The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Liz Phair

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

Singer-songwriter Liz Phair joins Andy to talk about her new album "Soberish." She also reflects on her life straddling two states, her background as a visual artist, and what it takes to be a rockstar.

hi everyone you are listening to another episode of the three questions and i'm very excited to have a fellow midwesterner although you're sort of you know you're from all over the place now uh but i'm talking to liz fair liz fair and i lucky enough, I've been a fan for a gazillion years. Why, thank you, Andy. You and I are sort of the same age. So, I mean, we kind of came out of Chicago probably about the same time. Yeah, Chicago roots. Now, you're not from there originally, though, right? You were born somewhere else. I was born in Connecticut and then both of my parents were raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. So

yeah, I spent a couple of years there. I feel like I spent more time in Cincinnati than I actually did. It feels the stretch of that feels really long Cincinnati's gonna love to hear that Cincinnati where a minute feels like a day yeah where a day feels like a year um then we went to then my father did a sabbatical in England so I lived in England for a bit came back to Cincinnati for a year and then moved to Chicago and uh and And so how old were you when you got to Chicago? I was fourth grade. So I remember that because Star Wars, that was like that summer we saw Star Wars as a family. And I thought to myself, this place could be okay.

As if Chicago had ownership of it. Yeah. yeah well now what what kind of kid were you were you i mean you know you was when you know when you burst on the musical scene you seem to be the the poet laureate of of young female tumult um and so it i always just kind of had this picture of your. Of your childhood and teen years being full of lots of. You know, I'm out of here and then you grab your guitar and leave. Is that sort of is my fantasy, correct? Hmm. No, no, darn it. I'm sorry. Darn it.

I think there was a good 10 years of feeling like I'm out of here. No, I love Chicago. Chicago, I grew up on the North Shore in a suburb called Winnetka, which is a village, Andy. I come from a village. I'm familiar. It's very nice. I'm a village maiden. I'm from a village. I took an ex-boyfriend up there one time, and he's like, well, if I'd known you'd come from a village, I would have been like.

I would have expected handicrafts. Butter churning. Yeah. Maybe an apron or two. No, because I went to Oberlin in Ohio. So I guess that's another four years somewhere else. And then moved back to Chicago, actually downtown. And that was when my career started.

Yeah. So it was in Chicago. It was post-college. And I didn't come out to LA until I was already a mother. So I didn't move out until I was 29, 30, 30. Oh, wow. Yes, 30, 31. And you were, that's a kind of a youngish mother, I guess, by modern terms, certainly by, I think, music industry terms.

Don't you think? since you're asking me where I come from, I feel like I straddled two states. There's the artist Bohemian and then there's the preppy girl from Chicago. So by, by Winnetka standards, getting married at 27 was right on time, if not late. I can remember feeling like the pressure to get married because I'd been to like 50 weddings already. And so, yeah, no, I think I felt on time, if not slightly late-ish for my upbringing and then very early for my career. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm in the same boat because I think I was, well, what was I? Yeah, I was 28 when I got married and, and it was the same thing. It felt like all my high school friends were all, I'd been to all their weddings and, and,

but yet I still among like my improv comedy, Chicago friends, we were like really early in terms of getting married and being grownups, you know? And, uh, Did that take some of the fun out of it? Like the after show parties where you sort of like, no, I got to go home. No, no, no, not at all, actually. Well, because back in Chicago, I wasn't married in Chicago. I only I got I went into the Conan experience engaged like I was already. Not single when I when I got on television, which I am endlessly grateful for.

Because at that age, it was hard enough to know if anyone was liking me because I was me or because I was on television. And then if you add the possibility of fucking them into that, I would have been completely lost. I would have been completely lost. I would have been just a mess. So it was good to know, like, it was just good to have that out of the equation for me. I don't know why, but what you just said just spurred this image in my mind, which is kind of romantic. And now I want to write a song about it. Fucking someone into loving you. Yes can be done i hope i'm fucking you into loving me i feel like that's my country tune you know i've got friends in low

places yeah and i'm fucking you i'm fucking you into loving me yeah that's a good one no i just i just was i was i was happy to be married i mean mean, and I, you know, I mean, and I, I, I love being married for a long, long time until it just wasn't working anymore. So, um, and I didn't, and I also too, like I say, I didn't, I liked it when I was young. I always, I've always kind of been an old soul and, you know, like I have a 20 year old son whose friends call him dad because he's the one that's always like i better drive or you know like or don't climb up there you know so um i think he inherited that for me because i was always kind of the dad like when it was time to drop acid and drive out to the indiana dunes i was like all all right, if we're doing this, I'm driving. Well, I'm not going to let any of you idiots.

Very smart. Very smart. Very responsible. I feel that is your Midwestern roots. I feel like we do have that. Yeah. Yeah. I've retained that in, in Los Angeles. I was often the designated driver and we liked to party. So like we would go to a number of different places in a night, my friends and I, and before Uber, I was the driver like almost all the time. Were you staying sober or were you just.

No, I would, I would have a drink or get a little higher, a little something, but the night was long. So I would cut, I have a natural cutoff and I truly think it's the Midwestern roots. Like I just sort of stop and I'll stay at the party, but I'm getting sober while everyone else is getting like wasted. Yeah. Yeah. Well that, yeah. But see, then people come to rely on that and then, you know, they, it's a bummer. You never get to cut loose. But I also, I also had a sort of claustrophobia, social claustrophobia in that I have to know that I can leave when I want to leave yeah so it suited my personality to be the one with the car keys yeah yeah I yeah no control is always nice yeah we're leaving we're leaving or you get another

ride no Andy here's what an asshole I am it was just like I'm leaving or just, I'm no tour. I'm a notorious ghoster. I'm also a ghost. I'll just like, no, what that's not ghosting. That's a, what is that? Phantom phantoming. I'm a notorious phantomer. I'll be like, Hey, yeah, great. I'll meet you in the kitchen. And then I'm just gone. That I know as the Irish goodbye, which is the Irish goodbye. Yeah. To sneak out of a party and not say a word to anybody, which I'm a big fan. I'm raising my hand because my mother, my mother was the queen of the long goodbye. I mean, like if you said we're going to leave, that meant like an hour. Yeah. Speaking to every single person and making sure everybody was feeling great and that she'd acknowledged every single person. So you'd have any kind of sidebar with like, oh oh i met you at the hors d'oeuvre table let me just go over and just say oh i can't let's

definitely get together blah blah blah my dad and i would just be like can't get that woman out of anything i know i yeah that's my mom getting off the phone when i have to tell her i have to tell her I really have to go about 10 minutes before I really have to go. Does she feel like it's rude if you get off too soon? I feel like, hey, I got to go. Yeah, but she's used to it. But I mean, but but I mean, she's I'll say things literally like I'll be like, mom, I really got to go. I'm you know, I'm outside the chiropractor and I have an appointment.

I have to get in there and she'll go. Did you hear what your sister did? And I'm just like,iropractor and I have an appointment. I have to get in there and she'll go, did you hear what your sister did? And I'm just like, that's not a goodbye. That's like, knowing you, that's 10 minutes. That's not a salutation or, you know, see you later. That's, you know, boy, oh boy. Sit down because I got more to tell you. Yeah.

Boy, oh boy. Sit down, because I got more to tell you. Yeah. So, and when you kind of, you know, you started, you said you straddled those two worlds, a preppy girl and rock star. You didn't say rock star, but, you know, musician. Was that difficult? Like, when you were starting that transition, was it difficult from without and from within? You know, like, from, did you, was it tough on you internally? And then also, did you meet a lot of resistance from the people you'd come up with?

I think it's tough still. Yeah. I don't think that's ever left me. Really? And I have imposter syndrome. I think it makes me a great artist because I'm always, I read something this morning. I wish I could quote it.

Something about a writer should feel out of place everywhere because then they're always observing. Yeah. So it helps me as an artist, but I, I do feel not, you know, Winnetka enough and not rockstar enough at any given moment. So I never

fully get that. I think if you live a life that's very different from your upbringing, you kind of carry that with you throughout your life. So I do feel, I don't know, I feel kind of oddly balanced. You know what I mean? mean yeah i think it's possible too i think there's a very midwestern thing to come out to california and like living in california and like working in a creative field but also feeling like oh this this is this place is not really me you know like this is this place is a big horseshit parade and I, you know, I reject most of it, you know, and that's, and that's, I mean, and that is very much, I mean, I'm speaking for myself here because there is so much of, I like making television and I like working on comedy and I like making things,

but all the attendance sort of falder all and the kind of, you know, like every time it, falder all and the kind of you know like every time it falder dash yeah all the in like you know chasing awards like just i i never get over the fact that like everybody that wins an academy award has spent the previous like eight months of their life going to campaigning yeah and campaigning like they're right because that just doesn't it seems like, no, you should just do your cool work and have everyone go, wow, cool work. Here's a statue. And it just takes it takes kind of the magic out of it. It's like, oh, man, it does. Yeah, it does. It really does. It makes you feel like, you know, as a rock star, the rock star side of me never wants to suck up. Yeah, no, that's I feel wants to suck up. Yeah. You know, that's, I feel allergic to sucking up.

And at the same time, sucking up, playing the game is kind of what's required to hit that part on the pinball machine, the second level, the ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, and that's a fun ride. Who wouldn't want to take that ride? But I remember going to the Grammys early on when I moved to Los Angeles and going to those parties afterwards, you know, that were I was so excited about what this would be like. I'm going to be hobnobbing, you know, shoulder to space like the stars were already socially distanced because they were completely surrounded by flocks of people that had other agendas you couldn't even get near a star because it was like they were like six people deep with people that wanted to tell them about this project and ask about this you know and so it pretty pretty quickly i realized the fun of la is in the houses you know it's the house part you know what i mean like the fun is all behind the gate yeah right exactly yeah no i

yeah i think that's it and that is because of the driving it this is and people find that out when they come here especially from new york like you know las social life is at home. And also you got to certainly coming from New York, because that's where I came from directly. You have homes with like a yard and, you know, nice weather. So it's it's it's it's it can be a very pleasant place. And one thing I always felt from the first times I came out here, like this is a good place, a much better place to be broke than other places just because, you know, you just, you just see people, so many people come out here to be in show business and then they just kind of, if it doesn't happen, they live kind of like a quiet life in the sun. It's like, it's not, it's not so terrible, you know? I mean, you know, there's, as Mark Maron once said, you know, there isn't smog above Los Angeles.

It's vaporized disappointment. That's, that is definitely, there's definitely that aspect of it. Yeah, there's definitely that, that is part of it too. But, but, you know, like I say, it's like, you know, not everyone makes it, but if you're not going to make it, you know not everyone makes it but if you're not going to make it you at least like you have you have an ocean outside you know you have an ocean beautiful weather yeah the elements will not get you yeah generally speaking and i think that the community at least in the artist music world the community of people here is pretty spectacular um pretty generous i noticed in chicago because there

was less of an economic pie for the arts that it felt like if somebody got ahead you were gonna lose that opportunity yeah whereas out here i feel like there's so much more like and i also feel but i also feel in la that every party you go to every house party you go to, you have to be, you have to not only have your outfit and your makeup on and everything, but you have to have three lies to tell about your career. Like how hot your career is because they're going to ask like, what are you up to? You know, and they look at you with this hunger and kind of this eye and you have to be ready to go like, well, I've got this going on. And then they'll tell you their three lies and you guys will both keep each other's secrets and be like, cool, cool, cool. Right. And then both go home and, and watch something on Netflix.

You've already seen. Yeah. Well now going back again to, to your beginnings, you started writing very confessional material and very sort of at, you know, confrontational material in terms of social norms and like what, you know, female roles. Was that tough? Like, did you find a lot of Winnetka pushback on the kind of frankness that you were writing? Well, yeah, that didn't go down very well. But I was downtown living in Wicker Park at that point. And I was fresh out of Oberlin, which is very countercultural in its zeitgeist and a progressive school.

Artsy fartsy. It's an artsy fartsy, you know, like lesbians were at the top of the social order, you know, and like. As it should be. As it should be. Yeah. So I was still on that power. Oh, I also moved out to San Francisco after school. I move around a lot, I guess.

So I was steeped in counterculture and I identified as countercultural, unless I was like coming in with bravado and like, fuck you all. You know, because I was going to see like Big Black and Dinosaur Jr. and like, you know, Sonic Youth. Those were my role models at that point so i didn't feel like tough enough so i think i added a layer of false bravado into my lyrics to to try to be a little more shocking and push those kind of norms but it was a it was a cold frigid tundra when I went back home. You know, like, it's my failure to never realize what my actions' consequences will be artistically because I just believe that the art should speak for itself

and should be in a safe zone where it is its own thing. And in fact, no, that's not the case. I mean, I can remember being at my friend's wedding at a country club, I actually wrote about it in horror stories where one of the women like cornered me and just was looking at me with a cocktail, like sort of, I remember her just swilling the ice cubes around in the cross hatched glass, looking at me like, something wrong with you? You know, know like do you have a split personality or something like the joy ends of you know when echo society just kind of like coming in like

you know they're very intimidating they're scarier actually than than the bohemians really yeah yeah yeah oh yeah well was your rebellion then kind of performative since these women these women still had an effect on you? I don't know. Like how much of you comes from any one place? That's a good question. When I was going to do this, you know, program with you, I thought about that. Where do I come from?

And I don't know. I don't know where I come from because I feel like an amalgam of several very important parts that don't necessarily go together. And maybe that's because I'm adopted. I feel like just about any place could be my home. Yeah, because there's a component that is unknown to you. So yeah, there's a component that's unknown. So I don't know, it's hard to say what has had an impact more than not, but I do believe that I wouldn't be quite as provocative if they didn't get the sense that I was this good girl saying bad things, you know, like it's almost integral to, if you want to say my brand in a way,

like I wouldn't be liz fair if there wasn't one foot in one state and one foot in the other i think people identify with that right well because it makes it it makes the critiques that you might have on either world have a little bit more authenticity i think than if you're just of something you know of one thing so like you you know or it's more curious you're more it's more intriguing to look at like what the hell happened here you know like well and yeah yeah what am i looking at exactly it's almost like molly ringwald and the breakfast club went rogue something. I looked very much like her in high school. Did you?

I had that little haircut and the little pearls and the little outfits and stuff. And then I was stomping around in combat boots, you know, and I was smoking cigarettes, filterless cigarettes and swearing and getting up on stage with an electric guitarist. And then I became a mom and I went back to that sort of preppy persona. And then I rebelled against that. I mean, it's just, honestly, I'm tired, Andy. I've just been rebelling for so long. You're ready to submit. Give me a home. Tell me who I am, Andy.

Does anyone ever come on here and ask you to tell them where they came from? No, not yet. You're the first. Well, I'd like to know. Congratulations. Well, we'll figure it out. Can't you tell my loves are growing? When you were in Oberlin, were you thinking, I'm going to be a rock star?

Like, did you know what you were going to do with yourself career-wise? No, no. God, I thought I was going to be a visual artist. I was very serious about that. And that's why you went to San Francisco? San Francisco was just where my friends were going. And that sounded like a lot of fun. Like, everyone I knew was going to San Francisco.

We were going to kind of do like Oberlin Park 2 yeah yeah the cool people um but no I was very serious about it I had interned at that point for I did a semester in New York interning for Nancy Spiro and

Leon Golub so I would cut I don't know if you know the artist Nancy Spiro but she was very strong feminist artist who did a lot of um prints from ancient times of ancient female figurines and they were she would almost like Pollock she would layer this paint splatter over um a piece of paper and then stencil these and antiquity like you know tumbling women or leaping women or women showing active personalities and then we had to cut them out with these little tiny scissors so we just like sit there and i'd also interned for Ed Paschke who's a famous Chicago artist so I was his studio assistant stretching his canvases and organizing his archives. Was paint your medium? Actually no

paint wasn't my medium I was a drawer I was a okay I should say draftsman but that sounds so weird there's no good word for what I was I I did like big charcoal drawings and stuff. So I was art history, studio art all the way through my whole life. Like early childhood, always knew what I wanted to be. That was what I wanted to be. That's what I trained as. And then music, ironically, I did just as a joke on the side. Sometimes when I was drunk, you know, I would just come home from a party and write a song. Goofy. on the side sometimes when I was drunk you know I would just come home from a party and write a song goofy and it ended up paying me at a time when I was flat broke and I would literally pay my rent by selling art I like I sell an individual piece of art and that was how I got my rent that month

oh wow and then then the music thing started to take. And my dad was bugging me to take over the car insurance payments and just get my shit together. And music was the first avenue that afforded me a living. And I just went with it. But I was pretty much unprepared for the lifestyle. for the lifestyle. Yeah. And how did that, how did you first, I mean, selling a drawing is easy, but how do you start making money? No, it's not. It's not easy at all. You're selling your art to other broke people and you're like, come on, you buy this. I can live for a month. And if you don't buy this, you can live for a month. Like, but just buy this so I can live for a month. And later when you have cash, you know, or when I have cash, I'll buy some of your stuff yeah no no i don't mean i don't mean easy in that sense but i mean it's a you know you sell a painting you get money but like when you're playing music at that level uh i seem to remember there being something about like a cassette of your music that was going around yes that eventually became exile in guyville is that

is that there were there were these three girly sound cassettes that were just me on my four track like i said sometimes coming home slightly drunk sometimes just a saturday i didn't have anything to do i didn't make a crazy wacky song up and they were they were the backbone of what became guyville i wouldn't call them demos sometimes i call them demos because i'm lazy but they were they were the backbone of what became guile i wouldn't call them demos sometimes i call them demos because i'm lazy but they were just material you know like i had i had taken guitar lessons when i was younger and piano lessons when i was younger and never liked to read music so i would just make up my own sounds while my mother could hear me in the kitchen thinking that I was practicing. So that's how I started songwriting. And this is just something I did as a side thing, an expressive medium for me. And when it became a job, there were all these

other things that I had to be good at that I didn't know how to do at all. And it was just kind of like chasing a carrot. I was so thrilled and delighted that someone had paid me for this and felt quite good about myself that I was actually employed in something that I just kept following. My mother likes to say there's something I'm totally unqualified for. You can be sure that's the next thing that I'm going to do. She's like, oh, well, of course you'll do that. You have no qualifications whatsoever. Of course, you know, perfect. Yet another thing the family has to live through. But, um, it sounds very supportive. She actually is. It's her fault. She, she was a, an art historian and she took me around to see every piece of art in every museum imaginable anywhere we were.

And I understood that artists were provocative. Artists broke the mold. Artists forced us to look at the world in different ways. So that is probably my foundation, either in songwriting or any kind of medium. Yeah. What were the things that you were like sort of the things that you weren't prepared for? Performing.

Performing? Playing in front of people. I would rather die than play in front of anyone. You know, like that. Is that still the case? No, but yes. If you came over today and you said, play me a song, I'd start shaking and my voice would like quaver

and I would start to swallow my vowels would like quaver and I would, I would start to swallow my vowels. Wow. Yeah. I get, it's easier. The bigger the crowd, the bigger the crowd is, the easier it is for me.

Cause I, they don't feel like they're paying attention as much, but the more attention paid to me, the more nervous I get. Yeah. It's, it's a running joke that I hang out with all these musicians in Los Angeles,

but it is a rare day that I will get up and perform anything. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So how did you deal with it in the beginning? Because, I mean, you had the tapes going around, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, shit. Oh, it's go time.

Like, literally, because of Matador, which was the original indie label that I was on, they already had this great following and great reputation and they liked the music. So they essentially, my record, my first record was delayed for some reason. So there was all this hype coming out in the press about it vis-a-vis Matador. And oh, Matador's excited about this. It must be really good. Yeah. He's a V Matador and Oh, Matador is excited about this. It must be really good. And so when it came out, I think I'd played on stage twice in my entire life, like ever in front of anybody and not with a band either. Just me pulling my tiny little practice amp, a PV, like starter and a chord and a guitar and that was and no pedals or anything no pedals yeah yeah i still don't have pedals andy i still don't have pedals really just straight straight into the amp well that's good you know i mean pedals hide a lot i think

you know like there's a lot of guitarists yeah, like there's a lot of guitarists. Yeah. I think there's a lot of guitarists that sound really good when they're going through four different pedals. But if they just had to play like the, the setup that Chuck Berry had in the beginning, it would sound terrible, you know? Yeah. I mean,

like I saw John Lee hooker. My parents took me to a John Lee Hooker concert at Ravinia, which is that outdoor music venue in Chicago. It's like the wine and cheese. It's funny to see John Lee Hooker there. It's like a wine and cheese. It's a wine and cheese on the lawn kind of place. On the lawn kind of place, which is where, by the way,

I had my first two jobs, my first two summer jobs were working at Ravinia. And I think I graduated from oberlin i don't know where i was in my life but i i knew enough about music and had been to enough shows that i knew what i was looking at and john lee hooker played ravinia and it was just him just him in this big semi amphitheater with all that lawn behind it and it was clearly being run through the soundboard so it had some nice wet slap but yeah the power that he had the absolute mesmerizing quality that he had just him and his guitar was one of those pivotal concerts that kind of changed my mind about whether I could do this or not obviously I don't put myself in the league of John Lee Hooker I'm just saying one man and one guitar and some stomping

and some percussion with his hand or his foot blew that whole place away. It was, I don't think I've ever seen a more attentive audience and it was like one guy. Yeah. And that was, that was a real like,

okay, it's the power of the song. It's the power of the performer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's true.

And it's like the, the way that a person, you know, when you see how confident artists can control a room with quiet, too, that's another amazing thing. You know? I'm fascinated by that. I'm fascinated by what you don't play. My friends will send me videos of this or that band because they've just seen it out somewhere and they think it's amazing. And it does sound perfect. It sounds technically impressive. Yeah.

But there's nothing that gives you chills about it. And imperfection, the silence, what's not played, what's not, you know, what your imagination has to fill in. That fascinates me. Yeah. And it's all still intangibles that you can't buy. Like there's so much, all the really great people that are great at doing whatever. Like, I mean, even on like the far end of the scale, like the evil scale, you know, like with Trump. The evil scale, you know, like, like with Trump, it's like,

well, Trump is like some kind of, he has some kind of genius at what, at garbage, at whatever, you know, like at being bad. And I don't think that Marco Rubio can go out and start insulting people and make it work. It's like, and it's the same thing with, with actors, you know, there are other actors that can say the lines just as well as somebody else, but it's not the same as, you know, when it comes out of, you know, I don't know, Dustin Hoffman's mouth or Meryl Streep's mouth. about or at least it makes me think about all that sort of greek mythology with a divine spark you know that there's like that someone's getting imbued with the divinity that's channeling through them because it feels like that it feels like there's some intangible that gives somebody something that is both common in everyone's heart you know everyone's sort of watching this going like yes yes yes and it's speaking to some deep part of your soul in everyone's body as they're watching everyone's getting chills and at the same time it's it's like it it feels unreproducible you can't imitate someone i've never worried about people imitating me or me

imitating someone because what makes something that compelling is an intangible. Like you said, it's some greater than the sum of its parts, which I like that. If, if you took the magic out of music, I could never work in music. I wouldn't have the interest. Yeah. Yeah. Chasing that intangible is sort of our drug. Yeah. And you know, and whether it's a sloppiness or an incredible like anal retentive control,

like it just, you know, like it's like some people are amazing. You know, some people are amazing at, I listened to Howard Stern and they had this big argument the other day about who was better, John Bonham or Neil Peart of, of Rush, you know, which is, you know, it's like comparing like a photo realistic, like Chuck Close, is he photo is, didn't he do like, yeah, he did some of that, like, like him with Jackson Pollock, Like it's totally different things.

And, you know, and John Bonham is sloppy genius. And Neil Peart is precise genius. And they both kind of work for different reasons. I feel like confessing something right now. Yeah. I have a prejudice against people who do that, who compare and contrast. I don't. I have this.

I don't think they know what they're talking about. The minute I see that they're doing that, I think, okay, well, I don't need to listen to this conversation because you can't do it. Like that already shows me, you don't, you don't have the qualifications to judge, like just because you're having that conversation. Well, and also it's like the notion that there is some kind of quantifiable, you know, supremacy between artists is just dumb. That was Guyville. That was Guyville, Andy. That was what I rebelled against. That was what you were doing.

All these guys looking at the indie bands saying like this band is better than that band or writing their reviews and saying this was better than that and if you looked at this they couldn't compare to that and this band had broken up and reformed into this band which is far superior or far inferior like yeah i hated that i hated that i thought they were missing the entire point yeah no i always used to make fun of people like when they would have these kind of conversations because it is like I always always say it's like who rocks harder? Like, you know, like, you know, and it's like like what that means. And, you know, it's a nonsense question, but it's like but I remember guys having argument like which band rocks harder. And it's like, what? Like, you know, I don't know.

Is there are we going to come up with a test of hard rock hardness, you know? And this is how, you know, they're not real rockers because if you're, if you're holding, if you haven't let go and plummeted off the cliff, if you've hadn't let go and just said like, I don't know, I don't know. You know, like if. If you can't live in the danger of not knowing, you are not rocking. You cannot call yourself a rocker because the risk taking is to not know and to not know how it's going to turn out, not know what's good, but aim for it anyway. If you're quantifying, you're clinging to a false sense of control and you've already proven you're not rocking and you're also uh i mean among genres like if you you know there's there are like there's bluegrass that rocks you know like

there's like like people that like will eschew country music and it's like there's some country music that rocks just as hard in terms of like having an effect on you making you feel something that's as hard as zeppelin you know i mean that that affects you in a way that's like holy shit listen to these people making this controlled noise and the effect that it has on me and and i'm always and that's i mean because like i don't have it i don't have any particular genre of music that I like. I just sort of like the examples in all of it that make something happen, that are like transportational. Oh, Andy, I love you.

That's the point. That's really, thank God, we finally got to the point of someone saying they love me do you know the band tanara one uh-uh i don't they're i think east african um trying to think of their label because i think most of their records have come out on this label and i met with that label in fact and i mentioned them in the meeting and the guy thought I was trying to flatter him. I didn't even know it was on their label, but they, I don't know what those words mean. You know, they're very, they're recorded very close up. So you hear a lot of the air and the hiss in it and you hear like every cigarette, the guys smoked and you can almost smell the campfire on their clothes and stuff but it rocks harder than any classic rock thing can rock it's just so that's when i'm on my deathbed it's gonna be that clean for sure okay um yeah let's let's you better put that in the will you know you gotta get that journey like wake back up yeah yeah now when you when you exile hit and you were going on tour i mean i imagine that was just tough did it take did you ever get a point during that kind of the

the guyville ride that you felt like you were kind of getting a handle on the live performing oh gosh i don't know if i can even remember it's such a blur i i didn't feel like i got a handle on the performing i can remember the moment i think it was oh god what is bumbershoot is that what's in seattle there's a big is it bumbershoot it is okay it must have been around 2005 or something so yes it was a long time not feeling like i had control over anything that was happening but we we got up there and as is quite often the case in big festivals, you don't get a sound check and you usually can't hear anything that's going on. So you show up and you can hear nothing. You have to perform a set. Very common. No problem. Used to that. But I got the feeling

that that audience didn't know me that well. You know, I just, it was a cold audience. Yeah. And by the time we finished our relatively short set, we had that whole stadium situation on our side, on side with us, really into it. That's great. And I can so clearly remember feeling like I am a performer. I think Modest Mouse is on that bill too. Like, cause I think I ran over to see them. And it was the first time, like I felt I belonged.

I was like, Modest Mouse and I could hang out because I have proven myself somehow. And it had been a long time of feeling inadequate on stage. And every once in a while, I'll take a tour just myself, just as a solo artist, because I'd like to stand in that fear and conquer it because it's such a part, it's such a constant companion of mine. Yeah. I don't run away from that fear. I carry it with me always. And I'm pretty, pretty used to performing now. And I,

you know, takes me maybe the first two songs and then I'm into it. Yeah. I don't even want to get off stage anymore, but, but that was a moment where I felt legitimate. Yeah. Legit big moment. That's great. Yeah. I, I, I do feel like, I do feel feel like that's there's probably not 11 years, 11 years of pain. No, I think it's probably also something it's like just kind of a mind fuckery that happens with women, because I don't I bet you there's not a lot of men that are, you know, in your position that. that are you know in your position that is that true i i don't i mean i don't see i i can't think of like a lot of like really stage shy rock stars you know what i mean like they all they all seem to be just fine but you know it's the socialization of little boys versus little girls like boys it's okay to draw attention to yourself girls you, you're not, not so much. I was watching Shakespeare in love the other day. And there was a part where Gwyneth Paltrow's future husband or Viola,

Viola's future husband, who's, you know, a jerk was telling her how she should behave when in audience with the queen because they were sort of going to put her in front of the queen to see if he could marry her be grateful submissive modest and brief and it just it resonated i'm like that's what the world wants women to be or traditionally has wanted women to be submissive modest grateful and brief and like that is all the end that is the opposite of a rock star you know obviously yeah certainly not the brief part you know three encores come on can't you tell my loves are growing when you became a mom did you feel like your rock star life was over did you feel yeah oh yeah yeah

those two things couldn't go together and i didn't mind you know i i had not dreamed of being a rock star that had not been one of my childhood dreams um yeah and at the same time this strange thing happened whereas he grew up like toddler on I realized that this career that I had basically just left off and like yeah I don't have to do that anymore was actually like the best job in the world and I hadn't known it I'd been so wrapped up in myself at that age like oh everyone wants to talk to me or they're all judging me. There was this self-centeredness, you know, before pre-kids that I was so happy to be rid of and embarrassed that I had been so wrapped up in myself and my own self-importance. And then I started thinking, what is my job? I make music and I go into places where people are really happy to hear the music and we're all there together singing. Like, could there be a better job?

Yeah. So even though I just like chucked the whole thing to the side and said, I'm going to like stay at home and be a mom, this other awareness of you idiot, Like you had the best situation ever. Yeah. And so I couldn't let go of it entirely. And I went back in and started making music again. And how, how long did it take you to do that? How was it into your son's toddlerism toddler years? Um,

probably I'm terrible with dates. Yeah. Yeah. I am too. I i i'm an emotional rememberer i remember big moments no it was it was like kind of a a braid of being in music also wanting to be a mom and there i was back in my two states again my happy place place, right? One foot in one state, one foot in another. And I just kept, I said this to someone the other day, another interviewer, a female. And I said, like, if you just keep going, it will work out. You will get somewhere. If you just keep going, it will get somewhere. I never know what I'm doing. One of the things I say on here, and I've said on here a bunch, and it's something that I learned early on in my show business career was like to make your, make your

goal, not like one thing, like, you know, I want to win six Grammys or I want to, you know, I want to have a number one film at the box office or something but to make it a process because you're never going to get to the end of the process you know what i mean you're you can get to the end of a thing you know you can say i want a big beach house and you get the big beach house and then it's like well what the fuck now do i do with the remaining decades that i have to be on the planet um but if you make it a process then then you can, I mean, it can almost be like a way to trick yourself into keeping interested in your own life. You know, it's like, well, you know, the thing is just to keep kind of getting better at whatever it is that I do. It just seems to like

disappointment proof your journey a little bit more, I think. Yes. And up the excitement level because what you're leaning into is what you like to do. Right. You like to do this and finding ways to remember why you like to do this and find, you know,

shift over to the right or the left until you're back in that flow state, which is, you know, the highest high that there is. The flow state, nothing feels better, at least to me. If we could teach people about that rather than being so goal-oriented and materialistic,

if we could say like, do the process, appreciate the process, so much less unhappiness, I feel. Yeah, I agree. Did your kids mostly go to school in California? Yes. I only have one. Nick went to school in California and then he went to the art institute for college in Chicago. So he went back to Chicago. In Chicago. Oh, cool. Oh, that's great. That's great. Yeah. My son's in art school too. He's, but he's at USC now. He started out at Parsons in New York City and had spent most of his youth thinking,

I'm going to go to college in New York City. And he got to New York City and he's like, I don't like going to college in New York City. And he'd had plenty of experience, but just not, there's a difference to between spending four or five days in new york city and then being there and you know going for like a month and realizing i haven't left this tiny little rock for you know two months and then you know and just the the pavement and the the close quarters and just you know he just was like yeah it's just like it wasn't for him so well because i was going to ask about how like what what's it like to be the the mom the rock star mom at school um but in la i think they're kind of used to it a little bit aren't

they yeah that was the great thing like there was somebody on the cast of Lost at our school. Like there's always a bigger celebrity running around very close by. I see Colin Farrell in Drop Off. It's like nobody gives a shit about me. I don't feel like a celebrity out here. Like, you know, like I almost feel like, can I even say that? Can I call myself famous? I'm not really sure. You can, you can. A little. Not too really sure. You can, you can. A little. Not too much, but you know, you can. Not too much. And certainly less famous in LA than I would be in New York or Chicago because my career started basically in New York and Chicago. So LA was like late to the game. I don't think LA caught on to me till I went through that pop period too. So yeah. Yeah. Different thing entirely. He has opted.

I'm not allowed to tweet about him. Probably not allowed to talk about him right now. Like, you know, he has opted to steer clear of that. And that's totally fine. I've just been mom. Yeah. Yeah. And he's turned out really well. and he's i i can see the threads

of my creativity in him but he's so different and he's just been that way he's been strongly autonomous in that way like i'm my own thing i'm into my own kind of music i'm into my own things and what's really cool now is watching him develop a level of mastery yeah like when he does stuff now in fact he did the art for my new album so that's his art all over my album that's his computer that's great and we've gone from me going into hell and to be like a person to help guide the creativity to like, I mess it up. If I even touch it, like it's better without me. Yeah. Yeah. Which I feel really proud of.

That makes me feel incredibly accomplished. I'm like, yeah, like you, I have nothing to teach you anymore, but. Yeah. Parenthood is, you know, it's like one of those things, like ideally it's just supposedly i remember reading this once and being like this isn't the way it works but supposedly early police forces were supposed to be working towards their own obsolescence they weren't you know supposed to be we're going to catch crime forever the idea was somehow we're going to make it so that people don't commit crime anymore they're going, that was part of their job.

And I feel, I just relate to that in terms of parenting. Like the way to do it is to, is to make it so you're not needed anymore. And that seems, that can seem real sad when you think about it, but it's kind of the only way you should really aim for it. Cause if you make your kids dependent on you are you really doing your job you know no yeah no it but it but i do remember i don't know if dads go through this there was a point in high school i think when he went on a trip to japan and the heartbreak of knowing that they were out in the world, like the happiness, this weird bittersweet.

I dropped them off at LAX. And I think I was like, most of the kids had already been dropped off. Like their parents weren't like hanging around. Yeah. Yeah. They were in my view, but I was sort of like edging backwards slowly out of there feeling like, okay, okay. It's going to be fine. And this, this sense of, you know, thousands of generations of humans and the male child goes off and has to, you know, come out of the fold and go do whatever they're going to do. And this sort of cosmic, and I went home, it was early in the morning when they left. in the morning when they left and i lay in bed and i just like sobbed because i in a happy way in a in a sense of the umbilical cord was breaking yeah you know he was going off to another country

across the ocean to go do what he was going to live his life yeah and that that's what you're supposed to do like and there was it was so beautiful and so connecting to something very primal, very deep inside me. And there was a sense, which I hadn't expected. I just thought I was dropping them off at LAX to go on this trip. This, this sense of, okay, you've done it to some extent. It turned out not to be totally true. Right. Right. Yeah. But it was going to need me. But like there was a moment of like connecting to many, many generations before us.

Yep. It's very cool. Yeah. This is what you do. Yeah. You raise them and then push them out of the nest, you know, and then they sort of. And then they fly. Yeah.

Or don't. Or don't. Or they just eat worms. Well, now you've got a new album. Is it it coming out or is it it's out it's coming out it's coming out right would have had 2020 not happened it would have been out for almost a year now i guess and that was a hard call do we want to wait i've never waited like that yeah a lot of people know what i'm talking about you know but why is it the waiting because you can't tour to support it yeah yeah you know and it may not even work out because now we're not going to push it back anymore and we may not i'm hoping the tour is going to happen

this summer yeah but i used to joke that someday i would just make records and not have to tour them yeah and like Steely Dan. Yeah. Like that's what I say when I'm in a bad mood and I'm feeling terrible about my career. I wanted to share it with people. If that makes sense. And I'm not even sure exactly how it's not even any specific thing.

Like, does that mean interviews? Does that mean concerts? Does that mean going city to city in America? What does that mean interviews does that mean concerts does that mean going city to city in america what does that mean but it just i knew pretty pretty strongly that that's not how i that's not how we're going out yeah you know yeah i'm not putting that much into a record and then just kind of like there you go yeah yeah is that sort of all you can see ahead of you now is like what happens with that? No, I always have plans and plots and schemes and designs. Any you want to share with us or? Sure. I'm writing my next book, which is interesting and was really hard to do over 2020

because it was it's supposed to be the companion piece to my first book, which was horror stories. And it was going to be horror stories and fairy tales. And I wasn't feeling very fairy tale for 2020 i'm like yeah yeah you know how am i supposed to write the happy times um well a lot of fairy tales have some gruesome you know i found that i did find that that like you know fairy tales doesn't have to be that different from horror stories really it's just kind of an equalizer shift in a way and looking forward so much to this tour with Alanis and Garbage yeah you know through Live Nation what a spectacular tour that is going to be and so looking very much forward to getting back out and having vaccinated. I just want to move on from these last four years, this nightmare. I came very close to just being done with human beings altogether. Yeah.

You know, I felt like, how are these assholes so asshole-ish? It can definitely stop you in your tracks. Like, what the fuck? It stopped me in my tracks. tracks. Like, what the fuck? It stopped me in my tracks. Yeah, like. What the fuck? Put on a goddamn mask. Like, just put it on.

Yeah. And I hated watching us go through this long, protracted, when all we had to do was handle our shit. Yeah. If we just handled our shit, we would have been done with this. Yeah. But instead, we choose to wallow in it and torture ourselves forever. So my big plans are to not look back, to do all the artistic things that I want to do and double down on really

remembering why it is that music is so fucking great because that stuff is i think we all it crossed our minds we might not survive this year i think everybody had a moment of coming to terms with like will i make it through this or will everyone i love make it through this? And that just clarified for me yet again, that I love music. I love making music. I love sharing music. I love writing. I love painting. I love art. And I somehow was lucky enough to be born at a time when women could do that in a country where I was able to do that in a family that encouraged that. So I feel like we're going to come out of this. At least I am going to be like, my wings will like spread and I'll be like soaring above it all. Like, you know, I just, I feel the power, like ready to come out. So yeah, I'm hoping for the roaring

twenties. I've had a lot of, I've had a lot of conversation with friends who are looking forward to just like an explosion of creative energy and just I'm going to make out with everybody. I'm going to go to every party. There's going to be so many babies like born nine months after the first weekend that we're all free to get out. Well, that kind of sounds like what you've learned, like the what you've learned kind of aspect of these three questions. I mean, is there anything you'd add more to that, do you think, or?

No, that's pretty much it. People are assholes and we're really lucky. And there we go back to the two states, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There I am straddling the two states yeah people are assholes and i'm really lucky to be with them yeah like that's what i've learned i've learned that that that that two states straddle is what i'm just gonna skate all the way out of this life on you know i'm never i'm gonna like one ice skates on one pond and one

ice skates on the other and there's like underbrush hitting me in the crotch. And I'm just like skating on out of this. That's how it's going down. That's no, I mean, that's, that's, there's a lot to that. Life is really messy. It's beautiful. And you can write, you know, poems about it and, you know, symphonies, but it also like, it also kind of smelly, you know, and it's like, and it's like, you get, you know, what a beautiful sunshiny day,

but yeah, but now I'm getting sweaty, you know, like I'm getting hot, you know, it's like everything always has a little bit of reality to it that sort of takes the shine off. Well, I feel like I, it's, I feel so happy to have talked to you and it's, it's such a, you know, I've been such a fan for so long and I've loved your works for so long and, and just kind of also who you are. So it was real thrill and I appreciate you taking this time out, you know? Thank you so much for having me. Sure.

I really enjoyed it. And I can't, when's the album come out? I think it's the first week of June. First week of June. Awesome. Yeah. All right. I'll be out of a job and I'll be able to listen to the album all the time. Come on tour. We'll have a blast. All right. I'm ready. I'm ready.

Well, thank you, Andy. Thank you so much. Thank you, Liz. And thank all of you out there for listening to this episode of The Three Questions and come back next week for more. Hayek. The associate producer is Jen Samples, supervising producer, Aaron Blair, and executive producers, Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Make sure to rate and review the three questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts. Can't you tell my love's a-growing?

This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.