what about the spreadsheets? Well, yeah, exactly.

I really planned all this. But, you know, whatever. It's fun. Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much for opening up about your album. Right now, stop what you're doing, because this episode is over, and go stream The War is Over. When the War is Over.

When the War is Over by Johnny Swim, you guys. The album is seriously, I would say it's like, you're not going to have heard something like this. It's very, very creative. You can definitely tell that passion produced this music and it literally gave me chills and I can't wait to continue to listen to it on repeat. I can't believe you guys allowed us to listen to this before it's even released.

I'm so excited. I feel very honored. No, but now that I know the whole story behind at least part of the album, I love it even more. Truly, truly. Yes. Go stream it. Go follow them on socials. Go follow them on more. So thank you. Yes, go stream it. Go follow them on socials. Go follow them on Spotify.

Where do you want people to follow you guys? Who knows? We live in Burma, California. Come find me. Go follow them to their house in Burma. Actually don't do that. That's right. Don't.

We should bring these snacks. We live in Anaheim. Anaheim, sorry. Anaheim, California. Yeah, go follow them like Abner followed Amanda and put computer pictures on. Exactly like that. Please do.

And go see us on tour. Oh yeah, the tour. Yes, tour. We're so excited. Mark, we'll be back here. Let's go. All over America. Oh yeah, come.

Yeah, absolutely. You guys will be our guests. Thank you. Please be our guests. I'm stoked. Let's go. Yay. Well, thank you guys for watching.

And have a good day. Bye. Bye.