This Past Weekend - E424 James Blake

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

James Blake is a Grammy award-winning musician and producer. In addition to his solo career, he has also collaborated with Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce, Frank Ocean and more. Check out his new album, “Friends That Break Your Heart”.  James Blake joins Theo on This Past Weekend to talk about the origins of their friendship, the similarities between music and comedy, how to find your own creativity and more.  https://www.youtube.com/@jamesblake ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com Podcastville mugs and prints available now at https://theovon.pixels.com ------------------------------------------------- Support our Sponsors: DraftKings: Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app NOW, use code THEO BlueChew: Visit https://bluechew.com/ to try Bluechew free with code THEO at checkout. BetterHelp: Visit https://betterhelp.com/theo to save 10% off your first month. Rocket Money: Manage your expenses the easy way at https://rocketmoney.com/THEO  ------------------------------------------------- Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [e-mail] Hit the Hotline: [phone] Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: http://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reinerSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The fans, the tradition, the glory. There's nothing more thrilling than college football. And I'll agree to that. I mean, it blows the pros out of the water. And it all comes down to the national championship. That's looming right ahead of us. My go-to for sports betting is DraftKings Sports Book, one of America's top-rated sports book apps.

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and get $200 in free bets instantly. That's code Theo, only at DraftKings Sports Book. Minimum age and eligibility researchers to supply. See show notes for details. We've got tour dates to announce. Louisville, Indianapolis. We added a show in Indianapolis. Shrevport, Louisiana.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Corpus Christi, Houston. We added a show in Houston. Added a show in Phoenix. Added a show in New York City. And added a show in Austin, Texas. Those are all at TheoVon.com slash T-O-U-R. Make sure to do ticketing through those links

to get accurately priced ticketing. And thank you guys, that's all return of the RAT tour. So if you've already seen it, it'll be similar to that still. Just so you know. We've got lots of new merch up at TheoVonStore.com. Check out the new Hitter hunting collection. Also the new Gang Gang crew necks in orange and purple and gold fits.

We got the new Rat King t-shirt in purple and black. That thing, that's the thing, baby, if you haven't seen that one, check it out, TheoVonStore.com. Today's guest is a Grammy award-winning musician and producer. He creates, he's one of the most creative people I've ever met. He's a friend of mine. And he's someone I really enjoy talking to and I haven't gotten to speak with him in a while.

So I'm grateful for our opportunity today. He has produced music and written music for and with some of the top artists in the world. I'm excited today to catch up with him, to learn a little bit more about his creative process and to just spend some time furthering our friendship. Today's guest is the one and only James Blayton. What are they called, lazy boys?

The things that, I saw one in Friends at one point. You did? Lazy boys are not a really big thing in England. Bring your mic in, let's see. Okay, there we go. With the seat, you mean? Yeah, like what they call a lazy boy doesn't exist in England, I don't think.

Well, I think because once they got to America, people probably got more lazy, I would guess, right? And they're like... Do you think that's what it was? It was, okay, so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I feel like a little bit maybe. It's a circular situation. Like I think the first chairs didn't even have a seat on it,

it was just like a straight up piece of wood. And then someone lazy sat on it and then they had to create... Yeah, they're like, ah, this can be better. Right, right. That's interesting, it's funny that we got to America and created a lot of like lazy stuff, you know, maybe. I don't know where the lazy stereotype came from. I mean, it seems like a pretty industrious place.

Yeah, especially around the time when they got it. Well, I think, yeah, because then they hit the industrial revolution, you know, I think a couple... I don't know when people even got here. I mean, there's a lot of speculation, but you're from originally from Britain. I'm from England, yeah. You're from England. And so if somebody says England, is that more top shelf than, say, in Britain?

No, no, you know, I'll be careful how I say this. No, no, no, no, it's not. I mean, everywhere in Britain is, you know, it's just a sort of... It's a collection of places when you say Britain. And I'm part of Britain as well, I'm part of the UK. I'm also probably a mix of a lot of different things, you know, historically. So I think I'm a bit Irish, a bit Welsh. The Welsh I hear about sometimes.

Yeah, they travel. Is he Welsh, Darren Till? Do you think is he Welsh, that UFC guy? Look that up, Zach. Can you look up if Darren Till is Welsh? I don't know. You know what, I've really lost track of UFC recently. I don't know why.

Yeah, I haven't watched it for a couple years. Can he be both? He could be both. He could be both, he could be both somewhere. I mean, the Welsh is, I think it's a dominant gene. Oh, he's a Liverpoolman. Yeah, I wish I had a better chart about the British. I don't have a good, you know, I believe in it.

I've seen a lot of the, you know, I believe. I just, I mean, I got to see, I wish I knew more. About the British? Yeah, just kind of what it feels like. I feel like you have better posture inside of your soul. That's what I think it feels like when you talk, when the British, they have like... I think this myth that we're sophisticated is very pervasive, right?

But I honestly don't know where it comes from. And I think, I think it's just the way we sound. It's not real, you know what I mean? I think sometimes phonetics and like someone's accent can make them seem something. And then it's just all completely, completely bollocks. I mean... Yeah, because the British, they sound when they're talking,

like there's perfectly set stove over on the side of their mouth. That's what it feels like to me. Yes. When I hear someone British talking, like even to that little spoon and you're like, what is that for? You know, when they say it's for shrimp, you're like, how would you even use this on a shrimp, you know, without being a pervert?

The little spoon, you know? The little spoon. The little spoon is for, I mean, for sugar in tea, I guess. I really don't know. I mean, the spoon differences in size of teaspoons here, you know, it catches me out a lot, just when I'm making. If you want to make anything... But yeah, I think when I see British people,

I guess there is like that, yeah, I feel like, I do feel a sophistication. I feel like they came out of the library and they're giving me a... I feel like there's something about it to an American person, you know? I just, again, I don't know where it comes from because I think when I came over here, I noticed that a lot of the smartest people I'd met were from over here.

I mean, I don't know, you know? It's just, you've got smart people everywhere, dumb people everywhere. And you also were getting into an age where you were probably going to start meeting more people, you were in your field. Yes. So...

Yes, and also, you know, when it comes to musicians, we're not... We don't tend to be the most kind of articulate people, for some reason. I think we're not the best people to have conversations with. I find that with musicians. So I had to branch out, not because I'm such a great conversationist, but because I just... I noticed that a lot of my conversations with musicians tended to be more one-dimensional, and then outside of that, there wasn't like a broad...

And I, myself, didn't have like a broad knowledge of stuff, and because I think music sort of funnels you into like a... You know, it's a bit like... It's kind of like Pavlovian conditioning, right? If you get... If you're rewarded for kind of your primary way of speaking, which is through music, probably. If you're like a writer or a musician, the likelihood is that you're better at

articulating your emotions through music, and then outside of that, you can be kind of stumped, which is... I think you find like a lot of like very sort of socially anxious musicians, and stuff, which I've definitely been myself. And then... Yeah, and then you're rewarded for that one expression, you know, constantly. Right, of course. Maybe you become successful, hopefully, and then people pay you for that expression.

Like no one's paying you to talk, no one's paying you to express yourself in any other way, or be funny, or whatever it is. Right, so yeah, you're gonna have so much... Yeah, you start to feel like that's where some of your reward is at, and so that's where most of your value is at, and so then... Yeah, it makes sense to me. Yeah, and then I think after that, you just start to... All the other muscles atrophy.

Right, so then chatting is not... I mean, when I met my girlfriend, I wasn't really finishing sentences, because I don't think anyone's sort of required me to. Yeah, yeah. They'd just be like, oh, we know what he means. He's probably... That was probably very funny wherever that was going. It's funny, well, this is great, because this is how you and I met.

I met your girlfriend, and she was a comedy fan. She loves comedy. Yeah. She loves to laugh and... She introduced me to your special. Oh, she did? Yeah, and we came to see you. Oh, that's right, the first one, that's right.

You guys came to see me. Where do we see you? Comedy store? Store? What's that called? Yeah, comedy store. Comedy store, yeah. Well, yeah, because I remember one time I saw her at the comedy store,

and she was like, yeah, I'm gonna catch a Uber or something. I was like, I'll give you a ride home, you know? She's like, I don't live far. And I'm just thinking like, I'm like, beautiful girl. Oh, I got my hopes up. I got my hopes up, bro. My hopes have been, you know, I couldn't even, my hopes have been lost.

I've been like, I'm like, I'm like, literally while she's talking, I'm like, hopes, hopes, hopes, get over here, man. I'm gonna pick you up. So I got my hopes up, and I drive her, you know, I drive her, it's in Hollywood and it's kind of in the hills. Not, it's in a nice place. It was a couple of, yeah. We've actually moved since then.

Not far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not way out there, you know? Yeah. Yeah, but, and then she's like, you have to meet my boy? Well, that's not a good impersonation, but she's like. You've got to meet my boyfriend. Yes.

And I was like, oh, God, he sounds like a great boy. And she goes, no, he would absolutely love you. Or she might have already said that he's a fan of yours or. Yeah, yeah. And then you guys came to the comedy store one time. I was very nervous to meet you at the time. Yeah? Yeah, I was.

Well, yeah, because I think, you know, there's this mutual appreciation, I think, between comedians and musicians. I think a lot of musicians want to be comedians and a lot of comedians want to be musicians. And, you know, that's like a general rule, although I haven't ever heard you express interest in being a musician. But, nor do I want to be a comedian. But I think there's, I didn't really have any comedian friends

at that point. Yeah. And we'd been watching a lot of stand-up comedy and we'd been going to the comedy store and we'd been going to like different shows. And I just kind of felt intimidated by the idea that I needed to be funny. You know, I thought like, not only did I really respect what you did,

but I don't get, I don't really get starstruck particularly. Yeah. Because just through exposure to, you know, the industry and stuff. But I also, but in this one way, I sort of felt insecure. I was like, wait, I think I told you this before. I was like, you know, do I have to like, do I have to be on? Do I have to like be funny and be smart and whatever? Because your comedy was smart and it was funny and it was, I was like, what's he?

And I didn't really understand the difference between the stage and the offstage kind of person really. What I think it's interesting because yeah, it's funny. When I've talked to you sometimes I'm like, dang, do I need to know a lot about music or can I just share about music? How I think and feel about it and that I don't know that much. Do I have to pretend like I know all of the names of every one of your songs? Like, I think that happens a lot of times when you meet somebody

of a certain thing, of a certain genre, like, what do they expect? Yes, you do, you do, you do. That's so interesting. So yeah, so, you know, I'll be quizzing you on that later if, you know, when you're ready. Okay. Yeah. There's a, I mean, I do have some, I do have some favorites, man. It's funny you say that you're not that like, what do you say that words weren't very per, like, I...

Articulate. Yeah. Well, I don't, I'm not saying I'm not in any way articulate. I'm just saying that as a general rule, musicians, like I had to find my words really, you know, it was a process like it, I think you, if you'd met me maybe sort of seven or eight years ago, I probably would have, well, I probably wouldn't have sustained a friendship for a start because I think I would have been intimidated or not been socially kind of comfortable enough to be, especially not to do this. I mean, there's no way I'd have come in here.

This would have been way too much. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible, man. That's right. We've talked about a lot of this kind of stuff. This is where a lot of our friendship kind of started was talking about that sort of thing. Yeah.

Yeah. I was admired how open you are about, you know, mental health and like all this other stuff and your own kind of shortcomings or your own kind of things you don't know. Yeah. You know, that's always been amazing to me. And I think that's probably, to me, is like a huge strength of yours is being the voice of people who are afraid to ask questions because they're worried that they're going to be, you know, made fun of or in some way kind of mocked because, you know, because there are a lot of things. I mean. It's hard to do sometimes.

Yeah. Especially when you feel like the world is so fast and it knows more than you. Yeah. You know, especially these days, if you feel like you're sometimes from a certain area or from a certain financial class, I would be scared. I remember when I was young to ask questions in like a nice person's house. Right. It was a dump. I was like, I was just, you know. You know where you are with that.

I'm just out, you know, I'm Alex Trebeckin in there if it's a dump. But if it was a nice place, I'm like, whoa, I should be asking nothing in here right now. What does a little spin do? Stuff like that. Yeah. But yeah, it's just, it's interesting how like different little comfort worlds that people find and where you're okay to communicate. Yeah. Yeah, it's scary.

Communication is kind of interesting. I mean, obviously it's interesting. That's kind of a silly thing to say, but. No, but you do it really well. And I think you, you managed to, I mean, I don't know how you sit and talk like on your solo shows. Oh, it's miserable sometimes. It must, I mean, it must get hard sometimes because I don't know how you sustain that level of talking for that long. It's like an improvisation.

I sometimes, I mean, I was thinking about it yesterday, thinking about things that we have in common. Because I just, there's some, like, I know we have some kind of like friend chemistry that I sort of like, but on top of that, I think we have a kind of, there's some similarity between the way you think and the way I think when it comes to the music. And I think sometimes when I, when I, when I see the way you're reaching for words, it's like, I find when I'm reaching for chords, sometimes I have to find a kind of abstract chord or like some kind of, well, maybe an unusual, you know, like a, an unusual chord or whatever to, to, to nail. To nail the emotion I'm looking for, right? And it's because the standard ones won't, won't do. The standard ones don't current, you know, don't quite scratch the itch of what I'm trying to think. Yeah, they're ROYGB if it doesn't have enough color. It's not the, you want to, you're very specific.

Yeah. And it's like looking for that very specific hue and you seem to do the same thing with words. It's like when you're looking for like a word to describe it, I don't know what it was like a dog, it was like a floor bearer. I can't remember. You just have this like, you know, you want to get specific because you want them to know exactly what you feel. Yeah. And it's like, or what you mean. Yeah.

And so, you know, the, the basic language doesn't always cut it. That's interesting, man. You know, you have that, what is it? You have that lyric, I could drink a case of you and not follow. Well, that's a journey Mitchell, which is it is an even better lyric than that I've get ever right. Yeah. It's a cover. No, no, it's a cover, but it's it is the one of the best songs ever written.

So I didn't know that. Yeah. It's so good, man. Thanks man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you on behalf of journey Mitchell. Yeah. Yeah. What is something that I love? Oh, the I gave you punch lines. Oh, yes. Man, that's a good one. That one really, really resonated with me.

I gave them punch lines. They gave me warning signs. Yeah. That reminds me so much of your music to me matters. I mean, we'll get into your music so much of like. That is my song. Yes, that is. That is.

We were the way we say what you will say what you will. Yeah. God dude. Yeah. Thanks man. Yeah. I gave you punch lines. You gave me warning signs.

That was like my whole. I felt like that was my whole childhood man. Wow. It was like, you know, I would. All I had was like the way to make people feel something was through laughter or something. Yeah. It was so like. But everything felt like a warning.

It was like the whole world felt like everything felt like warning signs. Like any reaction people would give to me. I had to monitor every moment of it because I was always scared when it would go from everything was okay to everything was not okay. Yeah. And man, it was it's. Yeah, you have such a way. It's like watching somebody.

Well, first of all, you're like a sound monkey. Like you like you're like, oh, you're listening to your music and you're like, oh, that's a sound. Okay. I didn't know that was a sound like you're like, I can almost see this like chimpanzee like swinging out into the unknown and then being like, this is a sound. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you're doing that with what you do that with words. It's funny. And maybe that's some of what it is, you know, some of it in like what you described earlier, like just then the kind of exploration is like when you in order to emotionally regulate yourself, you've kind of got to find words or comedic moments or chords in my case to just make it feel better. And that happens once and it feels a little bit better. And you're like, okay, you subconsciously twig that that's now going to be your, you know,

and but yeah, this is a place to go. This is a chord I can use. This is a nice landing spot or a foothold. It's almost like you're doing some mountain climbing. Like this is a grip. Exactly. And it's like, like I remember like when I was a kid, there was this one standout. I mean, it was a small moment, but I remember it very vividly, which is where my friend

was really, was one of my best friends, but you know, I didn't have many friends. I just have like one friend at a time. It was like, you know, like a shop was like one in one out kind of thing. And I just had this day where he just relentlessly took the piss out of me. Right. And he was just being so cruel to me because I think that when I was, when somebody was my only friend, I think they felt they knew they could do that. Right.

So just, you know, when I was much younger, like eight or nine or something. And anyway, so this kid is, is I'm just like, oh, I was just feeling terrible. And I go into the other room and I start playing piano. Just, I just get up and I just go and start playing piano. He comes in and just mocks me even harder for coming over to play the piano to like, to like, oh, is this your sad song that you're writing? And I remember thinking at the time, yeah, it is the sad song I'm writing because you're taking the piss out of me.

It is the sad song. And that just, that just is and always was my way of, you know, it's like if I became like a pressure cooker emotionally, then the only thing I had, the only outlet was music. It was the only way I could get it out. Or if you were like even like a rice cooker, like that was your rice. That was my rice. Yeah. Yeah.

That's cool, man. Yeah. I was like a sushi chef, like a Japanese sushi chef. I learned to make the rice so many times, you know, day in, day out that eventually I became a restaurant tour. Yeah. Like a, I was going to say Michelin star, but that would be, that would be, you know, highly self aggrandizing.

I think that's easy to say, man. I think a master of musical. I got good at rice. Yeah. Put it, put it simply. I want to let you know if your new year's goals are to manage your budget better and to save money, then you need rocket money. It's that simple.

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Because I don't want to judge your music. You know, I'm kind of an emo kind of guy, like in a lot of ways, I sometimes, yeah, your, your, your songs, it's almost like I feel like the length of your song is like the length that takes a tear to go from like an eye to a cheek sometimes it'll strange like some songs, some of them are more ballads, you know, some I feel like it's like somebody like hitchhiking just through like a bunch of emotions kind of, um, yeah, they're all they're very, they're like highly emotional things. Also, yeah, that's why it seems so specific to me, which you do.

It's like, God, this seems like it's not like somebody laid some cement. It's like each thing here is like a somebody put a step here and this one is a certain depth from the soil and it's a certain softness to it of the stone or whatever it is. It seems very intentional. Yes. Yeah. Actually, I think there's, there's two, there's good and bad that can come from being so intentional and being perceived to be so intentional, right?

So sometimes it's not intentional and it just seems like it is because I'm improvising and and I was just feeling a certain way and it just came out like that. And then I just edited it and just like put it in the song. Right, and so in moments like that, I think when the perception becomes, okay, you're super intentional and you're always in control, ultimately, it leads to a place where you have to keep up, A, keep up that image, but B, people don't question you. You know, people will just like assume that you know what you're doing and when you're working with people, they're just like, oh, I'm sure he knows what he's doing.

I'm sure that's fine. I'm sure that's good. And they just gaslight themselves because it might just be shit. It might just be not a good melody or not a good lyric or whatever. Oh, so it can almost corner you in a way. Yeah, definitely. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

People don't tend to... And it's brave you to notice that and just say that. Yeah, sometimes my own ability or how people perceive some of my ability can then corner me into a place where I'm not getting probably earnest feedback on if something is quality enough for the situation or not. Yeah, and also people because they're not as advanced at exactly the thing you do, they might be as advanced at something else, but because they're not as advanced at exactly the thing you do and the exact way that you came up, doing that up the mountain, you're

not speaking the same language. They don't feel that they have the knowledge to confront you on the idea that's not good sometimes. Oh, I could see that too, especially. Well, that's one thing I was going to say about when I met you, since you're taller and British or sound British anyway, I'm thinking, oh, man, you seem older than you are. And not saying you're not a great age, but when I first met you... I'm 34.

Oh, you really? Just turned 34, yeah. Well, congratulations. Thank you very much. But I thought that you were a lot... It just gives you a wiseness, I think, to people that maybe you don't even know, I think. So that probably adds into the same thing where it's like, oh, man, this guy's a dang wizard. Do you think there's...

For an American person anyway, I'd be like, yeah. No, I don't know. I think people have a, do you believe in old souls and young souls and stuff like that? I don't know how much, I mean, it's obviously not something I can prove, but I think these kind of phrases mean something. I don't know if they always mean exactly what the literal sense of someone having been here many times or whatever, but whatever people are trying to say when they say that, I do identify with that.

I've always felt a little haunted. It doesn't mean that I'm like in any way a wizard or in any way, because I think actually, if anything, I feel kind of insufficient in a lot of ways. You're a desk clerk at that point. You're running a hotel for souls, you know, like you're at a certain point, sorry to step on you there. No, no, no. But I think that's kind of what it's like.

If it feels like, some people, it feels like it's their first time through the galaxy, you know, you meet them, it's like, oh, this is a baby soul, it feels like, and it's not even judging that heaven, if you feel like you are resonate with being an old soul that it makes you better or anything. No, it doesn't. It just makes you, you're a damn, you know. You can be more cynical, you can be more sort of jaded, you can feel kind of too much. You can feel too much, you can easily overwhelmed, you can feel maybe, I mean, and these obviously

these character traits don't, aren't just applied to the old soul, but they can be applied to any, like a couple of different character or personality types and, and like there's also all sorts of psychological analyses and assessments that you could put on this, but I think I feel sometimes, I mean, my job extends beyond, I mean, I'm a producer, but I feel a lot of the time, like a therapist and, and like a therapist, a lot of therapists are very fucked up and they're not, they're not people who you should necessarily take, you know, all of your life lessons from the, or, or indeed they might not be practicing exactly what they preach, but you know, they're also people who've, who've, who've got an overwhelming

sense of empathy and probably quite easy to overwhelm themselves and, and they've learned to like, learn to vocalize what it is that they're feeling so that other people can, can vocalize what they're feeling. Yeah. You know, I think I realized, and obviously I haven't gone to school to be a therapist. No. I'm nothing like a therapist in any way. I don't know, man.

I think that, but your music might be, right? Right. And that's okay. And that's, that's what's interesting sometimes about having any sort of gift in the world. I believe everybody has some gift. It could be some people's smile might be their song. It's like, man, they just smile at you and it is like, it can lift you up just as much as hearing like, you know, some Michael McDonald or something, you know, or some, trying to

think of something good. Love Michael McDonald. Yeah. Or Nellie or something. Nellie. But Nellie. How'd you draw the line between Michael McDonald and Nellie? How did that?

I was just trying to get some diversity. Two therapy. Yeah. I was trying to get, I think I was trying to get diversity. Right. And Nellie. Two therapeutic guys. It was the last time I think that a lot of white people felt like they could really dance,

honestly. It's interesting. When he came out with Country Grammar, and this is almost a little bit before your time, but when he came with Country Grammar. I remember it. Yeah. God. I remember feeling like, I remember thinking, this is an amazing song and I still can't

dance. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was just our last hurrah after they felt it with the legs, you know. It was the last Caucasian hurrah. Anything, so when things were still moving below the hips. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

So how, how did you, so in terms of like your, because I want to know more about the connection between your emotion, your upbringing and comedy and why, why you sort of went into it. What, were there moments where you got a laugh from saying something in a certain way and it helped the situation? It helped like your relationship with someone or it stopped the situation from going badly or whatever. It became like almost like a, you know, diplomatic kind of tool or whatever. I think, you know, I think, I didn't have a lot of feelings as a kid.

I didn't have a lot of like comfortable feelings probably, you know, there wasn't a lot of comfort in our home and there was a lot of question marks and not a lot of information. Right. So there wasn't a lot of information. There was a lot of attention to learning, you know. My mom made sure that we were learning. Like reading and yeah, reading, doing our homework, you know, but always reading and my mother was an English major.

That's interesting. So she, you know, knew words and she would use big words and she would use words that they would try to kick out of our town. You know, I remember they would come with torches when she'd use certain words. They'd never seen it, you know, they'd be like, she's a witch, you know, she's a whore and my dad would be like, I wish she was, you know, and so it was like, you know, my mom really probably had one of the best vocabularies in our town, but I didn't have a much affection for my mother and that's okay.

She didn't have a lot to give and so I think I probably somewhere in my head thought that well, if I have word, if I'm using words, maybe she'll see me, you know, or if I'm, and when I'm once I started to make people laugh, I'm like, oh man, they, you can make somebody, I just never knew if I was, if I was okay to my mother, I never knew if I was approved of by her. So once she withheld the approval, yeah, and I don't even know if she knew she was, she didn't know she was doing it. No, people sometimes don't, yeah.

She just had like this kind of emotional kind of autism where she didn't understand that that was necessary. And so I think once I saw somebody laugh, it was like, oh, it was like, I'm okay for a minute. Got it. And then I think that just became an addiction that was beyond, I didn't have a choice at that point, but- Yeah, you're just compelled to do it.

It was, yeah, because you have to, I think, feel okay at certain points as a human. Absolutely, yeah. And also all of it is a survival thing. I mean, it's like anything that you had to do, even the things that you're ashamed of, ultimately have to be chalked up to something that got you by, something that kind of helped you survive. Yeah, I'm grateful that our arts at least aren't looked down upon very much by society because a lot of people, they end up into the dark arts or things that are more taboo,

and it's just their survival methods, you know? I mean, I look at strippers and some sex workers and stuff like that, sometimes like, oh, they're just trying to express themselves or something. Well, yeah, I mean, also, it's just a job, isn't it, and I guess the- I'm not overly educated on the complexities of sex work, but I'd say- I would do a little. I probably would, yeah, yeah, ultimately, it's- If it came down to it, to feed your family.

You've got to do what you've got to do. I mean, I felt like I was compelled to do music. Did you? Well, it sounds like even from that story of like, you know, you're like, I'm going to go in the other room here, my buddy's being a real prick and I'm going to express myself, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's just interesting how our expression comes out, like-

Yeah, I mean, maybe it was the- I wonder if it's written- it's kind of written the writings on the wall from the moment you kind of- Oh, is it destiny or is it like- Well, it's like, I don't really believe in people being naturally talented, particularly. I don't really believe in kind of genetic predispos- I mean, maybe predisposition or like some inherited kind of consciousness, but I don't really believe in people being like born with a gift and shit like that. So do you believe that music, like, so you are very inclined, especially- I don't know

all the instruments you play, James. So I've just got to pat this down because it so easily looks like I've got an erection in this thing, it kind of like tense up like that very easily. Dude, do it. I mean, he said, I'm having a good time, but I just- Do I just- you know. Sell some tickets, bro, raise that ten, man. I could do a revival in there, man.

It's good. Is piano like your main instrument? Is that okay to say or no? Yeah. I mean, you play other instruments. No, no, no, it is my main instrument, yeah. Because when I see you on stage, you're at the keyboard of the piano, right? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Do you feel like that- yeah, that art, say art is just like an energy and it's going to come out of people. It's going to find its way out into the world because it's just the way the whole world is kind of put together that the energy has to come out. And so it finds its way through you. So you can harness it or adjust to it, but that it's- or you can choose to use it or

not. Maybe if you never even get to the keys and it just kind of hits a cul-de-sac inside of you. Yeah, yeah. Is that kind of more what you feel like it's just- That's a nice way of putting it. I think I sometimes feel sorry for musicians and artists and stuff rather than kind of mythologize them or kind of put them on a pedestal.

Because in order for you to have arrived at that point where you need music as your expression, something had to happen and something had to make you boil over so much that there was only one way that was going to be- and it just happened to be this. But it's not necessarily the most comfortable life. Not to say it's the worst life. I mean, I feel super privileged to do what I do and I'm very lucky. But I'm also one of the lucky ones, you know, there's millions of musicians who are not rewarded in the same way for basically expressing a lot of pain.

And it's not an efficient method of doing it either. Like I don't really feel that much better after I make a song. If I'm depressed, I'm just depressed. If I'm anxious, I'm just anxious. If I'm sad, I'm just sad, you know, making a song isn't going to fix that. And I had to find other ways eventually. But it felt like if we were to use to extend the pressure cooker analogy, it's like through art, I was basically just like letting a little steam out every now and again, but I was never

just like turning it off, you know, it's like, I wanted to turn it off. I wanted to stop the endless swell of pain and anxiety and depression and stem the flow. And I had to find other ways to do that. And once I did that, I was able to look at music a bit more objectively and it didn't have to, it didn't have to prove everything. It didn't have to be everything all at once. It didn't, there was less pressure on the songs. I didn't have to like be the biggest artist.

I didn't have to like prove myself to the people, the kids at school. I didn't have to prove myself to even myself, you know, or less anyway. I mean, there's always going to be a bit of all of those things, but there's less pressure on the art. Wow. That's fascinating. Yeah, because when you identify with it so much, which is what happens sometimes as you get successful, it's like, this is it.

This is all you, not this is all you are, but there's, you've become so like in tandem with it that everything you do, every, if you put out one wrong thing, you become so close to your thing. Like it's not just fluid anymore. It feels like they're attached on you like sloths kind of, and you can't get them off or you're afraid to let them just kind of just leave them on the path of the forest, you know? Yeah.

It's interesting because some of your music, I feel like I'm like Eeyore, like Eeyore that showed up at a rave kind of, you know, which is kind of perfect for me. I can totally see why like, that's, that is who I am. Okay, good. Thank you for noticing me. Thank you for letting me judge you, man. Because I'm not winning the poo. Yes.

And I'm not Christopher Robin. No, even though, but that's the, that's the rules with you. I think you might be, I think you might be Christopher Robin. I don't know, maybe. I got to look at some of his. You might be winning the poo, actually. I think I'm crossed up. I think they had a child.

Yeah. There could have been. I mean, who knows? They walked off into the sunset and after that, we don't really know, do we? Yeah. We're missing a few chapters. Yeah. Yeah.

A.A. Milne, let us down. What was it? So was there a kind of a moment? Cause you and I have talked about this and it's, I forget some of the things you and I've talked about cause you and I, our friendship is just kind of had a hiatus through the pandemic. Right. Yeah. And cause I stayed in California really, where I wasn't allowed out of my house.

You moved to, was it Nashville? Tennessee. Tennessee. Yeah. Where people are just, yeah, we're out here. Sneezing down each other's orifices, you know, just testing the theory, you know. Everybody has Hep C now, but nobody has COVID. Yeah.

They got everything else. But yeah, was it, cause I remember there was, I think I remember there was a time where you kind of were, like you and I talked about different modalities for relieving like, whether it be depression or whatever's going on in our lives. Yeah. And did you have a time where you kind of came to a head with some of that sort of stuff? I did during the pandemic. For sure.

Oh, you tried to get me on an EMDR. I remember. Yes, I did. I was evangelizing EMDR. And I even went. I even went a few times. Yeah. And I see a woman now with EMDR.

That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember you saying it helped and, but initially the thing with EMDR is that you don't really, you don't go and then afterwards you like necessarily feel what's happened. It has this very strange, slightly sci-fi effect on you where you don't even remember feeling the way you felt when you went in, tiny bit men in black. So a lot of people kind of come out of it and going, you know, oh yeah, I don't really

think anything happened, but then they stopped the pattern they've been in. Yeah. And they don't even realize and they're just like, oh, I didn't, you know, I didn't endlessly turn on and off the, the hob and like check to see if it was still on or whatever the OCD thing is or like they didn't, they don't, that pattern just isn't manifesting anymore because the trauma that leads to it has been disconnected from feeling it. Yeah, it is kind of black mirror, huh? It's like you kind of go behind the scenes and adjust a cable or something and then the

next time like your Christmas tree lights blink, they don't blink in that weird way that was uncomfortable or something. Yeah. Exactly. You're behind the bookcase and in the interstellar. Yeah, it's kind of behind the bookcase. Yeah. Are there other modalities and stuff that you've tried?

I did mushrooms, which was quite very helpful for me actually. I mean, I go into a really bad depression when I take mushrooms because I think I'm allergic to them or something and just kind of, I go get really depressed for a couple of days. Afterwards or not during? Afterwards, yeah. Well, during is amazing. I love them, but I've only done them a few times, but every time I've done them, something's changed in my life, like majorly changed.

I've either given up an addiction or I've, you know, for example, I came off Twitter or stopped kind of really using it because I'm kind of checking it all the time and like being quite engaged in it and invested in kind of how I was doing, you know, other people's opinions and even other people's opinions of what I was saying and, you know, very overwhelming place for an artist or someone who's easily overwhelmed, but also I think it's an overwhelming place for a lot of people and maybe they're not admitting it and stressful. Yeah. It feels stressful even hearing you say it.

And it was kind of at a point where a lot of conversations were reaching a kind of fever pitch politically and I just felt trepidatious about even being involved because I felt like all of my real life conversations were really compassionate and empathetic and loving even if we didn't agree on something, you know, like ours, like we don't always agree on everything, but we just, you know, we approach each conversation we love and respect. So, you know, but on Twitter, it was like the opposite of that. It felt like if you didn't have the right opinion for the, for the group, you know, you were, you're sort of out of the group or whatever, whichever group that is.

And I just felt really, over time, really, really stressed about that dynamic and took mushrooms one day. We were sort of on a road trip and we were sitting by a pool and I think this was the first time actually I ever did them was during the pandemic. And I remember saying to my friend, I don't, I'm not really sure these are doing anything. Yeah, it's only sneakier. Right. And then he goes, well, you've, you've been taking a photo, you've been taking photographs

of that same flower for the last two hours. And I noticed it and I looked down at my phone and there was like 400, I was like scrolling through this 400 photographs of this flowers, really beautiful flower, but in hindsight, probably the mushrooms had something to do with that. So I, so I just looked down at my phone, open Twitter and it just looked like a vortex. There was a very, very strange, like it was like fragmenting at the edges, you know, like an actual vortex and it looked like extremely dark energy. It was hard to describe it in sober word, wording, but it was, you know, at the time

I would, would have just kind of felt this horrible kind of anxiety looking at it. And I just there and then deleted the app and just put the phone down and just got on with my day and I didn't reinstall it and there were a couple of other things I did as well. I did it with Instagram. Cause I just noticed that the phone and actually the phone itself was like, just looked like it was like charged with horrible, like nebulous, like dark energy, like felt like a black hole basically.

Yeah. And it felt like it was like drawing me towards it, but not in a good way, like in a way that made me feel like I was dying. So I just thought, no, that's telling me something. This is, you know, I also noticed the way my dog reacts to my phone. He very often pulls it away, but also just, just won't engage with it. He'll only engage with me. And if I'm engaging with it, then he'll, he'll just kind of walk off.

Wow. So it's almost like here's a piece of life telling you, Hey man, that's not life. Yes. Yeah. That's what's in very well put. That's what's interesting about mushrooms, man. It'll give you a little clue. Like I did this ayahuasca treatment and I came home, right?

And I cut on like date line or some like murder show or something. And yeah. Probably. Is that, is that, is that advised? Was that, did your shame and tell you to do that? I would say on advice. Right. So I'd say I was working, you know, I was going off script.

Um, do you have another water too, Zach, do you mind please brother? Um, thank you. So I was going off script, but I turned it on and everything in me was like, don't you see how bad this is? Someone died and you're sitting here watching it as like a, and it wasn't, it was, it wasn't a date line episode. It was like a, um, some murder, like in vet. But something that was like really dark.

So it kind of, uh, exposes the, thank you, right? Yeah. Exposes sometimes like it's just a level of truth that I think the addictiveness of modern day society that we're not able to feel anymore. And it almost feels like something that you would have felt like a long time ago and like your ancestral like. Right, if you, if you lived in a, in a more sort of primitive, like back in the day, like more, you know, no technology, no, and, and it's, it's as if somebody handed to you then.

Yeah. You'd like this and goes and goes, um, you know, when you wake up, you're going to check this and you're going to scroll through all the things that are happening way outside of your group, um, you're going to, you're going to check for the opinions of others and they're going to tell you how you're going to feel today. And you're going to watch a bunch of videos and you're going to watch, but watch a bunch of people have sex, uh, and you're going to watch and you're going to like play games on here and that they're not here, they're not in front of you with all these other people.

They're not interactions with real people. You're going to play games on this thing, um, and most of your interaction, it, you know, you're, you're, you're going to, you're going to look at this for at least 12 hours a day. And when you set this down, you're going to feel like there's nothing of you. When you set it down, you're going to be unsatisfied with what the world is like because this thing is going to stimulate you so much. If somebody told you that when you had no technology and you'd never seen anything like

that before, you would tell them to fuck off immediately, get away from me with that fucking dark magic. I don't want to ever see you again. This show and episode is sponsored by better help. We are grateful for them. Better help if you've had, uh, you know, if you've had problems like I've had, organizing your brain, keeping your thoughts on track, getting into the mechanics of your brain. Sometimes you can't get under your own hood.

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That's betterhelp.com slash T-H-E-O, betterhelp.com slash Theo. I love how even your meanness is pretty kind. I don't want to ever see you again, but you might kill them. You might kill them. You might kill them and throw this thing away so that no other human ever had to experience this. And just, I mean, it goes on, you know, all your friends, all your friendships are going to be kind of regulated through this thing.

Well, you don't have a voice anymore. It's like the talent. If you get up and just stand up on a soapbox now and speak. You look insane. You look insane. Right. If you were to... Yes.

That's the crazy part too. So it's like we're all... There's no... If I got up and just said like one of the more mundane tweets that I've ever sent, you know, hoping that a lot of people would be like, yeah, me too. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And then it would just like spin into virality. And you just said it in the street on a soapbox, or you just got up and said it. People would be like, are you all right? Yeah. Go home. This guy's not doing good. Yeah. He's saying strange, relatable mundane things.

But I'm on my way to work and I need to go and get coffee and it's not... Somebody would be like, you queer. We can take that out. But somebody would yell something like that. I'd be like, maybe, but you know, but also porridge can be made with milk and also water. Yeah. Don't you know? Spread the news.

Yeah. It's amazing without milk. So, you know, some of your journey with music as an outsider, you know, I didn't know even much about your genre of music until I met you. And I remember my girlfriend at the time, Megan, I think it was, we came to see you perform at a church over in... The Presbyterian church, or was it? In downtown?

That wasn't the Wiltern. It might be the Presbyterian church. It was like a cool night time show. Was it actually a church? I think it was. Yeah, then it was Presbyterian, I think. It was like some special show you were doing or something. It was really amazing.

Thanks, man. When I got into more of your music, I listened like in the beginning, you had a lot of, or I don't know the total beginning, but early on, some of this stuff, you released like these EPs that had like, it was just a lot of beats and sounds and, you know, kind of wanderings and... Less like lead vocals, more kind of abstract like collages of shit. Yeah. Was it scary to then put your voice out there?

Did you always know you were going to? Because your voice is like a big thing, especially for someone who comes from a place of like, you know, uncertainty or shyness or, you know, some of the realms that we've talked about, like emotionally. Yeah. Was that scary to put your voice out? Or did it seem like just the next instrument you had? It was.

I mean, there was a lot of toxic masculinity floating around, especially at that time. But like, I remember when the first, like one of my earliest memories was, I was upstairs in my parents' house and I was like 12 or 13 or something. And I was playing, what I used to do, one of the ways I learned to train, I'd train my ear, which I didn't realize I was doing, but I just enjoyed doing it, was I'd play to records, so I'd put a CD on, and I'd sit at my like keyboard, like, you know, cheap, just piano keyboard thing, like electronic kind of thing, think Ross from Friends, you know, doing the thing, pressing the little drum thing and playing, yeah.

And then playing to the CD and learning all the like vocal runs and like learning how to play the chords and like Stevie Wonder and like Mariah Carey and all these people. And I was playing, at the time I was playing with the Whitney Houston song, I can't remember the name of the song, very famous song. I will always love you that. No, no, no, it was, it was, I believe the children of the future, teach them well and let them leave the way. Yeah, you still remember the lyrics, amazing.

So that one, I loved that song, and I was playing it, and the chords are amazing, they're like very, you know, they're a tiny bit cheesy, it's a bit of a cheesy song, but it's like one of the best ever to touch slightly cheesy songs, pop songs. And so anyway, and I'm singing it at the top of my lungs and the windows open. And my, I've got a couple of friends who live four doors down, right, I'm playing very loud, I didn't realize the windows open. Open the windows, it's your first song on the radio, basically. Basically, yeah.

And it's, it's me, it's me broadcasting this extremely kind of, I'd say at that point, you know, being a, being a young man. Very Billy Elliot type moment. Very, very, very, yeah, like very, like, I'd say in terms of our understanding of masculinity at the time, not the most masculine thing I could be doing. Right. Right. And I remember at the time, one of them shouting some homophobic slur from three doors down.

Oh, dang. And I'm just being like, you sound like probably, you know, and, and it really like crushed me at the time, because I didn't see music through a lens of like sexuality or, and I didn't see the problem in being gay or being bi or being anything. Like, I just was like, but I did understand that there was a social kind of rejection of being gay and social, you know, all that. And I just kind of froze and like, I started to associate music and singing with something shameful and feminine and like all these things that like were not, not accepted.

It went from like a hundred meter dash to like just like hurdles now, like you're like, now these, these different things have to make sure that they check enough for these. Yeah, like, don't be too, like, don't be too, don't express yourself too much because then you're this and don't. And so, you know, I sort of kept, and it wasn't just that, but there was multiple reasons why they really showed anyone that I sang. I would go to the practice rooms at school every day and I was, you know, very often like extremely sad and depressed and kind of going in there and just playing and fucking

crying and like being, you know, very British. Is that British? Well, no. The British thing to do is to, is to, is to not find an outlet at all and then just abuse somebody, whether it be physically or emotionally or indeed, you know, in any other way, just, just find someone to, to kind of, or not even just someone, but everyone, just like make other people experience the pain that you're supposed to process. Wow.

So, I actually found a way, I found an outlet, so I didn't have to like be a cunt to everyone else basically and I found myself just keeping it a secret. That you had this talent? Yeah, like, Oh, that you were expressing yourself this way? Yeah, that I could sing and, and I could sing, you know, by that point I was a good singer, I was, by the time I've been singing since I was two. Yeah, I mean, you hit some notes where I'm checking my watch, I'm like, is this no good

to end? This dude is, my gosh, it's like waiting for a long train to pass. I feel like there's, One of those American, Yeah, yeah. huge long trains. Jesus, come on. This guy's just,

The Amtrak. This guy's riding this, the B-flat to North. Yeah, so, so that's, you know, like I ended up to cut a long story short, eventually I started a little bit singing in like school, like assemblies and shit, but I generally just kept it quiet. And then when I was making music, I think I carried over that, that shame. And I just, you know, the dance music scene was super male dominated. And a lot of the discussion around it is like, it's very, it was very toxically masculine

at the time. And so when I started to sing, there were a lot of comments, a bit similar to what the guy had shouted at me three doors down, you know, like just very like, but they couldn't say like, because, you know, things had moved on and, and they were adults and they were, they didn't want to like expose themselves of being homophobic or, or whatever. But they were saying stuff that kind of like, almost dog whistling, like you can't do this because that's this, right, right, right, and kind of just discouraging me from expressing myself basically.

It's such a weird pattern of comfort that there's almost a comfort in people even doing that. Yeah. It's like this old thing. It's like, you know, I would always envision like, there's a, there's some black as kids on a white guy's lawn and the black guy comes out and yells the N word, but then he goes inside and he's learning the moonwalk, you know, it's like, what's the analogy there? I'm trying to, trying to put it together.

I'm trying to understand what you, what you mean. I think it's that somebody will just say something that they like has been like part of a pattern. Okay. But then they don't even realize they're going inside and now they're trying to learn like a black guy's day. They've been practicing. So the white guy is saying the N word or the black guy is the white guy or the white guy.

Oh, I see. So they've, they're, they're culturally, they're racially kind of living a double existence and say, yeah. And you don't even realize it. Cause then they're not, they're like, they have like hate, they're saying hateful things, but ultimately they, they still. But they're also learning part of this culture that they're learning like a music or a dance or something of this culture at the same time.

Yeah. They're, they're confused basically. Yeah. Or just like some things are just patterns. They're not the best patterns and, you know, obviously, but some of the even hateful things people say are just like, they don't know what else to say. They're ingrained. Yes.

Also, they can be so deeply ingrained in people as a kind of like a form of expression that they're not even aware of what the words are, what they mean. Yeah. What they, they, they lose. There's a thing called semantic association where you, where in the moment you can say a word so many times that it loses its meaning completely and you know, like cactus, if you said that like 400 times or even probably 10 times in a row, you start, it just starts to be a word that has no power whatsoever or, or any connotation, it just becomes like

a shape of sound. We hear that even with music. You hear a song so many times, it's like, oh, I'm going to listen to this my whole road trip. And then at the 30th time, you're done. You know? Yes. So is there another evolution you start to feel like for your music and not that you

need one or anything? But. Yeah. I think we always need one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always want to.

But even by putting your voice in, right? So at one point it was like, okay, I'm going to put my voice in. Like that's something new and different for me kind of or put my voice out there to people attached to my music. Do you feel like there's just, I'm just trying to think like what would something else even look like? I guess like a band or. Oh yeah.

Well, you know, I kind of have a band we've played with live, but there is a, there's always a slight insecurity in me that like I'm not shift, I'm not changing up enough than every phase that we go into, like whether it's a new album or something like that. But I've tended to find that the three piece band that I play with is just the best for me and it's always kind of been that way. And but singing is like, it's a form of expression unlike anything I've ever had. Yeah. And I guess I just, I just love doing it and it really like, it feels great and it's

it's, it just always, it's always challenging and it's like even just staying on the note. Like I have this voice where you, I can kind of easily fall off the note and it almost sounds like I'm about to fall off the note, but I, but hopefully I don't. Sometimes I just do, but I don't have the most pure clear voice. You know, someone like Whitney Houston, for example, is just like, you know, super defined notes. A lot of mine are quite precarious. I think, I mean.

Yeah. It's a perfect example kind of a view. It's, I don't know, man, it's really interesting to know you and hear your music. Same with your comedy. It's interesting to see. It's kind of fascinating. Cause it, one thing I always sort of found fascinating was just how you've internalized your childhood and, and like the way people, like all of your memories of, of all the stories

you have of like where you grew up are so vivid. I can't remember most of the people in my town. I mean, I remember some of them, but I feel like we grow up in pretty different places and, and a lot of the things that you remember and pick up on of the people that you grew up around, maybe it's the way you're telling them, but a lot of fucked up shit happened near you. Oh yeah. A lot of pervs.

I think we grew up around there. A lot of people perv and out. Well, I think when people don't have much, they play with their body, you know, or they're like, you know, you get reduced to kind of real limbic type of behaviors, you know, sexual or perved out or, you know, and especially you get out there in a rural areas where people aren't as educated. There's a lot more kind of, you know, I don't want to say incest, but people touching each other a little early, you know, and that sort of behavior.

I grew up in, you know, the kind of the countryside or not, it's not the countryside. Did y'all have a horse or anything? Tours, yeah. Didn't have a horse. Okay. That's where I draw the line. I did meet a couple, but I didn't have a ride one, and I just, I just, I'd like, there were characters where I was from, definitely, but I think I don't, I guess I don't draw

on them as inspiration because they probably, I probably avoided most people, I think, whereas I think you must have just been more like viscerally attached. Yeah. We were more loose out just seeing stuff, you know, there was not much like supervision or like, and I didn't want to be at home. My father was so old, my mother was gone, there was like a clean, there was like a babysitter around. So it was just so like, I don't know, just, just being out and about, you know, and then

your imagination becomes so big because you, something needs to have some value to you. So your imagination creates like a lot, like, I think it pays attention to a lot of stuff. And it wants, it wants you to have a bigger world. So your, maybe your imagination gets attached to something else inside of you. And they kind of grow synonymously, maybe. Yeah. Because do you feel like when you go into rooms with people in like Hollywood or, or even just anywhere you are, do you feel like your imagination is sort of overgrown in a way

that theirs hasn't? You do sometimes feel like a, like you've still got the curiosity of, about people and about like things that a lot of people seem to have, like you have quite a, quite a, like zest for that kind of thing that like a lot of people don't seem to, don't seem to have. Like an opposite, you know, you're, you're keen to like observe the, the thing that a lot of people wouldn't have noticed, which is, I mean, that in itself is like a, is like a love of life. It's not, even though like, I know that you've gone through a lot and you've, and you've

talked about, you know, bouts of depression and bouts of any kind of not being interested and stuff, but it's like, even at your least interested, even at your least engaged with humanity and everything, you still seem so curious. Well, thanks, man. I think, well, some of it is, I think you have to, you start to develop a sense, I need to know what is very important to this person that's in front of me right now, because if I need them, or if I need to let them know, I need communication from them, or I need them to see me, I need to be able to get to them immediately.

So maybe there's a part in you that's like, Oh, you can tell this about him, or you can tell this, or you could, you know, see by the way that they turn their neck or fix their hair or put something in their pocket that you can envision this bigger world behind them, that you can either make a way for it to be funny to them, or it can be really acute to them and it can be very factual. Maybe sometimes I think it's developed, I think you just develop this sense in case I need someone, I need everything I can get to show this person that I may, that I can attach to them.

Like a detective. Yeah, I think it is, I think a part of you kind of becomes some type of a detective, you know? Because it's like you're noticing stuff on people, you know, it's like when the indetective shows where they're like, yeah, well, you know, it's his right, but his right shoe had a lace untied, which means that recently, it's like, he's the kind of person, he doesn't have OCD, he's not, you know, he's not paying attention, he's loose, he can't be trusted, but you know, it's like, they'll draw all these conclusions from just that one aspect

of someone's appearance or something. But you would also do it on the other side, you would know what could hurt that person. Right. You know? Right. And you could know. Have you ever used that and then regretted it? Oh yeah, I think growing up, especially as a defense mechanism, you would use it around

our house like with communicating with my brothers and sisters, it was the only way we communicated was very rudely, making fun, there was no like affection, nobody like taught us you got to be brothers and said, there was no. So you just find the thing that you thought was going to like. Cut him down. Cut him down and just, just go for it. Right when they walked in the door. Amazing.

So it was every, I mean, it was just. I was surprised that you didn't sort of comment on this ridiculous onesie that I'm wearing. Well, we've only had one other person that's worn something like that. Right. Robbie Williams. Yeah. But he dressed like a train conductor, bring up Robbie Williams, you look like damn sling blade.

Unbelievable. He looked like. I've got to see this. Oh yeah. Bring him up when he was on here, if you can. It was really on this podcast. I'd love to see it. There he is.

Oh my God. He looks like. We've basically dressed, except I, so he's wearing a, we're both wearing dungarees, but I look like I've grown through mine. Like just an extra two foot up because mine are lower. Yeah. But he came in. I mean, he definitely looked like, Hey, you're late for the train.

You know, he definitely came in like. He's got conductor on it, written on it. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. He had kind of a sling blade, gets a job at Amtrak sort of vibe going on. Amtrak with a, with an Apple watch. Yeah.

Definitely not going to be late. Definitely. Not going to be late again. Not this train. Uh-oh. But it was. He looks great. Well, I haven't seen Robbie Williams in a long time.

He looks great. I think he's the only other British person, oh, and Michael Bisping. Oh, wow. So three, three really interesting different British people that we've had on here. Yeah. Um, yeah. Only three Brits. I think so.

I'm trying to think of maybe a different one. Is that a. Max Moore was from Britain. Oh, Max Moore. He does the, um, chronic freezing where they freeze people. Oh God. Or is he, uh, the freezer or the freezy? He is the freezer.

Okay. Yeah. He's the freezer. He's never been. Yeah. I think he would, he himself is planning on getting frozen. I think, but it was just interesting to learn. He's never done it himself.

I would never go to someone who's never done it. There's only one way to do it. You have to die. Right. It's that thing. That's the thing you have to die and then you go in. Wait. So he freezes people who are dead.

Yeah. Okay. They catch them right when they're about to die. That's why he's never done it. Right. I got it. So yeah, there's only one entry point. Right.

It seems, yeah, it seems niche. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good way to say it. Yeah. So what, what was his, I'd love to know what his chat was like. Is it, I mean, I could just go and watch the podcast. Yeah, but no, his name is Max Moore.

So he also is named like a supervillain type of name, M-A-X-M-O-R-E. So he, he really lives this, you know, and he looks, bring a picture of him up. He looks like he's been frozen and thought out 30 times. He looks like they wanted him for dinner and then change her mind. But, um, he looks like Bill Burr. Like, I mean, he's just been in the frozen. Yeah. There he is.

Oh yeah, he does look like Bill Burr. Wow. He looks like he really- The sort of a Wim Hof and Bill Burr had a- Heavy on the Wim, I think. This dude is, but very interesting. He's the, he's the, the post, um, he's the posthumist Wim Hof in a way, isn't he? Just with the freezing.

Yeah. They're both dealing the same thing. He keeps them all. You know, they have all the bodies and that sort of deal. Real interesting. He's, if things with Wim Hof, Wim Hof go wrong. He's your guy, I think. And they freeze him in like this different type of, um, what was that stuff called, Zach,

do you remember? Uh, it's a certain type of gas, I forget the name of it. It's quite scary. Oh yeah. Quite scary. But his plan, his thought is this, that if people, like already they can take an embryo, right, they can say if your girlfriend wanted to donate eggs, right? And then they froze those eggs, which they do for a lot of women now.

Yeah. So they're basically freezing life before. So he's saying that they could freeze you at the end also. And then later when they have the technology, if your DNA is still alive. People are hoping that, you know, we can get revived like a mammoth. Right. And he's saying, why not? He goes at one point, people thought climbing up a ladder was as high as you could get to

and then now we, you know, we can travel through space. Yeah. 100%. That's really, I mean, I, I, I imagine the ladder was probably invented after like some of the space travel. We've not space travel, but maybe the hypothesis. Just maybe the whole airplane. Yeah.

I didn't think about that. I don't really know which came first. Dude, imagine when somebody showed up with that ladder, bro. Damn. I mean, one eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. Oh, people imagine all the chicks he got too. All those rung honeys. Yeah.

I mean, it would feel, it'd feel like a celebrity, I imagine locally. Yeah. Hey, he's coming over. He's bringing it. Yeah. People with all things like on their shelves that they can't reach. People that's hiding stuff up way high. Yeah.

Yeah. See it. Look at him go. Just imagining how his life panned out. If he, if he, you know, the inventor of the ladder, like, did he get royalties? Did he get? No, I'm sure. Imagine the dark side of it then watching people go get stuff.

And you're not making anything off it. Yeah. You're wandering around. You know, you're cursing at people who are climbing up. Could have been a bitter old amount, I imagine. Oh, I'd watch that movie. I'd watch that. I'd watch that.

There's a movie in it. I think that would be a very bad movie. It'd be a, yeah. It's sad movie. I think you and I could make a really good sad movie probably if you wanted to. I think so. Yeah. Combine both of our early lives.

Yeah. And we put it together. So what, what about your early life? Do you, was a lot of your pressure from just like acceptance or your peers? Cause obviously if you were kind of shy and music was your scapegoat and you had these skills that were kind of frowned upon, which certainly are in certain areas, you know, it makes you wonder how much creativity has been really stifled by an environment. I think, I think, you know, sometimes I thought it was the singing, the fact that, you know,

kids just didn't really, but it's also a bit like, I think it's a bit like being a footballer. Right. You know, when a kid says, I want to be a professional soccer player, no, Mulder. In England, that's like, you know, NFL here, you know, it's this almost unattainable dream that some people do genuinely break through and make it. But it's, you know, if, if a kid says that's what they want to do, you go, well, people go like, okay, but have a backup plan cause probably not going to happen. Yeah.

And music's a bit like that where it's like the odds are you're not going to be the, you're not going to be a superstar. Yeah. And you're probably not even going to make it as high as you want to. Even if you do become extremely successful because it's never enough. So ultimately convincing people to go into music for a living is, is actually slightly kind of a dubious thing to suggest because it's, it's really hard. And most people don't, you know, make it.

But also there's, there's also loads of ways you can be involved in music that don't, you know, don't have so much pressure on them and you can make a living. You can make a great living from music and not be famous and not be in the band and not be in the, you know, you can be working music in so many different ways. But they're not the ways that people focus on when they think of musician or whatever they think of like the famous ones. Right, right, right. They're not some of the most like ways that are kind of, they're not the front man.

Yeah. You think of the front, front people. Yeah, I don't. It's just advertising. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. What other things do you think about with music? Are there other worlds that you'd like to conquer?

Like you've had such a, you know, you've gotten to work with like Travis Scott and Beyonce. You've won a Grammy, right? For best rap performance. Yeah. Was that right? Yeah. I mean, it was weird. I was actually on the way to the Grammys and they told me in the car that I'd won one

for best rap performance. And I, so, so essentially it's on this, so on, so Kedric Lamar, we were supposed to work on, he asked me to work on the Black Panther stuff, the soundtrack. And then also there was this other song he was doing, which I think ended up on the Black Panther soundtrack as well as King's Dead. And I sent him this thing. It was going to be like maybe a verse. I don't really know what it was, but I tried something on this song.

He wanted me to try and be on it. Anyway, they ended up using like a very, very, very small clip of what I'd done. It was like a couple of seconds. Wow. And putting a lot of effects on it. I wasn't particularly audible or it wasn't necessarily recognizably me. Now, obviously I don't care like that, it worked really well in the song. Like they did a great job.

And I wasn't in any way like cut up about that. Like I just was like nice to be included, sample me, call whatever you want to do. But anyway, they ended up putting my name on the song as one of the features. Now usually a feature is something like someone does a verse or like that, you know, whatever. So anyway, I'm this thing. And I'm not really playing a feature role, but I'm my name's on it. So I win a Grammy, they win a Grammy for the song. And because my name's on the actual song, rather than just like buried in the credits as a sample,

I actually get a Grammy. Wow. So I've got, and it says best rap performance, which insinuates that I rap, which you can imagine I don't. Dude, that's crazy because sometimes you would think, man, they put my name on here. I'm not even really on here. This kind of mess. Some people might think it's kind of messed up. They're kind of using me here.

But then it's funny how sometimes things turn around and it's like, oh, here you go. I mean, it's just funny. It was just a whole, the whole situation was funny. I didn't, you know, because we ended up doing other songs. So it was like, if that had been all they'd used, then maybe I could have felt a bit sad about it. But, you know, you've also got to think like the man's a legend, the situation is legendary. Like the song when it was a hit, it went multi-platinum. Like I was just like, cool, like amazing.

I'm happy to be involved at all. But the, yeah, just the Grammy is funny. I mean, it's currently hidden behind a big modular synth in my studio poking out of the back. When you have, is your studio now fancier than your studio when you first started? A little bit, but it's still pretty much the same principle. Just a keyboard, computer, mic. It's just like probably higher end versions of those things, but quite simple, quite small. Because sometimes I think like, is it hard to get back to like them?

Because sometimes we look to our early stuff and like those are the moments where I really wish I could just still feel like myself. You know, I even will have old podcast clips come up and I'm like, oh man, that's when I was just really felt like in the pocket of who I was as a person before I started to take any input from people's perspectives of me or before stuff got out there and anybody knew who I was. When who I was was a secret to me. And I was my, it was like, it was almost like I had some value for myself that once everybody knows about it, it's almost like, you don't not still have it, but it's not yours as much anymore. No, and you've kind of shown your cards. Showing your cards basically.

There's something so special about being a surprise. Yes, definitely. And the underdog and like all these things. And like there was a time I imagined where it felt like you were people just kind of discovering your brain and how it works. And kind of going, whoa, never heard anyone say anything like this or do anything like this. But, you know, that's a cool moment. But I think that your career especially has kind of been littered with really great moments that couldn't have happened during that phase. Like now you have this incredible fan base of people who love the way your brain works and know the way your brain works and look for confirmation about how great you are.

And they're like, they're watching because they can count on you to make them feel that thing that you make them feel. And then also not just laugh, but also be understood and like ask questions they are too afraid to ask. And, you know, you get to meet all these people that they don't get to meet and they can see it through your lens. And every new person you meet brings something new out in you. So there's never been a point at which you were more capable of doing that than right now. It feels the other way though. Right. What am I talking about?

In what way? Like do you ever feel like I want, God, I wish I could go back to whatever. Yeah, but it's a... But you can't get your brain back there. Like your brain, like your reality grows and you can't go back, you know? Yeah. And I think, I think that's a good thing because what you probably, what we, you know, I have a similar thing. I look back at some of my old music and I think like, oh, like I was thinking so much simpler back then. Or I really knew how to do this.

Or like I didn't overcomplicate or, you know, there were, oh yeah, like I really had a fire in my belly for this type of thing. Right. And that's cool. But that moment really only lasted for however long it lasted. And then after that, I had to, and I was finding a fire for other things. And I think obviously we can't revisit moments in time. But what we can do is make sure that our head is clear and that we're on our path. Because I think the feeling that we miss is the feeling of being on our path. It's not necessarily the thing we were doing at the time that we were on our path. Yeah. It's, I am doing what I'm here to do.

I'm exactly where I should be in the universe. And I am being so, I mean, being integral. I'm not letting other people's opinions get to me. I'm pursuing what it is I love. I'm being authentic and I'm enjoying every moment and I'm being present. When you feel those things, the content you put out is going to be great. And it will always be a moment people look back on because ultimately the thing that brought you to where you are now, sorry, even into public consciousness was the fact that you were on that path.

And your every essence, your actual essence is why you're there. Right. It's the way you look at the world. It's all the things that led to this. It's your childhood. It's the thing, the ways that you learn to kind of put those experiences into words or the way you learn to, you know, find those. So it's not like getting back to a certain dock. It's just like being still, just being in the stream kind of or getting, it's like that. Being in flow state.

Right. It's finding flow state. Because I always mess up and think it's, oh, I got to get back to this dock. But it's like, no, that dock was just part of something you passed by as you were in a comfortable, healthy self. That was part of the scenery. Right. I believe. I mean, that's what I believe anyway.

I'm always looking out the window thinking, oh, I got to get back to where the car passed. But really, I just have to get back into this comfortably in the driver's seat. Wow. I think so. Yeah. And it's such a fight to try and think, how do I get back there? You know, and then you're always working from a loss because it's impossible. It's the kind of, it's the Buddhist concept of, you know, desire is suffering.

It's like, if you, if you want what you don't currently embody, then you are starting from a point of deficit. You don't have the thing, so therefore, you know, wanting something equals unhappiness. But you're... Dang, bro. But I mean, that's, I think... No, it's good. It's cool. I have to pee really bad, do you?

I really do. All right, let's pee and then we'll come back and maybe talk about some news. Thank you for releasing me. Would you ever, and you got, it gets much colder in Britain, huh? Much colder. Wow. Well, actually, I say that, I mean, America's a big place and gets much colder in Minnesota than it does anywhere in England. Do you ever feel like you've sold out your country by moving out of it?

Interesting. And maybe that's not the best term to use. That's just a general term. No, I mean, it's definitely like, you know, as an English person, it's definitely like a concern that you in some way have insulted your, you know, your own by moving out. But no, I never felt like I lived anywhere, to be honest. I do feel English. I mean, all my cultural reference points are English and all my comedy, comedy references and musical... Any botanist would find roots of you there.

You'd be busted there. Exactly. But that's interesting. But musical roots were, a lot of it was American. And a lot of like other like Japanese and like European music and, you know, just, you know, those are different cultural influences that were not English. And also, I think on a spiritual level, I just didn't really resonate with nationality, particularly. I didn't really have a national pride, particularly, or, you know, being English is complex, isn't it? And it's, you know, it comes with a history that's not necessarily, you know, some of it's great and some of it's quite shameful.

And some of it, you know, I don't understand why I would really attach myself to the positive or the negative of my country's history when I wasn't part of it. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, with history, it's interesting because it's like people, it's easy to look back on history and be like, oh, this is, you know, this wasn't good, you know, from present perspectives and stuff like that. And, you know, I'm sure at the time, a lot of British people were like, we're taking over the world. You know, it was like a different, like, there was probably a pride that would seem foolish now if somebody had it, you know, like it would seem, you know, it's just interesting how time gives shape to things. Well, because all of our sort of reach of power is kind of just like slowly and now we're just this little island that has, you know, a lot of cultural power and I guess some financial power, but we're definitely maybe got a tail between our legs a little bit, might account for some of the self-deprecation that happens. Yeah, I think maybe a historical tail between your legs. Maybe.

I'm curious to see like, how does Britain kind of like, how do they feel okay to show their, still show who they are or find who they are? I think with a little bit of difficulty, actually, I think like when you have a national kind of sense of like something, you know, we're not like, we've not always been part of, you know, the British Empire, like the colonialism. We're, you know, I think finding pride has to come from other, obviously, other sources, unless you genuinely are proud of that, in which case, I don't know how, I can't help you, but that this side of being English, like the comedy, the kind of the music, the culture, the cultural output of England is really amazing. I mean, I look back at, you know, a lot of my biggest influences have also been English bands. It's funny, I mean, I didn't actually really, wasn't really like a fan of Oasis at the time, but I went to, I'm a big Beatles fan. Lots of, lots of bands kind of eluded me until I was a bit older, because I mostly listened to piano based music. And. Like Mozart?

Yeah, whether it was classical or I listened to a lot of like, like soul, classical, Japanese kind of ambient type. Like Kabuki or something like that? Like, I don't know what that is, but. I don't either. But like. Yeah, but no, I mean, it could be a genre though, something I don't know about, but. Yeah. I mean, Raiyuki Sakamoto is a good, good example.

You should listen to him. I think you'd like him a lot. Sakamoto. Very calming. Oh, really? Beautiful. I could use that. Raiyuki Sakamoto.

Raiyuki Sakamoto. Can you bring him up? Let's see an image of him. I want to see a JPEG of this fella. Raiyuki? Raiyuki. Raiyuki. I love Japanese people, man.

I went to Japan one time and we took a bunch of ice creams with us to the park and we gave them to kids and took pictures of meeting them. Oh, there he is. I mean, beautiful, man. Oh, God, he is. I look like my mother a little in the face, not in the hair. Actually, if his hair was a lot longer. Yeah, right.

Oh, yes, he looks like a composer, doesn't he? I mean, just, just a legend. I'd love to be Japanese. I think it feels like everything's just so damn organized inside of you, you know? I feel like you swallow water and it immediately is ready to be urinated. It's immediately efficiently processed. Oh, there's no down. There's not all this milling around, you know?

Right, it goes on. Oh, I'm going through the kidneys. Get out of here. That BS. Straight through. It's just wrecked. But it's rain. Yes, that's it.

Yes, it seems just like, here we go. I mean. If you fit into a shirt size, I feel like if you're Japanese, you fit in. There is no like, you're in the middle. I can't, this looks bad. I mean, I feel like you are. There's a definite, there's a, there's a definable, like when you go to Tokyo, for example, there's a definable style identity.

Yeah. And I've found that some of the most stylish people I've ever met have been Japanese. And some of the most stylish kind of like ideas in clothing have been come from, I mean, this is actually a definitely, I mean, I'm not to say that this is, I'm not saying I'm sorry. I think this is like. That's very Japanese to me. One of the, what it is, and it's by, it's by Yodji Yamamoto.

But I wear a lot of Japanese clothes because I just think they, I mean, Yamamoto and Isimiyaki are like my favorite designers. Wow. Yeah. And, you know, going back to when I was a kid, yeah, lots of Japanese music. And I think I was also fascinated by like Western and Japanese crossovers. And just like the intersection between those sounds. And one thing you find is that every, every culture has its kind of own chord kind of

or tonality. What's the sort of like world of notes that, that sound good together in that, you know, style. So for example, in French music, right? So like French classical, whatever it's like, there's a, there's a, there's a world of tone that kind of sounds French, if you know what you're listening for. And when you go to the, when you go to the Euro star, which is funny, there's, there's a sound that plays.

It's like, whatever, it's like a, it's like a thing. And it's the most French notes. Oh, interesting. That have ever been written. Yeah. It's funny if you know a lot about music, you're probably able to hear a lot of different, like little just things in the world and know, like trace them back. Yeah.

It's almost like Latin. Like if you know sounds, it's almost like you learn Latin. That's interesting. Everything's rooted in something. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, when you go to Japan, there's a lot of sounds in like train stations and shit that they have.

And you just go, wow, this is, I mean, nothing like anything that I'm used to. That's kind of amazing. Do you think, do you notice any difference between the audiences like in different places, like in some of the behavior of them and stuff like that? Japan's a really interesting place to play because a lot of the audiences are, they're like super respectful, at least for the shows that we've put on, they'll be completely silent during the music and then erupt in like the loudest possible applause. And then as soon as they sense that you're ready to start the next song, complete silence

again, like penny drop. Wow. That's crazy. Does that feel crazy? It feels, or does it feel like right? You know what? It's just different. It's like, it feels right there, but it's so, I can understand the logic behind it.

And there's such a respect that comes with that. It's like they really, really respect the art and what you're doing. And also we were there, you know, we're kind of, we don't go there very often. So, and you're not, you know, if you go too often, I think they probably get bored of you and you start to seem domestic almost, but they respond especially like that, I think, to people who are from out of town who come in and just kind of more of a rarity. It's like they just really want to be present for the... I don't want to miss it.

Yeah. You want to be in the moment. Yeah. Maybe they value the moment a bit. Maybe there's some more of a value for the moment. They have so much history. Well, I wonder if it's also... We're over in America.

A politeness thing. We'll pour beer on the moment. People over here, hey, dude, quit fucking the moment. It's like, we're just people over here, you know. Just being, yeah, just like the moments. It's like, there's millions of moments. Right. There's so many moments that is kind of expansive.

And we've kind of had that in America. We were like, we've got unlimited moments, you know. Exactly. But now I think we're start, I think things are starting to change a little bit. And it's like, man, we need to value this moment. The economy of moments, basically, it's like we are now in a moment where we don't have that many like live interactive experiences. So I would think that people are starting to go, when they go to comedy shows or whatever,

they're probably paying a little bit more, you know, they're like, feel a bit more grateful to be there, feel a bit more grateful to like have access to someone in real life after just spending a pandemic, not being able to see anyone, not being able to go out, apart from in Tennessee, obviously. But like the fact that someone is stood in front of you and they've spent their whole life perfecting this art form, and then you go there and then you just talk all over it. I mean, the idea of doing that after the pandemic seemed more insane than it had before because it would seem ungrateful.

Like, especially with music, I mean, you guys, the people are more likely to be able to party and stuff during your shows and have fun, you know, with comedy, you're really, people have to kind of sit and listen for the most part. Yeah. Although a lot of people shush other people in my shows. Oh, they do. Which annoys me. Oh, so I actually hate it.

Like, tell me what happens, what do you mean they shush? Well, I'll be playing something and I'm in the middle of a song and someone just goes like, you know, they'll say something crowd like, you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I love you. Yeah. And I'm like, in my brain, I'm like, I love you too. But I can't say anything because I'm doing your work doing my thing. And someone else just shush and you're like, what it says, the thing is I always feel like

responsible for what they've just done because I feel like maybe something I put across, maybe it's just an insecurity, but I feel like something I put across has made them feel like I wouldn't like it. Oh, that's interesting. You know, I wouldn't like it if someone like expresses how excited they are or whatever. Oh, I feel like, oh, yeah, I want you to think that they're awarding for me. I feel like some kind of like, yeah, like real like stick up my ass. Fucking dude, I used to feel that way about girl, like girls I would date and stuff.

I didn't want any girl to be like a reflection of me. So it'd be like, if they made a mistake or like, I used to date this one girl who had no like beautiful, really sweet girl. She had no sense of like spatial awareness. She would just be like, you know, talking to you and like she bump into 65 people somehow, like just while she was talking. She's a dodgem. She's a dodgem.

We call them dodgems. Yeah. It's one of those, you know, like the cars that bump into each other in the fairground. Yeah. Yeah. She was just like, oh my God, don't you know somebody's right behind you? She would always turn and knock over a damn glass or a top hat off of somebody, you know? And it was just like, it drove me.

What would you do in that? It just, because I didn't want her to be a reflection of who I, it would be like, I didn't want anybody thinking like, oh man, it's such a narcissistic thing. Really. He endorses, he's like, cool with this. Right. Which makes him also as, as kind of unwieldy and fucking, you know. Uncool or whatever.

Yeah. Not cool. In some way, ultimately it comes back to I'm not accepted or like, but you know, the, and I thought I did exactly the same thing, but with, with, with like social interactions and like, if somebody said the wrong thing, I'd prickle up and like feel really tense and like one, I'll probably, it'll come out with a little comment towards them at some point, you know, later or even during the conversation. And I just couldn't hide it.

I was so uncomfortable with somebody else fucking up because ultimately like the school I went to was just like people were so hard on each other if some, if someone fucked up. Right. So you just develop this thing of like, no one must say anything wrong. No one can come into the situation with an energy that doesn't match everyone else. No one can. And it's like, it's such a like, you know, restrictive place to live that. And I just would emanate that.

Is that a very British thing you think? Or is it just, it is. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But I also just, I think it's just the way I grew up. The school I went to was like that. It was a very, the school I went to was like quite, it was, it was a school where you had to take a test to get in, but it was free.

So, so it wasn't like a private school, but it was for kids who excelled and stuff. Yeah. It was for kids who essentially came from all manners and backgrounds, but had a certain level of, of reading comprehension or whatever it was. Like they tested you on multiple different things. And so it was a good school to be at because it had kind of like a culturally, like there was a lot of different cultures, but it was very intellectually, it was all about intellectual sparring.

And, and like when kids are like, in some ways I'd prefer to have been beaten up than psychologically bullied, you know, because at least then I could have had a chance to like hit someone and get my anger out. I don't know, maybe I'm not really sure what's worse, but when kids are like super manipulative and like a bit able to like find your button and like fully fucking fuck the button and then just keep, and just keep fucking it until you're just like not able to defend yourself. You know, it's like that, that is like a different stuff. And I think it puts you in this like psychological like defense for the rest of your life.

Oh, yeah. Unless you fix it. I mean, I just took fucking ages to like get rid of that thing of like, if someone says something, or if I say the worst, honestly, the worst case scenario would be I say something and then in my mind, like everyone just like turns around and just like, why? Right. What the fuck did you just say? You know, everything stops.

You know what I'm just like record. I don't want to stop the music. Yeah. And then, and it's awkward. That was like my worst nightmare, basically, which is funny. It's a pretty tame worst nightmare to have, but it's what happens in that environment. It's a psychological thriller, which you just shared, you know, psychological thriller. It's just not, yeah.

Yeah. I think there's definitely like I, speaking of psychological thrillers, I got a clip. What you got, man? A song broke out at a psych ward. Oh my God. They all broke out singing in songs. This is it now insurance barely probably didn't cover this. They got my vote.

What party are they running with? This is like living in my house. I mean, I live with three people. So this is basically our house. Oh, wow. Really? Yeah. From all different rooms.

Oh, you do? Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I live with two of my best friends and Anjumita. Yeah. And we just, yeah. Wow. It's a very, it's kind of a modern, modern thing. I wonder, it's interesting how stuff like, I wonder if we're getting to this place in

the world where it's like, I don't know what I'm trying to say. It's like, everything feels very vigilante now. It's like the person who's going to, it's like the world feels kind of like the Wild West. You mean like individualistic, like people are just kind of doing, they've kind of gone fuck it. I've given up on society. I'm just going to do it my own way. This is the fabric of American society, I feel like quickly unraveled.

Like Betsy Ross is like the stitching somehow over the past five years has come out. Right, right, right. And I don't know if a lot of people are buying into this American ideal anymore. Interesting. I don't know if they're not. I just don't know. This is also like in Los Angeles right now, you don't get a really clear idea. Los Angeles is a very, very unclear picture of, or at least Hollywood.

Yeah, Hollywood. It's an extremely unclear picture of like people's interaction in general, because if so much of it is incentivized by success or power or fame, or in some way somebody's like desire or drive to achieve something, then obviously things just, they're not as they- They're not as pure as just- They're not pure basically, whereas I think most places are not like that. I mean, and also that is just speaking for an industry rather than Los Angeles as a whole. Because Los Angeles as a whole is multifaceted, multicultural-

I forget that a lot too. A lot of times I'll say Los Angeles instead of really, I just mean Hollywood. Is there like other genres and stuff that you see where you would see yourself going into music? Is there anything that feels off limits? Do you feel like you're kind of- Have your horizons of even possibility broadened over time or over the years or anything? Or do you-

Yeah, I mean, I started doing- I'm doing a thing like a film, a bit of film music at the moment. So scoring a film? Yeah, scoring a kind of visual thing. I call it a film, but it's not a kind of movie in the way that like it's not a- You know, the master or something or like a fucking narrative-driven movie. It's kind of a more visual thing. But I'm really excited about it.

And I hope that it leads to more of that. And I want to do narrative movies, like proper movies, you know, that kind of thing. Weird that my music is seen as so atmospheric, but that I've not really ever been involved in kind of scoring and stuff, but I've wanted to for a while. And what else? Yeah, I feel like, yeah, your music does feel like that. I feel like I'm hitchhiking through my own feelings kind of sometimes a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

Or I'm hitchhiking through your feelings. Yes. I feel like somebody's kind of hitchhiking through my feelings. And you're picking them up? Sometimes. Or not? Sometimes I'm just watching them. Just being like-

I don't know. I'll have to listen more. I think it just kind of depends on whatever feeling I'm in at that moment. What are the feelings that you kind of like when you listen to music? Like when do you listen to music? I listen to music for one when I need to pick me up. I'll listen to certain songs. There's a couple of songs I'll listen to.

I think when I want to feel something, I'll listen to some other stuff. I listen to comedy when I need to pick me up, I think. Yeah. Because music is, I guess the thing is with our jobs is that they become jobs. Oh, totally. People are like, what are your hobbies? I'm like, my hobbies became my job. Right.

And now it's neither. And so now I have to find things outside. Outside of music and comedy, what do you, like, do you, as someone who, I mean, I feel like we're so similar in so many ways. When you look at the world of people going and experiencing things like, you know, someone's skydiving and somebody's going surfing. Do you ever go past the sea and watch people surfing go, God, I wish I could just like be in the world like that, the way they are.

Oh, yeah. I think that all the time. It's hard for it. There's something about it that's tough for me. I think sometimes I do comedy. I want to be the person in the crowd having a good time. I want to be the one laughing. Yeah.

You were like, when, when Yay said, or for me it was Kanye West said, I, my greatest regret is that I was never able to see myself perform live. It seems, seems like any physical thing to say, but I think in, in some ways, it articulates something that a lot of performers feel not necessarily present at their own shows. And actually they want to be more part of the feeling that everyone else is having than they are of the feeling they're having. Yeah.

I think forever, I never went to any comedy or listened to much at all. You know, I think I didn't want to be influenced. And I think I was just so stuck in my own little world. I didn't want anything to mess up my world or anything to influence it. You know, I just valued my own little creative space so much, really almost too much. It kept me isolated, but I didn't, I didn't want to have any real influences outside of myself. And sometimes I thought, yeah, I wish I could be the person laughing at the show.

Yeah. But if I can't be, at least I'll be as the closest I can to that person will be someone at least making the humor. Yeah, totally. It's like, at least then I'm part of the equation. That's how I felt about music. So how I felt about DJing as well, because like, I always felt really self-conscious about dancing and like expressing myself in those ways.

And also I'm very tall. I'm very, you know, I mean, I wouldn't say I'm out of proportion, but I, But I'm a long fellow. But I'm a long person and I, and I, my limbs. You get shot first in army. Exactly. I'd be, you know, what's that movie where they, they, they, a wire comes across the ship and all the people who are taller than a certain height get immediately killed.

Go ship. I'd be gone in the first scene. And then also I'm, you know, like a, we call them daddy long legs, but they're like mayflies or whatever. Those insects that have like those really long legs and they just sort of like bumble around, like not knocking into stuff. That's me out of like a rave or, you know, something. So I, I just, I like, I'm, I'm always feel slightly uncomfortable.

Like never, I'm always knocking into people like, oh shit. Did I knock it? And then, you know, back to, you know, losing myself. I can never quite lose myself in the moment sometimes. Yeah. I can never lose myself completely, man. Right. I find that sometimes.

I, I find that DJing is like an amazing way of like not having to, just not having to contend with any of that stuff. And instead I can just stand there and be worshiped like a god. No, no, no, I can be just present the music that everyone just gets, you know, gets to do that too. Yeah. And then I'm then at least my excuse can be that, well, I can't be down there at the same time.

Right. So. Yeah. At least then you have an excuse. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. And no one can come up to me and make some small talk that I can't hear because it's too loud.

And then I don't have, there's no chance of me like saying something dumb to someone or like not, you know, not having a cool social interaction. I can just stand up there and people can assume that I'm cool because I'm, because I'm a DJ, but I'm actually not. And I never have to reveal that. Dude, that's, yeah. Like if you're in that space, it kind of keeps you safe from everything. Complete bubble.

Yeah. It's amazing. It's such a control. And people give DJs such a, you know, it's like a mythology. It's crazy. I mean. You must think even that's crazy. 100%.

And they pay them way more than they should. I don't know what's happening. DJing is like. I don't know how that works. It's, it's honestly. Yeah. It feels exorbitant. Have you been to festivals and stuff where it's just like DJ festivals and stuff?

Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. So sometimes do you just DJ and sometimes you play your music? I DJ. I actually love DJing. It's like, um, uh, for me, there's, I mean, it's such a craft to it and it's so deep. Like it's great.

A great DJ is like, uh, you know, controlling the vibe of the entire place and like can be in tune with, genuinely in tune with the crowd. It's a, it's a real, um, you know, you can go into a set not knowing at all what you're going to play and just, and just watch the crowd and figure out how you're going to, like you're, you're coming on after the next, the DJ before you and you're watching how they're playing to the crowd and you're seeing what works. And then you're going, okay, what's in my record bag that I can, you're back in the day I'd play vinyl.

Yeah. And so I'd be, you know, just kind of acting on, it's real in the moment decisions. Like this tune is in the right key or it's in the right tempo. It's in the right, it's the right vibe to come on to, to follow on from the last thing. And like, oh, this one will get them. Like this one will get them dancing or this one. So that feeling is like you, you're kind of living through them vicariously. Like experiencing that hype and that fun with them and through them.

And then you can kind of like, kind of pretend you're at your own show at the same time. And it's, it's like psychological and it's, it's also, you're getting to hear all your favorite music and like, it's just, it's brilliant. Yeah. My friend Satch feels a DJ down in New Orleans and he's one of my best friends from growing up and I get to watch him like, you know, how he looks at a group of people and like, you know, you can see the wheels start turning in his head and like, and he knows so much of music.

He just starts to think like, you start to see him grin and kind of like, all right, what's going to happen? The cogs are turning. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what else? What else happened in the news? Zach, anything else interesting out there?

Uh, yeah, we were talking about this. This is a pretty American story. I mean, I'm a self-man and just ate a rotisserie chicken every day for 40 days. Oh, wow. He doesn't recommend it. He's on the, the, the, um, Jordan Peterson diet. Yeah. Oh, I went to dinner with Jordan Peterson, man.

And, uh, during the pandemic with him and his daughter and her boyfriend and they ordered all meat, all meat and brother at the end of the meal, there's literally a plate of bones in the middle of the table. It very much had like this Game of Thrones type of vibe. And no, no asparagus, no vegetables. Meat. I think somebody had sparkling water and they even frowned at him a little, whoever it was.

Other people had flat water with somebody bubbled up and everybody was like, you whore. Yeah. They just went. But in the end, it looked like a plate, like a batch of, look like a batch of dogs had been there. Just a plate. I'll have to, I'll have to put some pictures in. I have that.

Could you go all birded out? Well, I've never done 40 days of eating whole chickens, but I've, um, I mean, I'm vegetarian. So it's not something. Oh, you are vegetarian. It's not a sport. I can really participate in. He didn't really have a reason, which is my criticism. He just said he's doing it to bring people together.

So I don't, I mean, judging by that picture, it did bring a lot of people together. I wonder what it looks like. Yeah. The last supper at like an Albertsons. Yeah. He's like the high priest of chicken eating. Yeah. It has a very renaissance. This looks like a lot of like a pre-party for a renaissance fair.

I feel like it. It looks like a, it looks like a paint, a resident painting. Yes, it does. It actually would be really cool if somebody made like a nice painting of that, you know, the real history. I think you can challenge. I mean, there's a lot of great bits of art in here. I think you should challenge your listeners to, to paint this because it's a, it's a wonderful

painting. Oh, it's remarkable. Actually the 40th day of rotisserie chicken. I wonder how many of those, I wonder if that crowd grew over the 40 days to this. I imagine it didn't start this way. His girlfriend probably left him. I'm sure after day eight or something of her being lonely. Well, I imagine the smell probably got, got quite overwhelming.

And there he is. And it seemed very perverse, I think. There's something, yeah, there's something edible or something going on. Yeah, something like that. Okay. I don't even really know what that means, but. Did you ever work at a food place, James? I never worked at a food place now.

Did you have a job? Although I did, I did, I did one time do a job at a festival where I was part of catering stuff. Oh yeah. And they gave us a one baked potato for lunch, for lunch and dinner. That was what we had. It was a one baked potato, which I thought was unreasonable to say the least. I mean, it was a, they weren't, they didn't give you any butter or anything.

It was just, you, you queued up for a baked potato and that was your sustenance for the day. Every British story, I feel like has like some mild starvation somewhere in it. I feel like there's like such a. Some self punishment or like some kind of. There's such bad launching. It was like four, have you seen the four Yorkshire men's sketch? I'll have to play that to you. Basically it's a bunch of people sitting around being like, you know, where we, you know,

when we grew up, we didn't have a pot to piss in, you know, we didn't, blah, blah, blah. And then the other guy's like, yeah, well, I mean, you know, we didn't even have a house. We lived in a ditch, blah, blah, blah. And when our dad came home, he beat us around the head. And it was like, oh, you were lucky. The other guy's like, you were lucky we had a, you know, our dad would come home and stab us. And we'd live in a pond, you know, anyway. So that's, that's like, but it's like a classic, I mean, I'm really missed.

No, it's. But it's, but it's a, it's a classic English sketch. And that's kind of what the, the baked potato thing sort of like conjures really is this like. Stark. Just, you know, scarcity mentality situation where. But then it's at a festival where everyone's having loads of fun. Yeah. Everybody's all geeked up on a Molly and baked potatoes.

Well, I mean, they were all eating, you know, from food trucks and like. Oh yeah. So we were just, but anyway, so I worked there and, but that was only for two days. And then I got fired, I think, because I just wasn't, I wasn't, I just, I felt away about the potatoes. I just felt like it wasn't enough. And I'm obviously very tall. I was, I was always tall. I was tall then.

Oh. So. It's hard being that tall guy. I feel like the, remember the one kid that would come back from summer tall and everybody like, look at this motherfucker. Yeah. You know, people would be like, oh, look at this show off. That was me.

What does he think he's doing? Oh, look at this guy with his pussy ass little cervical spine. Yeah. You know, and they start saying all that kind of shit. They did say that kind of shit. And I just, I just took it and then I learned to love my height over time. But it started, yeah. I hated being tall.

I really hate it. Oh, I think it would be such an adventure, but it would be very interesting when you put your arm out of the bed and it just touches the floor. It pets the cat if it's down there. Yeah. What about this? You start hitting your head on stuff. Oh, and then you hate your fucking head. I did that a number of times.

I mean, it probably accounts for some of my personality. Now, what about love? A lot of your song, there's definitely a lot of loss, a lot of like Jesus, huh? Some guy left this guy at the day old bread store, you know? Yes. Where does some of that come from? Like, where do you think some of that comes from? Well, my first record, I'd never been in love. And if I had it, it would be unrequited.

So I was, I lost my virginity very late. I was a very late bloomer. And so I was just... Like 20 years old? 22, 23. Pretty late. I mean, in this country, that's probably not as uncommon because maybe because of religious reasons. I don't know what the exchange rate of virginity is, really. I think it's probably about 1 to 1, 0.6 to 1 when it comes to like British to American.

Yeah. So like what the dollars of the pound used to be. Oh, yeah. And I just didn't... I was always very ashamed of that at the time. That you hadn't lost it yet? Yeah, and I also wasn't like... I wasn't in the game. Oh, so you were really on the sidelines?

I was really on the sidelines just kind of being like, people would be talking about sex and I'd be like, yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, totally like vaginas. For sure, for sure. Like, I get it, man. Man, you'd be wearing like a Man City jersey just talking about it like this. Yeah, for sure. Of course, sex always. I know what you're talking about.

Wow, so you were really on the sidelines just of like kind of like a lot of social stuff kind of? Yeah, I think so. I think I was just... I was an outsider in a lot of ways and... Because that gives you a lot of time to observe stuff and see it. Yeah, but I was also like, I was kind of semi-popular in other ways. Like I was always like a bit of a... I was always a bit of a class clown and I was... I got in trouble a lot and I was always very kind of insolent and like not... I don't know if I was acting out because I thought it was cool or because I thought it was...

I genuinely had a lot of like... Like I was anti-establishment in general. Like I just felt... I just felt... I felt like I wasn't supposed to be at school as well. I always felt like I was supposed to be in music somewhere doing something else. Doing something else, yeah. I just knew that I wasn't supposed to. I knew I didn't need science. School probably always felt very novice to you.

I knew I didn't need to learn French. Right, it probably felt novice to you in a strange way. It didn't feel like beneath me or it didn't feel like... I didn't feel like I was too smart for it or I didn't feel like... I just thought I don't need these skills. Because I know where I'm going and I don't need any of this stuff. Oh yeah. What I need is to get older.

Yeah. I just need to be 10 years older and then I'll have what I want. Interesting. And also there was this thing... I can't remember what it's called... Alpha personality or something. It's basically where you have this thing where you're like... In the future, I'm going to get everything I always wanted.

So it's okay that I'm suffering now. So there's this delusional kind of thing of like, I've got my eyes on the prize. And so you can all laugh. But I'm going to be this. I'm going to be a 23 year old virgin. And so I... Move this mic down just a touch.

Oh yeah, sorry. Put this down a little. There we go. Sorry, it's my first time on a podcast. Oh, happy to have you man. Oh no, I did Jamila's but I could... You have to. What are you going to know?

I thought I had a chance the other day. I didn't even know I was dropping off at your house too. You thought there's a long career in podcasting with her ahead of you. What else do we have? What else is in the news? Oh wait, so did you first time you fell in love then? So what was that like? It was really amazing.

I mean, I did wait. I waited and it wasn't... I didn't do it in a kind of like a religious sense, but I think there was a spiritual component to it. I think I was waiting for someone I trusted. I think I was waiting for someone I had a spiritual connection with. But actually in the end I lost my virginity to someone kind of random. I had no connection with at all.

But the relationship I ended up in was one that was great. Yeah, someone really wonderful. And then I only had one more relationship after that and that's the one I'm in. So that brings us up to now. And you guys have been in love for a long time? Eight years. Wow. It's about eight years.

That's cool. That's rare. Yeah, it is. She's incredible and I guess it does feel like we've... It just always feels like we've been together a year, which is kind of amazing. That's kind of a cool lyric or something like that. Yeah, it is.

Although people are strange about listening to love songs about someone you're actually with. I don't know why that is. Oh, that's true. If that's the case, it almost becomes a little bit... Yeah, does it take on more of a country music vibe then sometimes? A little bit? I should become a country artist. And then people would accept that it's the love songs you're actually with.

Yeah, because there's something about your songs. I want you to not be with a person. You want me to be completely heartbroken? I want the person to be as lonely as I probably am feeling. Or it's like you want there to be some of that. And look, James' music is an all-lonely music. If you haven't heard it, it's all types of stuff, but it's a nice way to... I find it changes a lot, but it's...

There's all different... Yeah, but I did become known for a period in my life where I wrote a lot of the music that I became known for was a time of immense sadness and loneliness for me. So I mean, I guess it came out sounding a little bit full-on and a little bit that, but also at the same time, it's uplifting music at the same time, because it's a bit like with Radiohead, for example. There's certain bands who, through time, have got the criticism of sad or... As if that's criticism, I don't know why, but sad or depressing or whatever.

And I think that's just a reflection of whoever is listening most of the time. I mean, something can sound dreary, and on some day be dreary, and on another day be completely uplifting. It just depends what your mood is and how it's... And also, I would never want to discourage, and I hate language that discourages people from listening to music that gives them emotional release. That's why I had such a problem with the sad boy term, and when I'd get written about in certain publications, basically, who would write...

One of the things was he needs to maybe should get out more, or I was just like, you don't get it. You don't get that there are people who feel the same thing as I feel, who are listening to this processing stuff. And by this language, what you're saying is like, don't do that. And you might be... You might actually be taking away someone's emotional comfort blanket that makes their life way harder. You know, it's funny, I think that's sometimes too about...

Sometimes in this podcast, I'll talk about feelings and things that I've had over the years, and sometimes I feel like it gets... It's tough, because I have to walk this line, I don't want to get too melancholy. I don't want to get... Actually, I don't care if I get melancholy, but I don't want to get where I am in self-pity. Like self-indulgent. Right, and it can happen, it's really tough. Because you don't notice it happening, you think you're just exploring it more,

and it can certainly happen. I think with music, though, it's interesting because it's like music and musicians, they let us feel something that we can't say. It's like, man, you'll see somebody who won't even talk probably to their wife or something, but then they'll both get there and sing a song together, or dance to us. Or that video of everyone singing... Yeah, people trapping to mental hospital singing Katy Perry, or whatever. I want it that way, Backstreet Boys?

Backstreet Boys, yeah. Yeah, I mean, to some extent, there is some truth in... Our parents' generation would just be like, don't talk about it, just come on, man. You don't need to go to therapy, just crack on, carry on. You'll be all right, just... Pick up that pail, walk up the hill. Yeah, just...

To some extent, talk about it to a friend, but other than that, just get on with it, and you can push through it. And even the British are cracking out. Patty Pamela had a fricking outspoken speech. Remember a couple of fights ago? What was that? Oh, no. It was like, my mate...

Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, it's like... Yeah, I saw that. We even see the Brit, you know... That was really moving. Yeah, it was just... You know, it's like... Yeah.

I think we're also... There's just an inner... Humanity is this energy of nature, it's this path of nature. Yeah. We don't really know what it is yet. Yeah, that's true. And I think we've... When you look at how much feeling and stuff is in there,

at a certain point, it's got to come out. Yeah, it is. It has. But then I think what you're touching on is quite interesting, because it's like, we're not... There is a certain point at which it's not productive anymore. And, you know, I think that coming to a balance between our generation maybe, and the generation before us, or couple before us,

a balance between those two mentalities of like, you know, maybe self-fictimization on our account, or kind of going over the same things over and over again. Yeah. And not realizing you're in a cycle, or a pattern, or just kind of like focusing so much on the trauma that you're not actually kind of paying attention to like actual real-life practices that can help you,

or like forward motion, forward momentum. Like the fact that achievement actually genuinely does, you know, can be a good motivation, or, you know, like general kind of, yeah, like positive thinking, like lots of, you know, it's like, you can just dwell on things. And we have a, you know, there is a school of thought that says being in constant kind of term, kind of digging up of things is like important. I think there's a balance to be struck.

Yeah. And the kind of wisdom in the older generations sometimes is that we, there is a lot of common, common, commonality to be found between people. And that our differences sometimes are not always worth dwelling on. And that we are, we are strong, capable people who can fucking... Get it done. Get it done, yeah. Get, basically.

Persevere, take care of ourselves. Yeah, sometimes we have to come to our own rescue. You start to realize that too. It's like the self-help stuff, it starts to create sometimes too much of a world where you're always trying to help yourself. Yeah. And you're reading up and taking in so much stuff about, you know, inspirational, but you're not actional.

And also that's an industry. That's the people are profiting off your constant engagement with self-help, your constant engagement. It's like at a certain point, it's like, are you okay? Yeah. You know, if you're not, you know, I think that I always encourage being aware of your emotions and trying to delve into them and like figure them out. But I think there is a certain point where it's time to rejoin the world

and try and float. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I find you will, if you sit there and that feeling long enough, looking around inside of it and looking at the, reading the graffiti and shit, you will, then that's where you're going to live. You know, I start to realize it's like, you know, they always say you can act your way in a positive thinking, but you can't think your way in a positive action, you know?

And that's something I have to come back to because I like to dwell. I like to wander around in the art museum of my childhood and of my like things that meant something to me and like my first kiss and the first like mistakes I made and like, I like to wander around and look at all the artifacts and things, but You can't live in the museum. You can't. Yeah. There's a time to shut it off and leave the museum.

Yeah, there's a kind of a, I think it was my government just talking about like, you know, being in this hole and just like painting the walls and it's just now it's just a beautiful hole. It's like, which now sounds, but no, it's semi sexual in a way that I didn't want it to, but that's, you know, that is right. To some extent, it like sums up where you can get to where you can draw the map perfectly of how your emotions have your emotional state. You can become so obsessed with like understanding your emotional state that actually you've kind

of taken focus of actual forward momentum and living. And yeah. So I think huge. Yeah, it is. And I think a lot of people who are in that place, they, they, you know, a lot of people who you, have you noticed this when someone's just for the first time discovering like shit that they've done wrong or the things that they like not happy about with themselves. They're just constantly talking about it.

And they want to talk about it to everyone and every, you know, and, and they're going into such detail and you're just like, but that's someone who is at the start. They just got there. They just started. That's always the way. And yeah, eventually I wanted to get to a place where I just didn't have to talk about it. Yeah.

You know, and I could just talk about other shit. Yeah. Or at least look back on it with a sense of power and not be standing in it as much. Yeah. Cause I did all that. I've gone through all of those phases. This is not coming from a judgmental place. This is saying to like, this is saying like you have to kind of like become that like

evangelizing kind of just to, just to, you know, you've got to destabilize first. I think that's why it's so hard sometimes to imagine looking inwards because initially you're going to have to go through a period of completely destabilization. And that's why a lot of people never do it, which I think it's amazing that you have cause and I've been public about it and talks about on your podcast and a lot of people have probably done it through you and with you. Yeah. I think, you know, we just trying, we will, we wonder sometimes what is our instrument?

Why does God have us here that, you know, to share whatever, you know, it's like, you don't even know. It's like, what is the little piece of the universe that's supposed to fly out of you? Yeah. So do you, do you out of side of like podcasting? Is there like a hobby that you have a, like a, do you play anything? I just got a piano at home. Oh, really?

Yeah. So I'm excited about that. Did you talk to me about that at one point? Yeah. I used to play and then I just got a new piano at home. Nice. It's a, it's a new used piano. So.

Nice. Yep. It's a baby grand, I think a Baldwin. Nice. Got a baby grand. I grew up around this place called Baldwin Motors. They used to do tire care, I think. Yeah.

Baldwin Motors, Covington, Louisiana. So I don't know if they make, I don't know if they also do pianos or this is a family. I don't know. It could be joint family, but I mean, it'd be amazing if there's cars and pianos. Yeah. Well, I think they did some good cars. That's Baldwin Motors right there. I suspect it's not the same, but I, oh, they really upgraded.

They used to just do mostly tires. Although Yamaha make pianos and they also make 4,000. Yeah. They make a lot of things. What about, I'm trying to think of something else. What else is in the news, Zach, anything else neat out there that man ate those chickens, but I didn't really. We didn't really talk about that.

Well, it didn't do it for me. Did it? Was it just? Something about it, it seems grotesque a little bit, I guess. Is it not? I don't like those chickens. Yeah. I don't like those rotisserie chickens.

It just. Have you ever seen 40 chickens, either? No. It seems like a number of chickens that shouldn't exist all at the same time. Well, and it just like, what, you know, I just see some man just pulling, and the chicken always feels like it's just barely chicken. It feels like they've been through it all, you know? Also, if you just put it down to, you know, if we were really to analyze that situation,

it's like, it's not that hard to eat 40 chickens every day, you know, it's like one chicken every day. Yeah. Could you imagine, I mean. Yeah, I could do it. You could do that. I could do that. I'm going to vegetarian, but I could do that.

I could not be. I'd be like this. I'd be bored. Yeah. But it's like just watching a man get bored for 40 days, that isn't that. Yeah, you can do that anywhere. I could really get bored anywhere, but for 40 days, someone could, I could watch a man getting bored.

I could just talk to the person, like Dom, my producer, co-producer friend, asking what he's like to work with me. I don't think being bored for 40 days is entertainment, as much as those people thought it was. It is now, like that's what entertainment also is becoming, it's interesting how it's getting strange. Like, I would watch a woman, like a small woman eat, like maybe a hot dog or a piece of cake or something online.

I would watch it. Yeah. To me, that would be very entertaining. I'm now imagining watching you watch that's why I laughed. Well, there's a Japanese show where they have little children go run to the market for their mom or something. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like a little bit of voiceover and you just watch them go on the little journey. The show has to be for two to four-year-olds. It is captivating. But all of those shows are, I feel like they're universal ages, really. Well, this one is just captivating to me. There's something to learn from things like that. What's that show? Can you look it up, brother?

Japanese children go to market. It's captivating. This show, you just, you're like, oh, is he going to, you know, is kimchi going to make the lemonade or whatever, you know, when he does it and you're just damn blown away. Kimchi is called old enough. Old enough. Yes. God, it's good, man.

Kimchi is Korean, isn't it? Yeah. Kimchi is Korean, too. They changed it. But is that, yeah, they probably changed it. There she is right there. Wow. Since children as young as two out into the world alone, it's an absolute roller coaster

of emotions. The Japanese TV show that abandons toddlers on public transport. It's the one way to look at it, man. But it's pretty great. You see them go out there and they're just, who is that right there? Is it saying doesn't, doesn't give a name? Oh yeah. That's beautiful.

Just says forced to fend for themselves. That's one way to look at it. Look, it's tough times everywhere. Um, I think there's something pandemicy about that. Isn't there something? Well, no, it came out before the, wait, hold on. When did this come out? This is, this is a YouTube video.

Japanese kids go shopping alone. Did you, um, dude, you remember that time when I kind of saw you and saw you do music and make music with Andre 3000? Yeah. Fuck. Dude, I remember you inviting me out to this place and I, it was in Malibu. Was it like this cool, like kind of little, yeah. It was like a studio kind of rehab.

Yeah. Look like a little rehab. So I pulled up and you and, um, and I didn't know that it was him there. You didn't tell me that you were wrecking me. You know, you were working in a studio and I came up and you guys were working on something that was pretty cool. Wow. That was such an amazing time in my life.

We made a lot of music together. Did you guys? Yeah. Yeah, we did. Is it interesting with celebrity? How you kind of pat, like you'll become like, you know, together for a while with certain and then it just, you just, yeah, you just sort of pass each other. But also, you know, we, we stay in touch like I've talked to him fairly regularly and, um,

he's just, I mean, he's, he's like the, the goat. Yeah. As they say. So, you know, I'll always be honored. Just, uh, I find him always inspiring and probably still, so he's still such a different thinker about everything and although he did go on the, um, the Rick Rubin podcast and say he's never kind of really sending the music. So you guys made, well, I mean, he's just generally talking about music, you know, full

stop. So why do you keep it? I don't know, just, he just felt like, I think he was saying something along the lines of, you know, he just feels sort of out the game or like not really part of that. And he's just expressing himself in all these different ways. And we actually did put something out. We did make, we did, uh, a thing where he was playing clarinet and I was playing piano. Um, I don't, I think for me, it's like, I don't, uh, I just want to help as a producer because

I was in a producer role. I just want to help someone express the thing they want to express. And if under 3000 isn't in a time of his life where he wants to make rap music, then I'll help him express clarinet music. Yeah, or help him express, maybe even just realize that, Hey, this isn't a time where you want to put something out. Yeah. Which may change or may not.

Who knows. Does a lot of music get put out? No, a lot of music doesn't get put out. What? A vast majority of music doesn't get put out. Or there's some amazing songs out there that you think have been made that we're not, we're not, have not been put out. There's a lot of me, a lot of songs out there that I shouldn't think shouldn't have been

put out. Um, there's a lot of amazing songs I've heard in studios that never came out for sure. Yeah. Like hundreds, hundreds. And they're honestly, it feels like a crime, honestly, it feels like a crime. It's terrible when you hear them and you're like, Oh, I can't wait, I can't wait for that to come out and people to hear it and just something happens like promo doesn't work out.

Like someone, somebody like an A&R says, Oh, I'm not really sure about that one or someone says to the artist, like what a friend of theirs says, Oh, I don't like that one. And it just turns them off it or they develop negative association with that song. It's happened with me plenty of times. I mean, I've got songs. My hard drive is thousands, thousands of songs that haven't made the cut or they missed their moment, you know, some songs just feel like a moment and it's like, if you don't put them out soon, you're not, you just, you're not going to, uh, you're never going to feel

like that again. Or maybe sometimes like I didn't nail the vocal take, I didn't fully, so I don't like the way I'm singing. So I can't be bothered going back in and singing again. So there's all these songs that the actual DNA of the song is good, but you can't be bothered doing it again, going back into that place. Yeah. And you can't get back there.

It's kind of the value of a moment. It's like, sometimes, you know, it's like, man, we were so close right there for that moment. Yeah. And it's like, sometimes those things are batches of songs. So like there'll be a batch of songs that sounded like retrograde or there'll be a batch of songs that sounded like, say what you will, but say what you will was the best off that batch and retrograde was the best of that batch.

So I put that out instead of lots of kind of co, kind of similar tone songs in a similar tone that like one is good. Did you ever get to work with like Willie Nelson or John Mayer? Um, I've never worked with either of those. No, I never have, um, but you know, never say never. I mean, it's really not, Willie Nelson is, Willie Nelson is still alive. Yeah. Is he making music, is he making music and yeah, I think he is.

He has a daughter, I think Ray, our granddaughter, Ray Lynn Nelson. I think he also does music. All right. Um, yeah. Is there an artist that you feel like, I guess you do get pitched artists? How does that work? Do you pitch your, does your agent kind of pitch you to artists? How does that kind of work?

That usually doesn't work out. I've found if it's, if there's an A and R connection or some kind of industry connection, it doesn't really, you know, usually from me just getting in touch on Instagram, being saying like, I love your music or something like that. Kind of like how, how we met. I mean, obviously we're not collaborating, although this, you could call it a collaboration. That's true. Um, but you know, we just, like, jam, jam's quite good at just reaching out.

I sort of learned that from her. She was like, you know, you can just reach out to people directly and I was like. She's great at connecting with people. Yeah. And she's from just Simon Rex and he's great at connecting people. Yes. Yes. So that's like two great connectors as your.

He's so good in that movie. I know. The one. Red Rocket. Yeah. He's so good in that. So ridiculous how they can make it. Yeah.

At the beginning, you're like, oh, this is my buddy Simon by the end. You're like, oh, this is this guy. And I'm watching his journey. Yeah. He was brilliant. He was so brilliant. And he's been staying busy since then. It's such a wild.

Yeah. What an amazing comeback. I know. Fantastic to watch. Like, I was so fucking happy to see that. Yeah. Hollywood's so interesting like that. You know.

I mean, maybe come back to maybe the right word. Sort of just like a re-entry into the world. He feels like that. He'd moved out to the national park. He was living in a national park. And so that's really. Like a bear. Yeah.

You're at the end of the line. You're basically a bear. When you're living in a national park, you're really, you're trying to, you know, you're thinking probably about suicide. You're not going to do it. You know what I'm saying? But there's enough hikes around to keep you safe on this joke and Simon knows that. But he moved out to like Joshua Tree and he was just kind of living his life.

And then this producer saw him on Instagram and said, you are perfect. Yeah. Because he's like an incredible looking, hilarious person. Yeah. And he's long and, you know, has some goofy elements and like, but just the biggest heart. And so it was really awesome to get to see him like, and just to see his pride that he felt like you want to, everybody wants to feel like they are capable, maybe, or they matter or that they, we all just want to feel a little bit of that.

Well, like we can just do the thing that we're good at in the limelight for just a moment. And just be like, I did that. And you know, there's definitely a thing inside a lot of people that's just sort of screaming for that occasionally every so often. And if you can, if you happen to be in a position where you can like satisfy that voice, it's a nice place to be because otherwise I can eat you up on it. Like if you just can't ever vocalize it or you can't ever get satisfied. And it can be satisfied even just in a relationship.

It could be satisfied by that one person that you're with. It could be satisfied by a parent or a child. It could be satisfied by a million people. You know, it could, it could need to be, it's interesting. It just has to land in that place that it's set, that you feel seen, you know. Yeah, totally. Yes. I, I, and some people that only takes one person, you know, it takes a wife or a girlfriend

or boyfriend or a parent, just that's all it takes in there. Yeah. Or to be the biggest thing in someone's life, be the center of somebody's kind of universe. Are you, um, with anyone at the moment? Nope. I started doing, I've been doing a little bit of just meantime, yeah, I took 30 days off a dating so I could get an idea of what I was kind of doing. Nice.

Because you can get so sporadic. Yeah. You know, you're just here and there, you go on a date, you're like, do I even care about this? What's going on? How's dating in Los Angeles? Is that difficult? It's been a little rocky.

Nashville's been even tougher kind of really. Really? Yeah. And so it's been kind of a tough place to go, um, you know, to meet folks. Do your interests line up with people in LA or in Nashville more? I think they're kind of the same. I think it sort of depends. I think you can kind of find the same type of people anywhere.

You know, I'm not like, I'm just kind of middle of the road. I, you know, I think I'm trying to think of something that really turns me off about somebody. Doing this in a restaurant. Oh yeah, they're done. Done. Probably. But if they're attractive enough, you might, I would, I'd probably still order dessert

with them, you know, so I'd mill around a bit. So they did that through starter, main course and dessert and they're just calling the way over like that. Unless they were like setting up in Tammiter for some dope ass beat that I didn't know was coming, you know, or it was like a flash mob or something that never started. They're just like, Hey guys, they think it's going to happen as long as they just keep. So have you gotten invited to go play at like some weird private events or something that was really interesting?

You're like, okay, this seems strange or not strange. I've done some, I've done a couple of corporate things that I ended up not doing any more after that because I just felt like a couple of fashion events and things where very Zoolander type stuff, you know, but no, I don't think I, you know, I haven't had to like, I haven't had the sort of surreal experience. Yeah. I haven't really had that in music. Like some crazy thing where they invite you like a big bean conference or something.

Everybody's losing their mind or something. But and if, and the things I have done that were a bit weird, I think I'm under contract to not talk about the thing. When I say a bit weird, I mean, like, yeah, like, um, like maybe, maybe it's not the kind of gig that, like it was a shit gig, but it's like a really shit gig. And there's, and I was like, okay, let's not have any videos of that one. Well, thanks for all your contributions, man. I'm glad that, um, we get to spend some time together, you know?

Yeah, I mean, and I'd love to, you know, this is, I've never done this sort of, I've never been part of the podcasting universe, particularly so I did. Yeah, it's cool. It's great. I'm really glad that you, that you came on. Well, it felt like just like walking through the screen in a way, walking into this thing. Oh, interesting. It was like just jumping through YouTube because I've watched your podcast so many times.

Yeah. Do a lot of people say that? What? That you've watched it? Well, they've just, they've been of, you know, they've watched your shit for so long and then they're just like in the seat where other people are sitting. Oh yeah. I think it's kind of fascinating to people.

I think people don't know what to think sometimes. I think they're a little bit shocked at just how the production works. And then suddenly you're there. It is interesting how it goes from just us sitting here talking into like a conversation that people could listen to or segments of a conversation, you know? I mean, we probably, like I feel like our conversations are pretty wide reaching anyway. Yeah. I think so.

This reminding me, I think a lot of like why I always have enjoyed chatting with you, you know? Yeah, me too. Yeah. What would you say like you think to like, I know this is kind of a general thing, but it's like if there's somebody who's having trouble expressing themselves or figuring out how to do that, what suggestion do you think you would give to somebody like that? Well, I'd say try a few different things.

And if you express yourself to someone and they kind of like, lightly punish you for doing it, whether that's rejecting you or whatever it is, then maybe they're just not the right person to do that with, but there will be someone who will like your music. Yeah, either. Yeah. Like your music or they'll take you as you are basically as a person. Yeah, so much. We spend so much of our time trying to adjust our song to fit the audience instead of finding

the person that hears it, you know? Yeah. And to be, I think true confidence is just being confident that, sorry, using it twice, but true confidence is being in a situation and just knowing that you'd be okay if that person didn't like what you said or didn't like, you know, kind of rejected you or whatever. And that's hard to get to even now, I find that pretty difficult. And in so many ways, I've edited myself to death to be okay for everyone else's consumption, but I think to some extent it's like kind of saying what's in on your mind anyway.

And come what may, because ultimately the fastest way to find out if you're in the right situation is to be yourself and you can spend many years doing the opposite, not being yourself and hoping that people will accept you. And ultimately you're just treading water, you're never gonna, you're never gonna fully swim. You'll, you'll only, you'll never scratch the full itch of, of you and friendship and love and real connection because you've never been your true self. And being willing to let things go by.

Yeah. That's hard. Friends, like all sorts of things that may not, yeah, being willing to say this isn't it right now. This isn't, you know, I've struggled with that with dating and stuff to be like, I'm just afraid to let go because what it, you know, it's just such a reaction, you know, what if some part of me, there's a subconscious part of me that's what if there's nothing else, you know.

Yeah. Is there like, have you met people where you've, you've kind of felt like now the idea of them not being there is too scary to actually leave the situation, even though it's probably not right. Oh, I think it's happened to me before in the past for sure, you know, I think taking some time from dating and stuff helps me get a better view of that and see it, you know. What are the apps? I mean, I've been in a relationship for eight years, I think.

What are the apps now? Yeah. What do you use? I just got on, I just created a profile on Raya, but I haven't opened it up. I haven't started it. Oh, right. So I'm not sure if I want to. I've kind of like, it's been like a month now that I've had it and I just don't know

if I, I just don't know how much I want to be spending my time trying to manage that. And then how much do I want to just kind of let it happen, but. Totally. And also when your job, I'm not guessing you meet a lot of people in your job. Yeah. You meet a decent amount. A lot of them is men. That's, that's true.

Although you could, you could change that, I guess. Yeah. You could just start inviting more people. You might find more like minds in, in the, in the female space. Yeah. I might have to get, I can get a couple more dames around, you know, wouldn't be a bad idea. But the, I remember being on in my, in my year, I think between two relationships being single

and having a Raya account and the one of the, I was like scrolling and the one of the interests someone put was coconut oil and I just closed the app and deleted it and then there's no one going back. It just seems too surface level James Blake, man, thank you so much for spending time brother. Yeah, man. My pleasure. It's so nice to be here and thanks for having me.

You know, I'm a fan as well as a friend, but I just, I love what you do and it's great to actually see the place. Yeah. Welcome to inside of the internet, man. Yeah. Thank you, man. Thank you for all your wonderful music. And is there music that people can like, you know, it's such a generic question, but yeah,

is there, you're going to keep making music. That's the plan. Okay. I'm going to keep making it. The next thing I think is going to be more of a, more of a dance orientated slash more electronic type thing, which I've just, yeah, I'm in the process of finishing, but who knows how long that kind of thing takes. So, but I'm also, I'm, I've got a club night that I'm, I'm doing at the moment called CMYK

in partnership with Rhonda, a club named Rhonda, Rhonda presents CMYK and that's my club night that I've been doing around the country and so if anyone wants to come and see me DJ and I'm playing a lot of my new music there, then they can come and see that. Groovy, man. We'll put the link in the, in the description. Thanks so much, man. Great to see you. Yeah, man.

Thank you. Cheers. Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves, I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind, I found, I can feel it in my bones, but it's gonna take.