Transcript of #2504 - Skylar Grey New

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. Great to see you.

Great to see you.

What's happening?

You know, putting out an album.

This is the power of music. I told my wife that you were coming on and she said, I don't want to get emotional. She said if I die, on my funeral, I want her song "I'm Coming Home." Really? Yeah, I was like, "Ooh." I was like, "That's a heavy thought." And then I listened to it in the gym, and I was like, "Goddamn." I listened to the version where you were on the piano. It was like a solo concert. And I was like, "God, that's such a—" It's such a great song, but it's such a crazy thought. Yeah. That someone would want. Wow. A very specific song.

Man. Heavy way to start the podcast.

I know, but that's, you know, that's the emotion of real music. Yeah. You know? It's like you sent me a text message about AI. You know, because you sent me one of your songs and you're like, "AI is never going to recreate this." I said something like, "I don't think it's capable of writing stuff with this much emotion yet." Well, it's not real, you know? Yeah. It sounds cool. That's what AI does. There's cool songs that come from AI, but there's always going to be, and I completely agree with you, there's always going to be a thing we know a person wrote it, that they sat down and they wrote it, and there's this connection with their, their spirit and their creativity that comes out. And that's what people love about music other than stuff that sounds— I like, I like AI music because it sounds cool, but I know what it is. I know it's just a robot.

I mean, I think it's, you know, sometimes it's good for certain things, but The type of music that I make personally, it's like very therapeutic for me to write. I always am writing from like a true emotion. So yeah, each type of— Marshall's giving me true emotion. Yeah. It all has its place though. I think AI is an interesting— it's just like another tool. I feel like that, you know, when Auto-Tune first came out, people were bitching about that. And even like my first albums I recorded with my mom when I was a little kid. We did it on 2-inch tape, you know, so there was no computer involved. So then computers got introduced and people are bitching about that, like, this isn't real music. Yeah, you know, it's just like all these technological advances. To me, I see them as just tools that creatives can use to get their vision across.

What was, uh, what was Peter Frampton using back in the day? It was like a tube or something, right?

I have no idea.

Do you remember, like, you, you, you know what that stuff is, Jamie, right? It's a talk box. It's like a tube you put in your mouth or something? Yeah, so it's like a straw and like the microphone picks up the sound. So the sound would go through the tube into your mouth and then the microphone picks that up and you use your mouth. Because I remember people hating that when like way back in the day, people were hating that. Like, that's not his real voice. Like, what is he doing? Why is he putting it through that thing? You know? I don't know. But there's always, I mean, look, there's always gonna be tools that people use to enhance creativity, but. Right. The thing that's weird now is that they're making entire songs. Like, they can make a total Skylar Gray category. And they sound pretty good. They sound really good. You know, that's what's crazy.

It's like cracking, yeah.

It's your voice. It's your actual voice.

And it's only gonna get better, you know, 'cause it's so new. Yeah.

So those entire podcasts with me that I never did. Really? Yeah, there's a whole conversation with me and Steve Jobs. I never met Steve Jobs. Just me and Steve Jobs talking about stuff. Is it the visual too? No, it's not the visual. This one's just an audio one, but eventually I'm sure there'll be a video visual one. Yeah, there's definitely ones of me talking to people I've never talked to because like people pretend they've been on the show, you know, for fun. Yeah. It's very, very strange, you know? Very strange. Yeah, we're living in a weird blurry time. Yeah. Like the lines between real and not real are getting very blurry. Like it's an introduction to The Matrix. Like we're getting like the first whispers of the fog of The Matrix as it envelops us. Yeah. We're getting just these little clouds like, oh, this is weird. Then eventually it's just gonna be whoa. We're going to just be in the full cloud of the Matrix.

But I see people questioning everything now. They're like, is this real? Everybody's sussy about everything now. You should. Yeah.

I mean, there's people like prominent news people who've reposted stories with videos in it that were like straight out of a video game. Yeah, it's very, very weird time we're in.

Very. Yeah. But I think it's also exciting.

Oh, it's definitely exciting.

You know, it's fun. Yeah, well, it's weird.

Anytime things are weird, anything, things like, oh, like, yeah, but that, I think it makes you really appreciate actual things, like real physical things. Yeah, I agree with that. Real connection with people, real art, you know. I think that's what's going to happen a lot with AI, like people's actual artwork, like getting something like, like this, uh, chimp sculpt. This is made with, uh, thimbles, cymbals. With Zildjian. Oh yeah, this guy Shane Against the Machine. He makes— yeah, he's an artist, makes cool stuff. But like, I know a guy made that. Yeah, like when I'm fucking around with this, like, this guy made it.

Yeah, I think it'll make us value real human-made art more and value like nuance and mistakes and things not being perfect. You know? Yeah.

I mean, that's part of what's relatable about art. Exactly. And it's part of what makes us appreciate that it did come from a person. You know, like when you look at a really cool painting, like that painting, like that doesn't— that's not perfect. Yeah. It's not supposed to be perfect. I like that. It's just supposed to be an expression. Mm-hmm. You know, it's like a person's work. It's like their— whatever they are, their thing, their essence. Is in that canvas, you know? Yep. How'd you get started doing music? How old were you? You said you recorded with your mom when you were little.

Yeah. How old were you? I was 6 when I did my first show. Whoa. Yeah. So she was in like folk bands and stuff, and she also plays Celtic harp. And my dad was in a barbershop quartet. My great-grandma was an opera singer. So I just was like born into an extremely musical family. And when I was like 2, we were singing "Happy Birthday" to one of my aunts and I started singing a harmony. And my mom was like, "What is going on? How's a 2-year-old singing harmony?" I wasn't even able to like say all the words, but the notes I was singing were like the harmony part. And then with all her bands that she was playing with all the time, I would be at the rehearsals and chiming in, and then they would like bring me up on stage to do little guest appearances. And it was just very clear that that's what I wanted to do. Wow. And so when I was 6, we put together our first like hour-long set and I played at a library, me and my mom together. Whoa. And it was a Mother's Day show, Madison, Wisconsin.

So I'm from Mazomanee. It's like a 1,500-person, really small village, basically, in Wisconsin. And so then I just loved it. And so we started touring around the Midwest and played a lot of really random venues like elementary schools, libraries, women's health conventions. I think one of the biggest shows I ever did was actually a Boy Scouts thing, and it was like 1,500 Boy Scouts. How old were you? So I did this from the time I was 6 till I went solo, I think when I was 12 or—

That's crazy. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Once you've got a great name for your business, you need a great domain, and Squarespace Squarespace makes it easy to lock in a domain. You just search the name you want, buy it, and then you're ready to build. No hidden fees, no weird upsells. Go to squarespace.com/rogan for a free trial, and when you are ready to launch, use the code ROGAN to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's an interesting life though, to have your path carved out, or at least the direction. Yeah, at a very young age.

Yeah, and it wasn't like I was like a Disney star or something, so it wasn't like a big scale. It was, it was organic. It was small, and but I made decent money, and I mean, for a kid, and I saved it up. And then when I was 12, I bought my first grand piano with the money I'd saved up. Oh wow. Yeah, and so then I started writing songs at the piano, like pop songs and stuff. Solo. And it wasn't cool at that time to be singing with my mom anymore. Like, you know, kids get really mean in middle school, and they would like make fun of me because we were singing the silliest— like, like, "We Are the Colors of the Rainbow" and "Never Smoke Tobacco" and "My Grandma Slid Down the Mountain." These are some of the song titles. So it was very silly, and I got made fun of, and so I wanted to sing pop songs. And, uh, I went solo. My mom was not stoked about that because, like, it had become her career singing with me. Like, we— I would miss, like, I would miss so much school.

Um, sometimes I had 6 shows a week, so it was, like, a lot. Hey, lie down, buddy.

But you're huffing and puffing. Come here, let me kiss it and lie down. Come here, come on, my buddy. Give me a kiss. Let everybody see you.

Come on up. Oh, look at that.

I love you too. Now lie down. Go lie down, buddy. Go lie down. Um, so when you say your mom wasn't stoked about that, was that like real friction between you guys?

No, I mean, she was really supportive, but like, like I said, it had become her career singing with me, so it was like she had to adjust her whole lifestyle and everything for that.

Wow, you know, that'd be a hard decision for you then, knowing that that's gonna bum your mom out.

Yes and no. I just like— I was so driven at 12. Oh yeah, yeah.

Well, what was the feeling like when you say you're so driven? Like, what was it inside you that made you want to—

I just loved making music and performing and writing. And, um, I knew I just— there was no, like, option of anything else I would do with my life. And I knew I wasn't going to sing with my mom my whole life, you know. So I had to cut it loose at 12.

Yeah, that's so crazy.

God, and I hated school so much, and I begged to be homeschooled and We couldn't figure that out, so I ended up dropping out when I was 16.

Why'd you hate it so much?

Um, because I was so focused on music, I felt like I was wasting my time in school. Wow. Um, yeah, there was this teacher that— my algebra teacher, she said something to me that kind of lit a fire under my ass in a good way. She told me music isn't a career, and I was like, I'll show you, bitch. And so I dropped out and I never went back after she said that.

There's so many teachers that have influence over children that say things like that, and it's such a crazy, irresponsible thing to say.

Yeah, because I had, I had missed, or I hadn't done my homework because I had a show the night before this, and then we had a test, and I aced the test. I was a good student. I had like a 3.9, but I aced the test. And but she was like, but you got to do your homework just like everybody else in this class. And I was like, I had a show. I couldn't. I didn't have time. And she was like, well, music's not a career.

That's such a crazy thing to say because it's clearly a career. Why do you listen to music? Who's making it? I know when you go to a concert, people are paying. Is there someone Is there someone on stage? Is that a career? Like, what the fuck does that mean? It's not a career.

Small town Midwest, it's like, I mean, I guess everywhere. It's everywhere. People push the go to school, you know, get a good job. And I just wasn't on that path ever.

It's pretty wild to be that focused at such an early age. But it is, there's, it's something fun about those kind of like, I'll show you, bitch stories. Yeah.

Like, I could have taken that and been like, I could have gone the other direction with that comment, you know?

Right. You could have said, oh my God, I don't want to be a loser. Yeah. I don't want to be homeless. Yeah. Like, okay, she's right. And she's an adult, so she must know. Right. But yeah, I did the opposite.

It gave me a fire.

But you get older and you realize, like, there's a lot of people that are teaching, they're like, they're just teaching because they need a teacher. It's not because, like, we found this magical person who's really good at educating children. Really good at like shaping their minds and their futures.

Yeah. No. There's some good teachers. A lot.

There's a lot of them.

I had some really good teachers, but she was not one of them.

It's hard to find someone that's really good at a job that doesn't pay very well. It is. That's part of the problem.

That is part of the problem.

It's almost like you would think that if the future of humanity is very important, one of the most important things would be education. So one of the most important things would be finding the best teachers. And how would you do that? You would pay them really well. Yeah. Like, if we really cared about the future of Earth, we would spend a ton of money making sure that these teachers are really well educated and that they really understand psychology. They really understand how to motivate children. You would think. Yeah.

That would make a lot of sense. Right. We're—

it's so odd how intelligent and capable and innovative we are, and yet so fucking foolish at the same time that we just allow that generation after generation. Shitty teachers not getting paid, good teachers not getting rewarded. Mm-hmm. You know, and then they retire and they're like, what was that all for? Yeah, nobody cared. Nobody, nobody appreciated what I was doing. You have to fight for your pension. Like, ugh. The whole system is so messed up.

But the education system is so crazy.

Yeah. Because I mean, essentially, I mean, when you go down the tinfoil hat road, it was essentially designed to make factory workers. I mean, you know, there wasn't really formal schooling like we have now where children go at an early age and show up and, you and leave their parents all day, that's a fairly recent thing in human history. And the reason why they got people really early is because that's how you can brainwash them. Right. You get kids when they're 14, 15 years old, they kind of already have their own view of the world. It's hard to shape them. But you get those little 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and then if you get preschool, you know, because a lot of people have to work, you know, parents, both parents work. So then you can get the kids real early and then you can make little workers out of them.

Mm-hmm. Like walk in a single file line and yeah, control everything.

Sit in class, sit straight ahead, pledge allegiance. Yeah. And raise your hand if you can't pay attention. You must have a disease, so we're going to give you some medication. Exactly. Yeah. And then you're like, wah!

Fucking buzzing around. I probably should have had some of that medication, to be honest.

Probably not. No, no.

I definitely think I'm an undiagnosed ADHD case, but I feel like almost everybody is.

Well, anybody that's any good at anything. We had this conversation yesterday with my friend Eric and I was like, I think it's a fucking superpower. Yeah, I really do. I don't think it's negative at all. Yeah, there's a lot of shit I can't pay attention to if it's boring, right? If it's boring, I check in.

But then do you have like super hyperfocus on things that you're obsessed with, right?

Oh yeah. Like, I don't need to sleep. Yeah, I could stay up for days if something is really interesting, if I get focused, which is why I have to stay away from video games and stuff like that. Oh yeah, you just lock in, sucked in for hours. Yeah, it's a problem. Yeah, but, but it's not just video games, like anything that I really love. But things that I'm not interested in, it's like I can't absorb it. It just goes in. And that's what high school was like for me. It was like I'd be in class, I'd be like, this is torture. But then I'd find something I really loved and I'd be like fully locked in. But it took a while for me to, 'cause I just thought I was gonna be a loser. I'm like, clearly I can never hold a job. I'm not, I can't take direction. I'm not, I can't pay attention. Like there's something wrong with me. Like I'm not, I'm just gonna be one of those people that's just kind of a fringe person that's never, you know, never fits in anywhere. I'm like, okay, this is who I am.

I'll just get some weird odd jobs to feed myself with. Like this is literally how I was thinking about my future.

And look at you now. Well, I got lucky.

I found some things that are unconventional. But there's so many children out there that are told like, hey, music isn't a career. You know, hey, you know, whatever, acting, writing books, whatever it is, comedy. Somebody is there telling you because they didn't do it that you can't do it. Yeah. Yep. It's a bummer. Yeah, it is. Like, I was an artist when I was young. I wanted to be a comic book illustrator. When I was really young, and I had one shitty high school art teacher who was just such a twat. He was so bad, and I just— I quit art my senior year. I was like, I don't want to go to this guy's fucking class, like, because it wasn't a big high school and he was the only art teacher, so I quit.

What did he do?

He was just negative. He was like, you can't— because I just wanted to draw what I wanted to draw, you know, and I was into comic book stuff like Conan the Barbarian and superheroes and stuff like that, and he was like, you're not gonna make make a living doing that. You're most likely going to have to do like advertisements for like diapers, like diaper ads. And I was like, fucking what? Diaper ads? Like, that's his explanation that he used, diaper ads. And I would look at him and he just looks like he looked depressed. He was like this skinny guy with a potbelly.

And well, he's probably an artist that didn't make it as an artist and had to become an art teacher instead. Exactly. So he's like bitter.

And yeah, well, we realized that too when we looked at his actual art. We're like, huh, that's not very good. Not so inspired. There's not a lot of fire in that belly. You know, this is just a boring dude who's just like depressed and sad and he probably drank a lot. We see a skinny person with a big belly, usually that's like booze. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Armra. Every week there's some new wellness hack that people swear by and after a while you start thinking, why do we think we can just outsmart our bodies? That's why Arma colostrum caught my attention. It's something the body already recognizes and has hundreds of these specialized nutrients for gut stuff, immunity, metabolism, etc. I first noticed it working around training, especially workout recovery. Most stuff falls off, but I am still taking this. If you want to try, Arma is offering my listeners 30% off plus 2 free gifts. Go to arma.com/Rogan.

I mean, there's a lot of people like that, even in like the music industry. I feel like a lot of the experts in the game are just like people who were artists and didn't make it, and now they're bitter, and then they try to tell you how everything should go or how you should do everything. And oh yeah, that got me for a while. Well, when I was really young, and I feel like those people are like weights that you have to carry.

You know, you build up resistance, you build up strength from dealing with those bullshit people because their stupid ideas, they get— they actually get in your head and you have to wrestle with them.

For sure. Especially when you're super young like I was when I first moved to L.A. I was 17. Whoa. By yourself?

Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. That's crazy.

And I was like, very green, small-town Midwest girl. Whoa. Just dropped in L.A.

and like, And really pretty. That's a terrible combination. Oh, it was weird. Really pretty, 17. It was weird as fuck. Midwest. Oh God. Yeah. Look at you now, shaved head, tattoo on it. Yep. Yeah, you came out on the other end good though. But isn't it true though that like, like those kind of experiences, like experiencing like oddity and uncertainty and just like the weirdness of like moving to a place like LA when you're 17, like when you get through it on the other end, you're a different person. You're a stronger person.

For sure. I mean, every experience makes you stronger, right? So yeah, I just threw myself into this crazy mix in LA and it was culture shock.

Like, so what year was this when you moved to LA?

So I was 17, so, and I was in the graduate— I should have been in the graduating class of 2004.

So somewhere around that time, 2003, 2004. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I lived with, um, the guitar player from Culture Club. Really? Roy Hay. Wow. Yeah, he had a house in Venice and I crashed on his couch and It was wild.

Culture. Wild. Boy George. Mm-hmm. Did you hang out with Boy George?

No. Never? No, he wasn't there. You ever meet him? It was just the guitar player. On the phone, but no. Oh. Yeah. It was wild. There was a murder next door the first month I moved in. Yeah. There's like a bloody mattress in the little alleyway between the houses, and they taped They caution taped off all the houses and they had to question us about, like, did we hear screaming? And so I was just, like, sitting there on the steps, not allowed to leave while they were taking the body out. And then the coroner, after he put the body in the truck, he came and sat next to me on the steps and started, like, hitting on me. He was like, "You're a very beautiful girl." I'm like, "You were just touching a dead body. This is so weird. Where am I?" Oh God, that's crazy. Yeah, welcome to LA.

Yeah, he got over that dead body real quick. Yeah. Hey, where are you from? Yeah, fucking blood in his fingernails.

Yeah, gross.

Wow, that's a movie. Mm-hmm. Yeah, wow. LA in 2003 was still okay. Yeah, it was like not bad, you know. There was still traffic and everything, but it hadn't gone completely sideways. Yeah, it is now. It's so weird when I go back. I'm like, this is unrecognizable. It doesn't seem like the same place. Every sign has a— for every building has a for lease sign on it. It's like, this is nuts. Like, it's hard to believe that this is— that you're like— when you see things like Detroit, did you ever see that movie Roger and Me? Mm-hmm. It's a great movie. It's Michael Moore, and it's all about the collapse of the Detroit Detroit automotive industry and how they moved all the plants to Mexico. And when they did that, the entire economy of Detroit and Flint, Michigan and all these areas just collapsed. Like tens of thou— hundreds of thousands of people out of work instantaneously with no prospects. The industry was gone. And it's a horrific— this depiction of what can happen when greedy people decide that they'll, they'll completely sabotage an entire city so they can make, you know, X amount more dollars and move all the factories to places where you can pay people a dollar a day or whatever the fuck they pay them.

And, you know, I had seen that, but I was like, oh, that was, you know, 1980s or 1960s, whenever, when the, when, when the, the place was booming. Like Detroit was at one point in time, I think the third richest city in the world. Well, yeah, see if that's true. I'm pretty sure that's true. But it was all just because the automobile manufacturing. I mean, everything was made there. Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, all of our big cars. And it just—

gone. Like a ghost town.

Like a ghost town. And, you know, and when I visited Detroit to work, I'd be like, wow, this is crazy. You see trees growing through the middle of houses. The houses are collapsed. And like, literally nobody took care of the house. It was abandoned. So trees grow through the roofs and they're reclaiming these homes. You see, you go by these gigantic, like buildings, like industrial buildings, all the windows are broken. Yeah, everything. No reliable historical source shows Detroit as the third richest city in the world. The common claim is actually Detroit was the richest city in the world, or at least the US, was one of the highest living standards around 1950s, not third. Oh, so it was the richest? Whoa, it's not— that's the common claim. Oh, what it actually was. Very high medium household income, around 20% above U.S. average, and it's all because of the automotive industry. Mm-hmm. One of the highest homeownership rates in the country. Because of this, many commentators and locals' histories, uh, describe Detroit as the wealthiest city in the U.S. and by some accounts having the highest standard of living in the world in that era. Articles and tours about Detroit repeatedly referred to it as the wealthiest city in the world in the 1950s, not as the third wealthiest.

So is that true then, that it was the wealthiest city in the world? Tours about Detroit's history. The third richest city in the world line seems to come from its memes, social posts. Okay, these posts are often mix or exaggeration of real facts. Detroit truly was exceptionally rich by US standards, but rankings like third in the world are not backed by clear— clearly documented global per capita income comparisons from that period.

Well, so it was rich.

It was very wealthy, very wealthy either way. And when you think about the rest of the world, you know, like, you know, people love to use that term, the 1%, like the top 1%. Do you know what that is like for the world?

No, no.

What is it? $34,000. No freaking way. Yeah, $34,000 is the top 1% of Earth. That's crazy. Crazy. That's crazy.

What is it for the US?

1%? If I had a guess, let's guess. Um, I bet it's like $500,000 a year.

Do you think—

what do you think it is? 250? 250? What do you think it is?

That's my guess. I don't know though.

150? Top 1%? Wow.

All right, let's—

oh, that's your guess. Throw that in perplexity. I was guessing, I didn't want to look. Throw that sucker in perplexity. What did I say, half a million? Top 1% of the US, $700,000. Yeah, you're the closest. Mm-hmm. $700,000 to $800,000 or more depending on the data source and year. That's pretty crazy. So for the United States, $730,000 to $790,000 per year. Most analysis. And then for the rest of the world, $34,000. Wow, crazy.

That's wild. That's wild.

Yeah, that's capitalism. Yeah. But I bet there's probably some truth to— in order for the United States to have such a high income, these other countries have to get fucked over. Globally, you only need an annual income on the order of $60,000 to $70,000 to be in the top 1%. Oh, it used to be $34,000. Fluctuates. One widely cited analysis found that in 2012, annual income of $50,000 was enough to be in the global 1%. So where's that $34,000 come from? There's a meme that was going around too. Oh, fucking memes. It might have been kind of true, but again, yeah. I saw it repeated by someone very intelligent. I've looked it up before, but I think it was a meme. Okay.

Either way, I get— I get those memes get me all the time. Oh, like, babe, look at this. And then you go to the comments and it's like all fake.

Yeah, there's a lot of that. But you know, that's the dirty thing about what they did with Detroit. Like, they decided that they'll take advantage of these people that are ultra poor, that are willing to work with. And it's not just that they get paid a dollar a day or whatever they get paid. It's— there's no healthcare, there's no benefits, there's no retirement, there's no dental, there's no nothing. You just get that money and then figure it out on your own. And then, you know, you buy a Ford car and you think it's made in America. Commonly repeated claim: the annual income, about $34,000 US, puts you in the top 1% of the world. But this comes from rough, older, viral estimates. It's not based on current rigorous global data. More careful tools and datasets now suggest that $34,000 places you well above the global median, but likely closer to roughly the top 5 to 10% worldwide rather than the top 1%. Okay, so it appears in social posts. Yeah, 60 is still like, right, you're barely getting by. Yeah, if you make $50,000 in America, like, you're fucking struggling. Yeah, unless you're super young, you don't have any—

what, they pay teachers?

That's a good question. Like, what's the average public school teacher salary in America? Let's guess. I think it's like $60,000.

I think it's about that. I bet it's about that. Yeah, I guess. Might be less, actually.

What is it? Dun dun dun! $74,000. Public school teachers now average $74,000 to $75,000 per year. So that's like, you know, you're okay.

You do that on where you live. Yeah.

Yeah, well, if you live in New York, you're fucked. Yeah, if you live in New York, you live in a box. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty good for Wisconsin. Okay, um, state averages, lowest paying states to above $90,000, and the highest paying ones like California and New York. So California and New York, $90,000. One estimate says though it's way lower. Oh, starting teacher pay significantly lower than the overall average. Oh, national estimate of the average starting teacher salary about $48,000. Wow. Meaning it takes years of experience and often advanced degrees to reach or exceed that $74,000 average. So if you get like really intelligent people, even if they love children, they're like, I can't do this. I can't live like this. Yeah. You start off at $48,000 a year. That's fucking bonkers. That's not even $1,000 a week, and then you have taxes, and then you have an apartment, and then you have food, and then you have a car. Oh yeah. Oh, huh.

How do people do it?

What's just weird that we put our priorities in strange places, like the amount of money that goes through you know, various corporations and NGOs and the amount of loans that— all this different fucking shit that where our tax dollars go. And you look at that and you're like, that seems so short-sighted. Mm-hmm. Very. Yeah. No politician runs on that. No politician's like, we need to really find the best teachers and pay them the most amount of money that we can afford to make sure that we get the best and the brightest. Everybody's like, fuck you. It's weird. Yeah, it is. People are strange. Yeah.

I wish you could like check boxes of where you want your tax dollars to go.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. I want it to go to education or whatever. Yeah. Imagine if that was an option. If when you voted, you could actually vote on where your taxes went. Yeah. Yeah. Like, not even voted. It should be actually individually. He might have to pee. He's acting, you know. Yeah, let him out. Because generally he would be chilling by now. And when he huffs like that, he's usually trying to let you know something. Yeah, like that's what he does when he has to eat. He huffs. He comes around. He's like, oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm like, I get it. I go, chill out, bro.

My dog does that when she senses something outside, like a coyote or something. She starts huffing.

Well, you guys were saying you have a— one of them giant Caucasian Shepherds. Yeah, it's a Central Asian Shepherd.

We have an Alibi. I guess there's a lot of different, like, breeds under the Central Asian Shepherd.

They're all herding dogs, right? They, like, protect—

it's a protection. Yeah, livestock. Wolves.

Yeah. Pull up the image of an Alibi dog.

Just Google wolf crusher. Is that what they call them?

Yeah. How much does it weigh?

She's actually on the smaller side. She's like 105 pounds or something. Oh, that is smaller. But she— her head is so massive. They get— they get really big. That one can't be real, but they are massive, like Oh, so that's what she looks like. Yeah, pretty much. She's all white.

But those dogs are great for just like keeping track of the property. Yeah, look at that image. This is Wolf Crutcher in the bottom, the bottom right there. All right, go to the left, right, left of the Wolf Grinder thing. Yeah, that, that one right there.

So that I think is like a Turkish Kangal, um, which is I think the next dog we're gonna get. Because we need another one. Um, our, our alibi Nala, she— I'm just like such an animal lover, so she really should be outside living on the ranch, but she sleeps in bed. So I need an outside dog that's actually watching the livestock because this past couple weeks we lost, um, 12 chickens and 4 sheep. To what? Coyotes.

Wow, where do you live?

Napa, Napa Valley.

Wow, you have that many coyotes out there?

Oh, they are invading our property right now. It's been— the last few weeks have been really rough.

Once they know that there's food there, yeah, it's very—

once they taste the blood, they come back every night.

Yeah, I lost all my chickens in California. Yeah. We, we lost a couple of them every now and then. I had a dog, um, his name is Johnny Cash, and he was a Mastiff, and he was a sweetheart of a dog, but he was huge. He was like 140 pounds, solid muscle. And these coyotes made friends with him, and so they would come by the fence and hang out with them. And then eventually he got like accustomed to them. And then one day the pool guy accidentally left the gate open and And so he went into the area where the chicken coop is. The chicken coop was like completely protected, but we had one of our chickens was brooding. Do you know what brooding is? Yeah, yeah. Okay, of course you do. So when you take chickens when they're brooding, you have to take them away from the other chickens and you put them in a smaller coop and they have to perch. So if they perch, then they don't think that they're sitting on an egg and then they get over it after a while. Yeah. And the coyote tricked Johnny into smashing that little chicken coop so that he can get the chicken.

What do you mean? I don't know how this motherfucker did it, but it couldn't break down the chicken coop because it was only like 30 pounds. And so it was over there with Johnny, and all of a sudden me and my wife and our kids were playing some sort of a like Monopoly or something in the living room, and Someone yells coyote, and one of my kids yelled coyote, and we see the coyote running across the backyard with the chicken in its mouth and then leaps onto the top of the fence. I thought we had like this fence that was probably like 6 feet tall or something like that, like wrought iron fence. I'm like, I don't keep the coyotes out. No, it leapt like a ballerina, like a, like a gymnast, toes to the top of the fence and then off with the chicken in its mouth and Part of me was like so impressed that it did that, I wasn't even mad, but a part, I was like, what the fuck? I was like, how did it get that? So we go outside and there's Johnny standing there in front of this destroyed chicken coop, which clearly he did.

Yeah, 'cause the coyote couldn't have done that. Yeah, and so then he realized that chickens are to be killed. Oh no. And so someone left the gate open again and he decided to just go right through the big chicken coop, and he killed 9 of them before one of my daughters was screaming, "Johnny's in the chicken coop!" No. Yeah, he made a mess out of it. That's awful.

Well, he didn't know. I know, but— My chickens are like my pets. I like snuggle with them and stuff.

We lost one to a bobcat last week.

Yeah, we had some bobcats take some of ours too.

And we lost one to a fox. We lost one to a fox like a couple weeks ago.

Do you free-range your chickens? Yeah, let them out of the coop every day.

Yeah, they get out of the coop and then we bring them in at night. But the, you know, fucking animals, they figure it out.

Yeah, so like last week, because we let the chickens out every morning, it was 6:30 in the morning and this coyote came and killed 12, like back-to-back, just one. Well, on the cameras That's— we only saw one.

Wow. Yeah. So it was like surplus killing. Yeah, thrill killing. Well, they don't— they kill and then they leave them there and then they go back and get them later. You know, they do that with cats, you know.

I mean, mountain lions do that for sure. Mm-hmm. But yeah, it was weird. He just killed them all and then took like a few of them with him, left some of them.

Mmm, motherfuckers. It was awful.

I was broken because it took my favorite chicken, and her name was Big Cheeks. She was the sweetest. She would like come like a dog. You could like call her name and she would come to you.

And do you eat chicken?

Yeah, but not my chickens.

I don't eat my chickens either, but it's always weird because my wife treats the chickens like they're little babies, like, hey girls, hey girls. Like, she takes care of them and all that stuff, and and then we'll be eating chicken. Yeah, it's odd.

Yeah, it's odd. I mean, we have cows too, and I eat beef.

Do you eat your cows?

Well, they're not technically our cows, so we have like an arrangement with, um, the cattle guy, and he just uses our property to graze them. Okay. Because we need the cows because we have a biodynamic vineyard, and so we use the cows in the vineyard like for a few months out of the year, just because it creates like a great ecosystem. And also like their footprints make little puddles and the water gathers because we're also dry farmed. And so— What's that mean? We don't water our grapes. Really? Yeah. So why is that? I'm not the wine expert, but I think it's because you get like a better flavor profile if you like It's more concentrated if you don't like overload them with water. And also it makes the vines struggle in a good way. So it makes them reach deeper, like the roots reach deeper into the ground. And so you get more like flavor, I guess.

And so this is your own wine.

So we don't make the wine. We sell the grapes to— I think we have 5 different winemakers now. They're all doing single estate wines from our property, so they're not blending it with anything. So you can drink the wine from our property, but it's not our label because I don't want to go out there and sell wine and make people taste my wine. And I don't want to go down that whole marketing. It's like I have a whole other job. I don't need that.

That's it.

We just handle the farming.

That's cool, though. What if somebody wanted to buy wine from your property? Like, what are the wines?

Well, our property is called Glass Rock. And so Pilcrow Glass Rock, Tansey Glass Rock.

Oh, so they all say Glass Rock is on the farm.

Yeah, they have like their brand name or whatever. And then underneath it'll say like the vineyard site. So if you get it from a Glass Rock—

I'm going to buy some wine from your farm.

Oh, I'll send you some. Do you like wine? I do.

Oh, I do. I like wine. Okay.

I'm going to just mail you a package of all of the wines from our property. Okay. Cool. Um, it's all Cabernet, but we're taking like an old world approach to it because Napa cabs are like super powerful, tons of alcohol, and that's not really my style. I like like French and Italian wines usually, and so all the winemakers we're working with are, are taking that approach. And so we're picking a little bit earlier, lower sugars, lower alcohol. It's really delicious, delicate, beautiful wine. How did you get involved in this? Um, well, I got really into wine, like, in my 20s, and then, um, I took a trip to Napa for a birthday, and it's so beautiful there. Have you been to Napa?

Oh yeah, it's gorgeous.

So I just, like, fell in love with the area, and then, um, I met the love of my life at the grocery store there. As I was buying a watermelon and he asked if he could carry my melon for me, and that was his pickup line.

Um, I actually turned him down though.

I said no. Yeah, um, but we, um, Carlo Mondavi is his best friend.

Uh, do you know Mondavi? Mondavi Wines? Yeah, yeah.

So he's grandson of Robert Mondavi. And so they're like best friends. And Carlo— I was living in Park City, Utah at the time, and Carlo had a house in my neighborhood. So that was like our mutual connection friend. And so I would just come to Napa to visit Carlo and he would teach me about all the wine stuff and And that's how I met Elliott, when we were at the grocery store. And, uh, then a year later we got together officially. We just kind of like kept in touch. I was married at the time, he was in a relationship, so it was very dramatic. But long story short, it was very dramatic. Turned into a crazy divorce, 5-year lawsuit, all this crazy shit. Um, but anyway Those are fun. Yeah, it was fantastic. So then I moved to Napa and moved in with Elliott a year after we met. And so then we— but we lived in St. Helena, which is like a town up the valley from, from Napa proper. And it was like a 400-acre ranch out in the middle of nowhere. And we had like a 400-square-foot house, like a little tiny cabin basically that we lived in.

And after a while, like getting cats and stuff, I was like, this is really small. And I have like, I have to make music, I have to record and like having a studio in a 400-square-foot house, it was just, you know. So then we ended up buying this house down in Napa and we bought it for the house, but there was a vineyard there. And so we were like, we got to figure out what to do with the vineyard. And it was conventionally farmed up to that point. But we're— conventionally meaning irrigated? Like irrigated. They use pesticides, like, you know, like pretty much most of the vineyards, you know? Yeah. And but we're very all about organic and everything.

That's great too, because one of the things that we were reading the other day was about glyphosate in California wines and that they tested a bunch of California wines and all of them had glyphosate in it.

Yeah. So we don't use any of that. That's awesome. Yeah, we're very anti. So we transformed the vineyard into this biodynamic, organically farmed—

Did you know how to do that before that, or did you read books? How'd you find out how to do it?

No, we hired a farmer for a while from France that that was his forte, basically. So we transformed the vineyard, and then now Elliot's out there doing a lot of the farming. Obviously we have help. It's because we have like something like 9 acres planted, a vineyard, um, and so we have help, but, um, he's out there running the tractors and stuff. Wow. Yeah, he's always done— he's always done like a lot of like tractor work, um, but not ever in a vineyard, so it's, it's all new to us, but it's fun.

That, that life of like being on a piece of land and growing something there and like living with animals, that is the romantic life. It really thinks about— it really is. Is it that cool?

It's— yeah, it's awesome. You gotta come.

I think you'll love it. It sounds amazing. I want to do that. I've thought about doing that many times, like buying a ranch, living on a ranch. It's just like, I get terrified of like adding one more thing to my life that will probably push out some things or eat up time. I just don't know where I'm getting that time from. That's the only hesitation that I have.

You just hire help.

Yeah, but then you have to talk to them and you have to deal with that.

Yeah, you have to manage it all.

You have to deal with interpersonal drama between the help. Like, Mike's a piece of shit, let me tell you. Like, oh, fuck.

You know what I mean? Yeah, it's worth it though. Honestly, it really is. It's so peaceful. Like, especially being in the industry, I mean, going out and like touring and just being in big cities and then coming home to this like peaceful, serene ranch life. It's— yeah, it's the perfect balance.

Yeah. Well, that is probably the key to staying sane as a performer, like having a balance. I think so. Because so many of them just fucking just stay on the road and you kind of like lose your roots, you lose your grounding.

You're just, you're always performing. Well, and for me, it, like, living in LA really ruined my creativity. How so? Um, I think a lot of it was like, I'm, I have a tendency to like give everybody too much power. So like all these so-called experts, like listening to their opinions about what I was doing, um, just got in my head. And so, um removing myself, being able to remove myself from those characters and personalities telling me what they thought I should be doing, like writing about, singing about, dressing, whatever. Um, I just— I need to like have open spaces to really hear my own inner voice and like my gut, you know. Um, so I left LA when I was 23. And I moved up to Oregon for a while, lived in a cabin.

By yourself? Yeah. Really? How did you find it?

Well, I had been on tour and I was playing keyboards and singing backups for somebody else. So I can back up a little bit. So I got my first record deal when I was 18 or something. And put out an album that was with Warner Brothers. Linkin Park signed me, and I was going by the name Holly Brooke at the time. That's my first and middle name. And so I put out an album through that, and it completely, like, flopped, and I went broke. And, you know, LA is so expensive, and I had spent all my college savings to move out to LA and make demos and everything, so I had nothing left. And so then I had taken— for the first time in my life, I had to get some jobs, like not just performing. So I worked in Barnes Noble, I taught gymnastics, and I edited porn.

And then edited porn? Mm-hmm. Whoa.

That was a great experience. That's gotta be weird. It was weird. How did you take that job?

First of all, how did you even find out about that job?

Well, it was a Craigslist ad, and it was just like, we need video editors. And I was like, oh, I can figure that out, 'cause I edit in Pro Tools and stuff, music, so it can't be that hard. And they said they would train. So I showed up to the interview in a suit and they were like, so you know this is adult content? Because it didn't say that in the ad. That's how they brought it up?

You know this is adult content? Like, yeah, how the fuck would you know?

And they're like, are you cool with that? I was like, I guess so, because I need the job. And so I just took it and it was a 9-to-5, literally just looking at like the most disgusting shit you can imagine. Like 2 Girls 1 Cup has got nothing on what I saw.

Really? Yeah.

So it was like hardcore, hardcore porn. And it was like, it wasn't editing feature films. It was taking like a feature film and then cutting out all the highlights so that I could make like basically reels or like, you know, it wasn't Instagram, but basically like these little clips that people would search and find like a cum shot or like a cream pie or whatever search term they would use to find this specific little clip. And so I would put together these little clips and then tag it with all the search terms somebody would use to find it. That was the job. And so it was all just like, watch the whole film and pick out all the most disgusting moments you can find and turn that into a clip. And then I started getting this thing called the Tetris effect. Have you heard of that? No. So like if you play Tetris for too long, you start seeing like the shapes falling. You hallucinate basically. So you'll just like be making dinner or whatever and you're just like hallucinating like the Tetris shapes. But I was hallucinating like gaping buttholes and— Yeah.

Oh my God.

And so—

How long did you do that job for?

I only lasted 2 weeks. But it was the best paying job out of all of them that I had, 'cause I got paid by how many clips I got done in a certain amount of time. And so I was making like $30 an hour, which is great for a high school dropout, you know? And so it was good money, but I, with the Tetris Effect thing happening to me, there was like a light socket over my bed that I had taken the light bulb out of because it was too bright. And every night when I fell asleep, I would like stare at that and see a gaping butthole. I was just like, this is not healthy. Like, this can't be good for me to continue doing, you know? No. And then I also simultaneously got offered to be a keyboardist for this other singer, Duncan Sheik. He's like a '90s— he had a song called Barely Breathing in the '90s, um, and I was a fan. And so I was like, well, that sounds like a better job, you know, definitely. And that's music at least. So I went on tour with him for a while, um, I don't know if it was like a year or two, but the whole time I was just like, I wish I was making my own music and singing my own music.

You know, it started really eating at me being like the backup musician. And so I was like journaling a lot on tour and I wrote, I just want a cabin in the woods where I can set up my studio and be away from all these people. And basically I manifested the cabin because like 6 months after I wrote that in my journal, my mom called me and she was like, My friend has this property in Oregon and she has a cabin and she's willing to let you live there for free. Um, you just have to work in her art gallery selling art like twice a week. I was like, that sounds perfect. Wow. So that's what I did.

That's how you wound up in Oregon.

So that's how I wound up in Oregon.

What part of Oregon? It's the southern coast.

Um, it was in the middle of nowhere, but it's basically near Bandon. Do you know Bandon Dunes Golf Course? No. Have you heard of that? No. It's a really famous golf course, but it was kind of near there. And I lived there for like 6 months, set up my studio, kind of like had to rediscover my love for music and fall back in love with it because I had like writer's block and I was really depressed. I had also just before that broke up with my boyfriend at the time. And my heart was broken, and it was just like, I was a mess. But my cabin was this really small one-room cabin with one light bulb, and there was no bathroom in it. There was a bathroom outside. And so I had to like walk in the middle of the night if I had to pee, I had to walk to the bathroom, and I was like terrified.

Where was the bathroom? Was it an outhouse?

No, it had a flushing toilet and a shower. But it was like a standalone, separate from the cabin and like down a path by itself. Yeah, just a bathroom. Yeah. Well, because the cabin was like an old fire lookout that they turned into a cabin, so it didn't have like plumbing or something. So they like add— I don't know, but it was really beautiful and it was also at the top of a sand dune, so I couldn't drive up to it. So I had to park down the hill and hike to it. How far was the hike? Like a quarter mile. Every day? Yeah. Yeah. And so, and I didn't have like internet or anything up there. Wow. But it was great. But I was terrified of mountain lions the whole time. And so I would like, you know, walking up that hill at night if I came home from whatever, I had my flashlight and was like looking all directions, like, and I actually made a mask to wear on the back of my head because apparently, like, eye contact with a mountain lion, like, they won't attack. And so because they attack you from behind, so I like wore a mask on the back of my head.

Whoa. That's— who told you how to do that?

I don't know. Google. There's— I don't know if it's real, but it's real. But I did it.

It's real for tigers. There's a group of people that work for the government in the Sunderbans. So the Sunderbans is this area in India that's notorious for tigers eating people. And apparently over the— let's just Google this number because I'll fuck this up too. I think over the last 200 years, something insane like 300,000 people have been killed by tigers. What? In this area. Yeah. That's insane. Yeah, well, there's a lot of villages there, and then there's also typhoons. And apparently when these storms happen, sometimes people die and they wind up in the river and, you know, they get washed away. And the tigers apparently developed a taste for human. Mm. And then there's also this thought about the water. The water is not fresh. It's brackish, so the water has a high salt content in it, but they still drink it because it's the only saltwater. So they're probably constantly irritated. Mm-hmm. The Sunderbans usually prone to attacking, sometimes eating humans, causing dozens of deaths every year. But not every tiger there is a man-eater. Aw, sweet. Historical reports suggest Sunderbans tigers regularly killed 50 to 60 people per year. With some estimates over 100, especially including unreported cases.

Most recent expert estimates put the average about 22 to 23 human deaths per year in the Sundarbans, far lower than the popular perception. Well, there's like clusters of attack. Oh yeah, here it is. Local news reported clusters of attacks, multiple fishermen and crab catchers killed within a month, showing that risk can spike in certain areas or seasons. I had a bit in my 2009 comedy special about this attack that happened in the Sundarbans where there was 4 guys in a boat and this tiger swam out to the boat, killed a guy, dragged him to shore, dropped his body off, jumped back in the water, swam to the boat, killed another guy, jumped back in the water. Holy shit. Did it with 3 guys before he got tired, and the last guy's just fucking shitting his pants on the boat by himself. One guy lived. So these are the people that would walk around with these masks on the back of their heads.

Oh wow.

Yeah, so I did the right thing. Yeah, you did the right thing. Well, at least for tigers. But there's— I mean, okay, that's crazy. Like, these people all living around there, these are honey collectors in the Sundarbans to prevent tiger attacks. Like, you got to know there's a lot of tiger attacks when you're wearing a fucking mask around your head when you're going to work. Whoo. Yeah, that's Creepy. Yeah, fucking scary. It's a crazy way to die too, you know, especially a tiger. It's probably pretty quick though. I guess once they get a hold of you, it's just smush. They get the back of your neck.

Yeah, I mean, it probably happens fast.

All right. Yeah, mountain lion would probably take a little longer. I don't know. Yeah, probably 20 minutes, 15, depending on how much you scream.

Yeah, yeah, we've had to deal with those too.

Did you have a gun or anything when you were up there? No, no. Um, did you think about getting one?

No, I didn't actually. I had an ax. It's better than nothing. It was—

I was just chopping wood because I don't know if you were really afraid of mountain lions, how come you didn't get a gun?

I don't know. I didn't even think about it. I don't know why.

Wow. That'd be the first thing I thought of. There's not a fucking chance in hell I'm walking around there without a gun.

Yeah. I don't think at that point I was into guns yet.

Are you into them now? Yeah. Yeah?

We have a gun range at our house. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Elliott's very into them. I have a carry permit. Good for you.

Yeah, good. Um, have you ever seen a big cat in the wild? Oh yeah, a mountain lion. Yeah, what was the biggest one you saw? Like a real big one?

Um, I don't think the ones I saw were huge. They were like 100, maybe 150.

The first one I ever saw was just in Colorado, it actually wound up getting one of my dogs. And this was—

it got your dog?

Mm-hmm. No. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I lived in a place called Gold Hill. It's like north of Boulder, so it's like 3,000 feet above Boulder. Fucking beautiful, gorgeous. I would have stayed there, but it's very high altitudes, like 8,500 feet above sea level. And my wife got pregnant, and when you are— if you're pregnant at very high altitude and you're not accustomed to that, it's like you have the flu every day. It's horrible. And we wound up going back to LA. But so that was the first one that I saw. And then I saw one in Santa Barbara. I saw one in— and actually in Montecito, we were driving and I saw this thing running across the road. I was like, oh, is that a coyote? And then I saw the tail.

Yeah, the tail's the giveaway.

Oh, it's a fucking mountain lion. Like, that's wild. But that one wasn't even that big. That was like 70 pounds. And then a couple of years ago, I was in Utah with my friend Colton, and we were driving around this corner, and he goes, dude, look under that tree! Look at that cat! And we see the glowing eyes of this cat because it was like just starting to get dark out. And I was probably 30 yards from this thing in the truck with the binoculars just looking at its head. Its fucking head was massive, like a pumpkin. Like, the muscles, the mandible muscles were like these things around its head, just a crushing machine. And these huge forearms, that's what I remember about it the most. His forearms were massive, and it was just sitting there under that tree staring at us. And I was in the truck, like, I wasn't, you know, we were armed, and we were in a truck and I was still shitting my pants like, that thing is so big.

How much do you think it weighed?

At least £180, maybe £200. It was a big tomcat like that one that we have out front. Like that. Like that size. Wow. Yeah. I was like, that one was one my friend Adam Green Tree killed and he killed that in Colorado. And that one, they had a depredation permit because it was targeting this rancher's cows. And they, they had tracked it. And that day, as they were tracking it, it had killed one of these cows and just— it was still alive. They just gutted it. It basically took it down and just started eating its organs while it was still alive. Yeah, that's what they do. Yeah, it was pretty rough.

Yeah, they're monsters. We had that— we had an issue with mountain lions up at our other property in Napa. We had sheep And, um, I was actually on tour with Eminem and got a text from my neighbor that our sheep had had babies on Valentine's Day. And so I was like so excited to get home and take care of these lambs. And, um, I guess one of the, the lambs was rejected by the mother, and so we had to bottle feed it, which is the best thing ever. I love that. You know, some people think it's like an unnecessary chore to take care of bottle babies, but I love it. So like 3 times a day feeding this thing, and she became like a dog. Like she would follow me everywhere. She slept on my front porch. Her name was Valentine. I got a tattoo of her actually, right here. Aww. And, um, but So like a few months later, we had had like maybe 10 lambs at that point. Little babies, they're so cute. Um, and like one morning— oh well, so our, the property was like 400 acres and so, and our house is so small, but we had like other little buildings on the property.

So I'd set my studio up in one of the other buildings. And so I would drive up there. It's like a half mile up the driveway. And I was driving one day up to the studio and I saw this mountain lion, like, crossing our field. And I rushed to get my phone out to take a video of it. Of course, it didn't get a very good shot by the time I got the video. And I turned around and went back to the house. I was like, "Babe, there's a mountain lion on the property." And I showed him the video and it was like kind of blurry, you couldn't really tell. And we called, um, our neighbor and I think the sheriff and showed them the video and everybody was just like, well, 9 times out of 10 when people see it, say they see a mountain lion, it's just a bobcat or like whatever. And I was like, no, I know this is a mountain lion. Like, I know what I'm looking at, you know, I saw the long tail, the whole thing. And they didn't know, like nobody believed me. Like it's Bigfoot or something.

Yeah. Like, I'm like, no, I swear it's a mountain lion. And Elliott believed me. So we went up and took a little hike up the ravine where I'd seen it walk off to. And I swear that, like, the lion must have been tracking us. Back to the house because it— that night we were, um, because we didn't see it. We went up the ravine and we didn't see the lion anywhere, but we went back home. And then that night we were like watching TV and scrolling through Instagram or whatever, and he showed me this— you know how the Russians, they like become friends with all these crazy animals like bears and whatever? So there's like this video of this like Russian guy like in bed with his mountain lion. Like cuddling with it. Toys Russians. I know, right? They're psycho.

They are not regular white people. No.

And so he's like, he showed me this video and he's like, I could never kill one of these unless they fucked with my family. Yeah. That next morning, I take my coffee out onto the front porch like I always did, look down at the sheep pen, And I see this mom sheep laying with her baby that's not moving. And I was like, this is— something's not right. And I go down there and sure enough, there's like the fang marks, you know, the deep fang marks in its throat and its stomach eaten out. And the mom would not leave its side. And so I go back to the house and I'm like, babe, we lost it. A lamb to the mountain lion nobody believed that I saw. And so we called Fish and Wildlife and they came out and confirmed that it was a mountain lion kill. And so they set up— they were— they put traps in our sheep pen and, you know, to see if we could like trap it and relocate it. And so they stayed on property that night and I can't even remember all the details, but basically in the middle of the night we heard this big bang and we thought, oh, the trap closed.

And we opened the door and it wasn't that. It was like one of our sheep had busted through the fence trying to escape the lion and was standing in our driveway, like right in front of the house. I was like, oh, fuck. So then Elliot goes down to the sheep pen and he sees the lion and it's like just like those glowing eyes, you know? And then it darts off into the woods. And it had killed another lamb, and the trap didn't go off. And so then the guys, the trackers, they came down and they were like, okay, let's, like, hunt this thing. Like, take the dogs. So they had, like, 6 dogs. And basically for the next, like, week, tried to get this lion and couldn't. Like, the dogs were getting all mixed up. They were, like, wandering off one direction and then going another direction. And they're like— and the trackers were like, this has never happened. Like, they usually get it. Like, what the hell's going on? They were— the dogs were just getting all confused. And we basically— oh, and then another night, Elliot was out there thinking that he heard the guys whistling.

But I guess it was the cats whistling. So mountain lions whistle. Do you know about that? Yeah. It's a crazy sound. You can probably look it up.

Mountain lion whistle. I need to hear that.

Yeah. But he heard whistling and he thought it was the trackers saying, like, we're here. And he was just standing out there. And then 20 minutes go by and the guys aren't there. And so then they finally pull up. And they're like, um, or he was like, were you guys whistling at me? And they were like, no. Like, did it sound like this? And he was like, yes. And they said, that's the lions. They whistle to communicate with each other.

Put the headphones on so you can hear this. Oh. Whoa.

Yeah.

Oh, that's in— that's Tejon Ranch. Yeah, man. That— I go to that place. That's in California. That's outside of Bakersfield. I've elk hunted there before. That place, Tejon Ranch, they had one pond where they set up a camera trap. They set up trail cameras. They found 18 different cats on one pond.

That's crazy. That's not normal.

Oh, they have a lot of cats. Yeah, well, California doesn't do anything about it. I know. They're kind of nuts. Texas has the complete opposite approach. Yeah, you just shoot them. Yeah. Yeah, you don't have to have a permit. They— we got permits.

We got permits because they came back and killed every night, and then they took my Valentine, and I was like so heartbroken.

There was nothing you could do to like lock them up?

Well, I tried to bring Valentine into the house and put her in a kennel in the kitchen. But try sleeping with a screaming lamb. It was like not a thing. We put her back out and she was fine that night. But the trappers just kept saying, no, we got to just leave everything as is and we'll get them. But then, like, after a week of hunting them and nothing, it was like, what are we doing? Like, we should move these sheep. Like I was fighting for that, but they were just like, no, we got to keep everything as is because if you move them and change the what's going on, it'll like the cattle just like maybe not come back for a while, but then it'll come back, you know. And so they were like, if we're going to get this thing, we got to leave everything as is. But anyway, so they finally got the cat one night. I actually had to leave town and do a show, and Elliott called me, and he actually— he actually was the one that shot it. But they got the cat, and I felt like this huge sense of relief.

And I came home, and I thought everything was fine, and we weren't gonna lose any more lambs. And then like a few days later, I woke up and took my coffee outside, and there was a mom sheep dead now, and she was dragged under the fence. And I was like, what the absolute fuck? So turns out there was two cats hunting together, and that's why the dogs were getting confused and couldn't follow the trail. And, um, I guess like in the spring, a lot of times the, the moms will like teach their children how to hunt. And so they weren't even like eating the lambs, they were just killing them. Um, and so it was like basically them learning how to hunt, I guess. I don't know, I don't know. But, uh, we got another permit and we got the second lion, and then everything was peaceful. But we, we went down from like 20 to 3 sheep. Oh God. Yeah, it was awful.

Killed 17 sheep. Holy shit, that must be terrifying.

Yeah, and I mean, I'm like out there, I'm scared for myself even. Yeah, that's living out there and like going into my studio and stuff. Like, it was really scary and really heartbreaking.

Yeah, I could imagine. 17 is crazy.

Yeah, it was really bad.

When you shoot the cat, do you have to bring it somewhere and then they have to like register it?

Whoa. They took them. The Fish and Wildlife took the bodies. But yeah, the dogs, you know, treat them.

And because people eat them, like, they taste good. Really? Yeah. Yeah, I had some.

Wouldn't it be kind of like tough because they're like so muscly?

Eat the loin. Like, the loin— like, people eat the roasts. It's, it's like pork. Hmm. Yeah, my friend Steve described it as a superior pork. Hmm. Yeah, a lot of people eat mountain lion. Interesting. I know it sounds crazy, but I'd try it. Have you ever had bear? Have you ever had bear? Bear's good.

Really?

Yeah, believe it or not, people like— oh, it depends on what the bear is eating. Like, if you eat a bear that's eating a lot of fish, it's going to be kind of funky. Or if you catch a bear that's been like eating a dead deer for like a couple weeks, that's not good, you know. Yeah, moose. Like a dead moose. That's—

Does it taste kind of rotten or something?

Yeah, it'll smell rotten. But if you catch one that's been eating blueberries, it's like some of the most delicious meat. Damn. Yeah. My friend Steve Ranella, he has a show called Meat Eater, and he was hunting black bears in Alaska over this blueberry patch. So he shot this black bear and he's cooking it. And as he's butchering it, he did it all on camera. As he's butchering it, like the fat from the bear is purple. With like blueberry. And so like the flavor of blueberries was in the meat itself. That's interesting. It's like, it's the most insane meat. It's delicious. I'd try that. Yeah, it's good.

I like elk. Elk is my favorite.

Um, where do you guys— you live in Napa? When are you guys going back? Tomorrow? No, tonight. I've got some. I'll give you some. Really? Yeah, I got a freezer bag. I have a commercial freezer out here. Oh, sick. There's some elk. I'll hook you up. Let's go.

Let's go. That's by far my favorite. Yeah. Oh, it's delicious. The best.

It's the best for you too. Like, you feel different when you eat it. You're like, oh, it's like it's got so much nutrients in it.

You've done the axis deer hunting in Hawaii? We want to do that so bad.

Oh, it's, it's— first of all, if you use a rifle, it's 100% guaranteed. Really? Like, you can't not get a deer. There's so many of them. You have to kill them. There's— on Lanai in particular, there's 30,000 deer and 3,000 people. Holy shit. Yeah. And so in Lanai, you can actually stay at the Four Seasons. So you stay at this like amazing resort and then you go hunt. That's awesome. Yeah. So I went with— well, we've gone a few years, but I went with a whole group of friends one time. It was like 7 of us. We went there and we had the best time. We hunted and then we ate axis deer and It's like you're overlooking the oceans, this gorgeous paradise. Yeah, that sounds like a great vacation. And you're bow hunting deer. But that's a deer that evolved around tigers, and they are so fast, like unbelievably fast. Like if you shoot at one that's 30 yards away and it hears the bow go off, it'll be out of the way before the arrow gets to it. They do what's called jumping the string. They just duck down and take off. It's not like they know an arrow's coming at them.

They just know to run. And the way they run is they load up their muscles by getting low and then springing forward. But they do it so fast that— okay, 30, 40 yards, let's say 40 yards. So 40 yards, you've got an arrow that's going 290 feet a second. And from the sound of the bow going off, the pop of the bow going off, they're gone. Yeah. Which is insane.

But can you hunt with rifle out there? Oh yeah.

Okay. Oh yeah, that's how they do most of the hunting out there. Okay. We went and I went with a bunch of very experienced bow hunters, like top of the food chain bow hunters, and we all got axis deer, but it was a struggle. It's like a lot of them jumped the string. We wound up realizing that the best time to go was at night, not at night, but in the afternoon, because in the afternoon it's much windier, and so it hides your sound. Oh. Because they're just on edge because they get hunted 365 days a year. There's no offseason, and they have to hunt them because there's so many of them. Like, you'll— like, driving at night, you'll stop and turn the headlights to a field and you just see thousands of eyes. Wow. Like, they're infested. Infested with delicious animals. And there's no predators. There's zero predators other than people. So they bring in snipers and people with night vision, and they shoot them at night, and they use headshots. And when you go to like the restaurants in the Four Seasons, they serve axis deer.

Oh, that's cool.

Oh, it's delicious. It's so good. What is that place? Malibu Farms, I think it is. They have insane venison sliders from axis deer. They're so good. I mean, it's It's one of the most delicious game animals. But when we went, we did a podcast from there and, you know, we called it Podcast from Paradise. We're all having a good time. And because after that, 150 different people went the next year and only one of them was successful with a bow. Oh, well, every other one was like, fuck this, I'm getting a rifle. This is ridiculous. These things are so fast. Like, but it's an animal that evolved, like I said, around tigers. Yeah, King Kamehameha in Hawaii was given axis deer as a gift from the leader of India in like the 1800s. That's how they got there.

And then they just took over.

Oh yeah, they took over. They're everywhere. Yeah, Maui has a lot of them too, but they also have this— the company called Maui Nui. So like, if you love game meat, you can actually buy game meat. So wild game meat in America, you can't sell. So if you buy, like, say if you buy elk, like you go to a restaurant, you buy elk. It's farmed. You're getting it from New Zealand. Oh, wow. Most likely. Yeah, most, most, I think most of the elk that they serve in restaurants in America is coming from New Zealand because New Zealand's a similar situation, no predators, and they brought in all these animals and then they're just infested. And most of it's probably not even really elk, it's probably stag. Which is super similar anyway. But when you get like farm-raised elk, that's— you're probably getting it from somewhere else. I mean, they probably have some places that are allowed to sell farm-raised elk in America. I don't know which one that would be, but wild game like that you hunt, you cannot sell because that's how they almost went extinct in this country. Oh, in the turn of the century, in the beginning of the, I guess, like the 1800s, the beginning of the 1900s, they brought elk to the point of extinction almost.

And the same with whitetail deer, they, because they were market hunting. So because no one had refrigerators, you'd have to get meat all the time. And so they were just shooting all of them. Wow. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, but in Maui you have so many of them and then they set up a company called Maui Nui. And Maui Nui, you can buy bone broth, venison bone broth. They have like meat sticks and you could buy actual venison and they'll freeze it and then ship it to you. So if you want wild game, it's like one of the best places and one of the most delicious wild game too. Yeah, yeah. Axis deer is delicious.

Yeah, we want to do that hunt for sure.

Oh, it's a great hunt. Yeah, because you can't— first of all, you're in paradise. And you're going to see them. It's not like if you go on an elk hunt, like you could be in the mountains for days before you find any elk because, you know, you got to find out where they are. You got to listen for bugles. You got to, you know, you got to glass a lot. You look around, you might not be successful. If you bring a rifle to Lanai, you 100% are going to be successful and you can kill a bunch of them.

You know, you could like— And they like package it for you and ship it home to you?

Yeah. There's a guy named Bob the Butcher. Shout out to Bob. He'll butcher them for you and package it for you and all that jazz. And, you know, if you give it enough time, they'll freeze it. And we actually brought it back to the Four Seasons and they put it in their commercial freezer. They froze it for us. And then we, you know, put it in these big Yeti coolers and brought it back on the plane.

Nice.

Yeah. And you could like literally get a year's supply of your meat in like a few days if you wanted to do that and just eat venison for the rest of the year. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Yeah, we usually try to get a deer every year up in Napa too.

Do you guys go deer hunting?

Well, I don't. Elliot does. Elliot does. I help him clean it though. I've been doing that since I was a little girl.

Oh really?

My dad taught me when I was a kid, and I would like— he hunted a lot, and I would just— he would send me on these like routes to kick the deer out to him, you know? Oh, okay. So I would like do the hiking and kick them out and push. Yeah. And then we would, uh, we would all gather. It was usually around Thanksgiving. We'd all gather in the basement and like cut the, cut the meat up and skin it and all that. Wow. So I like doing that part.

Well, that's cool. It's a great way to be connected to what you're eating. Yeah, exactly. Different experience.

You have a different appreciation for it. Oh yeah. You know, then something you just like buy at the store or in a restaurant, like, it's totally different appreciation.

Oh, 100%. And also it's like, you know, it's organic, it's an actual wild animal, and it's the best life that this animal is ever going to live, and including the best death. Because especially if you're good with a rifle, if you're accurate and you practice, it's dead. Like that. And it's not like getting its guts eaten out by a mountain lion or anything else that's going to eat it or old age or winter, all the horrible ways that animals die. Their teeth grind down to nothing and they essentially starve to death. It is rough. It's a hard life. Yeah. So how did you wind up leaving Oregon? So you're walking a quarter mile every day by yourself with a flashlight, trying to avoid being eaten. Yep. How'd you get out of there?

Well, I figured out that I needed to find a way to make a living in music. And so I reached out to the only person I had left in my corner musically, because like at that point I had lost my record deal, my lawyer dropped me, my manager dropped me, um, but I was still technically signed to UMPG Publishing. And, um, so I reached out to my like point person there who I hadn't spoken to in years, and I said, help me figure out how to make a living in music. I gotta figure this out. 'cause that's the only thing I really know how to do and I'm a dropout so I can't really get a good job and—

Other than editing porn.

Yeah. And I don't wanna do that. And so I met with her in New York. I flew to New York and we just sat down, had like this long conversation. And I had like, ever since I was like 13 when I'd first heard Stan by Eminem, I'd always been like, I love that combination of like a pretty, you know, female vocal with hip-hop. And so I'd always wanted to do something like that. And so I said, I think I could write hooks for hip-hop songs. Like, that was kind of like my— what I told her I wanted to do. And she was like, well, We just signed this producer named Alex the Kid, and that's kind of like his wheelhouse, so you guys should meet. And so I flew back to Oregon, and she connected us on email. And I would go down to the little café to get internet. And so I would just— I emailed him, and he emailed me back some beats that he had just made. And I would just sit there with my headphones in the cafe and like hum little melodies into my computer and send them back. But the first one I did was called Love the Way You Lie, and a month after I sent Alex that hook, it was a number one song.

Wow, what was that like? It was crazy going from like broke and living in the woods in this cabin and then writing a song that literally took over the world. Yeah, so that's kind of what took me out of Oregon because after that I started getting phone calls, you know, from everybody wanting songs from me. Um, Em had me and Alex come out to work on Detox for Dr. Dre. And Puff Daddy wanted a song. That's where "Coming Home" came into play. Yeah, it was just crazy. Suddenly I was— I went from nobody caring to everybody trying to get a song.

That's gotta be such an insane experience to be like, what am I doing? I'm out in a cabin. I gotta go outside to pee. I gotta walk a quarter mile to the house. You're like completely isolated. Did you have any friends out there at all?

Yeah, I had a couple friends. I made a couple friends when I was out there.

And then all of a sudden—

and all of a sudden I was, yeah, off to the races. Mm-hmm. It was crazy.

How did you adjust to that? That had to be very strange.

It was, and I also felt so much pressure. Because like I definitely had a little imposter syndrome when I wrote that song because I was just like, that was too easy. Like it took me 15 minutes to write that hook and I sent it off and suddenly everybody wanted to get a song from me and I was like, that must have been a fluke. Like this is never gonna happen again. I'm never gonna write another one like this or whatever. Um, and so, so many people were just wanting songs and I felt so much pressure to deliver a hit song every time, you know? And I was always so hard on myself, but it— that became even worse. Um, just— I would just put way too much pressure on myself. I, I got invited to do so many songwriting sessions, but at that point, like, I had pretty much only ever written by myself. And so being, like, thrown in rooms with songwriters and producers and stuff, I was so shy. I just felt it was always so hard for me to open up creatively in front of strangers. So I would just like walk out of sessions crying and just be like, I suck, I can't do this, you know.

It was hard. That was the hardest part for me.

Just performing in front of a bunch of people?

Just like, yeah, just trying to like create hit songs every time I go into a writing session. I just felt like there was some such high expectations on what I would deliver, and I can't force creativity. It's like, it just— it happens or it doesn't, you know? But I felt like I had to deliver a hit song every time, and because I put that pressure on myself, it kind of shut down my creativity, and it made it really hard for me to do that. So then I ended up like just leaving a lot of sessions and feeling like I didn't deserve to be where I was and not good enough. How'd you get over that? Um, I didn't really. Yeah, I don't think I ever got over that. I like, I did a lot of these sessions for a while. 'cause I felt like I had to, and then I just kind of stopped taking them. I stopped agreeing to do them 'cause it was just too much. It was too hard on me.

So explain these kind of sessions. So you go to a studio with producers and like, and they essentially say, okay, let's try to create something. Ready, go. And then you're in there and your creative process is you by yourself like trying to connect with emotions and thoughts and ideas. And now all of a sudden you're around people, and also you're a little weirded out because you've been living in a fucking cabin. Yeah, by yourself, you know, that. And you're editing porn for 2 weeks, and it's like that.

And I just had this like hit song that was huge, was massive, and I just felt like there was such high expectations on me, you know, right?

So it was very hard. Everybody that I've ever met who's really good has imposter syndrome. Yeah, I think it's a part of being genuinely creative because I think like genuinely creative people don't have that kind of weird ego. We're like, yeah, finally I'm getting mine. Because some people do have that where they feel like they deserve this. Mm-hmm. But I feel like at least most genuinely creative people that I've talked to, when something big happens to them, they're like, this is fucking crazy. Like all of my comedian friends, when they start to hit, like when something happens, when they get like a viral clip and then they do a Netflix special or something like that in the beginning, they're like, bro, I'm kind of freaking out. I'm like, we all are. It's okay. Like, this is the thing. Like, yeah, you're going to feel fucking weird. Yeah. That, that thing, whatever it is, that imposter syndrome, I think is a good thing. I think it's a sign that you have a healthy mind, or at least maybe not healthy, maybe that's not the right word. You have a creative mind, you know, and that you, you're in— also everything completely changes.

You have a hit song all of a sudden out of nowhere, number one, like what the fuck? Like that kind of shift in paradigm, like that is not normal to get adjusted to. You have to be a complete psycho to go to be like, all right, this is perfect. This is what I've been waiting for, you know? Yeah. Because everybody, like, sees people either on television or, you know, in— you see them in the media and you think, that's a different kind of thing than me. I'm not— I'm not a famous person. I'm not popular. I'm not successful. I'm just me. Like, and then all of a sudden people know who you are. And love you, and you're like, oh my God, I'm a fraud. Yeah. Oh my God, they don't know about the shitty songs I've written.

Exactly. They don't know that like 99% of the songs that I write suck. Oh, of course. And then the one, you know.

I think that's the case with everything though. You know, I talk to all my friends that are comics, all say the same thing. Like, out of the jokes that they write, like 10 of them suck and then one one pops through. But the thing is, like, you just got to keep cranking, keep, keep trying to find whatever it is.

That was the hard part for me, was to keep going and keep trying.

How would you do it? How do you— how did you— like, what is your creative process?

My creative process, well, now a big part of it is not living in LA. I have to be out in the middle of nowhere. And I like to be alone in the room, even if I'm writing to somebody else's beat or something like that. I just like to sit with myself and do it. And I just try to focus on how it makes me feel, you know. I spent some time trying to write what I thought other people wanted to hear, and I feel like those songs always sucked. And so just like letting it flow, almost like I'm not writing it, like I'm channeling it or something. That's better. The songs that like take less effort tend to be the better songs, and the songs that I slave over to try to get them perfect and overthink, they end up doing nothing.

John Mellencamp told me he wrote "I Need a Lover That Won't Drive Me Crazy" in the shower. Yeah, like that, done.

He was just singing, "I need a lover that won't drive me crazy." No, it makes total sense. I write stuff in the shower. I write stuff when I'm cooking dinner. Um, it's not like go into a studio from this hour to this hour and write a song. Like it never works for me to do that. So it'll just be random. Like this new album I'm putting out, um, there's a song called Motivation. And I remember it came to me when I was standing outside the vet's office when my dog was getting surgery on her ACL or whatever they call it in dog world. Um, I was just like pacing outside during her surgery and this like song started coming to me.

Did she have to do that thing where they cut the bone? Yeah, yeah. I had a dog, she had to have both her back legs done that way.

She blew out both of them. Brutal. The recovery was brutal. It's horrible. She was also a puppy, so she had like puppy energy, and it just— we had to sedate her and it It was awful. Yeah.

And so do you take specific time to just like sit and try to write, or do you just like let ideas come to you?

I usually just let ideas come to me. I like take a lot of voice notes in my phone, or I'll write down lyric ideas that come to me. And then I need to be better about making time for it because when I do make time to like go in and be creative, uh, it usually does. There's a balance. It's like I can't force it, but I also can't be lazy and like just avoid it completely, right? You know, so I try to balance that.

Have you ever read The War of Art?

I started— I started it. I started it.

I have copies out there. I'll give you a copy if you don't have one.

I think I started the book on tape. I have a copy of the book.

It's a very small book. It's very easy, but it's all about that. And Pressfield was, you know, kind of like an underachiever until he was like 40. And then somewhere along the line, he realized that what he really has to do is be a professional. And so he developed this methodology of like channeling the muse. And instead of thinking of the muse as being, you know, instead of thinking of creativity as being this sort of abstract thing, He thought of it as a thing that you summon, like, like legitimately show up every day at the same time in front of your computer or your notebook or whatever, however you do it, and literally say, I am here to summon the muse. Like, I'm here respectfully to call upon you for your gifts. And if you just show up every day and treat it like that, it will work, which is a really crazy thought.

It makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you do it? I do it. Yeah. I don't do it every day. Does it work? But when I do it, yeah, I, I just sit there and I don't say I'm summoning the muse. I think he does. Yeah. What I do is I go, here we go. I just say, here we go. I say, here we go. And then I start typing. And a lot of times it's like almost like working out. Like in the beginning you're like, you know, you got to warm up, you got to get things going. You know, you get on the bike a little bit, crack a sweat, start stretching. You know, I'm typing in the beginning. It's just like, well, I fucking suck. This is— these thoughts are useless. This is not— oh yeah. And I got something. Yeah. And I figured out a way to do it. With it is more organic for me because I used to just try to write things that were funny. And now what I do is just write. I write on a subject like a thing, and then I'll let it— like if I'm writing about whatever, fucking global change, global warming, fucking earthquakes, whatever I'm writing about, I'll let it shift to what— I don't try to stay on subject.

Yeah, you let it just— yeah, it might completely change to something totally different, a completely different subject. And I just let it, and then I just try to just get out of my own way and write as much as possible, and then I go over it and try to extract things from that, and I take those and I copy and paste them into something else, and then I'll expand on that idea. Like, I'll start fresh with this idea, and it's, it's, it's just a numbers game. It's just a numbers and time game. The amount of numbers, the amount of time that you spend thinking about stuff you get these little gifts. Yeah. And that's where the concept of the muse comes from, is because it's almost like it's like some sort of a divine entity. Yeah, it feels like that. It does feel like that. Yeah. Everybody says that, whether it's authors or musicians or comedians or anybody creative. They say it feels like it's not even my idea. Like, it just came to me out of nowhere. Right. Which is the weirdest thing about the creative process. It's not like like a structure you're putting together, like a house, you know?

Like, I know how to do this. I lay down the foundation, I put up the girders, I do the— uh-uh. It's like this thing, like this spiritual weird entity that you're in contact with. Yeah, for sure. And it's not you because you're like empty when the ideas come. They just like make their way into your head. You're like, whoa, where the fuck did that come from?

But then you're responding to your emotional, like, like how it makes you feel. Yeah. Like reading what you're channeling or listening to it. And for me, like, I focus mostly on that. Like, how is it making me feel? Is it causing some type of, like, emotional response, you know? Yeah. And then those are the magic moments.

Well, that's why it would have to be so weird to do it in a studio with a bunch of people you don't know, with under pressure. Yeah.

For me, it doesn't work. I don't know how some people are like thrive in that environment. I don't know how.

Yeah, I get it. A lot of rappers, I just love doing that, but I think they feed off of each other, you know? And like a lot of rappers, they tell me that like, like they're doing it for their boys. So like as they're like hitting like new lines and coming up with new, new rhymes and new raps, it's like they're, they're fucking around with their friends and like having a good time, like impressing them with like strong lines and great bars.

And I mean, I've definitely had some moments like that, especially like you can find people you have really good chemistry with, then it can work. Right. But generally speaking, just going into a room with strangers, it doesn't, doesn't work for me. But yeah, there are some people that like I feel super connected to creatively, and I can do that with them.

Well, I'd imagine everybody's got their own different little process, but it's just a matter of like doing something like making the time for it. And I would imagine also it's like as you get really busy and successful and there's a lot of obligations, it's harder and harder to find that still time.

Well, yeah. And there's like cycles. Like right now I'm not writing at all. Because I'm just in, you know, album promotion mode. And so it's all about like content and all this other stuff. So I haven't written a song in a long time. So, and it's also kind of like a muscle, like songwriting for me. Once I get into a songwriting zone, it's like coming like way easier all the time. But I have to like warm up to get into it and get back in that headspace and you know, warm up that muscle again.

That makes sense. Like marathon running. Yeah. Yeah. Something. Yeah. I think everything's like that. Yeah. You get into like grooves. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So when you're in the middle of promotion, like, what is the difference in like, do you have ideas that still come to you and you just sort of jot them down and go, one day I'll go back to that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just store them.

Does this feel like when you're in promotion time, does it feel weird? Like, like you got to go out and sell it and you gotta—

I don't know about it. I enjoy all the different aspects of it, you know. I love that it's all creative for the most part, like even just like making content and filming stuff. It's an art form too, so I feel like I'm still like getting my creativity out. It's just not in the songwriting lane.

So is it like one of those things where in the back of your mind you're like, eventually this will come to an end and I'm gonna get back to it, and then it starts to like itch at you?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, I get the itch.

Yeah, yeah, it's time to get back.

Yeah, I'm already feeling it. I'm ready to write again. Yeah.

Well, I would imagine that being in a place like Napa where you're like around like peaceful, you know, beautiful background and, you know, nature, and it's probably like way easier to get in touch with your mind than to be trapped in Manhattan. For sure. Beep beep, fuck you, you know that.

Yeah. That's exactly why I've stayed away from cities.

Yeah, I guess everybody has to find their own thing because I have friends who thrive off that shit. I have friends who live in New York City. They can't live anywhere else.

They love it. Yeah, maybe it's because I grew up in a rural environment. Maybe it's because you're not broken.

I think my friends are all broken. What the fuck is wrong with you?

You gotta live in the world. I think it's a comfort thing because like I grew up in the woods. So it feels like home to be out in the middle of nowhere. But if I grew up in the city, that might feel more comfortable for me, and I might be able to hear myself think better there. But, you know, everybody's different.

I think everybody who goes to the woods realizes they need it. I think it's a vitamin. I really do. I think it's just like how sunlight gives you vitamin D. I think there's something about being in wilderness where you're in tune with all those life forms. Because it's not as simple as, "Oh, there's a bird. There's a squirrel." No, the fucking ground's alive. The trees are alive. There's energy that all these things have that is being distributed somehow or another in this strange array of of information and of just life that's all around you that you feel. You actually feel when you're out there. Yeah, it's like forest bathing.

Yeah. That Japanese practice. It just does feel real. Yeah, for sure.

And it's also, there's no fucking cell phone service. So I think there's something to that too, 'cause the earth feels cleaner, if that makes any sense. Like when I'm in a place that has no cell phone service, I swear, there's a subtle difference in the way the world feels.

It's like a vortex. Yeah. Yeah.

Because I think, like, in this room we have Wi-Fi, we both have phones. Like, I think there's signals that are just out there that we can't— you know, you can't tune it in and go, oh, that's a video my friend's sending me. You don't do that. But there's something about whatever the fuck that stuff is that I think your body recognizes as a— like, They say it fucks with bees. Mm-hmm. Like, cell phone signals in particular really fucks with bees. And like, okay, well, fucks with bees, I bet it fucks with us too.

Oh, I'm sure. Yeah.

Yeah, because it feels like when— if you're in a place with no cell phone service, the world feels different. And it's not just because you can't check your phone. It's the world, the actual— the actual air around you feels different.

Yeah, I definitely feel that too.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's how people are supposed to live. I think we're doing some weird shit to ourselves, you know, for sure. But the weird shit is cool in a lot of ways, you know, because it's how we meet each other, how we talk to each other, you know, how we find out about things.

Good balance of it all, you know. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Do you have goals? Yeah. What are your goals? Like, because some people don't. Some people just enjoy just doing. They don't think about like goals.

Yeah, I mean, I have like things I want to do before I die. What do you want to do? Um, well, I want to be better about putting out more music because, because I do put so much pressure on myself. It's taken me like 5 years between each album to make one and put it out. I second-guess myself all the time and And I think like I put so much pressure on it. Like this has to be the, you know, the sound that the mark I leave on the world and this is what I want to be known for. I'm like, fuck all that. Just capture a moment in time. Like, what am I feeling right now? What vibe am I into? And capture that zeitgeist musically and then move on to the next one. Like it doesn't all have to be cohesive. I used to just be like, put so much pressure on it being cohesive and having like a certain sound or whatever. But now I'm just like, okay, right, like right now this album, I'm calling the genre bubble grunge because it's like inspired by the '90s pop and grunge kind of like combined together.

But then the next album I might totally flip it and do something totally different. And that's okay. Like, it doesn't all have to be— like, it can be different. I can change it up. And so I'm— my goal in regards to that is to put out an album every year instead of every 5 years. That's a big shift. It's a big shift. But I don't want to look back and just wish I would have released more. 'Cause I have so much music sitting on hard drives and on Dropbox folder that's never come out. 'Cause I would like make a bunch of music and then second-guess it and start over and start over again. It's not good enough, it's not good enough. I'm like, I should have just put everything out. I should have just been okay with like, you know, putting out a bad album or a bad song. It's okay. Just like keep making it and putting it out.

Perhaps a part of the creative process is boiling it down to something that you like?

I think so, but I think I take that way too far.

Do you think that that is in part because of the pressure that you experienced for your first thing that hits is number one? Which is a crazy experience. Yeah. And you were really young. Yeah. You know, all of a sudden, boom. Yeah.

Maybe that was part of it. Just made me like extra hard on myself. But I want to have more fun and not take it so seriously.

So how do you plan on doing that? How do you plan on having more fun and not taking it so seriously? I'm already doing it.

Yeah? Yeah. I think I just turned 40, and I think that also has something to do with it because I'm just like seeing the end. Like, what am I doing here? Just like torturing myself with all this pressure and not just like having fun and being creative and throwing it out there, you know? So I'm already doing that.

I'm already having more fun. That's great. But that, that is one of the beautiful things that comes with age.

Yeah, you giving less fucks.

Giving less fucks and just accumulating experiences to the point where you recognize like the flaws in your past thinking and why I did this and I'm not happy I did that. And you gather enough of those experiences where you get a better map of the territory. Mm-hmm. Like, uh, I think I get it now. Yeah. And then you're, you're really established now too. So it's like you don't have to be as worried about whether or not, you know, Yeah, it's a beautiful thing that comes with age, the not giving a fuck. We're not getting, you know, like one of the funniest things to see, an old person doesn't give a fuck.

Oh yeah, yeah, old people who don't give a fuck and just say anything that comes to their mind. It's hilarious.

They're fine. Well, thank you for being here. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, I enjoyed it. Enjoy talking to you, and I really enjoy your music.

Oh, thank you. Can I talk a little bit about the album that I'm putting out? Absolutely. Okay. It's called Wasted Potential. It's about me wasting my potential. But it's a— it's an album where I'm telling the story of my, like, upbringing in small-town Wisconsin. Discovering my sexuality and just like, it's like a coming-of-age story. And, um, it's a part of my story I don't think a lot of people know. They mostly know me from working with Eminem and all the things I did after that. But, um, I just felt like it was time. I think because I turned 40 recently, I was like thinking about my childhood a lot and like realizing I didn't appreciate it enough. I had a great childhood. And so I just wanted to tell that part of my story. Kind of for the first time ever. So I'm excited to get that out. And it's important. It was important for me to get it off my chest and out so that I could like finally— I was depressed about turning 40. Really? Oh yeah. So depressed about it. But I think it's because I didn't feel like I was like present during my childhood.

I mean, I was working a lot. And so it was important for me to get it off my chest and be at a point now where I feel like I can accept that I'm 40 and actually enjoy it. And so that was the whole gist of the album.

Do you really think that you have wasted potential?

Oh yeah. Really? Mm-hmm. How so? When I made music for my mom growing up, it was a completely different lifestyle to now making music in, you know, LA and the big world of music. I didn't realize how much work it would be. I didn't realize the grind. And I think when I first got into it, I was kind of lazy about it because I was like, oh, honestly, I probably should have been a Gen Z. Because I was just like, fuck this, I don't want to do this, you know. And so a lot of decisions I made in my career, I feel like, you know, it was all my fault basically. All the failures that I've had, I realized were my fault for being, you know, lazy or not putting in the effort and and the grind. And yeah, so I wasted a lot of potential. I had so many huge opportunities when I was younger in the music industry, and then I kind of just like, was like, this is too much work.

But is that a part of like a work-life balance?

Yeah, I mean, That's what Gen Z would say, right? They're all about the work-life balance. But in, I feel like in my generation, the millennials, it was all about like work, work, work, work, work, you know? And I wasn't doing that as much. So yeah, I didn't, I didn't feel like, like turning 40, I was like, I'm not in the place where I thought I'd be. I didn't do all the things I wanted to do by this age and I was feeling kind of like a failure. And so—

Do you think that that self-critical mindset though is just one of those things that's just like, it's, it's actually inherent to anybody that's creative and ambitious? Like you're always gonna be self-critical and that's probably one of the reasons why your music is so good. Like this idea, like, it's not good enough, it's not good enough, and obsessing over things. We only release something every 5 years. But then look at the quality of the songs that you do release that you do love. It's like there's a balance in there, like a little bit of self-critical, a little bit of like, I'm not doing enough. Like, it's— let it in there, but don't believe it, you know? Yeah. Life is life. It's like, it's not all, you know, it's not all like leave a legacy because in the end really it doesn't matter.

I know, you know, it's true. Enjoy. That's why I'm just— I'm trying to have more fun now.

Great. Yeah, both things. Both things. Listen, your music's awesome. Thank you. And it was awesome seeing you with Eminem.

It was great. Oh yeah, you came to the show.

Yeah, and also that's how Marshall was named. He was named after her. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So, so cute. Thank you. And best of luck with your album, with everything else in the future. This is really cool. I enjoyed it. Me too. All right. Thank you. All right. Bye, everybody.