THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.157 - ERIC ANDRÉ AND PHOEBE BRIDGERS

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

Adam talks with American comedian Eric André about pranking stress, parents, drugs and his film Bad Trip, then also American musician Phoebe Bridgers plays two songs from her Grammy nominated album Punisher and chats about music, her problem with Friends and texting technique.This episode contains strong languageEric conversation recorded remotely on 29th June, 2021Phoebe conversation and music recorded 19th February, 2021Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for his work on this episode and to Becca Ptaszynksi for additional production supportPodcast artwork by Helen GreenFor all your music and podcast gear needs visit GEAR4MUSICERIC ANDRÉ LINKSBAD TRIP DELETED SCENES - 2021 (YOUTUBE)ERIC ANDRE RANKS ERIC ANDRE SHOW PRANKS - 2021 (YOUTUBE)ALEX JONES AND ERIC ANDRE CLASH IN CLEVELAND - 2016 (YOUTUBE)ERIC ANDRE TALKS DRUGS WITH HAMILTON MORRISS - 2021 (YOUTUBE)ERIC ANDRE READS FROM HIS CHILDHOOD DIARY - 2019 (YOUTUBE)BLARF - CEASE AND DESIST - 2019 (ERIC'S MUSIC ON BANDCAMP)NARDUAR VS ERIC ANDRE - 2016 (YOUTUBE)CHELSEA PERETTI (AND ERIC ANDRE) PARODY OF TMZ (FROM POP STAR, NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING) - 2016 (YOUTUBE)HANNIBAL BURESS TALKS TAKING ECSTASY (ft ERIC ANDRE) - 2012 (YOUTUBE)ERIC ANDRE VERY EARLY STAND UP - 2010 (YOUTUBE)PHOEBE BRIDGERS LINKSANTHONY FANTANO REACTS TO PHOEBE BRIDGERS SMASHING GUITAR ON SNL - 2021 (YOUTUBE)PHOEBE BRIDGERS - SAVIOUR COMPLEX (Directed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge) - 2020 (YOUTUBE)PHOEBE BRIDGERS - WHAT'S IN MY BAG - 2020 (YOUTUBE)ADAM LINKSRAMBLE BOOK TOUR DATES - 2021 (ADAM BUXTON WEBSITE)RAMBLE BOOK PAPERBACK - 2021 (WH... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how are you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here.

Hey, it's good to be back with you again. It's been ages. What have you been doing? How's your summer been? Hope you've been having a relaxing time, thinking about the climate emergency and the Taliban and COVID, of course, which I have currently got. Later on, you will hear me tell my guest Eric that I have so far avoided COVID. But then last week I thought, well, let's just see what all the fuss is about. And I picked myself up a case of Delta, I think. I am fully vaccinated and don't have any underlying conditions that I'm aware of.

So I guess I'm not having the full COVID experience. But even so, I've got to say, I don't recommend it. It's made me feel kind of crazy. I am trudging along the track here, out in the Norfolk countryside like an old guy but that is all my current energy levels will allow hasn't been too grim actual aches and pains wise and coughing wise but lost the taste and smell and that's very sad because those are two of my favorite things it turns out a lot of my life revolves around my appreciation of biscuits and farts no flowers farts and flowers anyway look can't complain i'll be back at the end of the podcast to tell you a little bit more about what I've been up to these last few months. But right now, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 157, which is a slightly unusual episode to kick off this run.

What's so unusual about it? That's a good question, Rosie. Thanks for asking. It features two separate guests. Both happen to be talented Americans. First, you will hear my conversation with comedian Eric Andre. I'll tell you more about that shortly. After Eric, we spend some time with musician Phoebe Bridges. Myself and Phoebe did some light chatting,

and she played a couple of beautiful versions of songs from her multi-award nominated 2020 album Punisher, which, if you haven't heard it, features music that is often reminiscent of Elliot Smith. So, if that sounds like your kind of thing, stick around. Oh, that does sound like my kind of thing. Stick around then.

Yes, I will. So why the exciting new double guest format is it a regular thing now no not a regular thing might do it now and then basically i was keen to have a little more music on the podcast and i thought one way i might do that was by having a musical guest at the end of conversations that are a little shorter than the hour or so i would normally spend talking to guests. I'm getting a bit bored now so I'm just going to go off. All right see you later Rosie. Anyway look I wanted to get as long as possible to talk with comedian Eric Andre because I think he's one of the funniest

people around at the moment but being a stand-up comedian, actor, television host, writer and producer, he's also one of the busiest people around, so it took a long time and a great deal of persistence, thank you Seamus and Becca, to secure just a small window with Eric. And then we had a lot of technical problems. Three times we tried and failed to record on Zoom. Three times we tried and failed to record on Zoom.

Anyway, we were finally able to record something back in late June of this year, 2021. Eric sometimes describes himself as bluish, i.e. black and Jewish. And we talked a bit about his Haitian psychiatrist father and New York activist mother and what they think of the niche of manic, often bizarre pranksterism that Eric has carved out over five seasons of The Eric Andre Show that began airing on the Adult Swim Network in 2012. If you've never seen it, here's a Wikipedia-based description of a typical episode. As a house band of elderly men plays the opening theme tune, Andre runs onto the cheap-looking talk show set and destroys the backdrop, desk,

and various furnishings around him. Once the song is completed, stagehands swiftly remove the broken furniture and replace it with identical pieces. Andre may then perform a monologue incorporating dark comedy and surrealism. He is frequently heckled and derided by his co-host, the comedian Hannibal Buress. The show will then typically be a mix of surreal celebrity interviews and short sketches, candid camera footage and non-sequiturs usually focused on Andre's absurd behaviour in regular settings. The success of The Eric Andre Show has led to a variety of acting roles for Eric, and more recently, he starred in the film Bad Trip, directed by Kitau Sakurai, and co-starring fellow in-demand comedy stars

Lil Rel Howery and Tiffany Haddish, both very funny in the film. Tiffany Haddish especially. Amazing. Much of Bad Trip features hidden camera footage of unsuspecting members of the public being drawn into various set pieces in a story about two friends, Chris and Bud, played by Andre and Howery, taking a road trip from Florida to New York. At one point, I'm explaining this, by the way, because I talk about it with Eric, and if you haven't seen the film, it might not make much sense. At one point, the pair wake up after a night of partying to find their genitals have been somehow locked together with a Chinese finger trap. They shuffle into a barber's shop and ask the owner to help set them free,

a moment that resulted in genuine danger as the owner, unaware this was a prank, chased Andre and Howery out of the shop with a knife. Lil Ray Howery actually quit the film after that incident and had to be persuaded to return by Eric Andre. Most of the time, however, the members of the public featured in Bad Trip respond to the pranks with a mixture of bemusement and a touching inclination to help. I'm not normally a massive fan of pranks in various forms, but I really liked Bad Trip. I thought it was very funny. It's not exactly a family movie. I think the scene with the gorilla is going to be tricky for a lot of audiences.

Anyway, my conversation with Eric was recorded via Zoom back in late June of this year. It was recorded via Zoom back in late June of this year. And after you hear it, I will be back to give you a very brief introduction, more brief than this, to my musical guest, Phoebe Bridges. But right now, with Eric Andre. Here we go. Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat.

Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, Eric Andre, waiting room. Admit. Yes, we're doing it. Okay, wait, you want headphones yes please i cannot hear you so i'm assuming headphones would help the situation hope so yeah yeah one two oh now i've turned myself way down oh this is so fucking annoying and stupid modern life it's a load of shit everything's a nightmare what is it with my attempt to speak to you i've never encountered so many difficulties it's crazy it's like the universe just definitely doesn't want me to talk to you we're very close i think it's the closest we've ever been my mic works i hear you clearly i hopefully i'm not distorted

on your end you are not distorted on my end say some words words words and some stuff that's cool all right i think we might be in business okay holy christ i apologize no worries i like i like a little chaos yeah man well uh now i know you have a limited amount of time i have a limited amount of time and you know what it's not my. It is the fault of the COVID-19 novel, noble, novel. What is it? A novel virus or a noble virus? I think it's novel. I don't, I wouldn't consider it noble. Novel. What does novel mean? A novel is a book. Well, novel can be just new, can't it? Well, that's a novel suggestion.

So it's just new. Yeah. Blame the virus because the show I'm working on, I have to get tested constantly. And the test cutoff ends at a very specific time. And I will be in a lot of trouble if I do not get a Q-tip up my nose at a very specific time. Okay. Have you managed to avoid getting COVID thus far? I avoided getting it. Yes. I am germaphobic and I locked myself inside and hand sanitized like

a maniac for a year and a half. Oh yeah. And then I got vaccinated. So good one. What about you? Did you get it? I don't think I've got it. No it no i mean i keep thinking like every time i feel ill and i just think oh this is it surely my son got it oh and we all had to quarantine together but somehow and you didn't get it no we managed to avoid it i mean we none of us really likes our son so it's quite easy to stay away from him and avoid touching him. And he doesn't like us either. So it was more or less business as usual with him just in his room and not really coming down very often, but we managed to avoid it. Thank goodness.

What are you doing at the moment? Are you in South Carolina? Yes. I'm in Charleston, South Carolina filming righteous gemstones for HBO, Danny McBride's new show. Right. So that's a, Danny McBride's new show. Right. So that's a, that's not a feature. That's a, a series or a series, an HBO series. Yep.

Cool. What's that about? It's about a mega church family and all the dysfunction and chaos and corruption within their mega church life. They're like a very wealthy Christian preacher family. Wow. That sounds quite good so sort of uh would the elevator pitch be something like succession meets big love i haven't seen succession and i haven't really watched big love big love i know big love i at least know the premise succession i don't even know the premise and i feel bad because i know a couple of the actors on the show oh yeah okay well big love was polygamists and yes they were mormons i think weren't they yes and it has it has like a taste a touch of that super christian southern bible belt world well mormons are not southern bible belt but you know it has some

religious fundamentalism yes it's it had its first season and they had to shut down for for they had to take a big break uh between this is we're shooting season two right now and they had to take a big break because of covet so um you can check out the first nine episodes on hbo but it's very very funny and i'm not saying that because i'm working on it i'm biased i'm saying that because i truly genuinely love Danny McBride and Ruff House and all the stuff they put out. And I love Eastbound and Down and Vice Principals. They know how to make scripted comedy very well. Yeah. I haven't seen Vice Principals, but Eastbound and Down was fantastic. Yeah. So as far as the new show, Righteous Gemstones and

the Mega Church, et cetera, that's not your background though were you brought up religious no i was raised by atheists heathens heathens bent on going to hell no my mom's jewish my mom identifies as jewish ethnically but she's not religious whatsoever. And my dad was raised Catholic. He's Caribbean. He's from Haiti. And he was raised so Catholic that he went in the opposite direction, but he's more of a closeted atheist. My mom wears her atheism on her chest a little more proudly. And my dad is very like whispers his atheism in a hushed shamed tone right because he feels a bit naughty about it or because he wants to be respectful of other people's beliefs probably the latter like i think he doesn't want to offend his siblings he's from a large catholic caribbean family and he just i once as a joke i was like did you ever tell your mom you were atheist or

not religious and he was like are you kidding me i think she would pass away if I said that to her. She went to church every day. She was like obsessed. I think she was so obsessed with church that it freaked him out. And he ran in the opposite direction. Plus, he also saw like the hypocrisy, like the priests were like, you know, we're married to god and then they had like secret girlfriends and wives on the side and then he was raised in a catholic school in haiti in the 40s and 50s and he was left-handed he was born left-handed and they would like slap his hand with a ruler make him force him to write with his right hand and say the left hand is the work of the devil and i think he just like off the jump is like, this is insane. This is child abuse. None of this makes sense.

You guys are all lying to me. But the left-handed thing is a real giveaway for how moronic a culture is, I think, isn't it? It's all about control. It's all about shaming people for whatever their natural inclination is uh and uh in order to make them miserable yeah because the the word sinister is all about people who are left-handed isn't it in my understanding sinister oh i didn't know that yeah yeah sinister in latin you got dexter if you're dexterous dexter is the right sinister is the left and i didn't know that i think so i might be talking out of my ass let me just check talk out of your ass who cares yeah well i don't know i'm you know i get sad when i get things completely wrong i know i yeah i listened

to like a some npr podcast i was doing and, I said like the wrong part of the brain. I was like trying to talk about neurology. I was like, I'm smart. I'm on NPR. And then I said the wrong part of the brain. And I didn't really know until I like listened back. I was like,

how the fuck did I say that? What? Who am I? Yeah. Who am I? Noam Chomsky. I don't know a goddamn thing. I went to music school and learned and learned fucking

the the seinfeld baseline for four years in boston well that's time well spent i didn't learn anything i didn't learn anything i've got dexter and sinister terms used in heraldry dexter latin for right means to the right from the viewpoint of the bearer of the shield. Sinister, Latin for left, means to the left from the viewpoint of the bearer. So anyway, the way I understand it is that so anything left or left-handed is sinister. You don't want that. You want to be Dexter.

You want to be murdering people in your special kill room um and your father though is is it he who is the psychoanalyst he's a psychiatrist psychiatrist so he's a drug dealer he's not he's not like lay on the couch and tell me about your trauma right okay he's let's get down to business this is what you need he like, you have a hard time paying attention. Here's some amphetamines. Got you. That's more his big. Right.

And your mother is a longtime advocate for women's rights, LGBTQ rights. And she was awarded the Susan B. Anthony feminist of the year award in 2016. Right. Wow. Where are you from? That's a great researcher i think so my my mom has been like a civil rights activist since she was since she was a child she went to

the march on washington and saw martin luther king jr's i have a dream speech when she was 18 years old did she really wow yeah but in like typical mom that my mom downplays everything and i was like oh my god you were at like one of the most major cultural events of the 20th century what a turning point what was it like and my mom was like i was way in the back i couldn't hear anything i have some cream is that what he said um wow, that's amazing, though. Yeah. I mean, both your parents seem to be fascinating people. And your pa had to, your pa, who is named Pierre, he left Haiti during Papa Doc Duvalier's regime in the 60s.

Oh, my God, what a time to be there. And the time he had to escape from there. And the Tonton Maku. Tonton Maku. Tonton Makou. Yeah. The secret police. I found out the other day that Sinead O'Connor's first band was called Tonton Makou. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Bad name, eh? And she says, like, it wasn't her choice of band name. It was some guy. Thought he was being edgy by naming them that. Ah, yeah. They were not great. That's like my band, the the camere rouge or something right

exactly the ss the ss yeah no that's grim grim and they are they pop up from time to time at least in sort of um you know behind the scenes videos for some of your stuff your parents they seem supportive and and oh i thought you meant the tonto maku i was like wow no they don't i haven't seen them in too many epks no your parents uh pop up now and then and they seem really sweet and supportive yes my mom has been supportive from the beginning it took my dad a second to figure out what the fuck i was doing oh yeah did he ever sort of sit you down and have a conversation with you about it and try and figure out where you were at uh he was he slowly came around like i went at first i went to music school i went to jazz college so that was a controversial choice because he wanted me to go to med school or law school which is fair enough i

i've resented him for it for 20 years, but now I'm relaxing on the, I'm easing into the fact that he just wanted what was best for his son and going to jazz school is not as a hard sell to a doctor, a dad. Uh, and, uh, and then as I was finishing jazz school, I go, I pivoted hard. I go, you know what? I think music is my hobby, but not my vocation it's not my calling i'm gonna get into comedy and i remember he was just like wait what like that's

even more abstract for this like immigrant guy who escaped this dictatorship, worked really hard, went to med school, got his own private practice, married an American, had American children, escaped from this horrible psychopath. was so crazy he was trying to kill one of his like political rivals and he had the tantamacu like machine gun this house where they thought him and his family lived and there was no one in the house and then a little black dog ran out of the house and devalia was so psychotic. And also, like, they say Haitians like Christianity but love voodoo secretly. So this is such, like, a voodoo-esque kind of thing. So Duvalier had the secret police shoot up this house. No one was in the house except a little black dog ran out of the house after they shot it up. And Duvalier goes, ah, my enemy just changed forms and morphed into a little black dog. And he went to the Tantamaku and he said,

I want you to go around the country and kill every single little black dog. Oh my God. And he had like the, every, any black dog, like murdered all throughout Haiti. So besides, you know, murdering and wrongfully imprisoning a ton of people that's what my dad escaped so when he finally escaped to america married an american and had american kids and wanted us to assimilate his youngest wanted to study jazz and then get into comedy so i think he was just like oh my god but now he's very supportive and he saw how hard I worked at it. And my mom is also equally supportive.

Yeah, that's great. What were the things that convinced you that you wanted to do comedy? Was it a sort of gradual process of watching stuff or seeing stuff? Or was there a moment when you thought, actually, this is the way I'm going to go? you thought actually this is the way i'm gonna go well i was always the class clown but i never thought of doing comedy professionally while i was in high school or most of college it was like towards the end of college i was looking at the music industry more objectively and i was like well all weird experimental musicians i listened to made no money and all the musicians I disliked made money. There was a large disparity of wealth. I don't know what the, what the term would be, but it just didn't seem any rhyme or reason to the music industry. I knew like virtuoso guitar players and drummers and,

and singers and keyboardists that were like poverty stricken. I knew great songwriters that couldn't get a gig to save their lives. So I felt like you do all this work and there's like, you're just like in this eternal Shawshank Redemption crawl through the sewer, just on a loop. And then maybe if you have this like little teeny sliver of luck, you can have a career out of it. Whereas comedy felt like if I get good at comedy, if I work really hard at it, I can still be in the entertainment business and still have a creative job. And if I get good at comedy, I'll at least get a gig like writing for some variety show on cable or something. I'll get a job or doing stand-up on

the road. I'll get like, if I figure it out, there'll be some job there because not a lot of people do it. It's not very competitive. And I don't know. Yeah. That was back in the days when it wasn't quite so competitive. Now it seems that absolutely everybody wants to be a stand-up or has some kind of comedy show online or a podcast or whatever it might be. It's a much more crowded field. Don't you think? I think so. But like, I think there might be like some flash in the pan YouTubers here and there,

but I think if you want to have like career longevity, you have to work very hard and actually have talent so yeah i'm not dissing any youtubers some versioning youtube star like wherever you get your start is fine or whatever medium if you actually have the talent but yeah sure it's way less crowded than music yeah and then i feel as if i'm having a hit hard on the obvious beats in this conversation because I'm aware that we don't have much time. So I apologize for that. No, no worries. But Pitchfork describes the Eric Andre show as high octane anarchic nihilism.

So are you someone who believes in nothing, has no loyalties and no purpose other than perhaps an impulse to destroy. That's the definition of nihilism. No, I would say my persona on the show is like an extension of me and it is like my id. Right. It is just like the pure like caveman part of my brain. Other people want to kind of characterize the show as you sort of deconstructing a lot of things, deconstructing TV in the form of the chat show

and exposing the ludicrousness of the whole thing. Are you more aware of doing that or do you not really think in those terms? It's a little bit of both. I'm reluctant to break down my own show because I think it takes away from somebody's artistic interpretation, their own personal artistic interpretation from the show.

It kind of, it ruins the magic trick a little bit. My show came out of less of like deconstructing a traditional talk show it was more of it came from my love of mock talk shows like the ali g show or tom green show or jiminy glick with martin short or space ghost coast to coast it was kind of like i watched this documentary about hardcore music and it's like punk music was derived from like this like minimalist rock like the stooges like that was coming out of like rock so progressive the only where to go was minimalism and punk came out of that but hardcore came out of wanting to be

hardcore came out of punk i don't know what what analogy am i fucking going for here i just it comes from i don't know i don't want to i feel like it's a letdown whenever i answer this question because i don't like i don't think art is intellectual i'll say that i think art is primal and when you try to make art academic or intellectual you're it's coming from the wrong place. That's the musician in you talking there. That's the kind of answer a musician would give when asked what their music is about. But man, you throw yourself literally and metaphorically into that show 1,000%. And the extent to which you actually put yourself in physical jeopardy is impressive,

as well as emotional jeopardy. There's yourself in physical jeopardy is impressive as well as emotional jeopardy there's a lot of jeopardy yes does that take its toll yes it's it's exhausting making the show and uh it's very nerve-wracking i've always had anxiety and it's a very anxiety uh rich environment so anxiety yes it is anxiety rich environment you know and we're trying to create stakes to the show and a sleeping danger that occurs all throughout the show and it's a prank show and you know sasha baron cohen and the jackass guys they hold they hold the bar so high for their they're willing to put themselves in so much peril. And those guys, I grew up watching them. So I feel like if I don't get somewhere close to that amount of danger, it's not watchable.

So I feel like I have to, I don't know if they set a very high watermark. So I want to like, keep up with the state of the art. But presumably it's fun. Or do you find yourself sometimes just thinking, I wish I didn't have to do this, but I do. It's every emotion. It's a little bit of all of that. It's like, also while I'm shooting, it's very, very nerve wracking. But I know the more pain you're experiencing

while you're shooting, the more pleasure you feel in the editing bay. Oh, really? Yeah. While I'm at the Alex Jones Republican National Convention rally getting pushed around by bikers and the alt-right, it's a nightmare. Like any of those guys could pull out a weapon and seriously injure me. But I know that I'm making something very watchable. And in the editing bay, if I make it out of the mosh pit of white supremacy alive i will have a very watchable

thing to put out into the universe so yeah i don't know it's like a i feel like i'm comedy matador you know yeah i mean that can't be good for your mental health though it is not great for my mental health but that is why i meditate twice a day and okay i'll go to therapy constantly and exercise constantly and do qigong and like yeah because the physical process like you change your appearance for every series as well that's it and for one of the more recent series you you shaved all the hair off your body. Yes, including waxing my pubic hair and my anal hair. Yeah.

What was the logic of that? It was not totally logical because I forgot, like, we have to blur my crotch anyway. Yeah. But, you know, I think maybe for the effect, because when I'm interviewing Blake Griffin or whatever celebrity is in the chair and I get completely naked, it's not only shocking seeing a grown man naked, but seeing a grown man completely waxed has like an extra level of punch to it. So I also kind of just wanted the experience. I was like, I want to see what kind of pain a bikini wax or Brazilian or like what women go through for beauty. And it's fucking insanely torturous. It was insanely torturous.

It was truly torturous. Think about plucking a hair. Yeah. Think about like the pain of plucking any hair on your body and then multiply that by a thousand. And out of your control, like not you plucking your hair, somebody else. It really is. It's torturous. And it's crazy how common it is.

And it's crazy the lengths a lot of women will go through. Yeah. women will go through. Yeah. So you are in that way, unafraid to play with your appearance and your sense of self as well. Like, because I would find that shocking, like even, even shaving off my beard on the rare occasion that I have to do that is traumatic just to see the weird face underneath, you know, I feel the same way I'm shaving my face for the show i have to shave tomorrow i hate i hate what even this little bit of scruff that i can grow like this is the max of my facial hair and like at least this covers up my weird chin you know what i mean like i hate it so i think like uh pain and tragedy is part of comedy and you have to, well,

I like changing my appearance because I'm losing my anonymity too. So I'm trying to alter my appearance so I don't get caught while I'm doing pranks because I'm getting called out more and more and more and more. So there's that factor where I have to, it's a necessity now, but yeah, I also, I don't know.

I think like your pain is the viewer's pleasure. Yeah. I tend to, I mean, I think I, as a personality run away and avoid most of the things that you seem to go towards in your comedy. And I know that you are someone who's very interested in, in the effects of hallucinogens and altered states mentally. And I'm always fascinated by people who are unafraid of that, because to me, I would be terrified of of looking in the mirror and not feeling connected to the person I see there. And I find that terrifying. But you seem to be interested in it and actively pursue it. Yeah, well, hallucinogenics, they have like more of a special place.

I'm not like a party hallucinogenics guy. No, you're interested in the sort the sort of journey yeah it is like a ritual i'm not like super experienced though like there's guys that there's men and women that have done way more than me i have they've smoked bufo toad venom and all done every dmt derivative and ayahuasca and peyote that stuff scares me just as much as it scares you okay uh and the last time i did acid i was like this might be the last time i'm doing acid i was like this is too intense so i think i'm more just an advocate of ending the war on drugs because i think it's like a thinly veiled racist uh classist bullshit leftover subjugation what do i want to call it that sounds good call it that it's it's a nah there's a there's a better word it's just a way

to like punish black and brown people and poor people for doing what everybody does um because everybody does drugs because caffeine is a drug and nicotine is a drug and alcohol is a drug and even and people and human beings have a natural desire for altered states it's like our right so yes well everyone is attracted to the idea of getting away from themselves yeah for a little bit a little holiday from yourself is a nice thing to look forward to. I don't know what that says about us as a species. Yeah, or it might not be getting away from yourself. It might be exploring a different part of yourself. Exploring a different part of yourself or altering your perception

to have a different outlook on an experience. And I think it has the potential to be like incredibly therapeutic. So I think like hallucinogenic should be legal well it's certainly becoming something that is is being talked about and taken much more seriously and as far as the uh potential for treating people with depression and all sorts of things it's a fascinating area but i still it, you know, having grown up being constantly told how dangerous drugs were and having had experiences that I found unsettling and unpleasant. I think the dosage is a major part of the drug equation for every single drug. And I'm including legal drugs like caffeine, nicotine and alcohol and prescription, you know, whatever, benzodiazepines,

definitely opiates. But I think the dosage is a major. I think if you micro-dose a hallucinogen, you'll have a much different experience than if you macro-dose a hallucinogenic drug. Are you a fan of hallucinogenic drug experiences depicted in films? And if so, what are your favorites? You know, the only one that ever got it right.

And this isn't even my, who said this? Steve Agee said this, and I totally agreed with him. And I've said this in conversation before. The only filmmaker that ever got it right was Terry Gill gilliam in fear and loathing in las vegas when johnny depp who's playing hunter s thompson checks into the hotel for the first time and looks down at the carpet i go that is the only time i have seen a filmmaker and editor and a virtual effects crew get like tripping right on camera 99 of the time i go oh this filmmaker has never tripped before but yeah i thought that kickoff scene to fear and loathing in las vegas is not at the top of the movie but it's near the top of the movie

it's the top of act two yes it's he goes into the bar and he sees all the lizard people. The lizard people. Yeah. The lizard people scene. I'm just talking about when he looks at the patterns in the carpet morphing, like tripping is morphing patterns. I find myself always looking at a carpet or like fabric while I'm tripping and I'm watching the patterns change.

Yeah. I don't know. Well, okay. here's a cheesy segue then to your film bad trip i saw it when it was released accidentally on amazon prime last year 2020 in april yeah so what happened there how is it accidentally released i i still don't know no one's given us any answer. And it's insane. Yeah. It's insane that either MGM or Amazon, whatever, like those are two reputable companies.

Well, I mean, maybe they're controversial companies, but like professional enough to not leak. We'd even sell the movie to Amazon. We sold it to Netflix when the world was breaking down when the pandemic was beginning you know we're supposed to be released theatrically and the world was shitting down so we were like gosh let's release on a streaming service so we sent you know mgm sent the movie to netflix and amazon and hulu and amazon leaked it i don't know what happened and like nobody got in trouble i'm like are leaked it. I don't know what happened. And like, nobody got in trouble.

I'm like, are you fucking kidding? I don't know. You might know more than me, but no one's told me anything. No, I don't know. So thank God it didn't affect the success of the movie though. Yes, it, for whatever reason, it leaked out.

Maybe someone at Amazon Prime was tripping and they pressed the wrong button. It seems like they'd have to press multiple wrong buttons to have that. I don't know, fucking nuts. Anyway. Anyway, congratulations, man. I loved it. It was so great.

It was one of the high points of our lockdown and a film that I watched with my entire family. I have two teenage sons and a 12-year-old daughter and we loved it. There was so much to love about it. Thank you. And it was so unusual in so many ways. I think maybe one of the best things.

Well, here's a couple of my favorite things about it. It was 84 minutes long. Yes. I don't think anything should be longer than 90 minutes. I agree. In any medium. I agree.

It was properly funny and a great film as well for, for divided times, you know, people being kind to each other, really seeing that the impulse of most ordinary people is not to be a prick, but actually to try and help. Yeah. Did that,

how, how quickly did that become clear to you that that was, were you sort of used to that from doing the Eric Andre show or, or was that something that was created in the edit or what no well no so the eric andre show has the benefit of being 11 minutes it's a quarter hour show so because my character you're only with my character on the eric andre show for 11 minutes he can be as psychotic and antagonistic as he needs to be um and rile people up because you're just watching this um schizo caveman bounce around your television screen for 11 and a half minutes so and do and jumping across multiple characters in the street segments this you had to follow a bad trip you had

to follow my character for 84 minutes and when you have to get across that much footage in a medium such as a feature-length film you have to like the protagonist you have to empathize with their plight you have to sympathize with them so because of that we had to make sympathetic pranks and there's a type of prank called help me help me pranks that all prank writers know about and it's just like a prank where your character is in peril and they have to say help me help me to like they they need real people real pedestrians help to, you know, get out of whatever this fictional peril is. So we just we started writing a lot of help me, help me pranks to keep my character likable for 90 minutes. And the result of that was the good Samaritan nature and like everyday Americans.

Yes, it was kind of a happy accident, but we realized when we started shooting, like those are the pranks to focus on. And any prank that felt mean spirited just was like a turnoff. It just didn't work. Also, like I didn't have the benefit, like Sasha Baron Cohen has the benefit of being Borat. And the beauty of Borat is that he's this fish out of water,

And the beauty of Borat is that he's this fish out of water, Kazakhstani journalist who's like, doesn't, he doesn't know any better. Like he actually like Borat actually kind of means well, but he's from this like backwards town and everything out of his mouth is sexist and racist and antisemitic, but he's like saying it like completely oblivious. And when Johnny Knoxville did bad grandpa, he had the benefit of being like this like 99 year old man so he could be kind of like horny and crass and then he was it was flanked by a seven-year-old kid so they could be as inappropriate as possible because you just you can't help but love a seven-year-old kid and a

99 year old man they're just like inherently cute. They're like puppy dogs. Me, I was just playing some 35-year-old schmuck. So I couldn't be bigoted or like crass or overtly horny. I didn't have any, like their characters and their disguises gave them a leeway that my character didn't have because I was just kind of like a Joe Schmo. So because of that, I had to write a bunch of help me help me sympathetic pranks. And then the result of that was showing like all this good Samaritan nature in everyday Americans.

It was great, man. I it really cheered me up. Thanks. What was your favorite one? What was your favorite moment in that? I guess one of my favorites, there's so many, the old bloke on the bench at the beginning advising your character to go and find his lost love, you know, just an ordinary old bloke.

He doesn't know what's going on. Doesn't realize this is a film and your character sits down and tells him that you're totally heartbroken. And he just gives you this nice, kind advice, fatherly advice. Yeah. the army recruitment guy yes who you go up to and you're and you're freaking out and it it looks as if this guy might be a bit of a meathead and might get pissed off with you but actually he ends up being very kind and sympathetic and and sort of he seems to be pleased with himself as well

with the way he behaved after the scene has ended it's like oh yeah i'm not such a bad guy am i yes he was incredibly patient and i love how he stress vapes at the very end of that scene but he told me later that he worked with like a lot of drug addicts and a lot of like people with like mental health issues and he's done like community outreach so it was like weird like cosmic happenings there were some scenes there was a scene where i got attacked um that we didn't put in the film because it never got a laugh too so like some of the more violent stuff that actually we did catch on camera when we would do the like test screenings for random people like um the the more violent stuff didn't really play for a big laugh it was just kind of more cringy and shocking

so the people told us what they wanted too so like the editing found its way towards the good samaritan moments because that really lit the audience up in the test screenings yes what were you getting attacked for i know you got it you got attacked for walking around with your knob apparently connected to uh yes that's well that that that there was another time i got attacked so the guy pulled out a knife on us and we kept that but there was another restaurant we went to. And this guy like kind of grabbed me by the neck and like him and his friend, like hauled me out. But that sequence was going on for too long.

And it was essentially one joke. And I thought that was going to be my big grand finale and bring the house down, but it didn't, it didn't get a big laugh. So we just cut it. Anything like you have to film and film and film, film in this genre genre it's a lot

of trial and error and uh yeah the test the test audience we tested it a few times and that that it just didn't play there's another scene like that where a guy tried to beat me up at the honky tonk bar because i was peeing all over the place and i think we gave a little bit of him in the credits yes but in the body in the body of the movie he didn't play right i don't think people wanted to see... When it's just too violent and not funny, it's just too violent and not funny. And he turned out to be okay in the end,

but he was the only person where you thought, actually, this guy looks like trouble. Like he looks like a bit of a prick. He was going to bring a bottle of Jim Beam over my head. so that was eric andre talking to me there. Very grateful to him for agreeing to do the podcast. Now, for this episode's musical guest, and as I was explaining to Rosie at the beginning, this is not something that I'll be doing on every episode.

Apart from anything else, it just creates double the amount of work. I should have figured that out for myself really using maths but i don't know i thought oh it'll be fine i'll just you know get in touch with some musicians they'll play a couple of songs they'll introduce them jobs are good but it's never that simple, is it? Anyway, I'm really glad that we were able to make this happen. And I've also been able to record with some other wonderful musicians who you will hear as part of this forthcoming run of episodes from now until Christmas 2021. But let me tell you a tiny bit about Phoebe Lucille Bridges, currently age 27. She is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer from Los Angeles, California. Phoebe

made her solo debut with the studio album Stranger in the Alps. Her second album Punisher earned Bridges widespread critical acclaim and four Grammy Award nominations, including Best New Artist. As I speak, a collaboration with The Killers was just released. And she's done a whole record with Conor Obust of Bright Eyes. He's a regular collaborator of hers. Back in mid-February of this year, 2021, Phoebe kindly recorded a couple of superb performances of songs from her Punisher LP, and we also talked about some of the other music she's been listening to, as well as discussing her antipathy towards the sitcom Friends and the finer points of her texting technique.

Back at the end for a small waffle slice, but right now with Phoebe Bridges, here we go. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah Thanks so much for agreeing to play a couple of songs. You have been warned that you're going to play a couple of songs, haven't you? Indeed. Okay, good. And we're going to talk a little bit after you play your first one. But this is Kyoto, one of the big singles from the recent Punisher album.

So tell us a little bit about this one, Phoebe. Why Kyoto? What's that all about uh i don't know this song is weird to me like it keeps kind of i keep realizing things about it i wrote it a little bit when i was bored on tour and there's this special self-hatred that happens when you're bored on tour that's like why like i i'm literally living my dream life. This is exactly what I asked for. Why am I still depressed? Yeah, it's just about tour depression, I guess, or that's how it started. And then it ended up kind of being about my complex relationship with my dad. And then

about how I also come home and feel depressed when I have like romanticized my life at home a little bit too much. Like when I'm on tour, I always save recipes and stuff on my phone. Like I'm gonna start cooking or gardening or something when I get home and I never do. I just spend five days in bed. And then I'm the same as I always have been. the same as I always have been. to the arcade i wanted to go but i didn't you called me from a payphone they still got payphones it cost a dollar a minute to tell me you're getting sober and you wrote me a letter but i don't have to read it I'm gonna kill you If you don't beat me to it Dreaming through Tokyo skies

I wanted to see the world Then I flew over the ocean And I changed my mind Sunsets been a freak show on the weekend So I've been driving out to the suburbs To park at the Goodwill and stare at the chemtrails With my little brother He said you'd call on his birthday We're off by like ten days

You get a few points for trying Remember getting the truck fixed When you let us drive it Twenty-five felt like flying i don't forgive you but please don't hold me to it born under Scorpio skies I wanted to see the world through your eyes Until it happened

Then I changed my mind Guess I lied I'm a liar Who lies? I'm alive. That was Kyoto, an exclusive version recorded especially for this podcast. Now, Phoebe, I wanted to ask you about how you coped with 2020. Quite apart from anything pandemic related, you had your album coming out, so you were extremely busy. But when you had moments to yourself, what were some of the things culturally that kept you positive? Comedians on Twitter. things culturally that kept you positive um comedians uh on twitter and records tv i always have like comfort bullshit tv or audiobooks around that don't take a lot of like mental space to watch um i think for a lot of people, it's Friends, but I hate Friends. I think it's

a horrible show. I was never a Friends fan, I have to admit, but what wound you up about it? I don't, it literally, like, it's like I'm being left out of a punchline or something. I'm just like, this can't be what it is. This isn't funny. It isn't cute. It's so infuriating to me how medium I feel about it, you know, and how worked up people get about it. That being said, I do have a lot of people in my life who English is their second language and friends was how they kind of adjusted to hearing English all the time,

having it on the TV. I have, I have a soft spot for that sure how you doing oh i can't i can't i did a line it's one of the one of the great lines i think i'm also bitter because i was born a couple months after the show or maybe the show i think the show came out a couple months after i was born and of course there's a phoebe that then took over my life right and now now every time i pick up a guitar it's like oh my god smelly cat smelly cat smelly cat what are they feeding you not funny not fucking funny to me she's a very funny performer i mean they're all talented um actors in the show yeah they weren't really allowed to flourish on that show i don't think well they got by and what sort of music have you been listening

to phoebe uh here's a question that sometimes gets asked in magazine interviews if you had to save one record or maybe two from a burning house what would they they be? I would pick, so I really love Grouper. Grouper was my top artist last year. Grouper makes, it's kind of like classical music for people who like indie rock. It's slow core, I think is what I would categorize it as. But it's a perfect record for, like if you're not really feeling,

like listening to something that's going to affect your mood 100%, you want some, like, very cool background music. It's the best. I love it. Never heard of them before. Liz Harris. She's released material on her own label since 2005. Grouper released the critically acclaimed Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill in 2008. That's a bit much.

It is. I know. I was making out with somebody once at my house who was like, can we listen to something that doesn't make me feel like I'm drowning? And I got so defensive. I was like, fuck you. No. We're listening to drowning music. Grouper, Juliana Barwick, Eric Satie.

It's a lot of like, that's... I do know Eric Satie and I do know Juliana Barwick, both very nice. Yeah, Nils Fromm too. Like I love, also Low, the band Low. Yep. I love slow core music. It's so cool to me. But then I would pick something...

There's this pop record I love called Moona Saves the World. Moona. Moona. It's like the opposite. It's like just going to make you feel good to put it on. And I think I would need some serotonin, especially if my house was burning down. Okay. I'm looking at them.

Second studio album by American band Moona. Never heard of them before. They're great. They're great. They're great. Okay, I will explore. Do you think you would ever, you are, you have something of a reputation for being a prodigious collaborator. Mm-hmm. Do you think you would collaborate with someone on a totally instrumental, slow core, as you call it, album?

Definitely. I would definitely need a collaborator because i i use the same three chords for every single song it's like the only way that i trick myself into writing music and i won't i'll change the key sometimes and i'll fuck with the chords after i'm done writing the lyrics but i always start with the same three chords it's a weird habit but it's working so i'm not going to jin it. So if I was going to make like a real instrumental record, I'd need to branch out. I really like like Yola Tango's instrumental songs too. I just like it. It reminds me of classical music in the way that it just makes you feel, hmm, how do I even describe this? It's just like silence or the radio can feel like in silence,

you're thinking entirely your thoughts. It's just like you and yourself alone. And the radio is obviously like imposed thoughts that'll send you on a totally different tangent. And slow core, instrumental music, classical music, jazz, it helps me get out of bad thought patterns, especially with the news nowadays or my thoughts nowadays. It's nice to feel, I don't know, just it's what I would do homework to if I did homework, which I don't. But even if I have like an email interview or something, I'll just something on like that it's great do you ever meditate no I don't I mean the closest I get is walking when I forget my phone or my headphones and then I'm like fuck am I meditating that's kind of meditation having a phone around I'm maybe I'm the only millennial who thinks this it's very boomer of me but it it just it sucks. It sucks. It's

Compartmentalizing it for work. It has been really hard like I will go on a walk and just be looking down the entire time Um, and the times that i've accidentally forgot my phone at home I remember those walks And I take walks every day. I don't remember them and then the ones where I forgot my phone I could tell you exactly what I was thinking about or what I was, you know, writing in my head. I do a lot of writing walking, actually. How do you remember it, though, if you haven't got your phone?

When I walk like that, I will take my phone, but it's just in my pocket. Or I'll have my headphones on and I'm listening to the same voice memo melody over and over. And then I have like the most, the most psychotic phone notes. Like I can't tell what they are. I can't tell if they're notes I left myself or they're supposed to be

lyrics. I'm looking at one right now. It's from March 1st, 2020 that just says it's on. Yeah. Bank heist. I have one that says retainer, like I was trying to write a list for myself on what to take somewhere or something. It's not the sequel to Punisher. No. What else? Oh, this is my favorite. October 3rd, 2019.

Yo. And then that's it with a period after it my phone notes are insane but then there are a lot of lyrics uh that i forget that i wrote and and it's a beautiful gift to be writing and then find like a jackpot yeah i think there might be a bit more work to do on yo before it's really good i was probably drafting a text that then i ended up just writing like it's a lot of angry text drafts or like setting boundaries you draft your texts if it's an intense text definitely you don't want to be constantly typing and deleting and have the person see the three little dots for like four hours right now this reveals a generational gulf because i'm thinking if it's an intense message then email yeah i think an email is so toxic to me like if i sent my friend

or or it's just the fact that you don't want them to think it's intense you drafted in your notes so that they know that you didn't think that too you're trying to seem like you didn't want them to think it's intense. You draft it in your notes so that they know that you didn't think that too, you're trying to seem like you didn't think too hard about it. If it's just like, oh, hey, I actually can't make it that day, but maybe next week or something, but you're actually lying or it's like an excuse for something and you're trying to get your story straight or a family member texts me and I'm just, I don't want to admit that I've read it and I'm like, I'll say this,

but I'll send it later or something or asking for a favor, you know? Yeah. It's like, hey, will you, could you come to the house and help me move this couch or something? But you don't, you want to do it at a certain time. Yeah. I have a lot of anxiety if you can't. No, but that sounds normal though.

I don't know anyone who doesn't share some of those anxieties. But I'm impressed. Do you know for a fact that a lot of people will write a draft text before sending one? Definitely. I do. Yeah. I share that with a lot of my friends. Wow.

That is next level. How about, so sometimes I just don't want to take a call or I don't want to reply to a text. So I'll just think, well, I'm just going to ignore that. Yeah. And then when people get annoyed, especially with phone calls, it's like they just keep phoning. Like, well, you must have just not heard that first one. So you're like, no, no, I didn't want to pick up because I don't want to have a phone conversation right now. Everyone expects you to be available for conversations at any moment. And you can't just phone someone.

I have to. I send out a written invitation two weeks in advance if I'm going to phone someone. You know what I mean? No. An out of the blue phone call is like the most toxic thing you can possibly do. Like a cold call. And like the biggest lie that I tell daily is like oh my god just saw this yeah that's my that's my daily lie to every single person who exists oh my god look i just saw this

i mean sometimes it's true that's the way i justify it to myself because there have been times it has happened that i've actually just not seen a text coming in. So I'm clinging on to that one time where it really happened. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't see this, even though I live with this in front of my face all day. What's the longest you've gone without responding to a text and then finally got back to the person? Like two years. Oh, excellent reply lag.

Now, we are going to hear one more number from you phoebe can you tell us what this one is yeah this song's called chinese satellite it's about not believing in god but kind of wishing i did i even when i talked to my friends who grew up in like crazy christian cults or something they they talk about the community and a bunch of kids just wanting to do good. And then of course, teenage trauma from rejecting that. But I guess I just, I was jealous of people who like believed in something or even conspiracy theories or aliens or QAnon even. It's like, can you imagine thinking

that there's somebody out there who's smarter than you and has like a big plan? Because I don't believe that. So it's about being jealous. Yes jealous yes well just before we hear that I wanted to say thanks very much for talking to me I've really enjoyed coming to your music and listening to Punisher which is a beautiful record I'm less familiar with your first one my daughter likes it very much and was excited when I told her that I was talking to you. She sends her love. That's awesome.

I say hello. But she said, why is she talking to you, dad? You're 51. And I was like, well, I don't know. Maybe she's not snobby. And she has an appreciation for things outside of her immediate generational cohort. That's incredible. And that shut her up.

But yeah, she was very impressed that I was talking to you. So thank you very much for giving up your time to do so. And here is Chinese Satellite. Yeah, thanks. I've been running around in circles Pretending to be myself Why would somebody do this on purpose When they could do something else Drowning out the morning birds With the same three songs over and over I wish I wrote it, but I didn't

So I learned the words Hum along till the feeling's gone forever Took a tour to see the stars But they weren't out till night So I wished hard on a Chinese satellite I want to believe But then I look at the sky and I feel nothing You know I hate to be alone I want to be wrong

You were screaming at the evangelicals They were screaming right back from what I remember When you said I will never be your vegetable Because I think when you're gone it's forever But you know I'd stand on a corner Embarrassed with the picket sign If it meant I would see you when I die. Sometimes when I can't sleep.

It's just a matter of time before I'm hearing things. Swore I could feel you through the walls. But that's impossible I want to believe That if I go outside I'll see a tractor beam Coming to take me to Where I'm from

I want to go Home I want to go home This is an advert for Squarespace. Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics, and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with

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the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Hey, welcome back. I'm very grateful indeed to Phoebe Bridges there. So how are you doing, Podcats? How are you doing?

I hope you're all doing okay out there and have been able to enjoy some summer fun. In previous summers, Team Buckles has decamped to France for a summer break. We weren't able to do that this year partly because we got pinged and also partly because I just lost track of what the travel regulations were and then when I looked them up I got very confused and sad. So in the end we went to Brighton. I don't know if you've been to Brighton but it's pretty good. Actually we got really lucky with the weather. I don't think I got Covid in Brighton. I think I probably got Covid in filthy dirty London where I just went around licking everything. Anyway Brighton was nice. Pumped into a few podcats there. I'm going to be back in Brighton was nice. Pumped into a few podcasts there.

I'm going to be back in Brighton in a few weeks, in fact. Doing some book tour shows. Those are finally happening. You can go to my website, adam-buxton.co.uk to find out more. Most of the shows are sold out. Most of the shows are sold out. I am a robot. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing some of you at those

over the next few weeks and months. What else? A few weeks back, I was at Latitude, also bumped into a few more podcats there. Latitude Festival, that is, in Southwold, which was being referred to as the Test of All, because as far as I'm aware, it was one of the first, if not the first, major festival to take place after the beginning of the pandemic in the world. And they were interested to see how that would pan out. I was thinking, well, I guess there's a good chance that I might get COVID after being here. But I was fully vaccinated, so I thought maybe it's worth it.

Actually, it was worth it. We had a really good time. And I did a bug show there, Supergrass special. Supergrass themselves were playing on the main stage on the Saturday morning or or afternoon at midday i think they went on and i ended up introducing them which was really good i got in touch with gaz and said i'll see you're uh on the main stage this is the accent that i used in the email see you on the main stage on saturday well let me know if you need anyone to uh carry your drumsticks or i don't know introduce you or whatever i was thinking i hope he wants me to introduce them because i'd love to do that and he took the bait came back fairly quickly and said yeah that'd be

great so i did a very funny introduction for them. I went on and said, unfortunately, Gaz has been pinged. So he's isolating in a port-a-loo for the next 10 days. But luckily, I've been able to step in and I'm going to do dramatic readings of Supergrass lyrics. So then I started reading the lyrics from All Right. And then the band appeared behind me. We'd arranged all this beforehand in the green room. The band came on behind me and the audience started cheering and I acted like they were cheering for me doing the readings.

I mean, it was very good. It was classic kind of vaudevillian shtick that we were up to there, and it was brilliant. No, I mean, seriously, it was great fun. Holy Moses, packed crowd for the afternoon show, and Supergrass played a blinder. They sounded great. And I was watching the show with my whole family and James Sterling, our old producer from Six Music, he happened to be there that weekend.

Oh man, it was emotional. It was fun. It was wonderful to be out with a load of people in a festival setting again. I'm smiling. Can you hear me Ah, I'm smiling. Can you hear me smiling? I'm smiling thinking about it. Anyway, now I've got COVID. What about you, Rosie? Oh, now I've got novid. Yeah, all right.

All right, let's head back. Just a few thank yous before I bid you goodbye. First of all, thanks to everyone who took part in the auction for MSF that happened earlier this year. The last episode that I put out of this podcast was me and Joe Cornish teasing some of the items that were going to be auctioned off. In the end, it was a really enjoyable and successful auction event accompanied by a live stream show where i talked about the items and somehow everything worked out great i was able to post everything off there was a few weeks where i was worried that some of my um more expensive and valuable items of pop cultural memorabilia like the radio head helmets from the jigsaw falling into place video which was signed

by Johnny and Tom from the band um were not going to actually arrive. They went astray for a while. I paid for next day delivery, but most of the stuff was not delivered the next day. Anyway, it did, as far as I know, all arrive eventually in one piece. So I'm glad about that. and I'm very grateful to everyone who was so generous with their bids and everyone who bought raffle tickets for the live stream show as well thank you all very much in the end we raised 29,912 pounds that will go to help Médecins Sans Frontières, a.k.a. Doctors Without Borders, provide non-partisan medical aid all over the world. Anyway, thanks. Thanks too to my friends at Gear for Music.

That's the word gear with the number four and music. They're an online music shop and great allies of this podcast. They help get microphones out to many of my guests, especially the Beecaster microphone from the Neat Company. Thanks to Neat and to Gear 4 Music for their efforts sending out a microphone to Eric Andre down there in South Carolina. No mean feat. He did receive the microphone, but he didn't have the adapter he needed to actually plug it in. Anyway, worked out fine. It was good enough, technically, I think.

But yeah, I'm really grateful to Gear 4 Music and Neat Microphones. There's a link in the description to the Gear 4 Music site. Whether it's musical instruments or podcasting recording gear you're after, that's a good place to check out. Thanks very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his work on this episode. A lot of work. And to Becca Tashinsky for additional production support. Thank you, Seamus.

Thank you, Becca. Podcast artwork is by Helen Green. I was wondering if you'd like a hug. I know I would. Come on. All right. like a hug. I know I would. Come on. Alright. Till next time. Watch out. Take care. I love you. BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Bye! Bye. Thank you.