Transcript of Anderson .Paak

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armshare Expert. I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

Hello.

Boy, long time coming, begging, sending Instagram, making public Instagram posts.

You're sliding into his DMs.

Exactly. I don't know that I've ever put more effort into getting a guest. And last year, you may recall, last year, he was like, I will come on. I was like, Oh, my God. He's like, When I'm promoting my movie, I'm like, Oh, my God, when's this movie going to happen? I know. Well, guess what? The movie has happened. It's here. And Anderson Park. Brandon Pauke, Anderson. Andy, take your pick. I love every version. He is a Grammy Award-winning rapper. I think he's got eight Grammys at this point. He deserves them. Singer, songwriter, and record producer. His albums, in his beach theme, Venice, Malibu, Oxnard, Ventura. And he has a new movie out in theaters on February 27th called K-Pops. And it's him and his real-life song. I love it. He co-wrote directed it, and he stars in it, and it's just a joyous explosion of family love.

Yes. This was a great episode. It was a really good time.

I loved it so much. I tried to control myself, and I didn't do a good job, as you'll hear.

Yeah, he can't do that. Don't ask him to do that.

All right, please enjoy Anderson Paak.

Hold on, why don't you just introduce yourself as? Andy.

Who I like that. I do, too.

Brandon's gone. We've never fucking with Brandon again.

It's long gone. Where do you live? I live in Weihoh, and I just got a place in Vegas, too.

So I'm going back and forth. Are you a Vegas person by nature? Are you going to adapt?

I can dig it. I grew up there. My parents were big gamblers, so I was there all the time when I was younger and the comped rooms and stuff. And then I did the Vegas residency with Bruno. I'm there quite often.

It's not bad. What was their casino, mom and stepdad, yeah?

What did they do? Caesars. They were a big Caesars Palace people. Classic.

They treat you nice there.

Yeah, for sure.

I watched you on this podcast, REVOLT. You know what it's called?

I think.

Is that it? The point is you had 13 shots.

Oh, yeah.

Drink Champs. It's called Drink Champs.

Yeah, with Nori. Drink Champs.

We should have provided.

Smoking weed. I'm like, Listen, I don't have that at my disposal, so I'm going to have to intoxicate you with my charm to get the walls down.

I'm drunk off it already. I'm on Dry January, actually. Oh, you are? Yeah. I drink like a fish, as you can see. I could put them down. That particular show, I knew that that was their whole thing, and they drink and stuff. I was like, You know what? I'm going to just drink more than anybody in case I say something crazy. I'll be like, I was obviously drunk. Yeah, you could excuse it.

I was blocked out.

What do you want from me?

Yeah. Okay. As you know, I've been... How long I've been courting you? Yeah, long time. Hard press, right?

Yeah.

In the DMs, comment on your shit. Posting videos just declaring my love for you. Dancing to one of your songs publicly.

We almost met for lunch one time.

We did. And then I looked at the menu, I was like, I can't eat one fucking thing over there. It's just a gluten house.

You're like, I'm done. I can't make it.

Was it one of yours?

No, it was. I had a vegan spot for a little bit.

So no meat and then all gluten because it was pizza.

And that's where I hardly ever went, too. I usually try to do protein and veggies.

You were vegan?

No, I got a bunch of spots. I tell everybody, I'm not Mexican, but I'll fuck a taco up anytime. I have a Japanese spot, and I just opened a supper club. It's like live music. It's called Andy's. We got food there, too. Where's that? It's in Weihau, right next to Dan Tanas. Oh, okay. I actually got you guys a gift. You got those gifts?

Oh, I love gifts. I love gifts. Yeah, come on. I mean, customarily, we would do this at the end, I think. There's no reason to not start with gifts.

We know we love it. Couple of Andy's hats.

Oh, I'm Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah, that's my club. Check it out, man.

What's the entertainment at Andy's?

I got live music.

Like a house band or it's Revolving Door?

I got several bands that played through the week. I auditioned them all. Really talented musicians, and we got food. It's like a place for people to actually dance.

Those are rare.

It's '70s-inspired stuff.

I forgot to do a disclaimer.

Oh, no.

What? Monica, this is going to be the hardest episode for you. I'm going to embarrass you so much I'm really embarrassing myself.

Right.

You're going to be shameful. She hates if I sing to people. She hates when I repeat people's lyrics. I'm her 51-year-old dad who's constantly embarrassing himself, and this is going to be the apex. I just wanted you to be prepared. Okay. Because you know.

Yeah. You know the love. I know what takes. Okay, as long as I have the right expectations, I can handle it.

That's what I thought it might be helpful, because if you think that I'm only going to drop one or two lyrics on them, you're crazy. Are you okay with that?

I'm fine. Okay. Sour me.

Okay. I want to talk about just first, how I found you is I was really trying to figure out when did I become obsessed with you, and I traced it back to September 2017. I'm friends with Taleb, Qualee, and I saw a post of his. It's like, I'm going to miss this man so much. Working with him was incredible, Mac Miller. And I'm like, oh, well, who's to Lib think is this magical? I'm going to go listen to Mac Miller. So then both of us go in a Mac Miller rabbit hole, and then I fall in love with Dang. And I'm like, who's this soulful voice I'm hearing? And then that takes me to you. And then I'm off to the races, and then I don't ever look back at anybody. Wow. So that's how I got there. How do you think people generally have gotten to you? So many ways, I bet.

So many ways. I'm a big collaborator, and I do a lot of things. And Mac was one of those where I have songs that I just give to people. And I have so many songs, and I don't necessarily think that they're right for me or I think they're better for other people. And some people know me from that song. Some know me from working with Bruno Mars. Some people know me from songs I've done with The Game or Snoop or Dre. Some people know me as a DJ with the wig on. So many different things. I'm big on collaboration. It's a big way of how I've gotten this far, and it's a big part of my artistry, and Mac was no different. I had that song that we were working for, the producer's album, Pomo. He wanted to work on his album, and we did that song, I think the day that David Bowie died. Oh, no kidding. And we were just all bummed out. I feel like that was the second or third legend we had lost. I was like, Man, I can't keep on losing you over complications. It just flowed. We were in this random studio.

I don't even think it was a studio. It was like an office space. We just started writing that, and I laid it down. I just laid the chorus. A few months later, I got hit up by Mac through Twitter.

That's how you guys got connected?

Yeah. He heard me through Dre because I was on the Dr. Dre's album when he was putting out the Straight Out of Compton soundtrack. I was all over that album. Six tracks? Yeah, six track pack. Six track pack. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. Okay, 2015?

I was blowing up. I was like, a little snoop.

When he hit you on Twitter, what was the message? He basically me. He was like, Hey, what's going on?

How does it feel? It was right after the Dre stuff, and I was like, You know how it is? He's like, No, I don't know how it is. I don't know how it is to be on 6 tracks with Dr. Dre. I was like, I'm going to like this guy. I was like, I'm just chilling, man. I was star struck. My act was just huge. The fact that he was hitting me direct, I was like, man. And we just started chopping up from there.

Yeah. Do you become friends first before you decide to start working together? Or do you go like, Let's work together, and then a friendship ensues?

When he hit me up, we were talking through Twitter, and then he was like, I would love to work with you. Even if you have ideas or anything like that, you could send it my way. And I was like, Cool. But I had, Dang, or just the course of it. I was like, Komo, you think we should send him this? And he was like, cool. And I sent him a few joints, and that was the first one he gravitated towards. He's like, This is the one. He sat with it for a couple of weeks and sent it back. He had his verse, he had put horns on it. That's when I realized, Oh, he's like a producer, too. He's a real musician.

Yeah, that's why I fell in love with Mac Miller is the music. So many of these people, weirdly, I'm coming in through the music, and he had, whether he was creating it or it was his bar or his vibe that he insisted on, whatever it was, it's the music that's so special first in the Mac Miller stuff.

He was a big music nerd, big musician. He loved kicking it with musicians, Thunder cats, and the internet. He was always taking in rappers, taking in musicians that were coming in, and they didn't have anything and offering everything. He had his audience, his studio, and everything. He did the same thing with me. We were just talking online and on the phone. Then the first time we met in person was to shoot the video. No. Yeah.

What you We had done the entire song and it was done. That seems bizarre to me.

That is wild. He was just sending it back and we were just giving notes, and then he was like, This is going to be the first single.

Is that the shitty part or the cool part of the time we live in? Because obviously, you think about the collaborations that happened in '50s and '60s, Motown or any of these genres, and now everything is still. We're in that genre still. For it to change that much, what do you think you lose and what do you think you gain?

I think it's just all on the artist. Some of the songs that I've done, big songs, great songs I did through email, I just did it because I knew that this is going to be great. If it doesn't sound good, then I don't have to put it out. Some stuff can feel a little transactional, but I think it's all dependent. There's more than one way to do things. As long as the song is great, who cares how it's done? Some people don't want to do the email thing. I totally respect that, and that's fine. But I'm not into losing opportunity to make something. Dang is probably one of my biggest tunes, and I had no clue it was going to do what it did, and people would discover me. To this day, when I play it, it's a heavy tune for me. There's so much history behind. Mac was the same way. We're not the type to wait.

Well, that's what feels like the huge benefit is, is the efficiency of the process. You can be working on the Mac song for 2 hours in the afternoon, shift gears and answer an email and then start working on that song. You're not traveling to all these different places. So that's a huge upside. But what do you think is lost as far as sitting in a room together in the fucking neurons connecting and all this shit we don't know and the pheromones and all that stuff?

Obviously, nothing.

No, but then there is.

Because Dre's not working on email, right?

Dre's not working on email. You got to go in there. Same thing with Bruno, working on a song like Leader Door Open, which was a number one smash hit, a song that I played. They might not know any other song, but they know Like grandma's, everybody. It was number one.

That was my father-in-law, finally, and we got to sit down together.

A grocery store.

That's that dude next to Bruno. You're that dude, right? Yeah, that's me. To have one of those is crazy. That was like going through hell. We were in there every day working just on one section. Some days we just work and talk about stuff. Wouldn't even work on the song. We just talk shit and then have a drink. All right, we'll be back tomorrow and try to work on this. Bruno is very much one of those guys that's like, it doesn't feel right unless you've gone through a little bit of hell. He doesn't I trust it.

Right. That's a specific type of creative.

Well, that's also from childhood.

Totally. Trauma-based. Yes.

Absolutely. I got to suffer, and then I'll get a little ray of light will be the reward.

It doesn't feel good unless you work hard for it.

It's almost like, you don't trust it. Like, Shit, it being this easy? There's those two. I think that there's something really special about sitting in a room, person like me that produces. We work with instruments and we're doing stuff out of the box and we're creating and producing the song from scratch with no loops and everything. We're in there really playing it, and then we're having to replay it and figure out, okay, now we want to get horns, all this stuff and mixing process. A lot of people don't have the patience to do that. I think sometimes you cut yourself short. You think you have something, but it could be just the tip of the iceberg. You keep digging and seeing how you can make it better. I really enjoy that, especially with my own project. And as I get older and do more albums, I think that's really what I want to do.

Well, don't you think as well, now you have safety. Time is now on your side. You can afford time. I imagine in the past, it's just like, go, go, go, go. I got to put so many fucking pokers in the fire hoping one of them hits. Whereas I'd hope and imagine now it's stable enough that you're not panicking You're missing out on something if you take that time.

Right. It's a blessing. I'm just going to chill. I don't have to do every little thing. But when I was coming up with Mac, I was like, I want to kill everything. I want to do every feature. You had to. I want them to be upset that they put me on the song because it's going to be my song now. I had the dog in me. I got this opportunity. Dre is fucking with me. Everyone's going to know I'm the dude because I was riding the bus before that, and I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to go back to doing open mics and stuff. I'm like, I got the slot. I'm going to really take advantage of it. I think a part of me still has that. But like you said, I almost forget, you don't got to do every little thing. My team, my management, everything, did you just take an offer for cash for 10K? He said he's booking I'm like, yes, I need it. I got classic cars. I got to get the- They all broke. Yeah, I got to get the trendy face. That's just personality, I think.

I feel like I'm learning that more and more. It doesn't matter how much you have. That's just part of people. I don't think it can fully go away. Yeah.

Almost all your songs I love, but the ones that crush me are these ones that have a theme to me, like dreamers. It's all my little dreamers and the ones who You didn't give a fuck. I'm a product of the tube in the free lunch, right? Yeah, I like that. This owning the challenging background and finding the joy and the pride in it. This theme pops up in so many songs that B. J. Song, Close the door. What is it? We got macaroni and cheese. But that song, too, is like, yeah, it's not fancy. Close the screen door, but the food is here and the vibe is here. There's a pride in that. I think when you think about the stuff being Black wide, I think so much more of it is like socioeconomic. If you're me and you're eating government cheese, and then you hear these songs or you see the Super Bowl thing, you're like, oh, yeah, these are the motherfuckers they hated, and now they're on in the world. That theme is just through and through all your music. And I guess, are you aware of that?

Yeah, that's something that's special to me and that I hold near and dear. The way I grew up, my family values, my story, those are things that are universal. When I write, I try to cling to those things. I try to find something that can tie us all together. Whether it's the struggle or if it's something witty, I really enjoy that. I really enjoy taking bits of my story and going back and being able to put them on wax and explore it because I feel like people can also relate to it.

Who cares your daddy couldn't be there? Mom always kept the cable on. For all of us without a dad, it's like, , and it's fine.

It's all good. Some people see things differently. They deal with trauma differently. I don't know why. I've just been an optimist, and I've had a lot of traumatizing things happen. But the way I coped was always with music. I always could escape through television.

Don't you think it's body regulation? It's like you can regulate this mood with this fucking tool, which is music. I feel like this, I start making these sounds, and I'm elevated and I'm...

Yeah, you're somewhere else.

It's the drug of all drugs to be creative when you're struggling.

Absolutely. I was around so much where they didn't know how to cope and do that. I had an escape, and I was able to do that. I had a family that was very supportive, and that kept me in this incubation where it was like, he's special. Just let him do his thing over here. It was a bunch of chaos. I think that's something I'm aware of and getting more aware of and tapping into. I'm also with my music and with everything. I'm random. I'm very affected. It's really the production and the surroundings and where I'm at. A lot of it has to do with the production, the cords that bring me to these places. I think I'm music first. I will always put lyrics or things I think are slick. I was eating lunch today and this girl was like, Oh, yeah, I like Black Obsidian. She was talking about a stone. I was like, That sounds sick. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to write it.

Yeah, Black Obsidian. Now you got to live up to that.

I looked it up, it deflects next week. And all this stuff. I was like, Oh, this is a cool tune you can make. But I very much like words and phrases. I always write it, but I'm very moved by the music first. And like, Oh, this makes me feel like struggle. Or this makes me feel like I want to say something romantic. I want the homies to ride to the in the sixth row. Or I think Dre will like this, or I think Paul McCartney. I want to get in that zone.

Well, but the trauma, I mean, it's multi-generational. Your mom, what a fucking beginning. It starts in Korea and during the Korean War. Yeah. Your assumed grandfather was a Black serviceman, right? Yeah. But we don't know. No one really knows. So your mother's born in Korea right after the Korean War, and then she's quickly then in an orphanage, her and her brother? Yeah.

Pretty much was raised in Korea during the war up until maybe about six or seven. 6, 7.

We have to cut that out. That's the clip that's going to get pulled.

Back to my adopted mom. I digress. So, yeah, she was an abandoned kid. Her and my uncle were found by a dumpster, and They were doing a lot of racial purification, whatever you call it, but they were getting rid of a lot of the kids back then with the mixed race and all that stuff in Korea. There was a guy back then that was collecting all these abandoned kids and got my mom and my uncle to an orphanage. Then she was adopted by African-American military parents who were also high up in ranks and everything.

Were they in Korea?

They were in Korea just traveling around. They were in the military, too. They were around. They got my mom and my uncle and moved them to LA. My mom and uncle grew up in Compton during the '50s, which was like a suburb. It was a nice suburb.

It was a farm. There was horses and shit.

Horses weren't connected to the water system in LA, all kinds of stuff.

You know who was living there then? We interviewed Yellowstone. Not Kevin Coston.

Kevin Coston.

Kevin Coston. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Kosta was living in Compton then riding horses around.

805 Native, too. Yeah, he's from my town, too. They grew up there. She grew up in LA.

How did she do? Because generally, when you start like that, you're going to have some.

That's so tough. I ask her, and I think she blacked it out. She said she doesn't remember anything, really, until she got to LA. That's pretty much where her memory starts. She doesn't remember being in Korea.

You don't remember the specific memories, but I think you do hold I have a family situation a little bit similar, and they hold on an abandonment. You just see it continue to show up.

Well, that hardwires your brain in those six years. So whether you remember it or not, the brain has been hardwired to deal with that.

Exactly. My mom's a little different. She's a hustler. That's where I got the dog in me. I watched her just be her own boss and be real survival first and taking care of her fam, but just always working and always no excuses. My biggest critic, no fluff, from the music to everything. She was just my biggest hero.

How well did you You know your grandma and grandpa?

I didn't. They passed away when I was really young.

Oh, that's a bummer. They were probably pretty great if they were willing to adopt a kid from Korea. Yeah.

My grandpa was a pastor, and he was also in the military. My grandma was a big lieutenant, high-ranking in the military as well.

How did she end up in Oxnard? And what age did she go up there?

Oxnard has a big military base, Point Magou. My grandparents were out there. They did travel around. They were in LA. Then my grandpa retired in Oxnard, and that's where she moved. That's where she pretty much did her 20s, ended up having my two older sisters and eventually having me and my younger sister.

When did she meet your dad and how long were they together?

Yeah, she met my dad sometime in the '80s. My dad was also in the military. He was in the Air Force. My pops has his own crazy story. I'm pretty sure you're aware of. I'm not. There's a big article on my pops. His twin brother, they were twins from Philly, crazy twins. They used to do stuff like they snuck into the military. They used to go to prison for each other. Switch Identity. They used to talk about Freaky Friday. It was like that, but the hood version.

By the way, the worst is how you figure out who's serving time for another person.

That's crazy. Because my dad got in trouble. Like, Aren't you supposed to be in jail already? And it's like, No, my brother's in there. It was some crazy stuff. Oh, my God. They grew up in Philly. They It's a different type mentality. A house full of kids. Their dad just kicked them out once. They were like a teenager. He's like, I can't afford this. You guys figure it out. They grew up in the streets, and then they joined the military. He met my mom in Oxnard because he was stationed at the base, and they met at some club. My dad was actually in the process of being discharged for drugs. He had weed or something. He was getting discharged from the military, and she was going on the stand trying to help him, but it didn't work. He got kicked out the military. But they had me and my little sister in Oxnard.

And he was an addict? My dad was an addict, single mom, stepdad. I saw some gnarly shit. But what's interesting is I was thinking about your story is I was seeing a stranger hurt my mom, which was It's its own terribleness. But at the same time, I feel like it'd be more complex if I was seeing my dad hurt my mom, who I love. I hated this motherfucker, so that was fine.

Right. I was in denial as a kid. I remember seeing my mom getting beat, blood in the street, and I didn't want to believe that it was my dad. I was like, No, it was my uncle. He had a twin. I remember being like, No, it's not him. To my sister's, and we were all there, and we had to get out the house. That was the last time I saw my pops because he got sent to prison after that. But I remember just being like, No way. The memories I do have, and I was seven when he got locked up, but I really do remember him being around and he had classic cars and he was working on. He was cool. Yeah, he was really cool. My mom always says, You never down to I talked to him or anything. He was a perfect dad until he got caught up with the drugs. He couldn't beat it.

What was his drug of choice?

I think it was crack. Yeah, yeah. Which was so many people back then in the '80s. He was also an alcoholic and just a rough life. My mom tried to do everything she could with AA and all this stuff. He just couldn't beat it, and he had a lot of issues with that. So he went to prison for 14 years, something like that. And when he got out, I was in my early '20s. I was struggling as a musician trying to make it happen. He started reaching out again. And at first, I was like, I don't want to talk that, like a rudge with him. Last time I seen him, he was beating my mom to death, and I was like, I don't know. I don't want to do it. And then my sister was like, You might want to talk to him because I don't think he has to. He would leave messages on my voicemail, singing. He could tell he was dealing with time and having less of it. He was getting real religious. He was just telling me, I'm really proud of you, and I know you're a musician and everything. I was like, All right, I'm going to talk to him.

I'm glad it did. We got to talk, and he was telling me things like, I really wanted to be a musician, too. I had a group as well with my brothers, and we used to sing. I found out he had a little singing group, and he was on the gong show, and they won. Oh, no shit. Yeah.

Did they blast the gong on him?

Yeah. No, they actually won. Oh, they won.

Yeah.

I was in my early 20s, but now I'm 40.

Aren't you glad you got that? Yeah.

You get an understanding, especially as a man. When you're young, you see your parents as your parents, and they just can't do no wrong. But then you get older and like, Oh, they were adults trying to navigate through life.

Yeah, you expect them to have done it right. Yeah. I did a ton of repair with my dad before he died. At the time, I don't even know what was forcing me to do it because I didn't want to do all that. Now that I'm 12 years out from I tell people all the time, You got to do that for you because for the rest of your life, you did the right thing. That's the reward of it. You had the opportunity and you don't want to, but for eternity, you did the right thing. And then your kids get older and you're flawed and you go like, in the lens I was judging him through was so unfair. That's what I wrestle with now. It's just like, man, I fucking was so judgmental of him, and now I'm like, oh, I'm over that. Come back.

Yeah, straight up.

Let me try again.

Yeah, exactly.

It's hard though. Anger is an easier feeling sadness or heartbreak. So I think it's one thing when you're that age, it's easier to just be mad at him and put him in this box and like, yeah, that guy's fucked up. And then when you get the truth, and really it's sadness. It's he couldn't do this, and that's sad for all of us. That's a harder thing to sit with.

When you realize that they were little boys, too. They're just all little boys. We're all little boys. We're trying to act like...

The environments that they were in. I grew up in Ventura County, and my pops is in the trenches of North Philly in the '70s with crack and heroine, all this stuff. And just talking about the epitome of just trying to survive. And my mom, all this stuff. Each generation, because of what they've been through, you're blessed because they had to go through a lot of stuff that you didn't have to go through. And me, young in my 20s, I'm just like, I don't give a shit. I was trying to pay my own way. And I was like, later for this guy, he wasn't there. But now I'm 40 and I got my own kids. I'm like, wow, I can't get that time back. I'm glad I got to get a little bit of repair share with him and just talk to him, hear him out.

The thing that hit me recently is I was thinking of my dad as this individual person, and then I'm this individual person. Then I have these kids and I'm like, We're not individual. We're still one thing. I can feel the one thing. Then I have to acknowledge, I don't know if it ever stops. I think it's just this weird line, My dad was an iteration, and I got to improve a bit. Then hopefully this next iteration, but it's just iterations. It's this thing.

Like the iPhone.

Yeah. Yeah.

Some of them are shitty, some of them are better. That's right.

Two more cameras. But they're all up there.

You got to put a case on all of them, though, and just hope for the best.

It's true. But mom was a hustler, right? Mom got gifted a strawberry stand. Yes. That's bizarre. She made it something, yeah.

We're in Oxnard, and it's all agriculture. It ran off of strawberries, and you can grow everything out there. But my mom, she told me she was a piehead. She was going to community college. She didn't really know what she was going to do. She had My two older kids, my two older sisters, and one failed marriage with their dad. After my pop's in the prison, I had a stepdad.

We're going to thank him for the drum set.

We're going to thank him for the drum set. Thank him for being around. It was great. He came in, I was seven years old, and he was my pop's, but he was also an addict.

We're a good time until we're not.

Yeah, exactly.

You either love him or you don't.

Exactly.

They're easy to fall for. Yeah, exactly.

They had a good time.

Was the first husband also an addict? Yeah. Okay.

Sure. My mom married four addicts.

Crazy, too, because the first two husbands, they have the same name, too.

Yeah, my name. I got two Dave, my dad. Yeah, it's insane. My mom says if she met a Dave who's an addict, his next step was the fucking chapel. Yeah, there you go.

Straight up. Yeah, my mom has a type. So, yeah, he was cool. He did get me the drum set. He had his own issues. To go back, my mom did get gifted a strawberry stand from another entrepreneur that was in the city. His name was Buster, and he had restaurants and strawberry all the stuff. He's like, You're not doing nothing. Run this. He was her friend, and she just took it over, and she turned that into a multimillion dollar business. She was pretty much as a farmer. She started small and was delivering to local restaurants and everything, and then eventually got big and got investors, and then got in over her head, and then that's how she ended up in prison.

Well, here's the sad part, right? You're like, Wow, great.

I didn't know there was going to be that term. Don't get too happy. You didn't know either, probably.

The shoe will drop. Here's where the unfairness of this place is, which is like, you can have that hustle and you can grow and you can be so entrepreneurial. But if you don't have the parents that teach you about a tax lawyer, that's ultimately it, right? Tax evasion? That was it. And you were a senior?

Yeah. And so her and my stepdad were in the business together and stuff piled on. Then they were gambling and all this money owed.

Was she addicty at all or no? No.

My mom didn't smoke, didn't drink, doesn't curse. The opposite is the track. Diet Coke, but she just quit. I quit smoking, she quit Diet Coke. That's fine. We're both hanging in there.

She didn't need to quit Diet Coke. Go back on Diet Coke. It's a quality product. I needed something because she was on my top about the smoking.

I'm like, Look at you. You go a week without that crack. I was like, I can do it. And then she did it. And I was like, Oh, shit.

Weed or cigarettes? Both.

I was a spliff guy.

Oh, okay. You were mixing. Yeah, a mix of weed. How long you been off that?

A couple of hours. October. Yeah, exactly. Since noon. You're doing it all.

Since his lunch with the girl I discovered a black obsidian.

I'm getting the Stones now. I kicked that, finally.

How's the sleep?

Sleep's been great. The dreams have been real.

Dreams come back, right?

The dreams are vivid.

And now no booze. You're really just taking out all the fun. Yeah. Okay, wait, prison.

Yeah. So mom goes away. It's senior year?

Yeah, senior year. I get called in the office. It's all over the newspaper. Ventura County, not much happens. And so This was big news for the whole city. We took down. She owed millions. She owed a lot of people.

Well, hold on, though. It sounds like maybe gambling might be her advice.

Oh, that was it. That was big vice, gambling. They were good at it. They would go every weekend and take my friends like, You guys want to go to Caesars Palace? We'd be like 12 and having our own room buffet bar. They give us a little cards. Go see Carrot Top. Sure. We saw Carrot Top five times. Shout out Carrot Top. Come on, see Carrot Top. You're a Blue Man group.

You should probably I'm going to incorporate Carrot Top into a song.

That's my boy, Carrot Top. You got to be doing something right. Being that long in Vegas.

A couple of million smiles. Don't underestimate Carrot Top. Sure. Stay tuned. For more armchair experts. If you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking the pockets of your jeans before doing laundry, Classic oversight. That mystery clinking in the dryer? Yeah, that was your lip Balm's final moments. And somehow, there's always one random receipt in there to dissolve into confetti. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary, subject to terms, conditions, and availability, Allstate, North America Insurance Co and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. We are supported by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses, Monica, only use 20% of their data.

That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out.

Yeah, or paying for a coffee that's one-fifth full.

Yuck.

Point is, you miss a lot unless you use HubSpot. Their customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts, all that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. And when you get a full cup of coffee, you can do more, too. But I digress. Visit hubSpot. Com today. Okay, so you're making music in your room. You're a drummer first, right? That's what brings you to the party. You start in sixth grade, then the When a kid arrives, your stepdad, he wants to be a drummer, but he doesn't really fuck with it, and then you get into it. Then when do we start adding, I don't know what you get next, some equipment? Yes.

My older sister is 10 years older, so they're already out of college. I start playing in church. There's not a lot of Black people in the county, but that's where all of them are at. A lot of people come from the military, so they find churches. I grew up playing there, and it's like full-on gospel. I learned how to play gospel from 12 all the way till I could. I mean, that was my first job. I was getting paid. I played all the way to almost my 30s, and I learned so much just playing with me and an organist. Jereese Mitchell was the one that played organ. He taught me so much just about musicality. In church, it's not supposed to be about you. You're playing as a vessel and to provide a It's different than when I'm playing Coachella and it's like, Come on, you all. It's like, yeah, we're playing for church and you're playing for the choir. People are catching the spirit and stuff. I had to learn how to play behind, play pocket, is what they call it. Nothing flashy, play the groove. You play the groove, you play straight. If you slow down, you get embarrassed.

It was very strict. But it's the best musicians come out of church as singers, as you know. That was my schooling. I started there, and then my sister started dating this guy from New York, Willy. He was He was the first real person I met from Brooklyn, and he had dreams of being a rapper. He came out to LA to be a rapper, and he met my sister, and she was dating him. I just thought he was the coolest dude because I was in the hip hop. He was like, You don't know about Jay-Z? You don't know about Nas? What the hell are you doing? Ghostface.

Were you in the Guru and Jazz Mantez and all the music stuff?

No, I was into Snoop, Pop, Ice Cube, Lil Wayne, Nelly, very West Coast because we're on the West Coast. I grew up listening to Tupac and everything. It was very serious. When he died and everything was very much West Coast, Biggie, all that stuff. When he came, we were still dealing with the shockwaves, losing Tupac and all these rappers. He came, I just started high school and I was playing drums, and I was super Christian, too, because I didn't grow up in church.

Can I also add, and this is not to embarrass you, Brandon was chubby? Andy. No, he was Brandon then. Brandon was chubby and had braces.

He was Bubba.

He was Bubba Lovejoy, and he had braces.

It was 200 plus. Yeah. Yeah.

You needed a glow up.

I needed a glow up. I needed something, and I needed something fat.

Yeah, you needed a mentor to help.

Years before Ozempic. Yeah, it needed something. He was definitely there. He was the Brooklyn dude.

Because you were all girls all around. You didn't have a dude in your life.

Two older sisters, one little sister, sister, god's sisters. It was a house full of women all the time. Estragen Fest. Yeah, Estrogen fest. Yeah, estrogen fest. I had boobs, too. I was spitting right in.

Also, the 10-year-old older sister. That's this very specific dynamic. I have a little brother who's eight years younger than me. He just had two moms. One was meaner than the other. They're just all mean to you.

Exactly. Everyone's fighting. I'm just breaking up stuff. It was crazy. So he came through and he was like, Yo. And I was playing drums. I was like, I want to get into other stuff. I think I want to DJ. Back then, you could look at magazines, hit Source and all that stuff. And I was like, I want to DJ. I want to DJ my high school party stuff. And he knew how to DJ. Everything I brought up, he was like, Oh, I know. I do that. I teach you how to do that. I was playing drums and I would save up, I get my check from church, and my parents will always be like, Whatever you want, if you save half of it, we'll match it. Nice. Boom. I was like, I want turntables. I got turntables. That sparked everything. I got the turntables and I started getting records and crates. My brother-in-law was showing me how to scratch and mix and everything. Then I started DJing at the Boys & Girls Club, and I started DJing all my house parties in high school. After that, I was like, Now I want to make beats.

I want to make the stuff that I'm spinning. Would you get the 808? Yeah, so I got the MPC. I asked my brother-in-law, What should I do? And he's like, You got to get a MPC. I'm like, What the hell is that? We go in the guitar center book and it's right there. He's like, This is what Kanye, Timberland, Dre, this is what they all use.

How empowering to see that, wait, I can have the thing they're all using? It's not like this. It's only three grand, which should have been like 300,000 back then.

And these guys were really using it. And it was just like a brick of a machine. I didn't know how I was going to use it. I was going to learn. And he knew how to do it. He's like, you chop up the samples like this. I saved. They met me halfway. I got the MPC 2000, and that's when I started making beats. And my mom had a CD collection of old school stuff, and I would take her CDs, and that was it. I have my own studio in my room from high school on. I had my mixer and my MPC, and I started making beats. That's when I was like, Okay, I want to do this.

I want to add, not to get corny, but the democratization of sampling for musicians. I I can't remember. Who was it, Ronson, that made that multi-part history? It goes into just sampling. The power of sampling. These kids that can be in a bedroom and they don't have to have access to these instruments. You can have the whole world right there. It's so powerful, that breakthrough.

It's how a genre is created. Hip hop was created off that.

Isn't it crazy if you open the gates and let everyone in, how much shit explodes out of it?

It's insane. That just blows my mind that out of necessity, a whole genre, a whole culture is born with Kids that had nothing, and they just want to party. They want some release.

They want to regulate.

Yeah. We want to cope with all this shit that's going on. Let's just go to park and just vibe out. Taking ingenuity, we don't want this beat to ever stop. So how do we do that? Okay, let's take two of the records and make a loop. It doesn't have to end. That's insane to me.

We rarely feel good, so when we do, we don't want it to end.

We don't want this to ever stop. We don't want the party to stop. These things were not made to do that. That's pure ingenuity. We're going to do something that has never been done. That's so cool. From there, it births me. That's totally where I come from is watching hip hop, and I wanted to be that.

You've got the out in the woods section of your life, right? You got to graduate to trim and weed in Santa Barbara, to getting fired, to married, child. We should start with Venice. You decide, I'm going to do a whole album. That's first. How do How did you come to put that whole thing together? Because that predates Dre discovering you, right? So you do Venice first. You're just a hustler, right? You became a videographer and did all this work for Dumbbell.

Dumbfounded, yes. He was one of the guys that championed me early on. Moved to LA, and I was trying to support my family and really make it, and he was already doing it. He was taking his YouTube following and was killing it and transitioned over to being his own artist and was showing me how to be an independent artist. He was like, You don't need to label. I got the platform. I'm I'm making my own merch. I'm going viral. All these new things to me.

I bring up that point in your life because I think a lot of people want to be a genius and get discovered. But Monica started as a babysitter at our house, and now she has the house across the street. You got to figure out, you got to see whatever thing can be done for someone who can help and fucking humble yourself and do it. That's why I want people to know that little part of the story.

That's an awesome trait. I've heard Issa Rae talk about this. Instead of looking up, just look side of you. Sometimes it's the people right there. Yeah, there's geniuses all around you.

They just haven't been anointed yet.

Yeah. So as I get older, I'm very much into that. A huge part of my content, my triple player, everybody. So that's awesome.

Sometimes I'm looking around at people who are so upset with their life. I don't have a job. I'm like, There's a job right there. Just go do it.

I think the step is like, obscurity and then massive success. There's no in this way.

That's not how it works. But I was thinking that, too, though. When my parents got put to prison, I was 17. Before that, I was like, I'm getting signed. I was on that trajectory. I was like, I'm making beats. I'm going to be signed as Jay-Z. There's no reason why I'm not. I'm killing it. I'm young. I'm gorgeous. Yeah, I'm gorgeous. Just look at the smile. You know what I'm saying? Who's going to deny this? And the whole world turned upside down. People were like, Get a job, kid. I was like, Oh, shit. I'm not signed and I'm 18. I guess I didn't make it. It's over. It's over for me. I'm going to get a job. And that's what I did. I just sold my shit and it was like, I'm just going to work. And so by the time I met Jay-Z, I had a kid. I was like 21 or something. I had so much going on, but I was humbled so much that I was like, Hey, this guy is so cool. He's giving me a chance. I want to work with him. I'm going to be his hype man. I was like his flavor, flavor to his audience.

And he I just did shows for thousands of Asian kids, and I had never really even paid attention to Asian people for that. I'm Korean, but we didn't grow up Korean. I grew up Black. I didn't know what biracial was, none of that stuff. When the cops see me, they see Black. That was always what my parents said. When I met him, he introduced me to all this stuff, and I was like, Oh, yeah, I'm Korean, too. It became exotic.

I'm Korean as fuck.

Yeah, I'm Korean. Now we're trending hard. So I'm like, Yeah, they're claiming me and everything. I'm getting awards. But he brought me into all that world. He reached out, and that's when I went from the transition from Breezy Lovejoy, that's what I was all through high school and everything, to, Okay, I'm going to go by Anderson Park, which is just my last name and my middle name.

And your middle name is really Park.

Yes.

So people be in comments going, You're saying his name wrong. It's like, we can go both ways. Let's clear that up.

My old manager, that was his whole shtick. He was like, say it's packed, but people will argue and you want people to talk. Oh my God. They don't know if it's packed or Park and all this stuff. It'll be like, they're going off your group. You want the conversation to flow. I was like, what the hell?

Humans are so obvious.

I know, and yet no one capitalizes on it.

Yeah, they are. There's people that study them. They're like, Yeah, this is going to work.

This is what they do. That's what AI can do. It can passionately just look at us and go like, Well, here's a pattern. It doesn't get bogged down on your own. No, it doesn't. I guess what I want to say about Venice, though, is what's obvious is you're already somehow comfortable. You have to be comfortable with... You're availing yourself to help a lot because you're getting a ton of people to work with you. But maybe you didn't warrant yet. Would you say that you assembled a lot of people for that?

Yeah, but honestly, everybody was coming up back then, and it was just timing. I didn't have no buzz or anything, but some of the people that were buzzie-er and were working on that project, it was a good time because a lot of people were coming out of the beat scene, the SoundCloud scene, and there wasn't really a vocalist to pair with these beats that were going on. All we wanted was like, Yeah, get some views on SoundCloud, Spotify. None of that shit mattered to us. Back then, there was a place called Lo & Theory, where they had the best sound system. People like Gaslamp and Flying Lotus, they would all be there DJing at the eyeliner, and every night, that would be the spot. And so if they played your shit- That was the win. The epitome of getting a Grammy. We were making music to be played that sound system. That's very much what Venice was. I had songs for Malibu, I had the Bird, I had all that stuff. But when I was hanging in this scene, I was like, damn, I want bangers. I want something that go viral on SoundCloud. And then that's how I met with the producer, Low Def, and I met with people like Taku and Toki Monsters, a bunch of people on there that were big in the beat scene.

That's where I was headed towards. One of the songs that we did was a song called Drugs, where I'm experimenting with auto-tune and 808s.

I had a question about drugs. It seems to me that it's about that false intimacy of MDMA.

Yeah, she don't give a fuck. She don't like me. When we have drugs, she'll be my wifey.

Yeah. It is. It's funny, too, because you go like, Yeah, it's fake. But then now I'm also older and I'm like, But nothing's fake.

Ignorance is bliss.

Yeah, nothing's fake. It can be real for five hours.

Yeah, it was very much real.

But also the drug of Fame could be replaced in that, too. It's the exact same thing.

Sure. Absolutely.

Yeah, I was having a lot of fun with That was one of the first time I ever got in a studio and played with autotune. It was by a mistake, the producer left it on. I was like, This is great.

At that moment, had you figured out yet what you were going to bet on? Because you have a lot of things you could be doubling down on. You don't know if it's going to be your voice. You don't know if it's your drumming and musicality. You don't know if it's your beats and creativity, if it's your lyrics. I think now, I was watching you and Quest Love Talk, and the way he described your voice had to be so fucking flattering. Yeah. He's just like, It is the voice we have. It has the most texture and the most everything in it, the whole story, the whole Black story is in this rasp. Now we know that, but then did you know that? What did you think then?

I was trying to find it. I was very much just doing any and everything. Me playing drums and performing, I didn't even know that was going to be a thing.

I'd say that's the second thing that's most appealing about you.

Yeah, all these things. We were just trying to find it. We were playing all over LA, and people didn't give a shit. It was like we were just trying to get something to stick. Like I said, we found this little scene and this pocket with the beat scene and stuff, and I was like, Okay, they're fucking what is it?

I'm going to compliment you and say that's how fucking talented and versatile you are. Even if you find this little pocket for five minutes, you figure out how to make it work in that Yeah, and I was always a person that was thinking a few years ahead.

So I was always saving songs. I was like, These are good, but I know we don't have the audience yet, so I'm not going to blow it. Actually, I'm going to make my albums locations because I want to to be able to put these batches of songs over here.

Comparimentalize the whole thing.

Comparimentalize them. Very much like that. Still, even with all my sidequests and all this stuff, it's because I want a place to put all these songs and stuff, so I need to posture them right.

Well, all the facets to you.

Yeah, exactly.

There's like a hundred facets. So that's this facet, not this.

I want it. There's a guy that wants to do the deep folky stuff. There's also the guy that wants to do MDMA and have something for that, too. And I hate not having it. I want a banger, too. But I also want the deep stuff and the sad. So I was very much like that. But on Venice, I was trying to find it. And it really wasn't until a few years later when I met knowledge and started working with him that I found that raspier tone.

Smooth as a motherfucker, swayed on the inside. Do you remember I sent you a video of my then-eight-year-old daughter singing that in the back seat? Do you remember that? I sent you a video. She knows it's fucking beginning to end. That's so cute.

I call you a bitch.

It's because you're my bitch. Yeah, loud as baby. As long as you're no one else. Call you bitch, then there won't be no problem in this.

Walk with me now. How was your mental state? I'm trying to get a question.

I call you a trick. It's because you pay rent.

I call you a trick.

As long as you don't come up short, then there won't be no problem in this.

Switch to my mental state. Okay, you just seem very happy. You have a happy disposition, and it's really lovely. It might be the smile. I have the theme.

It's the smile.

Is that your disposition? Or during that time, were you struggling? Yeah. Is it a mask?

Part of it is probably a tick.

It was survival where you were at.

It was.

Because if you tried to be hard, you were going to get tested. Exactly.

I'm a people please around, I'm like a host. I can feel it. It hurts me when people are embarrassed or something don't feel right. I wish I could be one of those. Don't give a fuck.

Show her your hard face. You did your hard face. Look at his hard face. He goes, I can't even do it because my teeth don't fit on my mouth.

Very soft, hard face. It's a way of physical. It just doesn't work. I always tend to hang with people that just don't give a fuck because I really admire that. But I'm very much like, Don't say, Come on. Why are you going to say that? I think a lot of that is that. And yeah, also, too, just big ass teeth. They're hard to keep the way. But Nori actually said something, too. It's like, someone that smiles like that, they must be trying to protect their peace. And I think that's probably a big part of it, too.

In the time when your mom had to go to prison and you're struggling and you're having all these jobs, I imagine... I mean, I don't know. Maybe you are just a really optimistic person. Maybe you looked at all that. It's just like, Oh, it's fine. It's going to be fine. Or were you like, fuck.

Yeah, I went into a completely, I don't know if it's depression or whatnot, but I quit everything I was doing. Before that, I was real optimistic. I thought I was going to get sign on stuff, and I went completely. I was like, punk. Stopped listening to hip hop. I did try to get signed and stuff and got really discouraged because the meetings I did have, they were like, cool, but we want to sound more like this. And I was just like, oh, it's not what I thought it was going to be. And I got rejected.

Well, your lane didn't really exist in their defense. They didn't I don't know how we're marking this. Is he RM? Is he sold?

What do you do? And I was like, Okay, whatever. I'm done with this. And parents were locked up. It was broke.

Did you feel guilty about... So when you said earlier, your parents matched your money, which I think is a beautiful thing. I can imagine that if then they had to go to prison because of money stuff, I would be like, why did you give me all this money if you didn't have any? Did you have any guilt around that?

Yeah. We were all really spoiled coming up. Even my older sisters, we didn't know what was going on until it happened. Our world got turned upside down. Before that, we were living in mansions. My folks took care of my older sisters and their husband, everything, and everybody was taken care of. And then the rug got swept up under us. And so it was a rude waking for us. I was just like, Why God? Why us? My mom wasn't a criminal. I was just thinking the worst things could be happening to her in prison and stuff. I was just like, This is terrible. I was just dealing with that. Then on top of that, I was so broke. I couldn't pay attention. My license would get suspended because I couldn't pay for parking tickets and all that stuff. Then I couldn't go visit my mom because you need a license and all this stuff. It was just a lot of the guilt and shame. I wanted to be doing better when I visit her. She's like, So what's new? I was like, I'm selling weed.

I'm doing about as much as you're doing sitting here in prison. We got about the same productivity level. But I got no excuse. We made about the same amount of money this year.

No, it's so sad. That is sex.

Holy shit.

You're promoting Venice and you're on Sway, and that's where Dre hears you. Is that a parkerful?

I'm doing Venice, and Venice has got a bunch of different styles on it. We were trying to get to Dre's ear when I had Venice, but he wasn't feeling it at the time. I did go on Sway and do some stuff. My style, it wasn't cohesive back then. It was like I would have a song with out-of-tune, then I would have a future funk song, then I would have House. It was all over the place. Then I met This producer through Twitter, again, and he had remixed one of the songs that I had out. It was actually a Breazy Lovejoy song that I had out before Venice, from my mixtape, PYP. He had that remix. He was another kid that was in the beat scene and was doing remixes. I was a big fan of him. He was big on Bandcamp. So he was like, again, another indie thing, wasn't doing the whole streaming thing. He was straight, direct to his fans, making money that way. I was buying all his stuff from Bandcamp, and then he reached out and I was like, Oh, sick. Back then, it was the equivalent of getting hit up by Dre.

I was a big fan of him as well. He was like, Let's work. He sent me 100 beats. Swade was one of those beats, and I was recording at DumbFoundet Studio that he let me use. That's when I wrote that song. I remember after I wrote it, it was like the course. It's like, If I call you a bitch, it's because you're my bitch. As long as someone else call you a bitch, then it won't be no problems. If I call you a trick, it's because you're my bitch. Because you paid rent.

You need me to remind you. Yeah, exactly.

It's been a minute. It was a little on the fence about this song. Is this too much? His music put me in this pimp from Mississippi and this Blacksvoitation feel. It brought out that gritty tone that I had been flirting with.

Do you know Van Hunt? Yeah. I was a huge Van Hunt fan. To me, when I heard that, I was like, Oh, it's got that Van Han.

People used to always be like, You and Van. I really leaned into that with his production. We got signed to Stone's Door as a duo, and they put Suede out. That was the first single, and then that was making its rounds. Everyone was like, That song is impossible. You're that kid, that's the Suede. I was like, Cool, this is happening. That was my first deal. It was what a group, but I was like, Hey, at least I'm signed. That made its way to Dre. That song got to Dre's ears through his writers that he was working with at the time, which ended up being Compton. But he was working with these writers, Mez and JT, and they were like, Come to the studio, Dre wants to meet you. I almost didn't go because I didn't think it was legit. Back then, everybody would be saying Dre wants to work because it was detox. For years, this mythical album that never came out was a thing that everyone was working on. At that time, I was like, I'm doing my own thing. I'm not a writer for other people. I'm not going to do it.

All the fear talking.

Yeah, all the fear talk.

Well, you can create a really compelling reason. You can buy into it. Exactly. You can buy into it. It's like it's logically sound. You can trick yourself, and you're just scared of shit. I was. Because your hero just invited you over.

Top of the tops. Number one, that's the top. I had put it out my mind that I would even meet him. Then when they said, he wants to meet you, this and that, I was like, no. Then they beg me, and I went and I met him, and I was like, whoa, he's 10-foot tall.

For the listener, he just pointed at me. That was nice.

He's like, you, a giant amongst men.

That was great. No, I mean, the listening to him.

You could just let that go. Met him in DOC, and they're just chilling. I go in the studio, I meet the writers. They're like, We love suede. I'm like, Cool. Let's work. They're like, We want Dre to hear the song. I'm like, He hasn't heard it yet? They're like, No. I'm like, Okay, well, maybe I want to get kicked out. What if he didn't like it?

I can imagine the anxiety of the situation. You're in the room while he's listening to it. Do you look at him or do you look somewhere else and try to peep him out the corner of your eye?

I was looking at his feet. I looked at his feet. That's why I realized he wear the same shoes every day. He was white Air Force ones. I was like, Yeah, that's crazy. That's Dre's fit. Yeah. He's blasting it. I look up and he's like, Play it again. Then he goes like this. Double thumbs up. Double thumbs up. He's like, Let's work. That's gangsta.

Amazing. Do you really play that ever in your mind? All the time. You do? Yeah.

All the time.

There's these little moments, right? And they're generally, I think before you made it. And they don't really get better. Yeah, they don't. I got to imagine that's got to be close to the pinnacle.

It was the hugest thing. And they were like, Don't tell anyone about this. And I mean, I told everybody as soon as I left. He was in the Air Forces. He was banging my shit. He loved it to play it twelve times. I'm on. Double thumbs up. Don't talk to me. I'm on, bro. He's letting you know we're done.

There's a new me. There's a new me. And it don't include you.

I changed a lot. I was on top of the world, and they just kept inviting me back.

You ended up on six tracks.

I ended up on six tracks. I would have never thought Dre would have put his album out before I did. I had Venice out before that, and then he put out Compton. Then I was just on a rocket after that. Everyone was like, Who's this kid? Before that, I couldn't buy a deal. Everyone was like, Yeah, it's Dre's guy. I wasn't signed still. I had Malibu in the oven.

That didn't come out on Aftermath, though, right? No. He let you put that out even though he was about to sign you.

Yeah. He was doing his thing. He was very busy with the movie and with everything. They had just did the Apple deal. After that, I was just starting the tour and stuff. I was taking meetings and everything, but I knew in my heart, I'm not going to sign anybody else unless Dre gave me the chance. I'm going to go with him. But yeah, he was taking his time. I was like, Okay, I'm going to put this album out indie with the same people I did. It was really a blessing because now I got those masters, and that album really changed everything for me.

So fucking good, that album. Now you get a lot of critical acclaim off of Malibu. Dreamers on Malibu, which I just love. I already told you how powerful that is. Then this other magical thing happens, which is in promotion of Malibu, you do Tiny Desk. For anyone who's not seen this Tiny Desk, it is the best of the Tiny Desk. There are some good ones, but this- I've probably viewed it 200 times, and I just want to watch the beginning.

Oh, no. We're making him watch a thing that even-Oh, no.

He knows he looks cute in this. Fuck you. Look at this guy.

They did me a real solid because they started tight and then they back up and they're like, he's on the drums. You don't see it. I think that was huge.

What's with the cloth over the snare? What's happening?

That's the dampening. Snare could be really loud, especially in a room like that.

Because I'm going to argue this is where the second thing, which is you playing drums.

Yeah.

Because now we go, this guy's a real Musician. This is so '70s. And these are your free nationals?

These are my brothers. We have been playing 15 years plus.

That's a fucking great album, the free nationals album.

Yeah. It's amazing.

That happens, and what happens post Tiny Desk?

That was our first viral thing. Probably to date, my biggest thing. It's crazy, too, because before that, we spent thousands on these big promotional things, and the biggest thing is just us playing in the office.

Tiny Desk really has the power to do it. I feel like so many people get seen on a grand scale with that.

And timing. Tiny Desk was still a baby, too. I wanted to do Tiny Desk, and I was telling my PR at the time. I was like, I want to do Tiny Desk. They were like, What? The thing that made me want to do it was I saw T-Pane do it. It went crazy for him, too, because that was a performance that he did without the auto-tune. People were like, He could really sing. I was like, This could be cool for us to just play because we were very much... You needed to see us live to believe it. We had been playing in clubs and all this stuff, and we were trying to tour and all this stuff, but they didn't know what we were. I would tell people, We're a band. We're like the Chili Peppers. The music is all over the place, but once you see us, we're really just like a band, and we're a rock band. And so this really made it plain. And I didn't really even know how big the drumming and performing thing was until this. I was playing drums and it came out of necessity. I would rather not.

It's really tough. But my band was really spoiled, and we're all spoiled. I'm a drummer, and we couldn't keep a drummer. All the good drumbers that we had, they would all get gigs. They played with us for a little bit, then they're all playing for whoever. And so I'm like, Fuck it, I'll play. I would want to be frontman, like do stuff.

You want to dance around?

Yeah, I want to dance around. I'm like, Sweaty, and we're playing all these clubs, and they're like, whatever. After this, I was like, Oh, I'm staying on the drums.

When you perform now, how often are you on the drums?

Half and half. I have a drummer that plays, too.

Well, now you can afford the-Yeah, you can afford different things.

It's like, You're going to stay now.

I know, but now people want to see you on the drum. Exactly. That's a different thing.

It's a whole thing. I got to keep it up. You got to keep it going or else you get rusty. It's tough, man. But yeah, it was huge, and I didn't know it was going to be huge. We were I'm dreading it.

We've been interviewing a lot of musicians lately, and we've had a couple. Luke Holmes had this moment. Chris Stapleton had this moment. These award shows can be that moment where it's like Carson in the '80s. If you're a stand-up, you crush, you get a sitcom literally Monday. For musicians, it's these little sparks. I see that tiny desk, and I think, Van Hunt should have been you. He should have had a ride like yours, but he didn't have a tiny desk or he didn't have the award show. It's like the music was fucking there. It's crazy how precarious all this is, isn't it?

Timing. It's so crazy because we easily could have canceled that, too. I woke up, hung over. I forgot that. I was like, Who fucked booked this? And they're like, You did.

Remember, you were begging us to do- I'm fucking hung over.

I'm not going to do this playing in the office at 11: 00 AM. I sound I'm like, Shit.

An NPR, too. Yeah, an NPR who watches that? It's the whitest thing in the world.

We don't have to do this. You don't have to listen to everything. Get me an aspirin. Yeah, exactly. But we did it, and thank God because it changed our lives. And after that, we were just, boom, every festival.

And you got music in an Apple commercial. You got music in huge video games, these IP video games. So now you're starting to make money. So what does Anderson do with some money?

I got my mom house. That was the first thing. My mom gets out of prison, and each year it was getting better. But that was my main thing. Taking care of my fam. My wife at the time was from Korea. She was a full-time mom. I had a little kid at the time. I was all about, I just want to pay my bills. I want insurance. I want a car.

What was the What's the first car you bought?

Bmw i8. The first fancy one. That's right. It was the one with the doors lift up. It looks like a Back to the Future car. It was really cool. They stopped making them. I thought it was one of the sexiest, coolest cars. It was.

No one bought those.

Super not practical for having a family and stuff. You run over one pothole and it's finished. But man, it was like a hybrid. It was so cool. Butterfly doors. I was like, I made it.

Yeah, made that on the cover of Oxnard. Yeah.

But yeah, I was just doing things like that. I got my family family into a proper place and got my mom a place. I was like, Mom, I got some money. Where are you going to live? And she was like, Atlanta. I was like, Thank God. Yeah, it was cheap.

Yeah. I think that's right. I'll get you went to 3,000, 4,000 square feet. Two of those.

Let's do that.

We got a hit on Silk Sonic. How do you and Bruno come to know each other?

We met not too soon after that. In 2016, he asked me to open up for his 24 Carat. Oh, wow.

Yeah, a tour. So like stadium tours?

Stadium. We were just on top of the world.

You were like, I can get used to this.

Were you or were you like, Oh, shit. Were you intimidated or were you just like, We got this?

This kid was born to shop.

I know. I know.

It was born, but there was a learning curve. We came from the festival scene, and then we got into his world, Life on Mars, and We learned quick that a stadium arena show is different than a festival or an intimate club. There's different things that don't translate. We learned a lot from him and how he put together his show. He took us out for 30 dates, and it was in Europe. Also, we learned about stealing fans. No one's coming to see you, bro. As big as you think you are-They're hoping you wrap it up quick.

Exactly.

You're up there to steal fans. People should be like, Well, that opener was great. We learned how to put together a good show. That showcased what we could do and was high energy, and that translated to a big audience. During that time, I got to really hang with him and get to know him. He's the one that studies it. He studies the greats like Prince and Elvis and all these dudes that know how they look.

Yeah, he knows. He's mastered it. It's working. Did you pick some shit up for him?

I picked some of that up, too, because, again, I was all vibes. I just go with the flow. I'm more hippie vibes. He's like, You got to know your angles. You got to know when to do this. He also was a dude that was, after my own heart, was very band-oriented, leans a lot with his group, very much so one of the greatest entertainers, man. He taught me a lot about it's about having a real handle on your artistry and not putting it in the hands of other people, directing your own vids, doing your own choreo, putting together your own show. Like you said, this is stuff that we could do. It's just tapping into what we can do and making it sexy for us. Who are we? I learned a lot from him with that.

What do you think he was yearning for that he saw you were going to give him?

I think both of us needed a friend. At the time, when we linked back up with each other during COVID, we needed answers. We're both workaholics and everything shut down. We couldn't do the things that we were used to doing. He doesn't have kids. I had kids. I was getting really inspired by them. Before that, I was always on the road, and now I'm just like, When my kids, and I'm Oh, you want to be a YouTuber? Okay. I'm realizing how talented my son is.

Soul Rachid.

What do you calling him? Soul Rachid. What are you calling him? I call him Soul Rachid because I was like, You don't want to get the nepotism thing. You'll think me later. Exactly. But yeah, Soleil, Solito. I gave them Black Muslim middle names because I was like, Their mom got the name Soul and Shine. I'm like, They're going to know it's Black, too. Rachid and Tareek. I don't know why.

You're like, It's really important to me all of a sudden.

Yeah, exactly.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare. I'm going to bore you with my experience of the Super Bowl halftime show. So generally, we all go to our friend has a party. And for whatever reason that year, 2022, I don't know why, I decided I wasn't going. And I was downstairs watching it by myself in the theater room. And that halftime show starts, and I am getting completely overwhelmed with, again, the chip on my shoulder is like, I'm white trash. People think I'm shit. I'm watching these dudes in the shadow of where they grew up, owning the entire world. M&m's here all of a sudden from Detroit, who's from where I'm from. When my wife comes down, I'm crying. They were burning those CDs, and Tipper Gore was trying to get rid of them, and the whole government in the US, they were ruining America. What a come up. Fuck, it's for every white trash, poor black, whatever. That was, No, motherfuckers, we're going to win because we got that.

Yes, right.

And so I'm already in that state. You're already my number one. And when they fucking pan over and I see, That motherfucker has been playing the drums on this with that smile. I screamed out loud. I was like, Honey, that motherfucker's back is playing the drums.

I'll lose yourself, M&M. I'm just like, Coming up on the list.

That's so cool. Oh, my God.

I've never had a moment watching TV in my whole life that compares to that fucking moment. I've watched that a thousand times. I mean, for you to come out of the fucking ground. So I was so excited to learn that you weren't supposed to be there. So tell everyone how you got there.

It got announced that Dre was doing the Super Bowl, and this whole trailer came out. They're all looking like the Avengers. My mom's like, Why aren't you on there? You're signing in, too. That's right. I'm like, Mom, I can fix this. Hold on. I'm pretty sure there's going to be another trailer out.

Don't worry. That's just the first one.

Relax. Everyone relax.

They don't show Aquaman in the first trailer. Exactly.

I'm at the end credits. You know that's the most... I hit Dre, I'm like, Dre, what the fuck? I'm signed to you, too. You probably forgot. I'm not as huge as like some of you, others that came before. But what's up, man? Can I hold a symbol or something? I got some ideas. I'm going to see what's up. And I was like, Well, cool. While you're doing that, I'm going to make my own poster and put myself on there. I got a guy that's really good with Photoshop. It's no rush, but I'm going to just get ahead of this.

I'm going to take this part into my own hands. The marketing part.

Yeah, take some liberties. I made my own poster, photoshop myself in there. You really did do it? Yeah, I did. I was like, Boom, put it up.

That's amazing.

The next couple of days, Dre calls me. He's like, What do you think about playing for Marshall, for lose yourself on the drums? I was like, Yeah, let's do that.

I think that'll work for me.

I think that'll work just fine.

There's a great behind-the-scenes that I learned in one of the 80 interviews I watched. Andy has his in-ears in, right? You're panicked.

Biggest gig of my life.

Immediately before it starts, we are three seconds out from show time. What do you hear in the in-ers?

I hear Snoop Dogg I asked Dr. Dre, Hey, because is it La-di-da-di-da or da-di-da-di-da? Five, four, three, two, one. I just hear Dre go, What the fuck? That was it.

La-di-da-di-da. You're gone.

You go to stage.

Oh, my God.

Was that a little comforting, though? It was. I bet it was like, Oh, good. He don't know he's doing it either.

No one does.

That's incredible.

This is everyone's biggest gig of their life.

I know, but that's the thing about him. He doesn't have a biggest gig, and that's why he's so cool.

Snoop was going to do bar mitzvah probably that same day. Exactly. He doesn't care. Down the street. He's a big inspiration, too. Just do it, man. You never know what's going to happen.

Now, I learned this when we interviewed Leon Bridges, who, again, couldn't be a big a fan of Leon Bridges. What a dude. And you directed Motorbike. Was that the first thing you directed? How did we get into directing?

My son in COVID, he wanted to be YouTuber, and I was stuck in the house. I'm like, Okay, let's see. He had no subscribers. So I was like, Let's juice it. Come on, Let's figure out. Utilize your dad. You know what I'm saying? Let's do some skits. I start doing skits and I get more into it than he is. I'm like, Oh, my God, this is great. When I was younger, I used to do home videos all the time. My sister, in high school, I was into video editing. I went to a technology school, Magnet School. One of the electives was video editing. It was a whole world that I was obsessed with. I used to love editing and making my own videos and doing all that stuff. When I got with my son in COVID, it brought all that back. Got my laptop out and I was like, Dude, let's do some funny skits. I would be up all night to post. He inspired me to write a script, and I wanted to do a movie, and I knew that I needed some experience. I needed some time on set working and learning the language, to even get a so that people would fund it.

I was watching all this stuff and I was like, okay, the movies that I like, 9 times out of 10, it's like they wrote it themselves and they just did it themselves. I grew up on watching Ice Cube Friday and Spike Lee, all these stuff. They just took it in their own hands. Again, they worked with the people next to them. I was like, cool, I'm going to just do that, but I need some experience. I was like, I'm going to do a bunch of music videos. I want to get 10, 15 music videos. I told my team, I was like, anybody who's down to let me direct, I'll send treatments and let them know I'm Chris, and Leon was one of the first people. I was working with a really talented DP who showed me a lot, showed me the ropes, Tequila. We put together a treatment where we want to do film. I was like, I want to do narrative music videos because eventually I want to do a movie This is all to help me get experience with that. Leon was down, and Leon was great. I had this whole narrative. I'm like, At the end, you're going to get shot in the gut.

He was just down. He was such a sweet guy. Oh, he's so sweet.

He needs to be protected.

I was like, We're going make you a sex symbol, and I want you to be with the girl making out and all this stuff. He was so shy, and I had to switch some stuff up.

He's very shy. That's his best song. We had him on. Yeah.

He was great, but that's how I got into directing.

Okay, and now you've written this script.

Co-wrote it with another talented writer, Kayla Amazon.

Okay, how did you meet her?

I met her through the production team, Stampead, who gave me the initial funding for this idea I had called K-Pops, where I'm like a washed-up musician that finds out his son could be the next K-Pop star. Oh, fun. It was totally inspired by my son. In the house, my ex-wife, now, they were obsessed with K-pop, and everyone was going crazy. I was the outside guy looking in hip hop like, Well, you need to know about Tupac as well. They were just like, Screw you. They were like, We're Korean. I was like, Oh, this could be funny. The disgruntled, salty musician that gradually has to go into this K-pop world but ends up finding out he has a son.

He takes a job as a drummer on this competition show in Korea. When he gets there, he meets this little kid who's your real son, which is incredible. He's dangerous.

He's 2. 0. He's killing it. He's bilingual. I took it to them and they were like, We love it. They were like, We'll give you the money for it. I was like, Wait, serious? It was the toughest thing I ever did.

How about leading up to day one of production?

I almost didn't do it. I tried to weasel out of it. I'm in over my head. I'm a Sham. I'm going to get exposed.

I turned my way into this situation. Exactly. And now we're fucked because I don't have the goods.

Chickens have come to roosh. I owe a lot of people. It's so stressful. And I got my family involved now. I got my son. Everyone's looking at me. This is the crazy part. It was like the strikes were happening. I was about to use that. I'm like, You know the strikes?

Yeah, again, you start building the bullshit story, and it's just sounding better and better. We tried. This is logical.

I want to do it. I don't want to be a prick. Come on. I'm on a picket line.

I can't I'm not going to do it.

I'd love to. I love to.

I'd kill to. They won't let me. Morally.

I remember talking to my son. I'm like, Do you even want to do it? Because that's the other thing.

I'm hoping maybe he can pull the fork for you. You tell me you don't want to do it. You don't even You got to do this, kid. My son's my number one priority. Yeah, exactly. Why son doesn't want to do this? We're all so full of shit.

Yeah, dude. I was going to pull that one.

He's a child.

He wants to be a kid. Let him be a kid. I better fucking do this. You had me in acting classes for a year straight. Coriola, I'm like, Shit.

The leap is just like, just start the thing. For everything. There's really no space for the fear. Yeah.

As soon as I got on set. I was like, This is the greatest. Oh, good. Yeah. I was waking up every morning. You got to be the first one on set and the last one-off. I got to learn so much, and my team was the best. My DP was an old-school dude that comes from TV. He had been wanting do something with music, and this was his first real film that he got to do. He was on the set of, not MASH, but those shows. Oh, wow. Yeah. Everyone was rooting for me.

He's 106. He's 106.

He had to take nap, right?

He did die. He did die in the middle. Yeah, he's no longer with us. He would have wanted it this way. But A Camara knew the vision. A Camara stepped up. Exactly.

You're my A now, all right?

He would have wanted it this way. You were in a cam yesterday.

You're the DP Look who's got a promotion.

Where did you shoot?

I shot on Rafford. I shot in Ktown. I shot in Korea.

Is the record shop in the alley here or there?

It's there.

That felt real.

You saw the film.

I watched it last night.

Oh, my God. What did you think?

I loved it. You know why I loved it? If you can go, I got the thing in my head out onto the screen in the exact way I wanted to. That's the victory of a lifetime. I'm watching your movie and I'm like, This is Anderson Pax. Yeah. This is Anderson Pax soul. It's wall to wall music. It's dancing. It's so fun. There's so much love for your kid in it. Everything that is you is on the screen. And I was like, what an accomplishment for him for his first thing to have gotten his soul out in such a palpable and tangible way. So it's a huge victory. It made me so happy. The exact same way your music makes me and watching you play drums makes me. It's another little domain that you executed who you are. Which is hard to do. Very hard. I hope you feel that when you watch it. Like, Oh, I did the thing. My spirit is there. That's awesome. Yeah, the music was that part easier for you or also was very challenging?

It was tough. I mean, doing needle drops, I was having a ball. Sure.

Yeah, that's the fun part.

Until they had to tell me how much it cost. I was like, Let's just use my stuff.

But you got some favors, I think. I was listening to the needle drops and I was like, That's an expensive song.

I don't know what version you saw, but Up until recently, I had to fucking update. Some of them are cooked in there. We can't. But it was like, oh, man, shit cost. But that's the thing. You learn every time. If it's important for you, if you want needle drops, that has to be a very important thing for the budget. Now I know now, going in.

Yeah. And you can get married and it can be the scene.

You can. A lot of the scenes, I'm thinking about the music first. I'm making the scene based off the song that I know I want to use. I'm very much making movies like how I make an album. So that's one thing I learned. But the scoring is a whole different The first I got to score, she's like a prodigy. She was like 12.

One of the soul Rachid's friends? Yeah.

Who's that little prodigy kid?

Who's your girlfriend?

I'm pretty sure she can do it. She had a violin. Don't bring that. She's like a virtual and I don't know how to speak the language. I'm like, Can you just make it happier, darker here, make it blue? I don't fucking know. The score will make it break a scene, especially for the more emotional points that I wanted it to be cheesy.

You're dancing this fucking line where it's like, I need the emotion, but I don't want to be caught manipulating.

Exactly. I don't want to tell them how to feel. But then also it's like, we're not making these deep, ethereal things either. I want to feel good, warm family. This is a family movie. When my mom and my sister is going to watch it, I love those Sundance Deep Oscar things, but I'm always the odd man out wanting to watch that shit. Then my sisters are like, What the fuck is this?

Can we watch Zutopia?

Yeah, exactly. Put on Tyler Perry, bro. It's just walking that fine line.

The thing it reminded me the most of is Pitch Perfect, weirdly.

I love Pitch Perfect.

I don't know why that just kept coming up because everyone in the cast is young and they're hungry and they're cute and just learning to dance and learning to sing. School of Rock.

That was Yeah. That's everyone's favorite movie. Movie Bible, Sing Street, and stuff like that.

I assume you feel an extra pressure with the music because you're like, people are also going to be looking extra hard at the music because it's me. That's annoying, too.

My DP was like, they're going to be on your ass about directing acting. No one's going to cut you any slack. The most you could do is just make it you. That's why I'm really happy that I was a part of the writing. Honestly, it wasn't a stretch to play the character. I'm playing pretty much myself, but a watch it version, which is really fun. I love the self-deprecating shit.

I was like, Oh, my God, he's so fucking natural. And then your son is so goddamn natural.

That's who I was like, right in the co-tell of. That was the whole point. I was like, Son, you got this. Let me ride your wave.

Are you going to make more movies?

I would love to. If I ever get to work in this town again, I will continue to make some more movies.

You had Earth, Wind, Fire in it?

Earth, Wind, and Fire. How did you get that? Dude, big favors. I owe a lot of people. A lot of promises have been made.

Was it fun to play with them?

It was so much fun. I got to do a little improv with them. They were so cool. They loved the story. They were like, Cool, we'll do it. It was so nerve-wracking for me because that was a big scene. We did it in the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood Boulevard, and we were running it out for a certain time. I got extras, and I got them. They're one of my biggest idols, and I'm just like, I got I got to do this. It's okay if we do another take here? Then I got my son. It was one of the last shots, too. I was just like, it was a lot going on. I chain-smoked my brains out that whole process. But yeah, they were great, and they were really cool, and I got to do funny improv with them. It was a huge thing.

My thing I do when I'm directing is, and I had an assistant say to me, I'm a little worried about your Starbucks order because I would get a Venti Drift and then three Dopios to start the day. That's a Dopio. Double shot of Espresso. That was like the morning coffee order for me. I didn't see you and go, I don't know if this is like this. You're going to have a heart attack? Exactly.

Straight up, man.

Oh, my God.

The movie's great. People should see it.

K-pops. Yeah, February 27th, it comes out. Amc Theaters.

On your stomach, now some personal curiosities. Trust your gut. That could have come about for two reasons because you didn't and you need a reminder or you have and it's the reason. Why is it on there?

I was just trying to get the house. It was in COVID, and I was losing my mind. I was like, I'm going to go get a chess piece. I'll be back. Those are the only spots still open, sketchy. We're open, get a tattoo.

Yeah, I'm going to give a fuck.

Yeah, I was like, Fuck, can we drink there? I would go to this garage and I got a bunch of tattoos. Mac was another one. It was like, get one part of a limb or something where it's just for funny I was like, Okay, his leg had a bunch of stuff. On this arm, I got Marge with Hummer's eyes as her boobs and this crazy shit.

You got animal.

Yeah, I got animal, the drumming, got this whole thing. I had a different tat that I wanted to do, and somehow that didn't work out. I was like, Okay, well, let's just do a stomach tag. That should be cool. I had no clue how much pain I would be in. They were like, What do you want? I was like, Trust your gut. That seems ironic. Because it's funny. It's funny. I'm very much like, just go with my instinct. I try to, and it's a good reminder for me, too, because every time I didn't, I'm like, Why the fuck did I do that? I should have just listened to myself. It was excruciating. But I felt like accomplished after you do a movie, too. I was like, I did that.

Yeah. If you had to What are your three favorite songs of yours?

I mean, Come Down is a big one. Another one that I really like, it's not a huge one, but it's called Fire in the Sky. I really like that one. It was on the Shane Qi soundtrack that I did with Roger, who also does stuff for the soundtrack, but I really like that one. I like, What More Can I Say? It's another one that I did with knowledge. If you need an overall of who I am and my struggle as an artist and a hopeless romantic and just me. I think that sums it up. It's a really short song, but it's you.

Yeah. Now, you said a few times, my ex-wife, you guys did 13 years together. I have said this numerous times on here. Should my wife and I ever get divorced? I would refuse to ever look to look at that as a failure because it's been such a successful 18 years, the things we've created together and these children we've created together. Do you walk from that with a feeling of a failure?

I talked to my mom about it, too. Everyone was like, Is there anything you can't do? I was like, Well, marriage. I feel the same way. I feel so close to her still. We're family. We came from couches. We grew up in our 20s.

She's like a music student from Korea.

She came from Korea, even sing.

Talk about we marry our mom.

Yeah, exactly. It's weird. I don't even know even how to say it sometimes.

It feels diminishing.

Yeah, I did battle with that. I look at couples that stay together forever, and it's not about your happiness. You just muster it through it. I was like, damn, maybe I could have been like that. But over time, it gets better. They think that's what it is. Everyone's happiness matters. I'm seeing her flourish. She came out here, could hardly speak English, from Korea, and just trusted me, and we were just young in love, and they had a kid, and all this stuff that came about. Now she's getting to experience that now, learn more about herself. I'm seeing it now, and she's rich now. I wouldn't have changed anything. We're getting to learn how to be co-parents, and My sons are so resilient. You don't know how these things can affect kids. I'm pretty sure he's dealing with it. We're both very much in his life and making sure he's okay. I'm seeing now he has such interest in playing guitar, and he's doing the same I'm doing, same trajectory. Now he's making beats. He grew up playing in church. His little brother's singing and all this stuff. He's such a good older brother, so I'm seeing how they're taking it.

What's the little one's name? Is it Kenzo? Shine.

Who's Kenzo?

I used to call my oldest Kenzo. Okay, I was going to say Kenzo, swagging like his Paul. Yeah, that soul. He's a full-grown man now. He's 15 now. It's good for them, probably. It really is good. We're getting along better than ever. We each getting our time with the kids, and it's cool. We're getting to do holidays days on my house and everybody's easing into it.

Are you still religious?

I think I'm more spiritual, I guess now, but yeah, I'm still very much believe in God and have that in me. I think that's part of my foundation. I'm very happy that I did grow up and have that foundation.

Because you came to it late. You came to it to go play drums there, and that got you, right?

Absolutely. Throw away all my Snoop Dogg CDs and stuff. I'm only going to listen to this and I'm going to get baptized instead of never having sex.

Feeling shame after you beat off. Exactly.

That's what I'm trying to quit beating off. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Good luck. I got to get married so I can do this legit. Yeah.

Oh, dude, this has been so fun. I'm so glad this finally happened.

It's been a pleasure.

Open up a fucking steakhouse so I can come to that. Yeah. Come to that one. You got one? Yeah. Okay, you're serving. Yeah, come to Andy's.

We got steak. We'll go. We got to go. We got to go. We got to go. I got music, I got steak, I got everything for you. Sounds awesome.

Okay, and then everyone, check out K-Pops. It is Anderson pack on screen in all the ways that you could be on screen. Love you. This is great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. They got Monica's here. She's got to let them have the facts. Is this a recording?

Are we in a recording? Yeah. So to catch everyone up, my back is hurting a little bit and my stomach is hurting. You have a UTI. I don't know what it is, but I I have something maybe, and it's, I think, due to an increased water intake. Yeah, to which I said, only you would think drinking a lot of water could have been detrimental. I think I found myself. But the reason I drank more water- Yeah, tell me. I have something that's changed my life.

Oh, my goodness.

I know. It's a big deal. Big update. Huge update. I got a new planner.

Okay, like a day planner?

Yeah, but it's specific.

Is it digital or paper? It's paper. Yeah, good.

It's a paper planner, and it's very specific. It has your top three priorities for the day, and then it has tasks. You can write your tasks, and it has a little talent.

How do your priorities differ from tasks?

Right. So you could have eight tasks, but you have three priorities for the day. So you might not get everything done, but the- Priorities are the most prioritized.

That's right. Okay. So what were your priorities? I'm really curious. I wouldn't even know how to answer what my priorities are.

Okay. So today, my priorities, I think one of them is to visit a friend who is in the hospital after having a child. Okay. That's a priority.

Yeah, big one.

There was... Shit, I didn't bring it.

Okay. But that's not a task. That's a priority.

To me, I mean, I wrote it also in the calendar as a thing to do.

So it can double up task.

Yeah, you can do whatever you want. Oh, I had... Yeah, and I got to check that one-off. No, I had start setting up utilities for my house.

Oh, right.

I have to do that. I keep pushing it off as a task, and it has to happen today.

Kicking the can.

Exactly. And there was one other thing that I forget, but Then you have a Daily Intention, which I love. And there is a I'm Grateful for.

Nice. It's like a spiritual journal, too.

It's great. It's all of it. I do those things in the morning.

Okay. As now part of your morning routine. You get your day planner out. Is it Franklin Day Planner? That was the one that was very popular when I worked for my mom.

No, that one was fancy.

Yeah. And you could even, I think, go to a weekend seminar about your Franklin Day Planner, which I never attended, but my mom did get me the whole kit. And they had a nice little bound leather case, which was nice.

Okay. I need to find the brand. I'll find the brand. There's a really cute little store in Atwater that has all these notebooks and planners and pens and greeting cards, and it's so cute. Now, I went and I got this planner, and I used it the first day, and I was like, Oh, my God, my life has changed. So I told Jess about it. And so we walked there the next day and we got him one.

But you walked to Atwater from your house? . How long does that take?

Half hour? Yeah, about a half hour, 35, 40. Okay, 48 minutes. Yeah. So we walked there, and then I had a real panic because I bought a blue one, and it's beautiful. It's a beautiful light blue, but there was one more color, and I was having a hard time deciding when I was in the store, when I was buying it, there was one that was a little more green, and I ended up picking the blue. But it was tough. It was tough. I was holding both, and I was like- Were you saying, I prefer the blue, but I know green equals genius.

I should have the green.

No, it's just they were both such beautiful colors and unique, really pretty shades of both colors.

Unlike this year's Pantone color, that's not a color.

Cloud Atlas.

Yeah.

I mean, cloud dancer.

I mean, who cares?

It's not a color. Okay, so then we go, and I picked the blue. I felt good about my blue. I came home, I used it. Just love it. Then when Jess and I go, he was like, Well, I should get the other color since you got this. When I saw him holding it, I was like, I want that one.

This is dangerous. If someone gets the one you're debating between. That's rife for disaster.

It was really tough because all of a sudden, that was the one I wanted. I needed it. Sure. I asked him if I could get another one. I could have two.

Okay.

He said no.

Okay, good. He helped put some limits on there. He said, You can't.

He said, No, you can't.

You can't really use two planners.

Exactly. I mean, I could write in it twice.

That's crazy. Yeah, that would be- It's wasteful. That could be in an admittance form for a psych ward. Are you using multiple planners with duplicate pages?

Ramona and Ruth? Yeah. Oh, wonderful.

We found it R&R.

It's really cute. Today, my daily... Yeah, that's it. My morning routine is the left page. Okay. Today, my intention was to accept acceptance. Oh, great. Great.

Always a great intention.

So today, I accept that I have the blue planner.

Okay. And by the way, I already see now what happened with the water? Because there is a little chart with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 glasses of water outlined. Presumably, you check those off as you- Exactly.

So my night time routine is the right side where you write down, there's a nourishment section. So you write down what you ate. It has morning, lunch, and night. Then there's a water intake. I've added on my own an alcohol intake.

Oh, all right.

I think that's good for me to be tracking.

Oh, I see. Not as a reminder to drink alcohol, but as a, let's make sure we're not drinking too much.

How much am I consuming?

That's much better. You can see where I thought. I was like, that's on your to-dos, alcohol.

And then There's a note section. At the bottom, there's Favorite Part of My Day Today.

This is pretty great. I got to say it's a rethink of a day planner.

Yes. At the top right, there's a box that says Today's active self-care.

We don't need that. People need to stop spoiling themselves.

No. Self care can be just, I went to bed earlier.

We're getting weak as a nation.

No. Then there's Today's Movement, and there's options. There's walk, run, yoga, Pilates, cycle, weights, stretch. Then there's top three priorities for tomorrow, which I like. Then you're planning ahead. Yeah. Okay, so this is great. That's why we walked to Outwater. Because I was like, I got to get my movement in tomorrow.

Oh, right. Okay.

So we did the walk.

It should track other movements, too. You should have a bowel movement box. It's part of your health. I mean, more so than I would argue some of the others.

That's true. The water was interesting for me because I was like, I got it. You want to check it off. I want to check it off.

You're such an achiever. All you need to know is how to get an A.

Exactly. It's good for me. Yes. But I drink too much, and now I have a UTI.

Right. Probably not.

So there can be backfires.

You ever drink cranberry juice? That's supposed to be real helpful to keep the urinary tract healthy. A reminder for Monica.

Oh, my God.

What the fuck was that? You're now playing voicemails on that?

I don't I don't like how that happened. I don't like what just happened.

Your computer is way too emboldened and autonomous. I agree. It's scary. It rings and stuff. It shouldn't do anything. You should tell it like, Hey, I have a phone for this stuff.

I know. I don't like that, what just happened. It actually reminds me of something.

Oh, tell me.

There's a gossipy part of this conversation, which I'm not really interested in having. Okay.

Just Blake Lively?

Yeah. Okay. Obviously, everyone knows what's going on with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni and the court case.

Then Taylor's text were subpoenaed, right?

Yeah. That's what I want to talk about. So not just hers, but she had a text exchange with Ben and Matt, and that's available. I got very startled by this.

I was like, Oh, my God, nothing is private. If you're in court, Yeah, but you don't know.

But Ben and Matt aren't in court, and now they're text.

Yeah, they're drug in to court. Yeah. That does feel like they should redact the other person. Who it is. But I'm sure it's relevant.

I mean, I saw them. It was about She was talking about the movie, and then they said, or I don't know what Ben said, but Matt and his wife are dragged into this, and they're saying, If your soul isn't fully burned by this, come direct your next movie at Artis. That's nice. Very sweet and kind. But I'm like, What? We don't need to see that. And I got defensive on their part because they're my boyfriends, and I got defensive on Taylor's part because I love her.

I want to know. I'm more curious. These were all on her phone, or they subpoenaed- Exactly. Other people's phone that they knew she had been communicating with, and it was on their phone? Whose phone got subpoenaed? Call me, you're a lawyer, and explain that you need to subpoena my phone.

Go ahead. Hi.

Is this Jack Yeah, absolutely.

Hi, this is Monica Padman. I am a podcaster, but also a lawyer. Oh, great. And your friend, Dan Stincelstein. I don't know if you've heard, but there's a trial. He's in a dust up. He is, yes. And we need to subpoena your phone for your interactions. I don't have one. We know you do because we see his text.

I don't. Yeah, I don't have it anymore.

Okay. We do have a warrant to come search your home. Yeah, come look. I don't have one. Okay, you're being really difficult. Okay.

So sue me for difficulty, I guess.

I think we might have to.

This reminds me, you know I have a story like this. Some people might not like this story. I guess I can live with that, which was You know this story already, which was when I directed Hit and Run. I hired an animal wrangler. I didn't hire an animal wrangler. I needed a pitbull in a scene. So you have to hire an animal wrangler. The production hired it. The guy came with a pitbull, and then all of a sudden, he was inviting people to the back of his car to look at a tiger. He had a baby tiger in his back. Yeah. Whatever. Again, I don't think anything of it. Animal wrangler, I'm sure this guy was a permit for this. Maybe he's going to another job with a baby tiger. I just don't even think about it. But he gets Bradley Cooper to hold this tiger in the parking lot. Then he takes a picture, and then he- Oh, no. I think, allegedly, I think he leaked it to the tabloids. All of a sudden, there's a tabloid photo of Cooper in that crazy dreadlock wig holding a Fucking Tiger. Oh, no. Whatever. A movie comes out, I am then finishing that movie, editing in my house when I'm not at Parenthood.

I'm also shooting like a resume Parenthood. And so I'm filming full-time on that show. And then every off I'm editing this movie I made. So I'm on set and the phone rings. It's like, Is this Jack Shebber? And I was like, Yeah. I don't even know why I answer it, but I did. Yeah, this is Detective So-and-So with the ATF or Agent So-and-So. And I go, Okay, yeah, what's up? He's like, I'm calling in regards to a movie you directed. Hitting around, I'm thinking, What on earth would the ATF be calling me about a movie I directed? I'm like, Yeah, okay. And he's like, You hired an animal wrangler who we've been tracking, who's been illegally moving exotic cats across state lines, which is illegal. I go, Oh, okay. And he said, I'd like to get together. Tell me a time you have. I'd like to get together and talk about this. I said, Well, that It would be a waste of your time and mine. I know nothing about that guy. I didn't hire the guy. I told a producer I needed a fucking Pitbull, and then this guy shows up. Yeah. He goes, Great.

So let's just pick a time that we can get together. And I go, No, I just told you every single thing I know about it, which is nothing. He goes, Great. Well, we're going to need to meet and talk about it. And there was this long beat, and I was like, Do you have to meet them? Right. And I go, No, I'm not going to meet you. Yeah. I You used to waste your time in mind, I don't know anything other than what I just told you. I didn't hire it because I don't know the person's name. And he was really flummoxed. I could tell then people don't say no.

Exactly. No, there's a lot of this- It was a crazy...

I hung up and I was even feeling like him. I'm like, Oh, is I allowed to do that?

No, no one knows what they're allowed to do and not allowed to do.

And you're allowed to say no. They can do a warn or they could haul you in and charge you, whatever.

Yeah. No one knows these things. We're not really taught.

I just simply didn't have the time to go meet a fucking guy and talk about something I didn't know for an hour. So to me, it was very cut and dry. Like, no, I refuse to try to make this happen.

I know, but we don't know if it's illegal, but it's not. You can say no to things.

I was never found in contempt of court or anything. My consistently disagreeable self just thought, well, I'm going to start with saying no, and then we'll find out maybe if I have to.

Yeah, because then they'll show some legal documents saying they can... Even some of those are tricky. You don't always have to comply. You have to know which ones are real. It's tricks.

I was also very confused why the why exotic animal trade fell under the jurisdiction of the ATF. I mean, I guess it has to fall somewhere in the federal system, and it certainly wouldn't make sense in the DEA. I feel like maybe FBI might have an animal. I don't know. But it was alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.

That makes no sense.

Maybe because there's so much in Interstate trafficking is what they actually patrol. You can have a fire. I have a handgun here that's registered to me. It's very legal for me to have this here, but I can't travel across state lines with it. And then that becomes a federal crime once I do that. So maybe because there's so much about trafficking, they just grabbed exotic animals. Maybe. Anywho. Sorry, I hijacked your story.

No, the text. Sorry. It just made me think like, Oh, my God. I'm not someone at all who cares about privacy, really. I don't. But all of a sudden, I was like, Oh, on behalf of all these people, why does everyone get to read Taylor's text? People are like, Oh, my God, she texts like this. She does a space between... I'm like, Oh, my God, this is so annoying for her.

Yeah, there's text that would take me out at the knees. I have friends that I've been friends with for 40 years that I say mean stuff to as a joke.

All of Yeah.

I know. You and I have exchanges all the time. I know. Then I'm sure it would be like, Well, these two are heartless, but it's like, Oh, we're making fun of... I don't know.

It's just if you're going to have real... Yeah. I was like, I hate all this. And I was like, oh, my God, I got to delete my entire phone. And the cloud, it's all in the cloud. And I hate... Why? This is bad.

That's why I threw my phone away. Back to you being a detective. That's why I I drew it away.

How do you communicate with people?

Letters. Okay. Yeah. And then I have some folks I work with that schedule my professional life.

And do you have a calendar on your phone? No. Okay. Because I We did have to subpoena Monica, your coworker. Yeah. She uses a calendar, yeah. Yeah. We see that she has access to your calendar.

I don't use it, though. Yeah, she has access to a calendar I used to use.

Okay, but it did say you added something to the schedule. Just let's see. No, she added. No, it says it's clear that it was you.

Oh, that's not me. All right, man, I got to run. I don't even know how you call me because I don't have a phone.

So we're on your telephone right this very second.

This is a landline. I got my kids a landline, and they love it. It's called Tin Can. You should check it out. It'll keep your kids busy for days. Great. And they can call grandma. I want to give a testimonial to Frankenstein.

I'm seeing it this weekend.

Okay, I have a testimonial and a grievance. As always, I always have agreements. First of all, this movie is fucking incredible. Great. And what was fun is we started it with Molly and Eric at the birthday party, and then we finished it last night. But before it started, I said, Lest you think I'm really annoying in lecturing Cinefile, they like when I explained some show business stuff because that's not their world. I just said before it started, Do you guys know anything about Guillermo del Toro? And they're like, Not really. I'm like, Okay, Pan's a liberal. I started naming movies. I said, What he is an absolute master is the visuals are off the charts. He's just so visual. It was visually stunning. So that was fun and it immediately delivered. Like, frame one, it's like this backlit sunset. It's just gorgeous. Everything's so gorgeous. I'm like, I got to know if he paints this stuff. How on earth did they get to this? It's so impressive. Yeah. The movie's awesome, man, and it's heartbreaking. And these stories, they keep coming up. And I think they're because male writers, these stories where someone's a beast and they can't have love.

But at any rate, the movie is phenomenal. We're both going, I didn't even know Oscar Isaac was in the movie, really. I just knew Jacob Alorty was the monster. That's what's been getting all the attention. Yeah. That's what I'm seeing on carpets and stuff.

He's there, but yeah. Is he? Yeah, he is.

Okay. So he is phenomenal. He's such a good actor. And it is a thankless role in that he's detestable.

Because he's Frankenstein's- He is fucking detestable. Because he's Frankenstein's...

He's the- He's Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein, the doctor who creates the monster.

Right.

And he is Absolutely zero vanity. He gives a performance of a lifetime. He's so fucking good. And Jacob Alorty is great. He's great. I'm delighted he was nominated for an Oscar. But Chris and I are both spinning out about... Most of the movie is Isaac. Then we're like, Did he get nominated for an academy award? Jacob did.

Yeah, he did.

Isaac didn't. I was like, oh, my God, this is the frailty of human objectivity. Because he's a detestable character, people were put off by him. I mean, clearly he deserves. I mean, it's outrageous when you watch it that he wouldn't have been nominated. I think it's because you don't like so much. People couldn't. Do you think that?

Because I mean, maybe- I do.

There's no other explanation.

But like, Sean Penn was nominated as he should be, and he plays the worst of the role.

I think it can in a supporting role. But as the lead of our movie, we want our hero to be someone we root for. It's so baked into what we're used to that you have this weird subconscious conflict going on that he is our hero in an essence. He's who we're following the most. But I just I think you hate him. And so people didn't want to reward really the character and not the actor.

That might be true. It's a hard year, though. I will say it is a hard year for nomination.

Who are the male lead nominies?

Okay. Male Oscar.

Because I obviously love Chalamet and I love Leo. They both were great.

This is why nominations for movies are impossible. Sure. You can't. They're all different, and They're all amazing. How can you... Okay, so Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothy, Wagnermora, who's been winning. What movie? He's the one- What movie? Secret Agent. The Secret Agent, which is a Brazilian movie. Okay. I haven't seen it yet.

Oh, I love that actor. I love that actor, but I haven't seen the movie.

Well, that movie is supposed to be amazing, The Secret Agent. I really want to watch that, too. Me, too. But yeah, Wagner Mora, Timmy, Michael B, and Ethan Hawke is also nominated.

Okay.

I didn't see Blue Moon, so I don't. I didn't either. I don't know. But we love Ethan Hawke. Yes. It's just too hard. Look, I think these things are really hard. All those actors are phenomenal.

Yeah. The monster is so sympathetic. Your heart is just breaking for the monster the whole time.

Yeah. Wait, I didn't see Jacob Alorti on there.

He's not a supporting actor.

Oh, sorry. I just looked up the mains.

Yeah, I think he's got a supporting actor nomination.

That probably is right. Yeah, he did. He did.

Yes, he did. But your heart is just breaking for this monster from the second you meet him. I do think that infects you want to reward the monster. Then you want to punish Victor Frankenstein. Maybe, yeah. It's just an off-the-charts performance, I guess, is the most important thing I want to say.

I'm excited to see it.

Yeah, he's incredible.

Very excited. I love him. He's such an incredible actor. Okay, yeah. Okay, so that's a grievance and a accolade.

And endorsement.

And endorsement, yeah.

And a call to action. Watch that movie. It's spectacular.

I'm excited to watch it. I saw Sinners for the first time, which I'm late on, very, very late on. And It was so good. I thought they were juggling. Ryan Coogler was juggling so much. He's telling so many stories at once while also telling a very important history lesson. I thought it was beautifully done.

I love the parallel between the Irish and the Black folks. This is my favorite. That whole music sequence. Oh, my God. All the music is on-I don't know how they assembled that whole thing where there's a DJ all of a sudden. I know. It was so cool. Remember, this was the movie I had come back from when I told you I was looking at the black dude next to me, and I'm like, Does he feel this wonderful pride and connection to that. You could also feel like, why don't I feel a connection to that?

I'm sure it's individual.

Yes, I think so. Well, that's what I was thinking is, I guess, what my fear would be that you somehow grew up completely outside of Black culture. And then you would have some guilt. It would induce some guilt that you should be connecting in a way that you're not. I don't know. I don't know. I was just so curious.

Or sadness that you missed out on that. But I feel that it's It's probably pretty rare to be a Black person in this country and be totally void of a connection to it because it's all around. It is not like what I could do.

Yes. But ding, ding, ding, Anderson pack. I think that thing we're talking about, close the door, step inside, feel the vibe. We got this stuff. It's just such a rich culture that a lot of people have got to experience that backyard barbecue bliss. And then some people didn't get to experience that.

They might not have gotten to experience that, but they definitely got to experience what it's like to be Black in America.

But again, that's my point. It would suck if all you felt was the prejudice and you didn't feel this other thing, which is so beautiful and unique and lucky.

Yeah, and part of the fabric of the- If you didn't get the trade off of it.

That was what I was obsessing about, is it would really suck if you got only the downside and none of this very enviable part of it all. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare. It was so good.

I really recommend that, too, if people have not seen it, but I think a lot of people have seen it. It's pretty stellar. It's really good. It got the most nominations. Did it? Mm-hmm.

Anderson.

Anderson, you want to do some facts? Okay.

Well, I just love him. I want to say how excited I was to have Anderson. Incredible. The craziest thing was, I think I told you already, I had dinner with Malcolm maybe two days later, and he interviewed him right after we did. Oh, we did?

Oh, no way.

That's cool. I said to him, Do you think you could ever describe that guy to somebody and not use the additive light? And he's like, Absolutely not. He's like, he walks in and smiles, and it's just like, it's so powerful.

He said something really beautiful about that. It's a way to find peace. Yeah. Yeah. Life is hard. Yeah. Life is really hard. Much harder for some, but hard for everyone. Emotionally, it just is. Okay, what is happening?

A message from CVS?

Oh, no. I was looking at the things I wrote. I don't know. I'm I'm sorry, I don't know why I wrote this, but I do have a scratch on my boob that I don't understand where it came from.

Okay, look, you have a UTI and scratch is on your boob. You've hooked up with someone and you're not telling Robin. I don't know any more clues that we need to have. And the best part is you hooked up with a guy with long fingernails. There's a hickey on my thigh. It's my kink. I don't know where there's a hickey on my thigh, on my UTI, on my scratchy boobs.

Do you ever wake up and there's just weird stuff?

Constantly, Monica, I tell you this all the time. I'm constantly bleeding And I'm like, What did I nick? I did it yesterday. At least I know where that one came from. But so often, I feel like my pop-up Bob just paper skin, and I have cuts.

But for me, it's always in the night. Right.

You're wily at night.

What's going on in the night? Nobody knows. I have epilepsy.

You have seizures, you pee your bed.

That was we're connected. I know. Okay. I just don't want people to think that's something I do.

Not seizure-induced. Exactly. Nocturnal emissions.

No. If I did that, I would be wearing a dipe.

A dipe. Which, again, we found out guys wouldn't mind at all. You wouldn't mind. That's so cute. Got to throw her dipe on. I don't know. She's 38, but fuck it. Who cares? Guys just wouldn't care. But every girl would care, right? No girl would date a guy that wears a dipe.

Well, I don't want to say no. We don't know why they're- That's true.

We just did kinks.

Exactly. I was about to say Easter egg. There's an armchair anonymous about kinks. That's really, really good. So So there's a pot for- If we compare the averages. Yeah.

I have to imagine far fewer women would be willing. They'd be like, Well, this is the final step. You probably live on your mom's couch. You wear a diaper still. When are you going to grow up and be a man?

I know. Okay. But now that we're talking it through, I feel like a lot of women-Want a guy in a diaper? No, they don't want, but they put up with a lot of shit.

They do, but they find out later.

I mean, they're not going to have sex with that husband.

If he's got to remove his dive. Or if you can feel his erection through his dive. Someone's going to write in mad about that. Okay. Anyway. Oh, that's... Well, never mind.

What?

The monster. The monster wears a dive. He does? Yeah, Jacob Alorty. He does?

Oh, no. And is it hot?

I think Eric, in my opinion, he was like, Well, I wonder, did he give him a penis? Because he builds this monster monster out of dead bodies from a battlefield. So he's picking what he's going to... And then you're like, Well, did he take the time to give him a penis? Sure he did. Probably. And if you're going to select penises on a field of dead soldiers, why wouldn't you select a big old hog? And I'll tell you, it looked like you had a lot of business going on in his dipe. You could see it. Oh, it's bulging like crazy. It is? It's a choice. I mean, they definitely- Really? It's a massive package in the dipe. You can't wait to see it now.

In the dipe. That's tough. And he doesn't speak. He speaks like a child monster.

I don't want to ruin his progression of language competency.

Yeah, there's something a little tough about seeing a big dick in a dive.

Well, it's conflicting in a probably a great way.

And if he's acting like a baby, there's a lot. I'm glad he got nominated.

Yeah. I'm just saying there was a ton of equipment in the diet. I could ask him about the diet.

Very attractive.

Oh, it's insane.

I know.

The frame is outrageous. His frame is fucking crazy.

I know. It's like, everyone knows Jacob Alorty's hot.

He's the first guy that my kids are a Saint. Right?

Oh, wow. That's fun. That's my Leonardo DiCaprio or David Boreanes. Speaking of that, in Sinners, okay, if you I haven't seen it. This is a spoiler.

Which my hunch is a big spoiler is coming just from the way you just rolled that out.

There's something that happens in the movie that is revealed that is supernatural. And I'm like, what are the rules of this? Monster?

Ampire. Oh, yeah. Well, you're learning them. You know that they have to be invited in. Is that one you're talking about?

Well, yeah. I forgot about that.

Which is so cool. I love being reminded of all the Vamp stuff. I know, but I think it's...

So I was watching this with Jess, and all of a sudden, one of them flies. Sure. And I was like, no.

I think if they're powerful enough.

Jess said, yes. He said the twilight Vams flew.

And I think the more powerful they get, the better they get at flight.

The angel on Buffy, David Boreanes, First Love, he did not fly.

That I didn't have the budget. They would have loved to have had him fly. It wasn't digitally yet. He knew he had to put them in wires and it would look crazy. But they would have loved for him to fly.

Okay.

I think they flew in an interview with a vampire. They did? I feel like Tom Cruise took flight a few times. Because originally, they're bats, too. Dracula. Yeah, Dwaak.

Would you rather be a vampire or a Frankenstein?

I want to wear a dipe.

Oh, my gosh.

Would I rather be a-A vampire or a Frankenstein?

I'm Fringesine's Monster, I guess.

Definitely a Vamp because they can intermix and fool people. They can have a life. The monster cannot get a fair shake from anybody.

I feel bad saying this because it seems like I didn't understand the point of the movie, which I did. I did. But I was like, being a Vamp seems fine. Like when they're all- Well, they're eating people.

We don't care about that.

I mean, I care. I care. It's It's bad.

It's bad.

But I did have the thought, which I guess is this is the temptation. This is the thing. God, if we're all Vamps.

Well, then we would all die because there's nothing to eat. We can't all be Vamps. It's like a pyramid scheme. Eventually, the last person invests, and then everyone's fucked.

But do they have to eat people every night? Again, I don't- That's their struggle.

It's constantly having to suck blood. But that's the premise of true blood.

I never saw it.

Oh, it's a great show.

Shout out to Alexander Skarsgaard, though.

Yes, and another sexy... They know to keep these monsters sexy. They do.

They're smart.

They can't give us a hunchback and then also make them a monster. It also would be rude.

It would be rude casting.

Yeah, you got to be like, make a gorgeous guy.

I look disgusting. It's also like that's part of the struggle. It's like...

Yeah, you want to be tempted. It's not fun if you're not. You want them to fight you. Every woman would be tempted by Alexander in true blood.

Yeah, he's very... Did he fly?

I can't remember. I don't think so.

Was that CW or was that like HBO? It was HBO.

Allen Ball. That's a high-quality show. They had the budget. They could have flown if they wanted to.

Okay, sorry. Back to Anderson Park.

I did text him and say, The moment you're going to be dancing at Andy's, you got to call me.

Yeah, I know. I want to go to Andy's.

Yeah, me too. Will you dance?

I'll think about it. They danced a lot in centers, and it was cool. Yeah. I I just can't dance like that. Okay. I only like doing things I'm good at.

That's normal, I think.

I think it's normal. Okay, he mentioned the gong show because his dad and brother went on the gong show, remember? They were twins and acting Wily.

Yeah. I asked if they got the gong, and he said no.

They won.

Yeah. You know that show worked, is you'd be performing, and if it was so bad, they could get up with this mallet and hit this 6-foot in diameter gong and send you packing. Yeah. Yeah. And send you packing.

Yeah, it was a big show in the '70s, in '76, the original with Chuck Barris.

Who claimed to be a CIA operative who had murdered people.

Yes, this came up on another episode.

He had confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Right. Yeah, because Sam Rockwell played Chuck Barris in this. That's right. I think Clooney directed it, maybe.

Yeah. Speaking of who also didn't get a nomination. See, hard year. Hard Year. Hard Year. Who? Clooney.

What would he have been nominated for?

Jay Kelly. If people want to get nominated, they should come on our show. Okay. We had someone cancel on us that I have a real beef with. I'm not going to say who it is. It would have been a great episode, and I'm angry. Okay.

She's She Rodriguez.

And this person got snubbed. And I just think that if- They wouldn't have? If they came on, that was karma and my dad.

Okay.

And people need to be more scared of my dad. Yeah. Okay. Wrath of my dad. Now, gong-cho So how long has Carrot Top been in Vegas? Since 2005.

So 21 years. Is he still active?

Carrot Top has been a headliner in Vegas for over 20 years. He began his residency at the Luxor Hotel on November 22nd, 2005, and celebrated 20 years, 2025. But yeah, I think it's still going.

Yeah, it's still going. Wow, sir. It's good for him.

Good for him.

He's probably, at this point, sold like 11 million tickets.

It says, Often six nights a week. His residency is extended through 2030.

Oh, my gosh.

Where at? At the Atrium showroom at the Luxor Hotel and Casina. Oh, still at Luxor? Yeah.

Wow. He never forgot who brought him to the dance.

He's one of the longest running headlining comedians in Vegas.

That's the scene of my infamous stairwell. That's right. Someone had a funny... I posted the stairwell at Lafayette, Coney Island, which is the diciest stairwell in America. Did you happen to see that post of mine? I'm walking down these insanely tight stairs that are way too steep, and I got a duck. It's like a submarine ship.

That's for the restaurant?

That's at Lafayette, Coney Island. Yeah, that's how you get to their bathroom. And someone wrote in the comments, Is this the infamous stairwell of the Australian girl? And I was like, Oh, my God. I can even walk down these stairs. Why don't you just make love.

Yeah, but you were younger back then.

I mean, I would have tried. Let's be honest. Yeah, you would have tried. I would have had sex on a ladder if that was the only option. Sure.

Bet of nails. I regret. That's one of my regrets from this show because I did shame her. You did. And I regret that. You take it back. I take it back. Okay, great. You're clear and free. I do think people need to be careful. And that's all I'm going to say.

You're going backwards now. Two steps forward, not take steps back.

People are scary. You did a good job handling how many lyrics I...

I just want to say. I know that was tough, and I just want to applaud you. You did a good job. I appreciate that.

Well, you set my expectation, and then that was That was helpful.

That was helpful for me. And I was policing myself, if you can believe that.

I could feel it. Yeah.

I wanted to get them up way more.

Okay. So, yes, the Mark Ronson show about music is called Watch the Sound.

Oh, right. And That's okay, great. We talked about that. I was right about that.

I love Mark Ronson, A friend of the Pot. Great episode. Okay, now remember, he talked about Black Up City Stone?

Black Up City Stone?

Was I mishearing it?

In reference to what?

He had lunch with this girl, and she was talking about- Oh, Black Obsidian. Oh, my God. Okay. I kept googling it, and I was like, What? He's getting you flagged for his hate speech. He said it sounded cool, and he wanted to use it in a lyrics. But I thought he was saying, Black Up City, which does sound cool.

It does sound, yeah. Chocolate City.

Yeah, that's Black Obsidian.

Volcanic glass.

I think I actually have some of that.

Some of our most complicated tool technology, early hominids, was their mastery of this volcanic glass. They started making really sharp cutting instruments.

It's beautiful. It's renowned for its protective and grounding properties and spiritual practices, often used for healing, clearing negative energy, and reducing stress.

I can't say about all that, but you could carve a stag really well with that 200,000 years ago.

Okay, well, I'm glad that got cleared up. That's one of those misunderstood lyrics. If he wrote, if he sang a song, Black Obsidian- Wrapped up like a deuce into the middle of the night. Exactly.

It's wrapped up like a deuce.

I'm going to look at most misunderstood Understood lyrics. I hope it's 100, a list of 140. I'm going to do buzz feeds.

Can I tell you my three that Dean made shirts of? I know I've already told you this, but well, some are lyrics, some are words. Mine was, as you know, I thought an acorn was an egg of corn until I was 27. Yes. Aaron thought a silent but deadly fart was called a Silent Bedeli. I know, which I- And Dean thought the Jake Iles Band was the Jake Iles Band. Yeah, that one, to me- Is the most reasonable. Yeah, sure.

Silent Bedeli is my favorite.

But we would always say, Did you Bedeli? It's so much better to say Bedeli.

It is better. Yeah. Okay. Now, Waterfalls, TLC, great song. They're saying people think it's Don't Go Jason, Waterfalls.

No. Who thinks that?

Some people. Okay. Driftaway by Uncle Cracker. You know that song? You do. Miss Her Lyric is, Give me the Beach Boys and free my Soul.

Give me the Beat Boys?

Yeah.

I actually think- That at least makes sense.

Yeah. Okay. Lucile by Kenny Rogers.

Okay.

Do you know that song?

Well, hit me with the misunderstood Lyric.

When I was a kid, I heard Kenny Rogers as saying, You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucile, with 400 children and a crop in the field. So the actual lyric is, You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucile, with four hungry children. Oh, instead of 400. Okay.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah.

We have another Aaron and I one when you're ready. Oh, I'm ready. Okay. Jerry Reid, who played the Snowman in Smoking the Bandit, also had a great country career. Okay. He sang, Raised up a son that could eat up his weight in horse rase. Do, do, do, do. Named him after Man of the Cloth, called him Amus Moses, could eat up his weight in horse rase. So Aaron and I are always like, What is horse rase? Is that horse ass? And that is how Jerry Reid pronounces grosserace. Grosserace? He's really saying, Could he eat up his weight in groceries? But it literally sounds like, Could he eat up his weight in horse rase. Oh, my God. Named him after the name. Oh, my God. Wow. Of course, we also call groceries Horserass. Of course. And they'll give you a Bedeli occasionally.

Obviously, this is a huge one, most popular. It's from Friends. Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza.

Hold Me Now, Tony Danzer.

Yeah, and we know it's Tiny Danzer. Oh, Purple Haze.

Purple Hayes.

Jimi Hendrix. This is a different one.

Excuse me while I kiss this guy. People are going to say, Excuse me while I kiss this fly.

No, this guy.

Excuse me while I kiss lots of guys. This guy.

That's the popular one.

I thought it was kiss this fly, people thought. It was maybe as a drug reference, like blotter acid in the shape of a fly.

Oh, wow. That was funny. Okay. All right. That's cool. That was fun.

I'm going to listen to some Hendrix in my clubhouse. That just hit me.

Now you're Excited to?

Yeah, because I'm loving listening to music in my clubhouse so much. What do you mean your clubhouse? Have I already told everyone about my clubhouse. What's your clubhouse? Okay, I watched a Jeff Buckley documentary. It made me very nostalgic for my Jeff Buckley CD. I was like, I have this great CD collection, and I want to listen to CDs. So I'm going to go over to my sister's house where I believe I've left my old receiver, my really good BMW speakers, and I think a CD player. I go to her house, I realize only the BMW speakers are there. So then I go, I'm going to go up to Best Buy. I went to Best Buy, and it was the most exciting trip of my life because I, as a kid, as you know, I saved up for sometimes a couple of years to get a receiver or another one was a TV. Most of my life was saving for audio video equipment. So to go there and pick out what I wanted, I felt like I literally had hit the superlotto that day. I came home, I set up, I got a powered I'll before.

I already had my BMW speakers. I got a CD player, new receiver, and I set it up upstairs. In the attic? Yes, in the attic. I've been up there sitting in the Lazy Boy at night listening to music really loud, and it sounds so good. It got me so nostalgic for high school because all I did is lay on my waterbed and listen to music. I know CDs.

I wonder where all my CDs are. All my burned CDs, where are they?

Where are they now?

Great show. All right, Black Obsidian. That was a fact on a fact.

Fact on a fact on a fact.

Love it. That's it. We loved Anderson Park. We love him. Anderson Park. We loved Andy. We love Andy.

We love Brandon Park-Anderson. That's right.

Aka Andy, aka PAC. We love him in all of his names.

He can call himself anything, and I'm in.

Exactly. That was such a joy.

I love him. I love you.

Love you.