The Daily Stoic - The National’s Matt Berninger On Ego, Collaboration, and Slowing Down

Episode Date: December 19, 2020

On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to the lead singer of indie rock band The National about the false glamour of the rock n’ roll lifestyle, staying creative during the pandemic, and how he has sustained a successful career in the music industry.After quitting a career in advertising in his thirties, Berninger went on to form The National in 1999. The band has released several critically acclaimed albums, including Boxer and the Grammy-nominated Trouble Will Find Me. In October he released his debut solo album, Serpentine Prison.This episode is brought to you by GiveWell, the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. GiveWell’s team of researchers works countless hours to determine which charities make the most effective dollar-for-dollar contributions to the causes they support. Since 2010, GiveWell has helped over 50,000 donors donate over 500 million dollars to the most effective charities, leading to over 75,000 lives saved and millions more improved. Visit GiveWell.org/stoic and your first donation will be matched up to 100 dollars.This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. Visit http://linkedin.com/stoic to get fifty dollars off your first job post.This episode is also brought to you by HelloFresh, the meal-kit subscription that gets you healthy and delicious home-cooked meals, right to your doorstep. HelloFresh sends you meal kits in a way that fits in with your schedule and dietary preferences. Meals are seasonal and delicious, and save you and your family time and money on grocery shopping. Visit HelloFresh.com/stoic90 and use code STOIC90 to get $90 off, including free shipping.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Matt Berninger:Homepage: https://mattberningerswebsite.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/MattberningerInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/greengloves777Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattberningerYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvGEf-PuZsubcWHzDzchxiwSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We reflect. We prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school. When we have the time to sing, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals, and to prepare

for what the future will bring. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stood Podcast.

My guest today is someone who, if you're not familiar with his music and you're familiar with my writing, in a way you are familiar with his music because I have probably written more of my books to Matt Berninger and the National, then very, very, very few artists. I love the National. It's that, when I write, I tend to listen to songs on repeat over and over again. And this is a band that I'll listen to their whole album, but often I'll pick one or two songs. And I'll just listen to that song on repeat to blurs together. It gets me into an emotional place that allows me to access whatever I have to do with my writing.

I think the first national song I would have heard would have been Mr. November. So this would have been like, oh, eight. And it's been amazing to watch this band which wasn't a new band then continue to grow and rise. I think they're a great example of the kind of artist I'm talking about in my book, Preniel Seller. There's stuff amazing. The new album I am easy to find is one of my favorites, but Matt Solo stuff is really great. He did a song called Walking on a Strain with Phoebe Bridgers, which I love. Just an incredible band. favorites but but Matt solo stuff is really great. He did a song called

Walking on a Strain with Phoebe Bridgers which I love. Just an incredible band. I was so excited to have them on the podcast. Thanks to Pete Holmes, mutual friend who connected us. Pete's interview with Matt. It's also very good and as you'll see in the interview I sort of explain just how big a role the national has played in my family's life. Anyways great interview. I think you'll really like this one. We talk about art, we talk about creativity, we talk about ego, talk about how to manage this crazy period that we're all in and the opportunities in it and how, ultimately, one of the benefits the artist has is we turn the events, the things that happen to us

and the fuel into what we do and hopefully that can be a lesson to you, whatever industry you happen to be in. So here's my interview with Matt Burninger of the National and we talk stosism and a lot more. It's a big day for you guys. I'm glad we got to do this on today of all days. Oh, because it's Tom's anniversary. Yeah, I am. Are you talking about Taylor Swift?

I am. I am. Yeah, that was, yeah, that was a really fun song to work on. And, yeah, Aaron's, Aaron's been working on stuff for a while and we've kind of known her for a long time and so it doesn't seem like for us, it hasn't really all the stuff that's going on with her hasn't seemed that much of a big surprise. But yeah, it is funny how people are reacting to it. So in so many big ways. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird how small, like I think for people who are not in a creative industry,

you can feel like this sort of big, impenetrable thing. But it's actually a small world and the people who are sometimes the biggest people in the world at that thing, they're part of the reason they are so big is that they actually just really love music and or books or art. And so it can be a smaller world than you think, and that's where some of these collaborations come from, I feel like. Yeah, I mean, you also, do you just, I mean, along the way, They pretty quickly realize that everybody is in this, the artist, I mean, at least, you know, you meet a lot of people throughout the industry that it's ulterior motives or different kind of motivations, but almost all the artists are just, are almost down to the last one, just kind of a little bit, you know, nerdy misfits who were the artsy kids and got into music. And all the rest of the stuff that comes with this kind of collected around them, but they're just usually the same person with all the basic insecurities and that everyone does. So most artists I meet are charming,

just disarming and affable and just whatever chill. And Taylor definitely fits that vibe. And so there is, I think maybe from the outside with all the packaging and the glamour and stuff, sometimes people seem sort of bigger, or even tougher, you know, and that's why I feel like they're free, they're free-ringed to attack in any, you know,

celebrities in some ways, I'm not defending, you know, poor celebrities for being. But somebody like Kayla Schupper is just, who's just a, an artist, just, she's been trying to make art the best art she can make from the beginning. And she's had incredible success on, on the back of that art. Well, the rest of it's all, I'm sure she would, she would love for all the rest of it just to, just to go away, you know, you guys have sort of had a dream career in that sense.

I've got to imagine in that one, you've got to do it for a really long time, which most people don't do. But then I, you know, there's sort of different ways to do it, right? There is you explode onto the scene out of nowhere and you're huge. There's the long hard slog and you never make it.

I mean, it's pretty unusual, I think, for a band to be accelerating 30 years in. But that's the way you want to do it. I've been doing it for 20 years, and we're only 20 years in. But it is funny that we, not by choice or anything, you know, we were ambitious and as hell, right, you know, when we started and because we were, you know, we were starting right in the shadows of the, you know, Lower East Side, New York Strokes, Interpol, all that stuff, we were, you know, practicing next to them and going to all their shows. And so we wanted a piece of that. We wanted to get into that. And we'd all been in Ben and Bans in Cincinnati in different places. So we kind of, we, you know, we were a

little bit older than most of the other bands already, at least I was, new, new, what a scene and kind of like it had been and seen on the on the edges of what in Cincinnati. And so when we got to New York and all that stuff, um, and started, I mean, I was going to mercury lounge every, every night. I worked, I worked a few blocks away. And by seeing so many good and, and, and, and, and, and, uh, exciting and, and fearless artists, um, night after night, you just you really, you really learn how, what the difference is, because you see, you see just as many artists that are just not

quite, not quite good enough and for you to like care enough, but one out of 10, you'll be like, there's something going on there. And so I would see so many shows. We were all well aware of how we had to be ourselves and we had to be really good. And then it took a while to get there. Just knowing you had to be good and had to be cool doesn't mean you can figure out, figure that formula out for a while. And honestly, I think our live shows

were always, always really, really good from the very beginning. But figuring out how to record us and how to come together into a record took us a few years. And all of that is to say is this like, when you start now, you're just, you're just, you're seeing really ambitious people trying to do impossible things. You're

like, you're, it's like you're seeing all these like amateur magicians that every, every once in a while, one of them does something that no one can figure out, you know? And so you just, I learned to respect all, like, like, I mean, now we're in these festivals and there's just big stars everywhere. Usually on a, on a person to person level, everyone is, most of them are all very genuinely uh, just affable, you know, and it sometimes this the people, the protective people around them, it can get that, that's where it gets strange and And I can tell, and artists often shut down because they get exhausted with them,

the more popular you get, you do this get exhausted for the constant onslaught of stuff. But if you, if they feel like they're not endangered at all, most of them, most of them, every artist I've met, almost all of them to a D has been just kind of nerdy and insecure, just like me. You know, yeah. I remember almost always,

I remember with my first book, I had this like, like you, as you sort of have these huge ambitions. And there's also this sense of like, like, in patience, like, I was like, it has to come out right now. And it's like, if it doesn't come out right now, it's going to fail. And I'll miss my shot. And that'll be the end of it. And like in retrospect, that book was probably like eight years early. And and I wish, not just eight

years early in terms of timing. The other part is like, if I could write it now, it would be so much better because I have, you know, all this experience. And so there it's like, if I could write it now, it would be so much better, because I have all this experience. And so it's like, you need the ambition, but then you also need this patience, and you need that sort of just hanging around this of it to actually align for what your real moment is. I mean, everything you're doing, I think you have to sort of believe that

I'm making the greatest record of all time. This book is going to be on the top of every list. If you don't have that ambition or enthusiasm, it comes and goes, but ultimately you should be trying to make a masterpiece every time, right? And when you start to get finished or something, you can't wait for it to come out. And inevitably, you're always going to find out that, nope, not a masterpiece, you know? I mean, and like, but you'll never, ever get to the point of the line where you make

something that approximates, where people say, oh, that's really good. Making the one that you thought was gonna be a masterpiece and then as a total disaster is one of the best steps towards that. I've always, the national, I really do feel like for many years in the beginning, touring and you know, shows where just there's zero people, literally zero people,

many times. And that is, it sounds funny now, but it's like when you're, when you've driven 10 hours, you know, and you have to find a way to somewhere to sleep and you try to, you know, hopefully just pick up a few bucks and a few fans and no one is there. And then you have to get up early and drive to the next place. When that happens, it is, you have to have, you have to learn something from that. You have to take that and figure out. And we would always like luckily, that's what's good about a band as opposed to like just being out there by yourself is that you make fun of each other in you, you know fun of each other in the self-deprecating sense of a group of, you know, Ragtag losers is really healthy. And we always kind of had that.

We always had that sort of fighting spirit to prove it one fan at a time. And ultimately, you kind of do. That's how we did it. But it can happen either way. Even like sometimes people explode in the pressure of that first record exploding, that can be their biggest challenge of getting around that. That's their biggest obstacle is that first record they make. And then how do you reinvent yourself later?

And you see people like we're talking about the Taylor Swift and people like Fiona Apple who have, and all my favorite artists, you can say that about Dylan, you can say that about Nina Simone, you can say that about Neil Young, all of them go through a period where it's like they mutate into a different thing and not everybody goes with them right away. All that kind of stuff is the best artist love, love when there is something to solve to get around.

And they use their art to sort of to get around that. And Taylor Schultz has been attacked, her catalog, all that kind of stuff with Scooter Braun and all that stuff. That must just be awful to have to just deal with that. And but she's taking this like, well, I will let that deal with that in one way or with her lawyers. And then meanwhile, I'm going to just keep writing songs about myself and

about. And that's so healthy. And I'm sure her choices of a lot of it's motivated by seeing these things that she can't solve. Like a lot of things that you talk about and whatever. And she opens up a door that she never even might have tried to open before. Yeah, there's certainly some downsides to being an artist. Like the life is hard and it's all or nothing for a lot of people and there's all the downsides of it.

But the one magical part about it is that the superpower, the gift that that normal people don't have in the same way that you do as a songwriter or an author or a painter or whatever, is you do get to use all the shitty stuff that happens to you as fuel. Like it's all material. One of my mentors says to me once like so in some sense like and too as you become more successful you almost need those things or else your art becomes untethered from the experiences of normal people like if you're not experiencing adversity. Yeah I mean I just have fun you wait you just maybe think about it that that is like the the the jobs of artists are to bring all their messy garbage to to the office and and and show it to everybody and say I'm going to make something out of this and and you

need to help me. It's such a weird thing, you know, it's like whether you're with your band or anything it is and um yeah, I yeah, I it is but there is this whole thing though that like to people, this, this notion that, that to be an artist, you have to have gone through some sort of suffering or some sort of had something. And I really don't believe that. And the tortured artist myth. Yeah, I don't believe the tortured artist thing. And I see that because, I mean, I mean, everyone, everyone's a little

tortured, you know, and everybody, anybody who's an artist is just somebody who's saying, well, well, you know, I'm good at talking about sorrow. I'm good at, I'm kind of, for whatever reason, I can, I make, I present my own misery, my own fears in a charming way. I tell either whether you're a comedian, you know, like Pete, who, that's how we know each other, like Pete Holmes, and, and, and, um, that you, you take all that stuff and you figure out, like, wow, people, everyone has this stuff. And when I, when I like mention it, everyone laughs and like, there's something there. You just so, so like, I think, yeah,

I obsess over everything I have. I am, I would, I would consider myself a tortured artist, you know, I, I do. I like, I bring myself to tears every time I'm trying to, you know, working on a good song and, and I dive into all that. And I have, I have I'm trying to, you know, working on a good song and I dive into all that. And I have, I have, I have problems, you know, but they're not, I haven't had, I would not say my life was filled with any adversity.

Right. Now, just other than just, just, just trying to figure out how to be a decent person and all that kind of stuff. And so, so, I mean, artists, you don't have to be, you know, this notion that like, I'm a normal person, so I have to have a normal job. It's like, no, no, sure. You can be a wild insane artist and come from a very, whatever you would call normal, there's no such thing.

And yeah, I don't like this, like, sense that you need to have to have experienced some trauma in order to have credibility as an artist, you know. No, I totally agree with that. It's funny because in the obstacle is the way, you know, the the question I get all the time is like, well, so what's the biggest obstacle you've ever encountered in your life? Like, what's your adversity? And I, I always, I don't like that question one because sort of like you, I feel like I've lived a relatively normal life. But it also seems to imply that obstacles only

are real if they're enormous. You watch your leg in an accident or you had cancer or you were an orphan or something. Like reality, the human experience is one of unending amounts of adversity. You wake up and you have shit to deal with every single day. That's just life. And I think what art is about is about understanding that and communicating. And I think stoicism is about sort of persevering through that. So it's not that, yeah, I mean,

obviously you mentioned like the Taylor Swift record thing, like, and there's a song on the new album. It's a champagne problem, right, that your record label is being sold and resold or something. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt and it doesn't cause difficulties. And then you can use that to connect with the experiences of people in all walks of life. What's funny is, when you talk about stoicism

and in many, many ways, I would never in the million years feel, call myself, I don't really have too many of those thatch. I have many of the oppositions, but I do, and it is, I aspire to that. My dad is a pretty still guy. You know, he, he, his temperature does not, he does not let his temperature go up. And,

and I think maybe I'm the opposite because of that, you know, but I might, you know, I blow my top and, and fast. And I try to, like, if I see a potential problem, I will, I will run at it, you know, full speed. Instead of just like, whoa, whoa, that's just going to go by. You know, like anything, half the things that would have gone by, I run out and confront. And that's it. That's not that's that's that's I found that to be a mistake in my life. You know, and so, but in a funny way, artists, the idea of when you talk about

stuicisms is the containment of emotion, right? But artists, it's like, you have to have the courage to just unleash the emotion. And if you're not actually unleashing the motion, so it's a being an artist, it's tough to be a stoic artist, you know. You have to be out there humiliating yourself and crying your eyes out publicly and screaming your head off or painting like this for anyone to pay any attention. So stoicism and art sometimes I think can be cross, cross, currents or something. I think so. And then, you know, I mean,

Sennaka wrote these beautiful plays. If you've ever seen a Delacroix painting, I mean, they're these beautiful, sort of vivid. I think there's certainly, there's nothing mutually exclusive about Stoicism and art, but there is, you know, that lowercase Stoicism of have no emotions, like what the word in English means, I think is anathema to being an artist.

But Marcus really says this line in the beginning of meditations where it goes, the key is to be free of passion, but full of love. And I think that maybe actually comes closer to expressing what you have to be as an artist. You have to have feeling towards other people, towards life, maybe what's a, what emotions that are not great for an artist, at least in my experience, are envy and self-loathing and fear and worry and anxiety.

I mean, they can make good art, but they don't make for sustainable art or life. They're not useful tools. They're great material to make art from. They're great clay, but they're not useful tools to work with that clay. I mean, fear and anxiety. That's all I write about. That's all I write about is how much everything I'm afraid of and how what a shitty

person I think I I almost am all the time and kind of want to be sometimes always always it's the only thing I can write about. But I have to write about my fear with as much confidence. You know, so it's a funny it's a funny thing. And is it writing about it a way of processing it though? So you're not ruled by the emotion? I think that's, I think that's where it is. It's like the, the, the, the putting of all of that real emotion and other people have to put it somewhere and artists, a lot of people, you know, you see a stoic, soicism, they will, you know, whatever they do, meditate or have a tactic to stay calm in a moment, in a crisis, you know, and not to respond, not to react, but to respond, you know, with, everyone has tricks of how they contain, make themselves. And I guess artists are like, if I wasn't writing music and songs and performing,

you know, this sort of, you know, a motion-filled, you know, emotional wreck of a character, maybe I would, in my real, quote, unquote, real life, be more of a wreck, right? And so maybe that's my coping mechanism. But be perfect, honest, I don't really know because I think this character or what I write about, then I do, I have a hard time letting that sort of, whatever that person is, I'm not sure if there is a real difference. And I'm just trying to, but I don't, like I said, I don't consider myself to have many qualities of stoicism, but I guess it's,

that's like the fact that I wish I was more stoic as one of my most motivating ambitious factors. And maybe I could be big enough that I can be cool and just chill. You know, maybe I can be famous enough so that I could be turned like afford to be stoic. I don't know. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for. FTX Founder's Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded with other

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From Bloomberg and Wondering comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of FTX and its founder, Sam Beckman-Freed. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Well, there's that phrase in from one of your other collaborators, Phoebe Bridger's emotional motion sickness, which I think is such a beautiful expression of the human condition. It's like, I think what I'm trying to do what I'm working on, because I don't feel like

I'm naturally still. I feel like if you're naturally good at something, it's probably not what you write or talk about a lot, because it's just natural to you. So I feel like it's something I'm working on, but I feel like what I'm trying to do is reduce that turbulence in my life, because it's not a pleasant way to live. And it's certainly, although I could probably tolerate it, it's not particularly tolerable to the people in your life, which is the other factor that you have to consider as the tortured artist. You know, it's like you can torture yourself. The problem is when

that becomes sort of multi-generational torture. Right. Right. So you think, you think yourself knowledge of like, I am not naturally this way, is driven you to study it and write about it and to sort of, you know, whatever you know preach it, prophesied the ideas. Yeah, that's that's that's pretty. So in many ways, it's all the Stokes. The biggest Stokes were always out there sort of trying to put to, they, I mean, weren't, were they all, you know, preaching stoicism or were they just like people talked about them? No, so like I think Marcus really

is such an interesting example of this. So he writes meditations, but he's not writing it for anyone. He's writing it for himself, right? It's his private meditations. But the person he talks about the most, he talks about his stepfather, this guy named Antoninus. And from what, his guy named Antoninus. And from what,

our, his description of Antoninus, we get the sense that like Antoninus was everything Marcus wanted to be, but naturally wasn't, and that sort of meditations is him, you know, he's writing about, he's like, this is why you can't lose your temper. I make up that he wrote that because he lost his temper, you know, like he's responding to stuff he's struggling in. Like, I don't write in my journal how amazing I am and all the things that I'm doing well. I talk about where I'm falling short. So I get the sense that the people who are drawn to the philosophy and talk and think about it the most, this is definitely true in my case.

It's because you need it the most and you're kind of reassuring and talking to yourself. And I think great, I mean, your music is obviously for the audience. And this is as we switch to a commercial system, obviously you're in part making what you do for an audience, but you have to be a member of that audience. Like if you don't like it, if you're just making it for other people and you don't believe in it, I find there's something wrong with that.

Yeah, well, I mean, I will say, I was like, I'm almost always writing and most of the people write the writers I know, they're just always writing about themselves. I think we're all, writing about themselves. I think we're all, most artists are narcissistic in the sense, it depends. It depends on what kind of an artist you are, but they're trying to express something about themselves that they don't think everybody quite totally gets in there. I have to make this out of it so you understand. And like normal language or, or, you know, coffee table conversation will not present to you the complicated nuance of my emotional trauma. You know, or the, or why I'm bummed that I got dumped by this girl. Or whatever, you know, like, you don't get, you have to make a painting. You know, David Bowie was writing song after song about Hermione,

right? Just because he never got the quite say to her what he wished he had and so the rest of his life he's trying to explain why it happened that he's apologized, right? And it's tiny, tiny, tiny little things that'll that'll that'll that'll make you just forever be tried and try to express the thing that, no, no, you don't, I can't explain to you by sitting down in a letter, I have to make space out of the, I have to make this or whatever for you to understand.

And that's narcissistic, that need to be totally understood. So explicitly why? Like why should you be understood so much? But it was everyone understands it, right? There's a part of me that sometimes when I think about why I became a writer, there's a part of me that I can just remember like having dinner with my family, it not, not feeling understood exactly as you said. And some sense of like, I'm going to go in my room and sit at my computer and I will get this down perfectly. And then you will understand. You know, like some, that, that, right, like I have a pain. I need to express it. I need

people to get it. And that becomes like a compulsion almost, like almost a form of OCD. It's productive, but there's a little insanity in it too, I think. Yeah, I used to, I used to draw, drawing and, you know, taking our classes and just, you know, drawing, drawing horses or drawing trees and still lives. I used to really, that was where I first kind of started feeling an identity, you know, of like this is something I'm good at. And that really, that having to get it drawing done is so hard. It takes time and you have to do. I think that was a really calming thing for me. But I quickly started doing a lot of self portraits. And myself portraits, I would spend so much more time on my self portraits, right? And it just started, my mom's like,

you're drawing a lot of self portraits. Like, what's my, so, like, you know, doing something that just calms me down, but it was like, I ended up just only, only trying to get my my own face just right. So everybody could see what I thought I should look like or whatever. It's like there is something, you know, and I wasn't ignored as a kid. You know, I was a middle child sort of, but why have I always felt so desperate need

for people to see me and understand me? My dad never really needed that, you know, and like it's, it's, I don't know where I got that from. Do you find also this is the most insane part about it for me. So you had this desire to be understood and felt and recognized, and then like you went in a ward,

or the project does well, or you're profiled by something, and someone gets it. They're like, I loved that song. It, and then, or you're profiled by something, and someone gets it. They're like, I loved that song. It, and then, or I loved your book, your book changed my life or whatever. So you're getting the thing that you said you wanted, and my instinct is to look away.

It actually makes me very uncomfortable. You know, I've told myself, hey, if I get this perfectly, I'll feel good. And I'll, that'll be it. Then you get it and your mind immediately, it's too, it's too much. Because now that you've got it, the only thing now is you just have to hold onto it. It's like, it's like, like any game, like you're desperately trying to get the ball and start running with it, but the second you got it, everyone's after you, right? It sucks. It's like that's that's it. And that's the funny thing.

It's like, it's like the second you get any attention, people say, like, oh, you're good at something. And then you have to spend better thought that everything better stay good or else, you know, and I get that. I've always said this like, I don't artist in some ways, and I don't know why I'm like, they shouldn't have any harder time, but because it's hard work. And it's, but like, artists, I am saying like, no, I don't want to be a part of any kind. I don't want to work at any company for anything, or even though I do, I'm on sign on labels, and you know, company for anything or even though I do, I'm on sign on labels and you know, all this is, but it's like, I, all I want to do all day is think about myself, sing about, out, loud about myself and you know, smoke weed or whatever. And like, and, and like, I'm going

to get there and, and, and, and so, and I'm there, right? And so people are like, wait, if you're going to pretend that that's all you're going to contribute to society, songs about your life, you know, and you're not going to like, you know, build any roads or help do anything else, you better, you better be really, really, really good, you know, you better, you're like, and so I, like art criticism, I respect, because it's kind of like it's like the tax. It's magic criticism.

If it's not magical, if it's not magic, people are like, no, you can't call yourself a magician unless it's magic, you know, and I get that. So, and that's, that's, it's fun. It's like, it's like, it's a strange world. It's like, it's like being a professional, it's a strange world. It's like, it's like, it's like being a professional athlete, you know, you're very few. You're going to be able to like navigate all that stuff, but, but, but, um, everybody's an athlete. Everybody loves playing ball. And like, that's the whole, that's the, as long as you just keep remembering,

you just love singing about yourself, or you just keep, you love, you love playing ball. Just remember that. Then, then the rest of, that rest of that's the thing you have to remember is like, yeah, it's amazing if you can get a managed to keep the lights on and pay your rent and put your kid through school, whatever it is by making art. But you'll be one in a million, but it's the pursuit of that.

And just to be able to make art or to play sports is at all is incredible. And I don't know, I just don't take it for granted. I complain about it, but I know what a fool I sound like when I wine, you know. One thing that was helpful for me is my books have sort of made their way through sports. I've gotten to meet some different athletes over the years.

And like, arguably what they do is harder than what we do because you have to have all these physical gifts and it's a smaller window, you can do it. And they could pay it a lot more. But it was interesting to me, you know, it's like you sort of make up that like, it's like I'm so tense and focused and intense about what I do because, you know,

it's so serious to me. Then you kind of meet someone who's like world class at what they do to go to your point about these artists. You meet someone who's like world class at what they do, maybe much better at their thing than your thing, and they're just kind of chill about it. And you're just like, oh, you can do this and not be miserable all the time.

Like you can act like, they're like, oh yeah, I got a game tonight. And you're like, you're playing the Lakers. You're defending your title against the Lakers tomorrow. And you're just like, yeah, I got a game later. You know, like I would, I would be such a bundle of nerves. And sometimes it's good to see other people do what they do and go like, maybe there's another way to do it.

Well, I mean, I don't know how, I think it's, you just have to do something over and over again until you don't have the choice to be a bundle of nerves anymore. And I will say this is about, it's making a record is nerve-recking scary, but like getting on stage to perform in front of people, whether it's five or five thousand or fifty thousand, it's almost the same amount of,

you know, stomach turning tightness and anxiety every time. It's only gone from like a thousand percent down to, you know, it's only shrunk just enough that I don't worry about it every time. But it's always there. Every time I walk on stage, I'm tear up. My voice shakes for the first three songs. And so you only barely get it into a point where it's containable where it allows you to go onto the field every night every day. I mean, I guess that's, I mean, I'm sure artists, there are a lot of athletes and artists get to the point where it's like, if they can, it's just easy peasy, but most, I've, I thought it's like, it's, it's doable, but it's never easy peasy, you know?

Yeah, yeah, no, I just mean it's like, oh, they're not torturing themselves about this. Like, they actually are enjoying it as they're doing it, which is the whole, you know, you can, you can end up taking your work and your pain so seriously that you suck, or the stakes of it and the pressure of it and your desire to win. So seriously, that you suck the fun and beauty out of the fact that you get to write songs or write books or,

you know, shoot a ball for a living. Yeah Yeah I think you have to lose a lot of games get used to losing and once you get used to losing you really you really start to enjoy all of it so much more like if you're not used to losing if you if you win all the time you can't even enjoy winning, right? Right. Because the win is just another pellet on that thing. You just need more pellets. But once you get used to not having any pellets, when she gets used to being hungry,

every win feels is a good taste and you save for it. And so that's the one thing with our band is, is, we stayed hungry. We definitely stayed hungry for a long time. We didn't, we didn't get too many lucky breaks. But then along the way you do, you get a handful and, and, and we've kind of, we've stacked up and, and, and, and taken opportunities and seen opportunities. We've been strategic about our career. It wasn't all just luck and fumbling and, anyway, yeah, there's, no, that's what I was sort of saying earlier

of what's fascinating about your career is that it's a steady upward trajectory. I mean, obviously, I'm sure if you zoom in, you see the peaks and valleys, but a lot of bands sort of have a, they come out hot and they peak and then they go down, you guys have had this sort of steady growth both in terms of your audience, but I also think as artists, like, and not many people get the opportunity to keep doing it, right?

You know, I was thinking about this actually, I was going to ask you, like when I listen to some of your early stuff, it's very stripped down, right? It's very simple. And then as you've gotten at the most recent album, it's much richer and deeper. So that's obviously the same band, but it's richer and deeper. Like when I read some of my early stuff, it's much raw and more stripped down and I think I get to the point faster. How do you balance getting better with this also this tendency? It's also easy to become self-indulgent.

I know I look somewhat wearily at the fact that each one of my books is longer than the last book. And I don't know if that's a good thing or the fact that I can't edit myself. I think it's almost impossible to stay on a steady, a steady, like getting better. I think you have to sort of, if you want that arc to be really long,

meaning you have to kind of start to do, I say this, I mean, it might be different for the type of writing you're doing, but yeah, my writing does change. And I can see how my writing has changed, at least in the band and how the band presents songs and how the band works on songs. And we've all changed along the way. And sometimes it's like you get away from something in that where you haven't found the other thing yet,

but you're away from that thing. And that's a weird spot. There's always like adolescent zitty phases of going from this type of your band to the next phase of it. And it usually takes two records, two or three records to get to that next spot. And so, and even I would say this,

I mean, I don't, when I look at, like, that's the thing about like songs and records and everything, it's like, nobody quite knows where we're going. And the best stuff is always like half, you're somewhere in between, you haven't landed on it yet. The most exciting art is always like,

it's almost about to, it almost doesn't work, right? Yeah. And that usually happens when you're, when you go out on the branches that you're not comfortable on, the ones that are, you know, or I really think it's important to, to, to try to change the way you're right. And to, and to maybe go, like, you like like you like go bigger and write more. And then then then then you'll get nervous that you're like I'm writing too much. I'm being too too verbose here. Let's get back to my early you know like lean and mean writing. And you go through all these phases but you kind of you kind of have to go out into into into territories. You'll just, you'll get so sick,

you'll end up writing very bad versions of your earlier books. And you just, yeah, whenever I'm nervous, and I feel like, ah, gosh, this isn't working or this might flop. I'm always the most excited, you know? And I think I'm learning the most when I'm this close to humiliating myself.

No, that's really interesting. Yeah, I was thinking like on Bonnie Verre's last two albums, it seems like he tried a lot of stuff on 33 a million that paid off much bigger on the next album. Like whatever that journey was, fully docked in on the second try with that style. They're both very good albums. I've listened to them both many, many times.

But yeah, that's an interesting way to think about it. It's like, it's not, hey, I'm gonna try this experimental thing. It's like, you really have to invest in going down a road to see if it pays off. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how to, I mean, the artist though that I, that, that, I cherish the most and whatever it just in my head or just like that's just top shelf, even there are, are, are the people that have evolved and gone through strange phases. I mean, Dylan has and Bowie and everything, but Nick Cave is somebody that has just gone through so many different phases of an

artist and you might be fond of one type of Nick Cave more than another and think that like, get back to whatever Nick, and like Nick's like, Nick's like, it's all, it's all part of the thing, you know, and I just, I just, artists that don't, that, that, that play it safe and don't kind of tick these bold leaps where they might lose, you know, lose half their fan base or whatever.

Those, those aren't, they never end up lose half their fan base or whatever. Those aren't, they never end up the ones that are in record collections 20 years from now. Right. Sometimes the things that really last, last partly because they were so ahead of their time. And so you have to kind of lead the audience a little bit. And you can't do that without a real chance that it

doesn't land at all. Or I like I would say this, it doesn't even have to be like like Dylan went through phases that were that were good and then phases that that were like that was but that that that that that road you know into sort of kind of territory that was, felt a little maybe off the shelf or canned or he was putting on some sort of character. Yeah, and it didn't feel quite genuine or something. Sometimes those things that aren't as successful,

they're not like ahead of their time, but they're a bridge for someone to get from where they are to somewhere else. Sometimes you got to go back to, you know, go back and start over from a new spot and go off in this direction. So a lot of people, I get that. People are like, what is, what are they doing? This is a mistake for them.

Like just wait, they're doing the same. You know, this is just one record or this is one, it's always like radio head, you know, is a band that like everybody, when they didn't follow up with more creeps, people like, what are they doing, you know, and now radio, people like, oh, you know, think, they think goodness, we didn't have just like a band that had four or five songs like Creep and then Quit because they went and you know just got bored with that they they kept Just trying to reinvent What the idea of their band was and and all that you know and um, they're just so exciting You know, they're so exciting because you never know you never know and you just trust them to to be to

To trust themselves. That's the thing. It's like, you might not agree with it. Like, oh, I felt like you're overdoing this. Or like, as an artist, this subjective stuff, and like, you always pay attention to those artists that are that are almost, or just like, Sufian Stevens is another one, you know, it's just or just like Sufian Stevens is another one, you know, it's just, and Fiona Apple, you know, and just the ones that you're not sure what their Kendrick Lamar is a great example, you're just not sure what the hell the next thing is going to be like, you know. Yeah, that's, there's something, like I'm a huge Iron Maiden fan too, and there's also something to like, hey, we're just gonna put out the same album for 40 years. Like there's also something to that too.

Which is, do they think of it that way though? Or I mean, my brother Tom, I am in his, yeah, he can't, he loves it. And maybe there's that too. There's sort of like the warm hug every time, you know, you're, you know, it's like the Christmas movie or something. Yeah. I don't know. Well, no, what's funny about Iron Man is they had that period, but it's like, you know, they broke up. They come, they came back together and then like 30 years in, they put

out, they put out an album in 2000 called Brave New World, which very few bands put out there, maybe one of their best albums 30 years in. So there's all, it's like, I was reading an interesting piece a couple of years ago that was like, actually somewhat recently, they were talking about the rise of the super teams in the NBA is really fascinating, right? You know, LeBron bounces around, Coiletter bounces around, they make these great teams, but there's also something to be said about the San Antonio Spurs over, you know, 20, I think the Spurs made the playoffs like 25 consecutive years, 24 consecutive years.

And then actually it was creating the system that allowed them to be great over those periods. It like that you need to do, that there's something to experimentation is great. That's one path. And then also there's something about like what happens when you're in the pocket for 30 years, what comes out of it. Maybe something magical in a totally different way.

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. There's international. And my band is, I would say that it is when we've been a band for 20 years, and that's pretty rare for bands to stay bands that long, you know, some crossover and just stay bands forever, like you too or something, but you too as an example, they had to kind of try to reinvent, they had to do something new a lot to stay to say interesting, but the dynamic of our band, like the five main guys that is, there is a system.

There is a, there is a, and it's a weird system. It's, it is like a baseball team. I really, I really do think of, of a, and it's grown. And there's a whole group of people including, you know, Kyle, and Banny play horns. And my wife who writes a lot and lot and all this stuff that the team has expanded beyond those five guys, but there's something to the way the five of us throw a ball around. And we scream at each other all the time in the locker room. it's nothing but kicking lockers and throwing it.

It's like, we've been playing ball together for so long, but we do know that when we get on the field, we know how to win. We just like, we know how to play this. And it sort of becomes like, when we get into the studio and start playing, it's like, it's easy. it's easy to, and it used to be hard, it used to be hard to come up with ideas, but now we get in there and it's really easy to write songs.

Our challenge now is to evolve. Like, yeah, I mean, if we wanted to, we could go in and make boxer after boxer, or even sleep well-beast, which is nothing like boxer, we could probably make that fast now. But the thing that's slow with us is everyone trying to, I don't want to do that again. What should we do without trying to sound like we're, you don't want to do that again. What should we do? And without trying to sound like we're you know you don't want to pander to anything and something you just don't know what you don't know what's going to excite you and it takes a long time to get excited by by by a song. Yeah. I was going to tell you I think I think I emailed

it to you and I don't know if it's insulting or high praise, but I think my family may have listened to your song quite like more than any other person ever in history. So like my son for the first two years of his life, he just refused to sleep. And one night we were playing that song on the sonos and he fell asleep. And they just fell asleep. And we were like, well, we're never not playing that song. And so it plays on repeat in the Sonos. Like, Spotify set me the end of the year thing on my West phone. And it was like, you've played this song 14,000 times this year.

And the best part is like, let's say that song comes on like a playlist or something in the car. My son will freak out because he's like, it's not time for bed. I don't want to go to sleep. He's like a Pavlovian dog at this point. Like he knows. Oh, yeah, we're going to ruin it. That'll be like, oh, that music that they used to manipulate me with. Yeah.

Well, no, that's kind of really cool because I am this makes me, reminds me of Star Dust because that's, I've done a lot of talking about the record Star Dust by Willie Nelson from 78, you know, which was, my parents just, maybe they use that to chill me out. So every time I hear it, I'm like, but it works on me. I'm like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm somewhere at home in Cincinnati, and I'm safe and I'm happy and, and everybody in their house is happy. And it just brings that sense back, you know, yeah. As someone who's been on the, on the road a bit, how,

does your family go back and forth between like, uh, it's so wonderful to have you home. And like, when the hell are you getting out of here? Like, we can't live like this. Um, that's, that's a little above. I would say the towards the beginning of the pandemic and this being at home, it was like, oh my gosh, it's so nice to be home. And then there was this phase of like, like, we're kind of on top of each other. And, and, and this is,

and then you know, also kids' home from my daughter's home from school. But then now I think we've kind of crossed over into this other thing where we're really cozy and really kind of hibernating and, and yeah, yeah, like I said, you kind of like you go, but now I'm really settling into being home And yeah, yeah, like I said, you kind of like you go, but now I'm really settling into being home. And I'm realizing how, the funny part is

I'm realizing how inside a paradigm of go, go, go, I was and that never, I was never gonna stop. And I wouldn't, I don't want that to stop, but I don't think I was aware of how fast I was going and how fast, how long I'd been going at that speed, you know? And it's literally, it's like, it's almost taken me months and months just for my gears to start to slow down.

And yeah. Yeah, it's weird because you tell yourself that you're productive on the road or I told myself, yeah, sure, I'm really busy, I'm go, go, go. But look at my output, I'm still doing all this stuff. Clearly, it's not affecting me. Then you spend like, yeah, seven, eight, nine months at home. And you're just like, I don't know about you, but I'm like, I'm operating creatively on a whole other level that, yeah, you really need. It's like you tell yourself,

well, I'm going to go on a two week vacation and that'll help me relax. And it's like, no, it takes 10 months for me to relax, apparently. It's not like just now easing into it. Vacations are so, those are always been the hardest and because you, you, you, as a kid, they're so, the vacation the greatest thing to these adventures is so excited. As a dull, especially against it, you do like a two week vacation is like, right on like day 12,

you're like, all right, finally, you know, you're just, you can finally start to unwind and then you just gotta sit back and for going home. So that's really rough. But yeah, I have found myself to finally feel, like, granite, like, talking to me tomorrow, I might just be bouncing off the walls or whatever for one reason or another,

but I do feel like generally my coil has like genuinely unwound somewhere where I don't know if I never tight, never gets that tight again, you know, whatever it is. But I'm sure it will, you know, it's, well, it's like if it takes as long to rewind the coil as it did to wind it up in the first place, that means, you know, like, okay, 60 years from now, I'll need another break like this is the way I'm thinking about it. Well, performing, like I would always say that, like, it takes me about two hours, like, for a two hour show, it takes me about an hour and a half or two hours just to get ready for it, to get in the zone. And it often takes me at least two hours to wind down, you know, from that performance.

So every show is like a five or six hour intense thing. And then I realized I've been doing that for 15 years, you know. Yeah. And so just being home for a couple of weeks or having a few days off, a couple of days off on tour in a hotel doesn't matter how many hot tubs or how good the room service is. And it doesn't matter.

You can't turn it off like that. And when it's never off for decades, it does cause permanent damage or just damage. And that's why bands don't last. And so with this whole thing, yeah, all these things is like, like the national, I think we've all, almost artists I know have learned a lot,

at least the touring musicians have learned a lot in these past, in this past year. You know, it's been so hard on this whole industry, but also there's been a whole other kind of discussion about like that thing that we were forced to do. Like, it wasn't good for us and like why is this so hard to survive as an artist and especially now. So I think there's a lot of artists like this is an opportunity to rethink the industry a little bit.

I mean, yeah, it's like financially it's devastating creatively. It's an enormous gift. And you got to choose which one you're going to think about when you wake up in the morning. Yeah, yeah, that's always, I mean, if you're, if you're going to be an artist, then likely you'll always be dealing with a financial anxiety. I mean, almost always. And so if, if, if art is something that you, you have to just think of it as bonus. You're an artist. If you expect it to make money off of art, I mean, artists should, I think teachers should get paid like doctors and I think artists should get paid like doctors too.

I think doctors should get paid. You know, so sure. I just, but most of the time it's like, the best teacher is like, you're not becoming a teacher because you want to, you know, you want your teaching empire, you know? It's like, and so most art, the real artists, I know are always like, if they'd have success, they're a little bit like, feel weird about it and just hate it and don't know what to do with it. Yeah, it's not something to make any money yet and it's something to make your life happy.

You know, very different things. Yeah. For me, with speaking, it was like, I would tell myself like, oh, it's an hour's work. I just have to go work for an hour, but For me, speaking, it was like, I would tell myself, it's an hour's work. I just have to go work for an hour, but you're 0.2, or it's not the hour. It's the flight there. It's the three hours to work yourself up to it.

It's the two hours to wind yourself down to it. The idea that you could just go back to creative, normal, human functioning after that. I think a lot of days as a normal person over the last eight, nine months has unlocked I think a different emotional awareness that hopefully fuels the art and hopefully great stuff comes out of this for lots of people. Yeah. I mean, one of the other things is like artists for whatever reason and I think anybody who

is a success and athletes, there's a motivation to sort of like live the life, right? And so you feel like, and so many artists I see desperately trying to, you know, live what they, you know, by seeing documentaries, what looked like euphoria, whether it's, you know, women and partying and just all that, you know, is you often see people trying to kind of, trying to have a taste of that thing that they saw in the Rolling Stones doc, because, you know,

and it's, it really is, it really, there isn't much of that really there, at least not anymore, it's hard work out there. And you can only, you can't really do that for very long to stain it. Like Keith, there are very few Keith Richards, you know, and that's a lot more dead Keith Richards. Right. Yeah. And it's always, but it's not even that. It's just like, just like this, like, this idea of just being, you know, going, and just after parties, it doesn't matter. You could, you could be, you could, you know, don't even drink and you could be kind of straight edge, but just the anxiety having to keep up with that, that, that social, socializing and all that's like, like that thing that you're supposed to be a big fun party and entertaining lifestyle, that, that, that kind of a thing is really unsustainable. And so I don't know. Like some of this now, I think, is like a lot of artists are just home and when you went all that pressure to go to this

thing or that party or all that the social anxieties and the social pressures of having to to do a kind of lifestyle that maybe not be great for everybody. Nobody can do kind of any kind of lifestyle right now. It's good for it. It's just it's it's yanked me out of out of a thing so that I can see what I like about that thing. So when I go back into it, I'm just going to say none of that, but this stuff, just this type of it. You know, and you have to be outside of it to see what's what. The last thing I was going to ask you, as I was listening to it this morning, the lyrics on the New Taylor Swiss song you did, it seemed very stoked to me where you say, is pounding in my head, what's a lifetime of achievement. There's these beautiful passages in meditations where Marcus goes like, who remembers the name of the emperor three emperors ago? You know sort of this idea that it's like

You know that it all ends up sort of as dust But I think the other side of that line is like what good is that if it drives, you know someone away? What matters is family or life or purpose the connection you have with other people I'm just curious sort of what that line meant to you. Well, I definitely, I mean, when I, doing that, and I mean, obviously, you sort of like, Taylor wrote all those things, and I just assume it's that frustration you feel that just assume it's that frustration you feel that it becomes a burden that you worried about the past. You're like, I've been that was an injustice to me. And I'm sure there's a lot of Taylor songs. She's processing grievances. And that's what I do a lot. But almost always,

and I can tell that that's what's heard is like you're processing how you reacted to that. You're kind of like you're taking yourself to task a little bit and like thing like you know what there's nothing I can't do anything about that. Why am I letting that person or this system or this industry or that person there really really get effect my person there really, really get effect my joy today, or like, you know, or my joy, like, really, do I, do I, do I need to react, do I need to let them? And so I think great songwriters often write about, here's what, this is how I always react, I know I shouldn't. And so, there's a lot of bad behavior in songs, and there's a lot of pettiness, and there's a lot of like,

you know, there's a lot of bitterness and revenge and art, because that's the best place for it, right? It's like a good place for it a little bit. I say that I'm not reading into any of specifically in the tailor's work that way, but there's a lot of that in mind. You want to hear somebody getting that stuff off their chest. But a lot of times it's like, it's like, look, look, look how I let this crap get to me. And I know I'm my own worst enemy.

But I sort of made up about it, but I loved it. Maybe I'm reading it totally wrong. It's sort of this idea too, if you're like to go to your point about, you know, you started you're so ambitious and driven and you have this art and these things you want to express. Sometimes it can feel like the success or the reach or the beauty of the art can make up, it can almost redeem personal failings, you know what I mean and and That that's not how it works that no it doesn't matter how great you are how big you get It's not an excuse for anything and it doesn't mean anything in the end really No, yeah, well it goes both ways like a lot of times artists are

You know are saying And I found that like you present something as you say, listen, I know what a shit I am, or I know I'm like, you know, and you present, you're the most self-deprecating and you present yourself in the most humiliating way is a move. It's a power play. So like, I get it, that's me. I'm sorry. And that's good.

That's empowering to people to say to like, all my favorite artists were misfits of one kind or another who like any other life they might have, they might have not been able to inspire people just to be their true selves. But then there's this other thing that you start to like, oh, as artists or as celebrities or whatever you call it, start to drink your cool aid and believe that like,

well, yeah, maybe rules don't apply to me. Then you get cults and you get all the bad. But yeah, it can run away, it can run away with, with, from yeah, and I've found that about myself, I've found myself many times like, what am I, who am I? What am I doing? You know, like what this is not, I did wouldn't do this. Right. Totally. But again, I, I'm like, my day I've never been in this situation, either. So maybe he would. But there is, you sometimes forget, your compass can, you go to the root for me to triangle a little bit with attention and social media too. It can mess with your bearings.

And I found that. So you just have to be careful. Just having good friends around too, just like, like, you know, my dad, speaking of good friends, my dad, the one that the thing he's said to me more than anything else in my life is slow down. And it's like, and it's the thing I try

to do more than anything else, you know. So just slowing down and It's you know, I write about it more than anything else because I find it the hardest thing to do I'm just not the same way. I mean, I wrote a book about ego I wrote a book about overcoming obstacles and I wrote a book about stillness not not because I'm a master of any of those three things I guess you're failing, you know. Of course. You're right about the mountain you can't climb.

You can't get up, you know, for sure. Totally, totally. Matt, thank you so much. I love this stuff. This was a real pleasure for me. Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It's incredible to think that these episodes have been listened to more than three million times. If you could do this, a huge favor and just leave a quick review of the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, whatever you're listening to this on, we'd really appreciate it.

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